D-MAN

Howdy. I have both SS and tube amps and it basically goes like this; you pretty much get what you pay for whether SS or Glass. The main thing going with quality SS gear is that you don't have to do anything to maintain it, like replacing tubes or biasing, etc. on a regular basis. On the other hand SS amps do not quite sound like a class A SET amp either (mine typically are AB). Can't help you on that choice... It gets worse on the tube gear in that there are many other choices that have to be made: feedback or not, tube types, circuit design and componentry, wiring (point-to-point or boards) employed, SS or tube rectification, mono-block or stereo, transformer output or not, biasing methods, etc. ARC, Classe, Krell, Meridian, and McIntosh all make fine SS gear. I am running the Mc 300 now, and have no plans to change, although I don't need the wattage. Heard that big iron has better bass at low wattage than lesser iron turned up a bit... makes sense distortion-wise, but not sure why the bass would (or should) be better... has to do with the power supply, but I digress. All I can say for sure is: DO NOT BUY CHEAP JAPANESE CONSUMER ELECTRONICS if you want critically good sound. I like American/Canadian and/or British products but they are costlier... they will last longer and sound better. Good luck, DM

Its just me raining on somebody's parade again... Has anyone else noticed that you can get: a) good music - or - good recording But NOT BOTH AT THE SAME TIME?!!! What's up with that?! I thought that Nora Jones (best new performer of the year - was that "last" year?) has an untrained voice, and the engineering left alot to be desired; so what was that award about anyway? Patricia Barber "Modern Cool" good on both counts; Nora Jones bad on both counts - ok for CAR stereo in a pinch. Steely Dan "Two Against Nature" good music, bad engineering; "Everything Must Go" bad (not up to normal Steely Dan calibre) music, good engineering. What's up with that? DM

I had one, but it seems to work best on less-expensive CD players, etc. Didn't improve my Meridian, so I hiked it. The recipient likes it alot on his Japanese components. DM

Electronic grease, of course! Yeah, that's the ticket! I am all for tweaks, but it seems to me that the only thing that can "speed up electrons" is a super-cold super-conductor, and they will still only go so fast, the lazy little buggers! If I was going to sell cables, mine would be nitrogen-charged to approach super-conductivity... I figure that I could continually sell gas bottles to recharge them after the initial sale. Of course, nitrous would work, too, and be bonus fun as it leaked out, which could only improve the sound, too... Hey, a built-in sales point! They'll sell themselves!

Rick! awesome, dude. DM

Howdy! I am a fan of DIY... Having recently build a pair of Khorns myself, I opted to make some "adjustments" in the driver end of things. I had a late 70's pair of clones back when so I knew what I wanted and didn't want. Personally, I never liked the standard EV T-35 tweeter, so I opted for a different type that goes higher but kept the phenolic diaphram approach. Experimented with various woofers in the cabinet and settled on the Klipsch K33E as the best for the application (happily the price was reasonable, too). Opted for a 2" throat Selenium phenolic diaphram mid-driver on a P-audio 400Hz fc horn. Bought a pair of ALK crossovers from Al K. I think that I have better reponse than what I had in the 70's, but then, I spent more, too. Would I do it again? I would get the Klipsch midrange horn and driver setup, I think. The mid-range/bass horn match up is trickier than I had ever expected. For what its worth here's my hard-won advise (which you didn't ask for but I am going to write anyway)and hopefully you won't have the same issues that I did, but I wanted corner horns, DAMMIT, so here's what I learned in the process: 1) build the pair of Khorns first. Granted, it is the most daunting approach especially for the "first timer", but it seems to me that you can live longer with a pair of corner horns without a center channel than if you have only a center channel built and burned out before starting on the larger (and more expensive) project. It was all I could do to build the 2 bass cabinets on the back porch last winter, so that colors my opinion greatly concerning project "burnout". 3 speakers would definately been beyond my capability, so plan accordingly. Of course, environmental comfort was a definate NO SHOW in my project. I look at it like all great artists have to suffer in order to produce great "ART". 2) Use the gluing/construction methods outlined by HDRBuilder in his LA SCALA posts. He knows his stuff. Do NOT do the Speakerlab-recommended thing with the silicone sealant unless you screw it up and need to seal the hole(s). If you go the sealant route, you must first wait for the wood glue to dry before applying the silicone. If you follow the glue-only approach, you will be able to complete the project faster and thus avoid "burnout". I would say that 3 days are in order including "glue-dry" time, but not including finishing (veneer, etc.). I did the silicone thing and thus stretched the procedure out by about 3 days apiece. 3) I bought the ALK crossover pair from Al K. so I didn't have to build one. The was the most expensive single part of the project, but worth it. 4) The top cabinets, grill cloth, veneering and other finishing aesthetic issues need to eventually be dealt with and I still haven't made them pretty after 8 months. But they sound pretty! 5) I build the pair sequencially, as I figured out the short falls on building the first cabinet, so I knew pretty much what I was doing on the second one by the time I got there. Having build a pair, the next set I would go with the simultaneous approach. 6) 2 tools worth every penny: a) battery-driven drills (get 2 - one for drilling/countersinking and one for driving - saves time if you aren't constantly changing bits)and extra charged batteries for same. air-powered nail gun (for tacking glued parts for subsequent screwing, etc.) Happy building! DM

hey, djk! You could be right, I didn't read it fully; if the power supply is "bad" then the amp would (or could) hum REGARDLESS of the volume setting. So I stand corrected. Toxicant: good luck, may be an easy fix after all! DM

Hi folks, Here's an interesting (at least to me) aside about Khorn bass bins and freq response: I have 6" throat openings in my Khorns and use the motor board to reduce it to the normal 3" wide opening. But when using a motor board with a 6" wide opening, more upper bass definately comes through the bass horn, I got the K33E to mate with a 500Hz mid-horn/driver using an ALK crossover EXTREMELY SEEMLESSLY with no modifications (I was shocked) with the setting of X-3 on the autoformer, which is substancially more output than what the "normal" upper band pass is typically capable of using the 3" wide cavity and the same midrange driver in a 400Hz fc horn. I was so enthralled that I am considering the 500Hz horn and a 6" cavity opening as the preferred setup from now on. Just goes to show that there is quite a bit of lee-way available in tweaking the Khorns as far as efficiency and frequency response(s). I am very impressed with the capabilities of the Khorn. What other speaker is capable of being tweaked to this degree and suffer no permanent ill effects?! Just a note. Thanks for "listening"... DM

I used to run biwiring; liked it. What John Albright said about the theory of bi-wiring is exactly what I've heard also. However, rather than frequency thing having the most to do with the overall effect, I think that the physical effect at the speaker is due to the additional wire surface available in the "extra run" from the amp, but that's just my opinion (which ain't worth nothin' so far...). The signal current tends to run on the surface of the wires (surface effect, etc.), so the more conductive surface available, the better (i.e., less signal loss) or in this case, a noticeable improvement in the amount of current reaching the speaker compared to a single run of the same diameter wire, for example. I would regard bi-wiring about the same change as moving up to a larger diameter set of single cables (again, just my opinion). If my theory is correct, then the real test would be running bi-wire of the same collective diameter as a single run of cable, so that the frequency aspect mentioned above could be readily checked out for validity. Now that I have Khorns, which are not really set up to easily handle biwiring, I am using a single run of cable, and am just as happy. But if you're a tweaker, go for it! This particular audio quandry is easily A-B'd for a definitive result. DM

Typically AC-level hum (60 cycle) suddenly popping up on one channel would indicate that a power-supply cap is going (or has gone) south. Probably. If it was both channels doing the humming, I would suspect a grounding problem first. But one channel only is usually power-supply. No easy fix there. Sorry dude. DM

Khorns or VOTTs? Two of my favs... I have not found one to be exclusively "better" than the other, they are intended to have different applications and therefore, different results outside of those applications. Well I guess its all in what you want, massive gut-level mid-bass punch or real shake-the-world lows with albiet less punch... Khorns will go lower and are more efficient than VOTTs and that's a fact of physics. I have had BOTH in my house, and I like them both. The VOTTs are not as efficient, but have better large-format projection qualities and can really handle larger spaces than Khorns are intended to do, it seems to me. The ONLY (and-I-repeat) - ONLY problem that I have with VOTTS is that they take about TWICE AS MUCH ROOM in a space as corner horns (being rectangular, they don't fit into a corner very well), but don't sound definitively twice as good. I like 'em, but they are simply too big for my "taste imposed by limited space". In the right space, corner horns will out-class the VOTTs bass output using less watts than the VOTTS - but most people don't have that magic space. Pant-leg flappin and the rest, but only in the right space (only experienced it once) and I definately don't have it now. I notice that with the resurgence of interest in horn speakers that ALTEC is newly manufacturing A-7s again for 4 grand ea. painted black. Now, I ask you, whose wife wants those in the living room? Maybe in the home theatre... with the lights off... The one design that I always wanted and still do was to create the "Voice of the CORNER" speaker, which I have not done as of yet... Oh, to be young(er) and rich... DM

Speaking of recorded soundstage material; to experience what I would consider a completely "flat" soundstage, try AL STEWARTS "The Year of the Cat" CD. For an extreme example of "depth" in a recording try Telarc's "Fuare and Durufle - REQUEIM" cd - full orchestra, massed choir and pipe organ... If I was stuck on a deserted island and could have only ONE cd, that would be it... Unfortunately there is a very high-freq something on it that can be noticed from time to time. But I digress... I forgot to mention that I have my midrange/tweets pointed out toward the outside walls (to a degree) on the Khorns so that they point directly toward the listening position approx 9 ft away (center). This provides a more direct-to-the-ear path which certainly helps the soundstage reproduction but may increase the reflectivity of the walls somewhat... So the wall reflections of the mid and tweets need taming with this approach, but I found it to be worth the effort. Having listened to the Magnapans (the bigguns), I am more enthralled with the Khorns dynamism. Just as clean and clear, but MORE of it with far less power required! Whereas the Khorn "imaging" is not quite the same, I think that I am in a smaller room than I heard the 'planers and also note that I don't have to put them in the middle of the room to get the sound like the 'planers (the Khorns take less space). The Magnepans were almost in the center of the room spaced about 6 or 7 feet apart, about 7 feet away from the listening position, and that was the width of the reproduced "soundstage" from them. Didn;t really notice the "depth" but "imaging" across the soundstage seemed to be very precise. So even in a smaller room with less-than-perfect acoustics, I like the Khorns better- less space required as they fit in the corners, less power required, bigger soundstage, just as good depth, better dynamics. Nuff said. DM

Cynically, I refer to the old political adage: Follow the money. The audio press is geared to make money, not to really find the best stuff and tell you about it. It's about getting advertising dollars NOT KNOWLEDGE. sheesh! And evidently there isn't enough money to be gained from Klipsch, i.e., they either don't advertize enough or don't have a high enough sales points for the product lines that other manufacturers do... For the money the Heritage line has the best dollar-to-performance ratio that I know of... DM

I agree with djk... and the idea of putting the LS on top of the ported box is a brilliant idea! the LS horn has a low freq cutoff of around 60 Hz, if I remember correctly, that means that you really can't force the enclosure to go lower than about 5O Hz or so without modifications. This is a just a guess, but I think that the easiest approach (which will not harm the original LS cabinet) is to reflex port the back chamber by sitting the LS on another box with the bottom cover of the back chamber mated to an appropriately sized and tuned box containing the port itself. This will unload the pressure on the front of the driver facing the horn to a degree and subsequently lower efficiency and lessen the mid-bass punch but should result in the ability to reproduce bass notes lower than the horn by itself using the same driver. Note that the bottom "ported unit" should only be about 2 or 2-1/2 cu ft. This would be somewhat like a Altec A-7 (which has a direct horn with a cutoff at around 80 Hz). I would guess that the performance would be about the same, but don't hold me to it. Due to the extremely short length of the LS horn itself, I wouldn't expect that the amount of resistance that the driver is pushing against would be drastically effected by enlarging the back chamber area by a couple of cubic feet as long as the port area itself is kept reasonably small so the horn is not completely unloaded. The port size itself can be regulated for testing by a screw attached cover, like the A-7, etc. The K33-E woofer is a bit "sloppier" than the Altec 515-8, but should go lower (but may lack some of the punch). also if it doesn't work out, you can simply put the botton convers back on and burn the ported boxes... I would love to hear about this experiment if you do it... Go for it, dude! DM

In thinking about purposefully incorporating vibrating sidewalls or whatever in speakers it would be far easier in design and construction to prevent vibrations than to incorporate them into the frequency response of the device, unless the frequency response was exceptionally "not flat" to begin with. So I can't figure out why somebody would do that, except that it can be used as a sales-based "gimmick" and having something that makes the product stand out from the rest is usually a good thing. I would assume that a speaker so designed would by its very nature respond more sympathetically at a certain frequency or set of frequencies (much like a guitar)than others, and in a full range application this seems to be a flawed approach. Please bear in mind that I have not heard them, and am merely postulating the possible performance of such an design. I am NOT saying that you are wrong in your opinion either way, only that this flies in the face of convention and generally accepted speaker design principles, so I am wondering why this guy would build them that way... If I had a cheap driver and put it in a vibrating enclosure specifically tuned to "fill-in" or "smooth out" the frequency response peaks and valleys, it could sound better. But is that a good design or just a marketing ploy? Just a thought... DM

Hi Dean, This should make everybody cringe but also give some hope: I've got my corner horns in the small end of the room (a converted single-car garage) spaced 13 feet apart in natural corners. They still spank my "old" KEF model 4s in the same position, so I would say go for it, dude. I have a widescreen TV and cabinet between them too, to make matters worse. That is a condition that you will not have to deal with... Albiet they won't really be at their best, you will still get the most of the efficiency and clarity that horns have to offer. The bass might display some modal characteristics due to the room reflections but you can apply some judicious room treatments to alleviate most of the resulting problems (however, with false corners you may come out better on the reflections, etc, than I did). I have most of my problems with the higher end of frequencies and I would suspect that you will also to due to the plain drywall-type walls. My horns still seem to get a full orchestra into the room at very low wattage even though they are assuredly "choked" on space, and they sound just about as good as anything that I have ever heard. Happy listening! DM

I have been messing with this imaging issue since I moved into my recent digs, and have found that the only problems that my corner horns have in "imaging", producing a 3-D soundstage, etc. is ROOM REFLECTIONS and subsequent modal eccentricities causing problems. I will go out on a limb and make a general statement about it: It ain't the horn, it's the environment. Unfortunately, the listening environment is probably the hardest and most expensive thing to fix in an audio system. Bummer! DM

The unfortunate truth is that in order to make (lots 'o)money, you have to sell to the masses something that they want to buy. The cost of manufacturing in the U.S. lies mainly in the labor costs (and then materials) which for folded horns tends to be quite high, thus reducing the profitability of the product. I don't blame Klipsch per se, they are in business to make money, but they certainly are not mass producing general-level consumer products that compare in any way favorably with the Heritage series (in my opinion). But the commercial (theatre) products are still quite outstanding. DM

Prodj101, it isn't normal to have distortion coming out of any McIntosh gear for any reason. Maybe there is a problem with electrical "hash" from heaters, etc., on your electrical outlet and/or service grid, but that probably wouldn't go away with a warm up period (so that probably ain't it, but I thought that I'd bring it up anyway). If it goes away and comes back periodically, then it probably is interference on the local power grid. My McIntosh gear does sound best late at night when the electrical grid clears up a bit after the masses tend to go to bed, but I can't say that I actually can hear bad stuff before they "warm up". I do not think that my solid state gear requires any real time to "warm up". Tubes, of course, definately require a warm-up period, but I digress... If you think that the electrical grid may be the problem, an isolation transformer could cure the issue. DM

Hi Andy, I have heard that too, but I think that the context in which I heard it is important. I've thrown in some other issues that might relate to horn distortion... 1) Horns distort LESS (intermodulation and harmonic distortion) than any other type of speaker for the same rated output. Typically, the higher the efficiency, the less distortion of both types is generated. And horns are the most efficient type of speaker that there is. 2) Piezo-electric type tweeters are to be avoided even though they are usually horn mounted. These could give quality horns a bad name. They are not usually of the quality needed for most audio hi-fi reproduction but they are cheap and are therefore used in some applications. 3) I've read that FOLDED HORNS (typically bass bins) do tend to muffle (or distort) the upper frequency (bass octaves) range approaching the upper crossover cutoff due to the bending (or folds) of the sound channel. That is why the Klipschorn and its relatives have a fairly low crossover point (approx 375Hz or so) when compared to Altec A-7's and the non-folded horn crowd. I suppose that this could be the "distortion" that you might hear about, but I would add that when properly balanced with an appropriate corssover network or the like, there is no apparent distortion. 4) I read that CORNER HORNS in particular produce some overtones or something that is inherent in corner placement (so it would effect all corner-placed speakers). I have not experienced this per-se, but the word applied to this was German, but I forget what it was exactly; something like "eigertones". I'm sure that somebody will clue me in on that. Even so, I will take the efficiency of a corner horn over every other speaker design. DM

you dog, you.

Hi Brett, I have run both 6550 tube and solid state amps into my horns and liked them both, although I don't have any experience with any Arogon products. The tube recommendation is typically for lower-power zero negative feedback SET amps (single-ended triode) that the horns can really make the most of. I personally didn't find much difference in the "higher-powered" tube gear (KT88/6550 AB-type negative feedback pentode, etc.)and a good solid state head (I am using McIntosh now) except that you have to change the tubes out every so often. I would like to check out a nice 300B SET lash up to see what all the hubbub is about. Good luck and happy hunting, DM

---------------- On 11/10/2003 5:08:39 PM BigBusa wrote: On the other hand ...there's no way a pair of klipschorns will give "pant flapping bass". I don't care what you're driving them with, how close you're standing or how big your bell-bottoms are. That's a gross exaggeration and shouldn't be used to describe Khorn bass. WAITAMINUTE! Khorns really DO flap pantlegs at less than 60-watts. I have had a buddy in the 70's literally flap my pantlegs with his Speakerlab K's playing the Doobie Brothers "Taking it to the Streets" album and he only had a 60 watt per channel receiver. I will never forget that experience. I can only assume that a real Klipschorn would only do it better. No kidding, I have never had any other speaker since do that. DM

Oh-oh. Semantics. Ok, source material, quality of recording, etc. aside, I think that if you can hear it and put a name on it (bright or warm) it may be because it is sticking out to the listener and is therefore a "coloration". I would guess that some tube gear is considered "warm" sounding because they may tend to smear the lower mids and bass, due to slower rise times at lower frequencies, etc. which rounds off the waveforms so it sounds like a slight softening. Too much warmth may lead to "fat" or boomy sound, not a good thing. I would guess that a "too-warm" sound would be too soft in the lower mids and low end to be regarded as accurately reproducing the waveform. However, I would say that slightly warm sounding may not be a bad thing. That's a matter of taste. As for a "too-bright" sound, that would be the other end of the spectrum, the highs being accentuated and probably sounding a bit on the harsh side. Not a good thing either. The adjectives that we want with our systems would be more along the lines of "sparkling", "natural", and "crisp"; just about what a softdrink advertisement would say... DM

It is clear that some of you just plain ain't "tweakers". I say tweak away; the physics involved will prove themselves out (or not). Speaking of zip cord, I would rather be SYSTEM-LESS than use zip cord on it. Just the thought gives me the willies. If I was going to use zip cord, I might as well buy cheap Japanese consumer electronics and dump the good stuff. DM