Jubilee advice needed.

[RSVRMAN]

2 hours ago, Dawson's Ridge said:

Why did you select the two-way over the three-way?

Oh boy. This may be a bit hard since I've never heard a pair. I stumbled on some threads of people who did blind tests of the 2 way vs the 3 way. There was some things that stood out there. I've chatted in PM's with several of the users that  are and are not in this thread to get their opinions. Also there is a price difference, as the 2 way is cheaper. If going the 3 way, I felt a little locked in for compression drivers if I went that route, or I would need to buy more if I was unhappy with the sound. There seems to be more people that went 2 way over the 3 way and a little bit more public information with the 2 way.

 

Now there are very very strong arguments for going 3 way. It may even be better than the 2 way. I ultimately had to just make a choice. I think saving the money on the tractrix and possibly using that towards amps, or a different driver than the K69 helped the decision. If I had unlimited funds, I would have gone with the 3 way for certain, I would have then went with some TAD-4002's  and experimented with what I liked most. Using the tractrix or not. 

 

This was my thinking anyways. From what I've learned, there is no real right or wrong way and it will be amazing any route I go. Its that 1-2% difference in sound were talking.

[mark1101]

Smart.  Expensive stuff.  Just get in the game for now and get on the Jub/pro platform and you can always upgrade from there.

[Dawson's Ridge]

1 hour ago, RSVRMAN said:

 

This was my thinking anyways. From what I've learned, there is no real right or wrong way and it will be amazing any route I go. Its that 1-2% difference in sound were talking.

You made the most important decision that being getting the Klipsch Jubilee.  Now move on to amp/pre. Get what you want, McIntosh. This will result in a  very musical sound system combining best and dependable engineering and pride of ownership.  

[Srinath]

On ‎1‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 7:35 AM, Wardsweb said:

 

I would love to be a fly on the wall when he first hears these. It is going to be life changing.

I have one of those moments coming up too I'll bet.

 

21 hours ago, Coytee said:

On my little spreadsheet (who owns them, who bought them without hearing them first)

 

Now I wouldn't qualify would I.

 

Cool.

Srinath.

 

 

[RSVRMAN]

More gifts arrived last night. Just got them together today. Must have had masking tape on them labeling them at some point, a little goo gone and cleaner look brand new! No deck rash, can't complain. Can't wait to try them out... For reference, the rack is Navpoint 6U, unbelievably thick steel, especially for the price. 

 

 

[Chris A]

2 hours ago, Dawson's Ridge said:

Now move on to amp/pre. Get what you want, McIntosh. This will result in a very musical sound system combining best and dependable engineering and pride of ownership.  

I hope that these are recommendations, not commandments...

 

I've heard Jubilees in Hope driven by very humble stereo amplifiers with Roy at the controls.  This was almost 2 years after taking delivery on my Jubilees in December 2007.  At that time, I'd invested in Crown D-75A stereo amplifiers and an EV Dx38 crossover after initially using Crown XTi-1000s (with built-in DSP/crossovers) for about 6 months.  I acquired a new pair of TAD TD-4002s about at the same time and the difference to my then-trained ears with the stock compression drivers wasn't close.  The TADs are spectacular.

 

But for those unaccustomed to listening to Jubs it might not have been nearly as great of a difference in listening performance, I found.  In other words, after owning Jubs for about two years my ears became more acutely tuned to their sound and to less obvious changes than to those that haven't heard them.

 

What I can say is that even though you might be using a not-so-expensive amplifier to drive them, the Jubs pretty much make it sound great regardless.  I think this is a much different case than other loudspeakers, especially those that are dependent on amplifiers in order to moderate their sound to tame some sort of "harshness" or other shortcoming.  Jubs don't have "harshness".  They fill the room with a huge soundstage with wall-to-wall sound that doesn't care where you're standing or sitting.  This is the real calling card for the Jubilee.  Huge soundstage and room-filling sound. That's what inhabits your consciousness when you listen to them (even after nine years) and is the main effect that you are processing in your mind when you listen to them for months or even years after first hearing them.

 

Jubs also don't have any issues with collapsing polar midrange horns, harsh-sounding drivers and just-able-to-cross drivers/horns between bass bin-midrange, and midrange-tweeter frequency response.  Jubs don't have issues with polar coverage at high frequencies.  Jubs don't have issues with harmonic, modulation and compression distortion, or impulse distortion as compared to other loudspeaker models.  When you remove all of the shortcomings of other loudspeakers that cause them to depend on certain amplifiers to mask their sound, then you start listening to the music and stop worrying about amplifiers and preamps in my experience.  You concentrate on the recordings themselves, the interpretation of the musicians, and the damage made to the recordings during their "music production" phase.  I can easily hear the difference in recordings that are playing. 

 

Now as far as quality of recordings is concerned and how they sound on Jubs. Great recordings sound like live performance (it's spooky at times) like something where you can close your eyes and imagine that "you're really there".  It's truly inspiring.  I believe that it's what we all wanted the hear from loudspeakers from a very young age.  It's here with Jubs.

 

However, mediocre recordings sound just like they did on other loudspeakers--mediocre--or perhaps even worse, and I believe that this is merely a testimonial to how badly mangled many recordings are when released.  Bad recordings still sound bad.  What I'm still amazed at is the expectation that loudspeakers can make badly done recordings sound good.  Nothing can be further from the truth. You cannot make bad recording sound good by just using different loudspeakers. 

 

I've also found that unmastering recordings (better called "demastering") sound much better than the released disc versions, and sometimes even spectacular on Jubs.  [But when I move these same demastered recordings to Heresies on the garage sound system that advantage is significantly reduced.  Less capable loudspeaker setups wind up masking the differences in recordings...It's okay: I'll stop talking about that particular point right here...]

 

Bottom line: Jubs turn the music into music, and you stop worrying about your setup.  That's been my experience over the past 9 years.  I now spend time on the recordings themselves to undo the damage done to them.  The results are paid back with interest.  I now listen to recordings that I would have never listened to before demastering.  This includes more than 50% of my growing recording collection. This isn't a testimonial on demastering--but rather on the performance level of Klipsch Jubilees. 

 

I really do wish that the studios would stop using much less capable loudspeakers to mix and master recordings.  Nearfield Yamaha NS-10Ms are just not in the same ballpark as Jubs.  And the other direct radiating drivers used in studio monitors just can't keep up with Jubs in my experience.

 

No kidding.

 

Chris

[dtel]

2 hours ago, RSVRMAN said:

More gifts arrived last night.

I love those little amps, I use 2 of there older brothers, just D-75, without the A. Mine tend to make a little thump when turning them off so I leave them on, at idle they draw almost no power, can't remember the exact number but it's very little.

 

On a silly note, I do like the lights. 

 

What will you be using as a source going into the DC One ?  I only ask because of the voltage difference from consumer to pro stuff. Or does the DC have an adjustment to help with that ? There is a big difference with the voltage I found, I could only get the bottom input light on the EV to stay on, which is -30, not good at all. I had to try and make up the difference with the amps and all setting on the EV wide open. 

 

 

[Chris A]

Eldon, I think that's only an issue with tube preamps and older SS preamps having less total gain than typical AVPs nowadays.

[dtel]

2 hours ago, Chris A said:

But for those unaccustomed to listening to Jubs it might not have been nearly as great of a difference in listening performance, I found. 

I only hear the Tad's in hope for a few minutes and I never had the 402's at home to get use to, and heard a huge difference, not close at all.

The problem for me was the price, plain and simple. But if that is no problem I completely understand why you would want them.

2 hours ago, Chris A said:

What I can say is that even though you might be using a not-so-expensive amplifier to drive them, the Jubs pretty much make it sound great regardless.

More than any other speaker I have ever heard.

 

2 hours ago, Chris A said:

Jubs don't have "harshness".  They fill the room with a huge soundstage with wall-to-wall sound that doesn't care where you're standing or sitting.  This is the real calling card for the Jubilee.  Huge soundstage and room-filling sound. That's what inhabits your consciousness when you listen to them (even after nine years) and is the main effect that you are processing in your mind when you listen to them for months or even years after first hearing them.

 

 

March will be 8 years for me, although not Jubs but mwm bins it's still the 402 horn. And I completely agree with with what you have said, there is not a bad spot in the 24'wx34'd space, wall to wall great sound. The last 8 years have been the only time in my adult life I really have no interest in listening to any new speakers, I'm done, never thought I would say that !

I would bet I could not find a better speaker for 2-3 times the cost, probably even more than that.   Some who do not listen to them everyday may say  your just exaggerating, a fanboy or whatever. We work from home and I listen to them 8+ hours a day and do have other speakers to compare them to and have nothing to gain by talking good about them.

 

 

[dtel]

7 minutes ago, Chris A said:

Eldon, I think that's only an issue with tube preamps and older SS preamps having less total gain than typical AVPs nowadays.

I was using a DAC as a preamp going into the DX38. Against some advice I tried a ART Cleanbox pro to level match from consumer to pro, it works great. I figure I would try it since it's only $65 new and It's just what I needed, happily it added NO noise at all and is exactly what I needed. just to level match signals.

How often do you find exactly what you need at a good price and it actually works great, I got lucky.

 

 

[Dawson's Ridge]

5 hours ago, Chris A said:

 

What I can say is that even though you might be using a not-so-expensive amplifier to drive them, the Jubs pretty much make it sound great regardless.  

 

 This is a new phenomenon for me. Do Jubs do the same for expensive amplifiers? 

 

Quote

 

 

[RSVRMAN]

4 hours ago, dtel said:

I love those little amps, I use 2 of there older brothers, just D-75, without the A. Mine tend to make a little thump when turning them off so I leave them on, at idle they draw almost no power, can't remember the exact number but it's very little.

 

On a silly note, I do like the lights. 

 

What will you be using as a source going into the DC One ?  I only ask because of the voltage difference from consumer to pro stuff. Or does the DC have an adjustment to help with that ? There is a big difference with the voltage I found, I could only get the bottom input light on the EV to stay on, which is -30, not good at all. I had to try and make up the difference with the amps and all setting on the EV wide open. 

 

 

From what I read earlier, when you turn them off the thump doesn't do any damage to the bin, nor the compression drivers. I could be wrong though.

 

I plan on using a Marantz 7300. For the HT side, I want a PrePro for the XLR, in addition it must meet the HDCP 2.2 standard, which this compliance BS.. ugh... anyways gotta keep the wife happy with the movies. I will be using a Gungnir DAC. I have all of my Flac files on a server (Synology) that I can push via laptop to the Gungnir. I plan to experiment with using the Gungnir as the DAC as well as the Marantz. Will see who has the better preferred chip. I have a few pieces of Schitt and they have all been amazing! hah.

 

So for Music to clarify.

 

Server > Laptop > DAC (Schitt Gungnir) > Preamp Prepro (Marantz) > Crossover (DC-ONE)> AMPx2 (D75a) > Jubilees > (ME BIG SMILEY FACE)

 

 

EDIT - Forgot to add if I didn't say earlier. I hope someday to experiment with different preamps, tubes etc. 

 

Though after what I did to the bank account and for future posts of whats to come that option will be wayyyyyy down the line. 

[Chris A]

4 hours ago, Dawson's Ridge said:

 This is a new phenomenon for me. Do Jubs do the same for expensive amplifiers?

Generally, my experience has been that you can hear differences in more expensive amplifiers. However, it's not something that I found myself focusing on.  This is a significant effect of Jubilees...in my experience.

 

I do like my First Watt F3 even though it really heats the room in the summer, but I've gone without it at times due to heat-related issues on two solder joints that experience a lot of heat and the large number of operating hours that the amplifier has experienced in my setup. I found that I really wasn't aware that it wasn't driving the TADs during those times.  It's a fairly mild difference in my experience.  This is a very good amplifier, too, for directly coupling to the TADs.

 

I've heard much more difference in active crossovers than in amplifiers.  The difference in money for these higher fidelity crossovers isn't nearly what it is for high quality amplifiers.  It's something to consider.

 

I've also found that most Jubilee owners apparently haven't done as much trade out of crossovers as they have amplifiers--perhaps as a hold over from earlier days with amplifiers dealing with loudspeaker issues. 

 

Old habits die hard, it seems.

 

Chris

[Chris A]

3 hours ago, RSVRMAN said:

I could be wrong though.

You're not.  Two-inch diameter throat compression drivers are rugged (but K-77 tweeters really aren't).

[Khornukopia]

The three way version places the tweeter at about 72 inches above the floor. That may be a bit high in elevation during seated listening, so the two way configuration with the right high frequency driver is probably ideal for most home stereos.

[Coytee]

Perhaps that and, the original goal for the design was to in fact, take the Khorn back to a 2-way

 

I seem to recall someone saying long ago, something like "The higher crossover of the bass bin opens up quite a few options for the HF section"

 

or something like that.

 

Seems as it's evolved, there are now a number of flavors being used on top. 

 

[dtel]

12 hours ago, RSVRMAN said:

From what I read earlier, when you turn them off the thump doesn't do any damage to the bin, nor the compression drivers. I could be wrong though.

I would think your right, no damage from the thump, it's not that bad and mostly in the bass bin I believe, I just didn't like it more than anything else.

[Srinath]

Will a small amp like the D75 (I am thinking adcom 535 or a 60 watt rotel 870b) work on a 3 way Jamboree, with I think I'll fit a Dynaudio MD142 mid and a JBL 2405 tweeter ?

I may also mount then on the top part of the front baffle, because it would be listened to in a seated position most of the time in this installation.

My old house - everything had to be picked up a foot, it had a stand 1/2 and a seated 1/2 made for an interesting experience.

 

 

Oooo added question - I'll look up too, but would an adcom 535 work well with a Khorn ?

 

Cool.

Srinath.

[RSVRMAN]

Went shopping this weekend. I've seen the light!

[dtel]

Could you imagine how many bose cubes you could have in the same space as Jubes ? It could have been awesome, now you will never know.

Better sound through marketing and all.