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Thread: Klipsch La Scala Opinions....ASAP?

  1. #46
    RIP 2011 Zilch's Avatar
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    I cite again the Toole paper in the June AES Journal, 26 pages, as I recall.

    He outlines the why and how it is only possible to "tune" for bass for a limited seating area in a listening room.

    The next row back will experience it differently, invariably.

    He also covers the importance of controlled directivity and power response.

    The prespective is interesting - the applicability of system design for large performance spaces to typical listening rooms.

    This paper alone is worth the price of AES membership....

  2. #47
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    In a big room controlled directivity is very important. In a very small room with a 8ft or less listening distance it's not as important and can sound too agressive. I like a 60x40 horn 15ft away but not 6ft.

    Alot of very intelligent men have wrote very intelligent white papers. Some of the white papers contradict each other and very few take personal preference into account. When you design to make one aspect great you have to give something else up in return.

  3. #48
    Administrator Mr. Widget's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shane Shuster
    When you design to make one aspect great you have to give something else up in return.
    So true... and easily forgotten.


    Widget

  4. #49
    sfogg
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Brennan
    Like the guys who end up with a so-called "LaScala" with an Altec 288-1005 midrange, a JBL tweeter and a big JBL sub.
    Jeez, get it right... it 805B not the 1005 and two big JBL subs.

    Stock the LaScala needs subwoofer(s). Also dialing back the mid-ranges output (and making it a bandpass crossover to avoid the 9kHz peak in some versions of the K55) help tame it quite a bit.

    Shawn

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    Klipsch la Scalas Opinions

    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Brennan View Post
    The Klipsch LaScala is IMO one of the worst sounding speakers ever made, only the Klipsch Heresy matches it for Skilsawlike sound.

    I owned a couple of sets back in the day when all I cared about was reproducing UFO and Rush records at 120db levels and they did that well enough.

    The speaker's flaws are a rough tweeter with limited highs, an overly directional midrange horn (a LaScala sounds much better IMO&E when the stock mid horn is replaced with a wide dispersion EV SM-120A mid horn) and a lack of bass. The result is a midrange heavy tonal balance that can set one's teeth on edge and a sound like one of those hand-cranked air-raid sirens from a WW II movie.

    Some people like the speaker (you can find people to like almost any damned thing) and some use colored electronics that EQ the sound to their liking. I recently heard LaScalas driven by an Audio Note 300B SET amp and they still sounded like LaScalas---like Hell, in other words.
    First let me say I am a die hard JBL fan. But I have too disagree with you on the La Scalas. They sound better than lot of VINTAGE
    JBL speakers. Mine are up graded with the Bob Crites A/4500s x over CT 125 tweeters an i can ay they are a real joy to listen too. incredible dynamics , Timbre, detail. So natural sounding!!! Tube amp is the way to go with these. iv'e heard many JBL speakers that cant touch them. but wen you get into the higher end JBL Everest, 1400 Array, M2, Studio 590, K2 well there is no contest

  6. #51
    Senior Member Steve Schell's Avatar
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    Near the beginning of my audio journey, circa 1984, I heard the La Scalas and Klipschorns at a local dealer. I yearned for La Scalas, yet ended up with Klipschorns when that dealer, The Federated Group, lost their franchise and were blowing out all their remaining inventory. As I later came to realize, these systems were flawed by cheapo drivers and lack of time alignment, but damn they blew away everything else at the time in the ways that mattered to me! I have persued the goals of wide dynamic range and low distortion ever since, with all due respect and accolades to Paul Klipsch!

  7. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by 702retrotodd View Post
    but wen you get into the higher end JBL Everest, 1400 Array, M2, Studio 590, K2 well there is no contest
    Hey man, you forgot the S3900s and S4700s!
    S4700 owner.

  8. #53
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    Quote Originally Posted by 702retrotodd View Post
    First let me say I am a die hard JBL fan. But I have too disagree with you on the La Scalas. They sound better than lot of VINTAGE
    JBL speakers. Mine are up graded with the Bob Crites A/4500s x over CT 125 tweeters an i can ay they are a real joy to listen too. incredible dynamics , Timbre, detail. So natural sounding!!! Tube amp is the way to go with these. iv'e heard many JBL speakers that cant touch them. but wen you get into the higher end JBL Everest, 1400 Array, M2, Studio 590, K2 well there is no contest
    Yeah, I'd say JBL Synthesis is better than Klipsch Heritage.
    S4700 owner.

  9. #54
    Senior Member sonofagun's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Schell View Post
    Near the beginning of my audio journey, circa 1984, I heard the La Scalas and Klipschorns at a local dealer. I yearned for La Scalas, yet ended up with Klipschorns when that dealer, The Federated Group, lost their franchise and were blowing out all their remaining inventory. As I later came to realize, these systems were flawed by cheapo drivers and lack of time alignment, but damn they blew away everything else at the time in the ways that mattered to me! I have persued the goals of wide dynamic range and low distortion ever since, with all due respect and accolades to Paul Klipsch!

    Interesting. Many years ago when I was making custom systems for people we built a couple of K-horns for a customer in Nashville. Testing them initially they didn't sound so good, so I tweaked the x-over a bit which helped much. Customer replied after getting these - said he compared them with factory K-horns and said ours sounded better!

  10. #55
    Senior Member Steve Schell's Avatar
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    Two stories: first, when I began experimenting with the Klipschorns in my apartment I quickly discarded the top hood and placed the mid horn atop the bass section with the tweeter time aligned and correctly vertically aligned above the mid driver on some U-shaped wooden construction. State of the Art 1978, or so I thought.

    Second, I had a couple of 20 something girls living in the apartment upstairs. One time they held a party which extended past 3AM. I was kept awake by the dancing. When they played the Stones' "Start Me Up" I cued up the same tune and blasted a few seconds of it at 110+dB on the Khorns. They got the message and the party was over!

  11. #56
    Senior Member Steve Schell's Avatar
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    Okay, one more story. The earliest marketed Klipschorns were two way, using a beautifully made radial upper horn with fiberglass upper and lower curved sides and wooden straight right and left sides. Some of these systems used the now-legendary Western Electric 713 compression driver, though most used the Jim Lansing D-175 which Mr. Klipsch held in high esteem. Hal Cox sold these in the store he was running at the time in San Francisco. When the three way Klipschorns debuted in the early 1950s, Hal ordered several for his store. They reportedly sounded quite inferior to the two way systems and Hal shipped them back to Hope Arkansas. He said that Paul Klipsch was gentlemanly and accepted the returns without complaint.

  12. #57
    Senior Member LowPhreak's Avatar
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    ^ Well that's when there were more gentleman around.


    I'll take my Studio 590's over any Heritage speaker, and I've heard all but the Belle Klipsch.

  13. #58
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    Quote Originally Posted by LowPhreak View Post
    ^ Well that's when there were more gentleman around.


    I'll take my Studio 590's over any Heritage speaker, and I've heard all but the Belle Klipsch.
    They look good in cherry. Do you run them with a small tube amp or a big ss amp?
    S4700 owner.

  14. #59
    Senior Member LowPhreak's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave_72 View Post
    They look good in cherry. Do you run them with a small tube amp or a big ss amp?

    While I like the sound of certain models, some years ago I grew tired of the care & feeding of tubes, after going through ARC Classic 120's, Mesa Baron, Golden Tube 40-watter, a Lazarus hybrid, and Audible Illusions M3A and ARC LS-25 pre-amps. Health issues have forced a serious downsize with my audio rigs in the past 10+ years however, so for now I'm using an HK3490 receiver modded by Stereo Dave's in OR. http://www.stereodaves.com/hk3490.php Don't laugh...it does a surprisingly decent job with the 590's until I can scrape up enough for something better, and I have a few SS models in mind that I think would work well with these.

    Having just read the entire thread/debate on DynaMax's DIY subs for his E2's, I probably have better LF extention than E2's (!) in this room, . But I'm getting some room loading even with the overall size of 26.5' x 20', albeit an asymmetrical, not-audio-friendly lay-out. I'm sure glad I saved that extra $58,500. or so! Honestly though, the low-Q bottom end is very good, and the dispersion and imaging as well as vocal clarity, and virtually no listening fatigue after I EQ'ed down the 2.5dB peak at 8-9 kHz. Without hyperbole I can say that the 590's sound better in many ways important to me than for example, my old $4500. Nautilus 803's, and that's saying something at the 590's price.

    On the cherry finish: it was nigh impossible to find a pair in cherry (I'm pretty sick of black audio gear, especially speakers). So I gave up on cherry's and had ordered black 580's originally, but they had cabinet damage from the factory. Ordered a replacement pair but it was also defective, and one foot had been torn from a cabinet from UPS mishandling. Long story short: at that point JBL customer service was useless, so I called Harman in CT and JBL Northridge...by then in a fairly annoyed mood. Eventually, they "found" a set of 580's and 590's both in cherry, and made a better offer on either model to compensate for the hassle of the defective pairs, so I bought the 590's. All told it took over a month.

    These pix are the day I got them, before they were properly set up. (Notice warning sticker since they're front-heavy) -


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    P.S. - sorry for the off-topic.
    Last edited by LowPhreak; 10-30-2014 at 08:58 PM. Reason: typos

  15. #60
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    Cool

    Quote Originally Posted by LowPhreak View Post
    While I like the sound of certain models, some years ago I grew tired of the care & feeding of tubes, after going through ARC Classic 120's, Mesa Baron, Golden Tube 40-watter, a Lazarus hybrid, and Audible Illusions M3A and ARC LS-25 pre-amps. Health issues have forced a serious downsize with my audio rigs in the past 10+ years however, so for now I'm using an HK3490 receiver modded by Stereo Dave's in OR. http://www.stereodaves.com/hk3490.php Don't laugh...it does a surprisingly decent job with the 590's until I can scrape up enough for something better, and I have a few SS models in mind that I think would work well with these.

    Having just read the entire thread/debate on DynaMax's DIY subs for his E2's, I probably have better LF extention than E2's (!) in this room, . But I'm getting some room loading even with the overall size of 26.5' x 20', albeit an asymmetrical, not-audio-friendly lay-out. I'm sure glad I saved that extra $58,500. or so! Honestly though, the low-Q bottem end is very good, and the dispersion and imaging as well as vocal clarity, and virtually no listening fatigue after I EQ'ed down the 2.5dB peak at 8-9 kHz. Without hyperbole I can say that the 590's sound better in many ways important to me than for example, my old $4500. Nautilus 803's, and that's saying something at the 590's price.

    On the cherry finish: it was nigh impossible to find a pair in cherry (I'm pretty sick of black audio gear, especially speakers). So I gave up on cherry's and had ordered black 580's originally, but they had cabinet damage from the factory. Ordered a replacement pair but it was also defective, and one foot had been torn from a cabinet from UPS mishandling. Long story short: at that point JBL customer service was useless, so I called Harman in CT and JBL Northridge...by then in a fairly annoyed mood. Eventually, they "found" a set of 580's and 590's both in cherry, and made a better offer on either model to compensate for the hassle of the defective pairs, so I bought the 590's. All told it took over a month.

    These pix are the day I got them, before they were properly set up. (Notice warning sticker since they're front-heavy) -


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    P.S. - sorry for the off-topic.
    Well, thanks for the informative and detailed post! Plus the pics. They do look better in cherry, imo. I agree about tubes. Which is why I won't bother despite the poking and prodding by some here and on other forums. Well, I might have my Bryston 4BSST (not SST2) up for sale whenever I get around to upgrading my system. Let me know if you would be interested. In the meantime, they're dime a dozen on the used market.

    That's pretty cool that they sound better than the B&Ws. I think JBL offers great value even with the higher end stuff!

    Well, that sucks, but at least you got what you paid for in the end.
    S4700 owner.

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