To the rear of the MF/HF enclosure is a connector panel, finished with an aluminium plate and which sports chunky bi-wirable speaker terminals. The cabinet panels are 25mm thick and feel solid and well damped – the upper section has a removable magnetic grille with a metal-mesh weave and the two boxes are interconnected via a detachable cable. This comes in at 450Hz and is claimed to reach down to 45Hz. The lower enclosure sports a 381mm woofer with fibre-composite cone behind a two-fold birch plywood and MDF horn, said to be a smaller version of the Klipschorn's three-fold design. Below 4.5kHz this crosses down to the 50.8mm K-55-X midrange compression driver, with phenolic diaphragm, firing into a large exponential horn. The company claims that this combination makes it the most efficient tweeter on the domestic scene. The speaker's upper cabinet contains the new 25.4mm K-771 tweeter, which sports a lightweight polyimide diaphragm loaded by Klipsch's 90ox40o Tractrix horn. KH's Lab Report suggests a slightly lower value but the La Scala AL5 could still pump up the volume if driven by many of the headphone preamps featured in HFN! This, and its size, makes for superlative sensitivity with Klipsch claiming 105dB/1W/1m. The La Scala AL5 has three drive units, all horn-loaded. The veneered birch plywood and MDF cabinet – hand-built in Hope, Arkansas – has an appealing scent of freshly cut wood and glue. Our cherry review sample had a lightness to it that softened the cabinet's imposing lines given its vast size, black might be too much for many households. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder but to my tastes, the La Scala AL5 is no oil painting – it's a utilitarian object made only slightly more aesthetically acceptable by the choice of Natural Cherry, Satin Black Ash or American Walnut book-matched wood veneers. Its two-piece cabinet looks anachronistic alongside your average compact-footprint tower floorstander with its umpteen small diameter mid/bass units. I found it startling to behold, it reminding me that loudspeaker design is first and foremost about the physics of moving air! Instead, it takes the best of Klipsch tradition and alloys it with new, modern drive units and construction techniques. Lest we forget, it was originally conceived as a public address speaker, but if you have the space and the funds, then you might find this a fascinating potential purchase because it's not simply a rehash of an ancient design. Latest in a line stretching back to 1963, the £12,000 La Scala AL5 is surely the company's most domesticated, and wallet-friendly, classic Klipsch. The 'mini Klipschorn' we have here – otherwise known as the La Scala – has proved more popular in real-world listening rooms despite its 1016圆16圆43mm (hwd) dimensions and hefty 91kg bulk. That's why examples of the brand's superb-sounding flagship Klipschorn are so few and far between on this side of the pond – sheer physical size ruling it out for most UK audiophiles. 'The benefits of horn loading have not changed.' He's quite right, of course, but neither have the caveats, not least because attempts to deliver realistic bass typically requires gigantic horns and speakers the size of the average British garden shed.
Prepare to be stunned by the La Scala's scintillating sound.Įfficiency, sensitivity and coverage pattern – all attributes that are hard to beat,' says Klipsch's Principal Engineer Roy Delgado. If that doesn't work, then you may have a failed voice coil.Producing monumental SPLs from next-to-no-power, this refreshed American behemoth is no brick in the PA wall. Keep the battery attached only long enough to see the cone move forward. You can safely do this to woofers or tweeters.
KLIPSCH KG 4.2 SPEAKERS REVIEW PLUS
Tape wire from the minus end of the battery to the minus terminal of the driver, and briefly touch the plus wire to the plus (or red) terminal of the driver. Tape 5-6" lengths of wire to each of the battery's terminals. If you don't have a volt/ohm meter, attach a 1.5 volt AA battery to the terminals.
If the voice coil is blown, the resistance will be very high or infinite. Use a simple volt/ohm meter to check resistance.Resistors are cheap, replace it.īefore you replace any voice coils, do these quick & easy checks on the woofers and tweeter once you remove them. Old capacitors, depending on the type, have been known to fail with age. Unless they melted or the wire broke, inductors don't fail. If you think you can remove the inductor coils, go ahead and reuse them and save a few bucks. Click to expand.From what you said, it seems like you're going about this right.ĭepending on what you find when you remove the crossover board, you might have an easier time if you build a new board (use pegboard or thin plywood).