Could you imagine if they made bass cabs?

[mindido]

A question for edwin and tubeperson.
 
Can you still get tubes for those things?  And if you can, how expensive are they now?
 
And if your using little Macintoshs at home are you using tube amps for your guitars?  And you can still find tubes for those amps?

[kimberly]

Hi Guys,  
 
Sorry for the hi-jack but this caught my eye.
 
Played with a band back in the mid-70's that used a pair of Klipsch LaScalla's (sp?).  Yamaha mixer and power.  Absolutely awesome sound!  
 
Regards,
 
Kimberly  
 
Edited to correct the date from the mid-80's to the mid-70's.  Time sure flies....
 
(Message edited by kimberly on July 28, 2012)

[mindido]

kimberly,
 
Not familiar with the LaScalla's (but I will look them up).  Yamaha in the 70's?  As a former soundman at that time I remember Yamaha mainly for keyboards.  Klipsch for PA?  I'd be interested to hear what you remember.  I think I'd be worried about longevity with those.  Our JBL's used to get knocked around a lot and survived quite well.  But a Klipsch on the road?  Never ran into it.  Superb home system (may have no equal) but on the road??
 
Just looked the LaScalla's up and I just don't remember if those are what I remember.  I don't think so.  But it does look like those speakers may be able to handle the road.  I just don't remember anyone using them.  Smaller bands maybe.  But a larger band or PA company?  Unlikely unless they can handle the road.
 
But I'm sure they sound as good as humanly possible.
 
 
 
(Message edited by mindido on July 28, 2012)
 
(Message edited by mindido on July 28, 2012)

[edwin]

Klipsch had a whole sound reinforcement line, with beefed up components and cabinets. There was a sound company in Cambridge, MA, Terry Hanley, that used a bunch of Klipsch gear in the 80s when I worked with them. They probably were using Klipsch here: http://www.wafting.com/rockposters/aerosmithbostongarden75.JPG  Very good sounding and very efficient. Heavy, though. Definitely a step up sound quality and durability from the Yamaha gear of the day. Klipsch even had a pro version of the Heresys and the La Scalas were very common, too. I still see the Heresys in use in small PAs for acoustic music.

[kimberly]

Hi Mindido,  
 
  You got my curiosity going so I started searching around.  Gotta confess the memory is a bit cloudy after all these years but I can say, we weren't using a PM1000xx series mixer.  Somewhere in this list is what it was.  Probably more than eight channels, but maybe not and that's about all I can remember.  
 
http://www.yamaha.co.jp/manual/english/chron_pa.php
 
  As far as the amp it looks like it had to of been the P-2200 or P-2100 as those were the only ones made in the appropriate time frame.  I only remember analog meters.  
 
  The Klipsch LaScalla's were definitely furniture and definitely made for the home.  Natural wood, clear finish.  Our drummer at the time, and for a few years after, came from a family background of never wanting from anything he felt so inclined to have.  We were based out of northern Louisiana at the time and it was a quick jaunt to Arkansas.  I found this pic doing a search, which by the way I found the correct spelling is 'La Scala'.  These are the same ones we had judging by what I can see.  As far as the road we treated them like babies wrapping them in blankets and not throwing them around.  They lasted a few years with no problems and then as with what happens with most all bands, we broke up and they left with the drummer.  Parts unknown until I heard a few years back he'd ended up in Alabama.  Anyway, here's the pic.
 
 
 
Just gotta love the web!  
 
Best Regards,
 
Kimberly

[mindido]

edwin,
 
Boy, hard to tell what those are from the photo.  I remember the horns but can't see the mids and bass well enough.  But Klipsch sounds good to me.  The horms do kind of look like the Altec Lansings which were popular then, just before JBL took everything over.
 
Weight?  As I remember, everything weighed a ton.  The worst were the deep base cabinets (at least they had wheels built in).  They were JBL cabinets with dual 18 in. Cerwin Vega speakers.  Rear mounted if I remember.  But we also had deep base cabs with 15 in. front mounted and a huge scoop at the bottom.  Combine those with four JBL 4560 cabinets and 2220 JBL speakers (one per cabinet) per side and then two different types of horms (don't remember the numbers) and the speakers were pretty darn good.
 
Were they better than the Klipsch?  I doubt it except in one way, the road.  I don't remember having a lot of problems with them.  And we used them at least three to four nights per week.  So reliability was a must for everything we used.
 
Just looked up the Heresy and I do seem to remember them!  I think we had a set briefly and used them for stage monitors.  
 
But thats so long ago....  The one thing I can say without a doubt.  If I had the money I'd own a set in a minute.

[mindido]

kimberly,
 
Yeah, its kinda fun thinking back to those times.  Some of the best in my life.  Really good times for the most part.
 
I was trying to remember the other day which mixers we were using but it just eludes me.  Started with little 8 channel expandables (topcon?, tascam?....something like that) then moved up to a pretty nice 32 expandable to 64.  Wound up building the case for it ourselves.
 
Amps I do remember pretty well.  All Crown 150's for the high end, 300's for mids and BGW 500's and 1000 watts for the low end.  I remember using Phase Linear for a while but they just couldn't handle the road.  Good for the home though.
 
I'd bet those LaScala's sounded really good.  What type of music were you playing?  I think they'd be good for a group playing something oriented to acoustic. I'm sure they would sound excellent in that situation.  The band I was mainly with was a Yes/ELP clone and wound up with the JBL system.  I just don't remember precisely why we bought them, or if the Klipsch were even a consideration, but I'm sure it was the road which was the deciding factor.
 
And jeez, they're just as pricey as ever. $3.500 per speaker for the LaScala's and $4,000 ea. for the Klipschorn.  Now I remember why I don't own a pair.  Sigh.....

[edwin]

Tapco, perhaps?

[mindido]

edwin,
 
That would be it!  Just looked them up.  Guess they didn't last that long.  Found this little quote:
 
In 1979, Tapco was purchased by Electro-Voice who slowly phased out the Tapco name and blended the Tapco products into their own product line. The factory space in Redmond, Washington remained active, producing electronic products for EV until perhaps 1989, when the lease ran out. The entire industrial park was razed and high rise office buildings constructed. Microsoft is the current occupant.
 
Doesn't that just figure, entire park was razed for Microsoft.  Figures.
 
As I remember, they were a pretty good, inexpensive little mixer which was expandable and comparable (because it was really pretty clean) to some mixers which cost a heck of a lot more.  It wasn't the first mixer we had but, because of its cleanliness, we got rid of the old one and added to the little 8 channel.  Something came up and we got a 32 or 64 channel.  But that was a different make.  Soundcraft???
 
Soundcraft sounds about right but finding a board I'd recognize from the 70's.  Ugh, I doubt it.  Brain just isn't quite what it used to be.
 
Good find though edwin!

[keith_h]

I used a Tapco RB6100 (?) with an EB6100 (?) expansion unit for 14 channels back in the 70's. It wasn't a bad small format mixer for it's time. The only thing I didn't like about it, ok hated, was it had board mounted pots. This meant you had to remove all of the knobs and nuts on the front panel to remove the board. Then to reinstall the board you had to try to align every pot with it's respective hole.  
 
Keith

[mindido]

Hey Keith,
 
Wasn't quite sure what you were referring to until I found this:
 
http://www.edenampsforum.com/index.php?topic=7174.0
 
I don't remember ever having to pull any pots on the Tapco as we really didn't have it that long (maybe a year or so?).
 
I also don't remember the model #'s on them but I thought the main board was 8 channel and the expansion was also 8?  Its been so long that I'm sure you're right.

[fmm]

In the 80s, when I was sound man & tech director at the Maintenance Shop bar (on the campus of Iowa State), the sound system consisted of a pair of La Scalas (mounted on 8 foot tall stands _behind_ the stage) and a couple of Bose 900s for center fill.  We had a 16 channel BiAmp board, a pair of Yamaha power amps, and a Soundcraftsman power amp that had to have muffin fans blowing on the output transisters or the amp would shut down due to thermal overload when things got loud.
 
I did every blues band from Chicago, Pat Methany, Gary Burton, the Replacements, Arlo Guthrie, Buddy  Richm and Tower of Power using that system.

[fmm]

In the 70s, there was a company called SpeakerLab that sold kits of different models of popular speakers, including the big Klipsch Horns.  A friend of mine had purchased some big Magnaplaner (MagnaPan?) speakers, whis sounded great except for poor bass response, so he used a pair of Speaker Lab Klipsch horns as subwoofers.
 
In a dorm room.  Those were the days.

[mindido]

fmm,
 
Thinking you might have said something not quite right here, ...(mounted on 8 foot tall stands _behind_ the stage.  Now, its been 30+ years since I did sound but I'm pretty sure doing something like that would wind up with a lot of feedback problems.  Did I miss something?
 
Looked them up and I remember those Magnaplanars.  And you're right.  Highs and mids were excellent but nothing for bass.
 
You're not talking about the Kpipschorns or LaScala's in a dorm room are you?  There'd be no room for anything else.

[cozmik_cowboy]

A friend of mine had Klipschorns in his dorm room.  No, not much room left.  Yes, AMAZING sound!  
 
Peter