pauln Posted March 21, 2005 Share Posted March 21, 2005 edit - - NEW PHOTOS ADDED TODAY - - Hi all, I read somewhere that the annual production of Klipschorns now is a little over a dozen each year. Can that be right? A similar low number might probably be the case for LaScalas, too. With so many existing older LaScalas passing around in circulation I thought I would put out a missive about what the new ones are like. The Klipsch dealer was totally competent, very courteous, and professional. Some of you will recall that a little while back I gave away my beloved mint 1976 Heresys and ordered a brand new pair of 2005 LaScalas. Mine were delivered two weeks ago and I have had just too little time to listen to them. I got the huge boxes off of the LaScalas and examined them with both a sweet swell of pride and an icy Corona pumping through my veins. These things are big. These LS are finished in a sort of "piano black" style and are gorgeous (even the backs and inside of the upper horn box are finished!). The edges of the top face around the upper section housing the mid and tweet horns is beveled all around like a frame molding and protrudes cleanly forward from the bass bin about 1/2 inch. The figure of the wood is just noticeable all over these speakers in the right light if you are close enough. The workmanship is excellent. Everything is tight, true and square, and there is not a single mark, mar, or blemish on anything. Not even any dust! The first thing I did was remove the grills and pull off the Velcro buttons from the speaker faces. Then I searched throughout the garage until I found something to shine them up with that was safe for the painted finish (after reading warning labels for ten minutes it turned out the right safe stuff is Turtle Wax Platinum Series Ultra Gloss Detailer boutique spray automobile finish). Got some old socks and applied all over - the result was perfect - smooth and clean but not overly shiny, just right. Damn these things are beautiful and now they have new car smell! The tweeters are flush mounted within a frame inside their space in the face. The frame is mounted from the inside and the tweets are bolted to the frame from the front. The tweeter driver is a K-77-F which has a thick square silver back. The mid horn is non-metal, smooth on the inside, and formed as if wrapped with finger-thick ribs on the horn's outside surface spaced every few inches (as if you blew a quick series of exponentially expanding smoke rings that were rectangular instead of round). I guess these are either for structural strength or maybe they serve to diminish any residual resonance not handled by the change from metal to non-metal. The mid driver is a K-55-X which looks a lot like the one in the Heresy. It looks like a shiny gray ash tray, but not as deep or quite as rounded as in the Heresy. It also has a perimeter indention around it's edge as if it was formed on a potter's wheel and someone touched it with their finger for at least one revolution. The bottom has four heavy duty steel flat round skid feet like on pro gear. The bass driver I may never see but it should be the K-33. I think the networks are fantastic. These networks look like three dimensional aerial photos of a small town - the component count of a single network is greater than that of both my mono blocks combined!. The networks are both on the right side if you are looking into the back, and the networks' circuit boards are thick and held off (isolated) from the cabinet with fat clear plastic spacing washers (these washers look like they were about 1/4 inch thick before compression). The caps are all pastel yellow cylinders and look like the inside of a bank teller's drawer full of rolled coin (some are huge - bigger than rolls of half dollars), And the resistors (I guess that 's what they are) are like long rectangular white bricks mounted about an inch above the board on what look like flat 1/4 wide metal legs instead of wires. And there are some mighty big coils of what look like 12 gauge solid real shiny bare copper wire. These coils are covered with a dousing of some clear substance like a firm wax that was melted on them and turned into plastic. The schematic for these networks must be more complicated than the SETs, including the PS. Next up was a reading of the owner's manual, which I read all through, and a quiet moment of reflection as I reread the thoughtful section about the life and accomplishments of PKW - I stopped reading and quietly said to myself, "God bless you Paul Klipsch", then I made the connection to the amps. These LS have two sets of bridged connections corresponding to the bass bin and the upper horns. Says to remove the bridge connectors for bi-wiring. Its not clear if this also means bi-amping or not. I left them bridged and hooked them up the old fashioned way with 2 conductor 14 gauge copper multistanded common quality speaker wire. I then made a similar modification to the one I made to the Heresys. It probably does not matter, but I don't like anything substantial touching the mid horn (like wires)- afraid they might buzz. On the Heresys I used an old necktie - tied it around the mid horn throat, then tied it around the tweeter leads to isolate them. In the LS it's a little different. There are a lot more leads - two leads pass to the bass bin connections (just like the main speaker connection terminals - a red and a black one) the leads touching under the horn as they go, two leads to the tweeter laying on top of the horn, and four more touching where they cross by in the general area of the mid horn throat (these are the four leads that go over to the four bridged main speaker connection terminals on the left back). All these are big wire leads, and I don't want them to touch the horn!. By the way, the leads to the bass bin are a different kind of wire - don't know what or why... So I found a clean bath towel, cut it into two pieces and basically wrapped them around the whole body of each mid horn so none of the leads could touch them directly. Now I was ready to listen. My only basis for comparison is relative to how the Heresys sounded with the same gear (and they sounded really good). Anyway, as for music with the LS..., wow! The high end is definitely smoother, the middle is more detailed and bigger, the bottom is more extended, and the whole image is bigger and better. This is what I expected, as everyone else uses the same words. But now I know what they mean. I used to wonder what folks meant when they wrote "it sounds bigger" - now I get it. The overall feeling is that of effortlessness. Not a hint of strain or distress - just pure beauty. This is the first one I played; one of my favorite albums - 1973 Soviet Union import record of Mstislav Rostropovich playing Saint Saens' Concerto in A minor for Cello and Orchestra. I know this piece very well and like it a lot. It has a lot of aggressive good playing in the bottom range of the instrument and I found even more of that revealed with the LS. And there is one part where the cello starts on the lowest open string, climbs up the neck in a scale that almost alternates between chromatic and diatonic intervals because the underlying chords of the orchestra keep modulating through different keys as the cello ascends - until passing the neck/body intersection, then continues on using 4th interval harmonics to the point where my dog starts to take notice. It's like 6 or 7 octaves! Just this passage alone gives a very musical indication of what the speaker does through the ranges. The cello was absolutely convincing and had more body to the sound - I could feel it more than with the Heresys - physically and emotionally. The dynamics are definitely stronger, too. The edge attack sound of the bowing of low notes was exhilarating and the tone was beautiful. The orchestral crescendos were more pronounced and everything sounded right. My standard "test" album I use to see if small changes I deploy make a difference is the Police's Synchronicity side two. This is funny because I don't really like Sting, and this is not a particularly well-engineered recording. But the side two has some very impacting drum playing, some real low bass playing, some artifact sounds that are very discerning, and Sting sings with a little sibilance in his voice that makes it easy to detect changes in the system performance. I happened to play this once after making some changes and thought it sounded a little different - more different than other records. Next minor system change I played it before and after and it worked - this recording seems to be especially sensitive to changes. Try it. The drums and bass on Every Breath You Take sounded firm and big. The ultra low bass verse on Wrapped Around Your Finger was solid and effortless, as if daring the source to go lower. Sting's sibilance sounded surpassingly natural and correct - the Heresys' reproduction of this always seemed a little less than authentic. In the past I had sort of blamed this on the B&O cartridge - not any more. These LS tell me that table and cartridge are excellent. ZZTop's Tres Hombres 1973. I've been a lead guitar player for the last thirty-five years and know exactly what this should sound like. I've always been disappointed with this and never thought of it as being a very good recording because it has always struck me as a little jingley and harsh, but I was in the mood to hear Hot, Blue, and Righteous, so there it is. The real surprise was the ZZ Top, and I attribute it to the networks, and maybe because the LS make the transition from mid horn to tweeter at 4500Hz instead of 6000Hz like the Heresys (I did p-trap the Heresys). This sounded smooth and confident and authentic - no harshness or roughness at all. Really surprisingly excellent. I will listen to this a lot, now. But it was during H, B, and R that I fell completely and hopelessly in love with the horn loaded bass. This sort of sneaked up on me. For my musical tastes and volume requirements I had always been perfectly satisfied with the bass response of the Heresys. I was not expecting the horn bass to do this to me. This is a softer song with the bass being played really right - hard, solid and low. What a fine sound! - and dead-on correct. I have a question someone might be able to resolve out there. From what I have read, the LS shares the same upper horns and drivers with the KH, and shares an identical driver and comparable bass bin with the Belle. But I notice that the lower crossover in the LS is 400Hz whereas 450Hz is chosen in the Klipschorn and Belle. Does anyone know how come? I find that the LS sound has a family resemblance to the Heresys, but are not only more balanced, more extended and articulate than the Heresys, they are astonishingly LOUD with my SETs. At my comfortably loud listening level the LS are only pulling what I estimate from the RS dB meter and the published specs to be about 1/3 watt from the SETs. My comfortable loud level with the LS is with the volume knob at about 9 o'clock. With the Heresys it was a little past 12 o'clock. I haven't approached anywhere close to straight up 12 o'clock with the LS. How loud can these possibly be!? Maybe I'll get used to it. Maybe I should write a note to George Wright to see if I should consider moving from his 2A3 SET amps to his 45s. Is anyone out there driving LS with a 45 SET? I'd love to consider that. Bang & Olufsen Beogram 1900 with MMC4000 cartridge (My original 30 year old belt drive turntable, radial arm, frequency response is flat out to 30kHz, I like to track a little on the heavy side at 1.3 grams. I clean every record before I play it with the Orbitrax and clean the stylus with a drop of fluid and100 brush strokes before each side - really!) Wright WPL11V Phono EQ/Preamp (Actually a WPL11V in an earlier WPL10V chassis. The difference is that the earlier version used two volumes and no balance. This one has one volume and one balance, but they are labeled as Left and Right Volumes - it was a little confusing that first day back when.) Wright 3.5 Monoblocks (Sovtek 2A3 monoplates) using the "8 ohm" tap (Its really 9 ohms, that's the way Magnequest makes them) Brand New 2005 LaScalas with the new Klipsch networks Room is a big 20w x 30d x 11h (LS in solid corners on the 20' back wall. The floor is carpet on concrete slab -see picture of room and networks) Deliriously listening to music, Paul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pauln Posted March 21, 2005 Author Share Posted March 21, 2005 x-over pix Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pauln Posted March 21, 2005 Author Share Posted March 21, 2005 closer x-over pix Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pauln Posted March 21, 2005 Author Share Posted March 21, 2005 at home Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Posted March 21, 2005 Share Posted March 21, 2005 nice post- no sub? no platform for TT? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pauln Posted March 21, 2005 Author Share Posted March 21, 2005 I listen to music on records so I don't care for a sub. I don't think it would have anything to do! I've allways placed my turntable on the floor. I think its the most stable place to avoid vibration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3dzapper Posted March 21, 2005 Share Posted March 21, 2005 Very nice read Pauln. Enjoy!!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klipsch Employees Trey Cannon Posted March 21, 2005 Klipsch Employees Share Posted March 21, 2005 Paul, If you get a chance to come to Indy for the Tour, Bring the music you used in your test...I would like to hear it on my LS with the THXU2 subs... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckears Posted March 21, 2005 Share Posted March 21, 2005 pauln, Beautiful, man. If I ever get rich quick, 5 or 6 of those LaScalas (same finish) are on my dream list for my HT. I admit being surprised by your use of Synchronicity as a reference disc; but then, I've not heard the LP for over 15 years (cd, instead). I can say that I have always been disappointed by the sound of the cd, as much as I enjoy the music on the album. It has never been as in-your-face dynamic as I feel it could be, especially given the intimacy of the songs on side two. I don't know if it's available on LP, but the CD version of Tom Petty's Wildflowers is one of my favorite reference discs... many of the songs are recorded close-miked, and even those that are not still sound like very "you-are-there" live performances. It's one of those that, for me (like Sychronicity for you), reveals minute to large changes in setup. Just a little tweak here or there, especially with the opening (title) track, gets you deeper into the performance. I am surprised that these are "doing it" for you in the bass department. Ever since I mined that lowest octave by adding a true sub-20 Hz Hsu to my Fortes, I have enjoyed a more live sound with some of my favorite recordings. It really takes you to the room of the recording, being able to reproduce the subharmonic room cues, and adds a level of realism to music listening. OTOH, I understand exactly what you're enjoying and liking about your current set-up... ever since hearing K-Horns recently (for the first time in over 15 years), I have had it bad for that gorgeous, big sound you are talking about. When every single instrument sounds like that instrument (except for maybe pipe organ), and the marvelous thing about Klipsch speakers is that they are so revealing, better components are able to show their stuff, and reveal how great (or not) they are at reproducing music. Here's hoping you have the time to break your young LaSsies in right... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnysal Posted March 21, 2005 Share Posted March 21, 2005 congrats! I am glad you are pleased with the la scalas, they are special speakers indeed. I too am glad you don´t feel the need for a sub, many express their desire to enhance the low end of the LS but in your room, with your system, with your music, it appears this is not needed. Enjoy them! tony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOSValves Posted March 21, 2005 Share Posted March 21, 2005 Paul, Very nice ! Congratulations. Those crossovers look better then Dean's work Craig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOSValves Posted March 21, 2005 Share Posted March 21, 2005 ---------------- On 3/21/2005 9:53:45 AM chuckears wrote: I admit being surprised by your use of Synchronicity as a reference disc; but then, I've not heard the LP for over 15 years (cd, instead). I can say that I have always been disappointed by the sound of the cd, as much as I enjoy the music on the album. It has never been as in-your-face dynamic as I feel it could be, especially given the intimacy of the songs on side two. ---------------- You think the CD is bad try the SACD out ! I bought the entire Police collection on SACD just to listen once. Talk about bright !The LP's are a different story like most 70's and 80's music. I was really pissed that they blew it on the SACD's. Craig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deang Posted March 21, 2005 Share Posted March 21, 2005 "Those crossovers look better then Dean's work." That's because you can't see them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacksonbart Posted March 21, 2005 Share Posted March 21, 2005 Very nice write up, liked the details, great looking speakers. Congratulations. The turtle wax was a nice touch, but I am bit of a freak but I love the smell of new speakers, they typically smell like just milled furniture, hard to describe. Enjoy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricktate Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 Wow i remember when my LaScalas were delivered and un boxed to this day,loved the smell and then the sound the guys checked them over then left and i stayed up allnight.lol..You might try grippers on yours if you can roll the carpet away and then A/B them make sure you put gripper in center of access door to.Can you get better pics soon would love to see them better.Rick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edwinr Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 Thanks for the great review, pauln. It's nice to hear someone appreciating the LaScalas for what they are, a superb loudspeaker virtually without peer. You'd have to pay an awful lot of money to get better sound - which is where the mighty Klipschorn comes in! Edit: If you could post some more pics with grill on and off that would be nice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pauln Posted March 25, 2005 Author Share Posted March 25, 2005 Thanks for all the kind words, suggestions, and encouragement. I am going to try to take some better pictures this weekend, grills on, grills off (ooh la la!), networks, etc. If I have time I may try some of your suggestions. Paul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r.cherry Posted March 26, 2005 Share Posted March 26, 2005 you crack me up...get a new pair of speakers and the 1st thing you do is wax them! shoot man if i had the coin to buy some new lascalas the 1st thing i'd do is hook em up and enjoy the music. congrats on the new speakers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted March 27, 2005 Share Posted March 27, 2005 r.cherry, Nice tractor. Was it one that the family owned? Marvel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r.cherry Posted March 27, 2005 Share Posted March 27, 2005 still have it actually. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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