Color me puzzled. The Klipsch La Scalas sound bloody marvelous!
- Thread starter godofwealth
- Start date
Really , Why ? Perhaps you might expand upon your comment a little further .
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The Klipschorn is not just any speaker. It’s rated 105 dB in efficiency. Even one watt into a KHorn will blow your eardrums. It’s tailored for a SET amp. With my La Scalas, about the same efficiency, I’ve tried a variety of solid state amplifiers, from very pricey ones to Pass’ First Watt. Compared to any of my three SETs, they uniformly suck IMHO. But it’s just my opinion. If you like the sound of solid state amplifiers on a horn, knock yourself out. I don’t.
My old Pass Aleph 3 stereo amp sounded very good on my Vitavox corner horns, but not as nice as the Lamm ML2s. I have considered trying some FirstWatt SIT amps for the summer time because of heat. The Aleph 3 gets very hot, don't know about the SITs.
Well … It is known that PWK utilised modified Brook 10C Pre amplification and modified Brook 12A amplification during the design and voicing of the Khorn … the output tubes being 2A3 configured to run in Push Pull mode producing 5 / 10 Watts , the system appears to have been designated 12A-KI .
PWK utilised a number of disparate amplifiers over the years to run the Klipsch demo room KHorns, up to and including Adcom GFA 555 ( Solid State , 200W into 8 ohms ) , as far as I am aware Non were SET topology.
At one point Saul Marantz personally built a pair of mono tube amps specifically forPWK , they were Not SET amplification.
Up to his passing PWK ran with McIntosh for his personal home system , as far as I am aware McIntosh have never manufactured a SET amplifier.
From at least the mid 80's PWK used a Crown D75 to power the left/right Khorns and a BGW Model 100 to power a Belle center channel in the Klipsch demo room.
Of course most SET topology appears suited to drive transducers of such high sensitivity from a power output level perspective , however they are not the only topology that can be utilised imho .
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Curious. I owned Klipsch in the 70's and the LaScalla drivers were not time aligned [nor were the K-Horns]. Has that been remedied in the newer versions?
I've been running Klipschorns for some years now, in stock form the limitations easily heard. Certainly far more sense of performers in room vs. dynamic compression speakers, but timbre, tonality left me wanting. End result I wanted to retain best aspects of khorns while improving anomalies I heard. I ended up changing out all three drivers, Volti tractrix horns on mids, custom baffle on tweeters, with tweeter baffle I can physically time align tweet with mids. Also completely went over type A crossovers, with all point to point wiring, Jantzen inductors, Jupiter and Audyn True Copper Max caps.
So now I have khorns that image, have much better tonal balance, more natural timbre, even greater resolving/transparency. This while retaining that magical Klipsch Heritage sense of live performers in room.
I much prefer all tubes with the khorns, custom build 300B monoblocks with Duelund CAST, Texas Components TX2575 vs push pull or SS amps, prefer modded Coincident Statement pre vs Pass XP-22. These particular khorns, tuned exactly to my preferences will never leave me.
So now I have khorns that image, have much better tonal balance, more natural timbre, even greater resolving/transparency. This while retaining that magical Klipsch Heritage sense of live performers in room.
I much prefer all tubes with the khorns, custom build 300B monoblocks with Duelund CAST, Texas Components TX2575 vs push pull or SS amps, prefer modded Coincident Statement pre vs Pass XP-22. These particular khorns, tuned exactly to my preferences will never leave me.
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