Antone
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Posts posted by Antone
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Stan,
Sorry to read that. They made a significant difference in my set-up. Return them undamaged for your refund; I returned the "3.9" toroidals because they were really 3.5 mH and got a full refund. This I applied to the "4.7", which were actually 4.1 mH. I unwound these to 3.71 mH and used 12 gauge wire from the woofer and from the back terminals to the network; are you still using the stock 16/18 gauge leads?
Another suggestion: DJK told me (and I believe him) to use 3" diameter port and tubes of length 9.883" including one elbow for proper Heresy venting. I remember that your port was 4" in diameter, which he said was too big around. Are your Dayton woofers the Series Two or the Classic style? Mine are part # 295-120, the Series Two, in unported boxes.
In a way I'm glad you don't prefer the toruses, because you'll save over $100!
Sorry.
Antone
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DJK,
"You need to know a bit more about filters."
I do not know anything about filters ( what's "Q"?). Thanks for the education; I sure respect Bowers and Wilkins (especially the 801), and I have read some glowing reviews of Thiel speakers. The approach I took on my Heresy's was more rudimentary: I think of the crossover as three hard-wired, dedicated equalizer fragments: one low pass(woofer), one mid-pass(squawker), and one high-pass (tweeter). I had no intention of altering Klipsch's E2 network's architecture; but it was time to replace the old capacitors, anyway, so I upgraded them as much as I could afford-polypropylenes do sound better (cleaner, smoother, louder and more solid) and should last forever. 1.8 muF tweeter caps (instead of the stock 2 muF) cleaned up the hump at the squawker/tweeter transition (less 'honking' on female voices, smoother sibilants). I also took this opportunity to match capacitances and inductances well within 1% L to R to solidify imaging.
The Klipsch 12" woofer never seemed to keep up with the two horns, so I thought I would try the most sensitive, lowest-responding 8-Ohm woofer I could find/afford. (My old K22E's are in perfect order, safely ensconced in boxes.) The specs looked promising on the Dayton #295-120, so I tried it. The magnet is at least twice as big as the Klipsch woofer's, and the Dayton's spider is bigger. Just by listening to the sound as I connected a 9V battery to the naked drivers' respective terminals I could tell that the new woofer's output was overall lower in frequency and there was less mid-bass than the K22E's. Listening to the new woofers installed, I could tell that they went lower, could handle more power than my amp would ever give them, and lacked some midbass. That's why I tried lowering the inductance of the woofer low-pass coil. That fixed the lack in the mid bass and low mids, but I still needed a bit more overall output, so I tried the least resistant inductor I could find/almost afford. This brought up the woofer output enough to satisfy everyone who has auditioned them post-modification They have awesome bottom octave when it's present in the music, but they never sound bass-heavy on mids (e.g. excess chestiness on male voices). The boxes just should have been stuffed at the factory; I can't think of a good reason why not. They were always mostly airtight, and I simply improved the seal of the back board. All in all, a very empirical approach (trial & error), but I am satisfied with the results.
They still sound like Heresy's, but with better imaging, smoother midrange and low-end SLAM.
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I have edited my previous reply to your post, because I regret the last sentence; it's gone. One thing I find interesting is that you indicate that using a filter to block bass below 31 Hz will raise the output at 31 Hz and just above. Because of this, I will be using my subsonic filter when listening to records, in hope of getting more bass just above 31 Hz.
Thank you for your technical info. I value it.
Antone
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Stan,
Intriguing, that about the mortite. . . In scratching and tapping the squawker horn with my fingernail I hear a bit of what you are talking about. The tweeter capacitor I specify helps with the treble in that range (1.8 muF polpropylene instead of 2 muF spam can) by rolling off the bottom of the tweeter output at a slightly higher frequency, so there is less overlap at the squawker/tweeter transition. Try it: parts-express #027-480. Also this will slightly increase the tweeter volume compared to the squawker. Relax; it will be sweeter, smoother, more crystalline treble. (A cheaper, but still very good tweeter cap is #027-264: $2.16 each.)
If for some reason (e.g. your ported box changes everything) you don't think the expensive toroidal inductor is worth the money, parts-express takes returns. Be careful installing it, in order to avoid any damage or big scratches, and don't alter it. This inductor makes a big difference with the Dayton woofer I specify (#295-120), so if you think the toroidal sounds any better than the stock woofer inductor and you think you may buy the Dayton woofers someday, keep the toroidals. You'll be glad you did.
Happy Listening.
Antone
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In listening to my stuffed, acoustic suspension-enclosed upgraded Heresy 1.5's, I hear plenty of the bottom octave. Tracks 1 and 5 of the Master and Commander soundtrack have LOTS of loud concert bass drum. The initial attack is startling, and the long decay is warm and realistic. They extend far below 60 Hz and are tight and smooth in the bass. Parts-express has a great return policy; I would have returned their ST305-8 woofers and saved 200 dollars if they sounded as little-different as the skeptics' graphs show.
As I have written before, I am a professional orchestral musician, not an 'audiophile': I KNOW what a concert bass drum sounds like. To those who say that the Heresy's ought to be on the floor I emphasize: being on the floor creates a hump at around 60 Hz, and the floor bounce cancels out some mid-bass (300 Hz). They image better on 18" stands (no plinths), angled up slighly and aimed at a point 1 ft behind the listener's head. The whole bottom octave is smoother on stands. I know; I TRIED it both ways.
Family members, who wouldn't even understand my mods, unanimously prefer my modded Heresy's to stock. They used to prefer the bass of the Advent with its smaller woofer and smaller, stuffed, airtight enclosure to the unmodded Heresy's'. Some low-risk, worthwhile mods are: to stuff the boxes, to get them 1.5 ft off the floor, still deep in the corners, and to aim them as detailed above.
When I have an extra $80 I will probably still try your tuned port. But if I may "need to add some 31 Hz and to subtract some 60 Hz" in using this mod, then I won't be as well off as I am now. They have plenty of deep, satisfying bass without adding any electronically. Another concern is that exponential rise shown in your unfiltered excursion graph, yikes! I can fearlessly crank them now with the bass staying commensurate to the mids and highs.
Happy Listening.
Antone
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I tried the Dayton woofer with the "4mH" (3.95 mH actual)- 20-gauge wound, half-ohm DCR Klipsch low-pass coil unwound to read 3.8 mH (which, by the way, was the value of the other speaker's unaltered coil; this means that Klipsch thought that a discrepancy of 0.15 mH between L&R speakers was acceptable. It may be within 5%, but the bass differed audibly between L&R. I listened to my speakers with the new woofers and the original low-pass coils, and they didn't have quite enough bass, unless I added 3dB at 31 Hz. After installing the new toroidal inductors the bass was plenty with all controls set flat. Also I unwound the new coils to read exactly 3.71 mH each.That aside, it seems silly to strangle the power to the beefy Dayton woofer through a resistant coil of very thin wire.
Some Advents I repaired used 10-W, 1-Ohm resistors in line to the tweeter for adapting brightness to different rooms. Advent considered 1 Ohm to make a significant difference, so almost half an Ohm difference between the woofer inductors is not negligible. My new coils make the difference between having to add bass electronically and not needing to add it.
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Stan,
The difference between the Erse SuperQ coil and the Jantzen toroidal coil in resistance is still pretty big: 0.215 Ohm (Erse) versus 0.069 Ohm (toroidal). The resistance of the Klipsch stock 4mH coil is around 0.5 Ohm. The toroidal's resistance is around a seventh of the stock coil's and around a third of the Erse's. The resistance dictates how much voltage the woofer receives: the lower the resistance, the louder the woofer sounds. The Erse won't make much difference. It's basically the same construction as the stock inductor, but the toroidal is definitely louder. I chose it for that reason, because (then) I did not want to port my box. I needed all the bass I could get. I was hoping the louder coil would make up for the Dayton woofer's slightly lower sensitivity; it does!
When I received the 3.9 mH toroidal I measured its inductance with an LC meter (parts-express #390-570). My meter read it at 3.5(ish) mH,so I returned it and ordered the 4.7 mH, which measured just over 4.1 mH. This one is closer to the Klipsch stock coil's inductance, which my meter read as 3.94 mH. Also, this last value makes me believe that my LC meter is accurate and that the toroidal coil's rating may be higher than its actual inductance. If you are still using the Klipsch K22 woofer, then you may want to order the "4.7 mH" instead and to unwind enough wire to obtain a reading of 4 mH. If you can buy the LC meter, then you could fine tune the coil to measure exactly 4.0 mH by unwinding a turn or so of wire and hot-gluing it to prevent unravelling. If you are using the Dayton ST305-8 woofer, then unwind enough wire to yield 3.71 mH. Make sure that your Heresy's have the E2 balancing network. This is easily done by checking for a 33muF electrolytic capacitor attached to the two woofer output screws on the network; the E does NOT have this cap. The E2 does have one. Also the E2 has a faintly stamped numeral "2" next to the red printed "E".
If you have the E balancing network, you still can upgrade it to an E2 by: reversing the squawker wires where they connect to the network, adding a 33 muF capacitor at the woofer output screws, and replacing the E network's 2.5 mH coil with the "4.7 mH" (4.1 mH actual) toroidal coil I discussed earlier in this post. The parts' numbers are listed in my second post if you want to upgrade the caps, too. These vastly sweeten the mids and highs.
Happy Listening.
Antone
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Stan Man,
Thanks for the info.! I intend to go to Lowe's after buying the port tubes and to have Lowe's cut the rectangles and holes in the new MDF sheet; I can't wait to try this!
By the way some helpful Klipsch Community members sent me the URL for the thread you mentioned, but Audiokarma would not let me open your attached file without registering.
To copy and to paste, first highlight in blue the desired text, and next push CONTROL C. Next, open Notepad on your desktop; "click" on the blinking cursor, and then push CONTROL V. Every word you had highlighted should appear on the Notepad page. Then copy in the same manner from Notepad to your Klipsch forum Reply page.
Happy Listening.
Antone
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DJK,
Wonderful stuff ! Thank you much. My preamp has a very nice "subsonic" filter, -3dB @ 25 Hz, -6dB @15 Hz, and -12 dB @ 8.2 Hz. Is that steep enough? Also, Stan Man has told me to try a 4.3125" diameter port tube with length adjustable from 6.25" to 11.75"; would that diameter work at a different length, or is it just too big around? Your graphs do not show the lumpiness I was fearing from a ported box, so I will try this ASAP.
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Stan man,
Thanks for the support. I would rather not join Audiokarma. I have some problems with the name, so could you paste a copy of your post onto this forum? I would like to read it.
Thank you
Antone
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DJK,
Thanks for the suggestions. I'll buy some 0.75" MDF, make a new back, cut a 3" hole and install some pipe and give a listen. I have yet to hear a ported speaker with the tight, clean, smooth bass of acoustic suspension designs; I remember reading that Dunlavy did not believe in ported enclosures for that reason. I concede that some loud (if sloppy) bass can be had with a small enclosure via porting. I bet the tuning you recommend would help the lumpiness. Would an aperiodic vent work? Can you specify a brand and/or example of the active HP filter you mention? Can I use my 10-band graphic EQ for this purpose?
Thanks,
Antone
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Folkdeath,
Yes, I see finally that there is a '2' faintly embossed in the aluminum network nameplate right after the red printed 'E' on my crossover, so I do have E2 networks. My Heresy's use K77M tweeters, which, I believe were changed to something else for the Heresy II. The only differences between the 'E' and my modded 'E2' are: reversed polarity of the squawker outputs (easily done by just switching the two wires); adding the 33 muF (polypropylene) cap (not called for in the 'E' crossover), one lead attached to the woofer 'plus' output screw, and the other cap lead to the woofer 'minus' output screw; replacing the 2 muF spam can which has one lead attached to the tweeter minus screw and the other cap lead to the number 3 tap on the 'T2A' transformer-looking thing with a polypropylene 1.8 muF; and replacing the 2muF spam can which has one lead attached to the 'plus' Input screw and the other lead to the number 5 tap on the 'T2A' assembly; the remaining difference is my Dayton woofer needs a different inductance value, 3.71 mH instead of 2.5 mH in the 'E' network (4 mH in the 'E2'). All values are as measured OUT of the circuit . If your older Heresy's (like mine) use K77M tweeters, K52H squawkers and K22E woofers, then you can easily upgrade your 'E' to an 'E2' with a new woofer inductor, a 33muF cap, and reversed squawker output polarity. Earlier in my postings I shared my parts list.
Happy modding.
Antone
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Hello, folkdeath,
Thanks for the schematic link. Looking at the Heresy schematic I see at least two differences between it and my 1981 Heresy's E network (prior to my modifications); one is the missing 33muF capacitor. Also, my original woofer inductor yielded 3.8mH (L) and 3.94mH ®, while the schematic shows a 2.5mH coil. (I wonder if that schematic is from a much older Heresy.) I will take my crossover out and get the details. I'll get back to you.
Happy Listening.
Antone
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That is a good question. I'll bet someone (at least one) on this forum has great suggestions for a subwoofer system that blends seamlessly with the Heresy; I would be glad to read them. (I also wonder if any cost $450 or less.) The wimpy bass my Heresy's produced was only one of the problems I had with my speakers. I had trouble with the upper midrange/treble balance (bright and honky compared to the lower midrange), and I found the stereo image prone to wandering. A fourth problem was that the overall sound seemed opaque and muddy.
The new polypropylene caps purified, solidified and stabilized the squawker's output. The polypropylene tweeter cap, with its 10% lower capacitance than the original, sweetened, smoothed and crystallized the treble, while the exact match of values between L & R made for a rock-solid soundstage. The Heresy's now sound much more transparent, plus the new, more macho woofer and inductor yield plenty of deep, tangible, fast, clean bass. All these mods for around $225 per speaker. They sound less distorted than before, too. I love them.
Happy Listening.
Antone
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Thanks for burying the hatchet. Let me say that I'm impressed with your list of euipment; you have more and higher-end stuff than I do. (I like Danish phono cartridges, too.) In fact, many of this forum's contributors have awesome collections. My motivation for relating my upgrade procedures was always merely to offer other aficionados the benefit of my experience, not to show off. These mods really do result in the sound improvements that I've detailed, and I felt pushed into defending myself, thereby seeming defensive . Sorry about that. All is forgiven.
Happy Listening.
Antone
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pauln wrote, "You have violated the letter and the spirit of the first two of those principles by which the Heresy is defined. You didn't mention any neck bolt electrodes in the parts list, but what you have is clearly more like the creation from Mary Shelly's novel than a real Heresy. PWK didn't choose to use a rubber surround high excurtion (sic) lower efficiency woofer for a reason (distortion). I didn't follow your description so well about the network mods including leaving the resistors off the tweets, but I got the feeling your tweeter might be in jepardy (sic), especially if you are chasing the "slam" sound after lowering the woofer efficiency, thereby requiring much more power. How many watts do you figure your tweets are consuming at "slam" volume? IIRC they are good to handle about 5W.You should know better that the stipulation for the internal wires be 12awg and exact lengths is quite absurd." (Emphases Antone's)
My, my, such vitriol ! Don't suck me into an 'authenticity' debate, and you don't WANT to go to the topic of "Spirit violation", Rainbow Boy. The Heresy's original sensitivity at 1 kHz (all squawker) for 1 watt at 3 feet was 96 dB. My network modification for the squawker consists entirely of polypropylene capacitor substitution, 33muF and 2muF, of the stale electrolytics. This resulted in a slightly louder squawker, so the Heresy's "efficiency" was increased slightly. My sole network mod for the tweeter is the subsitution of its one capacitor--previously a 2-muF, motor-run style cap--with a 1.800-muF polypropylene . The polypropylene capacitors are just a bit louder than the ones they replace, but 1.8 muF blocks a bit more of the spectrum than 2 muF, so the tweeters are receiving about the same energy as they did before. A polypropylene cap is closer to being an ideal capacitor than a 30-year-old can filled with 30-year-old goo, so the distortion is lower.
Speaking of distortion, as a music lover/performer I can assure you that too-quiet, too-shallow bass is a more-irritating sonic coloration than a tiny bit of IM or TH Distortion. Besides, my power amp exhibits less than 0.005% IM Distortion anywhere in the band and less than 0.0015% THD midband (even less at bass frequencies), so I can afford any realistic bass driver-induced distortion increase. Being labelled 'high-excursion" causing distortion seems like sophistry on account of that the K22, with its pleated cloth surround, exhibited about the same amount of excursion as the Dayton driver, with its more-airtight rubber roll. I do not understand why some believe that the Dayton woofers are so much less efficient. The K22's are louder in the midbass but quieter in the low, true bass than the Daytons. My sole remaining network modification is substitution of the woofer's relatively resistant (0.5 Ohm) open-bracket-style, low-pass coil with a much less resistant (0.072 Ohm)--hence causing a much-smaller voltage drop before the woofer--nearly ideal toroidal inductor. Between the almost 7- times- lower resistance (therefore louder) and the 0.2 mH lower inductance (therefore compensating for the Dayton driver's steeper upper-end roll-off, hence louder) of my low-pass coil, the Dayton ST305 (with its 6.0-Ohm Direct Current Resistance drawing more current than the K22's 7.0-Ohm DCR) puts out smooth, extended, deep, punchy bass commensurate to the virtually-unchanged, with regard to average power, combined tweeter- and squawker-output. They sound MUCH better and more honest. They actually sound perfectly satisfactory and warm at lower listening levels with my mods, so I don't worry about the tweeters. I still, as always, use the Klipsch-recommended, 2-Ampere, fast-blow speaker fuses; it's the woofers which draw more current now, not the tweeters, so they are perfectly safe.
Thank you for pointing me to Mr. Klipsch's writings, but keep in mind that the Heresy was originally intended (in the 1950's) to be a center channel between two Klipschorns, and consequently stand-alone bass wasn't part of its design. My modifications obviate my previous decades-long desire for a sub-woofer. I did NOT AT ALL change the architecture of the balancing network; it's still Mr. Klipsch's crossover circuit. Regarding my "absurd" wire length and thickness specifications, keeping the lengths the same AS THE ORIGINAL RESPECTIVE WIRES' LENGTHS is to forestall any big step-response deviations from factory design. Maybe you mistakenly thought that I meant 'same length as each other'. The four wires I replaced were the two from the woofer to the crossover and the two from the back panel to the crossover; their respective lengths match those of the wires they replace. As for the thickness, think about it; the new inductor coil is wound with 14-gauge wire for lower resistance as well as huge power-handling, so I replaced all four 18-gauge wires between the new woofer and the back cabinet-panel input screws with the thickest I have on hand, 12 gauge. (Woofers are current-hungry.)
I respect the original crossovers, but there were some large discrepancies, Left speaker to Right. The old (20- gauge wirewound) woofer inductors exhibited a 0.15 mH (4%) difference from left speaker to the right, causing one Heresy's bass to sound different from the other one's. My inductors match each other to the hundredth of a mH (0.2% at worst). My tweeter caps match L to R and their rating to one thousandth of an Ohm (0.055%) the old ones were off their rating by 4.5%. The old squawker caps were off their rating by 5.4% and from each other by 3%; mine are within 1% of rating and within 0.5% of each other. The imaging is stable and much more convincing.
Did you catch the irony? You accused me of Heresy heresy. Not so, I've improved my listening experience with a Genuine Klipsch Heresy with stuffed enclosure, upgraded woofer and woofer-inductor, and polypropylene caps, so it can stand on its own, instead of between two Klipschorns. No Hard Feelings?
Happy Listening.
Antone
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"The K22E was basically inaudible below 50 Hz. To illustrate this, I could add 6 dB at 31 Hz with a graphic equalizer before I could hear a difference; now [with the DaytonST305] I can easily hear when I add 1 dB of 31 Hz! "
I do not have measuring instrumentation, so I cannot give out any numerical values (other than those I already supplied). I can affirm confidently that the Dayton puts out much more information in the bottom octave than the K22E. I used to need to add bass via tone knob or graphic equalizer to achieve a satisfying tonal balance (still lacking any of the bottom octave, though). Now bassy music sounds bassy with every control set 'flat'. Other people have auditioned my Heresy's as I added improvements, and all agree that it now is a much better loudspeaker. My brother used to call them 'kazoos', and he has provided strong testimony as to their drastic improvement since upgrading them.
"I had the opportunity not long ago to repair some old Advent speakers which suffered from fried (first order) crossovers. In replacing the defective electrolytic tweeter capacitor (13 micro Farad) I noticed that the enclosure was stuffed with foam rubber padding. I discovered that this simple thing makes the box act acoustically like a much larger enclosure, deepening and tightening the low end significantly: with a smaller (10") woofer and smaller box the Advents have much deeper and louder bass than the Heresy's." **
Even if I erred in claiming a large acoustic volume increase with stuffing, I can still hear the difference stuffing makes. The bass no longer sounds trapped in the cabinet; the stuffing pushes the bass out of the enclosure. With the stuffing the woofers project more like the horns. Also, even though I appreciate the beautiful cabinetry of the Klipsch enclosure, the plywood 'rings' more than MDF, and the stuffing helps to calm down the internal resonances. In regard to those Advents with smaller enclosures and smaller, less efficient woofers, their bass totally outclassed the Heresy's'. My goals were to take some of the good aspects of the Advent -extended, tight, strong bass and smooth upper midrange- and to combine them with the positives of the Klipsch. I firmly believe that I have accomplished this goal.
In my profession I have to make subtle changes to my reed, horn and air column to compensate for the numerous different acoustic environments of the various performance venues where I work. I'm used to tweaking and to evaluating sound on the fly; this makes for a self-critical attitude sometimes, but one benefit is that it is difficult to deceive myself. Seventy-five professional fellow musicians are listening to me critically, too, moment to moment. You don't last long in this career if you do not pay strict, unforgiving attention to sonic details. I have shared these modifications because they make real, significant improvements to the fidelity and 'listenability' of the Heresy loudspeaker. I don't claim that my modifications are the best ones, but they do yield the sonic benefits which I have detailed. It's a Buffet; take it or leave it.
** By the way, with the Advents I compared new, replacement bipolar electrolytic capacitors to polypropylenes. Polypropylenes sound less vague, less muddy, crisper and more solid than electrolytics, and I strongly recommend them over electrolytics in midrange and treble applications.
Happy Listening.
Antone
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Let me reiterate: stuffed enclosures act acoustically like larger volumes than empty ones. The Dayton woofer that I specify has a much (2X) larger magnet and gives peak output at a lower frequency than the cheaper, smaller K22E. I wish that I could show the two drivers side-by-side; the Daytons just have a much bigger motor: more guts to overcome that too-small cabinet. More mods to improve bass include speaker-gasketing tape (part #260-542) for the back wooden panel to seal air-tight, making it an acoustic suspension system for flatter, lower bass. (Make sure the squawker driver is screwed tightly to its horn and that its rubber washer is undamaged.) The speakers still should go deep into corners without quite touching the walls, and I have found that the bass and midbass benefit greatly from having those angled, wooden plinths removed and placing the speakers around 18" off the floor. Try it.
You can convince yourself that my specified woofers are not much better, or you could try one. Parts-express has a great return policy; just don't scratch the trial woofer. When it arrives you will be surprised at how much bigger and how much higher in build quality the Dayton woofer is than the Klipsch K22. Without changing the low-pass woofer inductor you will still notice the very bottom being better represented, but it will be lean in the upper bass. The inductor makes a big difference in overall woofer output, so don't totally knock the woofer if it's too quiet; it is plenty loud with my specified Jantzen inductor adjusted to 3.71 mH. Feel free to try all my mods except the expensive woofer and inductor ($150 per speaker). Stuff the enclosures; seal the back panel; replace the capacitors (too old, anyway). Place the speakers on stands 18" off the floor in the corners. These things are all reversible. Save the parts; the spam can caps may be good still, but I bet they won't be within 0.1% of each other L to R. The old 33muF electrolytics had a 20% total tolerance (when new); my specified polypropylenes are well within 5%. Or just stuff the cabinets, and place them where I've indicated. That's cheap and easily reversed, and it will sound noticeably better. If you do go whole hog, matching the capacitance and inductance of the L and R crossovers within 1% or better of each other drastically improves imaging, so have both crossovers out at the same time and balance the values.
Happy Listening.
Antone
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Dear Klipsch Fans,
"Slam" means tight, fast and palpable very-bottom end, e.g. kick drum that hits you in the chest.
My Heresy's are no longer Klipsches only if a Shelby Cobra 350 is no longer a Mustang.
Regarding the woofer simulations, the Dayton Series Two woofer that I specify is efficient (92dB/W/m). Its output in the tubby, shallow midbass region is quieter than the Klipsch K22E's, but the Dayton has usable response down to 25 Hz (Fs=27 Hz) ! The K22E was basically inaudible below 50 Hz. To illustrate this, I could add 6 dB at 31 Hz with a graphic equalizer before I could hear a difference; now I can easily hear when I add 1 dB of 31 Hz! The Dayton woofer I specify has 275 W RMS power handling, a treated-paper cone, a large-excursion butyl rubber surround, a larger spider and a magnet twice as big as the K22E's. The old woofer ran out of gas long before the horns did; it no longer happens with the upgrade woofer. My speakers now simply give me another octave of bass.
With respect to output balancing, yes I did juggle slightly the relative outputs of the drivers (the old woofers never used to balance the horns in volume). The polypropylene capacitor upgrades just noticeably increased the squawker and tweeter volume, along with clarity. In repairing some Advent speakers, I had noticed a simple 1 Ohm, 10 W resistor being used to drop overall tweeter output by 3 dB. Hence, decreasing the resistance of the low-pass woofer inductor (originally 0.5 Ohm) would increase the woofer volume. (There was no way I was going to insert a resistor into the network.) The old coil was wound with 20 AWG wire to 3.9 mH. I found a really efficient toroidal inductor wound with 14 AWG wire, having a Direct Current Resistance of only 0.072 Ohm (almost seven times better!). This audibly increased woofer output. Since the new woofer is quieter in the upper end of its range, I lowered the Inductance of the new coil to 3.71 mH in order to raise the upper end roll-off point to transition to the squawker. By the way, the LC meter I have measured a "4.7 mH" coil at 3.9 mH. All my inductor values are based on my meter's readings. The original internal wiring was all 18 AWG, thick enough for the tweeter and squawker horns but not even close for the new woofer and coil. I replaced the leads from the woofer to the crossover and from the crossover to the input screws on the rear wooden panel with 12 AWG wire of the exact same lengths to give the woofer even more of an advantage. Also keep in mind that the new tweeter capacitors (1.8muF instead of the old 2muF) allow for less overlap at the squawker-tweeter transition, therefore producing less upper midrange output (!).
Thiele-Small parameters notwithstanding, I am a professional musician. I listen for a living, so I approached this project more empirically than some people. I stand by these upgrades as having all the euphonic effects I have described and as being worth the investment. What have always made these speakers, to which I've been listening critically for DECADES, so special, are still there: those great horns, the hand-crafted cabinets and the overall crossover network design. Upgrading the 30-year old electrolytic capacitors with polypropylene, higher power-handling, tighter-tolerance ones that never wear out is like replacing your project car's old Champion spark plugs with double-Iridium ones; it's still the same car, just better. As for the woofers, seeing and hearing are believing. Another octave. Definitely.
Antone
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This is a Heresy I upgrade. All components are available at parts-express.com .
Two Woofers part # 295-120
Two Tweeter Capacitors 1.8 muF part # 027-480
Four Squawker Capacitors: Two 33muF part # 027-592 and two 2muF part # 027-534
Two low-pass woofer inductors part # 255-820
Acoustic enclosure fiberfill part #260-330 (Divide evenly between the two speakers.)
It helps to be good at soldering, and it helps to have an LC meter part # 390-570 to fine tune the woofer inductors to 3.71mH and to measure the capacitance value of the Spam-can caps.
In each speaker there are two identical 2 muF spam cans, one being connected to the tweeter, and the other is connected to the plus input screw. The spam can whose terminals measure about 35 muF with an L/C meter is the squawker cap; the spam can that measures 2muF is the tweeter cap, which is to be replaced with the 1.8 muF Superior cap. Replace the 33muF electrolytic at the woofer output screws with the part # 027-592 . There are two open bracket choke-style inductors which look a lot like transformers; One is a low-pass inductor for the woofer, and the other is an autoformer that's used to decrease tweeter and squawker volume by 6 dB and 9dB, respectively. Just one of these has ONLY two leads coming out of it; one of which goes to a woofer terminal on the barrier strip. This is the woofer inductor to be replaced with part #255-820 unwound to yield an Inductance of 3.71mH. (Hot glue can keep the coil from further unraveling). One last step is to replace the two 18 AWG wires from the woofer with two 14 AWG wires of the same exact length.The same goes for the wires from the back of the enclosure to the crossover ("balancing network").
If you want to improve your Heresy's relatively cheaply, you might replace only (all) the capacitors and fill the enclosures with the poly stuffing. Stuffing the cabinets makes a NOTICEABLE difference in the bass depth and overall cleanness. The much better caps WILL sweeten, clean and solidify the midrange and treble without changing the Klipschness.
Happy listening!
Antone
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My 1981-vintage Heresy's were a graduation present (serial nos. 139X291 and 139X292), so I've owned them since they were brand new and used them continuously with no problems. Klipsch speakers are built to last! Their dynamic, open and direct sound has always endeared them to me, but the midrange drivers (squawkers) usually overbalanced the other drivers, rendering the sound peaky, midrangey and unsatisfying on some music. They never imaged very well, and my friends and I always wondered why those large (12") woofers sounded so wimpy. After much research and trial-and-error I have found a set of modifications (all reversible) that result in the sound I've always wanted from my beloved Heresy's.
I had the opportunity not long ago to repair some old Advent speakers which suffered from fried (first order) crossovers. In replacing the defective electrolytic tweeter capacitor (13 microFarads) I noticed that the enclosure was stuffed with foam-rubber padding. I discovered that this simple thing makes the box act acoustically like a much larger enclosure, deepening and tightening the low end significantly: with a smaller (10") woofer and smaller box the Advents have much deeper and louder bass than the Heresy's. I researched woofers and found some efficient (92 dB/W/m) 8-Ohm, large-excursion, 180 W RMS power-handling 12" drivers with a usable frequency response down to 25 Hz! Their spider and magnet-structure DWARF the original Klipsch K-22E. The new woofers reproduce mid-bass and lower midrange more quietly than the K-22Es, so I lowered the woofer low-pass coil's inductance to 3.8 mH in order to raise the top-end downpoint of the new woofers to compensate- by the way, there had been a 0.14 mH discrepancy between the left speaker's and the right speaker's woofer coils' inductances, which had audibly detracted from bass equality between L&R. Stuffing the boxes with polyester fiberfill, replacing the woofers and lowering the inductance of the woofer coils almost fixed the bass balance. I still needed to increase the woofer's overall output in order to balance the squawkers and tweeters. The solution was a more-efficient woofer coil. The old coils used 20-gauge wire wound on a cube-shaped transformer frame and had a Direct Current Resistance of about 0.5 Ohm. On the internet I found a toroidal, high-power inductor, wound with 14-gauge wire and yielding a DCR of only 0.072 Ohm, thus increasing the voltage--hence volume--to the woofer. I unwound a few turns of wire to lower the inductance to 3.71 mH (also reducing the DCR slightly). This inductance seems to be the right value for a seamless transition between bass and lower midrange. One last improvement to the bass was to replace the 18-gauge wires from the back of the cabinet to the crossover board and from the crossover to the woofer with 12-gauge wires for more efficient current flow.
The E2 balancing network utilizes three capacitors (one 33-microFarad electrolytic at the woofer output screws and 2 spam can-shaped, motor-run style 2-microFarad caps, one of which is connected to the tweeter minus output screw, the other connected to the plus input screw and the autotransformer) . I replaced the stale 20% tolerance, 33-muF electrolytic cap with a 33-muF, 5% metallized polypropylene cap and the non-tweeter 2-muF "spam can" with a 1%, 2-muF metallized polypropylene capacitor. With both speakers' crossovers out at once I could choose and combine cap values to minimize discrepancy between left and right speakers. The higher-quality caps resulted in crisper, cleaner, and more solid midrange with more presence (in a good way).
The tweeter horn driver has midrange and below blocked by the remaining 2-muF, spam-can cap (the one connected to the tweeter). First, I tried a 2-muF, 1% metallized polypropylene cap as I had used for the squawker, and the treble became clean, crystalline and sweet. But there seemed to be a peak around 6kHz right at the crossover point between midrange and tweeter; this over-emphasized sibilants slightly, so I tried a higher-quality, 1.8-muF, 2% metallized polypropylene cap from Denmark in order to raise the tweeter's crossover frequency slightly. Although it was rated at 2% tolerance, it actually measured at 1.800 muF; in fact both of the 1.8 caps measured 1.800muF for holographic imaging. Yes, Heresy's CAN image! Now my beloved Klipsches sound neutral, clean, and smooth--with plenty of bottom-octave slam!
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Heresy upgrade with great imaging, smooth midrange and low-end SLAM!!
in Technical/Restorations
Posted
Stan,
You are using resistors to bring down the squawker and tweeter volume, eh? Looking at the E2 schematic, I believe that you could bring down the squawker volume 3 dB without using a resistor; simply move the lead which connects the squawker 'plus' output screw to the #2 T2A transformer tap from #2 to #1. This would now connect the squawker 'plus' to the #1 tap on the T2A and yield 12 dB down instead of 9 dB.
Happy Listening
Antone