philipbarrett

So much common sense - thanks to all. What sub do you think would marry well with the LS? Think tight & defined rather than "listen to my copy of Top Gun Blue-Ray" boom, flap, boom. Incidentally I'm mixing this week on the baby JBL VerTec line array (4886) and the subs are phenomenal. JBL 4883 - dual 12" cardiod. I used the preset for their big, 2 x 18" sub and I'm loving the low end on these little babies. http://www.jblpro.com/catalog/general/Product.aspx?PId=304&MId=4

Address is the H.E.B. grocery store.

What about option #4, have Volti refurbish the K's with the closed back modification? Thoughts?

We use 14 or 12 awg to run up to hundreds of feet for large concert systems. Even the subs. If it's mostly resistance you generate a little heat and your amps are happier, doesn't change the sound. Capacitance is the main enemy, at speaker level voltages inductance is so low that it's not really a factor except in the lab or the packaging of high-$ cables.

The K-Horns will be gone. Not that I don't love them but they need corners and soon I will not have any. Taking the price of a new pair as a baseline I come up with 3 possible replacements: 1) Jubilee 2) Volti's Vittoria 3) JBL S4700 All are horn loaded, all are fine speakers, all are efficient enough to work with lower power tube amps. The Jubilee is a visual nightmare, the Vittorias are a finely finished piece of furniture and the JBL (in cherry) comes between the two. Visuals are not a complete deal breaker but the Leader of the Opposition is looking to be on the tour of homes. A pleasant dilemma, so what did I miss? Your thoughts?

Pull a little 2.5 and 3K out of that & we'll be good.

Actually electrons don't "travel" at all, to the best of our understanding they merely bump into each other. The actual transmission of electricity is not really understood at all, I get a good laugh when certain cable brands claim to have knowledge that has eluded theoretical physicists! +1 on Mogami and Canare, although I doubt they effect the sound in any way different to zip cord they are very nice cables to work with. Of course they don't get coiled and uncoiled every day in home system.

A pair of those beat out amps costing almost 10x as much in a large JBL studio monitor set up at the studio where I worked. Of corse, this was many moons ago. While I understand the attractiveness of the so-called "professional" power amps in terms of bang for the buck, all the models being discussed above are considered to be the very low end of the pro-marketplace. Built to a price point with reliability goals beating out sonic performance goals every time (at these slim margins no one wants warranty returns). I'm not trying to be snobbish here but they are not considered an acceptable product in a good sound reinforcement systems for good reasons. At least the Yamahas and other early PA amps (like the Urei) have real transformers. Switching power supplies, unless implemented really well (impossible to do for a low budget amp) are generally inferior and mostly exist to keep truck pack weights and costs down. Again, quality takes a back seat to function, you're not paying for sonic integrity here. I'll go out on a limb here and say that if you're not planning on spending substantial 4 digit sums on your "pro" amp then a good quality HiFi amp is a much better prospect. Flame on, and while you do, check these out - http://www.l-acoustics.com/products-la8-30.html#

Bob Danaliek's Darling design is one of the most satisfying schematics I've built. Lovely little amp with outstanding imaging and a great "beginners" design. Perfect for high-efficiency speakers.

From what I'm hearing it would be difficult to build a scratch version for less than he plans to offer the kit for. I also looked at building my own from the schematics but I think getting the grounding right would be very tricky.

How about a comparison of sonic qualities in good Klipsch forum style? HiFi Mag - "the blacks were somehow less brooding yet the soundstage maintained a joie de vivre that was both cheeky and restrained" Klipsch Forum Dude - "the bass was more like a La Scala than a K-Horn"

How does the best of PWK's designs compare to the best of the modern designs? Merely curious.

Let's boil this down to basic physics. Think back to the ripples in the pond produced by 2 stones. Where they interact they will either combine or subtract. That's all we're doing here.

You need to load it all in bobtail and bring it down to me. Give me 5 or 6 years of listening and I'll be happy to give my opinion. Actually you should tackle it like a gig! Walk in there with the reference CD and play some tunes. Grab a 58 and give it the old Check..1...2. Just picture yourself faced with another PA-de-Jour (maybe with the dreaded "proprietary cabinet") and ask yourself what am I going to have to do to this to make it work tonight? Then head to catering for today's version of chicken.

You'll be fine if you listen with your head on the floor! But seriously...a lot of studio monitors have their LF above the HF section. It makes sense to point the horns at your ears since they are more directional than the low end. Sound reinforcement cabinets often have the ability to fly either way up for the same reason. A common question is "horns up or horns down?" But never "horns on the floor" UNLESS you're making measurements and want to eliminate reflections. Which is a whole 'nother subject. But let's say you hang your LS's from the ceiling with chains. The horns would sound pretty good in the sweet spot but then you'd be decoupling the low end from the floor and would probably notice the low end disappearing.

I have not heard his amps (although I'm chomping at bit, waiting for the 300B OTL monoblocks) however I have read Bruce's books and his engineering is impressive. With a few notable exceptions, most tube equipment is a re-hash of designs that first appeared in the Radiotron Handbook of 1937( admittedly they package them in impressive boxes with lots of chrome and hardwood)! Eliminating the output transformer removes either a very good but expensive (read Manley or Mcintosh) or rather poor but cheaper (read most others) component from the signal chain. Rozenblit has solved some real electronic challenges and like the scientist he evidently is, has published his schematics to the world at large for critical review. He even offers advice on his forum to people replicating his designs.

I actually dug these up on the web as my rig is somewhere between here and the next show but I think they illustrate why what you're doing works so well. First up is a non-time aligned LF to HF. Notice that although the frequency response is fairly flat according to the measurement mic (top trace) but the phase response has a huge shift where it literally wraps around 180 degrees (bottom trace). Can you hear that? You betcha and it don't sound good! And where is that shift? Looks about 1KHz to me, which is precisely the crossover point in this box. Here's the same system with electronic time alignment applied to the LF driver (which is course is the same thing as a mechanical time alignment in practice). Notice how the phase now tracks in a nice linear curve through the whole response curve? Not a perfect straight line but altogether much more pleasant to the ears. Now at no time is the crossover set incorrectly it just cannot adress the phase response.

Mechanical time-alignment is absolutely the way to go. Unlike cables, processors and the like, it's free too. If you could see a phase response plot before and after you'd be amazed especially since phase anomalies cannot be fixed by eq. Phase alignment (achieved through time alignment) is the most overlooked specification in all of audio. As for your low end alignment, it gets a little more complicated as inference studies have shown that different frequencies emanate from different parts of the speaker cone. Since the cone is flared there is no absolute sweet spot unlike a compression driver. However, the HF tends towards the center so aligning to where the voice coil meets the dust cover is probably about correct since that's the frequency range in which the 2 drivers will be interacting. Which I guess is a long winded way of saying "what cask05" said!

Firstly, I do hope you know I used Mr. Klipsch's famous line with my tongue firmly in my cheek and I am actually the 1st to say if you're happy with your system then it's met it's only objective. [] But...that being said, I've never met a multiple sub configuration both in the home and professionally that did exhibit audible cancellation and reinforcement nodes depending on your location in the room. The exception was the Showco Prism system that employed stereo subs and a frequency dependent filtering algorithm that sent differing signals to the left & right channels therefor avoiding the cancellation. If you look at most concert reinforcement systems (see pic linked below) you'll notice that though they employ multiple subwoofer cabinets they are arrayed to act as single unit (in this case cardiod too). This would also be a very effective way of home sub layout but unesercery since (unless you have a huge home) you're not going to be looking for that much power. http://www.flickr.com/photos/paxtonmobile/5177191536/

Here's the crossover you need - http://lake.labgruppen.com/products/lm_26_features/ The original Lake Processor model is still current in terms of software and filters (I own this one) and can be found used at places like soundbroker.com. They come in a variety of I/O options from 8 x 8 AES only up to 8 x 8 AES & Analog with Jensen option. You'd probably want a 4 x 8 with the analog cards. Here's a picture of what must be one of the coolest looking audio processors ever - http://www.johnstonaudioservices.com/inventory/dolby_lake_processors.shtml Fantastic sounding unit. The phase linearity (the single most overlooked spec in all of audio) is incredible even at extreme crossover and filter settings. Plus you can sit in your favorite listening chair and tweak all day via WiFi.

IMHO opinion, audio interfaces are like watches. Either go cheap or go with the best, the middle ground costs more without offering much in the way of sonic benefits. For your proof of concept pick up the Behringer FCA202 for less than $90. It's Firewire and what I still use everyday to connect my Mac to the home system. edit: less than $80

By fantastic, how would you compare the low end with the non-closed model? I saw Greg's work, he's a true craftsman.

Not wanting to hijack another thread, I saw the linked piece about the amazing K-Horn relaminating project which was some amazing craftsmanship. However, it was the closing in of the K-horn rears that interested me the most. Anyone tried this? How does it sound?

Distributed bass will always either cancel or reinforce at varying frequencies depending on the proximity to each other and room construction. This is physics not personal opinion. I contributed to a thread on this subject, including SIM prediction models that graphically demonstrate how this interaction occurs and solutions (using phase and time alignment) to this problem. http://community.klipsch.com/forums/t/120269.aspx?PageIndex=2 If you make it that far, I hope you'll find the last graph interesting and a testimony to a great speaker designer who did not have access to any of this software but still solved the problem of LF nodes in a very simple and highly effective way.

As PWK would say..."BS"