I found the Lascala's mid bass boost to be distracting, fat and muddy in the room I listened. the klipschhorns make live recordings sound exciting and avoid the poor midbass of the lascala's while being able to play deep bass. In the long term klipsch speakers wear me out, but fun factor I can see why they're so popular.
I agree about the fun factor.
It's hard for me to imagine the La Scalas having poor midbass or muddy anything. True, they lack deep bass, thus the superiority of the Klipschorns. As you say, "in the room I listened." The question springs to mind is what kind of room was it? How live or dead was the room? How would you describe the position in the room of the La Scalas, about how far from the rear and side walls?
N.B. Starting with the La Scala
II, the the side walls of the speaker enclosure were thicker. People reported better bass.
I can listen to my Klipschorns for 12 hour stretches,
or more, and not be "worn out," and experience no listening fatigue.
Paul Klipsch ranked the importance of speaker qualities in approximately the following order
:
Most Important
Low distortion, especially low modulation distortion. [See
www.stereophile.com
] Horn Loaded speakers tend to have very low modulation distortion, compared to direct radiators. Back when Klipsch published such results, the
Klipschorn was shown to have approximately
1/3 as much modulation distortion as the
Klipsch Cornwall of that time, with direct radiating bass, even though the Cornwall was operating at a 10 dB lower SPL. Typically two pure tones are put into the speaker at once, and the spurious intermodulation products ("side bands") are looked at. Of course,
many more than two tones are present in
music at a given moment.
Sensitivity, which is positively correlated with low modulation distortion (i.e. negatively correlated with modulation distortion) perhaps because of lower excursion per dB or watt. Also related to potential dynamics. Klipsch said we need
instantaneous peaks (around 1/3 of a second, or less) of 115 dB "at your ears" to simulate "the blood stirring levels" of a symphony orchestra. Later studies by THX indicated that for typical living room or Home Theater size, 5 to 7 dB lower peaks will do, because of those early reflections (even when normally controlled). Typical levels of loud passages (not instantaneous peaks) are more like 80 dB to 100 dB at home.
Controlled directivity to minimize early reflections off of side walls. Area rugs and absorption or diffusion at some reflection points on walls and ceiling are still recommended-- or not
-- controversial.
Frequency response, probably the least important, providing the range is > 40 Hz to 15K Hz, without deviations that are
too great. Response is probably not as flat in a horn speaker as in an excellent direct radiator,
BUT, the combination of room treatments, Audyssey Flat, and tweaking to taste with my Khorns gives me response of +/- 2 dB 800 to 16.5KHz, and gradually rising response below that, a la the lower part of the Harman curve, from +1.5 dB at 800Hz to ~~+ 8 dB at 40 Hz, then slowly declining to - 7.65dB at 16 dB with a subwoofer.
Least Important
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
I try to play only good recordings. Almost all Blu-rays are fine, some wonderful. So are SACDs, even remasters of old recordings. My guess as to why is that the remixers and remasterers are more careful because they know the SACD version will go to at least some audiophiles. Same for DVD-As. CDs seem to be a little worse; I have given a few to Goodwill. That's as low as I go. Here is how Meridian thinks formats stack up:
