La Scala first impressions

[jeffgeorge]

It seems as though I have always had Klipsch in the house. I have always loved my Heresys, went the Reference route for a while, and wanted to really make a difference with my next Klipsch purchase.

I think I did it! I am not going to say anything that has not been said before, but these things really are several steps above any Klipsch I have owned until now. The soundstage is very wide, open and full of spine tingling detail. I have never been a bass nut, but I do like it fast and punchy - these babies deliver that in abundance!

I replaced my RF-3's in my HT with these, turned my RC-3 off (phantom center mode) and jacked up the output of my rears (RS-3's). I have also boosted the output of my SVS sub to compensate for the increased efficiency. Since doing this, I have watched three movies and can honestly say that I like the surround as much off as I do on. Has anyone else experienced this phenomena? I think with the wide soundstage and the extreme efficiency the La Scalas seem to dominate almost all detail in the movies' audio mix. I don't really have room for Heritage surround speakers, although I could do a Heresy center probably.

Has anyone else given up on surround sound after they have found their Klipsch "nirvana"? Or, am I just a lone ranger?

[triode]

I think most audiophiles that have built great 2 channel systems, gave up on surround sound the first time they heard it. To me it's mostly annoying. -

It kinda reminds me of the 'reverb' thing that AM radio stations did in the early 60's. Everyone went WOW at first and then realized that it actually sounded worse!

I'm waiting for 69 channel sound, before I finally take the jump

[Klewless]

Well you asked!

I am one of those with one foot in the boat and the other on the dock. I am done with 2-channel. Am doing 3-channel and skipping the surround stuff all together. However I am using surround decoders on my receiver to get the third (center) channel. I love the result.

[ottscay]

I know I'm sort of sticking my neck out of the Home Theater forum where my ilk belong, but I really like surround systems, even for music. Now, to be fair, I own a Reference system, so perhaps I would feel differently if I owned heritage (although not much of a chance of that happening, I really like the sound of my reference system). But frankly with a really good processor (I'm using a an Arcam avr-300) the musical surround modes, like neo:6, sound fantastic. With fullrange surrounds (bookshelf speakers in my case) the soundstage broadens up in a way that can't be done with two speakers. And with the right settings, it's cimpletely unobtrusive. As an added bonus, movies retain all their surround punch. Which in the case of The Incredibles is, well, incredible.

Just my 2 cents, I'll retreat to my surround sound cave now...

Scott

[Seadog]

Depending upon the source material, I think some music sounds better in 2-channel and some better in multi-channel. Most live performance DVDs or SACDs sound better to me in multichannel, but not all. The "oldies" that are being remixed and re-released in multi-channel usually do not sound right to me.

[ottscay]

I whole heartedly agree that many surround mixed SACDs don't sound right, especially with older and/or classical works. There are some wonderful exceptions, such as the SACD soundtrack of Chicago, but that wasn't what I meant about enjoying surround music. Neo:6 processing isn't multi-track play, it takes stereo sources and pulls out the ambient sounds and sends them to the surrounds, while still preserving the original stereo stage for the main speakers. With an average processor/reciever this isn't too great because the processing degrades sound quality, but with my Arcam I really can't notice any loss in sound quality from redbook cds at all. In fact, it sounds better than the straight pass-through of my previous reciever. Now when I use the surround processing, the music still sounds great and the room completely fills up with music in a very natural sounding manner.

I was never a fan of surround processing music before this. The only good description I've read of this phenomena describes it as the difference between peaking in the door of a music hall and actually sitting down inside the music hall. I understand that really good speakers in a really good room do this anyways, but my room is severely acoustically "challenged" and I rent, so there isn't much I can do about it. The surround processing makes my Reference speakers disapear despite my architectural problems. It's easily the best way to enjoy stereo sources within the limitations of my room (although it's VERY important to have full range speakers rather than "surround" dipole speakers for this to work...trust me!).

I actually ended up with a 7.1 setup. I started with 5.1, but because the bookshelf speakers don't have as wide of dispersion as dipoles, I ended up getting four bookshelf speakers to replace the two dipole rears. Worth every penny, especially (and sort of ironically) for music, which is about 70% of my listening habit (additction?).

When I move and upgrade to rf-7s, perhaps this will be less important, but it's been such a good experience I feel I have to at least provide a token defense for using surround systems for plain old stereo source playback.

Scott

[WMcD]

There is some old precedent for this from PWK himself. Any non-horn in the system hurts more than it helps.

He had initally designed the units with direct bass radiators (CW and H) as a center channel for the K-Horns (which like your LS are horns in all three bands).

It seems that he was not totally pleased. In one Dope from Hope (his communication to dealers), he addressed the issue of what to do when a customer wants a center channel.

His advice was to tell the customer to save up for a Belle or LS rather than even one of his CW or H. The reasoning was that any direct driver bass puts out the type of distortion which bass horns obviate.

That advice is a bit difficult to appreciate in that people love CW and H and many of the other Klipsch direct radiator designs. So if they sound good alone, why shouldn't they sound good with three-way horns.

I'll just trust that PWK heard something he didn't like.

I think it may be a "signature" or "voicing" thing. More a pattern of even minute distortion which doesn't match up. PWK did not say a lot more about the subject.

He was down on using a direct midrange with a bass horn, too.

- - - -

Dr. Bruce Edgar (builder of horns) had a slightly more extensive explanation reaching pretty much the same conclusion.

He observed that some three way direct radiators sound good. Most three way horns sound good. But to his ear, a speaker with a direct bass radiator with treble horn(s) are not quite correct to his ear. Note this is contrary to the merits of CW and H. OTOH, some folks find a big advantage to the Belle or LS which have less deep bass than the CW.

So Edgar is mostly agreeing with mainstream thoughts that three way direct radiator are, maybe, not so bad. But mixing in one box is problematic.

His theory is that direct radiators have a signature distortion spectrum (which PWK would agree with in principle). If there are two or three of them the entire output has the same pattern of distortion. However, our ear - brain combination can ignore it, but only as long as it is consistent across the band. That is why they are accepted so widely when well designed.

Edgar's thought is that when the drivers are mixed in one box, there is not consistent distortion pattern and it grate on him.

So you can see that Edgar likes consistent designs, even if the full horn is superior.

Except for Edgar's nod to full direct radiators as an alternative, both he and PWK are pointing out issues of mixed designs.

The bottom line is that your observations on surrounds and perhaps center is the same as PWK's and Edgar's. Keeping it all horn preserves an aspect which any additional direct driver contaminates.

Gil

[aviserated]

The new book about Mr. Klipsch states, "Many of use musicians feel that the LaScala has the cleanest, purist sound of all the Klipsch loudspeakers".

[Duke Spinner]

Huuh ..??

clearest sound ...

[jeffgeorge]

Being a musician (drummer), I would say that the La Scalas are without doubt, the most musical Klipsch I have ever owned. Thanks Gil... as always, very informative.

[WMcD]

I thought about this for a while. The comments by Dr. Edgar were probably while he was holding court in a hallway at a convention in Indiana several years ago.

I was present as well as a buddy. I don't know if they are in print anywhere. Dr. Edgar likes to talk about horns.

It is interesting to me when PWK and Edgar are saying about the same thing, and then a third-party comes with the same observations.

Gil

[colterphoto1]

Just build your surround system out of Heritage and you'll have the best of both worlds. Right now I've got 4 Cornwalls, soon to be 5, plus two heresies just for kicks. There is something truly great about being surrounded by FULL RANGE speakers that no sub/satellite system can equal. When a sound pans around the room, it really pans. For movies, I can't ever seeing myself going back to 2 ch. You've got the loudest LR mains on the planet there, no wonder nothing can keep up. I'd suggest a Heresy up front, or a third LS, and Heresy for your rears.

That being said, although i have a Yamaha processor RXV2400, and think their sound fields are the best going, I rarely use them, preferring instead to stay with 2ch with a little YPAO EQ and tone controls for personal tastes. Even the 7 ch surround seems to diminish the sound space. I can't speak to the SACD question.

Thanks to those who got me going on the match timbre approach. Anything less does really cheapen the surround spectrum.

Michael