Post photos of your systems/rooms here! (Part 15)

Thanks Slippers. I had collected a lot of movie posters over the years but sci-fi was my favorite. I'm planning to add a sound absorbing poster print of The Beatles on the right wall to help tame some early reflections. As small as it is, this room sounded like a gymnasium when I first moved in. On the opposite wall behind my listening position is a wall of Ikea Kallax full of vinyl which acts as a nice diffuser.

 

Yesterday I picked up a new Naim Uniti Atom to replace a Audia Flight FL3S
I also put my speaker cables on ceramic cable lifters and at the same time I put
my Focal Aria 926s on 2" thick Rock Maple plinths

 

Love the look and idea of the Atom, although probably not in my budget! How is it? Any drawbacks having it all in one box?

 

I love it its a perfect match for my Focal speakers and Focal headphones I was a bit worried about the 40 watts per channel but these
watts are unlike any I have heard before at about 3/4 volume I got a reading of 100db at 8ft. away clear, clean and load. this is the
first time I have had the ability to stream and I am really enjoying it I have a feeling I'll be listening to a lot more music in the future.

 

I totally agree on the Naim's output... it sounds much louder than the spec sheet would lead you to believe. I think it partly has to do with the forward, punchy Naim house sound.

 

That and the massive power supply for 40 watts its huge.

 

Great but DO NOT listen at 100db very often!

 

No not very often I'm usually between 65 and 80db.

 

Cool and sorry I was worried if I didn't shout you might not hear me.

 

thank you.
At some point I am going to have to sell my home and move into an apartment..
Hopefully, I can end up with a music room about that size.

 

Sony SS-NA5ES.

 

Always wondered how loud these values were. You always hear that normal conversation is about 60 dB, lawn mower 90 dB, loud rock concert 120 dB, etc...

Downloaded a dB app on my iPhone. No idea how accurate.

Listened to some pink floyd about as loud as I'd really ever want to listen.

From my chair, it averaged around 72dB and peak was 83dB.

 

Sorry but mistaken identity. Slippers is far too much of a gentleman for me wear his SHF screen name.

 

In anticipation of a pair of 1977 Klipsch LaScala’s entering my life on Friday and being inserted into the main system I have moved my Cornwalls in the the second system where they have happily found some corner walls to inhabit. In my world everything is subject to change of course so these could very well end up in the main system again depending on how I feel about the LaScala’s.

 

It's nice when I see subwoofers actually being used as subwoofers should be used, which is covering the last octave.

I understand if someone is augmenting the bass on bookshelf speakers but in general, people cross over their subs at much to high of frequency.

 

Wow Cornwalls and La Scalas! You are really diving deep into Klipsch! You are wealthy in speakers my friend.

 

Don't know about that gentleman part, lil bro!

 

They are both good speakers. But they are completely different speakers with less commonality than one might expect.

The La Scala's are a very clear and highly detailed speaker. They are also even more sensitive than the Cornwall's. The Cornwall's have better bass response and remain a better balanced speaker for home audio than the La Scala's.

It will be interesting for you to live with both and give us your impressions.

 

This is my 3rd pair of Cornwalls. I’ve also had Fortes and Heresy’s. Will be my 1st pair of LaScala’s. I’m not into mods so the abundance of negative reaction to them over the years to the older versions(the only ones I’m interested in) without modding kept me away. But before I got this latest pair of Cornwalls I hadn’t realized that Klipsch had used oil can caps on their earlier crossovers. I really like oil caps on my other speakers for their warmer presentation. Speakers like AR, KLH and Wharfedale used them and every speaker I’ve heard with them had a sound that appealed to me. These earlier LaScala’s have them also and I started to read enough positives about people using them without mods and subs and with good tube gear in spaces not unlike mine that loved them so when a nice pair came up locally I decided I needed to stop reading and listen for myself.

This review spoke to me also The Klipsch LaScala – Old School | TONEAudio MAGAZINE

 

I have found that I’ve always been able to get enough bass response for my taste with a combination of amp choice and placement trial and error. But admittedly I’m not as bass hungry as others which is why I’m not as concerned. Also I have an Allison Electronic Subwoofer EQ unit that I plan to experiment with.

Ultimately if they don’t work for me with my McIntosh MC30’s I’m pretty certain I won’t have much trouble moving them on.

 

I use this with my Allison One's and it makes a very nice, albeit subtle, difference. I'll experiment as necessary with the LaScala's.

 

Oh, man, i still have my Allisons.

I have the cubes. Allison Six? I can't remember. My kid has 'em in his room now.

Back in the day (maybe 35 years ago now), I had a technics integrated with a bad switch or something. It would emit a loud screech, and it killed a couple tweeters in those things. I remember having to order them from Allison and I had no money and it was a big deal at the time.

Anyway, good times.

 

Four's maybe? All good AFAIC.

The Allison's sound so good with the Mc MC240 it's had me fighting with myself over getting the LaScala's.

 

The purpose of fully horn loaded designs are that their cabinets are engineered as to be oblivious to the surrounding environment. That's what P.A. speakers are designed for.

You can move La Scala's around to your hearts desire and it will change nothing as far as bass response goes. The exception being if you turn the cabinets around and have the bass horns fire into a corner. This, would not have a very good effect on the horns. Unless you were to separate the horns and turn them around, facing toward the front again. The Cornwall's have a direct bass radiator and are subject to room placement issues.

Bass, as in how it may be defined as it relates to La Scala's is generally not well understood. The standard reference in music is middle "A", which is 440-Hz. Middle "C" is below middle "A" and is at 261.625565 Hertz, otherwise referred to as "C4". This is at the bottom of the treble cleft and the beginning of the bass cleft.

This will be my definition as to where bass begins...

Can a La Scalla reproduce C4 bass? Of course it can. How about C3? It is another octave down at 130.81 Hz. The La Scala reproduces this without any problem either. C2 at 65.41 Hz. is two lines down below the bass cleft and here is where things begin to fall apart..

The short answer is that the bass cabinet of the La Scala can reproduce this frequency. In fact, the La Scala's can not only reproduce frequencies in this range, they can kick like a mule while doing so.

When you get down to around C2 (and slightly below), this is where the frequencies of bass drums and floor toms live. The La Scala's can reproduce these drums with immense dynamic sense of scale.

But... in terms of frequency response of the La Scala's, this is the basement and the frequency response of the La Scala drops off rapidly after 60 Hz.

Actually, for the reasons that I have described above, I think this is an excellent idea to experiment with. It is not that the cabinet can not reproduce frequencies lower than 40 Hz., just that it does so at a greater rate of attenuation. If the frequencies below 60 Hz. (with the keyword being "below") then this might be a very workable solution to the bass frequency issues of using La Scala's in a home audio environment, as far as the bass issues are concerned.

The objective here, will be to generate as flat of a response as possible down to around 41.5 Hz., which is the open low "E" string on a electric bass guitar. Might suggest getting some music that has floor toms and bass drums and listen to it on your Cornwall's, so you can compare the same music on the La Scala's.

I might also suggest that you do the same for some music featuring the electric bass guitar. A good album I recommend and use myself is the Grand Funk Red Album. Very simple heavy rock music featuring a lead guitar, bass guitar and drumset. Might work for the drum parts too.

Nothing critical here, digital files and YouTube are fine for these comparisons.

 

My Grand Funk days are long over with but I get your message and appreciate it and will have fun experimenting. I’ll let you know what music I find does the trick and if any things that I find bass heavy(Cassidy and early Airplane come to mind) sounds worse on the LS’s.

I’ll just end by saying it never ceases to surprise me the amount of gear that I like that others don’t and vice versa which is why I try to hear as much as possible with my own ears and in my space rather then just rely on others opinions.