Chi/IN/KY meeting

[Mike Lindsey]

Nope, I am not. I have not talked to Dr Who. And Mike was too excited about his pics..

I knew I should of taken all my speakers outside too for a huge pic..

That is just too cool!!!!!

Well, as I'm sure you can tell, we really enjoyed sharing all of this with a couple of great friends in the Klipsch brotherhood. Gotsta do it more often, and make a bigger deal of it...like those bozo's in Florida with Wine and Cheeseburgers.

LMAO! []

I wish someone would comment on it though...

Mike

[meagain]

I wish someone would comment on it though...

Mike

Yes! And blazingly honest. I want to know if Colter was moved by tubes or thinks his Yamaha smokes them. I want to know if Dr. Who still doesn't care for khorns. We're talking about objects not people.... so.... let 'er rip?

[Woodog]

Well, as I'm sure you can tell, we really enjoyed sharing all of this with a couple of great friends in the Klipsch brotherhood. Gotsta do it more often, and make a bigger deal of it...like those bozo's in Florida with Wine and Cheeseburgers.

Dang, Todd, why didn't WE think of that. Wine and Cheeseburgers. The perfect horn compliment.

Woo (thwacking himself on the head in a MarthaStewart/HomerSimpson moment)

[Woodog]

I do not know everything that may or may not be said.. I also realise whatever is said.. It is just an opinion. I have had people come over impressed as all get out (That's Indiana talk for overwhelmed) or just so so. Sometimes my heart shrank sometimes I was surprised. (At their surprise and amazement too.. I mean I love this hobby too!) What did they think I was gonna do use BOSE 301's and a cheap sub???

I do not in any way have a perfect room and I suggest most of us do not. If, however, (minus Artto) We allow ourselves to get caught up in the excitement of our friends reasons they love Klipsch and why.... we might discover something.. And something that might work for us too. (I did in my upstairs HT with one set of surrounds on the floor tilted up behind my couch. It works, and the RS7's mixed with heritage works great too for surround duty. Also, a older decorator Cornwall II vertical on it's side as a center is also a MAJOR home run.. Between 2 k horns... blah blah blah... ) The point is, I got these ideas from others.. and tried them myself..

I then trust some of you who also seek advice will find out, too, on your own with good suggestions as well.

What I do enjoy most is meeting other fanatics... Klipsch people are great, in general, and it has been more than rewarding to see your love for things audio wise these last few years.. I never knew in my life I would find like friends into this as much if not more than I am. As a kid I thought for sure I was the only one... Who believed!! PWK lives on!!

Indy,

Exactly! I owe much, if not all, of my listening pleasure to following the advice gleaned from reading this forum. When I finally experienced that 'sound' (in the form of Cornwalls which I bought before ever hearing them) I wanted to go screaming about 'lookee lookee!!!!!' or, rather, 'listen listen!'

Had I not been a member of this forum I would've hit the delete button when an add that said 'Klipsch speakers, beautiful sound but HUGE' appeared in my classified email list. Instead, I made a phone call.

Meeting the fanatics is just icing on the cake.

Woo

[BS Button]

I wish someone would comment on it though...

Mike

Yes! And blazingly honest. I want to know if Colter was moved by tubes or thinks his Yamaha smokes them. I want to know if Dr. Who still doesn't care for khorns. We're talking about objects not people.... so.... let 'er rip?

Meagain,

It's still about people. I'd be willing to betcha that part of Dr. Who's dissapointment is in himself for pre-judging maybe the Khorns elsewhere, with different amplification and crossovers. Remember there are ALK's in Woodogs Khorns and he's going to give me a go with those on the La Scala's, sometime soon. Hope Who posts, soon. They're going to bash my listening room, but I hope that's it.

[meagain]

BS - I forgot what crossovers you have currently but it's a very very nice opportunity to hear another set! I'd love to be able to do that. Crossover rolling.

[lwhaples]

Being able to follow this thread and enjoy,is sweet! You guys sure had

a fun weekend. Michael,Thanks again for the help with the CW. Still

waiting to hear from Dr Who on the money thing. Mike ,good luck with

your interview and THANKS big time for grabbing the

CW for me.

Larry

[BS Button]

Well, as I'm sure you can tell, we really enjoyed sharing all of this with a couple of great friends in the Klipsch brotherhood. Gotsta do it more often, and make a bigger deal of it...like those bozo's in Florida with Wine and Cheeseburgers.

Dang, Todd, why didn't WE think of that. Wine and Cheeseburgers. The perfect horn compliment.

Probably because we're not focused on doing things right, rather: doing the right things. We've gotta make a weekend of this, soon. It's kicking my a$$, that Colter won't be in Hope...Colter, can't you hire out this job to some photo nerd or something?

BS

Woo (thwacking himself on the head in a MarthaStewart/HomerSimpson moment)

[colterphoto1]

Sorry guys, I'm a PERSONAL service, they hire me, they get me.

Thought I'd give a little more feedback on the listening experience as Who is apparently sidelined with whatever college cr@p they put him through. I think I'd given pretty good response to Forrest's Scott/Khorn setup. I was completely impressed at that BIG sound in such a small room with presumably teensy wattage. It just sounded REAL.

But here's the problem in our listening, particularly at Todds. This is not meant to be any slam on the hospitality offered, as no one can be expected to conduct a perfect A/B comparison of anything audio, especially electronics. It's not terribly difficult with speakers, but expecting the guys to obtain or haul over a S/S receiver just for old Colter to fall in love with tubes was not in the cards this weekend. That being said, I did enjoy the listen at both places.

But I feel that I need to give Todd some more feedback. Overall the listening experience was amazing. Both sets of speakers had their place, depending on source material. I have the same problem with choosing CW or LS. The Cornscala would be the perfect solution for both of us. But I digress.

First, although we both have CW and LS, there was so much that was so different in our systems and musical tastes that it was impossible to get a true feel for what was making any change in sound quality or what changes I might want to implement.

Todd has gone really to the Nth degree with his system. The relatively new LS have the AL3 networks while mine are much older but have Bob's AA/A's in them. Todd's CW's have not only the K52K driver by Heppner, but new voice coils in the K77's and some hotshot crossover (sorry I forget)- mine are completely stock, down to the original xovers.

So right away, comparison becomes difficult. Secondly Todd has gone to great pains in both the pre and amp department, with the Peach tube preamp and the very solid Klipsch 4004 amplifier. I noticed superior cabling for interconnects and speaker lines.

I enjoyed the sound of his system very much but could not put my finger on which components were making the difference, therefore tough to decide which improvements to make in my own system.

Prior to any change in the pre/amp department or moving to tubes from my Yamaha RXV2400 receiver, I think I should at minimum update all crossovers. Who and I just took inventory of all Heritage cabinets in stock in preparation for the massive purchase needed to accomplish this (might as well do em all at the same time, while reveneering). I could also stand to upgrade my source components (my lowly Denon CD player is probably 10 years old, although still solid, the Sony DVD skips quite a bit). I should check into better interconnects also.

Then there is the room. Our rooms are entirely different, perhaps our ears are attuned to our own respective rooms. If one is better or not is not the point. They are very different.

Remember that mine is around 16x30 with 3/4 solid knotty pine paneling on most walls, except one 10' floor-to-ceiling limestone fireplace on the very front wall. I have double thick pad under thick carpeting on floors and one large window has 4" wedge foam over about half of it's surface to aid in absorbtion. There is virtually no flutter or echo in the room as a handclap will demonstrate. The wood gives a much 'warmer' tonality than plaster or drywall. I have a high frequency roll off due probably to combination of old crossovers and the wood paneling. But I'm used to it, it's comfortable to me. Feels like home.

Todd's room is a gabled room of approximately the same size on the second floor of his home. The multiple angled ceiling portions would presume to break up standing waves quite well. However there was one effect that I noticed immediately that I could not get out of my head. The prime seating location was a 3 seater leather sofa against the back wall in a windowed gable. So there were two 'wing walls' to the roof line about 8 feet either side of the listening position. I don't know if it was the drywall, thinner carpet, or being back in that cove of walls and windows, but I noticed (and demonstrated to Who via the 'clap' technique) a very distinct slapback 'ping'. This led to (in my mind) exagerrated treble frequencies and blurring of the sound image in that frequency range.

Who noticed this too, and I think he was amazed that I picked up on exactly what we were hearing so quickly. We spoke of this afterward and I think came to the conclusion that this was the single flaw we could find in Todd's otherwise remarkable system. Now there was no tone controls by design, so could not turn the treble down. It wouldn't have mattered, because room problems can rarely be fixed by means of eq. It was a very narrow band of pinging slapback echoes. We found that by standing in front of the coffee table, out of the nook, the problem disappeared. Merely leaning forward on the sofa alleviated it partly.

My suggestion to Todd would be to investigate the placement of some absorbtive materials along those two wedge walls, perhaps some additional dampening in general in the room (soft cushions or more soft upholstery) and perhaps heavy curtains on the back window. Any combination of these would likely take care of the room problem as we noticed.

Oh, and Todd- get some more CD's dude! Great catalog of what you have, but I'd spend less on hardware (like I should talk) and start building that CD collection. You have a beautiful home and great system. You deserve to have a broader library to select from. I think your addition of a top notch tuner section will also give you more cause to head upstairs to your beautiful 2ch room.

Michael

[DrWho]

I hope Who is constructing a dissertation.

Gosh, I'm so sorry this is taking so long...I effectively haven't been

home since Friday except 4 short hours of sleep Sunday evening...I had

an annual seminar to attend Sunday evening and got home really late and

then had to wake up very early for some homework I totally forgot

about. It is now 10pm Monday and I've just come home to change clothes

and go do some homework, which usually takes ~8 hours. And then I will

be out of town Tuesday morning/afternoon and then have to work that

evening. On top of it all I have an acoustics test on Wednesday. And

Thursday I will be preparing to go to St. Louis for the weekend and

then I've got finals week starting Monday.

I will do my best to have my forum homework done by tonight, but I did

want to say thanks for having us down there....it was a blast. I really

enjoy getting face time with forum members as it totally puts their

posts into perspective and adds inflection that you wouldn't otherwise

notice. I've thought about writing a quick write up but that's just not

my style so I hope you guys don't mind. I wish there were 8 more hours

in a day so I could get much more done (though I'd probably just

overflow that time too).

Anyways, peace out, rock on, and don't drown in the toilet... []

[DrWho]

oh wow, so after changing I just realized that there's another page of posts already...lol.

Btw, the "dissapointment" was meant to be a joke...but I was gonna

mention my doubting of the khorns as Todd elluded to....but of course I

will describe it in much further detail in my long dissertation (so

don't go drawing conclusions too early) [][]

Seems the cliffhanger worked though [] But only good news to report on this end.

Anyways, time for homework - be back hopefully later tonite *crosses fingers*

(sometimes I just hate college...any future career is going to be a vacation compared to this 20 hours of work per class per week crap. I haven't even fricken unpacked my car yet...)

[DrWho]

Well that only took 2 hours...gotta love when your hw partner does all the work ahead of time []

So ya...where to start...

Friday afternoon I drove down to Colter's place after 3 back-to-back

tests. Man that will just fry your brain. It's Monday and I'm still

fried and I've yet one more test to go this week. So that

afternoon/evening we just chilled and he helped me package up Larry's

cornwall cabinet that will be getting sent out on Tuesday. It would

have been nice to ship it from Indy, but all the places were closed!

That night we had dinner at some local restraunt, forget the name,

where we were served by a cute waitress lady - it's such a riot going

out with Colter in public, we had her at our table for like 3/4 of the

meal [] And then afterwards she gave us multiple coupons for a free

meal - but the trick is that you need to call in and do this 5 minute

survey that takes 7:20 [:@]

After dinner we watched some movie...gosh forgot the name of that one

too...I'm not usually a fan of Adam Sandler, but the soundtrack in that

movie was insane - tons of great old classics that were mixed in sooooo

well...I've worked on a few soundtracks for shorter movies and it's

very hard to do and the stuff going on in that movie was way over the

top hard, but done soooo well. I need to go find out who engineered it

and go do an internship there sometime. And the volume was kept low and

for good reason...

Saturday morning started bright and early at 8am where we piled our

tired bodies into the car. Was it 8am? I forget now - whatever it was

it was 10 hours too early. The ride down south was filled with very

quiet music as Colter went through his CDs deciding on some things to

play. I am continuously amazed at the wealth of music history that just

keeps on pouring forth - I seriously need to start taking a tape

recorder and then writing a book from the notes.

So after an uneventful but education ride down there we arrive at

Todd's place after some confusion with the directions - but no biggy, I

think that Corvette Museum was calling our name [] Todd welcomed us

in the driveway and we got a tour of the beautiful house and were shown

a lot of the photography work that Todd had done in school? I really

dig the framing job of those pics in the family room.

One thing that Colter and I both noticed was the lack of speakers

elsewhere in the house...In fact, I was a bit confused because the last

room we were shown was the one upstairs with his sound equipment.

Though he was talking about doing something, like speakers in the

garage and then his daughter was asking for klispch speakers for her

birthday, we all got a kick out of that. She even demo'ed some of her

music for us - she is totally going to be a guy magnet in the future.

So how's that for a long intro? Now down to the good stuff...

We listened to a crap load of music at Todd's place...I wanna say about

4 hours straight. Todd started off demo'ing a lot of his own stuff

which all sounded nice of course (otherwise he wouldn't be demo'ing it)

[] Colter already commented on the flutter echo issue - it was

something I couldn't put my finger on and was sitting there trying to

find something to blaim. I had walked into the room and saw all the

non-parallel surfaces and got it into my head that this room was going

to have good acoustics - which in fact it did. Everything in the room

was just right except that flutter echo - especially after it was

pointed out. But that's ok...the mind is a great tool and quickly

filters out such constant variables.

Overall I would have to say his system sounded "fine" in the sense that

there was nothing to complain about. Very clean system all around. Todd

got his Aragon amp after he purchased the Peach and I am curious which

unit is responsible for which sound - surely both are good performers

if the sound was so clean, but I would like to compare something like a

Denon AVR-97 with the Peach just as a cool experiment (more on this

later).

During the demo of Todd's system we were having some problems playing

burned discs on the CAL CD player that he was demo'ing in his sytem

(and apparently had already decided not to purchase). A lot of the

older players have problems with burned discs because the data is

stored differently and the older lasers don't like it. It's nothing

wrong with the unit itself - just a compatability issue.

I found Todd's cornwalls to be surprisingly on the bright side - not in

the sense of the bad bright, but in the sense of lacking low frequency

extension. I tried walking around the room to listen for standing waves

and wasn't hearing any anywhere...which is wierd because they should be

very audible. I'm not sure if the guys noticed me plopping down right

in front of the speaker but the idea was to sit in a position where the

effects of the room were as minimized in proportion to the direct sound

of the speaker...still not the typical exagerated cornwall bass to

which I am accustomed. I suppose some might argue that is a good thing

[]

Halfway through the listening session Todd swapped out the cornwalls

for lascalas and we gave them a listen. They definetly have way less

bass that drops off at 70Hz. I had chosen source material that I've run

through waterfall plots to get an idea of the frequency range of the

bass response to get an idea of where speakers roll off. Just for kicks

I tried throwing in some 16Hz material and neither system would show

any hints of reproducing it...it was complete notes entirely lost - the

guys had no clue because they had never heard the source material

before. One thing I noticed is how crazy style the bass bins of the

lascalas vibrate - like it was visible from a distance. I was thinking

about how the sound is propogating through the horn channel and it

almost doesn't make sense - like there really shouldn't be side panel

vibration - at least not that much. The thing practically works like a

passive radiator so i guess in a way it might not be such a bad thing.

*shifty eyes*

And then finally, Todd is using this crazy dbx bass enhancer thing. It

is definetly a cool tool that I would love to put in the studio, but

I'm not sure how I feel about it for normal music. It seems like a hit

or miss - either it sounded way awesome and totally enhanced the music

or it added a muddiness that kinda took away. If the thing had a remote

I would be all for it cuz then you could dial in to your heart's

content at the listening position. In fact, my only qualm with the

Peach was the total lack of remote control. It is tedious to keep

jumping up in order to change the volume.

Well I think that pretty much sums up Todd's system...I think I'll put part two into a second post.

Am I forgetting anything? It's late and I'm wasted so who knows...it

would be cool to get a list of all the music we listened to...

[DrWho]

Ok, on to Woodog's (Forrest's) place...

We started wrapping things up at Todd's place and were waiting on a

ride for his daughters to go hang out a friend's party? I didn't get

all the details. Anyways, it was about 3pm and we hadn't eaten yet so

we decided to get food on the way - stopping by Mancino's which is an

awesome restraunt. A "small" sub sandwich was like 14 inches long? Man

that thing was a beast. And to top it all off Todd treated - which is

mega cool...doubly so for a college kid.

Eventually [] we found our way to Forrest's place where

we were welcomed by a familiar face...I totally hadn't realized that we

met at the pilgrimage in Indy last year...so that was definetly mega

cool. We started off the demo in his son's room where there were a pair

of Tannoy Monitor Gold series or something like that speakers. I'm a

big fan of the tannoy coaxial designs and was totally digging that

bedroom setup - which of course was powered by tubes.

And then it was off to the khorn room with the magical listening chair.

It's crazy how you have to sit right there in order to get a good

soundstage so we ended up playing a lot of musical chairs.

I forget the name of the music Forrest started us off with, but I was

totally digging some of his music collection - just one of those

personal preference things. But again, I wasn't familiar with a lot of

the stuff being demo'd so it was more of a music exploration experience

than anything else. I forget how the CD got in the player, but things

were kinda quiet and Colter and Todd were talking and I told Forrest

that the CD started off hard and loud and that he should crank it - if

nothing else to scare the other guys *evil grin*...so there goes track

1 from Celldweller which has this crazy huge bass sound that about

rocketed everyone outta their chair. It was crazy loud and I don't

normally listen at those levels but it was fun to clean the ears out.

Nevertheless I was dissapointed that the khorns didn't sound like I

remember...I guess by design they are just a very very picky speaker.

However, I have been spending some time lately training my ears to pick

out time-alignment issues and modelling the theoretically effects of

the khorn. I can confidently say that you can hear it when you listen

for it - though it's definetly something where I should just shup and

listen to the music.

I found it ironic that Colter caught of picture of me looking down the

side of the bass bin because I was trying to listen for resonations in

the system. One thing I found very interesting is that the bass bin

puts out no sound when you put your head right be the crack - which

actually is a phenomenon that we talked about in my acoustics class - I

thought it was cool to see it in action.

One thing I think Forrest had going for him was the thick wood panelling of his walls which vibrate way less than drywall.

If I were to sum up his system I'd say it was all about great imaging and huge dynamic sound.

The khorns were digging down to a good 30Hz, but I would still want to

use a subwoofer with them - I snuck in a recording or two with

subharmonic material and you would never know it was there.

I'm not sure what else to talk about there and I'm falling asleep at the keyboard so I'll finish part 3 another time...

[colterphoto1]

Doing good so far Doc, yeah I forgot to mention Todd's way cool lil daughter. What was that CD that she had! Some French Disco music if memory serves. But the shy little lass woudn't let me take her photo.

I was impressed with Todd's HS b&w photography professionally framed on several walls of the main part of the home. I think he said his Mom had carefully stored them and it looked like the prints were made yesterday. So that gained me some admiration for him right off the bat.

Yes, that CAL CD player was junk, I wish Todd had just put his personal unit back in the loop. It also got lost on a couple of commercial CD's too I think- ready for the junk heap.

I did notice Who taking a stroll around the room as well. He wasn't pulling one over on me, I know those bands he listens too have octave drops on the bass and like 6 string B tuned basses and ridiculous low frequencies. The dbx helped and it was nice to some regard to not have a sub, however Todd was constantly out of his chair twiddling with it or volume. Dude- get a REMOTE! I think there was only two- for tv and dvd player. What's that Mdeneen thinking? (kidding)

Keep it up Doc. How about our music selections and more on the Listening? Then mosey us over to Woodog's, the trip home, Louisville madness and the garage project. Then I'll let ya sleep a couple hours, k?

College kids, geesh! [8-|][^o)]

Michael

[IndyKlipschFan]

keep it coming...

[meagain]

I tried walking around the room to listen for standing waves and wasn't hearing any anywhere...which is wierd because they should be very audible.

I'm very curious as to how one can tell. What do 'standing waves' sound like to the ear?

In fact, my only qualm with the Peach was the total lack of remote control. It is tedious to keep jumping up in order to change the volume. Indeed!

[SilverSport]

fascinating Captain...(in best Spock voice...)[]...waiting for "next weeks" episode!...Bill

[Woodog]

Dr. Who,

Thanks for your take on the experience. I'm also a big fan of the Tannoy speaker design, and while I DO sometimes have a slight twinge of regret for selling the 15" monitor gold speakers I had, the truth was that I just wasn't listening to them like I was the Khorns.

Now if I had had the kind scratch needed to secure the right cabinets for them, I might have kept them. But, right after telling my big brother (a recording engineer) about the Tannoys leaving my house, he said 'I've got a pair of 10" monitor golds that I don't use anymore, I'll let ya have 'em if ya want 'em'.

Uh... yeah. []

They went into the Kid's room, and his Heresys came to my office. They best the Heresys in every possible way, and on the few occasions I've had them hooked up in my room (on top of the Khorns) they image WAY better than the Khorns! No phase problems because of the coaxial design, which is very cool.

Meagain,

If you walk around your room while listening to music, standing waves present themselves as increases in volume at certain frequencies, the easiest of which to recognize being bass frequencies. My room is full of 'em.

With dimensions of 19.2' x 11' there are definitely problems with getting a 'larger' sweet spot. Had it been a half foot narrower I would have been out of luck in getting the listening spot that I DO have, which is quite nice.

I'm currently on the prowl for a nice leather recliner. The listening chair I have has survived - if you can call it that - me, a toddler, one dog, one cat, three birds, and the untimely demise of two frogs (don't ask).

later,

Woo

[meagain]

Woodog - are the khorns on the 19 or 11 foot wall?

[colterphoto1]

I tried walking around the room to listen for standing waves and wasn't hearing any anywhere...which is wierd because they should be very audible.

I'm very curious as to how one can tell. What do 'standing waves' sound like to the ear?

In fact, my only qualm with the Peach was the total lack of remote control. It is tedious to keep jumping up in order to change the volume. Indeed!

In my big basement room, with block walls- very verby, you can just walk up to a wall and the sound changes dramatically. Go stand in a corner (bad Meagain!) and you get a double dose of the standing waves. That's why they foam people make those big corner blocks, the Lenrd (or something southern sounding, like that) to break up the bass that builds up in corners.