Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site opus.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!ut-sally!opus!rcd From: rcd@opus.UUCP Newsgroups: net.audio Subject: Re: RE: Klipsch info wanted Message-ID: <181@opus.UUCP> Date: Fri, 9-Mar-84 00:59:59 EST Article-I.D.: opus.181 Posted: Fri Mar 9 00:59:59 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 4-Mar-84 04:13:47 EST References: <60@know-eng.UUCP> <1307@vice.UUCP> Organization: NBI, Boulder Lines: 42 <> > At $700/pair, I guarantee you can find much better speakers than the Heresys. ...probably quite true, but then... > I could not listen to them for more than an hour at a time > without getting a terrible headache; earstrain. ...that starts to strain the imagination too, and... > About the only thing these speakers are good on is horn reproduction. > In fact, everything, even strings, sounds like a damn horn. ...that's a favorite claim of everyone whose personal tastes in music reproduction somehow run counter to the particular characteristics of horn-loaded drivers. This claim is unfortunately dredged up by salesmen who (should) know better but aren't selling horn-type speakers. There's a world of difference between a trumpet with human lips flapping in the breeze at one end and an unconstrained round brass bell at the other, and a linear-motor driving a diaphragm attached to a rigid, damped cast aluminum rectangular horn with the mouth constrained by its mounting. "Horn" refers to the shape, not the sound! > They beam like crazy, and absolutely mangle midrange. Interestingly, the directionality of horns is readily amenable to analysis, so of course they have been analyzed and they DON'T beam if properly designed. It's hard to get a handle on "mangle midrange" but I'd like to know if we can get more specifics here. Of course, you may not LIKE horns. Fine. You also may not like electrostatics. Fine also. But be careful that your problem isn't room placement, room acoustics, bad interconnections, or bad sources of sound. I'd guess that one of these (most likely the first two) was the real problem with this fellow's Heresy's. > One thing that you can say for Klipsch is that he follows a different > drummer. A poor one. Power efficient, perhaps, but poor. Yes, you can say that, but you'd be wrong. Klipsch has distinguished himself by developing a set of designs over the years that follow the same set of design principles. As a result, he's got something he can understand, analyze, and hence evolve. Klipschorns are like the old Volkswagen beetles (tho in a different price class!) - they look the same on the outside but there are ongoing little changes and fine-tunings. The Heresy is an attempt to get some part of the K'horn performance at a fraction of the price and size. It succeeds but it's overpriced, I think. Can't we leave it at that? Klipsch makes decent speakers (has for 40+ years) and so do a bunch of other folks. There are disreputable pseudo-high-end audio dealers who grow apoplectic at the idea that Paul hasn't come out with a "revolutionary, new, space age, ultra-high ..." (ad nauseam) product. That's their problem. It works. Don't fix it.