Wirrunna

Mike, I have had success lately with CamillaDSP software running on a Raspberry Pi 4 and using a MOTU UltraLite Mk5 audio interface to provide crossovers, equalisation, delays and gain to a tri-amped K-Horn with a modified top hat (Eliptrac horn and B&C DCX464 co-ax driver). I understand the Xilica has very limited FIR filter capability (with some models having none) which limits phase correction. links : https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/camilladsp-cross-platform-iir-and-fir-engine-for-crossovers-room-correction-etc.349818/ My crossover https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/camilladsp-cross-platform-iir-and-fir-engine-for-crossovers-room-correction-etc.349818/post-7213813 https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/rpi4-camilladsp-tutorial.29656/

Edgar, over in the CamillaDSP thread on diyAudio I suggested that a new filter to perform Dynamic range control, kind of a software version of a dbx Model 3BX would be useful. Henrik seems interested, you might like to put your 2 cents worth in. https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/camilladsp-cross-platform-iir-and-fir-engine-for-crossovers-room-correction-etc.349818/post-7265951

What horn is the BMS mounted on and what is the crossover frequency ?

Stella, ALK's Extreme Slope Networks (ESN) are an attempt to fix the 'smearing' of sounds near the crossover frequencies of the three drivers in the Klipsch horn loaded speakers. This 'smearing' is due to the different horn lengths that result in sounds arriving at the listener at different times. By severely reducing overlap of the output of the drivers the ESN networks make the speakers sound noticeably clearer but the gross time mis-alignment of drivers and phase are not addressed. To get time alignment and flat phse you need to go to DSP active crossovers. You have asked for wiring diagrams, does this mean you are handy with a soldering iron and experienced in crossover building ? If so this post https://www.stereonet.com/forums/topic/118361-k-horn-crossovers-from-ak-3-to-universal-to-es/ described the process I went through in deriving and building an ALK ESN. At the time, ALK was banned from the Klipsch forums but was still around on stereonet. ALK chimed in and helped me. I spent nearly $A1500 all up on caps and coils. A few years later after buying a pair of second hand B&C DCX464 drivers I tried active crossovers with miniDSP and Hypex amps, about half the cost of the passive crossover and you get time alignment and phase correction.

https://audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/small-cheap-pre-amp-card-boards-sound-quality.29547/post-1033620 That link is to a couple of devices that will do what you want. I have used the 1646 balanced out and there is no audible increase in noise. You may have to find someone to build a box and power supply, I just built a box with a 15-0-15 volt power supply and mounted RCA sockets for input and XLR outputs.

VDS, Getting phase flattened made a a more noticeable difference than a really flat SPL. Here are a couple of references - https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30035-using-rew-and-rephase-to-generate-amplitude-and-time-domain-corrections/?tab=comments#comment-604620 https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30035-using-rew-and-rephase-to-generate-amplitude-and-time-domain-corrections/?do=findComment&comment=678965 Here is my modified K-Horn where I have flattened the phase. Phase smoothing requires FIR filters which may not be available on the Xilica. I bet that the DSP for the new Jubilee is using FIR filters.

Claude, I bought an SMSL SP200 Headphone amp and made a headphone jack to twin Banana Jacks and set the amp as the Mid and Hi amp on the right channel of my tri-amped K-Horns. A Topping PA5 was on the left channel. After a day or two I thought that the SP200 was a tiny bit crisper and even quieter than the PA5. I re checked with REW and the output of each channel at 1m on the Eliptrac axis was within 1 db, so I promptly ordered a second SMSL SP200 to free the PA5 to run my Super Heresy pair. As the 16 ohm B&C DCX464 is 110db/W the SP200 at 6W into 16 ohm is well matched for mid and hi duties.

David, G'day from the South Coast of Oztraya. I've often thought about how I would get a pair of K-Horns and it would be either DIY or buy second hand from the US which would mean line up a freight forwarder, scan the for sale ads and take a punt. Now DIY, there are 3 decisions to a DIY Klipsch heritage speaker, Bass Bin, Top Hat and the crossover. Bass Bin - K-Horn gives you lower bass but far more difficult to build than a La Scala. Unless you are an accomplished chippy you would need a cabinet maker to build it for you. Either way I would get a pair of CW126 woofers from Crites Speakers. Top Hat - Get an Eliptrac kit and build it, so much better than the K401. Decision is what compression driver you put on it. I went with B&C DCX464 co-ax, lots of choices and opinions out there. Fullrange has an Eliptrac with a co-ax on his La Scalas. Crossover. It's 2022, not 1948. Big coils, capacitors and space heater amplifiers have been replaced by menu driven Digital Signal Processors (DSP) and physically small highly efficient amplifiers with performance that could only be dreamed about twenty years ago. Ask Fullrange how much he paid for those giant copper coils and the silver caps. I built ALK ES passive crossovers for my K-Horns and they cost me a lot more than the miniDSP and class D amps I run now.

Captain, just noticed the thread (been away for a few days), I think you should read this - https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/170414-who-wants-to-measure-how-much-power-voltage-is-really-needed/

Mike, Deang posted this anechoic response

Mike, when you start SPL measurements you will need to settle on a microphone position. I always set up so that the tip of the UMIC is 1 m from the center of the Eliptrac horn and 118 cm off the floor.

Looking forward to seeing the results of the SPL measurements.

Looking forward to seeing this.

It's a definite maybe. Positive in that the hiss from the miniDSP has been banished. Maybe in the subjective part. The sound is almost clinical now, not quite as warm as the NAD. Soundstage is maybe not quite as good. After a few days I'm getting used to it though. Solo piano is stunning. Badly recorded classical choral is really bad now. The measurements are almost identical to those made with the NAD and any difference is down to slight movements of furnishings. At this stage I won't go back to the NAD.

After reading the review I ordered one of these and it took a month to arrive. I connected a pair of AR18B speakers with direct feed from a RPi PiCore Player. As the PA5 is balanced input I made a pair of RCA to TRS cables and there was adequate signal levels to give the AR's a good workout. Then tried it RPi >>--> miniDSP 2X4HD >>--> Topping PA5 with one speaker doing bass and the second as mid with the mDSP acting as an active crossover - all seemed good to go. So decided to try the PA5 on my triamped KHorns as the mid amp, replacing the NAD amp. After cabling it in, RCA out from miniDSP 2x4HD to TRS into the PA5 to drive the mids I listened with no signal - only the faintest hiss at max vol on the Topping PA5 ! I ran a REW sweep and adjusted the mid signal gain in the miniDSP leaving the PA5 at full vol, ran another sweep to confirm, cheked again for mDSP hiss , still very feint. Played some music and it sounded fine. I removed the 7db L-Pad on the mid, this time I turned the Topping PA5 from full (4 o'clock) to where the hiss is just heard at the horn mouth which is about 2 o'clock on the PA5 vol ctl, and re did the gain on the mDSP. I then removed the 7db L-Pad on the Hi driver of the DCX464, re did gains in the mDSP and checked for hiss, none from the Hi. Listening tests indicate that the PA5 is more neutral than the NAD, and now that the DCX 464's are running without L-Pads they are 110db/W so there is more than enough power from the PA5 to match the Audiophonics MPA-S125NC Hypex N-Core amps on Bass and Hi. The reduction in hiss from the miniDSP 2x4HD is the most noteable. Like the PA5 the Hypex N-Core amps are also balanced input but with RCA input sockets and a brief examination showed that the internal wiring emulated the circuit of the RCA to TRS cables I had made.

Geoff, thank you for your kind words. Continuing in off topic mode, here is a link to where I am up to with the active crossovers

Deang, I built the universal 4500 xover some time before 2017 after replacing the K77 with a DE120. At the time I thought it sounded clearer, it certainly measured better. I subsequently built an ES400/ES4500 that I posted about on Stereonet after seeing a post by ALK who was banned from the Klipsch forums at that time. https://www.stereonet.com/forums/topic/118361-k-horn-crossovers-from-ak-3-to-universal-to-es/?_fromLogin=1 ALK was supportive and offered a few modifications. Since then I have gone active with a miniDSP 2X4HD for each K-Horn doing xover, EQ, time alignment and phase correction. Cost a lot less than building the ES networks and sounds really good. I am now way off topic.

Mike, Here is a link to ALK's Universal that works at 4,500. I built one a while ago.

wuzzer, looking good. Have you done a sweep of the Heresys yet ? Be good to see a plot of the Heresys on their own, then a plot of the Heresys with the THT.

wvu80, I think a Topping D10B (USB in Balanced output - https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/topping-d10-balanced-review-usb-dac.25094/ ) and a pair of TRS to TRS cables to the Topping PA5 would be the simplest. I am a sucker for new toys and have a PA5 on order to , as you put it, "play around with", should be down under in a week or two.

jorjen you are a self confessed passive XO guy! What speakers are you thinking of using these on ? The beautiful Jubilees here - I agree totally with Marvel. If you are going active, go with DSP. The biggest improvement I found on my tri-amp project was when I flattened the phase using FIR filters. The filters I developed for my DCX464 and Eliptrac would be a good starting point if you are thinking of using your DCX462 drivers with Eliptracs.

That I have a lot to learn. When I swapped the miniDSP outputs with Bass to the N-Core amp and Mid to the NAD I noticed two things immediately, 1. Bass tighter and maybe even a bit louder on the N-Core than it was on the NAD 2. Residual noise in the horn was different and a bit louder with the Mid on the NAD amp. No more frying bacon, rather a machine like hum. Only noticeable with my ear within a few inches of the Eliptrac horn mouth. I fixed the noise problem by adding an L-Pad to cut the DCX464 by 6db and re measured the levels and adjusted the miniDSP output channel gains. When tri-amping you connect each driver directly to its amplifier, no crossover network in between knocking a few db off, so when that driver is 110db at 1m for 1w and is mounted on a horn it is a very efficient transducer so unless the amp chain noise floor is very low it is going to be audible. But the biggest change came later when I redid the EQ and rePhase settings, here are the curves https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/195572-bc-dcx464-as-the-mid-hi-drivers-for-a-k-horn/&do=findComment&comment=2586957

The circuit that ALK gave us to calculate values for different cross over frequencies has an 8.2 ohm resistor across the input to lower the input impedence to 4 ohms, leave that resistor out and you have an 8 ohm impedence. The low pass network is different to the ES700 circuit and when I queried ALK about this he said it was a good idea at the time but there is no difference in performance.

sidu, ALK has the details of how to calculate ES networks on his website under in his white paper called A case for extreme slope crossover networks. I built ES networks - https://www.stereonet.com/forums/topic/118361-k-horn-crossovers-from-ak-3-to-universal-to-es/

I have not heard DaveA's SMAHL tweeters but have read many satisfied user posts. My 1990 K-Horns mounted the K-77 flush with the front of the motorboard with z brackets that were screwed into the back of the motorboard. A google search for z brackets will bring up examples. This old thread shows them, Crites may have them. You would have to do some minor hacking to the motorboard to mount them. I have not seen mention of chamfering the exit of the K-401 mid horn so I suspect that it would not make much difference to the sound. As far as phase alignment goes, I suggest that you get SPL frequency flat and the drivers time aligned first, then go down the rabbit hole of phase alignment via FIR filters on the miniDSP 2X4 HDs. I found there is a lot of measure, tweak, load new config, measure, tweak, load new config ...... and go nuts and restore to the config I saved before starting applying the latest brain fart. Start again in a few days.