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Lascalas: king of imaging in the heritage line?


jwgorman

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They may image better as the Khorn was originally designed to be a solo mono speaker. I have yet to hear a pair of LaScalas so I can't say for sure. My impressions of the Khorns were really about the clarity. I was younger and my listening tastes and habits were still pretty unrefined.

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On 9/3/2017 at 8:03 PM, garyrc said:

Most surprisingly, with no height speakers and no atmos, there is a distinct sense of up and down.  Don't ask me how that works, but Chesky included up and down on one of their two channel test discs, and it worked for me with that disc.   I'd say that I clearly hear up and down in about 5% of the movies I see in my HT.

I have Khorns and I have noticed that as well.

 

The biggest difference between Khorns and La Scala to me (I owned both) is that the LS works best when the listener is seated.   If you stand up a lot of the live! sound is noticeably softened.  This is NOT the case with the Khorns.

 

The Khorns sound about the same standing or sitting, and both sound fantastic with no loss of clarity either way.  As Gary said there is no question the Khorns project that up and down sound clearly, one of the lessor known characteristics of the mighty Khorn.

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22 minutes ago, wvu80 said:

I have Khorns and I have noticed that as well.

 

The biggest difference between Khorns and La Scala to me (I owned both) is that the LS works best when the listener is seated.   If you stand up a lot of the live! sound is noticeably softened.  This is NOT the case with the Khorns.

 

The Khorns sound about the same standing or sitting, and both sound fantastic with no loss of clarity either way.  As Gary said there is no question the Khorns project that up and down sound clearly, one of the lessor known characteristics of the mighty Khorn.

you might try raising your LaScala up so the centre of the mid horn is at your seated ear level. Khorn mid is higher than this so it distributes more mid throughout the upper part of the room where there are many more reflective surfaces while the LaScala fires into mostly soft furniture. The Khorn simply scatters more mid information into the room while more of the LaScala mid is absorbed by the room.

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35 minutes ago, moray james said:

you might try raising your LaScala up so the centre of the mid horn is at your seated ear level. Khorn mid is higher than this so it distributes more mid throughout the upper part of the room where there are many more reflective surfaces while the LaScala fires into mostly soft furniture. The Khorn simply scatters more mid information into the room while more of the LaScala mid is absorbed by the room.

 

I have had both K-horns and La Scalas at the same time and swapped them out in the same corners in my teaching studio. The Klipschorn imaged better until I raised the La Scalas on a home built platform 6 inches or so. Then they seemed quite similar imaging wise. At least in my room raising them was a big improvement and had no effect on the bass performance.

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Interesting that raising the La Scalas didn't seem to affect your bass performance.  Could someone talk about how they raised their La Scala's without affecting bass?  I experimented a lot raising to different heights and even at a tilt for a while but I wound up putting them right back on the floor.  While there were some positive affects I felt there was also an overall degradation of bass.  I was sure that is was a solid base... no spikes or legs allowing an opening.  I'm still tweaking and I'm not quite there yet but the imaging is nice enough to keep me from messing with things too much lately.  I'm still struggling to get the bass right but I think most of that fight is with the room and proper speaker placement.

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46 minutes ago, muel said:

Interesting that raising the La Scalas didn't seem to affect your bass performance.  Could someone talk about how they raised their La Scala's without affecting bass?  I experimented a lot raising to different heights and even at a tilt for a while but I wound up putting them right back on the floor.  While there were some positive affects I felt there was also an overall degradation of bass.  I was sure that is was a solid base... no spikes or legs allowing an opening.  I'm still tweaking and I'm not quite there yet but the imaging is nice enough to keep me from messing with things too much lately.  I'm still struggling to get the bass right but I think most of that fight is with the room and proper speaker placement.

 

My risers were a box, open on the bottom, made of 3/4 in birch plywood, the same dimension as the bottom of the La Scala.

The speakers were tucked into nice corners, room was carpeted.  Bass was unaffected, though with the characteristic La Scala sharp cutoff around 50 HZ.

They are gone now (but not the Klipschorns ) so I can't measure, but I did compare at the time with one on and one off the riser.

 

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1 hour ago, muel said:

Could someone talk about how they raised their La Scala's without affecting bass?  I experimented a lot raising to different heights and even at a tilt for a while but I wound up putting them right back on the floor.

If you place the La Scalas (like Belles, in my case, which I measured) in the corners of the room like what was mentioned above, then the loss of bass is minimal if you elevated them...as compared to listening to them out on the floor away from the walls or even placed along a wall.

 

You get an additional 1/2 octave of bass free of charge when you put them into the corners, and all you need then is two nearfield absorption pads (2'x2') on the side and front wall at the midrange horn mouth level, just touching the La Scalas, and perhaps one more on top of the top hat.  This will allow you to rebalance the EQ of the entire loudspeakers to achieve a lot more than the typical bass reflex mod alone, placed out on a floor.

 

Chris

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It seems to me that separating the LaScalas that far apart would hurt the imaging fairly severely. At least you would expect that in speakers, generally. Isn't that part of the reason for the Heresy being placed in the middle with the Khorns? Now, I've never had LaScalas so I don't really know.

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La Scalas have the same midrange and tweeter horns and drivers as Khorns (Belles also have very similar midrange horns and the same tweeters), so they image just like Khorns...except for 200-400 Hz, which is a bit different.  That's a major point of the Corner Horn Imaging FAQ, linked above: corner horn imaging.

 

Chris

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1 hour ago, Chris A said:

If you place the La Scalas (like Belles, in my case, which I measured) in the corners of the room like what was mentioned above, then the loss of bass is minimal if you elevated them...as compared to listening to them out on the floor away from the walls or even placed along a wall.

 

You get an additional 1/2 octave of bass free of charge when you put them into the corners, and all you need then is two nearfield absorption pads (2'x2') on the side and front wall at the midrange horn mouth level, just touching the La Scalas, and perhaps one more on top of the top hat.  This will allow you to rebalance the EQ of the entire loudspeakers to achieve a lot more than the typical bass reflex mod alone, placed out on a floor.

 

Chris

 

Well, that fits... I have them pulled out almost 3 feet into the room and not even close to the corners due to furniture limitations but also to get the nice imaging.  To my ears the band or orchestra is spread before me nicely placed somewhere behind the speakers.   I was getting some nasty peaks on the low end when pushed closer to the wall.  Might have something to do with the vaulted ceiling beginning at 6 feet high on the wall on that side of the room.  

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On 9/4/2017 at 8:08 AM, jwgorman said:

So the k55v were alnico magnet squawkers and the k55m was the ceramic version. 

 

And Klipsch went back to Alnico for the K55X (in use since about 2002).  The K55X is essentially the same as the K55V.  At least in the Klipschorns (AK4 & AK 5), the upper crossover occurs lower than before (4,500 instead of 6,000 Hz), but with steeper slopes for both midrange and treble. 

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10 hours ago, muel said:

Interesting that raising the La Scalas didn't seem to affect your bass performance.  Could someone talk about how they raised their La Scala's without affecting bass?  I experimented a lot raising to different heights and even at a tilt for a while but I wound up putting them right back on the floor.  While there were some positive affects I felt there was also an overall degradation of bass.  I was sure that is was a solid base... no spikes or legs allowing an opening.  I'm still tweaking and I'm not quite there yet but the imaging is nice enough to keep me from messing with things too much lately.  I'm still struggling to get the bass right but I think most of that fight is with the room and proper speaker placement.

 

Yeah, the advice always was to not raise them unless you used a thick wood apron or solid stand (no legs) to avoid creating a void under the LS, to protect the bass.  My center speaker is a Belle, which is supposed to be similar to the LS.  It is flush mounted in the wall, with a good apron below, and its bass response is good to 40 Hz (40 Hz is the measured F3; the Klipsch specs have the F3 at 54).  There is even a little peak at 60 Hz.  As you say, a lot depends on the room and placement (and room treatment). 

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1 hour ago, garyrc said:

 

And Klipsch went back to Alnico for the K55X (in use since about 2002).  The K55X is essentially the same as the K55V.  At least in the Klipschorns (AK4 & AK 5), the upper crossover occurs lower than before (4,500 instead of 6,000 Hz), but with steeper slopes for both midrange and treble. 

Gary if Jimbo's LSIs had the magic phase plug alnicos, maybe that's why he never felt the need to upgrade anything?

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WOW!!! I'm learning all kinds of stuff reading this discussion. And y'all are so civil with each other. I had almost gotten use to a couple guys that would always get rude & personally attack each other when discussing anything at all. It's really nice to find a forum where people are polite and can disagree & stay respectful. 

 

Bravo guys! 

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  • 1 month later...

When I powered my LaScallas with my Manly Stingray and closed my eyes it was as if I was on stage!  I could stand in front of the bass player doing a solo,  when the singer kicked in I'd stand by him, I loved it!  

 

I still run Lascallas, but stacked for each channel and each speaker with SET amps; great but not the same.

d

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