Center channel report

[ned]

I added a Heresy III to a pair of Klipshorns. Here is a report after a few days. 

 

The Khorns are in good corners on a 25' wall. The room is essentially 15' deep although about half opens another 15 feet into the kitchen. My listening room is living room, dining room and an extension of the kitchen. There was a sweet spot for the horns where music sounds as good as I've ever heard. I've spent many hours sitting there. Unfortunately, most of the time I listen to music while working at the dining table, cooking, washing dishes or sitting on the sofa. Nearly all of my listening was too close to one speaker or the other, or too close to the long wall between them. 

 

I added a Heresy III (It will eventually get built into a cabinet and so I don't want the port on the IV). Cory is a gentleman. I am glad I reached out to him. 

 

It sounds great! I have it well below the Khorns in volume and so they remain the dominant voice of my system. Off axis listening is much improved in terms of musical content and balance. The sweet spot is now a big oval. On axis (or in the sweet spot) the Heresy is audible and it sounds great. It is super quick. On tracks where the kick drum and bass are in the center the Heresy highlights the percussive quality of the bass and sharpens the impact of the kick. It is not that the Khorns are slow, but the bass is a bit laid back. The Heresy seems a bit more eager. I have it down 5db or so and it doesn't intrude much on the Khorns. Mono recordings also sound great.  The Heresy nicely fills a gap in my room and makes music enjoyable nearly anywhere in the space. Sitting too close to one Khorn is now more than tolerable. I feel very fortunate. It also has good WAF (she's surprised at how small it is!) but she also thinks I am in the land of diminishing returns. 

 

The technical bits: I run a mono amp from one of the mono sub channels on the preamp - a Parasound P6 (very positively reviewed by me in the SS section) with the low pass filter defeated. There is a volume knob for the "sub" on the face of the preamp and I keep nudging it down. The P6 is connected to a Parasound A23 with balanced interconnects and so the signal is hot. There are input pots on the amp and I've had to seriously attenuate the input to match or slightly exceed in input to the mono driving the Heresy. Judging by the sensitivity of the speakers, I suspect that if I replaced the balanced interconnects with RCA cables (lowering the input level to the amp), the amps would match up better. I made a summing box per Dope from Hope but am not using it here. For critical listening  I can take the Heresy out of system with one button if I want.

 

You can see the Heresy in the lower right corner 12' from the left Khorn. 

 

Thanks for reading. 

[glens]

Thanks for writing.

 

I like the handiwork posted on the wall, too.  What distances were they?

[ned]

The prints of the records? I have a friend who is a master printer and we inked up some 10" and 7" records and ran them through an etching press. 

[glens]

I thought I'd seen a couple better-photo'd in another post and that they were targets with holes near the middle.  I've got a .308 "battle rifle" that a 12-year-old kid can do head-shot equivalents with at 350 yds open-sight (with surplus ammo), witnessed by many...  (I did the same at 400 but it's mine, and it was his first time!)

[ricktate]

I would put furniture grippers on the bottom of the speakers if they are sitting on the hardwood floor. Shouldn't the seating face the front of the sound source?? 

[Tony Whitlow]

I added a Heresy III to a pair of Klipshorns. Here is a report after a few days. 
 
The Khorns are in good corners on a 25' wall. The room is essentially 15' deep although about half opens another 15 feet into the kitchen. My listening room is living room, dining room and an extension of the kitchen. There was a sweet spot for the horns where music sounds as good as I've ever heard. I've spent many hours sitting there. Unfortunately, most of the time I listen to music while working at the dining table, cooking, washing dishes or sitting on the sofa. Nearly all of my listening was too close to one speaker or the other, or too close to the long wall between them. 
 
I added a Heresy III (It will eventually get built into a cabinet and so I don't want the port on the IV). Cory is a gentleman. I am glad I reached out to him. 
 
It sounds great! I have it well below the Khorns in volume and so they remain the dominant voice of my system. Off axis listening is much improved in terms of musical content and balance. The sweet spot is now a big oval. On axis (or in the sweet spot) the Heresy is audible and it sounds great. It is super quick. On tracks where the kick drum and bass are in the center the Heresy highlights the percussive quality of the bass and sharpens the impact of the kick. It is not that the Khorns are slow, but the bass is a bit laid back. The Heresy seems a bit more eager. I have it down 5db or so and it doesn't intrude much on the Khorns. Mono recordings also sound great.  The Heresy nicely fills a gap in my room and makes music enjoyable nearly anywhere in the space. Sitting too close to one Khorn is now more than tolerable. I feel very fortunate. It also has good WAF (she's surprised at how small it is!) but she also thinks I am in the land of diminishing returns. 
 
The technical bits: I run a mono amp from one of the mono sub channels on the preamp - a Parasound P6 (very positively reviewed by me in the SS section) with the low pass filter defeated. There is a volume knob for the "sub" on the face of the preamp and I keep nudging it down. The P6 is connected to a Parasound A23 with balanced interconnects and so the signal is hot. There are input pots on the amp and I've had to seriously attenuate the input to match or slightly exceed in input to the mono driving the Heresy. Judging by the sensitivity of the speakers, I suspect that if I replaced the balanced interconnects with RCA cables (lowering the input level to the amp), the amps would match up better. I made a summing box per Dope from Hope but am not using it here. For critical listening  I can take the Heresy out of system with one button if I want.
 
You can see the Heresy in the lower right corner 12' from the left Khorn. 
 
Thanks for reading. 

Why isn’t the sofa facing the speakers?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ned]

There is seating facing the speakers outside the frame of this picture. A dedicated listening room would be cool, but I love having great sound where I spend my time - some of which is spent sitting and talking with friends.