Review: Klipsch La Scala Speaker

Hey Tubeking- Someone with your experience is a valued asset to a forum like this, so I hope that trend doesn't discourage you from contributing further. I think it is a general trend with Internet forums/mailing lists. As I said in my earlier post, pixels on a screen seldom are a good substitute for a similar conversation with flesh and blood. It is true, some of the things people say here are probably not the same things they would say if they were standing around a room having a similar conversation. I have been guilty of that myself on some threads where my hackles go up and I let my personal need to be right blind me to common courtesy. It's much easier to disrespect someone when they are not standing in front of you and you don't witness first hand how your words affect them in real time and space. I've been on BMW motorcycle forums where the same thing occurs on a regular basis. So much so that I quit subscribing to them. Happily the amount of bandwidth that trend takes up in these forums seems to be less, so I keep reading and contributing when I have time and am familiar with the subject. I also have a tendency to want to liven up the conversation with some humor and some folks don't know what to make of it, or worse, get offended that I may not be taking the subject at hand seriously enough. Oh well, that's just who I am and I'll keep contributing in that tone when it suits me and hope in entertains more folks than it offends! I agree with your sentiments and have posted the same in several threads here: It is ultimately about the music....the gear is just the tools to deliver it to our ears, but without the music all our gear is a pile of parts worth far less than the exhorbinant prices we pay for it. I am thankful for these forums in that I don't have many opportunities to stand around and converse with a bunch of folks who have similar passions for this stuff (I only have one or two Audiophile friends who I rarely see), much less those with a range of knowledge and experience that is reflected by a group as we are here (as well as on AudioAsylum). I'm getting long-winded here, but bottom line is; thanks for your input and hope to read more from you in the future. I'd be curious to hear what your experience and recommendations have been with your Klipsch horn speakers as far as tweaking and improvements go.

It depends how anyone would think,not everyone is always carefull about how they respond to a question.But as for me,I would say in person my thoughts directly,likewise wanting to hear and understand someone elses explanations in person too.
All I wanted was not to argue but for people to give feedback.How I might have responded might of been offensive too.

Jax to answer your ? regarding the AA's: I find that changing the onboard wiring to a better grade of copper (I have Kimber TCX for LF & mid's - TCSS for HF's) & adding 0.01uF nonpolar Kimbercaps paralleled to the existing oilcaps has helped to smooth things a bit, enhance transient response a bit, & doesn't introduce sonic degradations. The oilcaps are prety good as-is so I wouldn't change those. I also changed the spade lugs to Audioquest 1010S soft copper silver plated lugs & used Wondersolder onboard. That small inductor with a steel screw fastening it to the board: I pulled out the steel & used a fastening cement instead.

Above I haven't said anything that I would not say to anyone face-to-face. I don't mean to sound hypercritical (although my anti-tube prejudices are admittedly revealed) but again I don't have a problem with tube preamps, only power amps have not done the job for me. Of course I haven't tried everything available & perhaps my (optimized for solid state) cabling was not compatible with what I did try. So of course I would be interested to hear from Tubeking regarding his tubes setups that are successful & so indicated that previously.
Pure doesn't really seem interested in glassware himself & so I offer a contrary opinion based upon my successful endeavors with solid state. Yes I'm an engineering type (hardware oriented) so that shows through moreso than my knowledge of music, which admittedly isn't very extensive. I am not meaning to argue, nor to offend, nor to dismiss out-of-hand the valuable experiences of obviously knowledable contributors. Not at all. Tubeking's experiences with speaker design fascinate me, & I wish that he would further share that information & in relation to his aforementioned positive glassware experiences. In fact I even stated that thought initially, although perhaps not plainly enough, so I repeat.

Once you have spent time listening to tubes on any of these speakers you will be hard pressed to listen to Solid State again.

I've heard this before - several times in fact. Please elaborate - I'd like to figure out what I did wrong, & what I'm possibly missing? My apologies for running on at such length & for any offense that might have been mistakenly interpreted; this was not my intent.

Hey Bob- Many thanks for your input on the AA's. Were you talking about the AA's or the ALK's? When you refer to "smooth things out a bit" I wondered if you might have switched them since that is what I'd want to do to the ALK's? I found the AA's "smoother" on my system, while the ALK's seemed to stress laser imaging overall. It is also likely that my SET amplification has an entirely different effect than your SS, not to mention the rest of the differences in our systems. I'm probably on another part of the audiophile spectrum than you and have only a fundamental understanding of the hardware, as well as lacking in ways to describe how it sounds to my ears (not hip to all the lingo, but I sure do know what I like). I doubt anyone took offense to your post Bob...I sure didn't. I think you brought some balance to the discussion, and didn't mean to point any fingers whatsoever. I only meant to make a generalized observation, which is most certainly not a rule. As I said, overall I find folks on this forum to be pretty courteous in general, much more so than some others I've participated on.

I can't answer for Tubeking, but since I have a similar opinions about tubess+horns I can comment on what made me a convert. You will have to forgive my lack of audio-vocabulary to give creadence and color to my statements. The qualities that make tube amplification worth what little extra effort and $ it may take (though I don't know it's been a whole lot in my experience) are about air, atmosphere, soundstage and musicality. While SS has punch and dynamics in spades, bringing those quailities closer to a live performance in the way great SS can just knock the breath out of you sometimes....I do like that aspect of SS. What it lacks though, that the best of tubes, and even some really inexpensive tube rigs can impart, is a depth and airiness...an atmosphere that I've yet to hear SS give to music. There is a holography to the music with great tube amplification that I've never heard with SS. SS had the width, but lacks the depth in my experience (though I must say I was impressed with the Pass Labs Aleph 5 that I had for a short while in that it did have some sense of depth. I've also owned a tube rig that came close to having the 'slam' of SS (a Mesa Baron) but it was certainly at the expense of the atmosphere I get from my 300B SET amps. Ultimately I like the atmosphere over the amazing detail and slam. I was impressed at the detail listening to a good friends Levenson system. Around $50K+, wired well, in an outstanding room with NHT 3.3's (tight bass to write home about). We were listening to a cut on a Beethoven piano concerto disc I'd brought and was familiar with. By god I could hear the pianist feet on the peddles as he played. That was truly amazing. Yet still, bringing that same disk home to the SET amps, though it lacks that kind of crystaline detail (though the ALK's may bring much of that out), I just love the holography that is simply lacking on his rig. Another friend has a $100K Krell setup that raised the hairs on the back of my neck, but the novelty wore off as time went on and the listening session somehow grew tiresome. I never get tired of listening to my SET's and the sound remains engaging to me throughout, though poorly recorder music does become wearing almost immediately. I hope someone else may comment who knows more how to embellish their experience with all the fancy vernacular, or can add a different perspective on it.

That said, I very much doubt you did anything WRONG Bob. And, in fact, there may be nothing you are missing. Even if you listened to the two side by side you may still prefer the sound of SS over tubes. My bias is obviously strongly in the other direction, but I'm always open to hearing a system that will change my mind! I don't think it is a matter of either/or, but I sure love the combination of tubes&horns. For my tastes, I haven't heard better to this day.

Jax is one of my dogs names and part of my email address, as well as being my ID here. The name suits my dog pretty well, but doesn't really fit me as well! Y'all can call me Marco as I feel pretty silly answering to my dog's name. I'll just start signing my posts.

Best to all,

Marco

Jax2, right on! I couldn't have said it better. I think that people listen in so many different ways. I am the type that sits in the sweet spot and even sometimes lowers the lighting to add to the atmospheir and just sink into the music in my lazyboy chair, (very appropriatlly named). I think I will read you last post again, you said it so well.

Mark/tubeking