ClaudeJ1

I don't have a current LaScala, but I had the "mono in the middle" Klipsch 2ph3 Array since I got my Khorns and LaScala in 1977. I only recently switched to 5.1 surround with the same speakers. The easiest AND quite significant upgrade to the sound is to replace all of the capacitors in your Xovers in the Khorns with new Poly Film units like Dayton, Solen, Sonicaps, etc. as suggested by others. It will make the sound more "crisp" for lack of a better term. You could also upgrade to Bob Crites "drop in" tweeters or got to new Beymas or used JBL's (which is what I did using Bob's Autoformer to tame them). But the crossover would be an EXCELLENT starting point for sonic "refresh" of the Khorns.

From what I can remember, back in the 70's Klipsch Heritage speakers were being exported to Japan. As part of the deal, Klipsch agreed to sell these Moving Coil cartridges (trade impbalance?). Anyway, when I went to PWK's home in 1985, I was surprised to see an inexpensive Pickering cartridge on his turntable instead of the exotic ones his company was selling. He could tell from the look on my face that I was puzzled by this even though I didn't say anything. He looked at me and said "I only own 1 LP recording." It was in a plain white cover and it was the original Bell Labs Stereo broadcast from 1933!! Otherwise PWK told me he didn't like commercial recordings with multi-mike, mixing boards, etc. "Dilute Stereo" he said. So he played me some wonderful recordings from his Revox reel to reel machine of the Little Rock Symphony featuring guest Benny Goodman on clarinet.j Since he only used 2 spaced omni mikes for his recordings, they had lots of ambience and great perspective geometry. So, he really DID practice what he preached in the Klipsch papers!!

This K55M peak, I believe, was what PWK was referring to when he talked to me about the AK network for the Khorn. Jim Hunter had done the design and removed the Zener clamp from the tweeter and went to a steeper slope. But the main reason they did it was to compensate for that peak. PWK said that as far as they were concerned, Atlas was out of the driver business and the M driver was made by EV with a ceramic magnet instead of the Alnicos used in the Atlas driver. This was early August of 1985. Claude

When dialing speaker to ear distance for Heritage Klipsch, like Khorn, LaScala, etc......................Do you measure from horn mouth or diaphragm??? Claude

Look up the infamous "Kearns patent" on pulsed wipers for a car. I think the batlle has raged for over 25 years, and he after spending millions agains the automotive giants (wond against Chrysler first), never got any money judgements. Patent protections means squat if some super-rich company can outspend and outwait you with their team of lawyers. That is the real world. Big speaker audio is a microscopic market, so who cares? Claude

The antithesis to this story is that my wife, at 21, co-signed for my Klipshorns since she had a credit rating and I was a cash and carry for too long after 18. They arrived right after our honeymoon. She vacated the premises for a full day so I could drink imported beer and crank some tunes with 2 buddies. That was 30 years ago and I got her Heresy's for Xmas in 1983 (we still have them), while she got me the first (Sony) CD player ever made by cashing in a Life Insurance policy. She also arranged a Trip to the Klipsch factory in Hope in Aug. of 1985 for my 31's birthday in June (where we also spent the day at PWK's house). THAT is true love!! I am one lucky guy!!

and his new girlfriend was moving in - and she didn't like the speakers. Pictures in the guy's house showed that the new girl was smoking hot - so go figure - we all have our priorities, and our breaking point. Carl. Not a bad trade if you have her guarantee that she substitute sex for the missing listening time!!

I sure as heck would be interested in a 225 Hz Tractrix flare. Is it rectangular or round?? I'm becoming a DIY, so please don't hold back on interesting stuff. I have been on various forums on all kinds of subjects since 1994. One thing that is consistent is flamers and trouble makers who are long on opinion and short on facts from actually WORKING on real experiments........you know, soldering, cutting wood, testing, etc. No matter what, the 90/10 rule applies. You have to sort thought the personal banter to get to the meat. Thus is the nature of the Web. Keep up the good work. I'd like to see more of the horn!

What are the repsective inductor and capacitor values of your modified Squawker bandpass section. I'd like to try it since I have the K55-V with the puch terminals. thanks in advance. claude

What are ALK Jr.? I just changed the original caps, same values in my AA's. It made the sound, especially the midrange a lot more CRISP, for lack of a better word. You were actually one of the original people who motivated me to do this, so thank you for that. In the long haul I will probably get to some Jubilees, espcially after seeing Rigma's 1/3 ocatve numbers. Pretty impressive for a 2-way. Until then, I have lots of other components to play with in the off hours while I listen to my improved system. Next I may also try shorting out the woofer inductor to see what that does in the 350-400 Hz range. My subs take care of the bass down to 20 Hz on a separate amp just fine since I have lots of cone area to take me down there with low excusion of the cones.

Sure of course. The tweeter section of the AA's contains a 3rd order filter that is optimum for a K77 stock tweeter. I changed the old capacitors for some brand new metallized polypropylene units I got from a friend. Even with new capacitors, the compononent values are the same as the old, so while the sound of the K77 was improved, it's still not as good as the 2404 JBL's. So after plugging the JBL's back into the recapped AA's tweeter section, they were too "hot." So, I purchased a pair of Autoformers from BEC (Bob Crites) on this forum. They allow for a -1 to -12 db attenuation of any component, so I did a lot of listening and the -2 db is the best setting for all my "test" DVD's. The AA's K77 tweter section is normally attenuated with the Klipsch stock autoformer right along with the squawker but it's still too bright with the JBL. In my setup, the JBL gets it's drive throught the stock Klipsch autoformer first, then through the second autoformer I installed just for the tweter. It's on alligator clips so I can mess with it. I am certainly enjoying this combo, but I think I can do better. Since John Warren's Xover design is optimized for the 2404 JBL "baby cheek" tweeter, I'm going to build them for another pair of 2404's that I have, so I can A/B the two. I'm confident the opimized Xover will win since it equalizes out a hot impedance peak in the 2404, with no autoformer, according to the article John wrote a few years back. Since the AA's tweeter portion does no such thing for the JBL, all I can do is lower their intensity (for now) with the autoformers I got from Bob, until I get the new units built, which will be self-contained and use the autoformers as an option to try with other speakers. They will be self-contained tweeters with their own mini-cabinet, Xover, and autoformer. This way I can bring them to other friend's homes for an audition with their speakers quite easily. Hope that clears it up a bit. Claude

I'm starting to be fascinated by the Unity horn concept which is Conical and covers from 300 Hz to 20 Khz. This is patent pending by Tom Danley. Any feedback?

I wear earplugs for everything OTHER than music!!!!! tc I remember taking my nephew to a Rush concert at Cobo Hall in Detroit. They must have been using 100 Kilowatts on those Taurus Bass pedal sub-woofers because you could feel it in your chest my Radio Shack db meter was PARKED at 107 db for 2 hours. I certainly wore earplugs. I also heard Stravinski's ultra-dynamic Rite of Spring and no db meter was required as a Symphony orchestra has level way below 90 db average but they can hit some pretty dynamic crescendos. I keep a db meter on the coffee table since the level or DVD and CD recordings can range from a 30-50 setting on my receiver's volume knob to get to the same 90-95 db level (on fast response). OSHA says you can handle 90 db for an 8-hour shift, but should cut your exposure in half for every 3 db beyond that. So 96db listening gets you 2 hours of play time, no more. Sure is nice to be able to do it now and then, isn't it?

That appears to describe a back-loaded horn, where the woofer fires forward directly but whose back waves are loaded into a horn for enhanced bass. That's essentially the design of the old Klipsch Shorthorn. See http://www.hifilit.com/hifilit/Klipsch/1957l.jpg and http://www.hifilit.com/hifilit/Klipsch/1957m.jpg.The Belle and La Scala are FULLY horn-loaded systems -- like the Klipschorn, the entire range from bass to treble is propagated through the three horns -- tweeter, midrange and bass horns. No direct-firing woofer, speaks only go through horns. So, the woofer has to be in a sealed cabinet and pointing backward into the throat of the horn. I remember distinctly, when I spent a full day with PWK in 1985..........while we were at his home listening to his Khorns (with false corners) and the Belle in the center. He said that after he designed the mid horn for the Belle, and compared to his other measurements, he thought the K-400 horn on the LaScala and Khorn were "a lot longer than they needed to be." Don't know exactly what it meant, but that is what he said. Claude

Mr. Twin doghouse man. Are you using K33's in your FH-1's? Or just the Black Widows? If you should need some 511's and 902-8b's I will be putting a pair of each on Ebay soon. Claude

I'm looking for one more FH-1 bass horn for a center channel in a 100 seat side auditorium. I haven't had much luck lately. The first 2 sound surprising good; better than they have a right to. it was just dumb luck that the crossover worked as well as it did, not more testing than I was able to do. There's a guy in Ohio that has a bunch for sale at $200 ea. I'll see if I can find the info. I was in PA for a consulting job and I swung up to NY and picked up a PAIR of SP-1's for $200 total, so it was worth the extra gas to bring my trailer behind the car for it. Claude

Well, this one has finally tapered off Roy. I think it got you some of of what you asked for, but I doubt if you kept the Jub envious away since this has had record response and views. Keep making good noise and food, eh? Claude

All the more reason to have an ALL horn system, I seriously doubt that you can hear 2 db of compression on a 124 db peak level, since that is what we are talking about here with Jub, LaScala, or Khorns. 20 db watts of power over 104/105 db at Zero dbWatts (1w) times whatever number of channels you got going is pretty ear splitting loud. Not many non-Horn speakers can do that at any power level. Claude

PWK used to demo his mono Khorn with a 10 Watt Brook amplifier. Too bad he lived a few years short of seeing Tripath technology. I own 3 of those and I can't believe the detail. I thinks he would have also been impressed with the 80% amplifier efficiency.

The crossover order relates to the slope: 1st order is -6dB/octave - used in the original type A 2nd order is -12dB/octave 3rd is -18 4rth is -24 5th is -30 6th is -36dB/octave - used in the AL-4 and the AK-4 With a three way speaker there are six places that may be influenced by the network: I may be ducking as I write this, but I simply cannot let it pass. You know the old saying: "Different Slopes for Different Folks."..................

You are right it is more cone area. Does that include subtraction of the surround suspension (the non-radiating part) on both? I come up with 173 for the 12's vs. 143 for the 15" after subtracting 1.5" for the surround on both. The 12's are still 21% more radiating area and 2 motors, so it's in line with thoughts of improvement, except cost. Claude

Thanks for answering my original question about the missing tweeter, since I have just put JBL 2404's on my Khorns and recapped all my AA's. I'm using twin Large VMPS Subwoofers, balance with the Avia test DVD. Other than trying to bypass the woofer choke in the AA, I think I will not attempt any further improvements to my Khorns. Maybe I'll start saving for a Jub setup in the future. I guess when you have an expensive, metal diaphragm (quicker response than phenolic) 2" throat driver (4x the radiating area) in the "midrange where we live" with greater bandwitdh, efficiency and lower distortion in both the top and bottom. I gotta believe that, even though 2 12" motors is the same area as one 15" motor, twin motors should have better transients. Since all the money is in component performance rather the aesthetics, that in itself is more effecient, dollar-wise, for the sonic purists, eh? I was referring to just the frequency response plots with my "on paper" comment. I'm sure that since the Jubilees do EVERYTHING 30% better than the Khorns, they have to be totally killer, since all of my Klipsch heritage speakers have kept me in the top 99th percentile of musical enjoyment for so many years. I look forward to jumping on the Jube bandwagaon at some point in the future, but, in the meantime, I can "suffer" just fine with what I have and keep smiling. Thanks for the comments.

I'd say you came pretty darn close, since it lasted for 40 years. Hey, it took PWK 50 years to do the Jubille, and even then, it's only a little better than the Khorn on paper. It was Khorns and a LaScala for me in 1977, but, esentially the same thing. Only difference was that you could probably use no potentiometers (just resistors) in the 2PH3 box as the center channel attenuation was built-in the Cornwall, eh? Claude

Well, I finally got around to trying to make one of these things. Very cool. I recently bought a little 3 channel Teac chip amp and it works perfectly for this application. It has a volume control for each channel so I have the center level a little lower than L/R. Using a LS between a pair of KHorns. Here is the poor man's mini box. I built one that look just like yours in 1977 from the same diagram, except, you only need the Center Potentionmeter, and just resistors for the new L and R channels. So just buy one potentiometer. Why? because you will need to attenuate the center realative to the flanks by about minus 3 to minus 6 db. I used to use Al Dimeola's Mediterrranean Sundance with Paco DiLucia on the other channel. Since it's 2 guitars, R and L, you adjust the center until the guitars move in about 1/4 the way on each side towards the middle. Then it works for everything, until you move the system to a new Room. I used it for 25 years that way and works great. I think PWK had one of these in his home system when I heard it during my 1985 visit. His recordings of the Little Rock Symphony were excellent, with only 2 Microphones. He wouldn't listen to commercial recordings because he referred to them as "dilute stereo." PWK was quite a purist, for sure. I told him I was one of the few people I knew that used this method and the rest of the world was stuck in 2 channels only. He agreed. The only reason I gave up this little box is because I went to 5.1 about 5 years ago with, Cornlwalll rears, then Heresy's and now Chorus 1's. Since my speakers are only 13 feet apart instead of 20 like before, I can just listen to 2-channel with sub, or go with 5.1 using the DTS "Neo-6_ setting, for music, which does a pretty good job with CD's and can create a center channel almost as well as that little box used to. Enjoy!! claude

Back in 1974, I built my first commercial speakers (I was 19 then). They consisted of 15" Altec 421-8A Woofers, 808-8a Drivers in a 511B, T-35 Tweeters with a speakerlab 500/5000Hz crossover. I got Khorns in Oct. 1977 and one center channel LaScala about a month later (use the PWK resistor box to bridge the mono). This is the first opportunity I have had to upgrade the Khorns and they do sound better wiht the JBL 2404 and new caps. Some people need a place to whine about somehting or other. I am not one of those. I apreciate your quest for better sound. I'm sure that the Jubilee bottom represents a slow evolution of thought and experience on the part of PWK and Roy and we are lucky he left it to us before his passing. I trust that PWK's protege Roy's quasi-Tractrix horns are better performers than the legacy horns, otherwise we'd still be talking exponentials instead. If a 2-way active or passive with Roy's 402 on a Jub bin is the way to go, then perhaps I need to think about an upgrade (long term) also. If better transients, more definintion (from a 2" metal diaphragm) and a tighter horn design are the way to go, then from one semi-fanatic to another, I respect your judgement and the heck with those other guys. Claude