Will 600 WPC be enough for my Cornwalls?

[Colin]

At one point, I drove my super-sensitive walnut-oiled Cornwall 1s, with their B2 crossovers, with a roomates solid-state Carver 1.5 amplifier, capable of 750-watt peaks per channel. But I also drove them with a cheap Sony Boom-box:

Stereos, As They Relate to Indoor Sport

(http://www.enjoythemusic.com/senselessrambling/)

My notes say" you could buy a boom box for your Cornwalls and save thousands of dollars!" Nothing magical, but not fatiguing either. There was no need for a long evaluation as the differences were clearly apparent.

[Deang]

Why was he banned?

Because he accused Trey of wearing a dress.

So we know that's probably not a good thing to say to Amy -- she might get ticked off.

[ben.]

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On 6/22/2004 1:38:23 PM AK-4 wrote:

Why was he banned?

Because he accused Trey of wearing a dress.

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Those familiar with the d0n story are surely finding that as ironic as I am.

[D-MAN]

This is America, dammit, and anyone who wants to SHOW OFF and otherwise exhibit BLATENT EXCESS has a constitutional right to do it!

DM

[Cleve]

Wow - I never saw this thread before - having had my 200 w/ch Mac 2205 for all of a day now, I can say that unless we're talkin' extremely deep bass(and therefore harder to hear)and/or very short peaks, you can't stand to be in the same room with my CF-4's above 100 watts/channel.

I have gotten the Power Guard clipping protection to activate for a fraction of a second or so - on the 1812 Overture Digital cannons, on a very deep explosive bass note on Cliff Martinez's Solaris soundtrack album, and on LOTR - ROTK - when the rock catapults are smashing into Minas Tirith. The sound, particularly on ROTK, is eye-popping to say the least!! And to think the CF-4's are rated for 300 watts continuous!

I did an experiement at lunch - I hooked up my laptop to the auxillary input on my pre-amp, and used the Dazy Web PC Oscillator to generate some continuous deep bass tones in 10 hz steps from 70 hz down to 20 hz. At 30 hz, I started to increase the volume step by step, slowly bringing the 2205's VU meters up and up...

Somewhere around 125 watts, as Scotty would say to Kirk, 'I kinna take the strain!!!' At 30 hz, the bass was enveloping - every horizontal surface in the downstairs of the house was resonating like mad - dishes clattering and chattering in the cupboards, pictures humming and buzzing, unseen things in the walls rattling and buzzing. Both amp and speakers were handling it totally non-chalant - I couldn't take it though! My goal was to hit 200 watts a side, but I wussed out! Even at low wattages (1-10 watts) it seems like there's more 'bass per watt' with this amp than the McIntosh receiver's amp produced! And my living room/kitchen are one big room, separated by a countertop island - approx 20' x 24' total. In a smaller room, I can't even imagine it.....

But regardless, the Cornwalls are nearly as efficient as the CF-4's - I cannot even imagine 600 watts/ch - nor do I think Cornwalls are capable of handling anywhere near that level of power.

[T_Shomaker]

But Trey thought that the dress thing was funny

[chops]

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On 7/13/2003 9:16:30 PM AK-4 wrote:

I dropped acid once and climbed a tree at 2 A.M.

I went looking for the 3rd floor.

I was still there at 9:00 A.M.

Friends talked me down around 10.

True story.

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That would explain alot! j/k

[chops]

Just the other day, I was playing a Jimmy Rogers CD, and I turned the volume knob up half way. You wanna talk about overkill?! Even at 40 watts and 98dB speakers, I couldn't get in front of the speakers without covering my ears. I had my Rat Shack SPL meter at hand and it was reading peaks of 105dB. I doubt I was even using 5 watts, and there was no problems with the bass just slamming right through me like nothing!

I don't think I would wanna be around a pair of Klipsch's with the full 40 watts of my amp going into them, much less 100 or 600 watts!

I could understand using that kind of power if you had a pair of KHorns in the corners of a football stadium and you were sitting center field.

[anarchist]

Chops,

Interestingly enough. I got the SPL meter out two days ago. Was sitting in the listening room playing some Aerosmith when Dream On came on and I cranked it up a bit. It was surreal. Had to know what what coming though the Heresies at that point. Just under halfway with the Consonance and the needle never dropped below 100 at my listening position. 3 feet in front of the Heresy and I was over 110 db. I love my Consonance.

As a side note, I conducted the same experiment with my KSP400's and the Yamaha. At same volume levels, the bass was unbelievable but you immediately recognized the difference between tubes AND Heritage and the other system in terms of imaging.

[Zeke_in_KC]

I brought this back up, not knowing of the "ban" or anything else, because it just seemed ridiculous. I use an expertly refurbished Sansui G9000DB (1978) w/180W per channel and anything above 1W drives me out of the house...total OVERKILL. It sounds great because of high amplification quality, new caps and/or transistors, etc., but still...

600W is INSANE. I understand it was his right but, well, damn...

[Parrot]

Zeke, I suspect your power output meters are not giving you an accurate indication of what's happening. It's almost a certainty you're using more than 1 watt.

[radiob]

CRANK EM UP!!! I run 600 through my chorus`, concert in your listening room. I am however listening to my new(just came today) 12 watt tube, and I cannot belive the beauty of my speakers. I have a feeling I am going to turn into a tube man. Let your ears ring for awile,it will do em some good, huh?

[jt1stcav]

Robert, you like your new night-light? It's sweet, and NOS RCA or Sylvania drivers only make it that much better. You may want to look into some new JJ 6V6GTs as well...these are the best new output tubes I've ever heard with my bro's VP-16. FWIW!

[Zeke_in_KC]

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Zeke, I suspect your power output meters are not giving you an accurate indication of what's happening. It's almost a certainty you're using more than 1 watt.

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Always a possibility! Of course, even accepting this notion, I contend that ridiculous amounts of wattage are just that. Hence my curiosity with the final result of this thread. Thanks.

[radiob]

Love it! unreal 375 with shipping and blows the sound off my 3000$ sunfire! Already orderd tubes, had em ship em 2nd day. I notice that in my right stpeaker I hear a faint cracle/buzz that comes and goes. If I watch one of the 6v6`s little flame seems to throb on and off faintley with noise I hear. Is this common? It starting to drive me nuts. Between songs you can hear it, I unhooked inputs and that dont cange nothing. Bad Tube? bad ground? HELP!!! I am currently listening to all my favorit discs over, UNREAL!!!

[skonopa]

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On 6/22/2004 7:58:38 PM Zeke_in_KC wrote:

Always a possibility! Of course, even accepting this notion, I contend that ridiculous amounts of wattage are just that. Hence my curiosity with the final result of this thread. Thanks.

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This was the first time I saw this thread myself. I sat through and read all four pages worth of posting just because I was curious to what happened in the end. Looks like he ended up unloading the amps on eBay.

Also did not realize that BigBusa ended up getting banned.

Anyway, people say the 200 watts/channel I got going into a pair of RF-7s with this B&K Ref 200.7 amp is overkill. Still, I definitly appreciate the added head-room I get with this amp. Just for grins, I also went and cranked up my system and was getting 120db sustained with peaks pegging the needle on the rat-shack meter. And the kicker was that I still had more to give it. Neither the amp, nor the speakers showed absoulutly no signs of strain or distortion!

I agree with what JT said in a posting earlier in this thread. We all have our preferences for the type of gear and the type of music. People may not care for the RF-7s nor the solid-state amplification I go hooked up to them, but I know that my systems just sounds friggan incredible. Even after listening to those systems in Indy a couple weeks ago, I am still in awe at just how friggan good my own setup sounds, even after all these months that I had the current configuration (I haven't made any changes since I got the B&K amp this past November).

[colterphoto1]

In the immortal words of Ian Gillan, vocalist supreme of Deep Purple(loudest band in the world- Guiness Book of Records)...

Make everything louder than everything else!!!

It's waaaaaay toooo much dude! Remember the 'clean first watt' theory of working with Klipsch speakers. You'll almost never call on those monster watts, even for the most dynamic excursions. The problem is... 'what do those babies sound like at lower volume levels'???

dey is bootiful, dough!

[Ray Garrison]

Every once in a while people have a need to imerse themselves in something that so overwhelms the senses that thought and reason take a back seat to emotion, and pain can be lanced and healing allowed.

I once hooked up a pair of Adcom GFA-555's in bridged mono mode (600 watts into 8 ohms) to my Klipschorns, connected the outputs of a Denon 1520 CD player directly to the inputs of the amps (no signal attenuation) and played Michal Murray's recording of the Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

It was sort of loud.

I needed it.

It helped.

[Klipschfoot]

In response, Trey posted a picture of a kilt-donned stud-looking fellow. In that case, Trey should have been banned too, IMO. I wondered just WHERE he got that foto. Then, shortly thereafter, I did NOT want to know.

I regard BigBusa as one of those class clowns who always loved to tweak and attract attention. There was a sort of freshman stupidity in his posts. He either cared not about what anyone else said or was so far in left field, if you argued, he reveled in your visceral responses. i.e., he got to you and made your responses look dumber than his posts. Trey played along and had some fun, but others did not laugh. They should have. I really doubt the kilt comment had anything to do with his dis-member-ing. He had Khorns, afterall, with the queery, "Does it get any better than this?" (see his audio asylum posts) That alone was better than dead end posts like, "Why own Klipschorns? Here's why I do."

I miss his stupid posts. They were in fun and, at least, not so All-Hail-Klipsch. If Klipsch is giving out coupons for endorsing their products, please clue me in. Until then, foil cones = efficiency and cheap production costs.

[chops]

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On 6/22/2004 8:47:59 PM radiob wrote:

Love it! unreal 375 with shipping and blows the sound off my 3000$ sunfire! Already orderd tubes, had em ship em 2nd day. I notice that in my right stpeaker I hear a faint cracle/buzz that comes and goes. If I watch one of the 6v6`s little flame seems to throb on and off faintley with noise I hear. Is this common? It starting to drive me nuts. Between songs you can hear it, I unhooked inputs and that dont cange nothing. Bad Tube? bad ground? HELP!!! I am currently listening to all my favorit discs over, UNREAL!!!

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To answer your question....

I would shut that amp off A.S.A.P. until you find out what's going on. There IS NOT supposed to be any kind of flame in the tube! Or are you talking about the orange glow of the heater?

I would first move that tube to a different spot and see if it is still doing it. If so, then that tube is defective and I would not use that amp until you get the replacement tubes.