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In Reply to: RE: La Scala posted by maxhifi on December 04, 2014 at 08:28:58
Max,
I council patience.
If you buy a LS you will junk everything but the bass bin, that includes the Crites crossovers, which aren't so much an improvement, as just not old and dried up. Any folded W horn will work. Keep an eye out for the Peavey FH-1. You have the room, and they are better and cheaper.
If you make the wrong decision with horns, then you are not only stuck with an expensive mistake, you are also stuck with a large, heavy mistake as well.
We could sit down on this forum and sketch out many horn systems before you ever spend a dollar. I have used the LS bins as the basis of four different 2 and 3 way horn sytstems, and I am working on my fifth.
This doesn't even take into account straight front loaded mid/bass horns, down-firing m/b horns, J horns, or PPSLs.
I'd say a top-notch 3 way horn system is a minimum of $3,500 US, and that's with getting the LS bins cheap.
To tide you over, I suggest beginning by bi-amping your Tannoy S6. Put your PP on the bass driver, and the SET on the tweeter.
Don't take cash with you when you go look at the LS. Look, listen, and think.
BTW, the first amp I used on my stock LS was a 30 watt PSE-UL KT88. That's before I knew what 30 watts would do on 104db speakers. I put on an Al Hurt album. It sounded like that trumpet was blowing in my living room, and I don't mean that in a good way. It chased me out of the room!
I'll give you one closing thought:
To paraphrase Winston Spencer Churchill, "Horn speakers are the worst speakers in the world, except for everything else."
Jamie
Big speakers and little amps blew my mind!
Follow Ups:
THat is why I went with two-way full horn Odeons that I listened the hell out of them before buying because I didn't want an Albatross around the neck if they didn't work out!
I glad you got the speakers you like.
What is the efficiency of the back loaded bass horns of your Odeons?
Big speakers and little amps blew my mind!
They are around 98db/watt
Hi morricab,
I would like use your speakers as an example. I'm not explaining it to you, as I know you already know this.
morricab's back loaded bass horn is 98db efficient. That is high efficiency is most people's book.
It is six db less efficient than the LS bass bin. That means the LS only needs one quarter the power to reach the same SPL as morricab's bin. That is, the LS can hit 98db spl with 250mw.
Let's take the Inlow Sound straight m/b horns. 110db efficient. That's a difference of 12db. That's one sixteenth the power requirement as morricab's speakers. The means the Inlow horn can hit 98db spl with 68mw. Yes, that is sixty eight milliwatts. And morricabs bass bin is a very efficient driver to compare against. Just think what those guys go through with 92db speakers. They need big amps.
Why does this high efficiecny matter? Lots of reasons. Two being, diaphragms don't have to move much, so you get low distortion. Also, and as important, it turns a 45 or 2A3 SET amp from an unusable curiosity, into a real power amplifier that provides all the drive you need and more. I have run my LS with a passive crossover on a 1626 Darling amp that put out 750mw. It was more power than I needed. I had loads of headroom. I could play the music loud as hell if I wanted to.
That's why.
I say if your really want to hear the full effect of a SET amp, you have to hear them on fully front loaded horn speakers. My two cents.
morricab I would really like to hear your system. I know I would like it.
Jamie
Big speakers and little amps blew my mind!
Hey Jamie,
Now you have me second guessing myself! Are the la scalas really that bad? The polarization of opinions online made me want to hear them, I haven't pushed "go" yet, but I figured a product which has been made more or less continuously for 51 years has to have some serious merit to it. Your experience though is direct and personal so I should give it some attention.
I like how the la scalas offer a more or less plug and play setup which doesn't need Biamplificafion of active crossovers. I was planning on showing up cash in hand though (every evening listening now I wonder how it would all be with better speakers ! ) and you tempered my enthusiasm a little with a dose of reality.
What would be a decent basic high efficiency setup in your opinion ?
My goal is basically for it to sound just like my tannoys do when powered by the 2A3 but with the ability to be louder. Better than the tannoys would of course be awesome. They do not sound nearly as good with my other (push pull) amplifiers.
-Max
!
The Mind has No Firewall~ U.S. Army War College.
True. I never consider K-horns because I don't have any good corners.
But then there's the price, and you are still stuck replacing the mid horn, driver, and crossover.
Big speakers and little amps blew my mind!
Mr. Steady wrote: "Horn bass will smoke a sub-nt"
I do have good corners and walls specially strengthened for bass corner horns. I owned and used the bass bins of a pair of K-horns for four or five years under Oris 150 horns driven by AER-MD3s and Fostex t900a bullet tweeters. I was quite unhappy with the bass because it began sharply rolling off by the mid 30s Hz. My dissatisfaction was probably a result of enjoying true 20Hz bass extension for at least 17 or 18 years before the K-horns.
When horn bass does not sound better than sub bass is when the sub is horn loaded also. I settled on a pair of Bill Fitzmaurice HT Tuba 1/8th wave bass corner horn subs. I like them very much. I cross them over at 160 Hz with a roll off of 96 dB/octave. The crossover as well as many other functions is handled by a DEQX HDP-3. Without the DSP and the very steep slope the high crossover frequency would probably be a problem.
I sacrifice 5 or 6 dB of sensitivity which makes it possible to do only subtractive EQ (no bass boosts) and extend the bass response down to 20 HZ in my room. Sensitivity is still in the 96 or 97 dB/w/m range which is adequate for my modest needs.
"Mr. Steady wrote: "Horn bass will smoke a sub-nt"
Hi Don. No, I didn't write that. Cleanstream wrote that. I can't say that because I haven't done enough investigations into subs.
I love the way your system sounds. For a long time I had thought of adding the BF HT Tuba Low Profile version. I was going to fire it upwards because I have 18' ceilings. Now I'm thinking PPSL might be the way to go. Three things going for it. It is high efficiency at 104db, just the same as the LS bins, it has a bottom exhaust vent, so it's a near field sub, so to speak. I have a feeling the HT Tuba LP firing up would have a different sound/effect. Third, you can physicaly align the drivers with the driver of say your straight mid/bass horn. I like that.
Want to see the grand-daddy sub bass horn? Check out the Spiral Bass Super horn thread.
Jamie
Big speakers and little amps blew my mind!
Mr. Steady, I apologize for my confusion. I have splendid excuses, but I'll not bore you with them.
Thank for the compliment on my idea for my speaker system. If you are ever in the vicinity of Atlanta or Chattanooga I would love to have you drop by and see if they sound up to their description. After ten years of tweaking and refining my speakers it is only this year that they have finally come to sound as I felt they should.
Don,
"I have splendid excuses"
Think nothing of it!
I would love to hear your system, and thanks for the invite. I'll keep it tucked away. I also have been redesigning my LS for ten years, so I know what exactly what you mean. Just as important, now I know what to listen for.
Take care,
Jamie
Big speakers and little amps blew my mind!
... that needed all drivers replaced in order to sound good. If I had to do that, I'd be looking for empty cabinets at a discount.
The horn loaded woofer design is not for the carpenter faint of heart...hideously complex...precise DOES count. The Horn is excellent on it's own but I use JBL 2360 horns and 2445.drivers in a two way configuration.
The Mind has No Firewall~ U.S. Army War College.
True.Hence the original suggestion of finding some Peavey FH-1 bins, or Inlow Sound straight horns. The OP is looking at paying top dollar for mid/bass bins.
OTOH, Bob can get a pretty good deal on m/b horns.
Jamie
Big speakers and little amps blew my mind!
Edits: 12/06/14
Max,
I have the day off, and I'm working on my system, so I'm in a horn mood today.
I know some of our friends in Britain and Canada may think it crass to talk about money, but I need a budget. Please give me a hypothetical budget, and let me amuse myself setting up a system for you.
Also, the LS's you are looking at. Are they black or do they have wood veneer? What is the asking price?
Reply if you dare.
rws, are you in the game?
Jamie
Big speakers and little amps blew my mind!
It's only crass to talk about money when it isn't relevant. (And yea I am the type of Canadian who will become offended if someone directly asks my income!)The la scalas are black and the guy is asking $1700 CDN. I figure this is a touch high and would try an negotiate a bit. Klipsch heritage speakers don't grow on trees around here so factor that in, scarcity drives up the price a bit versus big city USA.
Am looking to get up and running around the $2k mark. Not set in stone, would prefer it be cheaper but I don't want a revolving door of speakers, so more expensive is also possible . Would prefer to not go active crossover and have a ton of amps, but the subwoofer mentioned above (SLPP) looks like a super option for a later date addition to the aetup.
I should add - that building cabinets or DIY crossovers or electronics are PERFECTLY FINE, what I don't want to do though is engineer a set of speakers from scratch - speaker companies go through so many iterations and permutations and have fantastic measurement equipment and design talent which I have no access to. The reason I want something off the shelf is not that I am afraid of or incapable of DIY, it's that I want a finish product which is optimized.
Edits: 12/05/14
!
The Mind has No Firewall~ U.S. Army War College.
Just this one picture.
This horn is a game changer. What the horn world needs now is one like this that is a 200hz horn.
Big speakers and little amps blew my mind!
John must have recently updated his site with build pictures. I'm telling you, a game changer.
Big speakers and little amps blew my mind!
Two more,
Talk to EduardG, and see what he can come up with for $2K. Check out his down-firing m/b horn.
Back to the PPSLs. I may have to modify that to a three way, using an Inlow Sound 135hz horn for mids, with a 1" picking up at 1K to 1.2Khz. Let's add $450 to the price of 12" or go 15", and say total price of $3,300. I think that is the minimum to use PPSL as your bass bins. Still keep in mind they take the place of two subwoofers, and their amp.
One other benefit of the PPSL, straight horns, and Unity. You can physicaly align the drivers. With folded horns like the LS or K horn, the alignment is off 3 1/2' to 5'(?). FWIW.
Big speakers and little amps blew my mind!
Don't sweat starting from scratch. If you buy LS's you'll be starting from scratch. Please bear in mind $2K gets you a starter fully horn loaded system, and they all have compromises.
I'm giving you these recommendations based on your room size, your budget, and your skill level. I will try to think of one that meets your budget, but the ones I like at a minimum blow your budget some.
At a minimum with the LS. You would have to buy a pair of better mid horns with a 15/16" throat, okay 1" with an adapter. Minimum of $700. That's $2,400 and blows your budget. At least you would already have a Crites crossover. BTW, not a bad system. In fact, a good system, but I can do better that that. It does have the advantage of being a three-way system.
Let's start with a plug and play; The Yorkville U15 or U215. A Danley Unity style horn system. Has a built-in passive, that can also be switched to an active two way system. I looked for the pictures of the crossover network that used to be posted on the web, but it is gone. That is the most over-engineered, high part count, crossover I have ever seen. You would need your PP amps to power that darn thing.
A digression into passive vs active; If you buy and use an ALK passive crossover then you will have the option, no the requirement, to adjust the gain of the mid driver and the tweeter driver. This passive xover will be living in the top cab of your LS. It is a dark, cramped, dusty, unhappy place. You will be inserting one arm, one shoulder, and your head into this unhappy place to adjust your settings. Conversly, you could have gain knobs on the front of your component rack, and twiddle away. Which sounds easier to you? BTW, Marchand is running a special on a two way FET xover for $550. That's cheaper than the crappiest Chinese tube amp on the planet. Heck Marchand publishes all his schematics, build one. His PPXLO too. The software to calculate the values is free. One more thing, two amps is a ton of amps? Add a sub, and you going up the three amps. The do start to add up! :)
Cheapest new price for the YV Unity horns is $2,200 for the pair. Just over you budget. Putting the Unity horn on top of a LS bin, and not using it's woofer would kick ass I bet. See, that would be $3,900.
Okay, how about a couple fun ones from scratch?
An Inlow sound unfinished 100hz straight mid/bass horn for $500 a piece. You add a B&C 12PE32, and fill the holes, sand it, and finish it.
Any number of candidates for nice mid horns that go to 500hz, and lots of drivers too. That would be an extended discussion, and I have my favorites. Call it $700 for the horns, and $550 for the drivers. That's $2,250.
Another option, PPSL bass bins. Probably 10" but maybe 12". Please check out Wavebox by Les Hudson. Maybe $1,200 to $1,600 per pair? I know the price for the 12" is $800. Same tweet as above, so call it $2,450 to 2,850. This option would have a very wide bandwidth, and you could forgo a subwoofer or two, so factor that into the price.
Two way horn systems are a compromise, and you pay a sonic penalty for them, but they are an acceptable starter system. If you have a fear of analog EQ, then you might want to loose that too. For the two-ways, a second order BW passive crossover would be simple to design, build, or buy.
That's all I got!
Jamie
Big speakers and little amps blew my mind!
"I should add - that building cabinets or DIY crossovers or electronics are PERFECTLY FINE, what I don't want to do though is engineer a set of speakers from scratch - speaker companies go through so many iterations and permutations and have fantastic measurement equipment and design talent which I have no access to. The reason I want something off the shelf is not that I am afraid of or incapable of DIY, it's that I want a finish product which is optimized. "
One of the things I find interesting about horns is, that they are compartmentalized, and you can swap different units in and out, and it is very easy to adjust your system with gain knobs, and different slopes and xover points, if you are using active xovers.
Big speakers and little amps blew my mind!
Max,
No, they are not bad. They are freaking awesome! Once you hear and have a front loaded mid/bass horn, you will never want to go back to anything else.
Yes, with a few upgrades to the LS, you could have a bad-ass horn system, but you have a nice big room. A long room. For the same money you could have a no-compromise horn system. Why not?
I say, let me draw out the system I would build if I had your room, and I was starting fresh. You may find it interesting.
If you buy the LS or any horn system you will go down the modification path. I don't see anyway around it. Except maybe buy a $100K Avantgarde system, and then they aren't worth it. If you play with horns, you will go active. Passive xovers work best with direct radiators, that's why people don't want to leave them. It's all they know. Horns are different. And to my mind a hybrid three way of spliting the low/mids with active and the mids/highs by passive is a really great solution, but not the best. It cerainly is easy to do. ALK makes two way high level xovers that are made to accept a signal from an active unit.
Hope this helps,
Jamie
Big speakers and little amps blew my mind!
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