Mr. P

Excellent job, particularly without the factory assembly jigs.

Nice write up. I am glad to see that Jim Hunter is still making himself useful. There is still quite a lot to be learned about the dynamics of the throat of a Horn!!

SJA...I got a little chuckle out of your quandry over a finish for your K-horns that wouldn't go out of style. In the late 70's when I was there, the decision was made to discontinue offering Mahogany finished speakers because the finish was "out of style"!!!! Put paisley print on them and they sound "Just the same"!! I always liked listening to them in the dark best anyway.

wooo, almost lost this little bastard!

Thanks NOS valves!!!! I haven't seen a Bull$hit button in years. I will have to post a pickture of my PWK tie clasp!!

Mandi - these guys have done a masterful job of hitting all the bases. Just for fun - and un-seriously - when the input to the system exceeds the systems ability to effectively output the iput it produces what is known as distortion!! .....Therefore, after reading this forum for a couple of hours late at night, you lay down to go to sleep and in the silence you hear a ringing in your ears......that is Mental distortion!! LMAO Nice job guys!!

Mine were from Best Buy as well, and they are THX certified. Using engineering logic...at $149.00 for THX 2.1's, why would Klipsch bother with a non-THX version?

Yeah, you want clarity and the sound you hear when playing. Otherwise known as accuracy.

John Albright, you have an amazing amount of knowledge on this subject. Always fun to get your input!!

Several people have given the correct deffinition of Alnico. I assume it is still the most efficient magnet type, but Klipsch and many other manufactures started designing with "Mud Magnets" because the only sources of Cobalt are in South Africa and Russia, and neither of those seemed like a stable source in the early 80's. The larger driver has the center pole of the magnet structure screwed onto the end of that bolt, which was a cheaper route to manufacture and reduced the efficiency and I don't believe that model has a phasing plug of any sort. Those drivers were meant to loud, inteligible, indestructable and that was all. No intent to have a flat or smooth response curve, as we sort of like to have for our music.

That engineers name was Dan Bynum. We kept in touch for a while but I don't know where he is these days. He had a double major, I think it was a Electrical Engineering degree with a Masters degree in Music!! His major instrument was Classical Guitar. He played a nice D-28S Martin guitar. He did like things brite. The network I built in the two curves were built with parts we had from other networks, or ones I modified. Some of the inductors were our standard units with the iron taken out, or windings taken off etc. Yes you could use a K700, and if you did I would say down scale to the K-22. We sat the LB-76 I was working on outside one time in front of the old lab on secretaries day when Bob sat a Keg on the wood shop loading dock. It gave us good sound all the way over to the dock. That one had the K-43 industrial 15" in it. I could just about come up with the dimensions of that box with out one handy. The height of the mouth of the bass horn is the one dimension that would be a little questionable. Later.

HDBR said it well. Here are a couple of other observations that you should be aware off. Most furniture is fairly low to the ground, and consequently you are used to being basically on the center of the vertical axis of the K500 horn with your Belle Klipsch. There is a clairity due to being on axis, but at times there is also a harshness from being on axis. With the K-horns height, you will be slightly below axis and there will be some differences there that will be quite noticeable. Without a audio background it may be hard to define, but you will like it. Here is another big difference, if you like listening to a beautiful signing voice. The Human voice extends down into the 300Hz frequency range. A compresion driver does a much better job of reproducing the voice than a paper/synthetic coned bass driver. The crossover frequency for the Belle is 500Hz, and the cossover for the K-horn is 400Hz. What that means to you is that 100Hz more of the low end of the vocal range comes from the midrange horn. To me that one point is worth going to the K-horn. You know the bass will be better, ahh but the voice sounds sooo good on a K-horn. I used to listen for Hours to Linda Ronstadt after I got my K-horns. The first Klipsch speakers I ever heard were Bells with the Klipsch crossover by passed, and they were runnin through a set of Crown electronic crossovers into Crown DC300/DC150/DC60 amplifiers. So I ain't doggin the Belles!

This was the LB-76 response curve with my network and the industrial woofer. It was not acceptable. The notches at 70Hz and 700Hz and the peak at 150Hz would have taken a lot of work to deal with. I did get a pat on the back from Paul for my network! So all was not dark!

Ok, I decided it would be good to venture back to the topic!! Here is a response curve of the crossover network I was working on for the Industrial LB-76. As a young engineer fresh out of school, I didn't take the kind of notes I should have while in the presence of a true legend.

I looked up Tripp-Lite and found a little history blurb... "In 1922, Graham Trippe, a Chicago-area inventor, obtained a patent for a new precision-focused automobile headlight. This unique design won the gold medal at both the 1928 and 1929 Paris Exposition of Innovation. The Trippe "Speed Light" soon became a successful automotive accessory, improving visibility on everything from fine touring cars to U.S. Army tanks during World War II." ...They went on to talk of UPS systems etc., but no mention of anything audio related. Very curious, this could turn into quite the research project! I will say this, I can't imagine getting anything desireable out of the K-55-V attached to that device. Even if you just wanted that frequency range, how would you Point it to make it useful? Good luck with it....I think I will expend my brain cells on another subject.

John Albright, I think you are wrong about the Atlas PD5-VH being the same as the K-55-V. They are the same magnet structure, and throat structure, but the K-55-V had a special Phasing plug design by PWK to flatten it's response. Maybe Atlas was allowed to adopt it, I can't remember, but later we modified the phasing plug with slots to further inhance the response of a driver that was intended to ride on the top of Police cars!!! If you have better info...cool, but that is the way my old brain remembers it.

What he means by hot....is stolen!!! The odd looking device you show is not a Klipsch product. I repeat...not a Klipsch product. That is the front section of a reflex style public address horn. The K-55V is worth something, but the other piece is totally useless without the rest of the horn. It is, or was for use at baseball fields etc. The other unit is a cheaper drive that is not worth much either.

I have had fits getting this jpg file to load and it finally went after a resave as a different name. This photo was taken the same day as the one I posted earlier with the twin LaScala's at an outdoor concert at the University of Arkansas. We had twin stages set up with the 4 LaSalas on one stage and the MCM's on the other. You can see the Crown DC300, the Crown crossover and small 60 watt per channel amp for the midrange and tweeter. I will post a couple of Promotional pictures later with the second generation system that was vastly improved by mid bass cabinet. I don't know if these pictures were ever published anywhere, or if they were just for use by the sales force.

Smilin...congratulations to you both. I've been there, and I know the relief!! Keep Smilin!!!

Andy, I had forgotten about the manufacturing cost issue, but that was the real issue that stopped the change. However, I remember the sales force screaming more than the factory. I would be interested in reading an outline of your assembly process sometime. Your process obviously uses a lot of furniture clamps since you have so many miter and dado joints. The double wall thicknes would work to stop the resenance, but would not enhance the apperance. We talked about using the Russian 13 ply wood to see if the added stiffness would take care of it, but I don't know if that ever happened. TBrennan, That Peavy cabinet did the trick to take out the resenance.

Since was not as close to production as you, I had completely forgotten the drop in front. Do you remember the "World Map" coffee table that is in that picture with crossovers stacked on it? I fished that out of the "trash truck" and it was my coffee table for 20 years!! That is the brace I was speaking of, and it make big difference in the sound of the bass around 150Hz. There is a resonance that occurs when the sides start to vibrate wildly on a pure sine wave input and increases with volume. The best description of the change when listening is that it "Tightens up" the bass, particularly at higher volumes. The sales force said it was ugly.....so it was dropped.

Andy, These LaScalas were used at an outdoor concert in front of "Old Main" hall at the Univeristy of Arkansas in about 1977 or 1978. My money says you built them.

Andy, You have obviously improved the craft. The prefinshing to prevent glue absorption makes a drastic difference in the looks of the cabinet. Do you remember the brace we worked with to brace the side wall to the dog house? It made a drastic difference in the bass response at 150Hz. If you could incorporate that into your next project it would make a big difference in the sound. It really tightens the bass if your customers will go for it.

What are you guys talking about?? Sound stage is better in mono?? WTH With a mono signal going through a stereo system you get identical information to both channels whitch puts all instruments dead center infront of you with no apparent stage placement at all?? AAAEEEEEE........(sounds of engineer running away in disbelief!!)

Ok.....Maybe I can skin this cat this way!!! All 7 of the forums I frequent operate differently!! This is the image for the last post.