La Scala Impressions

[greg928gts]

Earlier this year I shipped out a pair of restored and customized La Scalas to a customer in the UK.

www.dcchomes.com/LaScala4.html go about 1/2 way down the page for the rosewood La Scala pics.

I received many emails with detailed feedback regarding this mans journey from his other audiophile systems to these vintage horns. I envy his level of detail in setting up his system, I've never had the patience to go this far myself.

I know this is a very long read, but I thought some here might be interested in his journey and impressions of these Klipsch La Scalas.

Greg

I never heard true horns before, ignoring the technical details they sound right on the ears – perception. I think whoever first came up with this principle was thinking of the human ear in reverse and it really seems to work better than anything I have listened to. The ear in reverse gives a speed of attack and decay that is unmatched by any other speakers I have. This is especially noticeable in the midrange which sounds so real especially on voice. I have had them connected as cinema speakers and was watching shrek 3 particularly to listen to the celebrity voices of the characters and it was a revelation the voices were so real and easily recognised. I prefer listening to movies on these than my digital 5.1 speakers. I much prefer the sound with the grills off. The bass comes forward a bit and this seems to also improve the midrange and treble. The bass is very detailed already,I expect it will get even better as the woofers wear in. Following a bass line is very easy and the full string tone as it is plucked is very clear. The integration of treble mid and bass is so natural it is difficult to talk about them separately. I thought a few hz might be missing at the bottom so I switched in a 1kw sub but could not detect anything missing. My room is too small for extremely low bass anyway. The naturalness is key for me this is not down to coloration as they are very revealing of poor source material. The Revelator tweeters I have sound more forward and impressive but the la scalas are probably more truthful. What is very impressive is the way the drivers work together with the same characteristics from top to bottom. The more I listen the more I am of the impression that large diaphragm transducers are inferior and its not technically possible to get the attack and decay fast enough, even with megawatt amps. I am putting a couple of watts into the la scalas and they are faster than 300 into one of my other rigs. I have not tried turning the bass bins into the corners yet. There is ample bass with them front on I may try it to see if the extension is any better but my room is small for very low bass. The wavelength at 3h0z is 37 feet, 40hz -28 feet, 50hz- 22ft. The diagonal in my room is maybe 20 ft. Doesn’t this make a nonsense of putting massive woofers into cars?

****************************

I have 2 other rigs set up beside the la scalas, one shares the shanling so I have been comparing the differences in sound. The other 2 systems can expose more detail and the bass can sound lower but I have solid cryo silver cables right through on those systems one is active monoblocks and the other 300w monoblocks versus a relatively cheap integrated tube amp with the la scalas so I would not like to draw too many technical conclusions at this stage. I have a pair of shanling 50w monoblock tube amps with built in high quality attenuation and could drive these direct from the dac to the la scalas. All I can conclude at the moment is that I am enjoying the same music including movies more through the la scalas. These are a similar cost to the other 2 sets of speakers so that’s pretty impressive. I like vintage things and the wow factor is good too, not to mention your excellent cosmetic treatment and hardware upgrades.

******************************

I tried the bass bins facing backwards. Results were good and bad. The bass definitely strengthened and went lower into the inaudible frequencies where you can feel a kick drum a liitle as well as hear it. I could hear it before but not feel it. After a while I noticed the glorious forward and full/rich vocals were now thin and reedy and further back and the treble was much brighter and come forward. So back to the front they came. I have had success with my 2 velodyne class d subs they are fast and only 8 inch drivers and designed for audio use. I never use subs in the conventional way. I do not connect them into the rig but take a separate feed from the preamp and use them as bass augmenters with filter set at 50 setting level manually. I don’t detect any loss of audible frequencies from the la scalas without a sub so they must be going down to below 40 in my room. With the sub the physical effects now can be felt when in the program. I turned down the main volume control and just listened to the subs – surprising not much audible output. But I still like them without the subs – unadulterated. You can see why these were designed as campaign speakers, the performance on male vocals is unsurpassed- with the bass bins forward!

*****************************

I have made some changes and they sound even better now. I switched to the trends class t amp and wow it works superbly with them and produces an amazing clear and punchy sound with great imaging and much more bass than my set can manage – and smoother than the tubes to! And all for 150 in your money, have you tried one of these on your khs? Spurred on by this I turned my attention to the alk and bi-wired as per the instructions. This is a different speaker when its bi-wired, much more punchy and articulate in the bass and better extension. I am getting right to the bottom of the audible frequencies without any noticeable rolloff, just a liitle air movement missing in the sub-bass. The mid and treble benefited also, terrific imaging and punch, especially noticed on drum bursts. I then tried all the transformer settings and found -7.4db to give really great sound without appearing to reduce the midrange compared to the setting 2 taps above which I s how they came. Dropping these 2 taps seem to again breathe more life into the bass end. I suppose that due to the bi-wiring this would give the bass bin more power. The bass is now extremely tuneful and I can follow the bass lines much better than from my cone woofers. I am surprised at the how good this rig sounds in comparison to my other much more expensive rigs. These speakers don’t seem to need expensive front end components to produce stunning sound, The old analogue cds sound as good as the newer discs which tend to be over recorded.The sound never seems harsh on vocals, unlike my other systems. I would call this a full range speaker, you would have to be pretty picky to want a sub-woofer. I think that cone bass is usually overblown at the bottom due to inadequate damping and the it is easy to become hooked on this – erroneously.

********************************

I slipped the fibre disks you sent me under the top box.The results were very good. Got rid of all the resonance problems and when listening to the test tones they are even and solid in the centre image, before there was beaming/ interference issues. They are much more neutral sounding with the isolators in. The resonant problems manifested themselves as exaggeration of lower mid/high bass frequencies on certain pieces of music not generally but a certain note would belt out and repeated every time that note appeared. With the isolators in the stereo image is stronger and the sweet spot is wider and more consistent. On the response cd (I don’t know how this cd was calibrated) there was strong output down to 30hz, easily audible output at 25hz. I was struggling to detect anything at 20. This was with the speakers 7 ft apart listening from centre at 10ft. (It would be interesting to know how your khorns fair on this test). The mids were very strong at -7.4 db attenuation on the transformer. I tried putting it up to -6.4 again but it was too much without reducing volume which obviously lowers the bass/treble. The alk crossovers are very impressive. I read of la scala comments on the forums and I don’t think I have the same speakers. I found an excellent cable for the ls is silver coated ofc (QUDOS silver anniversary I am using, I just happened to have some), I switched to plain copper audioquest and it was terrible in comparison..

********************************

The nuances in this case have elevated the la scalas performance to a much higher level. In my opinion getting the isolation right is far more effective than more expensive component upgrades. In fact if you don’t get the isolation right you are wasting your money. I had to reduce the squawker level because of resonance problems in the lower midrange due to acoustic interactions of the floor, bass bin and sqawrker.I listen at pretty high levels so this was pinning me to the walls. I installed the trampoline isolaters under the bass bins and slipped four of the fibre pads you sent me under the feet of the top box. I am so glad the top box is separate or it would not be possible to isolate the swawker from the bass section. This isolation has redefined the performance. The midrange is now much cleaner and detailed. I raised the squawker level to maximum with no boominess or resonances. I have since backed it off about 1 db just to get a level below the ear damage threshold at the best amp level for optimum performance. I have been slowly working through my cd collection whilst doing this and its like my enjoyment and interest in the music I already have has just started. Even on my less popular discs its so great just to listen to the performance - very realistic. As close to the band in your room as I can imagine. I have been switching the same discs through my other two pretty expansive rigs just to make sure I am hearing correctly and I can say the la scala rig is way way ahead on every aspect – detail, imaging, dynamics and musicality.I am so amazed that engineering this old can be transformed by yourself into unbelievable heights. I also stress that using the little tripath amp with the la scalas is a fantastic partnership. No other ampiflication sounds as good with them. Again this is unbelievable bearing these amps are almost free! Biwiring is essential to realise the full potential. The alk crossover are fantastic I cannot detect any crossover issues and when biwired the improvement is black and white.

So I am a well satisfied customer. Just the music to listen to now.

[jdm56]

Beautiful work, Greg!

[Tarheel]

Very handsome speakers and your customer should write for an audio magazine.....what a review!

[soundbound]

Very nice.