Pictures of your speaker system

Discussion in 'Speakers' started by Cspirou, Nov 6, 2015.

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  1. JoshMorr

    JoshMorr Friend

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    Ahem 15" passive radiator, but who is measuring.

    Yea first night of listening was a sucess - pretty amazing how dynamic and full 4W can sound on an efficient speaker.

    You are correct Chile - these werent cheap by any means, and I would recommend looking on local craigslist for older Heritage Series speakers. II series is the way to go, and as Tie mentioned, there is a whole modding community out there still giving love to these old things (Crites, Klipsch Forums). Living in Maine / New England and looking on craigslist for about a year and a half, and coming up empty, was driving me insane. When i finally found some Chorus' in decent condition, wife said she wouldn't allow those dusty ol' beat up things in the house (I thought they were beautiful). End of the day WAF (wife acceptance factor) was way more important than I realized. Thought about getting a new wife, but this one is a great cook.
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2018
  2. crazychile

    crazychile Eastern Iowa's Spiciest Pepper

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    I forgot how Klipsch was so popular back in the day in the Midwest, and not as much in other parts of the country. I worked for one of the largest Klipsch dealers in the country, in a market of <150k people. Klipsch Heritage had the reputation of being the go-to drunk frat boy speakers for those who had money and wanted to rock the dorms LOUD. These speakers were so much better than that. I admit to selling a lot of these with Adcom systems. OUCH. I'm going to Audio Hell for that, I know. It wasn't until I heard these with tube amps and class A solid state that I heard what they could really do. But the fact we sold many of these is probably why I see them pop up regularly on the local Craigslist.

    I think even the Heresy IIIs go for around $3k now. I remember when you could buy Heresy II in raw birch for around $600.
     
  3. MrTie

    MrTie Friend

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    It's not quite that bad, it's $1998 for pair of brand spanking New heresy III's 2 day shipped to you door from Amazon, and a bit less if you can find a physical dealer, I've heard around $1600 depending on finish. However perhaps not that well known but Klipsch itself WILL sell you a H3 upgrade kit that fits the H2 for around $300 a speaker, or they used to.
     
  4. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    Recently heard some vintage LaScalas that were heavily modified and had a JBL horn (some massive metal piece from God knows when) and what was described as a "butt cheek tweeter." There was a small sub turned on as well since, according to the owner who also had Maggie 3.7's (among a ton of other stuff), the bass doesn't go down that far at all (unlike the Cornwall which kicks you in the chest, I'm told).

    Turns out I'm a horn lover! These speakers had a presence of presentation I've never experienced and I just kept saying "man these are just so fun!" without picking out anything particular about it. The gentleman introduced me to The CornScala found online and given the price, I'm thinking about it once I'm out of the condo. But while I'm living here there's no way I could get away with it for long without the neighbours threatening to smoke me out.

    Or go balls-to-the-wall and look at the JBL Synthesis line (used/demo). Fortunately where I'm moving there is a dealer.
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2018
  5. JoshMorr

    JoshMorr Friend

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    Find a dealer and get a significant price break on klipsch. They can't advertise prices lower than MSRP, but many are happy to make a quick and easy deal. Mine were bought from an authorized dealer, but we'e shipped directly from Klipsch in Hope, AR. The dealer was just the middle man, traditional dealer markup significantly cut.

    Cornscala seems to be the modern DIY Frankenstein super Klipsch, best of all worlds, modern drivers and crossovers. Almost bought a pair used, but at the last second the seller decided to keep them.
     
  6. Grahad2

    Grahad2 Red eyes from too much anime

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    Would be helpful for others if you'll give a summary of your journey to the Klipschs. I'm only aware that there was a Blumeinstein and a Omega Jr 8 XRS somewhere in there.
     
  7. JoshMorr

    JoshMorr Friend

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    You'e got most of it there already, you can be my official biographer. Not sure if any one but Grahad2 is interested, but this will serve as a historical record as to where I lost my mind and possibly haunt me if my wife ever decided to divorce, this will serve as legal grounds for her getting whatever she wants. Feels weird to talk about yourself, but here is my best attempt at a Schiit Happens (Mo Happens?) as to how I got here.

    I've owned several sets of inefficient speakers by Bowers and Wilkens, driven by many different solid state amplifiers. You could crank these up and get a good wall of sound, but I was dreaming of a sound closer to the best headphone setups I've heard, which were all driven by tube amps. I wanted tube detail, image separation, and that spooky realism in live recordings that seems to be a drug for me. At the same time, I do about half of my listening with headphones and am a fan of Eddie Current amps, so Aficionado was a dream come true. The hard part is finding efficient speakers that can sound dynamic off of 4 watts.

    I bought a used pair of Blumenstein Orcas cheaply enough while AF was still in rumor phase, thinking I would give them a try after they were highly recommended by a few users here who described them as the heart of music. Who wouldn't want that. I quickly figured out that the heart of music meant all mids and a very rolled off sound. To me could only listen to a few genres of music and not feel like you were missing something significant. What was exciting was the pin point imaging and big sound these tiny speakers made. It enticed me enough that I sought a way to fill out the bottom end and bought a sub. This helped, but I never got it to sound cohesive and I realized these were not the final answer to my speaker needs.

    Being a cheap bastard - I browse used markets always looking for a deal. Well a pair of beautiful Omega Jr 8 XRS popped up and caught my attention. I've looked at the brand for a while, as one of the few who produce a off the shelf single driver wide band option. Aficionado was coming soon and I wanted to get the most out of the amp on day one, and I was on a kick where I felt I needed a physically larger driver to get a fuller low end. The Omega's ended up fixing alot of my gripes with the Orca. I could live with these for 80% of my music and really loved the detail, fine and macro, these produced. For a high efficiency speaker they extended further both low and high, but not as far as I would have liked. I was resigned that high efficiency life just meant you had live with compromise.

    Like many here, I really like trying new things. I'm always learning and finding things out about my preferences. The other thing is I'm pretty chatty and love to talk about what ifs, maybes, and different directions I would like to take my system. Many here have helped me through this with their input, recommendations, and last minute saves from making a terrible mistake. Early on (maybe 16 months ago?) while AF was still a rumor and then slowly shaping up to what it is now, @bxh and I were fueling each others fire and performing thought experiments on what kind of speakers we would use with it. We both searched high and low all over the internet finding high efficiency speakers and then subsequently finding reasons to move on. Madisound BK-16's, Omega Super Alnicos, Zu Audio, DIY Sound Group, vintage JBL, vintage Moth and Klipsch Heritage. I even purchased Cicada drivers and BK16 flat pack boxes, but never got around to DIY. When high efficiency options were exhausted I thought about bi-amping, super tweeters, and open baffles. Klipsch was just re-releasing the Forte and had my tongue hanging out of my head, really liked the looks of a 3 way horn with 99db / W efficiency (even if Klipsch tends to rate optimistically).

    Another associate, @MrTie , happens to know about all things Klipsch. He can tell you why they replaced the mid horn in a 35 year old speaker. Total guru. He said ask Marv about impedance curve and if AF could handle a dip into the 4ohm range. So I did. Marv said he wasn't familiar with these, but if the impedance drops below 4 ohm, it might not be the best idea. So there went that idea. I would still look at them longingly, dream of bi-amps, continue to research and have a feeling in the back of my mind that someday I will have something from the Klipsch Heritage line (Forte, Chorus, LaScala, and Cornwall making the most sense).

    Orcas Bro fan club blossoms (bxh, @Stapsy , @PoochZag never forget), Omega circus and AF arrive etc etc. Even though I have lots of hours of great listening, I still feel like something is missing. I question if having a SET amp really means sacrificing a full sound. Local CL deals for a few Klipsch in not great condition come and go. Then some Crites Cornscalas come up and the temptation is too great. I emailed Craig of EC and asked about impedance curves and if AF can handle load from Klipsch Heritage series speakers. He said sure, and recommends the cornwalls. Deal for the CornScala ended up falling through because seller decided they were too good to sell, but my lust for Klipsch was too strong. One thing lead to another and then I contacted a dealer on the internet who made an offer on some new Fortes that were too good to pass up.

    I will be able to give better sound impressions on the Forte over the weekend. I tend to love all gear right away, and it takes more listening for the flaws to creep out. For now I've got real treble and low end from a amp pushing 4 watts. I can imagine bass being a bit tighter with a higher powered amp with more current, but I don't hear the need for it yet. I can also hear a bit of upper mid weirdness that horns are known for, which I find very minor. Hard to tell right now, but I might have also sacrificed a tiny bit of low level detail, but I might have just been distracted, listening to the wrong album, or a whisky short of audio nirvana. Sorry for the Torqey long winded act like people are interested in what I have to say post.
     
  8. skank

    skank Friend

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    Of course it could be a case of "I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then' but I grew up listening to Klipsch Heresy's and I could listen to them for hours at a time without any listening fatigue.

    Of course that was in the pre-digital days so maybe that had more to do with it than the actual speakers.
     
  9. philipmorgan

    philipmorgan Member of the month

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    Here's the latest of my speaker system:

    [​IMG]

    These are a DIY 2-way/3-way system with an Eminence 12-CX in the big cabinets, a FaitalPRO M5N8-80 in a 300Hz Edgarhorn, and an Eminence ATP-50 in a tractrix horn for the highs.

    It's fed by a Mac Mini > Either > Gungnir Multibit > Saga > MiniDSP DDRC24 with Dirac Live > modded TDA7297 for the mid and high frequency horns and a Crown X1000 for the lows. A coil and cap provide first order crossover between the mid and high frequency horns. Pics of the build process here: https://imgur.com/a/vnAz3

    I posted previously in this thread about this system when it was a coaxial only setup.

    What I'm actually doing here is working my way through my speaker bucket list with budget DIY builds.

    Ever since I was in college, I've been fascinated with high end audio systems. As I've gotten into a phase of life where I can actually start to take action on that fascination, I figured I could listen to a bunch of commercial systems to figure out what I like, or I could just DIY representative samples from various genres of speaker types and figure out what I like that way. I've chosen the second way because it's a lot more fun for me.

    Next on the bucket list is a widebander + woofer setup. A simple sealed enclosure for a Fostex FE108EZ is in progress. After that's done, I'm not sure... I'm tight on floor space at home so even though a BLH is on the bucket list I think that'll have to wait until I have more floor space available.

    Incidentally, I do actually listen to music on the above-pictured system, and I like it kind of a lot. I don't have great reference points since I haven't heard many other high end speaker systems (though that's changing soon; I've got a listening date with a dude locally here who has a VoT system and a TAD horn system) and my listening room is hilariously non-ideal (metal spiral stairs behind the listening chair ring like a giant broad spectrum tuning fork).

    That said, the 3-way horn system satisfies some of my priorities:

    * Natural, HD650-like tonality.
    * Muscular physicality & accuracy in bass. Textured; not one-note.
    * Startling, explosive dynamics when called for.
    * Detail and clarity in the midrange.
    * Depth & layering in the soundstage.

    Specifically, it's pretty good on the tonality front. Bass is visceral and fun, but compromised by the room (true of most home speaker systems in untreated rooms I imagine). No comment on detail and clarity until I compare against the FE108EZ's which, if they live up to their reputation, are detail monsters. I think there could be much more depth and layering than there actually is in the horn system's soundstage, but there is a barely satisfying amount there (Dirac Live helps a lot with this). And best of all, the system doesn't sound flat and gray at low volumes. It remains interesting to listen to even when the volume is turned way down.

    The most fun moment with this system thus far might have been during a rare "ours go to 11" listening session when the opening snare crack on Lucinda Williams "Metal Firecracker" caused one of my cats to f'ing jump out of her skin.
     
  10. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    God damn that is awesome! Also have read a bunch about the Faital, incredible range.

    Tyler Acoustics builds a high-eff speaker using Eminence drivers as well for the non-diy.
     
  11. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    I remember some incredible pictures of your amazing woodwork! Maybe I lost track or missed something, Did you ever have a thread dedicated to the build?? It would be great to see how it grew.

    And anyway... here this is the finished result, right? Looks wonderful!

    :eek: :cool: :D
     
  12. philipmorgan

    philipmorgan Member of the month

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    That's here: https://imgur.com/a/vnAz3
     
  13. Tim Thomas

    Tim Thomas Friend

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    [​IMG]
     
  14. ButtUglyJeff

    ButtUglyJeff Stunningly beautiful IRL

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  15. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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  16. Tim Thomas

    Tim Thomas Friend

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    Yep 2A3 monoblocs with a Mapletree Audio PreAmp and Fritz Carbon 7 speakers. A fantastic system -- IMO. I have tinnitus, so non-fatiguing is a key!
     
  17. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    Cool system. Is it a Bottlehead kit?
     
  18. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    I wish I knew more about the guts of Lloyd's stuff. A separate PS preamp with remote for $1000 is hella intriguing.
     
  19. Tim Thomas

    Tim Thomas Friend

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    It's a one off prototype from Bottlehead.
     
  20. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    Love the veneer on those Fritz! Have wanted to hear the Carbons for a while now.
     

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