new chorus II's

[DrWho]

so i picked up me chorus II's today and had a good 5 hour listening session with Colterphoto from the forum...all i gotta say is good stuff, but it's late and i gotta get rested up so I'll leave a nice long post tomorrow or something (if im not busy listening to them)

[kenratboy]

Did you beat my price ($100/pr. inc. tax)?

[colterphoto1]

Okay, I'll bite. Just happened to be up for a while and saw you got home okay. About 3:45 from Indy to Joliet- quite the road warrior you turned out to be as well.

So Brother Mike (DrWho) gets to my place about 3:00 Indy time. I'd spoken to him earlier in the day when he checked in. On of my assistants was in the office and asks "is he hot?" which I repeated to him and he says "well I'm taken but my girlfriend thinks I am!". Spoken like a true Forum Bro!. His uncle in FL had picked up his ChorusII's for him, which I nabbed in my FL trip earlier in the month. He's down from Chicago area to pick them up.

Mike arrives and I've laid out a basic plan of attack for auditioning my 4 Cornwalls and his 2 ChorusII's. Knowing that he's 20 and I'm 46 doesn't make it any easier because our listening tastes varied greatly. Knowing that his head was probably buzzing from 3+ road hours, I showed him round the house first- the photo gallery with projector, basement system, then we look through the main rack, say goodbye to Natalie, and the fun begins! Show Mike the 'Library' and I'll let him tell you what he thought of my music and movie collection.

I'd had a LP that Gary MD sent me a while back of a Mahler symphony that we used to judge the 'musicality' of the Cornwalls and the soundstage of my fairly asymettrical 4-speaker array. Again, I'll defer to Mike to give you the details. Then we listened to increasingly louder and dynamic CD's that he brought and some from my collection selected not only for their recording prowess, but because some he'd never heard of. Mike likes bass a LOT, so I turned him onto The Ox John Entwistle with The Who, Chris Squire with Yes on 'And You and I' featurning some Taurus Bass pedals, Dream Theatre, and Rick Wakeman. Mike will detail his selections and his reactions later. We never got the Hendrix, Stairway, or Lynryrd Skynrd on. Had the feeling that Mike could spend all day in the library, getting the rock and roll history lesson from the old guy (that's me).

For DVD's we played bits of Return of the KIng LOTR, that sweeping panorama at beginning of CH5 is incredible, Beatles Yellow Submarine as 5.1 timbre pans experiment, Zep DVD for the sheer impact of John Bonhams drums sounding like trees exploding. Played bit of Black Sabbath Reunion tour which is an excellent live recording. Think we got to 110 db at 0 on the Yamaha- it HURT. Mike was amazed that three 50's burnt-out ex-druggies could make that much noise. Gezzer Butler constantly pounding and riffing the long-scale bass guitar, Tony Iommi sounding like a buzz saw, and the amazing stout BIll Ward striking a beautifully mic'd set of drums that sound like cannons going off.

Mike and I, both being the sound engineering types, ably dissected each tune and recording technique and I'm hoarse for talking over the music for 5 hours. He has a very good education in modern live sound, whilst mine is from years in the trenches from the 80-'s, so made for lively discussion. I showed him the garage bay 'used speaker warehouse' with stacks of processing, amps, EV, JBL, Bag End etc. and think it's obvious that there's plenty of back-ups to the back-ups round here.

We re-ran the YPAO for the Cornwalls and picked up pizza at the best place in town 'Some GUys' right around the corner from me. Came back and gave a listen and noted that for some reason, we preferred the bass of non YPOA, although the eq did smooth out the mids and highs. It did seem to have a negative effect on the low end. YPAO does a superb job on the distance and overall system balance also. MIke took over on the tweaking department til it suited his ears. Then we hooked up his Choruses. Gotta tell ya, he looked like a kid at Christmas! I couldn't hardly tell the difference. I think we preferred the larger bass of the Cornwalls, and I thought the Chorus mid horn was smoother. Even after taking care of me for my expenses for the FL trip, he came out with a sweet, sweet deal on those babies. We did photo session of us and speakers, to be posted soon, said goodbys and we loaded him up and he took off for home ONE HAPPY CAMPER!

Mike- good luck reorganizing the family room, no WAF but don't tick off yer mum! Hope those ChorusII's sound as good at your place as they did here. I'll leave you to the details of what you thought of my systems and the Mighty Cornwalls! It's always very cool meeting a brother Forum Member. We could have talked and listened to tunes all night! Welcome back any time.

Michael

[DrWho]

btw, i managed to get the chorus II's up on top of the entertainment center and replaced the marantz's...so that makes them my new bookshelf speakers with the marantz floorstanders for the rears <> I actually managed to get home in almost 2 hours flat with a stop for gas so i was really making good time. I didn't post right away because i was too busy hooking everything up and going out to dinner with the woman (and we got pulled over by the cops...her car fit the description of somebody else racing through the neighborhood, lol)

re price: even without the "shipping costs" you still had me beat kenrat <> So far I've got $400 into them right now which I still feel is a fricken good deal considering how good they sound...oh did i mention that they're in pristine condition? Colter really took care of them (he even built elaborate fortified shelters to fend off his house lions)

btw, what was the name of that live dvd with ozzy and black sabbath? i so wanna purchase it and put a post down in the recommendations forum thingy

a couple things i wanted to mention real quick before i detail my experience at colter's house is that the speakers sounded nearly identical at home with my denon; colter has the yamaha, which is NOT AT ALL BRIGHT (there's a shoutout for ya buddy, lol). After getting back home I realized how similar our room acoustics were, which probably has a lot to do with all the wood in the room. I haven't had a chance to crank it yet, but i should have a few hours with nobody home tomorrow (i couldn't find it in my heart to blast tunes at midnite with everyone still sleeping).

And lastly, colter is one very good photographer. I'm not sure if he purposely had a bunch of really good photos laying around hoping I'd notice, but my bro is big into photography and I could totally see that "eye" my brother always talks about. Apart from all the textbook technique involved, there's still that artistry of knowing precisely when to take the shot. He's looking to expand beyond his horizons so any of you lot in the indy area doing senior portraits and other highschool photos need to look him up. It'll be worth the extra few minute drive. I gotta send my bro down your way so that you can get his feet wet with analog

[colterphoto1]

Hey Mike,

Hope I didn't steal your thunder of the listening experience, just saw your post and thought I'd get my 1/2 of the story in before I put the CD's up for the night. We had em all over the place! the Black Sabbath recent (97) show is called The Last Supper on DVD or same show is available on double CD with more songs and no interviews as Reunion. I've got both. Love the video though. Geezer and Oz are a blast to watch and the boys stumbling through the interview segments talking about 'soapboxes of coke' and being 'chained to beds' ,"I should be DEAD' is sobering and hilarious at the same time. I think theres a button on the DVD where you can just watch the concert segments and skip the interviews if you wish also.

I'll leave the details of the listening experience and what you thought of the setup to you. Funny to see you posting at 4 am after driving so long. Do you mean to tell me that you drove home, then hefted those behemouths like 6 feet over your head? You are a crazy man! How is that passive driver sound supposed to squeeze out? Thought we talked about positioning from the wall. Talk to the folks, I think you should really try to get the room flipped and use the long wall for the system if you can. But that's another day. Glad they made it home safely.

New marketing phrase for Klipsch- "CHORUS II- WORLDS LARGEST BOOKSHELF SPEAKER"

Just one last thing folks, THIS GUY KNOWS HIS STUFF! We've been working with another member who is having PA problems and Mike and I have scoured every aspect of his system and engineering techniques over the FOrum. It was good to just sit in the same room and really get into some deep subjects. I highly recommend getting together with FOrum Bros in person. Way cool experience.

Thanks for the kudos on the photography, didn't know you were looking at it that closely.

Now- tell em what you thought of the sound...

Michael

[Colin]

Thansk for posting, not surprised, think Chorus are cheap to the market compared to Corns...

[krustyoldsarge]

"New marketing phrase for Klipsch- "CHORUS II- WORLDS LARGEST BOOKSHELF SPEAKER" "

How about "CHORUSII - THE BIGGEST SPEAKERS YOU CAN FIT IN A VOLKSWAGEN GOLF'

After purchase last year, drove my pair from Seoul to Taegu. With the rear seat down still had room for the gf and not a lot else!

The listening testing must have been a lot of fun! Wish I coulda been there! Any of you guys driving to Korea any time soon?

[colterphoto1]

Sarge, you must have one of them teensy-lil Eastern gf's. Where did she ride? I can't imagine getting two Choruses in a Golf, they took up pretty much the whole back end of DrWho's Subaru Station Wagon. How in heck did you do that!

btw, we're right around the corner, was it the third or the fourth house on the right! DId you get the new room set up yet? Somehow I thought you were a Cornwall man?

Michael

[nicholtl]

Sounds like you guys had fun. That's terrific! I will be meeting a bunch of forum bros today too, at Andy Kubicki's in the OC. Hopefully someone there takes plenty of pics so you guys can start putting some faces to names around here!

[krustyoldsarge]

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On 2/20/2005 12:22:36 PM colterphoto1 wrote:

Sarge, you must have one of them teensy-lil Eastern gf's. Where did she ride? I can't imagine getting two Choruses in a Golf, they took up pretty much the whole back end of DrWho's Subaru Station Wagon. How in heck did you do that!

btw, we're right around the corner, was it the third or the fourth house on the right! DId you get the new room set up yet? Somehow I thought you were a Cornwall man?

Michael

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Actually, the gf is a tall girl and she rode in the front passenger seat, the only open space left with the Chorus' in back! Luggage went on top and around the Chorus'.

The VW Golf is a very space efficient machine, if you fold the rear seat cushion completely down into the floor well, then the seat back forward on top, the Chorus' fit. You're certainly not going to get anything much bigger than them in a Golf, though!

Third house on the right, third floor! Beer's in the fridge, scotch on the table!

Moving my HT into the living room is gonna be tricky. First of all, power isn't where I want it to be. Second, the room is oddly shaped, complicating speaker placement. After that, there is blocking off the time (and the nerve!) to complete the job in one day. Needs to be done, though, there's something just a little socially obtuse about putting your HT in the bedroom....

Never owned a set of Cornies, had Heresy's before. Probably because as enlisted military, you don't always get a lot of living real estate to play with over the course of a career. If you retire in Korea, like I did, you floor space becomes even more problematic. The ChorusII works out nicely, though.

[colterphoto1]

Sarge,

It was interesting putting Corns and Chorus next to each other. Height- Chorus abt 3" taller. Same depth exactly. Width Corns about 7" wider. I found the sound surprisingly similar and the passive, which I didn't think I'd like was very well behaved.

Don't worry about oddly shaped room, they sound best. My room is rectangular, but my setup oddly asymetrical and angled, but it works. Seems speakers like firing at diagonal walls instead of straight into them. There's a question for Artto here somewhere.

EDIT POST- Sarge, with the larger front speakers, set your sub out on Yammie to BOTH, you'll see the onscreen diagram will show that you are sending your .1 signal to both your sub (if you have one) AND your front LR speakers. MORE BOOM FOR THE BUCK. END EDIT

The move, JUST DO IT! But make sure there's plenty of beer in the fridge first.

Looks like the good Dr is sleeping in today after the big adventure. My ears are ringing- be careful Nicholtl!

Michael

[DrWho]

I had to get up at 7:30am this morning to go to church and I got back around 11 and then plugged in some tunes...

for the record, i had my brother help me put the speakers up on top of the entertainment center. the center is about 6" deeper than the chorus II and there's a good 4" between the center and the wall, so the passive radiators are a good 10" away and then the speakers are toed in a bit which helps the bass breathe a little more. The narrower horizontal dispersion ("vertical" of the horns) has greatly improved the soundstage over my old marantz's.

I have been very frustrated with my cd player skipping during loud bass passages and I figured that I would try putting a cd in my dvd player...oh the bliss, finally it's not skipping and all i have to say is holy freaken wow. I was listening at a good 115dB and it wasn't even phasing me, the sound was just so clean! I think I'm really going to enjoy these speakers. There's this one song with a tribal drum thing happening and i can't help but blink everytime it's hit <>

My first impressions after listening for a while is that they're a bit harsh on the high end...especially at loud volumes, but boosting the lows 6dB compensates for this. I know I have a mode killing me around 80Hz and it seems boosting the lows helps to alleviate this a bit (thus eliminating the percieved high end issue). I will have to post some more reviews after watching some movies.

btw, i created a new post detailing my trip to colter's place in another thread. I only started this one because colter asked me to when i got home, lol.

as for now, im gonna go listen some more while i've got the house to myself <>