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Klipschorns, Mark Levinson, and Audyssey


ka7niq

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Back in 1983, I had lunch with my friends who owned a high end stereo store in Seattle.  Mark Levinson had come to town, and I sat next to him, at the Space Needle Restaurant. I asked Mark, "what is the ultimate speaker" To my utter shock and amazement he said "Klipschorns" !

He did say the tweeters needed to be turned vertically, and they needed to be correctly equalized, with his Chello Audio Pallett equalizer http://www.celloseattle.com/ctdocs/prodserve/peripherals/audiopalette.htm

Well, when I found out how much an Audio Pallet Equalizer cost, I gave up that idea! 

Now that I have used Audyssey, I wish I still had my KHorns! 

Anyone ever try Audyssey on Klipschorns ?

 

I play with different speakers. Right now, I have a totally re capped pair of Cerwin Vega V 35D 3 way speakers I am messing with. 59d7f41806018_Cerwinvega.thumb.jpg.debd2f31cd11e62920e3af31584ccbfe.jpg

 

Stock, these are surprisingly musical, although admittedly ugly speakers. I replaced all the 20 year old Mylar caps with  ERSE Poly Caps. Bob Crites was correct, old Mylar Caps can measure good, but have high ESR.  The new caps have broken in, and guess what ? Capacitor break in is real. The speakers sound a lot better  with the new Poly Caps.

A very different sound then Cornwalls or Forte's or CF 4's

These have a 2 position switch in the rear, one for vocals, one for playback.

Even in the vocal position, they are much more mellow then most Klipsch speakers.

LOL, no tube amp is required for these

 

Still, they were a bit crude sounding in different ways, depending on the position of the rear switch.

Very Musical, but still very colored, very evident when watching TV/Movies

So, I ran Audyssey on them, and to say that it transformed these speakers is an understatement.

The musicality of these remain after Audyssey.  After all, these have an 18 inch woofer with a 3 inch motor, and are 103 db efficient. But all the vocal coloration is gone.

Well, almost .... 

It is now good enough on Movies and TV  that I can enjoy them.

 

They say there is even better room correction programs out there, especially the one from Anthem.

Audyssey is a royal PITA because if you have surround speakers hooked up, it tries to set those up too, and correct them :( 

LOL, Audyssey turned the level of these 2 front speakers down 12 db, to match my 90 db center and surround speakers level.

 

I would be curious to hear about other members experience with room correction schemes

 

 

 

 

 

cerwin-vega-v-35-31908.jpg

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8 hours ago, ka7niq said:

So, I ran Audyssey on them, and to say that it transformed these speakers is an understatement.

The musicality of these remain after Audyssey.  After all, these have an 18 inch woofer with a 3 inch motor, and are 103 db efficient. But all the vocal coloration is gone.

Well, almost ...

 

No surprise.

 

I use Audyssey with Klipschorns, a modified Belle Klipsch center, two Heresy II surrounds, and, sometimes, a Klipsch RSW 15 subwoofer.

 

As is true with most Audyssey users on the gargantuan Audyssey threads on AVS, I turn up the bass on the mains and turn up the sub after calibrating Audyssey.  It just makes for better balance.  The reason for this may be that most of us have grown used to a few bass peaks imposed by our listening rooms, and when Audyssey removes them, the result sounds a little thin.  No matter.  By turning up the bass after calibration, we are turning up Audyssey smoothed bass, rather than turning up the hills and valleys available without a good room EQ.  The resulting room curve often ends up resembling the curve found by Harmon and others to be the curve most people prefer and the curve people mistake for "flat" (see also G. Gordon Holt's article "Down with Flat," in the Stereophile archives online).  The preferred curve (a la Harmon) has the lowest bass about 9 or 10 dB higher in SPL than the highest treble.  Part of the reason for this may be because of bass attenuation in commercial recording.

 

With painstakingly done Audyssey calibration, using all 8 mic positions, I find that the sound of the Klipschorns is much improved.  It is much clearer, and more transparent.   I have switched back and forth between Audyssey FLAT ON and Audyssey OFF endlessly, as well as comparing an evening of listening with Audyssey FLAT to an evening of listening with Audyssey Reference or Audyssey OFF.   In descending order of quality, Audyssey FLAT seemed best, then Audyssey Reference, then Audyssey OFF.  There are exceptions.  Program material with some distortion in the high treble or harshness sounds better with Audyssey Reference, which provides a "BBC dip" of about 2 or 3 dB around 2K Hz, then returns to normal, and also is down 2 dB at 10 K, and down 6 dB at 20K (but the Klipschorns cut out above 16.5 Hz).  Sources usually needing the roll-off provided by Audyssey Reference include some bad CDs and movies made before about the late '90s.  Blu-rays, SACDs, and good CDs generally sound great.  Either way,  Audyssey is an improvement with the Khorns.  The modified Belle Klipsch sounds better with it, too, making dialog in movies clear and crisp, without sounding artificial.  The Heresy IIs produce better sound with it, too, but the most spectacular difference is with the Khorns. 

 

Graphically, the most obvious difference between Audyssey FLAT ON and Audyssey OFF with the Khorns and the sub below 80 Hz, is that the lowest bass is pushed up a little (down to about 20 Hz with the sub on and the mic in just the right place), a dip at about 70 Hz is removed, some peaks between 100 Hz and 250 Hz are removed, the midrange is smoothed, a broad peak centered around 8 KHz is removed, and the boost above about 10KHz flattens the tweeter response (but it still droops 2.2 dB at 16.5 Hz).

 

Measuring the final resulting frequency response is tricky.  As critics of manual EQ (from Villchur to PWK, about as wide a variety as you can get) have said repeatedly, if you move the microphone a few inches, the response is very different.  Audyssey's solution is to use 8 mic positions and create a "fuzzy logic" (better than an average) balance using all the mics.   If the room is being set up for an audience of several listeners, there is a mic pattern for that.  If there is just one listener, the mics are clustered close together.  After calibration, any curve measured with a single mic position would not be expected to produce desirable results.  Even with a single listener there are two ears and head movement.  To get a curve that reflects what Audyssey has done, people move their REW calibrated mic into the 8 positions that the Audyssey mic was in, and take an average, knowing that the results won't be perfectly representative.

 

Speakers as efficient as Khorns need special handling during Audyssey calibration, or the AVR or pre-pro will indicate that it is measuring the speakers at -12 dB, and you won't know if Audyssey would have turned them down even more, if it could have.  Most people use a set of attenuators between the pre-pro and the power amp to bring the test signals down to within the 24 dB range Audyssey allows, then remove the attenuators after calibration.  The volume control setting to provide reference level for playback will be lower than 0 ... mine is -12, because I used 12 dB attenuators during calibration, then removed them.  People with AVRs and Khorns are pretty much made to set the speaker levels by hand, after calibration, with an SPL meter and a disc in a player pink noise source, since the noise source in the AVR does not go through Audyssey, therefore is invalid for this purpose.

 

"Audyssey is a royal PITA because if you have surround speakers hooked up, it tries to set those up too, and correct them :( LOL, Audyssey turned the level of these 2 front speakers down 12 db, to match my 90 db center and surround speakers level."

 

I don't think that is what happened.  Part of Audyssey's task is to set all front and surround speakers to 75 dB with their test "pings", regardless of efficiency.  That allows cinema full scale (fs) or peak level of 105 dB, when playing at reference level (except the sub, which peaks at 115 dB).  Audyssey went with 75 dB, instead of the pro level of 85 dB, because 85 was driving home users crazy.  They allow the same SPL peaks because the pros tell their equipment that it should provide 20 dB headroom, and Audyssey has set up its brain to provide 30 dB headroom.  Both come out at 105 dBfs for all speakers except the sub, and 115 dBfs for the sub.  If you had put on a movie (not music, because the music industry failed to provide standard levels) and played it at reference level on your volume control (usually 0 dB, except for people who have done the attenuator dance with efficient speakers; my Reference Level is -12 dB, as mentioned above), you would probably have had peaks at the 105/115 dB level, once in a while.  That is about max for both equipment and ears, and then only for brief periods.

 

With luck, there should be below a way too smoothed depiction of Audyssey correcting 1 Khorn, with Audyssey Reference (treble roll-off) and bass boost on the pre-pro..  It doesn't go far enough down into the bass, because I had the graph controls set incorrectly.  Notice that this approximates the curve found to be preferred by Harmon and others.  My other curves were lost in a computer crash.  Someday ...

59d8124604718_averageof8micpositionsAudRefB6BoxonSubTrim3onMarantz.jpg.b4a7537454b8cf8883ef147ec47dfb2b.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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38 minutes ago, garyrc said:

No surprise.  I use Audyssey with Klipschorns, a modified Belle Klipsch center, two Heresy II surrounds, and, sometimes, a Klipsch RSW 15 subwoofer.

 

As is true with most Audyssey users on the gargantuan Audyssey threads on AVS, I turn up the bass on the mains and turn up the sub after calibrating Audyssey.  It just makes for better balance.  The reason for this may be...(respectful Snip!, just wanted to reference your post)

Fantastic write up Gary.  I was gonna say all that stuff but you beat me to it.  B)

 

I also had Khorns and used the 8 position Audyssey Marantz 6011.  I couldn't come close to articulating how well the Khorns work with Audyssey as Gary did, I wouldn't even try.

 

The only difference is I leave my 15" sealed sub as Audyssey sets it.  Khorns were at -11.  I don't like hearing the sub and I'm aware that it sounds quiet relative to mid or HF sound.  It is playing loudly, it just doesn't sound that way because of the LF sound.

 

I had mis-matched speakers everywhere and Audyssey made them play nice together better than I ever could have.

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Gary, speaking of curves, is the Harmon Curve the same as the NRC Curve ? The reason I ask is an audio buddy has the NAD Receiver, that has a version of Audyssey made for them by this Paul Barton guy from Canada, that is supposed to emulate the NRC Curve.

 Paul Barton is the guy behind the PSB Speakers.

I had a Pioneer Elite Receiver with Pioneer's version of Audyssey, but I got rid of it before I compared it's effects to Audyssey.

I am using an ONKYO NR 809 receiver https://www.onkyousa.com/Products/model.php?m=TX-NR809&class=Receiver

 

Mark Levinson said to turn the Klipschorn Tweeters vertical, said it makes them image better, BTW

 

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5 hours ago, ka7niq said:

Gary, speaking of curves, is the Harmon Curve the same as the NRC Curve ? The reason I ask is an audio buddy has the NAD Receiver, that has a version of Audyssey made for them by this Paul Barton guy from Canada, that is supposed to emulate the NRC Curve.

 Paul Barton is the guy behind the PSB Speakers.

I had a Pioneer Elite Receiver with Pioneer's version of Audyssey, but I got rid of it before I compared it's effects to Audyssey.

I am using an ONKYO NR 809 receiver https://www.onkyousa.com/Products/model.php?m=TX-NR809&class=Receiver

 

Mark Levinson said to turn the Klipschorn Tweeters vertical, said it makes them image better, BTW

 

 

 I don't know, but I think the NRC curve (or the NR curve) has to do with acceptable background noise.  Somebody knows, and they will answer.

 

The Klipschorn tweeter works better with a vertical orientation at some frequencies, and not at others.

 

I think a guy who worked with Joe Minor at Berkeley Custom Electronics, a Klipschorn dealer, later worked for Mark Levinson.  It could have been John Curl, the master designer of Parasound amplifiers.

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5 hours ago, garyrc said:

 

 I don't know, but I think the NRC curve (or the NR curve) has to do with acceptable background noise.  Somebody knows, and they will answer.

 

The Klipschorn tweeter works better with a vertical orientation at some frequencies, and not at others.

 

I think a guy who worked with Joe Minor at Berkeley Custom Electronics, a Klipschorn dealer, later worked for Mark Levinson.  It could have been John Curl, the master designer of Parasound amplifiers.

Yes, John Curl was a Levinson Designer, responsible for many vintage Levinson products. He came before Tom Colangelo.

After he left Levinson, he designed SOME Parasound stuff, and also made a preamp called a Blowtorch.

 

Mark Levinson told me to be sure I took my Klipschorn tweeters out of the cabinet, and turn them vertical. I never did, but I have heard vertical Cornwalls compared to standard Cornwalls, and the vertically oriented tweeters imaged better.

 

As far as the NRC Curve,  it was developed at the NRC in Canada as a set of measurements that most listeners preferred.  It is not a smile curve, and it is also not flat.  NAD does include, however, their own proprietary response curve, to provide what they feel is the ideal in-room response, in addition to MultEQ XT’s standard target curve. NAD’s curve is based on research in room equalization and listener preferences done in the 1980s at the National Research Council of Canada, where the SoundStage! Network has review samples of loudspeakers measured. The NAD curve was developed by Paul Barton, chief designer of NAD’s sister company PSB Speakers, who was involved in the research at the NRC.

 

 

 

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9 hours ago, ka7niq said:

Yes, John Curl was a Levinson Designer, responsible for many vintage Levinson products. He came before Tom Colangelo.

After he left Levinson, he designed SOME Parasound stuff, and also made a preamp called a Blowtorch.

 

Mark Levinson told me to be sure I took my Klipschorn tweeters out of the cabinet, and turn them vertical. I never did, but I have heard vertical Cornwalls compared to standard Cornwalls, and the vertically oriented tweeters imaged better.

 

As far as the NRC Curve,  it was developed at the NRC in Canada as a set of measurements that most listeners preferred.  It is not a smile curve, and it is also not flat.  NAD does include, however, their own proprietary response curve, to provide what they feel is the ideal in-room response, in addition to MultEQ XT’s standard target curve. NAD’s curve is based on research in room equalization and listener preferences done in the 1980s at the National Research Council of Canada, where the SoundStage! Network has review samples of loudspeakers measured. The NAD curve was developed by Paul Barton, chief designer of NAD’s sister company PSB Speakers, who was involved in the research at the NRC.

 

 

 

 

I had several good discussions with John Curl when he worked at Berkeley Custom Electronics.   PWK used to drop by BCE when he was visiting the Bay Area; I wonder if he and Curl ever talked.  John was super knowledgeable, even then (the early '70s?).  Joe Minor tended to collect engineers like that, including Curl's predecessor, Don Helmholtz, who later co-founded Pro Audio, in Oakland.  Don was selected as "The Best in the Bay Area" by the Bay Guardian.  While he had some wealthy and famous people he did work for (like Robert Crumb, who drew a caricature of Don lighting his pipe with a blowtorch, and the very early Grateful Dead), he remained affordable and willing to spend extra time with people who had special requests, without inflating the price.  He build me a mixer that was inexpensive, quiet, and of very low distortion.

 

Do you have a link to the NRC or NAD curve?

 

Looking at room target curves, we see similarities:

 

Name:  image.jpeg Views: 921 Size:  46.4 KB

Not sure what the red part is all about.  Perhaps it represents an alternative when the speakers, room, and recordings all have very low distortion in the deep bass.

 

image.jpeg.8be19795ca583fc94a0efd3141c212f5.jpeg

 

image.png.4f60084273b1c247835adf27849b65c3.png

 

IMO, with really good recordings, i.e. most Blu-rays, the best SACDs, the best vinyl, and the best CDs, there is too much treble decline in these curves.  With my Klipschorns, great recordings produce best results (IMH0) with the high end as flat as Audyssey can get it, i.e., - 2.2 dB at 16.5 dB with Audyssey FLAT, in my treated room.   Of course, recordings with objectionable distortion at the high end, or tweeters that break up, may require the 4 through 8 dB attenuation at the top we often see in target curves.

 

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I just sent a message on Facebook to Sean Olive, asking if the Harman and NRC Curve are the same. I know he has a link to the curve, and so do I, somewhere in a zillion emails :( 

I never met John Curl, but he was close to Brian Cheyney ex of VMPS, who is dead. So is Jim Bongiornio, remember him ?

I met PWK at the Detroit Audio Show, at Cobo Hall.

I was 14, so it was 1968 or 1969

He wore a button that said "BULLSHIT" :) 

 

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Not surprising that Mark Levinson chose the Klipschorn. PWK had it right with sensitivity, distortion and dynamic range. 

 

Outstanding contribution here from Garyc - and spot on. 

 

Owning Klipschorns, Lascalas, Cornwalls and Forte II’s, Klipschorns win hands down IMHO. However, after years of listening and measuring, it’s pretty clear that the average home Klipschorn installation is a million miles from the anechoic perfection achieved by Klipsch at the factory. IMO, the advent of Audyssey like capabilities finally present an opportunity to address that. In fact, I’ve wondered for some time why Klipsch hasn’t produced a proprietary Klipschorn “Audyssey” capability that would literally take the Klipschorn to the next level - in each home. A built-in menu of curves? Why not?  In my opinion, any other tinkering is nonsense in comparison. Is anyone at Klipsch listening?

 

 

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13 minutes ago, BeFuddledinMn said:

In fact, I’ve wondered for some time why Klipsch hasn’t produced a proprietary Klipschorn “Audyssey” capability that would literally take the Klipschorn to the next level - in each home. A built-in menu of curves? Why not?  

 

In my opinion, any other tinkering is nonsense in comparison. Is anyone at Klipsch listening?

What a fantastic idea!  I can think of a lot reasons why this is not feasible due to many variables, but still a nice concept.

 

Audyssey licenses its software.  I would not be surprised if Klipsch would have to pay a royalty to publish a menu of curves for its products.

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3 hours ago, BeFuddledinMn said:

Not surprising that Mark Levinson chose the Klipschorn. PWK had it right with sensitivity, distortion and dynamic range. 

 

Outstanding contribution here from Garyc - and spot on. 

 

Owning Klipschorns, Lascalas, Cornwalls and Forte II’s, Klipschorns win hands down IMHO. However, after years of listening and measuring, it’s pretty clear that the average home Klipschorn installation is a million miles from the anechoic perfection achieved by Klipsch at the factory. IMO, the advent of Audyssey like capabilities finally present an opportunity to address that. In fact, I’ve wondered for some time why Klipsch hasn’t produced a proprietary Klipschorn “Audyssey” capability that would literally take the Klipschorn to the next level - in each home. A built-in menu of curves? Why not?  In my opinion, any other tinkering is nonsense in comparison. Is anyone at Klipsch listening?

 

 

I have owned several pairs of Klipschorns, but never measured them. Klipsch maybe could do what you are suggesting with a DSP Crossover based version of the Klipschorn. 

 

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5 hours ago, BeFuddledinMn said:

Not surprising that Mark Levinson chose the Klipschorn. PWK had it right with sensitivity, distortion and dynamic range. 

 

Outstanding contribution here from Garyc - and spot on. 

 

Owning Klipschorns, Lascalas, Cornwalls and Forte II’s, Klipschorns win hands down IMHO. However, after years of listening and measuring, it’s pretty clear that the average home Klipschorn installation is a million miles from the anechoic perfection achieved by Klipsch at the factory. IMO, the advent of Audyssey like capabilities finally present an opportunity to address that. In fact, I’ve wondered for some time why Klipsch hasn’t produced a proprietary Klipschorn “Audyssey” capability that would literally take the Klipschorn to the next level - in each home. A built-in menu of curves? Why not?  In my opinion, any other tinkering is nonsense in comparison. Is anyone at Klipsch listening?

 

 

 

Ideally, Audyssey or some other room EQ device would do that, regardless of how smooth or bumpy the speaker response + room response is from the main listening position, providing the combination did not require more compensation than the room EQ device can provide. Audyssey provides comp at hundreds of points in the spectrum.  That it is not perfect may be attributable to variables like the mic being a few degrees off of straight up, reflections from leather recliner backs, variations in the mics, etc.

 

JBL used to provide a little EQ and slight damping adjustment to their various speaker models in their amplifiers ("Energizers"). 

 

There is a speaker/room EQ that, reputedly, is better than Audyssey, called something like Dirac, but it is hideously expensive.

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1 hour ago, ka7niq said:

I have owned several pairs of Klipschorns, but never measured them. Klipsch maybe could do what you are suggesting with a DSP Crossover based version of the Klipschorn. 

 

 

The most important measurements, IMO, are ones I don't know how to do, other than by ear.  Distortion of various kinds would top the list.  Modulation distortion, for instance, or dynamic compression.   I have heard several speakers that are smoother than Khorns, and they all sound worse, IMO, possibly because of these other factors.

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6 hours ago, garyrc said:

 

Ideally, Audyssey or some other room EQ device would do that, regardless of how smooth or bumpy the speaker response + room response is from the main listening position, providing the combination did not require more compensation than the room EQ device can provide. Audyssey provides comp at hundreds of points in the spectrum.  That it is not perfect may be attributable to variables like the mic being a few degrees off of straight up, reflections from leather recliner backs, variations in the mics, etc.

 

JBL used to provide a little EQ and slight damping adjustment to their various speaker models in their amplifiers ("Energizers"). 

 

There is a speaker/room EQ that, reputedly, is better than Audyssey, called something like Dirac, but it is hideously expensive.

I just lost a 10 paragraph reply :( 

A Canadian Company called Anthem makes a room correction system, said to be very good.

I used to own a Sherwood Receiver, with the Trinnov System, and never used it :( 

It was a wonderful, warm sounding receiver, but it had HDMI problems, so I sold it :( 

 

 

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7 hours ago, garyrc said:

 

The most important measurements, IMO, are ones I don't know how to do, other than by ear.  Distortion of various kinds would top the list.  Modulation distortion, for instance, or dynamic compression.   I have heard several speakers that are smoother than Khorns, and they all sound worse, IMO, possibly because of these other factors.

I agree, there is no substitute for efficiency.

These Cerwin Vega V 35D Speakers I am currently playing with have obvious colorations, and are all over the place, as far as accuracy goes. However, they are 103 db efficient! 

 

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As some people have mentioned the k-horns have lots of "famous" fans in audio circles; some above mentioned Mark Levinson, another mentioned John Curl (a big fan of k-horns), Nelson Pass is another fan as was Sid Smith the great designer from the golden years of Marantz (model 8 and 9 among others).  Dick Heyser and Gordon Gow were both users as well....while not everyone´s cup of tea, Klipshcorns are for many their favorite speakers ever, including me!  warm regards, Tony

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3 hours ago, sunnysal said:

As some people have mentioned the k-horns have lots of "famous" fans in audio circles; some above mentioned Mark Levinson, another mentioned John Curl (a big fan of k-horns), Nelson Pass is another fan as was Sid Smith the great designer from the golden years of Marantz (model 8 and 9 among others).  Dick Heyser and Gordon Gow were both users as well....while not everyone´s cup of tea, Klipshcorns are for many their favorite speakers ever, including me!  warm regards, Tony

I second that! I have only had my 1982 Klipschorns for a little over 2 years and have been to several "High End" Audio shops in Phoenix etc. over that same time and have heard $80,000 speakers with mega Mc gear,  when we get home and turn on our simple/humble MC30's, C22 reissue and the Klipschorns, there is nothing we are missing...Matter of fact it sounds better that what we heard. Just my ears & opinion.

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16 hours ago, pantoramasan said:

I second that! I have only had my 1982 Klipschorns for a little over 2 years and have been to several "High End" Audio shops in Phoenix etc. over that same time and have heard $80,000 speakers with mega Mc gear and when we get home and turn on our simple MC30's, C22 reissue and the Klipschorns, there is nothing we are missing...Matter of fact it sounds better that what we heard. Just my ears & opinion.

My Grandfather had a pair of Klipschorns in his basement in Detroit, driven by all tubes. LOL, I remember me and Grandpa walking in snowstorms, so he could use the tube tester, at a drug store.

He had an old round screen color TV made by Admiral.

People faces would sometimes be part green, and part purple.

He had the coil called a degaussing coil he ran over the picture tube.

I remember Grandpa in desperation trying different brands of tubes in his old color TV, to make it watchable.

 

 

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