Erland

Closing off the "bottom" horn section

Some more details

Laying out and fixing the bottomn framework in the horn

Setting up the (what do you call them?)"supports for whatever:)

With a deep respect for PWK and his constructions, I decided to build me a pair of Khorn's. My intention regarding the bass bin, was to stick to the building plans, with a few exceptions. I also like to thank you all for your advise and patience with my "amatour questions" during the planning phase of my project. Without your knowledge I probably would not have known where to start. So this is my story: Starting of with a coupel of 3/4" birch plywood plates

Again I have to turn to you "gurus" for advise regarding my K-horn project. As mentioned earlier, I have never build or seen the inside of a K-horn before, exept from pictures (that has been a lot of help). I have seen a picture in the Speakerlab building plans where the void around the woofer (blue arrow) is filled with this material used for purpose in speakers. Shall this void be filled? What about the void marked by green arrows. I guess it is a good thing to stuff this "dead void" before closing? As some of you mentioned, the angels on this thing is "wild", but with patience and preciseness it just falls together. Anyway, this is my progress so far.

I use the the stuff that has become most European Woodworkers favourite the last couple of years. "TECH7" I did a test, and the plywood goes apart before the glue let's go. Yet it stays flexible like rubber.

This is how far I have managed to get this week. (the top part is not glued together yet)

or this one;

I find neither of them difficould, it's more a mather of whats to prefer of this one;

Another q... As mentioned, I have different sets for building plans. And there are some different solutions on them; Aft side of the woofer bin, where it connects to the back board: The Speakerlab plans instructs a "ducktail" that is located vertically. On other plans, I see that this "ducktail" is horizontal. It also seems like the original Khorn has a horizontal "ducktail". Does it make any difference? Has anybody had the chance to compare the Klipschorn to the Speakerlab horn? The basshorn measure the same, but have this small deviation. I am at å point where I can go either way, so for the building process it makes no difference. Regards Erland

Please bear with me, this is the first horns I have ever built. I am using the speakerlab plans, but I also have some other plans for X-reference. The part mentioned as "q" in the plans. (the small 3/4" x 3/4" support pieces that is attached different places in the base horn). Is it neccesary? It probably does not make any audible difference, but after putting it in there, I am not to found of having it there. It is still not to late to cut them out again. Nails-Screws-GlueWhat do you recommend? First I thought glue would be sufficient, but I am leaning more and more towards using some screws in addition. Spakerlab mention nails. That does not appeal to me. What do you pro's do? I am documenting the whole process with photos, so we can have a "virgin" K-horn pic session in a month or so.

I read that she accepts local pickup of the Accuphase. Would you dare to go there???? Bring friends.... preferabely with machinegun or larger....

Could I get a copy too? I am having a bass issue in a room and want to check phasing of the individual drivers. Thanks, Chris Cris, I have filled up your mailbox with test and reference sigals. If you empty it, I will send some more...

Another comment, The RF series is rather inexpensive loudspeakers in th US. Of this reason, and the reason that they are promoted as "AV speakers" they seem often to be matched with mediocre electronics. I can assure you all that matched with good amplification and signals, the RF's will make your jaws drop. If you are wandering about how the sound level suffered from the amp change in the previous post; Well, to put is this way; all visitors has left the room long before the 30W amplifier looses its grip........ And by the way, the Nakamich got sold short after......

I am using a tube amplifier with the RF5. It is is not an integrated, but that sholud not have anything to do with it's ability to drive the loudspeaker. Previously I was using the rather large Nakamichi PA7 Stasis together with the RF5's, and I tought is sounded marvellous. About 18 monts ago I got hold of an old Scottish tube amplifier called Strathclyde Transcriptions Developments STD 2000 (no it is not from y2K). It was not operating, and I spendt a lot of time restoring and uppgrading it, with all new capacitors, resistors, tubes ea. I had never heard the amp before, but I had heard others speak well of it, and as you can see of the picture, it looks so good that of that reason alone, I found it worth restoring and keep as an operational treasure. In realtion to the new parts and all, I hooked it up to my system and let it heat up and burn in for a couple of days. When I finally sat down to listen to it, I was really impressed with what I heard. Gone was all tendency of "harshness" and sharp edges. I had not noticed before, now it became aparent. Left was a richer sweeter sound, but whats really supriced me, and uppesite of what many lean to think, was that the bass felt deeper and the responce quicker. Enough said, I can highly reccomend the RF speakers with tube amps. I know people who use the KT88 based McIntosh MC275 togheter with the RF5, I know a well recogniced rewiever in a Norwegian hifi magazine who uses Audionote 300B's on his RF5, and I could go on.....(Keep in mind that Klipsch speakers come considerably more expensive over here in Europe.) The RF's match very well with tube amps, and is heighly recommended, however as with any other equipment, carful maching is reccomended. F. eksample, I tested a set of Chineese Ming Da MC300 monoblocks on my speakers. They sounded shit! I have tried other 300B's with good results, but the MC300 did not do it for me. The amp on the picture is el34 based(i use "Winged C Svetlana) push-pull of about 30W and the input tubes and drivers is ECC83/ECC81- (I use NOS Mullard)

Its so many iteresting issues when you start to DIY. Sometimes you exspect things you find in the pro manufactorers products for the best solution, but when investigating it closely, you find that the chosen solution is based on a comercial aspect rather than a audible one. I got another one for you; If you read books and articles written by different "gurus" in the past, you will find that several of them states that the ideal arrangement of horns in a system is with the DRIVERS alligned. In big horn systems for theatre ea that was how they avoided the "eccho effect" that they struggled with in the beginning when they placed the horn "mouth" aligned" So how would you do that with å folded horn? Place the squaker and tweeter in the backyard:) ? (Just kidding) I guess here the crossover also plays a role, but when studying all this, I really understand what a genious PWK was.

For my new K-horns I am using the Trachorn for the midband. Since building from scratch, it am not limited by anything except laws of physics. By placing the tweeter above the considerably higher Trachorn, It will be located higher than listening position.. Placing it vertically of the side is not desisreable the way I see it. Of given reasons I am planning to place the tweeter below the Trachorn. Does this make sence?

I sure will. My plan is to document the progress with pictures and post the story when it get finnished. But, you know, I may run into some new things to wander about before I get even close to finnish. Anyway, for buildig my first set of K-horn I rather thake the time to do it right and avoiding mistakes (and my RF5 sounds pretty good in my ears) , so I go step by step and try to think through what I am doing. I have assembeled a lot of parts, like the K33E woofers, K55V squakers, the Bob Crites tweeter C125, and Al K's Trachorns on its way. I have startet to assemble parts and build Al K'd ES400 crossover, but at the moment I need to slow down spend less money on parts and rather focus on the basshorns. Hopefully I will have my new K-horns finnished before christmas.

Thank you very much for your input. No more "nitpicking" about this one then.... Regarding the tweeters, As I consider myselfes more of a craftsman than a business man, I think I will take the time grind the plywood to completely flush mount them.....

Is my conserns here just "nitpicking lunacy" that I should push to the side, or does it make any sence?

And the individuals jumping on the balanced "hype" and start changing out cables and components in a perfectly good single ended system isn't?

I have bought the C125 tweeters from Bob C Crossover is planned to be the Al K ES 400/ES5800. I have started to build assemble parts and build the ES400. The ES5800 I will buy from Al.

Uhh so I ended up with the wrong one then.......the one with the spring clip. Do you think there will be a audble defference in combination with the Trachorn? And next, is there better drivers? As a start, I will go with the springclip-K55V that I got, while gathering all the other parts for my horns, but if there is a possible uppgrade out there I will try it sooner or later.

"Stepping up" to balanced cables??? I will not even go near the technical part of the construction of balanced cables. As others has written, a blanced cable will NOT sound better than a SE cable with RCA connectors, but a balanced system will have a 6db higher gain that may mislead you to think you have better sound. If you are able to control a 6db gain with your SE system, there should be no difference with similar type of cables SE and Balanced. But with high sensitivity speakers like Klipsch your amplification would have to be very weak to have any advantage of this. In fact, many audiophiles with hornspeakers that I know, is taking actions to "dampen" or reducing the source signal to make the pramplifier "work" a litle. Belive me, we have done blind tests on this, most systems sounds better this way. There is exceptions; If you have signal cables longer than 10ft, it is a general opinion that a balanced system will be favourable. But who has componens in their hifi system more than 10ft apart. (i am not refering to the speakers) If you choose to disregard all the above, another thing is that to have any possibel audible effect, it is not enough to have balance cables with i 6db higher signal. You need one or more balanced component. There is a lot of components with balanced sockets on, but a very few is truly balanced. To be fully balanced dual mono, there would in fact need to be not two, but four of everything. This is when things start to be expensive, and manufactorers start to cheat ( as they never did before....) I have opened several "balanced" highend products found a single ended system with a ballanced conversion for the in and outputs. So much for the balanced. I am not accusing all manufactorers in general, and i am not claiming to know most manufactorers products, but of the products I have seen, only BAT and Mark Levinson had truly balanced circuits. A highly recogniced Norwegian manufactorer called Electrocompaniet has some products that is truly balanced (as their $6K CD player) but some other is not even if they claim it is. So where am I going? Do you have long distance between the components in your system (more than 10ft) Do you own or plan to own truly balanced components in the near future? Do you system need more gain? (your amp will not be stronger, you just reaches its max on a lower throttle) If you can say yes to these questions, go balanced. If not, you are better of spending your money elsewhere. Good luck!