[NBPk402]

I used to own some 20 year old LaScalas and they sounded like new...just put some new caps in the crossover to be safe.

 

[NBPk402]

Hold on a minute. True, any components decay over time, a long for some, short time for others. Just had my 1990 Klipsch La scala's crossover's rebuilt and I couldn't be happier. Its my new Pioneer LX305 I'm having issues with. Where are you Pioneer?
Consider how even Klipsch from the 50's on are still sought after. They don't get better with age, they just always sound better. I'm the same age.

I agree a lot of the new electronics are not built as well as the older models (not all, but current mid-fi electronics ), and much more expensive to repair. The more complex anything get the more reliability goes down, and we are not even getting into problems with HDMI which in my opinion is horrible. Check out the prices for 20+ year old good equipment and it sometimes is worth many times more than it originally cost.

 

[NBPk402]

Yes, I agree! On "Ready Player One" the dialog is so clear you can hear Parcival even when he's whispering during the opening race. On the other hand I can barely understand Scarlett Johansson most of the time. Sometimes two guys will be talking, one guy is crystal clear and the other one is imperceptible. Music sounds great, so I guess the speakers are still kickass, it's movie audio, as you said, that's inconsistent. I wish I knew someone else with a home theater so I could compare. There's an Audio Advice type of store a few miles from me but they never answer their phone or respond to my emails, and you have to contact them before you can go over to their showroom.

It could be speaker placement and room acoustics. I have noticed before when setting up my speakers that the sound images can change locations on the stage if not setup properly. If you keep working on your speakers alignment...you might find out that what you thought was one voice is actually 2 voices or vs.

I would put some painters blue tape on the floor around your speakers and then start moving them an inch or 2 around or even change the angle of toe in or toe out. Also check to make sure your distances are as close to the same as possible. I use a little Bosch laser measuring tool which is not expensive and very handy for setting up speakers. Everytime you move it replay a track or two that you are very familiar with and when you get it to where you really like it add the tape again, and play the same tracks that you had problems with to see if it has changed for the better or worse.

Recently when setting up my k402s...when listening to a track by Tones and I, the voice was very crackle and I could hardly understand the words at the beginning. I played around with my speaker alignment and the vocals became crystal clear. Prior to this song most of my tracks sounded great, but the one tracks did not and I found out it was not the track that was bad, but my alignment...other artist sounded perfectly good even prior, but after even some of the other tracks that sounded good got even better.

Good luck...it just takes time to get everything dialed in.

 

[NBPk402]

The new speaker might sound different than the old speaker, but that does not mean it is better....just different. It is your money and if you want to buy new equipment instead of reconditioning, fine, but stop the slamming of the old equipment as YOU have no idea if it sounds as good or better than a current model.
The person who you were talking about could very well have had hearing loss. Klipsch Heritage speakers have very little difference on their models throughout the years. I have owned several pairs and when I sold mine they had all been restored to new. I seriously doubt you would have been able to hear a difference in a double blind test.

 

[NBPk402]

You are missing the main point...people upgrade their speaker (even ones they have bought new and owned for a few years) to sound in their opinion to be better than the original. You can save thousands by buying old speakers in good condition. Then you replace the parts with newer old stock, parts from the newest model or upgrade them to sound how they want them to sound. Your memory of how they sounded new is no way to know how it sounded.

It is not possible to know 3xactly how a 50 year old speaker sounded 50 years ago and compare it to a newer one...unless you purchased it 50 years ago and very seldom used it and then bought the newest one to compare. You will still have age taking its toll on old parts. I just read an article on a NOS amp that had to have a lot of parts replaced to bring it up to old specs...even though it had never been used.

I will take a vintage stereo receiver over just about any new piece of junk AVR being sold with HDMI, and I am talking about even $5,000 AVRs.

 

[NBPk402]

I'm not missing any point. Did I not clearly state I've upgraded my own "old" speakers? You can save thousands on old speakers in good condition, then spend thousands on them updating everything so they have half a chance of sounding decent for the first time since they were made. If you upgrade them to sound how you want them to sound, they will be *. Because NO PERSON can design the sound of a speaker better than the manufacturer. If ACCURACY is the sound you are going for... doing that on your own is *-shooting. If you could care less about accuracy, go ahead, but don't try to convince me your speakers sound good.

Believe what you want. Bye.

 

[NBPk402]

There are a lot of people that can mod speakers to sound better than stock. Where do you think the manufacturers got their designs... from people who know how to design speakers. How about GSR Research for one that mods Klipsch speaker to improve the design? These very same people a lot of the time move from one Company to another., and they learned how to design with degrees and or experience.

Do you know how to use a mic and REW software...pretty easy to measure and compare your speaker to published specs from the manufacturer.