MenloBob

Sent you a DM.

Maybe my memory is fading from Pilgrimage already, but with my latest DSP settings my K510 setup reminds me most of the Jube demo than anything I heard in the Heritage room. The k510s fill the entire room with sound. It still amazes me how much directional control such a small horn can have. One of the key design considerations for my build was that I have exactly one place in the house where I could place these speakers. Essentially the problem I was trying to solve is given the width of a k510 how much speaker could I squeeze next to the columns of the fireplace without protruding too far into the window frames. I did build the horn enclosures independently from the bass bins so I could aim the horns, but so far I haven’t found any significant sound improvements by doing so. One of my favorite things to do when I have the house empty enough is to listen to a bunch of instrumental SRV, especially Riviera Paradise about the same SPL as the Jube demo in Hope. They K510s give me goosebumps every time. These would never replace a pair of Jubes if I had the space, but they are definitely in the ballpark. My hat’s off for @Chief bonehead Roy Delgado for developing the K510. For it’s size there isn’t anything comparable in my opinion.

Ever end up building anything with these?

Claude - Is this because horn loaded bass bins are inherently lower distortion due to their higher efficiency? Or because the direct radiator bass bins tend to use more than one driver?

I think this is your best value path forward. A/4500 xover plus new tweeters is $500ish. That alone will give you brand new xover caps and a better xover frequency to the mid horn. You might find with that you don't really need the additional $350 mid drivers. You have to do the xover and new tweeters together, but after that you can do the rest over time. Looking forwards to hear about your progress.

I've also been thinking of getting a spare miniDSP 2x4HD for experimentation. I'd be willing to set it up with the stock 510 crossover and PEQ settings. Much smaller to ship around than the EV.

I have spare 904 HF stands to donate to the cause.

I'll experiment with 500hz on my 510s tonight.

I think the question Joseph is really getting at is he has older LaScalas that he wants better sound from. Should he go with an active K510 or a crites rebuild of the drivers and crossovers in the LaScalas? Personally I’d go with the K510s, I just think they are magical speakers. Some of that might be confirmation bias on my part, since I’ve been jonesing for them since first reading about them here some 15 years ago. But quite a lot of it is the secondary benefits of all active two way, which gets the most out of each driver. And objectively everyone that’s heard my new KLF-510 build loves the sound, so there’s that. The other side of the coin is this is an expensive upgrade. You can get by with a miniDSP 2x4HD with a good attenuator on the HF channels for $250. Added to the 904-HF bundle that’s about $1500, assuming an extra amp lying around somewhere. I don’t know what a full crites LS rebuild runs maybe $750 tops? So is an active 2 way 510 setup worth double the investment of rebuilding a LS? I vote yes.

How much space do you have to work with?

Have you measured these? What's the F3?

Thanks for the Shoutout.

Maybe when they went to the 691 version?

Yeah I purchased a new 904-HF bundle, which includes the K510, a stand and the 691 branded b&c. I’m happy with the sound of the 691 and don’t see a need to upgrade any time soon. That being said, if I happened into a source for TADs I’d probably jump on it.

Thanks, I’m really happy how they turned out. I’m planning to add one crossbrace before I do final glue up before painting. Right now they are only screwed together so I could disassemble after measurements in case I needed to make changes. But they measure so good I didn’t see any need to make changes so I’ll be finishing them up in their current configuration. Probably wait until my parents leave as I’ve taken up enough of his vacation out here with the build to date..

Cutting baffles.. I used a circle cutting jig with a router to cut two holes in four baffle boards. Each motorboard is a sandwich of 2 3/4 boards. The inset depth for the KappaLites was almost exactly 3/4", so I cut the two front baffle boards to the exterior diameter of the woofers, and the back baffle boards to the smaller interior driver clearance diameter. KappaLites mounted to the front of the motor board. Motorboard is inset 3/4" to look like a heritage cabinet. Back view of motorboards which are attached with a ridiculous amount of pocket screws. I will also add some bracing when I glue up the cabs. I built these over Memorial Day weekend and I had the choice of building braces and not finishing the speakers or skipping the braces and seeing how they sound. Guess which one I chose? Just waiting for backs and wiring..

The horn cabs interior are 15x9.5" which fits the K510 snugly inside the frame. I had thought of making a single cabinet, but the K691 magnets are huge and a single cab would have been quite heavy. I finish nailed in some maple 1x2 blocks for flush mounting the K510s into the frame. Horn test fit into enclosure.. K691s off the horn to remove the bundled stand mounts. Drivers mounted into the open rear enclosure. Then sand down some supports for the drivers..

Before beginning I swung by my local Woodcraft to get Kreg pocket hole screws for the build. Of course they had this great workbench with clamps on sale.. Not having completely simulated the response before building, I decided to do initial construction completely with screws. I wanted to be able to disassemble and make modifications if it didn't measure well. Now that I'm really happy with the response I'll disassemble and glue all the joints and then re-screw to make them extra strong. First I built the two bass bin cabs. The kreg clamps made it easy to get everything perfectly aligned and square. The backs are pocket screwed to the cabinet from the backside for removal. I nailed in a few cleats to hold the back in the proper position when the speaker is resting on it's face. Next up horn cabs..

Time for some build photos. A couple of months ago I put together a couple of CAD designs for two different K510 builds. Initially I thought I might start with modifying a couple of 80s vintage H2 to be the bass bins. Based on Claude's advice to Emile on a different thread I also put together a version with dual twelves. In March I ordered the K904-HF bundle from Cory at @MetropolisLakeOutfitters. Once these arrived I set them up with a couple of old Paradigm Studio 60v1s I use as the bedroom system as the bass bins. The K510s sounded great even with the undersized Paradigms. Based on the sound of the K510s, I knew I wouldn't be satisfied with a single driver approach. The speakers have to fit right next to the fireplace on each side or there's nowhere else in the house they could go. One thing I knew I needed to do was to hear a bunch of the large Klipsch speakers, especially Jubes before getting underway. So of to Pilgrimage for the first time, where I got a lot of encouragement that I was headed in the right direction... My wife had a four day trip planned for Memorial Day weekend and my Dad's in town from Virginia so time to get going. I put together a plan on paper and then made a cut sheet with an app on my iPad. Three sheets of 5x5 3/4 Baltic Birch from a local mom and pop lumber yard (Bruce Bauer in Mt View for anyone in the Bay Area following along.) I chose them because they have a really nice, old table saw and staff that knows how to use it. They cut up the sheet goods to my plans and everything was dead on. About $300 for the plywood cut plus a bunch of 1x2 maple for brackets. I tried a few models in WinISD, but gave up and guestimated the design based on the small sealed volume suggested by Eminence for a single driver, doubled for two drivers with a little extra for fudge factor. One great advantage to active DSP with a sealed enclosure is the volumes don't have to be exactly tuned in the design phase. The K510s are exactly 15" wide so I used this as the baffle width so the bass cabs and horn cabs would have matching width. Was kinda going for the look of how a Belle top sits on top of it's bass bin. I'm glad I made separate top and bottom enclosures, the tops are very heavy on their own with the giant K691 magnets. I measured my sitting ear position as 42" and used that as the center of the horn. The total height is just shy of 48" and fits perfectly under the mantle of the fireplace. Working down gave a bass bin height of 36", 34.5" baffle. Dividing the needed volume gave a depth of 11". Next up, cabinet construction..

There's a separate thread for it now:

Can you get any response graphs out of the ease data?

Speaker components: $2500 (let’s leave new tools out of the equation ) IcePower amps build: $600 DSP and CCA: $400 $3500 has to be the new system bargain of the century for this sound... (Excepting used gear)

There was a pair here in the Bay Area for sale a couple a weeks ago that I went and had a listen to before starting the build. I was thinking I might just buy them and skip all the carpentry and sell off the K510s. But like 402s, they are huge in person and I'd never get them in the house. I didn't listen to them for long but they sound great. But my KLF-510s weren't as expensive and are within 25% of the Danleys I'd say.

If I had it all to do over again I'd use 2 of the Hypex Fusion 503 plate amps for a 2.5 way. 6 channels of nCore amplifiers, 4 for each Kappa at 500w and 2 100w for the 510s. Plus integrated DSP for not that much more than a Xilica 8 channel DSP. Filter out the mids from the bottom Kappa. A pair of fusion 122s is the ideal choice for a new active setup on Jubes. 4x125 of super low distortion nCore amps with built in DSP for way less than a Xilica. Hey there's always upgrades...

Done. Great meeting you at Pilgrimage. Let me know if you’re ever in the Bay Area for a listen and a martini. I won’t make yours dirty..