Into the deep with headphones

[fini]

Allan,

I'm not hip to the options, but I'll check them out locally and get back to you if that's OK? I saw one in use at the school where I took my (basically useless) AutoCAD training. They're supposed to be ****.

[Allan Songer]

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On 5/26/2005 4:59:12 PM Parrot wrote:

Actually, in that movie, which has got to be one of the most overrated flicks of all time, they used a horse head from a slaughterhouse.

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And this is from someone who IN THIS VERY THREAD took the time to compare and contrast a second-rate TV actress's makeup and wardrobe between one dumb-*** cop show and another!

"Not following what you're saying here. I think Jill Hennessy was much better in "Law and Order." She's too glamorized on "Crossing Jordan," you know, walking in slow motion in ads, her long hair blowing back, that kind of thing."

L-O-EFFING-L!!

And didn't Paul just complain about OFF TOPIC posts?!

Hello Mister Pot, I'd like you to meet Mr, Kettle!

HILARIOUS!

[Parrot]

I recall some lines by Walt Whitman (note to Allan: Whitman was a poet).

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

[Allan Songer]

All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candor.

-Walt Whitman

You are forgiven.

[Parrot]

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On 5/26/2005 5:29:52 PM Allan Songer wrote:

. . . to compare and contrast a second-rate TV actress's makeup and wardrobe between one dumb-*** cop show and another!

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That's probably going to offend Dodger.

[Allan Songer]

Did I say there was anything wrong with enjoying dumb-*** cop shows starring second-rate actresses?

Plus, "Crossing Jordan" is a VERY good customer of mine!

[Erik Mandaville]

Well, this is just going to result in a bump-up. When I logged on this afternoon, I was actually hoping to find this long scarf down at the bottom.

As a brief (I promise!) follow up, I want to mention that it all began with an interest in finding a way to reproduce in the Klipschorns some of the very, very low notes I heard with headphones. I agree rooms can be a problem, and our listening space is no exception; however, these have been repaired to an acceptable margin. Things were far worse when the horns were in the corners of the long wall, where they were very snug in the 90 degree angles. Too much boom. Still, I think there is some definite room for improvement, although I can't say that chucking the Lexicon will help pave the way to better sound. Based on the improvements it HAS made here, I can't see myself tossing it up for auction yet. That might happen when I upgrade to another processor, most likely a Lexicon.

As weird as it may sound, the Lowthers are not at all bad as side channel speakers. I think part of the reason for that is that they are also very clear and quick-sounding like the K-horns, La Scala and Heresies. As Paul indicates, they are probably not the ideal speakers, but they are what I have right now.

Again this all revolves around the personal preference thing, which, just as with art, music, and food, is something so important(IMO) to how we enjoy music that I believe it can't be overstated.

Erik

[Guy Landau]

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On 5/26/2005 7:23:46 PM Erik Mandaville wrote:

As a brief (I promise!) follow up, I want to mention that it all began with an interest in finding a way to reproduce in the Klipschorns some of the very, very low notes I heard with headphones. ----------------

JBL L-300 Summits will give you that. Cornwalls most probably too.

[edwinr]

Eric. Have you tried your Klipschorns in your short corners? Forget, for the moment, the fact that off axis listening may not be ideal with Klipschorns. I'm just curious about the effect on the bass reproduction in your room.

I tried this with mine. I found, however, that the bass quality actually decreased. I got more bass, but it wasn't as clean and extended.

[Erik Mandaville]

Edwin:

"Eric. Have you tried your Klipschorns in your short corners? Forget, for the moment, the fact that off axis listening may not be ideal with Klipschorns. I'm just curious about the effect on the bass reproduction in your room."

Sure. We've had them on the shorter wall for the past 8 months, or so. The problem with having them on the longer wall was that they had peaky bass response in that position. I think if the floor were solid (as in concrete)it would be much better, but our listening room is upstairs with a suspended wooden floor. I wondered about this even before we got the Klipschorns, but felt that the time was right to get them, and know they will be our last pair of main speakers. They do all the things I like incredibly well, but I know there are some improvements still out there. Altec 511Bs for the midrange might be among those.

Guy, thanks for the suggestions. I stated what I meant -- getting the same kind of bass from the Klipschorns that I do with headphones -- poorly. What I meant was really with our system. In other words, there is no requirement that the low bass has to come from the Klipschorns. What we get from the K-horns is really very good, but it's just some of really low stuff that is not reproduced with as much authority and strength as I would like.

Since our house is built on a concrete slab foundation, I'd move the system downstairs if we had a suitable floor plan, but we really don't. When my wife and I were looking for a new house 7 years ago, the first thing I always check out are listening room possibilities (I bet some of you are the same way!. We found one that was PERFECT in that respect, but just did not have some of the other features we needed -- although I think I would have been happy

Erik

[Deang]

PWK said about using Heresies as a center with Klipschorn mains: That the apparent distortion of the entire three-speaker array will take on the distortion of the worst speaker. That applies to surrounds, too:

PK also said you can have too much speaker for a room, something I apparently decided to learn about the hard way. Erik has a modest sized room, and with all of those speakers sharing the load, needs very little in the way of power to reach realistic levels. The Heresy was certainly inadequate for the surround application in your room, but I don't think it's an issue for Erik, in fact, it's probably not the best situation acoustically speaking to have seven monstrosities bearing down on the listening position. If it were me, I might be tempted to just remove the two sides (lowthers), and go with a nice five speaker setup, and build a nice little two channel system in another room with the Lowthers.

[colterphoto1]

Finally bit at this thread guys. Didn't have much interest in the headphone topic, then figured, what could they possibly be writing about for 100+ posts- answer- nearly everything BUT headphones. Very interesting smorgasbord of topic here, should have titled it MINESTRONE! LOL

If I may be permitted to speak of cans, I have a set of old Koss Pro4AAA's that were my best friend when mixing bands back in the 80's. Still love the sound and those fluid-filled earcups. What would be a suitable replacement today for say, less than $150?

Thanks,

Michael

[Parrot]

Michael,

Why not keep using what you have?

[colterphoto1]

They're probably pretty blown up, sound kinda okay, but you know me, I just like to shop! I just found them the other day in a box of garage stuff. Been since Nov that I moved and still unboxing junk. Is that a sickness?

M

[Erik Mandaville]

Dean is right. We get very satisfactory volume levels, but I still I prefer a little more power behind big woofers -- I noticed the difference with ALL of the higher power amps I've had here in the past several months, tubes and SS.

Dean this is really the truth about those Lowther horns -- at least from what I've experienced: They are very big encosures, but the response is very much like a pair of monitors I built with 6.5" woofers. They have incredible midrange ability, but take a pretty big nose dive much earlier than the K-horns. I also have the sides and rears rolled off at 120 cycles, so they are sort of being used within the best range for them. They are just so freaking (pardon me) BIG! Shawn also said he thought I could get by with something smaller.

But sure, I can experiment with what works best. it's a good idea, really. I am really not experiencing bad room problems anymore. We had some odd slap test results, but that's improved lots with the hanging of four hand-woven rugs in certain places. It helped quite a bit.

Also, the side and rears are very, very subtle in what they do for the overall sound. The Lexicon has something Called a 'Party' mode, which sounds kind of corny, but is just a name, afterall. It's good for background listening, but doesn't sound natural. It's just loud, whereas the Music Logic feature is really good. The sides and rears in this case are much more attenuated.

Thanks,

Erik

[ben.]

A pregnant pause...

[edwinr]

Good onya, Ben! I was too scared too post in this thread again. I reckon Eric is hiding under the bed.

Hey, BTW. Great pic. My wife loves it.

[Erik Mandaville]

Hiding? From what?

The thread just sort of exhausted itself.....for me, anyway.

Nah, I'm here.

Erik

[jt1stcav]

Damn...just read this entire thread from beginning to end, and I'm quite disappointed at the behavior of some of our fellow Klipschans! No matter what the original subject might be, it always ends up being a debate over SET and PP, who's right and who's wrong, and who's smart and who's dumb! It's my way or the highway...who gives a rat's ***!

Why can't we SET owners be left alone to enjoy our systems. I don't criticize PP owners; I have no reason to. My brother has both PP 6BQ5-based amps and two Class-D amps (one Tripath, the other chip from Texas Instruments) and he uses each one seperately to suit his tastes at any particular moment; is there anything wrong with that arrangement? I'm sure someone here will find fault with his system and denounce it as pure horse$hit because it's not what they have or would use or would recommend to others. I'm still waiting for the $hit to hit the proverbial fan just because I'm not using my Cornwalls anymore, that I'm listening to Bach preludes and fugues right this very moment on...gasp...French made Triangle Electroacoustique 2-way towers (i.e.: no HORNS)!

Erik, if you're still interested in DIY passive subwoofers with seperate amps and crossovers, you may want to contact my youngest brother concerning his DIY dual 2-way 15" bipolar subs (two huge open-baffle enclosures, each with two 15" drivers in PP configuration), driven by a 200 WPC SS stereo power amp and an AudioControl crossover. It had deep, penetrating bass to at least 20Hz (or lower), but took up way too much floor space. Now he's got a single SVS PB12-ISD/2 subwoofer with dual 12" down-firing drivers powered by a 600 watt BASH digital switching amp and 3 tuned ports for 16, 20, and 25Hz response. At $900, it's a bargain for all the features it has!

[Parrot]

Jim,

The answers to all your questions can be found here:

http://forums.klipsch.com/idealbb/view.asp?mode=viewtopic&topicID=51538

Won't you admit to missing the old 112dB days with your McIntosh amps, when you could make it seem like a pipe organ was in your room.