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New to me....Classic Klipsch


mojomc

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First off a little background. Born and bred Arkansan here. Recently my stepdad of 28 years passed away. He loved his Klipsch LaScalas. He would talk about driving to Hope and purchasing these speakers during his youth.  For many years he had them powered with an old low power Marantz amp. I fondly remember a time 25 years ago when the neighbors called the cops on us listening to Skynyrd at a level a bit louder than they liked. Nothing came of it but I remember him remarking that he didn't even have them near full throttle and the five-o asking him to prove it so he put on some shooting muffs and proceeded inside to let the dogs off the leash. The picture of him putting on those shooting muffs is something that I'll carry forever. Classic.  So these speakers and some redneck rock provided an initial bond between us that stuck.

 

After a break-in relieved him of most of his audio components including his beloved Marantz, his setup eventually expanded to include a pair of RS7s, an RC7 and and R12SW being run by a Denon AVR-2800. 

 

A few short months ago he discovered that he had lung cancer and underwent all the chemo and radiation treatments to no avail. During this time we rekindled this bond over listening to just about every musical genre. He commented how he always enjoyed the sound from his old Marantz over the Denon and how he also had always thought about building a custom xover but time ran out. In his will he left me these audio components stating that no one else would appreciate them and that he knows that they will be in good hands and enjoyed for years to come.

 

I started lurking on the forums here quite a while ago trying to learn what I could about passive crossovers and what would possibly work with our listening setup but I have no background in this area. Does anyone have a recommendation for a xover build that would accompany the following configuration. Use the LSs as a two channel pair with the source being my HTPC utilizing a dedicated sound card. For an amp I was looking at venturing into an economical tube amp like the tubecube 7 or finding a suitable amp on the forum here is always a possibility. The room dimensions are 20x25.

 

Ideally I would like to be able to wire everything with a switch allowing me to choose between running the LSs in a surround sound configuration allowing us to enjoy order to enjoy the surrounds, center and psw or running the LSs in two channel with a tube or classic amp for music.

 

I only took pics of the back with atlas driver and aa xover. 

 

 

TL;DR

1. Does anyone have a recommendation for a low listening volume xover that will take a touch of edge off the squawker?

2. Thoughts on the tubecube 7 or another two-channel amp for power?

 

Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings and for any responses.

 

edit/grammar

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Edited by mojomc
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Hi Mojomc and welcome to the forum! Thank you for sharing your story about your stepfather, anyone that has the cops called on them from blasting Lynyrd Skynyrd is a hero in my book. :emotion-21:

 

As for your crossovers, it looks like you have the Type AA which is a well regarded crossover here on the forum. Bob Crites is a great guy who does aftermarket support for these speakers and can rebuild them with new capacitors (the old ones dry out and drift out of spec) or send you a kit to rebuild them yourself if you are handy with a soldering iron. If you want to use them for music and home theater, I would get a good tube stereo amp and use your Denon 2800 as a pre-amp for volume control and digital decoding for DVDs. Then use the line level output for the LR to the tube amp then to your LaScalas. That way the Denon can power your surround channels and center if you want although the RC7 wont be a great timbre match for the LaScalas. I personally run my LaScalas as mains with the Center set to "Phantom" and dont really feel I need a center channel speaker. Anyway, hopefully this can get you started and otheres here will most likely comment on good tube amps as that is an area I dont know much about as I am a die hard Class D guy.

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Hey mojomc welcome to the forum....

Man that is a great 1st post..... thank you for sharing..... Yea man this Klipsch thing is way more that just speakers..... Music brings people together and music played through Klipsch sounds second to none. Sounds like you and your stepdad share a bond that we all seem to have here......The love of our Klipsch....

 

La Scala's are some of the finest classic Klipsch.... La Scala's were the 1st Klipsch speaker I got some 26 years ago and I still got em. That's my youngest daughter (Emma) sitting in the bass bin in my avatar. My wife and I would find her sitting in there when we played music.... she loved it.... we could hear her laughing from the other room....

 

My choice of power for my La Scala's are a Adcom 555II..... I used some Carver's with the La Scala's but I always come back to the Adcom..... I also would like to try some tube power one day.

 

We have some fine tube builders here......

 

and lots of folk to help spend ya money ;)

 

Enjoy your La Scala's....

 

MKP :-)

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Well the more I read the more inclined I am to sell off the center and surround components, if a market exists for them, keep the psw and plow that money into an amp for the LSs and dedicate them to audio only since I won't be able to put together a complete heritage surround lineup in order to get matching timbre.

 

I currently have an alright to me polk surround combo with a pair of RT2000Ps, CS350LS, LS F/X surrounds.

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First off a little background. Born and bred Arkansan here. Recently my stepdad of 28 years passed away. He loved his Klipsch LaScalas. He would talk about driving to Hope and purchasing these speakers during his youth.  For many years he had them powered with an old low power Marantz amp. I fondly remember a time 25 years ago when the neighbors called the cops on us listening to Skynyrd at a level a bit louder than they liked. Nothing came of it but I remember him remarking that he didn't even have them near full throttle and the five-o asking him to prove it so he put on some shooting muffs and proceeded inside to let the dogs off the leash. The picture of him putting on those shooting muffs is something that I'll carry forever. Classic.  So these speakers and some redneck rock provided an initial bond between us that stuck.

 

After a break-in relieved him of most of his audio components including his beloved Marantz, his setup eventually expanded to include a pair of RS7s, an RC7 and and R12SW being run by a Denon AVR-2800. 

 

A few short months ago he discovered that he had lung cancer and underwent all the chemo and radiation treatments to no avail. During this time we rekindled this bond over listening to just about every musical genre. He commented how he always enjoyed the sound from his old Marantz over the Denon and how he also had always thought about building a custom xover but time ran out. In his will he left me these audio components stating that no one else would appreciate them and that he knows that they will be in good hands and enjoyed for years to come.

 

I started lurking on the forums here quite a while ago trying to learn what I could about passive crossovers and what would possibly work with our listening setup but I have no background in this area. Does anyone have a recommendation for a xover build that would accompany the following configuration. Use the LSs as a two channel pair with the source being my HTPC utilizing a dedicated sound card. For an amp I was looking at venturing into an economical tube amp like the tubecube 7 or finding a suitable amp on the forum here is always a possibility. The room dimensions are 20x25.

 

Ideally I would like to be able to wire everything with a switch allowing me to choose between running the LSs in a surround sound configuration allowing us to enjoy order to enjoy the surrounds, center and psw or running the LSs in two channel with a tube or classic amp for music.

 

I only took pics of the back with atlas driver and aa xover. 

 

 

TL;DR

1. Does anyone have a recommendation for a low listening volume xover that will take a touch of edge off the squawker?

2. Thoughts on the tubecube 7 or another two-channel amp for power?

 

Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings and for any responses.

 

edit/grammar

I am sorry about your loss.

 

About your first question. The AA crossover you have has a T2A autoformer. Just change the tap to the squawker to your tap 3 for a -3db attenuation and either add a 15 ohm swamping resistor or change the 13uF cap to a 6.5uF to keep the crossover point from changing. It steps 3,6,9 and 12db.

 

per deang: https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/72564-autotransformer-taps-questions/#entry745328

 

Type AA.jpg

Edited by mustang guy
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Thanks twk123. I had never considered using an AVR as a preamp. Such a simple and obvious solution. What do you use for a center channel? 

 

This rabbit hole goes pretty deep and there are some varying opinions here regarding center channels but here is my checklist for setting them up:

 

 

1. A mismatched front soundstage with a different center than your mains is worse than no center speaker as the difference in sonic 'voice' will break the immersion from the movie. This is especially true for when sounds pan across from left to right ect.

 

2. On that note, if you want to get a center it is important the timbre is matched and the efficiency is similar. For two LaScalas as mains, ideally you would have a single LaScala in the center. (See Youthman's cinema thread here for a stellar example of this) or a Heresy will work as well.

 

https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/151408-youthmans-lascala-trio-home-theater-build-version-20-begins/page-30

 

3. A center channel is not always needed and depends on your room size and seating configuration. If you have a single couch for 2-3 people directly in front of the screen, a center is not needed. In your AVR speaker setup menu, if you set the Center speaker to "Off" or "Phantom" it will route the signal to your mains and the stereo image will place the voices on the screen the same way a singer is directly in front of you when you play stereo music. However, this only really works on-axis or directly in front of the screen. If you have multiple couches around a living room and people off to the side, a center channel will help 'anchor' the voices to the screen.

 

Personally, I dont have a center speaker with my LaScalas and am happy with it. As for surrounds, Heresys are a great option and its cool to have a 100% heritage home theater but you can get away with other speakers that are not timbre matched for movies as the ambient sounds in an movie audio mix dont pan as often with the front speakers. Others may disagree with me on this and if you listen to multi channel music it is very important that everything matches but as long as your front soundstage is set up well the surrounds are not as critical for movies. For instance, I have 2 LaScalas as mains and 2 small bookshelf KSB 1.1s as surround speakers and have never had an issue with them not matching when watching movies.

 

Again, welcome to the forum and I am sorry about the loss of your stepfather. From time to time its not a bad idea to turn off all the lights and light a single candle and sit down and play Simple Man and/or Freebird (Make sure its the live version) through your speakers and its a good time to reflect back on all the good memories you guys had together.

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If you are planning to listen to music at relatively low levels, or in the near-field, the tubecube 7 would be a good choice as an initial tube amp.  It will also, because of its somewhat rolled off top end, take care of the "edge" you mentioned from the tweeter.  Since your room is large, much more power will be required if you intend to listen at levels which will get the neighbors angry!  

Maynard

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Many (I can't say all) folks with LaScalas like the mids pulled down about 3db. This does a couple of things for you. It removes the edge from the mids and improves the tonal balance that will allow the bass to be heard a bit more. Craig (mustang guy above) mentions how to do this. The nice thing is it is relatively inexpensive, and very easy to undo if you don't like it. You can get a Mills 15 ohm, non-inductive 12watt resistor from Parts Express at a good price.

 

http://www.parts-express.com/mills-15-ohm-12w-non-inductive-resistor--005-15

 

You can add the resistor across the terminals on the barrier strip where the leads to the mid driver connect. This way you don't even have to solder anything.

 

Welcome to the forums. I'm sorry to hear of the loss of your stepdad. It sounds like you two got along great.

 

Bruce

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Thanks for the replies. I think I'll pick up a couple of resistors and also the 6.5 caps and experiment with them while making the adjustment on the xfer tap.

I'm currently on the lookout for a tube amp and I'm also contemplating a diy tpa3116 because why not. A co-worker has an old recapped and retubed HK 224A for $300 but seems a bit high.

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