ClaudeJ1

You definitely know how to record piano very well. #1 sounds like I have a pianist playing a real piano right in my living room. #2 sounds like the same guy playing a concert in a large room and I'm 20 rows back. I disagree about the "mono" comments. It's definitely stereo, with the piano facing me on #1, where I hear the left hand in the right/center and the right hand in the left/center, with the actual width of a grand piano just about right in my reference 2.1 presentation.

I certainly hope you don't actually listen to them in the position pictured here. You would be missing 4 feet of horn that way and never get to 35 Hz.

Yep, Fir Plywood, which was used for many Khorns in the day before they found the Russian Birch in the later 70's.

Yeah, like gross PEQ. A 2.6 foot horn rolls off at over 100 Hz.. Below that, it's a direct radiator in a sealed enclosure feeding a small slot in a very tight corner.

and you will get a better midrange sound and slightly thinner bass.

A man from Vermont was once asked: "How's your wife?" to which, he replied: "Compared to what?" An thus the story goes about DR vs. HORN loading woofers. Which is about efficiency bandwidth product against cone motion. If you horn load a driver, you make it more efficient, reduce power input/cone motion, but you narrow the bandwidth and change the directivity. If a speaker moves, it distorts. All measurable BUT what is tolerable? What is your personal threshold of detectability either way and is it improving with your program material? Horn loading the drivers that move the most are the woofers and subs, but we are more sensitive to midrange anomalies, right? But at what cost of $$ and space? I'm sure a room full of 18's can match tapped horns and full horns in the sub world. It's time, money and space. Compared to what? Threshold of detectability, comparison, space, and cash. WAF???? Won't touch that one 'cause it's not technical, it's emotional.

I would prefer to call it a CRAFT, rather than Art when it comes to Engineering. It's repeatable and requires skill. Much like competent photography is a craft, but with modern lighting and digital enhancement tools, it can be elevated to ART in the right hands, but the more common practice is a CRAFT.

It's called the inverse square law. When you do close miking to get details, you lose the ambience, so they mix it in the way they think it should sound. They are quite often wrong.

I like the way the access panel is close to the mouth instead of the throat. FAR LESS pressure on the seal that way. Clever.

80-85 db average double blind listening. Lights out and eyes shut.

Now I know why it's in my favorite demo disc stack for my all horn system that get from 13 Hz. to 18 Khz. Yeeehhhhhhhhhhah

+1 My subwoofer DSP represents the single most expensive component of my system...and it is worth every penny. The entire component assemblage (cabinets, DSP, and power amp devoted to the subwoofer) exceed the cost of my mains by a factor of 2. If there's little to no realistic capability in the system's bass region (which can require A LOT), then the system arguably has no realistic capability. Amen brother, we can sing that one in unison because it's true. Physics cannot be cheated, only worked with.

I'm glad you made this post. Between looking at ISO equal loudness curves (too much bass IMHO) Measuring things flat, and making listening and measuring tweaks, I agree with you. It's very difficult to get smooth, impactful, "bottomless" bass without encroaching on the midrange, but I feel I have done it. However it took my own horn design, 6 years of slow R&D, and more sophisticated room correction to do it. Yet, when I have measured LaScalas, FH-1's, Belles, and Khorns, there are peaks, but they all roll off above 40 hz. They are NOT flat, so unless you bi-amp and have some kind of PEQ for your bass, you will not have anywhere near flat and you will get used to the sound. As impressive as the MWM is for bass power and definition, there is a pronounced 55 Hz. peak that give the listener a free "disco thump" when no EQ's out and things get really weird above 300 hz., which is why Klipsch chose to add a Mid Bass section in the original MCM 1900 and the current 4T offering. This peakiness/rolloffs is also the reason why the Jubilee bass bin get PEQ's in active or passive form, and to a certain degree, the modern version of the factory Khorn. Personally, I think bass SOUNDS flat to my ears when it's GENTLY tipped up about 2-3 db/octave on the way DOWN, which is the OPPOSITE of what speakers naturally do, unless room gain does this for you. Great bass is THE most expensive AND finicky thing to get right in any room. After getting the best mid and tweeter horns I could afford, I have spent WAY more money on the range of 13-300 Hz. in electronics, horns, sub-horns, and amplifiers than the rest of the system combined. I have a friend who does GROSS adjustments, constantly riding, the tone controls on his pre-amp to adjust for what he deems lacking in each and every song. Drives me nuts. What I have tried to do is LISTEN with my eyes shut, on all my favorite recordings to get the very best power, depth, and definition in the bass WITHOUT encroaching on the delicacies of male and female vocals, guitar, sax, etc. Yes I agree with you about people who like to SHOUT BASS rather then simply letting sound as natural and powerful as it would be in a live situation. That is my reference point and motivation. So my system attempts to strike a good balance with ALL recordings. If bass is thin or thick, that's how it comes out. I NEVER touch a tone control. The system runs as flat as I can make it between measurements and listening. But I will say, that you will NOT get that with an all-passive speaker of any kind because the ROOM always messes up even the most expensive and "flattest" of speakers regardless of price or technology. I just feel that horns replicate the TRANSIENT response of live instruments better than anything I have ever heard, except for Dave White's home made Electrostatics with Transmission Line Subs and Direct Drive OTL tubes. But that was a long time ago, so I would put up my system against his today, as I have gone WAY beyond vanilla Khorns that I owned and enjoyed for over 30 years without tone controls.

As my system RESOLUTION got better (all horns of course) with the K402/K1133, super tweet and my new bass horn, I'd say my levels are 10 db lower than they used to be at about 80-85 db according to Radio Shack meter double checked with my iPhone and free SPL apps. The only time I go higher is in demo mode for fellow Klipsch buddies, or with old rock and alcohol.

It's a marketing ploy to get the attention and feed back in the thread. Good one.

Having designed and built my own Quarter Pie bass horn, as a Klipsch MWMs derivative, I thought I would share my top 3 tests for bass definition after re-tuning my system. 1) From the best selling jazz recording of all time "Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis, cut #5, "Sketches of Spain": The very beginning has notes from a plucked acoustic bass. You SHOULD clearly hear that the third note is done as a 2-3 string CHORD and not a single string like the first note. This repeats on the 5th note from the bass also. The clearer you hear each string in the chord being plucked, the better. If you then listen to the alternate take of this song on the bonus track #6, the chord is gone and he's using a single note in the same spots with stronger pluck. 2) On the Eagles CD "Hell Freezes Over" on "Hotel California" intro before the vocals and after the guitar: When the bass drum kicks in with 2 beats each time with the congas, the second beat has a distinct pitch shift for each set of two beats on the second beat each time. It will be almost undetectable if you have mushy bass, but clear and distinct otherwise. 3) On "Flight of the Cosmic Hippo" by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones: Victor Wooten's bass should growl at you and where having a sub to get you down to 30 Hz. at least get you to feel the notes as well as clearly hear his fingers sliding over the strings in the midrange. If he's not using a 5-string bass, then he must be lowering his E string on a 4-string bass to get that low. Khorns, LaScalas, Belles, Choruses, and Cornwalls all roll off above 40 Hz., so this shows the advantages of a good 2.1 setup in the lower registers, especially for 2 and 3. There are other test tunes, but these are in the top 3 for me. Happy listening and I hope to hear YOUR results here.

Really? What about the entire octave that even Klipschorns don't handle. I've a number of recordings with material at 16.5 Hz. Hard to call it "high fidelity" if you aren't hearing the low "C" at all. Definitely depends on one's musical interests, IMHO. Dave I have heard many systems that sound great without a subwoofer & many systems that have a sub that sound like crap. Its all about personal taste. I use a sub with my LaScala's because i think it needs one. My Chorus II's i feel dont need it but i can always add one if i feel like it. Just because you miss some low end content on a sound system dosen't mean it won't sound good. I have nothing against those who prefer not running a subwoofer but i feel a properly integrated subwoofer can definitely add to ones listening experience. I second that motion.

You have no idea how much bass your are missing without it. All speakers roll off ("run out of steam") near the edge of their reponse band which is usually 40 hz. Modern electric basses with 5, 6, 7 strings can hit 31 hz. without detuning or sub bass synthesizers. You won't know it's there without a sub, even with Khorns.

Hmmmm. "Low end EQ Boost from a PASSIVE network." And without batteries to boot. Must be magic or really, really, advanced science. I'm about to go active shortly, so I hope I don't experience the noise you speak of. You missed my point. Passives can only cut energy, not boost it.

My millage varies here. mp3 is one toke over the line. I have a theatre organ recording at that rate that is as good sounding as if it were DSD. I was intrigued, so I made one of Perlman playing a Stradivarius. No good. So, IMHO it is going to depend on the material. Music originating from electric guitars, synths, and such and instruments like a pipe organ generate little in the upper harmonics...but pianos, Strads, and such are totally reliant on them for their signature. CD is about as far as one can go without impacting them...if you don't listen to such things, it doesn't matter. Squeeze 'til it does. Dave Fascinating how many times we have to delve into this subject. Seems there are too many ways to get the end product and a lot of opinions on what works and doesn't. Dave, like you I think I have it figured out. But I'm not talking. Too many ways to be misunderstood. I will say this - Its easy to be satisfied when the music is terrific. It's about the ENGINEERING of the recording, mike, monitors, etc. without regard for "radio compression" of modern times that takes the life (dynamics) out of the music. Don't blame the media for idiots in charge of the knobs.

My millage varies here. mp3 is one toke over the line. I have a theatre organ recording at that rate that is as good sounding as if it were DSD. I was intrigued, so I made one of Perlman playing a Stradivarius. No good. So, IMHO it is going to depend on the material. Music originating from electric guitars, synths, and such and instruments like a pipe organ generate little in the upper harmonics...but pianos, Strads, and such are totally reliant on them for their signature. CD is about as far as one can go without impacting them...if you don't listen to such things, it doesn't matter. Squeeze 'til it does. Dave Like I've said before. Controlled listening test many moons ago determined that Variable Bit Rate (VBR) 320 was indistinguishable from CD.

"Better" isn't the right word. As others have said, Redbook is capable of extraordinary quality equal to the others. I've recorded at 24/192 and in DSD. The differences in the downsampled versions...especially from DSD...are very, very subtle and really only apparent in A/B. The higher rates are more forgiving as there's a lot of room for error. Certainly if you are going to mix, process, and such the higher rates will be a benefit, but I don't do any of those things so it simply isn't necessary. I realize there is a lot of passion about this and I started off very skeptical of Redbook, but have produced some pretty nice recordings of difficult instruments Redbook standard I've decided the difference is marginal and it remains largely the quality of the engineering that makes the difference. I am not saying you aren't hearing a difference. I am just saying the difference may be more in the care and engineering than in the algorithm. Dave Bsically, it's called "roundoff error" for inte gers. But only the least significant bits are affected.

I think you would pass that exam. with a 100% score.

Some of us never left and have even improved upon Heritage. Khorns and beyond for decades while the rest of the world suffered with high distortion sound.

If you build or buy a THT from Jason, you will have to take entire meals and wine to your neighbors. Those cookies won't be worth spit as bribery material!! LOL