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8W / channel: enough power???


Shock-Late

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Bill......Two meters from your Belles? Do your room dimensions dictate that or is that by choice? Do you have them toed in quite a bit? Can't wait to hear more on the tri-amping. By the way, until I get a letter from the government ordering my next audio purchase to be a tubed amplifier, I'll stick with my SS.

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ROWOOO,

The two meters (maybe a foot or so less) is by choice for several reasons;

To minimize the effect of room reflections,

The SPL level,

They are angled to put each ear on axis with the drivers,

The room is about 32' X 24', the Belles are on the short wall spaced so they make an equilateral triangle with my chair. I prefer them as close to the wall as possible with the aforementioned toe-in. The chair elevation places my ears on a level with the squawker and tweeter.

I'll drop the discussion on time alignment for the present(gotten out of hand) until Klipsch furnishes data such as group delay in their crossovers for each driver, impedance curves,etc.

I change amplifiers constantly, the current lineup on hand:

Mcintosh-MC2105 (completely rebuilt with 1% low noise resistors, poly and styrene caps, and critical adjustment of D.C. offsets (non is provided by Mac), must be done with resistor selection on long-tailed input differential in power amp.)

Mcintosh MC225's (sometimes bridged sometimes just one) also rebuilt and critically adjusted for DC and AC balance.

Mcintosh MC2505 (same rework as 2105)

Dynaco ST-70 (also rebuilt)

Dynaco MKIII's (acquired a pair that had been sent to Kennedy audio for board, triode,component up-grades, etc.)

Audio Note Kit Four (stock)

Mcintosh MC250 (same rework as the 2105)

and, no laughing here, an RCA RV-9910 inexpensive home surround sound amp.

Sources are several CD players with no pre-amp between them and the amplifiers (except the 2105 which is an integrated amplifier.)

Speakers currently:

Vintage K-Horns (stock)

Vintage Belles (stock)

Altec A-7's (stock)

In the works:

Tri-Amp based on National Semiconductor's LM3886 ( the samples from National are in the mail and should have this working around the first of April ).

K-Horn utilizing vintage JBL components ( this is an ongoing project and should be finished by the end of April ).

"God knows that I love my music"

Bill Rawls cool.gif

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mdeneen,

Sounds like you and I have a lot in common on preferences.

Tubes to me can be used in the mid and high end, but due to the damping, or lack of, not in the low end. I am designing the tri-amp with solid state because tubes offer no sonic gain here ( in my humble opinion ), although I do use them with my guitar for tone.

You nailed the damping question square on the head. I want my speakers to have as close to the original output as the source as possible. I know that certain tubes have a certain sound ( You can even vary the bias by 5 to 10 ma. and hear changes ) and many of them are pleasant, but I do not believe pleasant and accurate are the same. Likewise just any solid state amp. will not do, the design must take a lot of things into account that is not always done with commercial products.

The RCA is a three year old surround sound amplifier that was sold in home theater packages with some small atrocious speakers, but what I like is the National output chip. Their circuit needs the signal caps replaced, The feedback pole capacitor doubled in value to extend the low frequency roll off, and the power supply filters bypassed with .1 or larger up to 10 mfd. poly caps though. a very inexpensive tweak to get a very nice sounding 20 wpc amp. Amp and caps should be in the less than $150.00 range (about the cost of a good matched NOS 7591A pair.)

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wow, y'all are quite impressive! Can a non-techie musician weigh in witgh personal observations?

Good.

I bought my '77 khorns with a gob of stuff...in about '84. Among that stuff was a Phase Linear 400 & a PL preamp. I ran from the room bleeding & wounded. Simply awful. There's your 200 watt SS amp. Horrible. This initiated a search over the next few months during which I tried Adcom 555 (yuck) 535 (better but boring) Lux LV105 hybrid (cool concept, decent sound). McIntosh 225...briefly seductive, but so loose & dark. A cheap Kenwood 80wpc receiver (argh!) All of which were soundly thrashed by an early 70's 35wpc Sansui receiver. Go figure.

The other amp/pre combo that came with my horns was Paragon 9e with Marantz 8b. Now THAT was the stuff!! Including clean airy highs, strong authoritative bass, glorious midrange...

The PAragon was finicky and I traded it...a move I still regret.

I now have a Jolida 302b integrated. I find it okay, but doesn't hold a candle to my not-working NEC A11 integrated. What a GREAT sounding piece.

No wonder you love SS bill...you're running what is , by all accounts on this board, some of the best-sounding gear to match Klipsch gear (McIntosh) and you're comparing it with particularly slow & loose sounding tube gear (McIntosh again).

To me, the ears have it.

Speaking of which, I STRONGLY recommend you get your hearing checked. If you listen at those SPL's with any frequency *at all* you ARE losing your hearing (FACT, not opinion)

Can I brag on that original score?

77 Khorns, Phase Linear amp/pre (sold), Paragon-Marantz amp/pre (sold), Stax earspeker setup (sold), Technics SP10/SME3009 arm/Fidelity Research FR1mk2 cart. w/FRT-3 transformer. All mint.

$1000

After selling some pieces, turns out he *paid me* to take his Khorns! Bwaahahaha!

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You're right, 12e, not 9e...the slimline job. The chassis is built out of sheet metal (ok maybe aluminum) thinner than my ductwork! The thing would twist like a pretzel when picked up. All this movement caused all sorts of ground problems, flaky connections. Sometimes the case got energized with AC.

Exciting!

But what a sound...

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Many years ago I used a Dynaco 400, a very good 200wpc SS amp, and LaScalas. I used every bit of the available power at times and often setoff the clipping lamps. For seriously high levels lots of power is needed, even with high efficiency speakers. My taste has changed with age and now low power tube amps are OK but I wouldn't have liked them 25 years ago. As has been mentioned the best of both worlds can be had by bi-amping with SS on bass and tubes on mids-highs. I use a stout SS Yamaha below 500hz on my modded FH-1 basshorns and a vintage Fisher SA-100 above 500hz on my compression drivers. Nice.

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Response to mdeneen

"Anyway - - I'd be curious to know how you compare your A-7's to your K-horns - - you have some VERY serious rig there, man!"

There are certain instruments, sax being one, that I prefer on the A-7's. They just seem closer. The K-horns seem to have better bottom, maybe need to breed the two and see what comes out. The A-7's were one of the first true high fidelity speakers that came my way, were originally part of a PA system in a high school rock band and the plywood has been battered pretty good. The multi-cellular horn on top just makes my big toe pop up in my boot though.

Have a Gibson Lucille and a funky Kramer Ferrington on the electric side and a Yamaha 12 string (strung as 6) on the acoustic, Gives great sustain and few dead spots and a nice neck for fingerpicking that way. Have the same Fender twin I used in high school. It was new then and so was I. Later added two 16 ohm JBL single 15" scoops with JBL 2420 drivers for the top. Have played music through them, but they are mainly for my loud guitar playing.

Anyway, The K-horn and the Belles - The Belles first, are still the overall favorites. This Klipsch guy had something special and I am glad he passed it on.

I guess the experience of being on stage in the middle of the music is why I like lots of db's and feeling the music as well as hearing it. The Klipsch can recreate that feel.

Hearing is fine by the way, 110 to 115 db, if limited to an hour at a time does not inflict permanent hearing loss, but there are a couple of hours recovery time.

Regards,

Bill Rawls cool.gif

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quote:

Hearing is fine by the way, 110 to 115 db, if limited to an hour at a time does not inflict permanent hearing loss, but there are a couple of hours recovery time.

Regards,

Bill Rawls
cool.gif


Hmmm, I'm not sure if this is accurate. Check this link: http://www.betterhearing.org/conserve.htm

They've got 30 minutes max for 110db, 7.5 minutes max for 120db. So I'll guess that 115 db has a limit of 15-20 min.

I bring this up because I have so many friends with hearing loss, some of them severe. Some with tinnitus which is a miserable torture! I played in a fairly loud band in the 70's but always wore plugs even back then. Nevertheless, my tests show a rolloff in the highest frequencies...where I used to test flat. Mine appears to be just age, and is quite benign.

Hearing loss is completely irreversible.

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live rock music 90-130 dB 8-0.3 hours

TheEvan, Read the chart and text more carefully, The quote above is from your reference! The other items are average levels, not peaks. Thanks for the link, shows us we can blast our Heritages at 120 db peaks and be just fine.

75 piece orchestra = 130 db peak

Loud Rocker,

Bill Rawls cool.gif

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to TheEvan:

Not taken as nagging, just good information (never liked smashin' pumpkins anyway)lol

The only point I was trying to make was I got Klipsch for their ability to do 120 db peaks, which I felt I needed to be able to do 113 to 115 db peaks-not continuos.

In my humble opinion 8 watts would never do to recreate realistic or close to realistic levels.

I recognize there are many SET 5 - 8 watt people out there and that is fine, just won't make me happy and didn't want someone else to get a lot of money in a small amp. Just my opinion. I have a Vintage Amplifier Restoration business (started it after I retired, got bored) and service and sell tube amplifiers.

Most of the small tube amp people I know have converted, or gone to a two way setup after listening to really good solid state amps in the 50 to 100 watt range.

As I said earlier, I have tube amps - they are all up for sale:

MC225 (2)

Dynaco ST-70 (1)

Dynaco MKIII (2)

Audio Note Kit 4 (1)

I will be more careful with my hearing, thanks to you.

Baton Rouge not too far from here, did you go to N.O. for the party?

Regards,

Bill Rawls

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Bill, nah, we've had it with Mardi Gras. It's just not like it was in the 'old days'. Some years we go to the Meatairie parades cuz relatives live on the parade route.

Jazz Fest is a great event, though!

I've never heard an SET system, and I'm not curious enough to sink $ into a personal experiment. In fact I'm looking to liquidate my tube gear to get a decent ss setup. My motivation isn't the dynamic power issue but has to do with the lower noise floor, which I think is important in high efficiency setups. I still miss my NEC A11, what a great integrated. Haven't found one in 2 yrs of seeking on the net. So I'm looking at Mac, Accuphase, Monarchy, others. Almost got a Threshold SL10 pre but got outbid at the last minute.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Remember the years of tube radio? The various companies adverised their signiture sounds like: "that lovely Philco sound" or "beautiful Zenith sound."

Then came Hi Fidelity.

Sounds were supposed to be as realistic or true to the recording as possible. People used to test their systems with recordings of jingling car keys, a car door slamming, or other everyday noises to evaluate "how true to the original." Enter the Golden Age of Hi-Fi.

If tubes impart a warm sound that is pleasing to the ear, then the warm sound needs to be added to the RECORDING, not to the REPRODUCTION, where it is then to be classified as distortion, non-fidelity, "lovely Philco sound," whatever.

Do not get me wrong, I own some tube equipment and do appreciate tubes, a lot. But I would rather have the "tube sound" in the recording, and then reproduce the warm sound with a highly accurate amplifier - be it solid state or tube.

Remember the sorry CD recordings back in the 80's with their harsh high end? The answer was not some tube or SS amplifier for the "recordings of the day", the answer was a better recording - which did happen (where would that leave a soft sounding amplifier with new, good recordings?)

Anyway, my point is high fidelity means "true to the original." Ergo, a crappy, bright recording should sound like, well, a crappy bright recording. A lovely, warm recording should sound like a lovely, warm recording without adding or subtracting warmth.

Anyway, just my 2 cents. Let your own ears be the judge.

Klipschguy

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I agree, that's why I said "let your ears be the judge." Capturing a performance on a CD that faithfully delivers the impact of the original performance is tough and requires some artful license. (Man, there's nothing like a great recording.)

When recording and reproducing music, we need to eliminate as many varibles which impede the faithful reproduction as possible. However, I do admit it's impossible.

Anyway we're not in disagreement, I'm just offering a little different perspective. A little "warmth" (non-linear distortion) is something I do enjoy adding to my music with a good old tube amp - but I do recognize the fact.

Let your ears be the judge.

Klipschguy

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small world bill rawls! I hope your wrong about the SS versus low powered PP tube issue! (since you are in the process of rebuilding my very own MKIV monoblocks!) however I still have my McIntosh SS MA6400 integrated amp in my bedroom to go back to!...I had it connected to my K-horns for a couple of months and while dynamic in the extreme I longed for some "liquidity" less "glare", stridency...oh well...lets see what happens...upgrade mine on the "liquid" side...regards, tony

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