ClaudeJ1

I'm still amazed at how good these things do sound. Even better today, than 38 years ago when I heard them as a kid, since everything has gone plastic in the consumer world. Relative to wavelength propagation vs. distortion, PWK's original paper described the Klipschorn as "a loudspeaker of small dimensions."

I'm just curious as to that "superior bass bin." Will that be a Klipsch bass bin or something on the order of Bruce Edgar's designs?? Since he's a proponent of Tractrix and hyperbolics.....Good luck in your quest.

Dean G and Al K. Thanks for taking my post in the friendly spirit, with which, it was written. It's difficult to even imply proper inflection of voice when using a keyboard. On the issue of my concluding that you were not satisfied (erroneously or not), I simply got the idea that even POTENTIAL actions speak louder than words and that offering for sale, at a lo$$, "the best.......ever heard" means you want more than it can offer, hence the post's title. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that choice, BTW. I'm sure we would all be interested in reading your journal as your continued your journey to sonic Nirvana. I just wanted to point out that I understood where you were coming from by telling you I did similar things at a different time in my life. I just made a different choice that once I got to Khorns, I would keep them for life, and basically stop there. On the question in my very first post, I think I will order BC's cap kit and start there. I also find Al K's designs intriguing, so I haven't ruled those out either in the future. All I know is that my center La Scalas top end and each of the Khorns sound way different from each other on pink or white noise by way of their respective positions in the room. Even if I got 3 new, hand selected ALK's with 1% tolerance, they would still sound different from each other by way of their different locations in a room whose contents create physical assymetries and affect the sound. I had two pairs of Altec 511's in my teens, which were basically metal copies of PWK's K-5J's, so that would be a step backwards for me. I'm sure that any good Tractrix would be a slight improvement (like my Chorus II's vs. Chorus). But I don't see the ROI on Khorns, speaking strictly for me. Spending 2-3 Grand on new tops and Xovers when the same money would get me 2 more used Khorns for the Rear 5.1 channels (which would also be a waste since the levels are so low, Chorus is good enough.) I don't think that PWK would have made the K-400 if the K5's were better. On that note, (small tidbit) I remember PWK telling me that after creating and measuring the new exponential horn for the Belle Klispsch, he concluded that the K-400 was probably longer than it needed to be. Anyway, I do enjoy reading everyone's thoughts in this group. Thanks for sharing them with me and keep making good noise with your Klipshes, modified or straight from Hope.

My only comment is the room is probably more important than the crossover.....Claude If you're using a crappy set of networks, it'll sound crappy and I don't care how acoustically perfect your room is. Bob might say it's like driving your car on pavement as smooth as glass -- with fouled plugs. Dean Ya know, when I was 14, I "discovered" Klipshorns in my local Hi-Fi store in Detroit. I went in to pick up my twin 6x9 speakers on an Ampex, Dolbyless, stereo cassete recorder with FM tuner. I picked it up in my younger brother's little red wagon. My first "system" (mono), at 13, was a pair of Koss headphones adapted to a Zenith AM radio that I took on my paper route. My dad thought I looked ridiculous, BUT, I still think Sony stole the idea of portable sound from me without compensation (1967), but I digress. On my way out of the store, I asked "could I please listen to those big ones over there." Since I had just spent my hard-earned paper route money, the salesman, only looking mildly annoyed, let me have a listen to some symphonic music. I knew right there that someday I would own these things. In the mean time, I started designing and building my own speaker cabinets, culminating in some 511B horns, T-35's, Cornwall copies and even big cabinets made from the Badmeiff/Davis book nomograms on bass reflex. I still ALWAYS had better sound than all my non-audio-freak friends. I even joined tha AES after reading PWK's papers for a while and hung around with the local audio geeks. I spent my teenage years helping garage bands get better sound and building speakers, which got bigger and more expensive, as I could afford them. This culminated in my spending $1,000 (a fortune for a kid in the 70's making $3/hr.) on RAW Altec and EV components. I bought L-pads from Speakerlab, wound my air core chokes, and put film capacitors in my textbook networks these went in 20 cubic foot boxes I built. These sounded damn good, but not as good as Klipshorns. I also hand wired some Southewest Tech Products monster amplifiers (which never sounded as good as an old HK tube integrated amp, but they were 1 Kilowatt each into 4 ohms). I transferred dance music from LP's to 10 1/2" reels on my Crown at 7 1/2 IPS and got paid $150/gig to play my killer system, drink beer, and dance with the girls. I earned enough money to finally do what I wanted to do. At 23 years old, the day before I got married, I ordered a pair of KC-BR's and one La Scala. I already had a 3-channel strereo with the PWK bridged mono box for my home system. I fine sanded and steel wooled that veneer almost shiny and hand rubbed several coats of Forby's Satin Tung Oil into thos babies. The biggest upgrade I ever made to them was to buy the very first Sony CD player in 1983. I recently upgraded to 1977 Walnut Khorns (from my brother) and sold my originals to a friend. Klipsch was always "digital ready." I have had recapped Marantz tubes, all kinds of SS bipolar or MOSFET amplifiers, moved my Klispsh Array into many different rooms and many different homes over the years. I have added and subtracted several pairs of Heritage Klipshes over the years for other rooms and at my photo studio. My main quest has been for better and better recordings from talented musicians and producers. I remember that the Sheffield Labs records always made my system sound better. The biggest upgrade I have made to my original system of late is to go 5.1 with Choruses in the rear. I tried 6.1 with twin Chorus II's in the middle rear, but it was more trouble and space than it was worth (the law of diminishing returns). I got some used VMPS sub woofers to try and mate up to the fronts. I crossing over at 60 hz to the subs and set up the system with the AVIA DVD. I was happy with my stereo at 23, as commercial recordings got better my system got better. On my 50th birthday, (after 27 years of happy listening), I upgraded to 5.1 with a refurb Onkyo (great DSP's and good amplifiers) for $185, and added the most cone area I could find to match the K's. I'm not the same decibel freak I was at 20 as I'd like to preserve my hearing but I do listent to live levels whenever I can. In short, I fully understand the laws of diminishing returns along with economics of time, money, and the possiblity of an early death and gradual hearing loss. So DeanG, I don't know you personally, but I'm sorry to hear that you spent all that money on new Khorns, tore out the tops, replaced the horns, Xovers etc. and are still not happy with the sound, and thus are selling them to start over with a new platform for perpetual R&D. Been there, done that. My very first question/post here had EXACTLY to do with replacing the "plugs in my engine" (the capacitors) after suspecting they could have gradually gone foul after all these years. I have been perfectly happy enjoying the dynamics and detail of good recordings. I lived though the bad early SS amps, which were ALL cleaned up via the work of Dr. Matti Otala by the 80's and could easly be heard even through my home-made, before Khorns, systems. You can't really get bad amplifiers anymore relative to the high TIM distortions of the old days. I am not interested in how many "veils" I can lift from female vocals in my system since that is a quest for only fractional decibels at best. I remember distinctly what PWK said, in front of Jim Hunter, his chief engineer, about why they needed the AK network to make up for a mud magnet driver anomaly in 1985, he didn't flash his BS button, as you suggested. I still laugh at all the "new better" speaker designs from all these companies I never heard of that won't be around in 2 years and all the time wasted. PWK said it all years ago and people are still trying to move air rather ineffeciently. Klipsch speakers get us to 90% of perfect sound from a transducer that adheres to the least compromised PRINCIPLES good sound. People can spend their entire lives and forturnes trying to get the last 10% and it will never happen. 90% of the sound you actually hear is the ROOM and I'm perfectly happy with my terrible no-good factory buit crossover networks, even though they may be slightly refreshed by "new plugs." I'd rather work on the 90% part (a room's 12 db fluctuations receiving low IMD sound from Klipsches) instead of 1 or 2 db's worth in Xovers that only serves to, at best "lift the proverbial veils" ONLY in an ABX comparison. Any SIGNIFICANT further improvements will be in THE most enjoyable Return On Investment of all, more and better recordings and time to just listen. All of the above is a semi-educated, semi-experienced OPINION from a reasonable intelligent human being.

OK, so I googled (modern verb) it and found 11 pages of a prior thread on this, so that takes care of my question. I enjoyed the heated discussions and viewpoints, but you're all wrong............just kidding. This is a great group of enthusiasts with a diverse background. My only comment is the room is probably more important than the crossover. Claude

I recall reading in the "Dope From Hope" that PWK did the Zeners to protect the tweeters from the stupid RCA plugs between pre-amps and power amps, expecially for the solid state ones. The issue was, upon disconnect that the ground opened up so that the signal went to the full supply rain, causing a full (70+ volts on high power amps) that would open up the voice coils in one big hurry. They were there to prevent that type of accident. I'm sure having an 3rd order slope at 6k dropped the lower frequencies out much more quickly and they didn't care about the phase too much at that point since the drivers are about 21" apart anyhow. Thanks for the input, no pun intended.

Anyone remember the "Amazing" Loudspeaker from Carver?? It was a dipole design with LOTS of cone woofers and ribbon mids and tweets. I guess you had to have a kilowatt to drive it but some people loved it.

Has anyone here ever compared the two sonically? If so, is there a huge difference in the midrange and treble?? If so, what is that difference? Better imaging? Brighter? Read too many places/aritles over the years about the superiority of 1st order networks and this group seems to have some tweaking expericence and good ears.

Bob, You do nice work! Aesthetically, it's almost a shame to hide those. Cedar looks better than plywood. Does it also keep bugs out of the back of the treble sections?? LOL. So, sonically, is there a much of a difference between an A and a AA? Everything I have read from the latest horn guru, Bruce Edgar points to fist order slopes being sonically superior. Read that elsewhere as well over the years, here and there. Also remember PWK being surprised that Jim Hunter had taken out the back to back Zeners in the AK or AL network back in 1985. Jim had put a higher order slope on the tweeter, but PWK told me that the reason they even had to redesign the network was to get around an anomaly in the EV-made midrange "mud magnet" mid driver. As far as he was concerned, their old K-55V driver suppllier was out of the business since their quality went to hell. I'm not name dropping to impress anyone here, but at about that time, I had turned my attention from "audio awareness" and my 3 channel stereo (same as PWK's) to raising a family. Now that my last one is in college, I'm becoming more audio aware (now 5.1) and waiting for the DVD-HD standards to catch up and standardize, but I digress.........

What about fancier chokes??

The AA's I was looking at are also from B&K sound. I'm new to this board but a Klipsch veteran, so forgive me if I don't know all the people here. I did spend a day with PWK at his home in 1985, however. It's an experience I'll never forget. He and Valerie were the most gracious hosts ever. Did a shot of scotch with PWK while he played me his own recordings of jazz and orchestra. Very impressive. Met Jim Hunter and went inside the anechoic chamber they built. I was 31 at the time (birthday present from considerate wife with Heresy's) so I was like a kid in a candy store for sure.

OK, so what about an "A" network. Looks like a 1st order slope on the tweeter with no back to back zeners for protection. It's less than $200. Since I don't use high power amps with my Khorns (actually part of a 5.1 system with and integrated Onkyo receiver, so no RCA's between signal and power to come loose) I will never accidentally sledgehammer the tweeters with a disconnect. What do y'all think? Anyone tried an A network vs. the AA?

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Replacement-Crossover-Klipsch-Type-A-Pair-Cedar_W0QQitemZ110051967597QQihZ001QQcategoryZ14993QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

I was always suspicious of the aging potential of capacitors in the Xover in the AA's vs. all the Poly caps all the "golden ear" tweak were touting as upgrades to any old tube or x-over stuff (electrolytics being the best upgrade candidates, I guess). I'm not trying to second guess PWK's engineering or the factory people's ability to verify my K horns were fine 29 years ago. However, chokes certainly don't wear out, my horns have never seen more than about 100 watt peaks (mostly alcohol/good caompany induced) and have cruised along at 1/4 watt power levels most of their life, so the woofer's suspensions have not been strained, no equalizers have ever boosted the low end, phenolic diaphragms are rugged and have probably never seen more than a few milliwats in the treble sections. So, it's strictly an age, not abuse, issue. Will I REALLY hear a difference if I just replace the Caps (which is all I want to do anyhow) or is it just a peace of mind thing.

Saw a pair of AA replacments with what looks like Poly capacitors for less than $300 on Ebay.....made in Arkansas, by, I presume a former Klipsch employee. My Horns and single LaScala (formerly 3 channel with passive mono bridge from PWK himself) now part of a hybrid 5.1/stereo setup. Anyway my AA networks are 1977, so should I be worried about the Capacitors??? Claude