Review: Klipsch La Scala Speaker

Good for you Tubeking ,but apparently there is not always a necessety for a change.So please do not consider your self at the top of the world just cause of your amplifier design preference!

They don't call him the Tubeking for nothing! Words of wisdom from royalty regarding tubes and horns....once you had'em together you will never go back! Completely agree; all hail to the King! That array of speakers you have take up some major real estate in your kingdom Tubeking! You must be lucky enough to have married the Hornqueen! Cool beans - of all my audio gear my LaScala's are the most frequently and unfairly berated by my own beautiful Queen simply for their size ("...those things are bigger than our washing machine!!"). I own vintage Heresy's as well (in my work system, while the LaScala's are in the home system). What have you found your preferences with the Heresy's as far as tweaks and types of amps to drive them with? Or are you running them as center channels? My biggest improvements over stock with the LaScalas have been replacing the lamp-cord wiring harness with DH Lab silver wires (big sonic improvement). Mine also have Dynamat covered horns, but I got them that way so don't know the difference it made. They are the older metal horns with K55V and K77 drivers.

Purepwr - I don't think his Highness was being arrogant about his suggestions at all. He was offering up his personal observations/opinion based upon his experience. You posted your review and system here on a forum site and one would assume that you may want some personal feedback/response for that reason. If not, I'm not sure what the purpose of posting might be. I am not saying this simply because I happen to concur with his experience and opinion, I'm saying it because it occurs to me that your responses seem a bit defensive. I don't think there was anything about the way he stated it that would lead me to believe that he was judging you for your choice. I think he was just trying to share something and be helpful, as was I.

I realized that I had not fully answered your question about your tweeters. To give you some more information to that end, my LaScala's are vintage from 1977 and the drivers are the originals. So the K77 tweeter with the round magnet housing is on the earlier versions of that speaker. I'm sorry that I do not know the appearence of the tweeter used in the LaScala's in later years. I think they changed them in the mid-80's though. You can find out a lot of specific (to Klipsch) information on the "forum" section of their webiste here They have a search engine on the forums section but make sure you specify to search all the previous years. The Search engine is a bit of a pain, but there are many folks on that site are Klipsch fanatics and there are quite a few who've had significant experience with those speakers.

Cheers!

I do not mean to offend the tubeking but just corrrect and use my shoes for a while and realize what is my point.I understand his immense experience on hifi tube gear,but he has to understand from what view i am coming from since that is the way he started too.So he could not say that he was silly for not knowing the difference 20 years ago between the SS and tube design.That was the offensive part on his side.I do not want to make enemies just get feedback like you said but I am not mad it just sounded arrogant too,on his side for saying he was ignorant for using SS amplification.The steam blew off already thanks to both of you the tubeking and jax2!

Hi Purepwr
I think that you already know what you're doing, moreso than you know. I wouldn't fall for using those hot, inefficient, noisy, microphonic, unreliable, expensive, maintenance intensive tubes with horns - they just never worked well for me. I've already tried that & it was bad advice. Tubed preamps are another story, but we're not talking about that at the moment. Tube's high idle noise (tube rush) & microphonics are so easily perceived with sensitive horn transducers that I've found them unbearable. Others do prefer tubes & if that works for them then it's all good - for *them*. For me, the lack of deep bass extension + control, & the softened highs are also problems I've noted w\ tube power amplification.
I've been running a pair of vintage 1978 Belles (well over 20 years here too) with mosfet's - if you want to see the complete setup then just click on my username & scroll down below the bio to read all about it.
Mosfet based Luxman & Accuphase amps have provided the best results for me so far; 200 watts per channel is about right; when running at higher power levels 100 watts/ch seemes a bit underpowered during those power-demanding peaks. I like to have about 20dB of dynamic headroom, so at a 2watt/ch. listening level a 200 watt/ch amp is a good fit. Perreaux, Ayre, even McCormack Deluxe series amps also do a pretty good job, but generally I don't care for the sound of bipolars w\ horns. Mosfet amps w\ combined with MIT MH750-(xx) speaker cabling the synergy is very good.

Pure you had another question about possibly stuffing the top sections with polyfill; that just won't give you the needed midrange horn damping that a product like Dynamat will provide. Polyfill is a benefit up top, but not a huge one. Damping the (lower & upper) internal cabinet vibrations with other materials is a better use of time & material IMO. It's mandatory on the squawker.
Internal rewiring however is a must, & there are numerous wire alternatives available, but stick with a copper product because the horns are already so revealing that hyper-detailed silver wire isn't desirable.
The ALK crossovers: I'm undecided about them. I like some parts of them, & other parts of the AA crossover. I wish that I could combine them together somehow; I'm still experimenting with tweaks on them both. Al's onboard wire is not too good, so any noted issues may possibly be addressed right there.
I'm thinking that your use of full time Eq is indicative of a system setup issue which you're trying to mask via other means. If you're happy with that then that's cool, but there's probably a cleaner approach which would not require Eq on a full time basis, only needed occassionally for fixing those 'problem' recordings. That essentially removes the distortions of 2 pair of interconnect cables & an active filter device from your signal path, which should be a significant benefit.
I would approach the fine tuning issues by trying & applying some other tweaks instead.
Possibly a different amp (but only possibly) yours may synergise better when everything else is tweaked in.
Brass cones under your speakers.
Speaker cables.
Interconnects.
Upgrade AC cords.
AC line conditioning.
Shelving.
Cones.
Footers.

I would someday really like to hear a tube rig that's setup right for PWK's horns. Maybe it can be done & maybe it's even heavenly. I dunno, but so far tubes have just not fulfilled my preferences in so many areas.