Interconnect advice needed

simna OP

159 posts

01-31-2023 at 09:16am 

@vinylshadow 
Unfortunately twice my budget.

Oh shoot. I didn't notice the 10m. Sorry! In that case, I would strongly recommend Straight Wire IC's. Best bang for the buck and I had their Crescendo's for 20 years before my switch. If you can swing them, get used OG Crescendo's not the new Crescendo 3's. Minimal differences except slightly thicker insulation. If Crescendo's are out of reach, look into the Virtuoso's. Good luck!

@simna Lots of good posts here that should point you in the right direction.

I’d like to comment briefly on your statement:

"I’ve just bought Klipsch Heresy IV and I don’t want the cable to emphase the midrange bump in these speakers even more."

The Heresys will measure ruler flat in an anechoic chamber. No midrange bump "engineered" in. The response is measured using an industry standard 1 watt @ 1 meter reference. Place these in a listening space with real amplification and results may vary. The midrange "push" or emphasis can be caused by many factors, including the room. The Heresys are quite revealing and unforgiving of "warts" present elsewhere in the signal path. So, yes, interconnects matter.

The Heresys like all speakers are imperfect and have errors of both commission and ommission. They make sounds they shouldn’t and filter out information that would be nice to hear. To be specific related to acts of commission, Klipsch horn bodies have a tendency to set up symphathetic resonances with other vibrating objects in the speakers. So they, themselves, become "involuntary" transducers making sounds that are not part of the original signal. The midrange horn body shares a cabinet space with the woofer thus mimicing the lower midrange signals. The body is also directly coupled to the midrange driver and "sings along" thru a portion of the midrange & upper midrange as well. Same is true for the tweeter although woofer vibrations are below the resonant frequencies of the horn body. This added energy generates in-phase out-of-phase signals in concert with the drivers, thus emphasizing or sucking out certain frequencies. The louder the signal the more pronouced this phenominon. These "rogue" signals get bounced around the room like "ordinary" signals making matters worse, so room acoustics come further into play. Focus, detail and spacial information also suffer.

I’d highly recommend that you apply some quality dampening material to the back side of the horn bodies. For an investment of less than $20, it will offer the best bang for the buck you can do to calm down the midrange and smooth out the highs. The Heresys willl probably never sound like polite British monitors, but you can have high efficiency AND linear response -- with a little work.

Atlas, Chord, QED, Ecosse, all UK and all good.

@waytoomuchstuff 

Thanks for a really interesting and informative post.
Have you any recommendations for damping material? 
Feels a little scary to remove the horns from the box.

I will try another thing first. I read on another forum a post from a guy having the same problem. He got the advice to experiment with toe out. I have tried many placements, but not that.

Actually, I like the British polite sound more, but I can´t find any speakers sensitive enough for my 12w SET.

@simna

Toeing out the speakers seems like good advice.

Dynamat makes some good material that you can purchase in sheets. Just slice out what you need with a carton knife, remove the backing and stick them on. Literally takes 10 minutes per driver.

The Klipsch drivers are held in with machine screws. So, they can be removed and retightened with zero risk of damaging the cabinet or the fasteners. The midrange horn is pretty bulky, so I’d have a friend near by to support them. IF you feel the need to remove the assembly from the cabinet, there will likely be push in connectors for the speaker wires. No tools (or, special skill) required.

Your amp setup may be the perfect companion to your Heresys. Well played.

Best of luck to you. Looks like you’ve made some good choices. Enjoy.