ClaudeJ1

Not by much when Jubes are in corners also. Plus the Jubes have way MORE bass above 60 Hz. where most of it is.

That's because they used a K-42 woofer, designed to play louder, not lower.

Obviously you haven't experienced the superior clarity, transients and low distortion of horn bass.

It's all in the mastering, really. What amazes me is when familar pop/rock tunes are used in movies, they always sound better than a CD. I bought one of the first Sony Blue Ray players (crappy perfomance at the price of an OPPO). I didn't have and HDTV back then. Using a DVD and Blue Ray version of the same movie, there was NO difference in sound quality, just the picture quality, which, of course, was lost on my big old CRT TV with 4:3 aspect ratio. So I got a refund, bought a GPS for my car, and decided to wait until prices came down and I got an HDTV. It was a wise move. I think CD, DVD, and Blue Ray have the potential for great sound, Blue Ray being the greatest, since there is NO DATA COMPRESSION/DECOMPRESSION with 25+ Gigs of data available. The price of stamping them out is the same whether it's 5 minutes or 2 hours of music. So, again, it's all in the mastering, so don't blame the digital medium. Ever since the CD hit the streets (I was there waiting) 31 years ago, we have had the (mostly unrealized) POTENTIAL to get a 1,000:1 (+30 db) dynamic range increase in all of our recordings, but sadly, the world has evolved to compressed dynamics and now, compressed data on top of it, with the low end MP-3's that teens are so fond of in their iPods. A good, dynamic, recording of Jazz on CD can be ripped with a LAME encoder at 320 Variable Bit Rate with sound that is amazingly good. But, the industry would rather sell crap by the Billions with those $1.29 downloads. Instant gratification is the mantra, NOT audio quality. All of the excellent recordings on LP, CD, DVD, and BR, have been experienced by Klipschhorn owners from day one via superior clarity vs. the others. Sadly the superior resolution also resolved all the crapola.

What do you mean "maybe?"

Only if you don't point it straight up, apparently.

No. Unless it's in a sub.

With a sub, you are all set, but a little PEQ at the tope end would sweeten the sound a bit.

If it only happens on a few recordings, it's not the horns or the room. Crap in = crap out. I'm finding this to be true as I make my setup incrementally more resolving. Stuff that sounds great in my truck sounds awful at home. Jazz, Classical, and Yes/Dire Straits/Santana sound great on my 2-channel rig though. I'm starting to understand why "audiophiles" listen to a small subset of genres.. btw, you can't fix crap. Welcome to the club of sensitive listening. Good ears and good horns make it so.

If you look at my Avatar, this is obviously what I have done "beyond Khorns." While my 2 ph 3 setup with two Khorns and a mono LaScala was excellent for 30 years, then came HT and this group of fanatics, and my life was never the same.

Having owned and modified LaScalas since 1977 with various drivers, the biggest performance improvement that could be made in modern times, IMHO, would be to bi-amp it with direct drive to the woofer section. This would give the owner the opportunity to do what the Klipsch Pro guys do with Jubilees and MWMs. I did a comparison, in Hornresp, between a LaScala with a K-33 and my own Quarter Pie Horn with an EVM15L (which acts like Mini Klipsch MWMs). As you can see, the Quarter Pie is smoother and has both Lower and Higher frequency response. While this horn does it all acoustically, with a different driver, there's no reason why a LaScala owner can't improve things without changing to a different cabinet or driver in the bass section. Having a sub, or two, like a Tuba HT with it's own amplifier(s) would do a great job filling the missing bass in a LaScala from about 80-100 Hz. down. Also porting a LaScala, per DJK mod (which I have not done), with a subsonic filter, would be another way, for those who don't want to build or buy a horn sub. Using an active Xover on the sub and the LaScala bass bin (Mini DSP?) would give one the opportunity to chop off the low end of the LaScala (decreasing modulation distortion) to match up the horn sub (or ported mod) with a 4th order Linkwitz-Riley filter. On the higher frequency end of the woofer section, one could easily PEQ out the 140 Hz. peak (about minus 3-5 db) and boost up about 5-7 db at 350 Hz. or so to flatten everything out. Boosting higher frequencies does not add distortion, since there is very little cone motion added in the process, but it does improve the mid bass/mid range definition, which is where our hearing gets more critical.

The circuits may be the same but the transformers are not. Many of these import amps use great components and skimp on the iron, and although they may sound good they are not the same. That said, budget permitting the Chinese amps may be right for you, I personally prefer a rebuilt classic Dynaco, Scott, Mcintosh etc. Dave As an ex tube fanatic, I will agree............"It's the IRON."

Us horn sub guys just wanna hear how much better a horn loaded sub is than bass reflex with twin 18's. It looks like it's about the same size as both of my DTS 10's stack together, which are almost 600 lbs. so your is light in comparions to two Danleys. LOL. BTW, Two 12" driver is the same as one 18" driver in terms of radiation area. Since your new horn sub has an 18 and a passive, it should have the same power.

Well I found some Klipsch K1543 specs, which is the latest blurb sheet form Klipsch on K-43. Turns out whatever was used before was incorrect. Here is the REAL comparison of the latest K43 (gray) with the latest K33 (black). The difference isn't that great, but the K33 still get a bit lower........and much cheaper.

It depends on whether you get just those or a whole batch of other stuff with it. You usually get a better deal when you have a motivated seller who wants to get rid of other stuff too, so you offer a "How much if I take it all off your hands."

I want to make sure my MWM model is correct.

YES, the black line is the K-33. I am surprised the difference is that pronounced, unless JWC had a different driver when he did the original model, I'm not 100% sure on that. Either way, it's a much flatter and deeper curve. Besides, who wants to argue with Gary Gillum, who's the original builder and patent holder? LOL. JC had 3 different interpretations of the MWM model, all the same length, but slightly different mid sections. I chose this one because the 55 Hz. peak matched the measurements I made 6 years ago when I had K-43's in my MWMs bins.

Several things got me to post about this topic, including Mark 1101's questions about my Quarter Pie bass horns, which are an MWM derivative. When I first owned 4 MWMs bin in Nov. 2007, they came with different woofers in them. I had 2 Gauss and 2 K43's. Even though the Gauss could handle the most power, I thought they sounded and measured the worst, so I sold them, which temporarily left 2 empty MWMs bins. The remaining K-43's, had a 55 Hz. peak, which has been observed by others in the High Efficiency Speaker community. Gary Gillum, long retired, was Chief Engineer at Klipsch in the 70's and 80's. He designed the famous Kg2 and Kg4 speakers (PWK himself told me that the KG2 was "KG squared" which stood for Gary's initials. In any case, Gary is the co-patent holder with Paul Klipsch on the design of the MWM woofer bin, which is still in production as the "top of the line" THX rated, all horn Theater System, modified by current chief Engineer, Roy Delgado. I and several other people here, feel this is the best speaker system that Klipsch makes. It's a monster with no equal, and now that there is a new Horn Loaded Sub available, the world's Movie theaters will see an improvement in their LFE channels, but I digress I called Gary at his home to interview him. He went through the development process of the MWM, based on Paul's ideas, and he assured me that the MWM was designed with and for the K-33 woofer, which was the exact same woofer used in the Khorn, Belle, LaScala, and Cornwall speakers at the time (mid-70's). He assured me that the ONLY reason they added a K-43 was STRICTLY for power handling and NOT better performance. The curve in the patent itself is based on the K-33 woofer, even though all of the production MWM and MWMs woofer sections all shipped with K-43 woofers as standard. After my conversation with Gary, I took a pair of K-33 woofers from my LaScalas and put them in the 2 empty MWMs bins. I measured and listened. I noticed right away that the bass seemed deeper and fuller. After this observation, I advised Mark1101 to put either K-33 or Crites woofers in his 4 MWMs bins, which he still has today. From prior posts, I had saved James Cullison's Hornresp model of the MWM, which, I believe, was done with a K-43 specification. I changed the throat area to a more accurate figure, then substituted the T/S specs of a K-33 and this is what I got in Hornresp. Looks like this modern simulation agrees with what I heard 6 years ago. Hope you all find this interesting and helps to prove that the K-33 is the better woofer to use in a MWM for home use.

No laughter at all. Even though I have instruments, listening to some very select recordings tell me whether I have made improvements or not. While curves get sonic journey moving in the right direction, extensive listening to VERY familiar, repeated program material is the final determinant of arrival for me also. My initial request for measurements have been served adequately by your more detailed response about how you listen with 4 ears and 2 brains, so thank you for that. You have done the most important parts.

I owned 4 Khorns for 30+ years in different rooms, Lots of LaScalas, Cornwalls, Heresys, Fortes, Chorus I, Chorus II, RF's, B2, B3, etc. direct radiator subs, horn subs. I spent a LOT of time in the Palladium room at Klipsch Headquarters listening to lots of favorite music. I have made a few trips to Hope and spent time in the lab/test room AND PWK's home as his guest in 1985. I worked on a Jubilee Drone engineering project for a Pro Klipsch Dealer (Two K-31, Eminence, and 3 passives in the horn, etc., lots of measurements and listening, but I digress.................. The Palladiums were designed to compete with the B&W 802 type of speakers at $20,000 a pair. They are gorgeous and are THE best sounding bass reflex speaker I have ever heard. They are absolutely beautiful and if you have the cash, they are a showcase speaker that anyone should be proud of, no question. they are handmade in Hope, Arkansas, just like the Heritage speakers. They have custom drivers and horns that are unavailable anywhere else but Klipsch. They use all of the latest technologies and have a very refined balancing network. I have spent time with the engineer that designed it. That being said, I still think that the two best bass sections that Klipsch makes are the MWM and the Jubilee, period. Why? Because they are horns and both outperform the Khorn bass section. But they need active Xover networks to sound their best. After having horn subs, I'm not convinced that ALL speakers need subs to operate below the 40-60 Hz. range to minimize distortion and extend the bandwidth down to match the capabilities of the ruler flat response to 4 hz. from digital media we have had for over 30 years. The idea of a high pass filter at 30 hz. for energy robbing, high distortion turntable rumble on himalayan recycled production vinyl from crappy US record plants has been gone for a long time. Klipsch's best horn is the K402, which took me 4 years to find on the used market. I have also owned all the EV and JBL offerings with 2" throats. Yes, I have heard the K510 and it's amazing for it's size. I have even heard the PWK's own single Jubilee at his widow's home (not a very good test), which had an 800 Hz. custom horn on it. I was even at the CES show in 1999 and saw the Jube with the Mahogany horn on top, of which, there are only two in the world. Conclusion? If space and looks are not a problem, then the very best Klipsch has to offer is the KPT-MCM-II 4-way in various configurations, (look up the Pro Cinema section on Klipsch.com). The next best is the 3-way KPT-Jubilee/535-B (My speakers are basically a home made hybrid of those two) Both are available thought the Pro dealers, and both need Active Xovers AND Subwoofers, which now Klipsch makes a horn loaded Sub that weights 300 lbs. Both of these options sound better AND are CHEAPER than the Palladiums. You pay a lot of moolah for the looks, but it's still cheaper than a lot of, so called, "high end" speakers that cost tens of thousands of dollars more. To trump a Palladium's 3rd position, one could keep the Khorn's bass unit, PEQ it up a bit, and use the KPT-Jubilee/535 B's treble section. But it would not be a "Klipschorn" anymore although it would still be "pure Klipsch." So there you have it, all top 4 shoices, all need subs to get to 20 hz and below. All Klipsch speakers are a bargain. New or used.

What can I say. Paul was right and still is, 12 years after his passing. Now Roy is right, and he has the torch.

When I built a DJ system for my brothers in the early 80's, I built boxes to haul/protect the LaScala, They also served as speaker stands. I used 3/8th plywood on a 2x3 frame, but you could use cheap Luan flooring instead.

Yes, they are. And all audio systems are an illusion (albeit, a good one) because they all sound like crap compared to a live acoustic performance in a good room.

Wow. I bought mine recapped and with new tubes 32 years ago for only $350. Sold it several years later for $700 to a friend's son and he sold it a few years later for $1200. Should have purchased more as investments. Better than Blue Chip stocks!!