LaScala's or Cornwalls

[Quiet_Hollow]

you will just have to try it....pit a pair of lascala's in your car and see how much bass you get..

Roger beat me to that already. []

we are talking about lascalas right...not headsphones. etc.

..was just trying to get across that the bass output of La Scalas (or any speaker for that matter) is not entirely a function of the volume they're fired into, and that the OP shouldn't base his consideration of either choice, in large part, solely on the room dimensions. If there are going to be bass frequency cancellation issues, the Cornwall will suffer them just the same.

[RRFL]

Hi everyone,

I'm designing a home for my family which will be built in about 6 to 8 months. I've got my dedicated listening room also known as the "Musical Man Cave" with the dimensions of 11 feet by 15 feet with a 9 foot high ceiling. I'll have a newly redone H.H.Scott 299C amp with my Thorens turntable (from the mid-eighties) and a nice CD player. I originally pictured having Cornwalls against the 11 foot wall. But after reading many posts here, I'm wondering if I should look into La Scala's instead. My question is would they work better in that size room than Cornwalls, or should I stick with the Cornwalls?? What difference could I expect between them? Thank you!

Steve

With that sized room, I would not rule out the Heresy's. A Heresy on a stand with subwoofer in the room, can sound like baby Khorns without needing corners. Here is a quote from tubes-n-horns just yesterday: "

Heresy on it's perch. (

THERE IS A PICTURE OF A HERESY ON A SPEAKER STAND BELOW IN ORIGINAL POST

) I think it really opens up the sound; vocals and piano especially. Reminds me of a baby K-horn. After all that was it's original purpose, yes?

The Heresy III is about as good as it gets at any price or size from what I understand. I only have original Heresy's, but I will tell you, they sound fantastic. It's all about matching the speaker with the space. BTW, I have 3 pairs of LaScalas, and the Heresy's are as good, and in a smaller space, they are actually better IMO.

As QH stated, there is nothing better than a demo. I just wanted to point out you might want to add a speaker to the potential equation.

Have you ever laid your Tuba on their sides with the 90 degree angle between the mouths as shown in the Bill Fiz Tuba stacking thread.

I was wondering about this since you have a matched pair and you could invert your centre LaScala and place it centre above the combined tuba mouth.

That is extremely clever. I will try it for the fun of it, but I will eventually have to go the way I am, because I am putting a pull down projector screen above them, and another 2' higher would be seriously in the way.

I take it you found the thread I was referring to http://billfitzmaurice.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=398

The last 2 diagrams as Tuba HT 36" cubes and set up like that they make a corner for a Khorn, LaScala or Jubilee.

So for Heresy a Tuba HT LP 18'x18" footprint mouthdown in the corner raised 18" from the floor with the Heresy on a stand to bring the mid horn in line with your ear level. Now that would make a very compact and very formidable performer.

My 3 favourite speakers in the Heritage range are the Heresy, LaScala and Jubilee.

[RRFL]

A Wave radio...........no, I got a Boombox!

Actually, as my story goes - I was in the Air Force in the early 70's and was stationed in Biloxi, Mississippi.

I was walking by a music shop and heard the most beautiful classical music. I trotted in and found out I was

listening to a pair of Cornwalls they were selling. That's what sold me on them ever since and figured I'd buy

a pair when I had the means to build a room for 2 channel music. The room will be about 11'x 15' x 9' high

with the Cornwalls being against the 11' wall in the corners and sitting 12 to 14 feet away. I can't really go

bigger as costs run $175 a square foot, but my question was would La Scala's work in that size room also

or should I stick to the Cornwalls?

I would have said Altair 4,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, one of my favourite movies ever...

[RRFL]

If the above

were true, which it's physically not, there'd be no bass in cars,

headphones, or any space smaller than a trailer home.

you will just have to try it.......pit a pair of lascala's in your car and see how much bass you get...then position them in a 20 ft triangle and compare.

simularly.......putting a pair of lascala's on each side of your arm chair facing each ear....won't be too musical

we are talking about lascalas right...not headsphones. etc.

Back in the late 70's I had a 1977 Toyota HiAce and on the way to and from gigs I would load my LaScala side by side facing forward with a slight tilt up to aim the K400 at our heads. I would connect them to my 10w/ch car stereo "cassette player" which was direct battery voltage, no voltage step up rubbish, and the 1st watt was 0.01%THD. The speakers were about 4 foot from our heads and they sounded great. We would always drive the long way home and when I pulled up behind my friends at the traffic lights they always complained they could not here their car stereo.

Everyone 100% said they were the best.

Often we would take them for a drive stop off at one of the many wonderful coastal locations near Sydney get them out of the HiAce and listen "outdoors" to some George Duke, Billy Cobham, Staney Clark, Jeff Beck, Hammer, Dave Brubeck, the list goes on. For me the 70's and 80's were really good.

The LaScala sound awesome always have and wipe the floor with most speakers on the market today.

Now If I had had a pair of Tuba HT 36" Cubes as well, back then, that would be really good.

I found with the LaScala that the better the amp and the better the source the more you could turn them up and be comfortable close to them.

If something in the audio path had distortion the LaScala were all revealing and this had you try to get away from them.

I was so over the top in recording onto cassette to get the lowest possible distortion and noise but I could always listen past the noise but never the distortion.

[Edroom]

Why don't you put a pair of Klipscorns in the Korners? I have all 3 and that would be my recomendation!

[Chris A]

I've got my dedicated listening room also known as the "Musical Man Cave" with the dimensions of 11 feet by 15 feet with a 9 foot high ceiling.

This is just big enough for either speaker type. It would certainly be better if that 11-foot dimension was larger - like 17 feet. The 9-foot ceiling is good.

I originally pictured having Cornwalls against the 11 foot wall.

This would work (just barely), although the other dimension would probably work better if the rest of the room's acoustics are just right.

But after reading many posts here, I'm wondering if I should look into La Scala's instead. My question is would they work better in that size room than Cornwalls, or should I stick with the Cornwalls?? What difference could I expect between them?

They are about the same height and the La Scala is quite a bit deeper. The only real difference between these two units are the bass bins since they both use almost identical mid and high frequency horns, drivers, and crossovers.

The La Scala will begin to cut off at about 95-100 Hz (without corner placement), and the Cornwalls will begin to roll off at about 50 Hz--about an octave lower. The La Scala's bass will be much tighter and more "natural" since it will be almost devoid of intermodulation distortion, while the Cornwall's bass will sound a lot like the bass of other box-type reflex speakers. If you like low bass and listen to mainly rock-and-roll, etc., I'd bet the Cornwall would be your favorite. However, if you are a connoisseur of accurate bass without that bottom octave, the La Scalas will probably be more toward your taste.

If you intend to add a subwoofer (I'd recommend one of the horn-loaded varieties like the Tuba series from Bill Fitzmaurice or a tapped horn sub of a Danley design), then the La Scalas would ultimately be preferred.

If you plan to place either speaker types within 18 inches of the corners of the room, they will gain about 1/2 octave of lf performance.

Chris

[psg]

If you intend to add a subwoofer (I'd recommend one of the horn-loaded varieties like the Tuba series from Bill Fitzmaurice or a tapped horn sub of a Danley design), then the La Scalas would ultimately be preferred.

But then, as I said on page one, put KHorns in there, skip the sub and save lots of space and trouble! []

[Chris A]

But then, as I said on page one, put KHorns in there, skip the sub and save lots of space and trouble!

True, but the OP didn't include Khorns in his original posting. [:|]

[Dr Morbius]

That's true Cask05, but with so many people mentioning K-horns, I gotta look into them!

Steve

[garyrc]

$175 a square foot? Either you are doing the work yourself, or you live in a place less expensive than Oregon or California!

Houses (at least around here) tend to have both a Living Room and a Family Room. We turned our Family Room into a Music Room/Library/simple Home Theater (for serious movie watching, as opposed to TV -- projector to replace flatscreen HDTV just arrived! ), and the family does not miss a designated Family Room. Most of the time, one or more people are in there listening to classical, jazz, etc, and/or reading or writing, and one or two times a week we run a movie. Seeing the expenditure as just developing the space that would have been taken up by a Family Room helped us psychologically. We were able to get about 420 square feet, or 4260 cubic feet that way (the ceiling is sloped, and rises from 8.5 feet to 11 feet 10 inches in the back).

[colterphoto1]

best pair of speakers (with no sub) for that amp/room combination would be the Cornwall, they don't take up as much floor space, are easier to 'toe in' toward the listening area, and have lower bass than unaided LaScalas.

Michael

[psg]

$175 a square foot? Either you are doing the work yourself, or you live in a place less expensive than Oregon or California!

Like most of the rest of the continent outside of the various metropolis. It's around $100 here.