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LaScala II Limited Edition, and the hits just keep on coming


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14 hours ago, YK Thom said:

Spectacular. Have always thought the LaScalas were amongst the most distinctive and beautiful speakers made by anyone. Sadly my wife thinks they are too "fat" (wide). These are the nicest of the lot.

Gotta agree with her.  They are so big and boxy!  They need a big room and/or stuff around them to kind of hide or distract from their size.  Love that big midrange horn sound though!!

 

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Big speakers should not be hidden. They should be enjoyed!

My Altec 19s are tiny at 30" wide, but they are prominently on display in my living room.

(I am married...and it was my wife's idea to rearrange the room to accommodate them.)

 

Those La Scalas should be the center piece with that finish!

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2 hours ago, Grizzog said:

Big speakers should not be hidden. They should be enjoyed!

My Altec 19s are tiny at 30" wide, but they are prominently on display in my living room.

(I am married...and it was my wife's idea to rearrange the room to accommodate them.)

 

Those La Scalas should be the center piece with that finish!

 

Although I agree completely, sometimes even rearranging a room to accommodate the speakers doesn't work out. Beginning in 1978 I owned a 3-channel system with Klipschorns and a Cornwall center. Between then and 1985 I had the system in 3 different houses and a condo. In each instance the living room was arranged to accommodate the best performance of the system. Two of the houses had 2 natural corners; the third house had only 1 corner, so I added a small wall (like half a false corner) to form the other. The condo also had only 1 corner, so I was able to form the other corner by backing a heavy bookcase against one of the Klipschorns. All of these rooms were rectangular, with the speakers arranged on the long walls, and in all of them the system sounded anywhere from great to stupendous. The system sounded like a huge window through space and time that stretched from corner to corner, and holy cow, was it fun to listen to! (In the condo my upstairs neighbor really hated me, especially the weekend I brought home an Electron Kinetics Eagle 7A amp just to play with. Man, did the Klipschorns kick a** when run by that amp!)

 

Then in 1985 my wife and I moved from the condo into house #4. That living room was essentially square (16.5 x 16 x 8) with one side open into the dining area. It had only one usable corner (windows or a door in the other 3) so like in the condo, we formed the second corner using the back of the heavy bookcase against one of the Klipschorns. This forced us to place the couch about 11 feet away from the speakers, which left only a narrow pathway between its back side and the fireplace (which we did not use), and forced chairs to be placed in less-than-ideal locations.

 

Unfortunately, this arrangement produced extremely disappointing audio results: the upper bass was "hollow" sounding, the range between 1k and 5k was overly prominent, and the soundstaging was much less distinct and less 3-dimensional than it was in any of the 4 previous rooms. Simply put, the system was no longer much fun to listen to, and it no longer served as a huge corner-to-corner window into the music. Additionally, the furniture arrangement the speakers forced us into made the room a difficult and inconvenient living space. (Note that this house was built in 1927, and had a wood foundation, carpeted wood floors and lath & plaster wall construction.) I'm sure the extremely lackluster performance was primarily due to the room's dimensions (a nearly 1:1 ratio between wall dimensions and a 2:1 ratio between wall and ceiling dimensions), which must have been creating some wicked standing waves and nulls with 2-, 4-, 8- and 16-foot wavelengths (roughly 520Hz, 260Hz, 130Hz and 65Hz), exacerbated by the Klipschorns' corner placement.

 

As this was before the era of relatively inexpensive RTA and digital EQ, effective tweaking that didn't involve extensive room treatments (and the inevitable divorce that would have resulted) simply wasn't available, so in 1986 I purchased a second Cornwall, retired the Klipschorns and we rearranged the room into a comfortable living space with the Cornwalls in a 2-channel arrangement around 12 feet apart, flanking the fireplace. The audio performance of this system and rearranged room was infinitely more satisfying than with the Klipschorn 3-channel system in the same room. The system's frequency balance was much smoother (the speakers were at least 3 feet from the closest wall), and the soundstaging, seemed to extend back through the fireplace and outside of the house. Once again we had a window through space and time, albeit a smaller one that didn't involve you in the experience as dramatically as it did with the Klipschorn 3-channel system in one of the "good" rooms. And the revised furniture arrangement made the room a much more comfortable and friendly living space.

 

I stayed in that house for 16 years, and after having the Klipschorns out of commission for 5 or 6 years, I couldn't justify indefinitely storing them in a back bedroom so I sold them. (This ultimately turned out to be the right move, since the house I eventually purchased 15 years ago in which I still live is small and has a living room that's completely unsuited to Klipschorns, even if I were to construct 2 artificial corners.) Nonetheless I was sorry to see them go. They were K-B-WOs, and over the years I had added about 10 extra coats of Casey's True Oil to them (by the time I sold them you could see your reflection in them). Plus, the Klipsch rep (Ron Turpen) was a friend, and he had arranged for me to get a pair with exceptionally nice figuring on the veneer. And as a surprise, he had PWK and Bob Moers autograph the paper labels. So even though I still wouldn't be able to use those speakers, there are times when I wish I still had them, just because they were so bitchin. 

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20 hours ago, YK Thom said:

Spectacular. Have always thought the LaScalas were amongst the most distinctive and beautiful speakers made by anyone. 

 

Sadly my wife thinks they are too "fat" (wide). These are the nicest of the lot.

Your wife thinks La Scalas are "too fat?"  :o  For the sake of your eternal marriage I hope you refrained from a snappy comeback!

 

But you can tell us what your were thinking.  We won't tell anyone.  B)

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I get so tired of these posts about "women" and speakers. Honestly guests in our home don't even notice these...the sound is incredible. I love LaScalas...they are in my top three "wants"!  LaScala, Forte III and or the KI396. Actually, I want all three. Just saying. 

IMG_3459.JPG

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5 minutes ago, Arrow#422 said:

That's a nice "little" set up there Chirsty.

 

Thank you @Arrow#422  Took us a while to decide on the set up. My daughter and I heard this configuration at a Jubfest in Hope with @Chief bonehead. @jwc suggested this combo. Once I heard it, there was no turning back. Two channel gets about 8-10 hours a day of playing time. To say I'm in love with my MWM/402s is an understatement!

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22 minutes ago, dtel's wife said:

I get so tired of these posts about "women" and speakers. Honestly guests in our home don't even notice these...the sound is incredible. I love LaScalas...they are in my top three "wants"!  LaScala, Forte III and or the KI396. Actually, I want all three. Just saying. 

 

Ah, Mr. Dtel is married to the World's Most Desirable Woman (as opposed to the World's Most Interesting Man) and he probably doesn't even know it.

 

Her idea of saving money is to buy Klipsch speakers when they are on sale.

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6 hours ago, wvu80 said:

Your wife thinks La Scalas are "too fat?"  :o  For the sake of your eternal marriage I hope you refrained from a snappy comeback!

 

But you can tell us what your were thinking.  We won't tell anyone.  B)

I think the pair of us came from the same school of marital survival.

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16 hours ago, dtel's wife said:

I get so tired of these posts about "women" and speakers. Honestly guests in our home don't even notice these...the sound is incredible. I love LaScalas...they are in my top three "wants"!  LaScala, Forte III and or the KI396. Actually, I want all three. Just saying. 

IMG_3459.JPG

I hear you but...

if we lived in a house with a basement recroom it wouldn't be an issue, but we are in an apartment style condo so there is only one main living room.

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