Klewless

Clint, The second store is Halston near 394 and Louisiana Ave (two blocks west) on the north frontage road. They are not a high end store but are an official Klipsch dealer. Their focus is home theater. I saw the Heresy and RF3 there today. Their listening rooms are pretty good too. Great Plains is a bit further west on 394 (can't remember cross street however). Audio Perfection is where I got my Mageplanars. Some people don't agree but I thing the maggies sound pretty good too. Totally different from Klipsch though. ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

toddvj, Just a friendly poke at Audio King for not carrying the heritage line. I know they will order them for you but you have to know just what you want and then explain to the salesman (usually) that you do know what you want and yes they can order them (yes, I have talked with sales people at Audio King who did not know what a Heresy was and also did not know he could order them.) I would seem to me that they could at least carry the Heresy. Because of it's size, I fully understand not keeping the Klipschorn on the sales floor. But if I were president of Audio King, the Klipschorn would be on the sales floor. You cannot sell what the customer cannot see these days! There are two hi end stores on I394 just west of Minnepolis who can get Klipsch and one of them actually has the Heresy on display. ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

toddvj, Since you work for Audio King, perhaps you could do us all a favor and have a little heart to heart chat with your management! Seriously, I have been less than inspired with Audio King lately. In my opinion they have a wonderful opportunity here but just don't realize it. If I had the money, I believe I'd approach Klipsch to open up a Klipsch only outlet here and would definitely keep at least one of the heritage line in the store at all times. ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

hey, How can you really brag about cheap tweeks over the $$$$ SET $$$$ ? I think I still have some very used and very cheap speaker cable some place (the wire actually turned brown inside it's plastic cover). Then you wouldn't have to rotate 15 degrees counter-clockwise! How about $10 - $12 per foot. Any takers? Does anybody know how many pieces of chewing gum would be needed to dampen my LaScala horns? But seriously, most of the tweeks do sound like they make sense (no pun intended here). I do not recall seeing anyone on this board considering the isolation of the woofer from it's mounting board with a good elastic gasket. Speakerlab of old recommended such mounting. That seems like a reasonable tweek to me and will probably try it out some day. If I ever do, I'll post whatever I hear from it. Going to SET is not a tweek though. It is a major step. ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

djk, One of the reasons the Khorn is so hard to build is that you are working in 3-D at different angles. It is hard to visualize in the mind's eye what the various cutting angles really should be. Not like simple 90 degree cuts here. On the other hand it is a pleasure building Khorns because you start with the front panel and keep adding on, sort of like making a layer cake. Each addition reinforces the last one until you're finally done. Within reason minor variations from "theoretical perfection" can't be heard at all. But leaks in the compression chamber can spell disaster! And of course leaks from one horn section to another is also bad. ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

Q-Man, Your Jensen horn. Is that the one shaped like the corner or the box shaped one? I have often considered the corner shaped one for use as a sub only, pairs of course. If one is going to that much trouble to get real bass, it might as well be stereo!!!! Awfully glad to hear someone trying those horns out. Have never gotten the opportunity to see or hear them. But using a pair for bass in the corner brings up the question on just what to use for the mains? In my case, LaScalas won't fit the room. Maybe the RF3???? Thanks ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

More on this, The LaScala is not a perfect horn. It is two wedges which taken overall approximate the exponential flare. A "perfect" horn does expand for every increment in length. I have not opened up my LaScalas to see but could "guess" that the straight non-expanding section could do one or both of the following: 1. Make additional clearance room inside the chamber for the 15" driver". and/or 2. Increase the volume of the chamber at the expense of flare on the horn. Maybe it's just easier to manufacture them the way they do it. ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

Yes guys, I have heard Al's xover, including the change in tweeter output. And I liked what I heard to the point that I am going to build myself a set of them. My main reason for building my own is that I want to move the bass section next to the woofer (my convoluted form of bi-wiring I suppose). My comment regarding "sparkle", while probably poorly worded, was in the context of real life, not "reproduction". I still stand by my idea that real live people don't have "sparkle" (not the same as high pitched voice). So all that being said, I agree with most of the ideas on this topic. For sake of clarification my idea of a good speaker system is that one should never be able to "hear" individual components. One only "hears" a single coherent sound. I don't see the difference between cutting the high frequencies at the amp or reducing the level of the tweeter. The highs have been cut in both cases. Of course, there is the possibility of the amp cutting in the wrong places, in which case the only recourse is to do it within the xover, which surely must affect the damping. There are no free lunches. Al's voltage divider is a good solution but is not adjustable. It also add a minor advantage in added protection to the vulnerable tweeter. You guys may now consider me "dull - no sparkle", until I actually encounter somebody in real life who does sound that way to me. Then I'll just have to change my opinion! ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

sunnysal, Well here I am just squirming in my chair and can't keep my mouth shut. A resistor would reduce the current into the tweeter, hence making the sound a little bit duller, which is effectively what you are attempting. As such it is changing the sound. Perhaps you could try using your tone control just a tad bit to see if you like the reduced sparkle. Actually IMHO speakers should not have sparkle. Do people's voices sparkle? One should hear the source NOT the speaker. That means one of the better tools for testing speaker systems is vocals not orchestra! Good luck in your quest. One other point is that if you installed a T-pad, which would keep the impedance from the tweeter to the xover constant and allow you to adjust the volume of the tweeter, then you'd be in the infamous "Which setting do I like, and why or why not?". Similar to constantly twiddling the volume or tone controls. And "Do I have both systems set the same?", etc. ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

Randy, ALK, Couldn't you just take the tweeter input from the xformer at the -3 db tap rather than at the full input? Al, would that mess things up? My thoughts. ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

Compression chamber volume ?? I have seen that formula in several places and it seems it was always applied to exponential expansions. Would it be different for hyperbolic or conical or tractrix? Just wondering..... ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

Guys, Search this board for "runt". There is a picture of it which looks a lot like what you are discussing. I have no clue as to what the "runt" is all about. ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

Looks like a good mod to me. It would tend to help the high freqs negotiate the turn. I might even try that myself. ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

Randy, If the woofer is horn loaded, then indeed the horn effectively determines the low frequency cutoff. The Heresy is not horn loaded in the bass, so it's cutoff is determined by the cabinet. I don't recall whether the Heresy is reflex loaded or an enclosed box. EvilMinion, If it is reflex loaded, the mod could possibly be damaging to the speakerlab woofer since they used sealed boxes in all their designs. Acoustic suspension speakers depend on the trapped air to limit cone excursion and a reflex cabinet does not supply that protection. I'd be careful how loud the modified Heresy is played. The excessive cone motion for the speakerlab woofer might damage it. ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

For me it was a couple versions of Knight Kits when I was a youngster. Of course, when you are young and broke, anything is better than nothing. One was a kit, the other I built from plans. They were not too bad but definitely not Hi Fi. I have been pretty lucky over the years. Have owned Bozak, Klipsch, Audio Reasearch (Magnepan), Altec, Fisher, Heil to name a few. Based on these years I would own Bozak and Klipsch again, and maybe Altec. My $0.02 .... ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

JMON, I had thin cardboard between the clamp and speaker. I thought of sponge but couldn't find any at the moment. How's that for lazy? ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

cls32, Based this thread, I went home this weekend and took out my RTA to see if I could detect any panel resonances in my La Scala. FWIW, my experiments were not strictly scientific (but were repeatable). Here are the results. I stuck the RTA inside the horn and tapped lightly with both my fingernail and my knuckle. I got similar results with the knuckle showing a broader pattern (more energy). I tapped lightly enough to keep the display within the range of the RTA. I observed with the RTA both inside the horn and right next to the outside of the cabinet (while tapping on the inside). The peak seemed to be consistent whether inside or outside, so I concentrated on inside measurements. The 100 Hz band barely responded. A sharp peak of (full scale) about 15 db appeared on the 125 Hz band. The next two bands 160 and 200 Hz also were part of the peak but at about 6 to 8 db down. Encouraged by all this, I then put a big clamp across the front of the La Scala. The 125 Hz peak totally disappeared. However a smaller but measurable peak appeared way up around the 250 - 400 Hz bands (which I did not investigate). This peak was about 6 - 8 db lower than the original 125 Hz peak. Then I slowly loosened the clamp while tapping and observing. At one point ALL peaks disappeared altogether. By the time I had the clamp loose, the original peak re-appeared. Obviously this does not speak for how strongly this peak is excited by sound from the driver, but it is definitely there. Your horizontal bracing seems to have merit. Of course, I have no clue as to the strength of my clamp or the accuracy of my RTA. I hope this helps. ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

cls72, I agree with your experiments. Adding a panel to the horn sidewall (inside or outside) which is still unsupported at it's exit would still vibrate! A horizontal brace across the lip of the horn mouth make sense (what I was suggesting earlier). A vertical strip on the lip (inside or outside) would be similar to trumpet horns which have a rolled edge to hold things together and help control vibration. Perhaps BobG's comments about constrained layer damping may apply to horn lip (perimeter) reinforcement as well. ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

sunnysal, I'd like to see if you get any pics to post. Also I once built my version of La Scalas and fastened a 1x2 brace from the front of the "V" to the sidewalls. Seemed to work fine. I don't think that braces at the mouth would be any kind of a problem, unless they are awfully large. my thoughts......... ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

Bracing group, I recently read someplace that bracing strips along the LENGTH of a panel is more effective that across it's width. Recommended brace was a rectangular strip of something like oak. It must be firmly attached with a glue better than the white/yellow carpenter's stuff typically found in hardware stores. They said use one of the available 2-part glues. No experience on my part here. Just repeating something I read and thought sounded reasonable. Call me untested ------------------ John P St Paul, MN

cls72 I think that would be an excellent mod. I have La Scalas and have been aware of the vibrating box. In my case, I have done none of the many mods available for my Klipsch speakers. Not that I don't agree with them; am just lazy! Consider that any of the energy created by the woofer that shakes the box, is returned as sound from the box. In other words, the result is at a different frequency and colors the original sound. Any effort to stop panel resonances is generally a good one. Good work. PS. That is one mod I actually plan to work on someday. ------------------ John P St Paul, MN