ClaudeJ1

Like I said, I was at his house in August of 1985 and he had the BGW 100 and the Crown D60 or 75, I can't remember exactly.

The "warmth" you speak of is the even harmonic characteristics of tubes that we love so much, but with good SS, the only way to miss it is to AB, and even then it's close enought for my ears, as SS is lees fussy about biasing, tube replacement, all that stuff. I have had tube and I think they are great, so don't get me wrong. I'm just working on other solutions right now.

Oh, I wasn't taking it seriously at all, just pointing out my first hand witness to PWK's living room. I saw and heard for myself. When I was in his museum, I looked in one of the cabinets and said: "Mr. Klipsch, you can't put a Marantz 8B in the museum, I'm still using one for my Khorns." His reply was "very good amplifier." Good tube and good SS all sound good on Khorns. It's much better to have low ESR capacitors in the Xover AND most inportantly a good room with good treatments since the character of the sound is 90% reverberant field anyhow.

Having done both 6.1 and 5.1, I can say that it's the law of diminishing returns to the Second Power. If someone already has 5.1, or it can be had cheaper, then I woudn't recommend 6.1 for right now and to go 7.1 later. Of course 6.1 is a little better, for the same reason we have 3 front channels (which I had for 30 years anyhow for stereo, just like PWK's home system) . The second thing is that only a select few movies have dicrete DTS 6.1. The one that do a good that way but it's only a handful of all the DVD's out there commercially or for rent. But for those who have the capability now, please enjoy you have nothing to be worried about.

I agree with your assesment here, Michael. That's why I'm NOT in a hurry to get to 7.1 until it's ALL DISCRETE from ALL High Def. DVD makers. I am patient my my $$. My 6.1 Onkyo will be fine for now and a good excuse to build up my rear, 3-way all horn 6th channel, with a Peavy Pseudo La Scala bottom (FH-1 contain a K-33E from an old Cornwall). BTW it also has a 2-ch only Stereo mode which still uses the .1 output to my subs. So I have modified Khorns with twin subs containing 6 drivers (2 of them passive) and bass ports. Really rounds out the missing octave in a Khorn for music AND movies and give incredible bass response for everything and I still have that great Khorn bass transient as I run them full out and not high-passed. As such, the back surround channel is not discrete and therefore THX Surround EX is not a true "6.1" format. What about the extended surround "7.1" format? Well, "7.1" is not a true surround sound format. Rather it refers to home theater equipment manufacturers' proprietary implementation of two back surround channels using the same back surround audio signal that was discussed above. Usually, the audio signal fed to the two back surround channels are identical, but some manufacturers may choose to mix some information from the left and right surrounds. Again, these are proprietary implementations that vary across manufacturers and are not industry standards. The use of two back surround speakers fills in the sound better from the rear of the audience than single back surround speaker implementations. To take advantage of THX Surround EX, you must have both: (1) a DVD player and use one of the digital audio outputs (e.g., "Toslink" optical or coaxial). (2) a THX Surround EX decoder, usually a function of the receiver or pre-amplifier. Look for the "THX Surround EX" words or logo on the faceplate. Receivers featuring THX Surround EX decoding are still relatively expensive, particularly those that comes with six or seven channels of amplification for the full frequency channels. DTS Extended Surround Matrix is a competing extended surround matrix format, while DTS Extended Surround Discrete 6.1 is the only true discrete 6.1 format.

Well, irrespective of the direction you wanted to push this thread, like they say in Detroit, Thangs be what they is. PWK used solid state at home and he was uncompromising in his recording/playback technique. He only used two microphones (spaced omni's) and had the exact same phantom mono center channel he talked about in his papers. He belived the old way was the best way. IOW he practiced what he preached and referred to commercial recordings as "dilute stereo." He didn't like multi-miked, pan-potted, aphex aural excited vocals, compressors, etc.or CD's for that matter. He only owned one LP and it was the original stereo broadcast by Bell Labs in 1933. He had a closet full of Reel to Reel recordings (all done by him) of some great symphonic music with a few guest Jazz musician thrown in. I didn't communicate with him for the last 17 years of his life, but I suspect he never put a CD player in his house, based on my impression of his attitude towards them. I sent him a tape of my favorite Telarc classical pieces that were recorded with twin mikes, (CD to tape) but I'm not sure if he ever liked them.

In August of 1985, my wife and I had the privilege of being PWK's and Valerie's guests for a full day. We shared a shot of Glenfiddich Scotch while he played his own recordings of the Little Rock Symphony for me. His living room was large enough to hold a Steinway and a Boshendorfer Grand piano at the right end. Next to those, to the left, about 20 feet apart, he had 2 false corners, the exact ones shown in the Dope From Hope. Outstanding sound to say the least. He had regular factory spec. Khorns in Walnut, A Walnut Belle in the middle. The little resistor box to bridge mono was being used for the center channel. He was using a Crown D-75 and a BGW 100. I'm not sure which 1/2 of which amp went to the center, but I can assure you he was using those amps mentioned in that letter in his own home.

All DVD's are 5.1 discrete channels. The receivers SYTHeSIZE the extra 1 or 2 with fake data. It's easy to do with Digital Signa Processors and gives them (unnecessary?) features to sell for "this year's model" in the absence of real tehnologial advancements for the consumer. When Blue Ray (I hope) and/or HD-DVD become the norm and you can buy players for $99 and burners for $49 (about 2 years from now if history repeats itself), they will contain 8 discrete channels in the form of a true 7.1, so, in the meantime, 6.1 or 7.1 is a nice luxury, but it's not all there yet. I'm happy with my 5.1, but I'm building a "poor man's LaScala" right now to hook up as a 6.1 when I rearrange my basement rooms in a month. Poor man's LaScala will be a Klipsch K5j with a JBL LE85 and a JBL 2404H Tweeter on a Peavey FH-1 bass bin (30" wide instead of 24" for a LaScala)I got for almost free and a used K33 I got for $50.

Mine are 1272 in Dec. 1956, so this tells me they did about 150-200 pairs per year at that time, so you are probably right. I was told a bad story. LOL.

Mine are earlier than that, 1956 and don't look as neat, but that's not nearly as important as your telling me how they sound??

I am currently using your Autoformers on the -4 db setting per your chart. The Xover design I'm using suggests using resistors in a different spot. Will their 4 db attenuation be the same as the one on the autoformer? In other words, is there some impedance thing I should be concerned with vs. the ressistors, that will make them sound different?

Then there's the story of the time Les Paul passed by a bar and an unknown starving guitarist called Jimi Hendrix (may have been using his original name then) was auditioning. Les thought he was great, but didn't have time to hang around. He returned later, assuming Jimi had been hired, but the manager of the bar said that guy was too weird for his bar and he had no contact info for him. Jimi struggled for a few more years and eventually made it big, but his career (and music history) would likely have gone in a different direction had he connected with Les. For an example of Jimi's jazz direction, check out Rainy Day, Dream Away from Electric Ladyland. According to an interview in Audio with Les Paul, Jimi called Les many times to ask him how to get certain sounds for Electric Ladyland. Les was the most influential guitarist and recording engineer of all time. Get his latest CD with all the people that agree (big names).

So how do they sound? Since you have had 2 of them for a while, I assume that you listen to them. If so, which drivers?

Thanks, there's some confusion about Xing over the LE85 at 500 hz. I have seen it as a yes and no. They say that it's ok as long as the power between 500 and 800 is less than 10 watts. If this thing does 118 db for a 1 watt input, it will be more like 10 milliwatts!!

another set of images.

Just got this yesterday and have not plugged it into a Khorn yet "just to hear." The 16 ohm JBL LE85 driver has the original seals and looks like the horn was hand-built by PWK himself since he has his initials in it. The driver's DC reading is 6.5 ohms. I remember my K55's come in at around 12-13 ohm DCR, so it can only mean the different wire in the coil windings, etc. The driver is huge compared to a K55. According to the guy I got it from. He bought a single Patrician at an auction and this horn was in it. Hey I guess you had to be DIY nuts like us back then since many people built speakers from plans. I have been looking for curves on an LE85 and can't seem to find any. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I have a 6.1 receiver (in the "tweener" stage of evolution). I hear Tom Holman interviewed and talking about 10.2 for the present and future, but I digress. If you look at the ideal THX 7.1 setup on their site, the two rear channels are right next to each other. I ran a pair of Chorus II's in parallel for the middle rear channel for a while. My back wall is too far for the delay capability of my unit and I don't want to put Chorus II's in the middle of the room unless I put wire grids over the passiives first, but I digress again. THX shows 7.1 and it behaves like 6.1 in their ideal setup, so unless you need the extra 3 db of power output by way of two channels, side by side, it's diminishiing returns for sure in HT. I turned my 6.1 off and I'm running 5.1 right now. Those channels are not supported by current DVD's anyhow and may become so as Blue Ray evolves, so it's too early to tell......... Whether you do 7.1 or 6.1, those one or 2 extra channels are being synthesized by your HT receiver. They are not discrete signals in the recording. My take? Don't bother for right now. 5.1 is just fine..................buy Jubilees!!

Replace the caps immediately. It is the single easiest return on investment you will get. I had mine for almost 30 years and never noticed the detorioration because it was so gradual, but it was night and day difference.

Nah, we all just want to suck up to ya because we happen to live nearby in Michigan. It's really so we can get an invite to listen to them without all the conversation going on in the background, and toast to your health. LOL.

Thanks for posting the photos. My original Khorns were raw birch which I finished with Satin tung oil after a #0000 steel wool smoothing. Loved that honey color, but Cherry wood reminds me of Birch with a more orange tint. Quite pretty against the black cloth. At the pilgrimage, I sat next to the product designer who was describing to me how amazingly much better the LS II's were over the ones, that he could hardly believe it himself. I guess that motion has been officially seconded.

Wow. Great story, Gary. It seems to me that PWK always had an attitude of "don't overdesign" from a cost point of view. JBL could be accused of overdesigning beyond their specification. Witness the L200 and L300 (??)..............the more expensive versions using big drivers, magnets, etc. being trounced by Cornwalls at less than 1/2 the price. Klipsch is not quite like automotive electronics, where engineering keeps removing parts until it doesn't work, then you put one back in. LOL. But they don't waste any money getting to great sound, unlike JBL. The Paragon, to me, was more of a wood sculpture that made sound as opposed to a speaker. But it was an absolutely beautiful conversation piece that made nice music, so I'm not trashing it. Khorns are still made, Paragons are not. End of story.

I agree with both of you on the resolution issue, but the power thing is ridiculous. 10 db watts (10x in the denominator) or 10x less power than most spakers for an all-horn setup is all you need. I'm running about 60w/channel in my Onkyo AV receiver. PWK himself insisted that I only needed 17 db of headroom for symphonic recordings, which are the most dynamic. So that means that 20W is the most I'll ever use on the peaks, since I nominally use about 1/4 watt per channel for normal listening. All of the AV receivers from that model year have the same Signal processing electronics, and I have the bottom of the line, power wise. But I'm sure I'm never anywhere near clipping as I try to keep my nominal listening level to about 85-95 db at a 12 foot distance across the front array. the 5.1 rears are Chorus I with a set of Chorus II's gathering dust until I go from 6.1 receiver (used in 5.1 config) to full 7.1. I'm saving for an HD projector, so my 36" tv will suffce. The beauty of this thing is that is allow me to listen to 2-channel with full sound to the corner horns AND my tweaked set of huge VMPS passive subs. I never knew that Khorns needed bass extension and that going flat to 25 hz mattered...............it does. I never like any of the "air pump" subwoofers with built in amps and servo circuits, yuk! Totally unmusical, but the large cone area from the twin VMPS really blend perfectly with the Khorns below about 50 hz.

Is this the smirk of a winner or what? Go Michigan!!

Sounds to me like we need a Michigan unload,j install, and test party, involving the Michigan contingent. Myself, Picky and a few others would volunteer to unload them, I'm sure. Bay City is closer to me than Picky but not by much. Claude

It's nice to read that Wilson got hooked on Audio at 13 years old, when he heard a KLIPSCH speaker on the porch across the street playing Xmas Carols (probably a Heresy I).