homemade

What about upgrading the small gauge wire used in the coil? I'm guessing there is something like 50-100ft of 18-20 gauge wiring in there?

Well, how does Klipsch get efficiency's in the high 90's with their Cornwall? I believe the woofer is rated at 96.5db or so but it's a 4ohm speaker so will sound louder with same voltage input. I'm running an 8ohm version in my homemade Khorn and running it with a 99.5db efficiency midrange and it mates pretty close although there is a bump in the 125hz range. So how does Cerwin Vega do it? Are they running a hotter midrange and relying on a higher Q woofer setup that gives a bass boost in the 60hz range and consequently a dip in the upper bass that people won't miss? That's my guess on the Cornwall vs say a La Scala. The La Scala will have perhaps a 5-8db boost in the 125hz range over the Cornwall and less deeper bass-hence a big difference in the way the bass sounds.

I have a Panasonic F87 5 disc dvd player that as built-in dts and prologic 2 decoders. The prologic decoder is much, much better than my Yamaha's older pro logic model. My Yamaha HTR5130 has 6channel input (not built-in dts decoder) and can vary the amt. of subwoofer output but the Panasonic F87 apparently doesn't output anything on the subwoofer channel when in the prologic mode (when playing back surround encoded cd's) although it works great with dvd's. I would assume I would have to set my main speakers as small (Khorn knockoffs) to get output from the subwoofer. Perhaps a better way to hook up the subwoofer is to not use the subwoofer outputs at all but use the high level speaker inputs into the subwoofer amp. This way one is guaranteed output from the sub.

I used to run a 10band eq and than bought a 15band eq and haven't used it lately. Used to reduce the 125hz signal on my homebuilt khorns by 6db and boosted the 30hz band around 10db. Finally built a sub for the khorns and use the sub adjustments to suit my taste and run the rest of the khorn flat. Sure, I get a little boost in the 125hz range but with the sub I boost the lowest octave accordingly. I love the extra punch in the lowest octave and don't notice the 125hz bump anymore. Treble is just fine flat. Without the sub, I would have to run an eq. Just couldn't stand the "thin" sound without the extra lower octave boost.

Where's the review on these badboys? I want to know about the woofer control pot also. Thanks.

My Speakerlab plans talk about a control to adjust the amount of bass response. Is it just a simple L-Pad or more to it? How do they sound compared to the real deal? They look nice to me.

I have the same literature that Klipsch put out. I don't have it in front of me and could hardly read the cycles part of the scale. The top graph is the Khorn and bottom is the La Scala? Doesn't the top graph show -10db dip at 30hz? The Khorn is strong to 40hz (but substantially lower than the 125-250hz band) but response below that falls off like a cliff. One thing I did notice on my speakers is that I was running the woofer straight without any coil to kill the top end and found out that a coil reduces the efficiency of the woofer aprox 1.5db and it sounded much more balanced in my system. The coil probably started to cut out the higher midbass around 250hz and gave a more balanced system but it still sounded "thin" without either a subwoofer or max eq. boost on the lowest octave.

There aint no way a khorn is going to be flat to 30hz. Mine (mine are homemade but same internal dimensions and woofer a good match to khorn) are perhaps 12-15db down at 30hz. A khorn has horn response down to 40-45 at most and below that is just a sealed box with fairly high resonant freq. plus a hump in the 125hz range. A room would have to be designed to actenuate the lowest octave significantly. I've had mine in 2 different sized rooms (not even close dimensions) and the freq. response was about the same. If you listen to mostly symphony without a bass drum, no synth. music or modern music, maybe you can be satisfied without a sub. Organ and home theatre need lower, flatter bass and most other music even pop 40 on radio sounds better. A speaker that is flat to 35hz without any hump higher up would probably satisify most of my music but one that is 12db down at 40 just doesn't cut it.

What a steal! Let us know how you think they sond compared to the real deal.

Picture 3 of my top enclosure with the grillcloth removed.

Picture 2

Here's some crappy pictures I just took using my camcorder in very dim light.

These were the speakerlab plans that I used to build my khorns replicas. I didn't mount the audax and t-35 in front of the enclosure but built separate boxes on top to allow rotating them slightly, etc. One thing I never did find about was the ability to adjust the bass response via the crossover with a potentiometer. By doing away with the tailboard and added sides of the khorn the speaker fills the corner less. I have experimented with sealing the top to the corner and adding a tailboard but didn't really notice any response difference and concluded the khorn had a lot of unnecessary appendages. Perhaps PWK never thought about the savings from this move. My Audax foam surrounds are doing just fine and they are probably about 20 yrs old. but I don't abuse them either with weather extremes, humidity, etc. that a professional PA system would be subjected to. One can move the speakers further toward the corner, away from the corner, etc. and evaluate the response but to measuring the low end, not much happens but differences may appear in the 2-400hz range. If I had to do it again, I would build some LaScalas instead and run a subwoofer. I really like the looks of the LaScala but they would take up more space than the "mini" khorns I have.

One of my favorite LP's (from my LP days) was a Moody Blues album that featured a real low freq. at the end of the song(probably was only in the 35hz range thogh). I took that record over to the Klipsch dealer and had him play it through some LaScalas and didn't hear non of the low bass at all. Very dissappointed. The salesman said that by looking at he grooves he could tell that they weren't really that low or loud! I'll have to dig out that album and record it onto a cd and find out how low it actually was. Can't even remember the song since I haven't listened to it in years. The song came out in the early 70's. There was a lot of music in the 60's that had a low freq. overtone. How about Simon and Gargunkels Bridge over Troubled water (or was it boxer) as an example. Probably lows in the 3-40's.

I've said it many times on this forum but my homebuilt khorns benefit greatly from a 12inch subwoofer. The khorn is way down at 35hz and needs some help there. My subwoofer models at 27hz at f3. I do believe though that if a speaker is flat to the 35-40hz range the bass will be pretty good and deep and if I had a Cornwall it might be sufficient for most 2 channel music but you can't have a horn speaker that is -10db at 40hz to not sound bass shy!! I was getting by with eq.ing it 12db at 30hz or so but one day ran across this 12inch subwoofer (car model) on ebay for cheap and I had the cabinet already so I bit. Purchased a 250watt plate amp and couldn't be happier. It doesn't really take much for the 12inch to keep up with the khorns at a little less than ear splitting levels. I probably have it overboosted at 40hz but that's the way I like it. FM radio even sounds better with it. Organ music-no contest.