Your step son and myself have asked that same question.:yes: As you may know I grew up around tube amps and Klipschorns so I do unsderstand now about Single Ended triode designs somewhat. It's the networks I am having a hard time wrapping my old brain around after my late dad telling me PWK speakers are great out of the box( he was a pilot and Air craft mechanic). But he said the same about my Corvette and my some of my Sport Motorcycles. I have done mods to all for years. My wife said I can't leave the lawn mower alone...
Pop was wrong on the speakers...sigh. or he did not want me to mess with his "babies" :scratch2:
Thanks for the link. I have several sites to read this week end from you and BPSHEEP.
Thanks Guys...:thmbsp:
Louis
Well to give some explanation of how my SET amplifiers can compete with my stepson's car stereo its like this.
I don't know if my stepson was using one of those car stereo 1 Farad (1,000,000uf) supply caps (the size of a couple of beer cans in length typically) in parallel with his battery possibly, but maybe not. But that 1 Farad @ 14 volts on it is about 100 Joules of energy for his 1000 watt amplifier. That's really not a huge amount of energy. A lot of HT receivers are lucky half the time to have half this amount.
Now imagine my 10 watt SET tube amplifiers having 400 Joules of energy and a resistance path of just a few ohm's of which to move it. A normal tube amp can have several hundred ohm's to have to move its energy and it may only have 30-50 joules. The path resistance and the capacitance create time constants. To much resistance or not enough reserves and things slow down, hence lack of impact.
Its not volume of capacitance alone that does this. But its the way it is used. Most people that build or design amplifiers know that to much capacitance is bad sounding! and it is if you apply it in a classical circuit design. Mine is not, each section of the supply is highly isolated allowing smaller caps to charge and discharge at faster rates without the negative influence of bulk reserves.
As BPSHEEP points out if your a 1% person then Bob Crites or better yet IMO ALK is your answer.
Simply because the return on Mods as I have done become less apparent on their return of investment when associated gear is not to the same level. I have had numerous amplifiers and digital gear I have used with my Fortes and the Modified Fortes tell it like it is good or bad! and if its bad I don't point the finger at the Fortes which could easily be done if one were not hearing what I hear from my own associated electronics. I think a lot of people are not using 3-$5000 CDP's as I'm using, and even then among expensive players in my system they are all over the place as far as performance.
Its kind of like just dropping in a 500hp motor into some family car without associated support like beefed up tranny, rear end, cooling system, suspension, shocks, tires etc...
For your dad yeah good enough was probably on his mind and not many in his day were looking to do things like that, that are found on this forum today. But believe me a few did venture there.
This guys dad was a NASA Engineer in 1961, notice the size! Of these Klipsch Networks
I think you have touched on a fundamental and important aspect. Our motivations are not the same.
Again I'll leave the bulk of the quote and respond to what you wrote. which I think is very,very good!
1%, well if it was that to me I would of let it all alone a long time ago. But I understand were your coming from.
Let me give you an example, with the Forte mods I did along with the associated gear I use, the Fortes sound stage presentation tripled in its size.
That's a 66% return in my book. But one can not expect this return from your average AV gear or for that matter average 2 channel or even some very good gear. Largely some people care about this and many do not. But I do. So it is valuable to me.
You state,
Unlike you, I am an avid HT listener. You may be able to do without a sub on stereo music, In fact, I know you can. But in HT your Fortes would not cut the mustard w/o one.
In an extreme sense of volume and excursion perhaps, but not in the sense of quality bass over a broad range.
For yrs I attended movie theaters 2 and 3 times a week. In fact, remember the 1974 movie "Earthquake"? I attended it in the theater with its monstrous sound system, it was pretty impressive with all the Cerwin Vega subs and BGW power amplifiers. I had heard the makers of the film were sued for structural damage in some theaters. I do have an appreciation for theater sound, But at the same time I have been disappointed by many theaters sound systems as well.
I have a very good 60in flat screen, outputting digital to a good external DAC in a 2-channel system like what I have is far more involving for me then many 5.1 HT receivers, an opinion yes, but I'm not alone here.
As far as subs vs the North Creeks, most subs just go boom,boom,boom for me. Very little pitch definition.
While my modified Fortes are certainly not the last statement in pitch definition (my reference is Dunlevy 4A's that a friend has a $6,000 loudspeaker that goes with authority to 25hz)The modified Fortes can make you notice to their bass, which can start and stop nearly on a dime. I like to call it tractor like, my friend John calls it grip! Its enough to feel in the seat of your pants on a heavy leather sofa. As a visitor who is a heavy equipment operator said "The bass with the North Creeks is like a jack hammer, no subs needed!" that was coming from a guy with several subs of his own. And the Fortes can display lateral weight in a greater frequency range than 20hz to 120hz, 30hz to 700hz is more useful to me. Stock Fortes in contrast are unfortunately very lean in the bass and unfortunately what pitch definition they have leaves some people desiring subs. But when they don't integrate well, IMO its the rest of the range of the lows that often are sloppy that makes the integration difficult and that's the inductor being used that causes that IMO.
The difference here in your opinion is, I do have the North Creeks, and I have stock Fortes so unless you've heard them then only then would be believing or disbelieving be a fair opinion. Like DaveC who has heard them and has heard the Dunlevy's recently.
I freely admit the claims are down right outrageous and darn outright unbelievable, I still do double takes to this day. But the sound makes me passionate about Klipsch.
Whats nice about all this is the price I paid and I can walk into a $100,000 room and not worry about lusting because I have what some those $100,000 rooms do for me. Its what makes me so passionate about DIYing and AK.
Basically though yes, there is a place for the so called 1% and the 99% but as I said IMO its the ability to compete with the 1% at a fraction of the price and I mean competing with a $4000 DIY investment with a $40,000 retail sound system.
That's satisfaction at its best!
Cheers
SET12
