HornEd

What "riot" through yon window breaks? It is is fini, the consummate craftsman, who would have us beat upon the Plumb Bob's in our multi-fauceted ignorance. Let he who is without Teflon cast the first metaphorical sink trap! I yearn for a twist of vintage fini-al humor before I beat up on the commercial water bugs with my Big Basin wrench. -HornEd

Ah, and well they should Oscarsear! The essence of a horn is to begin with a nearly perfect wave, albeit small and weak, and "grow" it along the length of a properly tapered horn until it enters the listening area... still as nearly perfect but robust with power! Properly engineered Big Horns inherently provide a more honest sound because they start small, relatively speaking, and maintain aural purity through the wave growing process. Part of the genius of Paul Klipsch was to design a commercially viable horn by folding it into a cabinet and the adjacent corner walls that extend the horn effect. The patented Klipschorn horn design jump starts the sound building process by putting a rather large speaker in the "small" end of a folded horn. The results? Magnificent! -HornEd

Rexroth came to San Francisco eleven years before I was born... and already he was a seasoned pro in the writing game... and an intellectual force and critic of just about every social system then known. A libertarian through and through, and somewhat of an esoteric elitist to my mind, in those years he was more of an enigma to me... a bit more commercial and seemingly more critic than advocate of the Beat phenomenon. I knew of him but I can't remember our paths crossing... but then that was a long time ago. Then too... sometimes the joy of being a young man immersed in an ocean of stimulation misses an opportunity that is not recognized until much later in life. And much of my Beat Generation experience was as a tolerated puppy in the lair of free-spirited old dogs... of which Rexroth was probably the oldest... and, for me at the time, most distant in my comprehension of life, love, and disassociation from the powers that be. I do remember that by the time he had a column in the San Francisco Examiner, I had already living, working and studying in Europe. Some years earlier, I too had a byline in the same paper, but I covered Bay Area high school sports... which fueled my customized Oldsmobile... but was chaff in the wind when contrasted with the thought provoking, if controversial, public musings of Rexroth. Alan picked one of my favorite Rexroth imageries. My appreciation of his work grew, as I did, after I left San Francisco and he was dead before I returned. Probably his most insightful writings deal with the dynamics of community... and the disassociation from it... which is generally how he saw the "non-commercial" Beats. It's been a while since immersing myself in Rexroth... and with the current community building in which I am engaged... it's been too long since I revisited his panoply of 100% copyrighted work. Curiously, these Santa Cruz Mountains in which I live were also trod by Rexroth in another time. Currently, we mountain folk are trying to thwart a proposed major logging activity by a water utility that we believe would take 40% of the majestic old redwoods and firs and leave behind an increased fire danger. I believe if Rexroth were alive and kicking today, he would be here defending the mountains from the societal aberration of rapacious corporate goals over enlightened forest management. Thanks, Parrot, for shaking old memories before they have completely atrophied! And thanks Alan for reflecting the essential character, honesty and artistic appreciation in every post... enlightened veteran contributors, seriously inquiring newbies, and appropriately tolerant administrators, become the "multi-faceted stuff" that makes this Forum a cut above the rest. -HornEd

Ye Garrards and Little Fischers... trying to recollect what I have spent on my HT systems has caused me to remember a dozen or so Klipsch speakers that I have stored away and completely forgotten about. Last year I calculated I had over $30k in HT hardware... and over a thousand DVD's... nearly all purchased new. Of course, I also use a 30' free standing structure that cost another $15k for materials. -HornEd

Alan, it's so good to hear someone else remember Enrico. My father used to caddy at the Olympic Club. My great grandfather was its middleweight boxing champion for many years. And its head chef is an old culinary friend. I was born in San Francisco (St. Luke's) and raised in Daly City (the foggiest place on the West Coast... the actual venue of the Olympic Club. I used to caddy for my dad (a politician who was quite welcome at just about any course in the Bay Area) at Harding Park... where I learned what a grouch Ken Venturi can be! My dad also played with Enrico, who knows, you could have met him. He was a southpaw and was always a hacker no matter how much he spent on his clubs! Between caddying for him and being blind in one eye, golf just never became my game. Anyway, Alan, thanks for the memory. Just thinking about those early days of poetry, coffee and jazz brings so much joy to my heart. On Sundays in the summer, I bring live acts for concerts on the lawn. Last week it was Alex Lipadus and his "Tasting Room" quintet. His roots are in Brazilian Jazz and fusion with other jazz forms. With all the emphasis on music and movie playback, it's nice to have a little live music in our lives for Saturday night dances and Sunday concerts. Of course, our PA is pure Pro from Shure 57s and 58s to EAW speakers and QAS monitors. This Sunday it's the Blues... on the Old Oak Stage. Well, enough of this fun, it's time to get back to work! -HornEd

Wow, what an anniversary present for Kassandra and HornEd... and to think we missed it until today. Fortunately, Kassandra was in the room when I stumbled across the thread... like a five year old encountering his first Liberty ship hawser. Hmm, I actually have a WWII memory like that! For whatever its worth, all of you have brought joy to our hearts this day... thanks to Benton reviving the thread from obscurity. As you may know, Kassandra's five diamond anniversary ring to mark our first night together was delivered in a somewhat uncanny way. I bought a hand carved four foot tall Nutcracker. When Kassandra drove up in her vintage Mercedes Benz 560SEL (another present... she gave me another pair of Klipschorns and Belles), she saw the Nutcracker and immediately said how much she liked it. I told her it had one peculiarity... that when you opened its mouth, it stuck its tongue out. She immediately grabbed the lever and looked closely into its mouth... and then began to cry. I had created a tongue of rolled red paper... and put the five diamond ring upon the tongue. Two days later, she presented me with a five diamond ring. At our wedding, we exchanged carved suns on a gold necklace instead of rings. So the rings were a surprise for both of us. For her birthday this past July 27th, I gave her a red plastic see-thru box with a big bow on it. Inside was a present that she guessed was a belt to be used when lifting something heavy... like some of my speakers. But, no, it was actually a soft sculpture puppet in a soft sculpture garbage can. She tentatively put her hand in the puppet and slowly the lid rose to reveal a cute, soft sculpture raccoon. In the dim light, she caught a sparkle... and then realized that the little raccoon was wearing certified diamond stud earrings. Yes, my Forum friends, I am still very much in love... and, remarkably, so is she. Interestingly enough, the place most responsible for our falling in love was the round Klipsch Legend Theater... and it continues to be a renewing source of aural joy and profound togetherness. Yes, Benton, the round room prototype was built and the K-horns and Belles successfully tested. The K-horns and Belles than went back into storage to await their permanent home. The round prototype has been home to an enhanced version of my 6.1+2 Klipsch Legend Theater and still thrills about 40 or so visitors a week. For HT, there is nothing that creates movie ambience like a 6.1 monopole system in a non-reflective round room. As outlined in another recent Forum thread, the front center and the rear left, right and center KLF-30's have all been modified to provide a larger sweet spot which allows an uncanny orientation where ever you may roam in the room. As some of you may recall, I do not allow the KLF-30's to go below 85Hz... depending on my custom stacked SVS Ultras to carry the load below 85Hz. This allows great low sounds that don't bump heads, null or double up... and a faster, cleaner, deeper mid-range... which even held true when the K-horns were in the six discrete slots and the Belles in the front effects positions! I have been very busy building "Little Village" (a group of year 'round cabins in a portion of our forest that overlooks a lake) and expand the resort to 236 acres, more than double its original size. If I find the time, I will build a new Village Theater into a mountainside. I am completely sold on a round building with a conical ceiling as an ideal sound environment. It should be noted that the walls must be porous enough to let waves under 85Hz escape the room. Obviously, bi-pole and di-pole speakers show their base quality and die without the reflected glory they rely upon to create pseudo-ambience. How is it that some reject the blanket reverb of "hall", "stadium", etc. as being "unreal"... and then accept the sound sprayer effects as being "real"... it boggles my ear pans and doth cloggin' my noggin. -HornEd

Not only did I go, but it was in such a coffee house that I read from my first poetry collection ("The Null & the Void"... a heady concept for me in those early years) as progressive jazz laid a far out background. Interestingly enough, Eric Nord, who was the true leader of the Beat Generation, used to be a member of the resort I now own in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Los Gatos, CA. Eric and the faithful core of the Beat Generation headed out for the tall timber once "Beat" became popular... leaving Jack and the pretenders to make of it what they might. It sure was a lot different in person than in the storybooks! Eric and a few of his ilk were classic free spirits... Jack and the rest took money and smoked spirits. Eric was the originator of the "hungry i"... he had the concept down right but he wasn't the businessman Enrico Banducci was. It was Banducci that catapulted the "i" to popularity that brought fame to many of that generation's controversial comics... and to such groups as the "Kingston Trio"... which started on the Stanford campus, about 45 minutes from my mountain retreat. A much more received group by sincere Beats was "The Limelighters" an irreverent group of graduate students from Cal who all had other careers postponed by their musical success... except for the lead singer, Glen Yarborough. When Eric left... the commercial rendition of the Beat Generation changed what might have been... and I became a division manager of a San Francisco land development corporation. But through it all, the free-spirit born in Beat Generation coffee houses long ago... continues to sustain the joy of living... and the joy of Klipsch! -HornEd

Right you are, Sunnysal! I was so intrigued with the design... including the curve of the front panel which supposedly radiated the stereo sounds in a way that increasingly blended the two channels for a better sound stage. A great try... and not cheap as I recall. A business mentor of mine, the late Ray Monson, bought one. He also bought the first TV in our neighborhood... so long ago in San Francisco... one channel... and a couple of dozen adults in Ray's living room marveling at "Howdy Doody" on a seven foot console and a five inch black and white screen! Sadly, the Paragon didn't measure up to my early monaural Klipschorn acquired from a North Beach audiophile Beatnik down on his luck. Hmmm, Colin welcomed me back to the Forum on another thread as an Old Hippie... little does he know that my rebellious nature was nurtured in the coffee houses of North Beach long before the Hippies found Haight-Ashbury... Meanwhile, has anyone every heard this Italian macho-twin subwoofer horn? Check out the update at: http://www.royaldevice.com/custom.htm -HornEd

Ray, it's great to see you are alive and, well, still indulging in the black art of engineering... Do you have any thoughts about http://www.royaldevice.com/custom.htm? I thought you might like to see the updated version of this big horn. Frankly it influenced my desire to build a big, smooth gunnite, subterranean horn subwoofer. I was a bit taken aback when I saw the numbers of this behemoth were a bit under what I now have with my custom SVS rig. Have any of our globe trotting Forum friends heard this beast? Tom V. of SVS fame offered to design his concept of an enormous, no holds barred, custom subwoofer for me... one that would need its own major space... maybe it's time I took him up on it. It's time we Klipschophiles took the Big Horn title back from the sheep! -HornEd

Ah, yes, MH, I spent many happy years in France... But, your post reminds me of small town Texas mayor, Homer Pfeil (of German ancestry), who would tell new people he met, "My name is Pfeil, pronounced FILE... the "P" is silent as in 'swimming'!" And now back to pooling our "maximo" horn thoughts. -HornEd

Redtop, I agree with STL, if you have 9" between the back of the '30 and a solid wall, keep some vent space around the cabinet... and you will have it made. The reason I use port deflectors on my '30's is because I use porous walls to allow low end waves to pass through walls rather than rebounding into standing waves. Since you have solid walls, port deflectors are not necessary. Venting the ports to the front will take away some of the slam inherent in the 30's. Enjoy! -HornEd

Thanks Amy... I hoped it wasn't because my posts were thaaaat looong! I have more to say but I am enroute to a root canal. If I would have known I would have scheduled it for THAT weekend. -HornEd

Hmmm... does that mean if it isn't wonderful you will be the "Hurd shot 'round the world?" -HornEd PS: Thanks for taking the leak!

Wow, stick my nose in the Forum after many moons... and, wham!!! ...they had to take a weekend off... and force me to answer all the PM cards and letters before they diffuse to the great bit bin of oneness. Ah, but the plot thickens... what lurks ahead for Forum heads with nothing to do but take old Bose ads out the garbage... or fantasize about a glamour shot of Amy languidly draped upon a mighty transparent Klipschorn. Deprivation... where can I buy that used Klipsch that stimulates the market for new Klipsch products... Innovation... its the old hard scare of new software. -HornEd

Redtop... it's good to see so many Klipschers getting into the horizontal act. KLF-30 woofers need to have their port area free to work properly. They are tuned ports and fire rearward to get the benefit of the wall for dispersion. In my 30' yurt theater, the modified KLF-30's in the three rear positions have the motorboards with the woofers out as far as they will go... as in the first picture on this thread. The ports were not moved and have reflectors that shape the port exhaust toward the audience. This method preserved the best timbre match aspect with a non-modified KLF-30. The Front Center KLF-30 has the two woofers as close to the mid-range and tweeter stack... as in the second picture. I do this because the front three speakers are closer together than the rear array speakers. Thus, the center speaker tends to remain in the center of your sound stage. Of course, since 80% or so of the sound comes from the front center... getting that speaker right is more important than any other in home theaters! By placing the woofers as wide apart as possible in the cabinet, the rear array has a much wider angle of dispersion... and that relates to having more of your room in the "sweet spot." Well, I must dash... I hope to read all of the entries on this thread at a later time. -HornEd