To all Klipsch Heritage fans

Thick carpet, unless it’s like 1-ft thick, will have very little effect on SPL in the bass frequencies. Absorption materials tend to be frequency dependent. The higher in the frequency range you go, the more typical absorber materials will have an effect.

Anything below 200 Hz is really going to cut through your carpet like it was acoustically transparent, hit whatever hard subflooring like plywood or concrete (the worst, an acoustic mirror!) and bounce up at an angle incident to it.

So I wouldn’t take that into account. Part of why monitors are put on angled stands is to direct the plane of the woofer’s output up, away from the plane of the floor, while aiming the beaming frequencies in the mids and highs toward the listener’s head.

@mrdecibel 

A few months ago I auditioned a pair of the AL6 LaScalas. They were way too forward in the midrange and had terribly audible cabinet resonances. I think I actually prefer the much older (probably original) design I once heard setup at the Woody Guthrie museum in Tulsa.

I get the appeal of their effortless dynamics at lower SPLs, but otherwise I don’t really understand the appeal. I imagine modded ones can sound quite good. 

@helomech

I’m not a Klipsch apologist in terms of their unorthodox presentation and design; you either love it or hate it. Having said that, I’m wondering if the pairing Klipsch with modern solid state amps designed for different speaker loads might emphasize the worst characteristics of both the speaker and the amp.

About 5 years ago I ran across a pair of 1977 La Scala, all original, in a craigslist ad. It was a “couple approaching retirement age and wife pressuring to get rid of them” situation so I got them for a song. Set up a secondary bedroom system with them for fun.

All I had amp-wise were a pair of massively overpowered Emotiva Differential Reference monoblocks (650W@8 Ohms, 1000W@4) and another pair of Nelson Pass designed Amp Camp Amps (15W@8).

• With the Emotivas, the old La Scalas sounded awful, like the camp PA horns on the show M*A*S*H.
• With the lower power but ‘sweeter’ sounding ACA amps, still solid state, they sounded much better.

Then I picked up a pair of 1950s Quad II amps lovingly refurbished by an actual Zen-practitioner electrical engineer in Colorado. Also 15W@8, but all tube, gorgeous KT66 push-pull Class-A sound. What a difference! Like, I just plopped down on my bed and listened. Couldn’t stop for hours. It was just the most transparent, effortless, zero-fatigue, realistic sound.

Like Nelson Pass is so famously quoted, “It’s the first Watt that matters. All the other Watts that come later don’t mean a thing if the first one isn’t perfect.” I think that’s especially true with high sensitivity horn speakers. They reveal very small differences in amp topology like gain staging and feedback issues that less sensitive speakers mask.

Anyway, I wonder if your negative experience with modern Klipsch could be chalked up to that. They’ll pry these old Quad II amps from my cold, dead hands!

@engineears 

No, amplifier pairing is not remotely the issue. I probably tried at least a dozen amps of all manner of topologies (A/AB, PPtube, D, SETs, separates, integrateds) on my Heresy 3s. Certainly some sounded better than others but none removed the speakers’ inherent weaknesses. I heard the AL6 LaScalas on both some expensive VAC separates and some Rotel Michi. They sounded pretty bad in both scenarios. Even in many YT recordings of these models their faults are glaring.

Anyway, there are wholly better options for less money is my main point, especially if willing to go DIY. 

As mentioned earleir,  big horns need a active crossover/processor, dsp. It is impossible to design such horn speakers without one. A concentric driver design, tannoys and such can get away without active crossovers/dsp, but, a horn just can’t get there without it for a high fidelity application. I just got my hands on a Accuphase DF65. It is also the dac in the horn chain, i.e., no adc, i come into it digital --> triamp.... Omg... the resolution, detail, clarity, separation...it beat out all the magicos and the cadillac boressens and whatever i heard. 

Such is the possibility with high efficiency horns if executed correctly. On the same note, i use horns designed by TAD. But, Klipsch has some potential. You’d have to add a lot more cabinet bracing to address their lazy cabinet, no-rez, etc. and go into it active with peq. 

The big horn, flea watt tube because the horn was soo sensitive , passive crossover archaic crap comes from a time when these guys just didn’t know any better....Or what a severely gimped horn could do was still good enough, beat out some other crappy speaker designs out there. The pros have always known about this, but, for hifi, it may cost a little more for something like an accuphase processor.

@helomech  wrote

No, amplifier pairing is not remotely the issue. I probably tried at least a dozen amps of all manner of topologies (A/AB, PPtube, D, SETs, separates, integrateds) on my Heresy 3s. Certainly some sounded better than others but none removed the speakers’ inherent weaknesses. I heard the AL6 LaScalas on both some expensive VAC separates and some Rotel Michi. They sounded pretty bad in both scenarios. Even in many YT recordings of these models their faults are glaring.

Anyway, there are wholly better options for less money is my main point, especially if willing to go DIY.