Power for Heritage series speakers

[tigerwoodKhorns]

I was worried about my 170 WPC Denon for my K-horns and Heresys. Don't worry. If the equipment has other features that you like, just figure that you have more dynamic headroom. Your receiver probably has a limiter to restrict power to the speakers. With the Klipsch, your amp will probably barely get warm, which is kind of nice.

Chris

[JohnA]

Rudy,

50 watts into a pair of Belles results in 124 dB, if you're 1 meter from both of them! Loudness increases 3 dB for each doubling of power and 10 dB for 10 times the power. 100 watts is +20 dB. 105 dB is LOUD!!! I listen to my La Scalas at 80 to 85 dB most of the time, or at 1/100th of a watt. Belles are rated the same as La Scalas or 104 dB at 1 watt at 1 meter. 30 to 70 watts into Belles would be a comfortable listening level in a football stadium!

John

[MixFixJ]

Hello All,

I stumbled into this 1970's technology timewarp by accident. Tubes at 20 watts and 100db giving distortion free response? Ok, try a tube amp at 20 watts at 15 feet at 110db response, or 90db even. Head room having limited importance? Get real.

The information presented in preceding posts is at best circumspect. (and that is politicaly correct speak for CRAP!)

My name is Jeff. I have been a professional Audio Engineer for 20 years. (just a refference point).

It appears that the opinions that are apparent in this thread are amateur.

Mix

[Audio Flynn]

FIXJ,

So what is your point?

Condesending generalities are supposed to confirm your experience?

[JohnA]

circumspect (s�r�kem-sp�kt�) adjective

Heedful of circumstances and potential consequences; prudent.

- circumspectly adverb

The American Heritage� Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright � 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from InfoSoft International, Inc. All rights reserved.

[Audio Flynn]

LOL

get em John!

[Rudy81]

Wow, I didn't know I was going to start a firestorm on the issue. But it does make for interesting reading.

I do not generally listen to music or DVD's very loud. My point of getting a nice powerful amp was to have a quality amp that could provide plenty of headroom and provide a nice clean sound. I did not get the amp, but am still curious on the topic.

With my current receivers, 100 WRMS, I have never gone past half way. That has been plenty loud to rock the house.

I have yet to look into the wonders of tube technology, but fear it is another unending argument like the speaker cable debate.

[DizRotus]

FIXJ,

Please note that every bad amplifier was designed by professional audio engineers, just as "professional automotive engineers" designed the AMC Gremlin. That does not preclude "amateurs" from expressing honest--and correct--opinions about the products of profesional engineers.

[Audio Flynn]

I would take a Gremlin any day over a Pinto or a Vega.

[Effster]

Rudy,,I have some top shelf SS gear and I think it sounds fantastic!The marantz may be better off left for home theatre use.I tryed that years ago with a marantz av-600 and an adcom amp.Great for movies,,but 2 channel was kinda harsh and gritty.I think its very true that you need quiet gear feeding the horns for best sound.Good luck

[lynnm]

Fixj

It would appear that the slur you were looking for would be suspect rather than circumspect.

I recognise that not all of us have your breathtaking depth or breadth of knowledge of all things audio but most of us are capable of finding our as*es without resorting to the use of both hands and a copy of Gray's Anatomy

I too am a professional in my current field and have been a professional in another unrelated field. One of the things I have learned from observing some of my swell headed counterparts is that the professional who is listened to and respected is the professional who behaves toward and speaks to the people with whom he is interacting as equals.

Possessing a high degree of knowledge and expertise in any given small area does not make one a superior human being . In the end all it means is that the expert has some special knowledge. The expert may well be a special human being but that will really have nothing to do with the fact they are an expert of some sort.

Just a thought..........

[JCturboT]

lynnm,

Well put

Jeff

[WMcD]

I'll ask Al. K. to confirm my numbers and the validity of the experiment I suggest. It might give some insights to whether 200 watt amps are necessary. I wasn't a true believer until I tried it myself.

There is a rule of thumb that peaks are 18 dB over average program for music.

A Heritage speaker like the K-Horn, LS, or Belle put out 104 dB at one meter at 2.8 volts input, which is nominally, one watt. Driving two of them, you get 107 dB at one meter with random noise, or 110 dB with an in phase sine wave to each speaker.

Roughly speaking, this means that if we limit peaks to one watt, the program average level is 90 dB, spl. Also, it takes 0.28 volts RMS at the speaker terminals to produce it.

Now, run the experiment. I'll bet Al K. has with sophisticated equipment. Buy a multimeter from Radio Shack (or something better) which reads a.c.volts, which are there r.m.s. And put on a test CD with a continuous tone of, say 1000 Hz. Hook up the multimeter to the input to the speakers so you can see the voltage. Turn up the amp until the meter registers 0.28 volts. See if a RS sound pressure meter reads 90 dB.

You will probably want ear plugs. It is very, very loud. You don't listen to music this loud unless you are wreckless with your hearing.

I suggest this because I suspect that some folks overestimate the peak and average SPLs they are listening too, and overestimate the power which is being delivered by the amp to achieve them, at least with the Heritage line.

If you have any other Klipsch speakers, you should try this too. No one will believe the experiment until they run it themselves.

PWK said that what the country needs (or what K-Horns need) is a good 5 watt amp. This was a quip on the similar comment that what the country needs is a good 5 cent cigar. But he knew that 5 watts gave plenty of headroom.

The bottom line is that if 5 watts give enough headroom, there is no point going to 100 watts or 200 watts, to chase "quality".

I'm not saying that a high power amp is bad. None the less, the issue is what they are doing at real listening levels. The mystery is what is going on at amp outputs of 1 milliwatt or less. So you can see the real issue. More toe room than headroom.

Gil

[Invidiosulus]

I bought a spl meter from radio shack(one of the few good things they still sell) the other day and I found that a decent listening volume in my bedroom meant I was getting about 97db in my living room in front of my Heresies.

This made me realize how loud that one watt really is.

Lol, when i cranked it up in DD5.1 with My JBL surounds and KS-SC1 center channel I was getting about 110 db in star wars episodeII AOTC.

Obviously this is rather loud, and with the relatively weak sensitivity of the heresy no less.

Am I wrong in thinking that a Khorn is about five or six times louder than the heresy at one watt input?

It semms to me that the first couple of watts are indeed the most important.

Peace, Josh

[DizRotus]

Yes Invidiosulus, you are wrong. A Khorn is not five times louder than a Heresy when both are driven by 1 watt. Louder? Yes. Five times louder? No.

[DizRotus]

I've driven Khorns with a Dynaco 200 watt/channel SS amp and Khorns and Heresys with 11 watts of tube power. I prefer the latter. IMHO a few good watts are better than lots of mediocre and unnecessary watts.

Neil

[cc1091]

Rudy -

I have heard my 1981 Heresys connected to:

A Sony STR-25 (25 WPC)

Carver Receiver (I think it was 150 WPC)

NAD 7130 Receiver (35 WPC with a lot of db headroom)

A Proton amp (I think it was 85 WPC with 7dbs of peak headroom)

Adcom GFA-555 (conservative 200 WPC)

Denon AVR 2700 (5 channels at 65 wpc each)

A Rotel RB-991(200 WPC)

A Cary tube amp (sorry, I didn't get the model number, but about 35 WPC..maybe 50 WPC)

A Heathkit single channel tube amp (12 WPC).

I was surprised that the two tube amps mated to the Heresy never produced satisfactory results. The heathkit was woefully underpowered, and old. So maybe it is unfair to think of it with the rest of the company listed here. But the 12 WPC produced loud sound...not extremely loud, but loud enough for most listening situations. The Cary really made the Heresy's midrange squawker squawk (not trying to be funny here, it just became clear why it is sometimes called a squawker). Didn't make the tweeter sound as clear as some of the solid state amps though.

Of the the 150-200 wpc range amps, I've only used the Carver and the Adcom to really push the sound limits with. Each time it was close to painful (okay, it WAS painfully loud) with still some ply left in the dial (in truth, the Carver did reach the end of the dial, but we were all 50 feet from the speaker - diaphrams survived).

I presently use the Rotel in my system. The 200 watt potential adds a soldness to the transients even at low levels. I don't know if this is purely psycological or based on fact though. Just sounds good.

On the other hand, the 35-85 watt range amps had all that these speakers really needed. Could drive them louder than you would want, usually had nice silky smooth sound too.

The belles are more efficient than the Heresys, but move more air too. I'm sure a nice dynamic 85 WPC amp would be satisfactory.