klipschster

Once again....

Would it have made a difference if the ceiling was 10-12 feet in height?

What?! Upgrade a Khorn with a chainsaw?! Blasphemous!!! Dr. Edgar might be pretty smart and have a Ph.d but he's not an eccentric genius like PWK was. I think he was just joking around when he made that comment about the chain saw. He must have been. How can a fellow horn lover make such a statement in all seriousness?

Has anybody heard both models and care to comment on them? I haven't found anything insofar as sensitivity and freq response specifications for the Titan so if you've got them, I'd appreciate you sharing them with me!

Great pic of your modified Cornwall, TBrennan; I don't think I have the guts to modify my Heresy cabinets to try and accept a tractrix horn because if I don't like them, I'm stuck with altered cabinets and with money being kind of tight now, it's a deep concern. BEsides, the Heresy cabinet is so small I doubt an exponential horn will fit. There's basoically no room at all, vertically speaking, to install a midrange horn with different dimensions (vertically increased that is) then the exponential one that's already there. The cornwal cabinet's an altogether different story - there's lots of room there to fool around. I heard some of you mention Dr. Edgar and I read the link and did a quick google search on him. Seems like a horn guru alright. Haven't found much on his top of the line Titan 4 system, but Tbrennan, you said you heard it and it sounds good. As good as a pair of Khorns? Can they compete with the legendary Khorns? I see they're priced the same at $7500 a pair, so he must've had the Khorns in target when he priced them. Anybody have any thoughts on the differences between the Khorns and the Titan 4? If you had $7500, what would you buy? This could make for an interesting topic. Maybe I should start one and see how much data we can amass. KLIPSCHSTER

Good article! Thanks! I didn't realize Paul Klipsch had trouble getting his mighty khorns to image properly and that he had to throw a Belle Klipsch in the middle in order to fix it. I always thought that Khorns would image wonderfully, which is what I've generally read in articles. True, you need to step back a bit in order to get them to image right, but you need a big room also. My Heresys sound best in a larger room and when I'm about 15 to 20 feet back from them. I've read that the bigger the horn speaker, the more room you need to give them to breath in order to get them to sound good to your ears. I would imagine that Cornwalls would need more room then my Heresys and the La Scalas more then the Cornwalls and so forth and so forth. I would venture to say that putting Khorns in a small room would make them sound pretty bad with little to no imaging at all. What I got from the article was that the tractrix is good for the midrange but not for the bass. I guess the tractrix gives the midrange a more neutral, or colorless sound. I know some people complain about horns coloring the sound but i like the way my heresys sound. They sound very different then a cone speaker. I wouldn't want my Heresys to sound more neutral, or cone-like if you will. Then it wouldn't have that "klipsch" sound that i love. Klipsch speakers always sounded different then others due to their horns. I've read that Paul was always proud of how his speakers sounded unlike all the others out there. I don't know why Klipsch would want to backtrack and tone down the horn sound which has helped define their product and is probably the reason why many of us are here and like Klipsch so much. If a tractrix horn makes a speaker sound less like a horn and more like a convential driver then I guess I wouldn't like it. I also wonder that if Paul Klipsch needed to place a Belle in the middle of his Khorns to get them to image right with stereo sound, why didn't he sell a three-speaker setup? He must have thought that the Khorns sounded okay by themselves, right? Klipsch probably uses tractrix horns on their new products like the RF and Synergy lines because it gives them the high sensitivity of horns without sounding much like horns in order to attract and sway buyers from the conventional driver crowd. I wonder if Paul Klipsch, if given the choice, would have choosen a tractrix version of his klipschorn (should he have built one) over his traditonal exponential version? Now THAT'S a good question, don't you think?

Thank you, JDM, I'd really like to read it! KLIPSCHSTER

Chorus I has exponential midrange horn. Chorus II has the newer tractrix midrange horn. I imagine there must be a difference in sound (see my post concerning my question on exponential VS tractrix horns). Furthermore, Chorus I is ported and goes to 45hz. Chorus II uses a rear mounted passive radiator and goes down to 39hz for better bass response. Sensitivity for both models is the same at 101db with 1 watt at 1 meter. I guess it comes down to whether or not you would like the deeper bass response of the Chorus IIs (and who wouldn't?) and whether or not you would like the difference in sound (if any) from the tractrix midrange horn in the Chorus IIs. The deeper bass is a no brainer. The questionable differences between exponential and tractrix horns should probably be answered by you in person with your own ears via a Chrous I / Chorus II side by side comparison, if at all possible. I for one would love to do a side by side comparison of exponential VS tractrix horns. Anybody in southern california have both models of a speaker (Forte I & Forte II or Chorus I and Chorus II for instance)? I probably wouldn't imagine many that many people do but why not ask, right? If anybody wants to help me out here by sharing their observations and impressions on a side by side comparison that they've done check out my post and let me know. KLIPSCHSTER

About the only thing I can notice immediately is that the exponential horn seems more focused while the tractrix is wider and more open. What's the advantage to tractrix horns? I say advantage because Klipsch uses tractrix horns on it's newer products and has left the exponential horns soley for the limited in number heritage line. If I were to hook my midrange driver on my Heresy II (k-53k) to the 90x40 degree tractrix horn from, say, the Forte II (or the 90x60 degree one from the KLF-30), would it change the sound dramatically and if so, how? If tractrix is "better," why not use them on the heritage line and if you did, what you still get a "heritage" sound or would you have a new animal altogether?