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Hello! New 1977 era La Scalas owner here!


JohnKuthe

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Hello, my name is John Kuthe and after 57 years of growing "up" listening to an old 1950's Altec Lansing 15" studio monitor loudspeaker powered by an old 20W Macintosh TUBE amp, I FINALLY own a pair of what I learned were the Holy Grail of loudspeakers!

I've gotta get some longer speaker wire for them. I need about 40 feet to each one, and I'm thinking of going to 8AWG just to minimize long wire power losses. Gonna drive down today and get some so I can get BOTH La Scala's powered up and shining!!

Namaste

John Kuthe...

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52 minutes ago, JohnKuthe said:

I've gotta get some longer speaker wire for them. I need about 40 feet to each one, and I'm thinking of going to 8AWG just to minimize long wire power losses. Gonna drive down today and get some so I can get BOTH La Scala's powered up and shining!!

Welcome to the Klipsch forums, John.  You have come to the right place.  :emotion-21:  :emotion-19:

 

Nice pick up on the La Scala's.  You will find a lot of threads here on how to maintain, update and upgrade should you choose to do so.  FYI I used to own a pair of LS similar to yours from the same era.  Fantastic speakers.

 

It would be very hard to run and terminate 8 awg wire and there would be no audible improvement in running such a large gauge wire.  I suggest for speaker wire for an 8 Ohm load less than 60 feet you run 12 awg. 

http://www.audioholics.com/audio-video-cables/speaker-cable-gauge

 

You will need spade connectors.

 

image.png.b9db286e31afde69f24b4f1a6f2e2dff.png

 

 

Use the good stuff Oxygen Free Copper (OFC) and not the cheap stuff Copper Clad Aluminum  (CCA).  Unless the wire says OFC, it's the cheap stuff.  There are plenty of threads here on speaker wire as well.  I use 12 awg OFC from Monoprice.

https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=9343


 

Quote

 

This speaker wire features two conductors made of high purity (greater than 99.95% pure), oxygen-free bare copper. Pure Bare Copper is a superior conductor to the copper clad aluminum (CCA) conductors used in most other inexpensive speaker wire. CCA is only about 68% as conductive as pure bare copper. This additional resistance is added to the impedance of your speakers and can negatively effect the sound.

 

For the wire to have no audible effect, the total wire resistance should be no more than 5% of the lowest impedance of your speakers. Even speakers rated for a nominal 8-ohms, may dip to as low as 4-ohms at some frequencies, which further reduces the total cable resistance allowed in the wire. Using Pure Bare Copper speaker wire ensures that the total load put on the amplifier remains as close as possible to the impedance curve of your speakers.

 

For example, a 16AWG 2-conductor Pure Bare Copper speaker wire has a total resistance of 0.803 ohms per 100 feet (both directions must be considered). By comparison, a 16AWG 2-conductor CCA speaker wire has a total resistance of 1.181 ohms per 100 feet. Assuming 4 ohms is the lowest impedance of your speakers, a speaker wire run can be no more 0.2-ohms total. 20 feet of 16AWG Pure Bare Copper would be 0.1606 ohms, well under the 0.2-ohm limit. On the other hand, 20 feet of 16AWG CCA would be 0.2362 ohms, well OVER the 0.2-ohm limit.

 

 

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21 hours ago, Peter P. said:

John-can't wait to hear your opinion of how they sound!

They sound EVERY BIT THE LEGEND!

I am SUCH a fortunate sot! :-) BEAUTIFUL! I heard every bit of dirt and other imperfection on SEVERAL albums! Again! OMG!!

And I bought 80 feet of AWG10 speaker wire! Got awg10 RING connectors and stripped the 10awg speaker wire 1/4"   twisted the conductors a bit and slid it into the ring connector ferrule  and soldered them! Sweet! Captive,  must remove the screw to remove the wire. And I;m OK with that, those 10AWG speaker wires were purchased especially FOR these La Scalas!

John Kuthe...

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On 2/20/2018 at 8:29 AM, JohnKuthe said:

Hello, my name is John Kuthe and after 57 years of growing "up"

Welcome John, but really growing up is not a requirement. Have fun, looks like a big space. :emotion-21:

You said sub, I would look into a horn sub for the best match.

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On 2/20/2018 at 8:48 AM, Schu said:

Congratulations on the LS's... looks like you're going to have a lot of reflections in that room.

 

Yes I know!!  And I know where I can get a LOT of pretty big soft wall hangies as I call them! And I need to buy some and hand\g them up as acoustical damping material, literally!

John Kuthe...

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14 hours ago, dtel said:

Welcome John, but really growing up is not a requirement. Have fun, looks like a big space. :emotion-21:

You said sub, I would look into a horn sub for the best match.

 Can you recommend a good horn sub? Would I have one horn sub for each La Scala or?

My only experience with ubs are in my minivan I have a single 12" sub, under the floor in the Stow-n-Go compartments for my 20906 Grand Caravan.

John...
 

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2 minutes ago, JohnKuthe said:

Can you recommend a good horn sub? Would I have one horn sub for each La Scala or?

There are many on here who has much more experience with building horn subs than me, if you were thinking of DIY.

Maby make a post in the sub section and look at others going through the same questions. I would think either one large or even 2 smaller subs, whatever you decide.

 

Also it helps people figure out where your at if you can add it in your profile, just a rough idea or area. This helps with advice if someone has something you could listen to or buy/sell/diy, but not a requirement.

 

11 minutes ago, JohnKuthe said:

 

Yes I know!!  And I know where I can get a LOT of pretty big soft wall hangies as I call them! And I need to buy some and hand\g them up as acoustical damping material, literally!

John Kuthe...

That would really help, it's hard to tell is that carpet or cement floor ? If carpet good, if cement maby a couple large rugs. It kind of looks like carpet.

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1 hour ago, dtel said:

...
That would really help, it's hard to tell is that carpet or cement floor ? If carpet good, if cement maby a couple large rugs. It kind of looks like carpet.

Good well padded carpet over cement floor: basement. Carpet is totally cool the walls are ringy as heck and the suspended ceiling's suspended "tiles" were removed. I need to get them replaced too! 

John Kuthe...

 

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On 2/20/2018 at 9:29 AM, JohnKuthe said:

I FINALLY own a pair of what I learned were the Holy Grail of loudspeakers!

John,

 

Welcome and congrats! That room is WAY TOO BIG for just one pair of LaScalas :)  Now that you are "hooked," may I suggest adding some Klipsch Professional Cinema speakers :)  I just got a pair of KPT-904's - pretty cheap; $800 - and those would add nicely to your setup :)  (NO; NOT selling them :) )

Cheers, Emile

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1 hour ago, Emile said:

John,

 

Welcome and congrats! That room is WAY TOO BIG for just one pair of LaScalas :)  Now that you are "hooked," may I suggest adding some Klipsch Professional Cinema speakers :)  I just got a pair of KPT-904's - pretty cheap; $800 - and those would add nicely to your setup :)  (NO; NOT selling them :) )

Cheers, Emile

Wow!! Those KPT-904's are MONSTERS!! I can only wish, hope, dream! 

Of course look what happened, I got the La Scala's!! :-)

John Kuthe...

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