Deeper Bass From La Scalas

[paul32579]

I'm a newbie, just saw the diaghram for piping the lows for LS - what about cutting a 3 - 4" hole in the back? Or a 5-6" hole in the bottom?

Apologies in advance, because I'm drunk. I have new LS's augmenting my Khorns. Life is good!

[kg4guy]

Here is a thread for bass reflex mod on La scala http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/p/123298/1245448.aspx#1245448

[Don Richard]

Apologies in advance, because I'm drunk. I have new LS's augmenting my Khorns. Life is good!

Welcome to the madness, you'll fit in good around here.[D][<)]

[paul32579]

I have a 25 x 20 listening room/office man-space with no carpet. I rescued these LSs and set them up between the Khorns. You just HAVE to party. The sound was awesome! This from a newly-cleaned Sansui G-8000.

My beer buzz just imagined that some hippie or geek probably tried drilling a port hole or two in the back or bottom of the LSs and cured the lack of bass punch.

You know, you meet guys like these in your travels.

P. S. "Time" by P. Floyd was epecially good on both styles. Lovely bride likes the old Beatles piped through LSs instead of KHs. I agreed. Maybe they match the sonic vintage.

[BE36]

No holes required for Music.

NOS Valves VRD Amps will solve the lack of punch issue.

Sub is only required for movies.

[PrestonTom]

No holes required for Music.

NOS Valves VRD Amps will solve the lack of punch issue.

Sub is only required for movies.

I don't think amps make very good equalizers .Before any one has an outburst: I am not including amps that are clearly inadequate to begin with.

Try relocating the speakers nearer to the front wall and the side walls. Warning: This can be a tedious process of trial and error.

BTW, There is no harm in borrowing an inexpensive sub to see if that helps thing out.

[CECAA850]

Lascalas NEED a sub. The bottom end just isn't there. You can throw a clean 100 watts at them, they'll certainly get loud, but not low.

[Rudy81]

Sub is only required for movies.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree here. I used to be in this camp until I added RSW-15s to my Khorns and then my DBBs. There is a lot of music in that lower two octaves that we are have been missing out on. The problem is to seamlessly add the subs to your mains. But, once you do, you will always use a sub.

As an example, listen to Billy Cobham's albums with and without a sub. You may find you have been missing quite a bit.

[Islander]

For me, all speakers need a sub to play the bottom two octaves properly, but La Scalas need a sub more than most other speakers. I've used two sizes with mine: 500 watt with 10" driver and 100 watt with 8" driver.

The smaller sub was barely adequate when playing music without much bass content, and really inadequate for movies.

The larger sub does a good job with everything.

With no sub, the bottom end is just not there. A couple of the more technically knowledgeable forum members have said that if you try to add low bass to La Scalas with EQ, you get heat and distortion, but no extended bass. The size and shape of the horn will always limit how low the bass will go. That's the price you pay for having a small and portable all-horn speaker...

[deafbykhorns]

I have a 25 x 20 listening room/office man-space with no carpet. I rescued these LSs and set them up between the Khorns. You just HAVE to party. The sound was awesome! This from a newly-cleaned Sansui G-8000.

I was getting ready to tell you with that size room Khorns would be perfect, but you have both!

Your a madman! [H]

[Chris A]

Try relocating the speakers nearer to the front wall and the side walls.

+1.

If you have separate top hats on your La Scalas (i.e., industrials) then you can try turning the bass bins around to face the corner - this will increase their lf output quite considerably. However, I have noted that folks that don't like Khorns also don't like this technique...

I don't think amps make very good equalizers

+1

Chris

[BE36]

No holes required for Music.

NOS Valves VRD Amps will solve the lack of punch issue.

Sub is only required for movies.

I don't think amps make very good equalizers .Before any one has an outburst: I am not including amps that are clearly inadequate to begin with.

Try relocating the speakers nearer to the front wall and the side walls. Warning: This can be a tedious process of trial and error.

BTW, There is no harm in borrowing an inexpensive sub to see if that helps thing out.

Totally agree with you Tom, speaker placement and siting position can make huge difference.

Also inadequate amps compared to good ones that match the system make a big difference also.

I tried have a perfectly flat response in my room

Hated it.

Put back to curved.

Then Stumbles accross the Fletcher Munson Curves a few months latter.

What a relief at least two other guys as crazy as me.

[BE36]

Sub is only required for movies.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree here. I used to be in this camp until I added RSW-15s to my Khorns and then my DBBs. There is a lot of music in that lower two octaves that we are have been missing out on. The problem is to seamlessly add the subs to your mains. But, once you do, you will always use a sub.

As an example, listen to Billy Cobham's albums with and without a sub. You may find you have been missing quite a bit.

Let see, maybe we can agree to disagree or at least gain some understaning.

I have never heard of Billy Cobham, I will try to listen to sum of his music with and without the Sub.

One of my test songs for bass response is Eagles, H#$$ Freezes Over, Hotel California.

Others songs I have used to test bass with and without as Sub are Frank Sinatra and Diana Krall tunes. Both tend to use lots of bass.

So when listening to these songs I have not heard any significant drop in Bass performance with or with out the sub, especially since adding the Bel Canto DAC and Pre.

Maybe those songs and most of what I listen to just does not go that low, I have a Sound Level Meter but not one that measures frequency.

During my next listening session I will use the Stereophile Warble Tone Test CD with and without the Sub to put some numbers around the La Scala performance in my system/room.

Then I can post numbers from both with and without as Sub in graph form.

The graph's I have posted before were always with a Sub, but were with a different Preamp that sent everything below 80 herts to the Sub.

[Rudy81]

BE36, I think this is a very good topic worth discussing. There are several issues at play here, and for the sake of the discussion, lets orient this to only music. Most folks that watch movies have a sub in even the most basic setups.

The issues, as I see them are that there is almost no full range speaker capable of flat response in your, or my room down to 20 Hz. Now, quite a bit of music does not have stuff down that low, but there is a good bit that does, and unless your speaker can reproduce 20, 30 or 40 Hz at a 'level' SPL relative to the rest of the frequency...you are missing something that is in the source. Besides Billy Cobham, Billy Idol, and Bruce Springsteen come to mind. Many of their cuts have a good bit of stuff below 40Hz. Even the specs sheet published by Klipsch will tell you the speaker can't effectively reproduce those frequencies, they roll off below a certain point.

Add to this, the fact that our hearing is not linear, i.e. flat at all frequencies. Our hearing requires that bass sound be actually louder for us to perceive the sound at the same SPL as higher frequencies. This is what led many folks to use the 'house curve' to compensate for the way we hear sounds.

I am no expert on all this stuff. What I do know, from experimenting with an RSW-15 and my Khorns (which I no longer have) is that adding the sub to the mix brought out stuff in familiar cuts that 'I never heard before'!

The best way for you to 'see' this is to download Room EQ Wizard (REW) and hook it up to your sound card. Use a microphone or even a Radio Shack meter to get even a rudimentary idea of the response in your room. You will easily be able to see where your speakers roll off 'in your room'. Yes, room proportions, decorations, furniture, materials and speaker placement all made a difference. But, there is no way to make your basic full range speaker reproduce a 30Hz signal at even the same SPL as the speaker can do with say 1kHz. Of course, the Khorn can go lower than the La Scala and the LaS can go lower than other speakers. But neither can fully give you the lowest octave with authority....it takes a well tuned and placed subwoofer to do that.

Adding a sub to two channel is not easy without some electronic assistance. Either a pre/pro that can cross the sub and the mains for you, or an active setup like I am using. In my case, my DBB mains are 'three way' with an RSW-15 at the bottom, the DBB bass bin, and the HF horn.

As I said earlier, I was in your camp for a long time. That was until I started messing around with a sub and eventually was able to add it to the system seamlessly.

[tromprof]

The La Scala is a wonderful speaker, but even listening to orchestral music and piano, a sub is a nice addition. I built a tuba sub for mine (http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/t/142985.aspx) and it makes a difference in the bottom octave of the string bass, bassoon, tuba, bass trombone, etc. These are notes that the La Scala cannot reproduce, and even the Klipschorn can struggle with. I cannot recommend the tuba subs highly enough if you have the tools and skills to make one.

[BE36]

BE36, I think this is a very good topic worth discussing. There are several issues at play here, and for the sake of the discussion, lets orient this to only music. Most folks that watch movies have a sub in even the most basic setups.

The issues, as I see them are that there is almost no full range speaker capable of flat response in your, or my room down to 20 Hz. Now, quite a bit of music does not have stuff down that low, but there is a good bit that does, and unless your speaker can reproduce 20, 30 or 40 Hz at a 'level' SPL relative to the rest of the frequency...you are missing something that is in the source. Besides Billy Cobham, Billy Idol, and Bruce Springsteen come to mind. Many of their cuts have a good bit of stuff below 40Hz. Even the specs sheet published by Klipsch will tell you the speaker can't effectively reproduce those frequencies, they roll off below a certain point.

Add to this, the fact that our hearing is not linear, i.e. flat at all frequencies. Our hearing requires that bass sound be actually louder for us to perceive the sound at the same SPL as higher frequencies. This is what led many folks to use the 'house curve' to compensate for the way we hear sounds.

I am no expert on all this stuff. What I do know, from experimenting with an RSW-15 and my Khorns (which I no longer have) is that adding the sub to the mix brought out stuff in familiar cuts that 'I never heard before'!

The best way for you to 'see' this is to download Room EQ Wizard (REW) and hook it up to your sound card. Use a microphone or even a Radio Shack meter to get even a rudimentary idea of the response in your room. You will easily be able to see where your speakers roll off 'in your room'. Yes, room proportions, decorations, furniture, materials and speaker placement all made a difference. But, there is no way to make your basic full range speaker reproduce a 30Hz signal at even the same SPL as the speaker can do with say 1kHz. Of course, the Khorn can go lower than the La Scala and the LaS can go lower than other speakers. But neither can fully give you the lowest octave with authority....it takes a well tuned and placed subwoofer to do that.

Adding a sub to two channel is not easy without some electronic assistance. Either a pre/pro that can cross the sub and the mains for you, or an active setup like I am using. In my case, my DBB mains are 'three way' with an RSW-15 at the bottom, the DBB bass bin, and the HF horn.

As I said earlier, I was in your camp for a long time. That was until I started messing around with a sub and eventually was able to add it to the system seamlessly.

Continueing the Discussion . . .

I think we are saying the same things.

I think you are correct that a sub adds something on some songs.

Most Bass Guitars go down to around 41 hz. A Boesendorfer Grand Pianio down to 21 Hz, most pianos are closer to 40 Hz.

How often is that last string used all the way out to the kneck? That last few few keys on the Boesendorfer?

To the great majority of music that I listen to a sub does not make one bit of difference and for me is not required when listening to music and I could listen to music the rest of my life and not miss my sub.

So yes the sub is nice to have and it adds that last little bit if you are going for the ultimate cover all the bases all the time system. But for me it is not requirered to have a good system for Music.

Long ago I decided for HT a Sub was required. So rather than port my Scalas that would just make a slight improvement to some of the music some of the time, I would just buy the sub that I needed any way. Sub came with it's own crossover.

[BE36]

My Room with a Sub Crossed at 80 Hz.

This weekend or next I will make Curves with the new Set up both With and Without the Sub.

The La Scala 180 Hz nump can be seen, stiffing the side walls of the cabinate may help but then they might not have the La Scala Upper Bass that I love.

Some the drop off is the room. If I boost the Sub to match the Fletcher-Munson curves on the low end it just does not sound right. The Low End between 20 - 40 gets real strong but neither the Sub or the La Scalas can seem to do much between 40 - 80.

Writing this just got me thinking, since this graph was made I have new sofas, open underneath, and foot rests that are round and covered with soft material and look like they could be bass traps.

Sound seemed to improve when sofa were replaced, maybe the 80 hz hole got plugged?

New graphs should be entertaining.

The highs when listened to are stronger and more accurate than the graph would suggest, especially when compared to a stock tweeter.

The JBL tweeters are reported to be 2 - 3 dB hotter than stock klipsch tweeters, I believe those reports more than how accurate my Radio Schack Meter is calibrated.

Local Band drummer who has played a Gig as teh main act in the Georgia Dome, has confirmed the tweeter balance. He is good enough to tour but prefers to stay closer to home with his wife.

[Chris A]

Most Bass Guitars go down to around 41 hz. A Bösendorfer Grand Piano down to 21 Hz, most pianos are closer to 40 Hz.

Note that I find the range of bass drums and bass guitars (e.g., Jimmy "Flim" Johnson --bassist for James Taylor, Flim and the BBs) typically are sub-30 Hz recordings.

 

Babatunde Olatunji's "Circle of Drums", and any Billy Cobham, Marcus Miller, Stanley Clarke, etc., etc. recordings are sub-30 Hz. Virtually all pipe organ recordings that I own go below 30 Hz.

 

My TH subs add a great deal to these recordings--among many others in my collection.

 

Chris

Edited March 27, 2015 by Chris A

[Rudy81]

I think we are in agreement and it comes down to a preference based on what we listen to the majority of the time.

[jacksonbart]

I have a 25 x 20 listening room/office man-space with no carpet. I rescued these LSs and set them up between the Khorns. You just HAVE to party. The sound was awesome! This from a newly-cleaned Sansui G-8000.

My beer buzz just imagined that some hippie or geek probably tried drilling a port hole or two in the back or bottom of the LSs and cured the lack of bass punch.

You know, you meet guys like these in your travels.

P. S. "Time" by P. Floyd was epecially good on both styles. Lovely bride likes the old Beatles piped through LSs instead of KHs. I agreed. Maybe they match the sonic vintage.

Its now Friday, are you still hungover?