Speaker A or speaker B redux?

[BLSamuel]

Larry,

Very helpful. It does make me think that given my daughter's ear problems, protecting her hearing is even more important than it would be otherwise. Naturally it's also a good idea for anyone to protect their hearing. Now I just need to introduce her to the Ety's and make it her idea to hopefully use them.

I did think it might be a good idea to have a set of Ety plugs for every member of the family for any future rock concerts. Getting everyone to use them could be another story, including me. I recall a few concerts in my college years where thankfully there was no pain or ringing ears but my ears were somewhat stuffed up feeling upon leaving for lack of a better term, a little hard of hearing for a couple of hours. I suspect my ears were protecting themselves from music that was simply too loud. Probably some wax and somewhat shut themselves down? Maybe some permanent damage but I seem to hear ok. Most I attended weren't quite that loud.

I thought people were more than a little nuts when they'd exclaim "Great concert! My ears were ringing for 3 days!" Um, I'd view that as the sign of hearing damage or very close probably permanent. Not that I didn't love some pretty loud concerts. The Who and Bruce Springsteen come to mind pretty quickly as a couple of examples.

I thought the sound of your classic demo was amazing. The Palladium and Khorns with Belle 3 channel demo rooms were better than anything I've heard outside of a live concert since last year's Pilgrimage. And Indy's home theater was incredible. I'm not sure I can remember a movie theater sounding that good. Probably will be disappointed in most.... probably a good think I don't go out to the movies too often.

[BLSamuel]

If I were a musician

Michael, looks like you've got the beginnings of a great road crew.... very capable of putting a lot of things on top of other things, and with greate precision I might add.

I think we kept (I cheated and did it with my daughter, but each independetly filled out our comment sheets - she was busy writing a lot more than me) most of our A/B tests at reasonable levels though I think it was pushing it a few times when I thought A was considerably louder.

I thought the test operator (still can't recall his name) said it was level matched but that it is difficult to do at best. Though to me it did seem like A was louder.

[Amy]

I thought the test operator (still can't recall his name) said it was level matched but that it is difficult to do at best.

That was Kerry Geist, vice president of acoustic engineering, and Hope transplant. []

[LarryC]

I thought the sound of your classic demo was amazing. The Palladium and Khorns with Belle 3 channel demo rooms were better than anything I've heard outside of a live concert since last year's Pilgrimage.

I agree the sound was extremely good in the Paladium setup I was fortunate to have the use of. Note that the setup included not only the P-37s, but a subwoofer and pair of surrounds (and a center channel, I think). I was a little unsure at first because the P-39 in another room had sounded a little fuller and smoother, but a listen to the P-39s the next day showed me that the sub and surrounds were clearly needed to complete the picture you heard. However, it does bother me somewhat that the P-39s may need a sub to do symphony music with full force and excitement.

Yes, the Heritage 3-way was best-in-show IMO. Those 60th K-horns didn't need a sub. Still, even the second-level P-37 Palladium combo was extremely accurate in violin, cello, flute, oboe and brass instrumental tone qualities, and had lots of dynamism, so it was great for the classical sessions. That says a lot.

[BLSamuel]

I think music in Indy's home theater would hold it's own pretty well also.

To be truthful I can't say that the Icon demo was disappointing. Obviously not at the level of the Palladium and Heritage demos but a lot closer than it really should be.

And while we're at it, the CS 700 sounds amazingly good for such a smallish system and it also includes the KlipschCast capabilities. Add a RoomGroove and you've got a secondary audio zone. I would suspect that very few Home Theater In A Box packages anywhere near it's price with 2, 3, or 5 main speakers would sound better and most likely not as good. Might even hold its own if not blow away a few HT speaker systems for the same price.

Even the lowest cost Klipsch products that I've heard sound right, for lack of a better term. Usually a lot better than expected for the cost. Of couse the top 'o the line are just WOW. Music reproduction can be THAT good.

[Coytee]

Richard, are those aimed at all types of sound, or mostly gunfire transients?

I'm not sure of the technical aspect so I'll give you my real world usage.

I use them when I'm on my backhoe, tractor, framing or, talking to the wife! []

They reduce everything across the board however... they have a switch on each ear that you can turn on. When you do that it allows vocal ranges through (sort of).

The following is very true although my wife still doesn't believe me...

I've got a full sized industrial backhoe/loader. It's a JCB 1550-B and when they built it, it was either the largest or equal to the largest they made. It's about 90 HP and also has a turbo (love that whine!!) Yes it has a muffler but it's not like your automobile.

I can be sitting on the backhoe, engine idling and not be able to make out a word my wife says. Note, this is with the ProEars properly attached to my head. I can then switch them ON and viola, I can now make out what she says and the noise of the backhoe is still greatly reduced. Some of the backhoe noise comes through because it might be in/near the vocal range.

So, envision my wife coming up to me sitting on the backhoe, engine idling, wanting to tell me something or another... I've got the noise of the engine AND the hearing protection muffs over my ears and I ask her what she wants/needs...

As she can then barely hear ME, she gets all full of angst thinking I'm mocking her when I ask what she wants because I can in fact hear her better with the muffs ON than I can with them OFF.

They shut down across the board on their sound. Some people say they don't like running power equipment with hearing protection on because they want to hear the machine in case it makes a funky noise (something breaking) and don't want that sound masked by the hearing protection.

My first comment to them (kept to myself of course) is that they're an idiot for that logic.

My second comment to them, which I WILL tell them as my experience... the muffs drop all the noise across the board. Instead of my engine being a loud growl in my ears, it's now a much more quiet grumble. If there is a funky noise of something breaking, it will STILL stand apart sound wise from the typical engine hum-drum that I get used to hearing. I can even hear if/when a dash buzzer goes off, although I might not hear it immediately...it will finally sink in as a sound different than I'm accustomed to hear and isn't going away... (that's when I look & see the idiot light flashing wildly at me, telling me to shut down)

So, to try to answer your question, they attenuate across the board BUT can at your will, let a narrow band of sound through by turning them on.

Also... walking across a gravel drive with them on? It's earily silent because they muff most the sounds however, when them turned on, you can still make out a "crunch crunch crunch" as your feet walk across the gravel. This crunch crunch sound, is in the middle of your head because it's being fed in via both ears. It's not creepy as that's too strong of word... but it's just odd sounding.

I personally love them and would recommend them to anyone, anytime for anything, especially if you don't care that they're reasonably large and can be hot on your ears at times. For me it's about what they do for me, not how I look in them (we all know I'd look dashing in anything, right? [+o(] )

[LarryC]

Richard -- I don't know how they do all that, but they sound like another good candidate for Ben!

[Trey Cannon]

Ok, back to the A/B test.

A = P38

B = B&W 802b

They were level matched as much as we could. (about -4 or -5 db on the p38's)

The level difference is the difference in the 2 speakers.

[LoudnClear]

As can be seen on my response papers, I prefered B. Sorry, I prefered it. I thought B sounded more Klipsch-like. More Heritage-like rich notes and tone.

The overall tally of how many preferred each would be extremely interesting.

Kimball

[LarryC]

Ouch -- me too, Kimball. It was a bit too subdued for Klipsch, but then I wasn't trying to guess brands or models.

[Amy]

I have the results and was going to post a summary next week. I will say that you two were the only ones who chose B.

However, we were not so much interested in which speakers were preferred, but the comments that were made. They were interesting, to say the least!

[DrWho]

Can you post the comments too? [A]

Btw, I also felt that they weren't level matched at all. If the difference was really in the speakers, then I'd love to see a frequency response comparison (if that's not asking too much of course). I felt they were different by about 3dB in the mids/lower mids.

For what it's worth, I found the listening comparison extremely difficult because I wasn't at all familiar with the source material. I think I spent about 25 of my 30 minutes trying to figure out what was actually on the recordings instead of listening to the speakers. I've conducted other listening comparisons where the source material was provided in advance and I have always found them to be way more informative. I know there are all sorts of copyright issues and things to worry about with that, but it might be something to consider in the future.

Anyways, I picked speaker C...(probably cuz I listened right after Coytee...)

[LarryC]

Well, this is really funny (or embarrassing), in a way. [] In stores, I may find B&W to have somewhat precise sound, but to me they're withdrawn and unexciting, and very overpriced -- "doctor's office," like folks said! Any sonic purity has always been outweighed by boring sound IMO. But here, I plainly was focusing down on purity and transparency.

Interesting, interesting....[8-)]

[Coytee]

Anyways, I picked speaker C...(probably cuz I listened right after Coytee...)

Well SOMEONE had to break them in...

Larry... another word I thought about using was Muzak but I DID think they were better than elevator music... []

Amy... I second the vote for listing the comments...not necessarily who said what (now that we know who the Heretics are [:|]), just some of the comments in general.

I promise to not make any earlobe (or neck for that matter [:^)] ) comments for 2.2390 hours if you do so...

[:#]

[BLSamuel]

Yes, please do post the comments, anonymously would probably be best. It would be fascinating to see what everyone else had to say and maybe even more so to see what my daughter had to say. She seemed to be writing quite a few comments throughout while I had to think longer. I was good, I didn't cheat and copy off of her.

I'm sure reading though the comments would be enlightening.

[Audio 1]

Originally posted by Trey Cannon:

"Ok, back to the A/B test. A = P38 B = B&W 802b They were level matched as much as we could. (about -4 or -5 db on the p38's) The level difference is the difference in the 2 speakers."

I am assuming that you mean the B&W 802D?

[Jay481985]

Ok, back to the A/B test.

A = P38
B = B&W 802b

They were level matched as much as we could. (about -4 or -5 db on the p38's)
The level difference is the difference in the 2 speakers.

damn too late to blab...... I was busy this past week..... I knew it was a palladium p38 and B&W 802 S though

[Jay481985]

Okay, since I have time now to write about the A/B setup.

First thing though, we could use only the music that Klipsch wanted us to evaluate.... Okay fine.
If someone could post the soundtracks that we used that would be great.

So I started with A at low volume and quickly changed to B. This was no more than 80 db and I thought that A was more direct and B had a wider sound stage. Speaker A though at low volumes sounded like it was limited, screaming for more spl to fully open. Listening for the bass at low volume, I perceived that B had deeper, clearer bass. At this point I was thinging they were both Klipsch products.

Immediately on that basis, I decided to crank the volume up. There is one thing I know that Klipsch does well, high efficency/high volume. I just started to get speaker A to clip and sound harsh. I though someone from Klipsch was gonna come into the room and tell me to lower it, but no one did. I guess it was around 115 db at listening point or some seriously loud (louder than I play my music 99% of the time). I then switched over to B without adjusting the volume...... B sounded like a boombox or something, maybe a kid who turned the volume knob way to high on his car stereo. I guess my theory that both speakers are Klipsch was sunk.... I supposed that if they were both Klipsch and that their efficencies are relatively the same, 100-103 db per 2.83 volts then they would distort nearly the same or so. That clearly was not the case........ At first I thought A was Palladium and B was Heritage.

Also another thing showed up when I played A really loud. I reconized that sound. I heard that played throughout the day and the previous day. Heck, I know this sound..... My RF-83 sound very very similar. I said this at the pilgrimage and I say it here again, the palladiums in my opinion are RF-83 with more midrange (i.e. Klipsch spent a lot of time getting the female vocals better). But the funny part was the highs were coming to me a bit lower than what I am normally acustomed to. The RF-83 are 50 inch tall speakers or a bit taller than the Klipschorn. The sound was coming to me lower than expected, and the sofa is around the same height I listen to my speakers at. So I knew this had to be palladiums at the time but which one. I thought and dismissed the p-39 since they are taller than my rf-83. I said 37 or 38..... After the test I went into the room with the 39 and a few people like Mark Blanchard thought I was blessing the speaker when in fact I went into the 39 room to gauge the height again with my ears and I knew that the 39 were too tall. I went into the hometheater setup where a few people were listening to blueman group and went bingo..... 38 were the same height, I found speaker A.

Speaker B... How can I say this. I like them better than speaker A when they are elevator or background speakers. Speaker A was far more direct and drawing. If you pass by speaker A when it is playing, it tells you to come down and sit to listen, while speaker B says I am here but feel free to carry on with other work you are doing. Another thing I find that female vocals sounded deeper and more manly than speaker A when switching back and forth. Also switching back from speaker A to Speaker B, Speaker B has a distinct hole in middle of the soundstage. The soundstage is not very even, though this is the same for Speaker A. I got up and walked around. Speaker B sounded better near the walls while Speaker A sounded better in the middle though the sound does change when you fall 3 feet off the sweetspot. Another thing that threw me off was how short off the ground the speaker came off me. At first it threw me off, since I thought it was heritage but the Khorn and Jubilee are much taller than speaker B. Though at first when I still thought it was Klipsch v. Klipsch I thought it was palladium v jubilee. But then I thought it had to be Cornwall, Heresy, or something.... then the spl test I did did not confirm that thought.

Well..... I did feel that speaker A was hotter than Speaker B but the sensitivity between the two are something like 10 db difference. And if you can tell, I chose speaker A thought it was a bit biased since I figured which one was klipsch early on. Also what gave me the suspicion that it was B&W from the beginning was the fact that in the engineering area, there was a 802 S boxes left out next to the JL 113 and the Velodyne DD15.... I started to think when I knew speaker a was palldiums, I tried to think of direct competitors and B&W was on my short list, then I realized the boxes... Bingo. After the test I broke the music server as they had to reboot it but Trey and Carry were there. I said I thought I knew what the speakers were what, and Trey told me to tell. I said and then it was silence, Trey turned around. Carry tried to keep a straight face but a slight smile on his face confirmed that those two were the speakers. I was glad though that I could tell the difference immediately.

[stormin]

Immediately on that basis, I decided to crank the volume up. There is one thing I know that Klipsch does well, high efficency/high volume. I just started to get speaker A to clip and sound harsh. I though someone from Klipsch was gonna come into the room and tell me to lower it, but no one did. I guess it was around 115 db at listening point or some seriously loud (louder than I play my music 99% of the time). I then switched over to B without adjusting the volume...... B sounded like a boombox or something, maybe a kid who turned the volume knob way to high on his car stereo.

Remind me to never let you touch my stereo!

[Jay481985]

Trey, can you tell us what equipment was used during the a/b?