Al Klappenberger

I have had several customers do exchanges with various brands of caps. Most perople hear very little difference. I really believe most people will not hear a difference. It is normal human nature to hear what they expect to hear and believe what they expect to believe. That is why double-blind studies are always employed to make serious comparisons of anything that would otherwise require subjective judgments. Remember too that I only use the Solen caps in the kits for the 24+24 uF pair. All the other caps are Sonicaps. A single 24 uF Sonicap costs me $22 in quantity of 25. That's $88! Is it worth if for a kit? They are $31.60 each retail! Of course, if a customer wants to upgrade the caps and believes it's a good Idea, that's all it takes to actually MAKE it a good idea. To tell a customer there is definitely an improvement with the high priced caps even if you can't hear it is selling him something he might not need just to make more money in markup for myself. I prefer to be honest. I believe most people will not hear a difference. Al K.

wsd, I was curious about the foam. The extra mounting holes were only put there so that shorter screws could be used. I didn't want a fewer number of longer screws to protrude through the side of the woodwork! Three should hold it fine. BTW: Here's the thread describing the development of this network: http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/t/120300.aspx Al K.

wsd, I am surprised to see it mounted on that partition behind the "cup" hole. I didn't think it would fit there. Did you reuse the old cup or make a new cover? You MUST restore an air-tight seal where the cup was mounted. The way the cable goes through the hole implies you have left it open. You MUST seal it! Does the cable simply connect to terminals mounted on a cover located below the picture? Al K.

That driver has a 1.4 inch throat. None of the horns we talk about here will fit it. You would need to do some looking to find a 1.4 inch horn. Maybe Dave GetHover might make one if you want to try it. The specifications look perfect for the Khorn with an upgraded crossover. The stock crossovers depend on the 6 KHz upper limit of the K55 to work. As to the Solen FastCap versus Sonicap comparison, you best check the price tag! The Sonicaps BETTER sound better! Remember that I put them in the Universals I build and in the signal path of every other high-end network I build. The Solen caps are only used to make the price tag reasonable for the more economical stuff, like the kit and the AP12 series. Be sure too of what you are hearing. The placebo effect is never far from any of us. If you spend more money on something it WILL sound better even if it isn't! Nobody is immune, and that includes me! AL K.

Rudy, I like that! It's another pie in the face for Bill Gates! Al K.

I think all the measurements should confirm what I always say: Ignore the published impedance data. It's BULL $HIT! They are just nominal numbers that generalize what "category" they roughly fall into. 8 Ohms, 16 Ohms, 4 Ohms.. Yeah RIGHT! I just got a pair of B&C DCX50 2-inch coaxial drivers. Their impedance is "called" 8 Ohms. The tweeter section is more like 6 Ohms and the squawker section is roughly 12 Ohms. I'm developing a Linkwitz-Riley crossover at 9 KHz for it. The design will be at 6 Ohms with a transformer to attenuate the two by 10 dB and swampers will put everything back to a real resistive 8 Ohms. The midrange Zo plot is below. Al K.

The plot seems to look like 6 Ohms at about +36 degrees polar Zo at 400 Hz. That is 4.85 +j3.5 Ohms rectangular. It is 4.85 Ohms in series with 1.39 mHy. Is that typical for a K53 driver? Is that waht it's supposed to be? Al K.

Both machines I tried it on were XP. It would not work on either. An inconsistent product is still thumbs down in my book. Al K.

Put the - on 2 and the + on 5. Al K.

0-4 is 3.0 dB 2-5 is 3.8 dB X-4 is 5.5 dB 0-3 is 6.0 dB Al K.

The general consensus is that an intermediate setting is best. Between 0-3 and 0-4 on the 3619 there is X-4. That is where I set them. You might also try 2-5. This is just a bit "cooler" then 0-4. That means lifting the - lead of the K55 off ground. Al K.

I had the exact same thing happen to me! Lee Clinton bought one and found you had to wait several minutes before it would work. He sent it to me to try. I loaded the software on two different computers and both acted exactly as you describe! I could not do the test lead short zero calibration! Thumbs DOWN on the WT3 woofer tester! [N] Al k.

Duder, I have found that feet of any sort just leave marks in the carpet. Spikes that rest on a tiny point protrude through the carpet and sit on the floor below without making a mark. An easier way is to forget feet altogether. If the weight of the speaker is distributed over the entire area below, that leaves no mark either. If you have hardwood floors you need some sort of soft feet though. Al K.

Dave, That CNC machine is a real asset. I wish I had enough work to justify buying one. You should link to that U-Tube video from your web site, Al K.

Dave, What about the complex taper. I thought that had to be done on a big band saw with both the top and bottom held to the correct angle in a jig. Al k.

Trey, I was initiall surprised that you knw Max, but after thinking a minute or two, I recall talking to him about his having asked you about something or other. I have no idea what it was about though! I know he had a relationship with Jim Hunter. That was in fact one of the main reasons he kept a low profile. He wanted to make sure that relationship was never jeopardized by saying something he was asked to keep under his hat! Al K.

The AP12 series are computer optimized combination of a 3rd order lowpass and a second order highpass. The output inductor of the lowpass is 1 mHy in all the designs. It is simply left out when I build them. Since the 1 mHy woofer voice coil does not function as a part of the attenuation slope, the filter acts like a 2nd order. I call the entire networks 2nd order for that reason. That's the reason for the sereis name "AP12". That stands for "All-Pole 12 db / octave". The computer model of the AP12-500 is below. Note the 1 mHy inductor at the output. It's also assumed to be infinite Q with the load simulating the woofer resistive component. Al K.

Here's the plot.. AL K.

Yes, I do have a plot of that. It's only flat to about 6 KHz. I just changed to a new computer and I haven't installed the scanner stuff yet. I'll upload the plot when I get it put on the new machine. I was able to equalize mine using RANE parametric equalizer so it was flat to about 15 KHz, as I recall. Al K.

Caps in a zobel have a resistor in sereis with them. A low Q cap has a resistance internally. That is what makes them low Q by definition. That being the case, why spend extra money for a cap with high Q and then stick a resistor in series with it? You might as well save some money and go with an electrolytic! You could use a polypropylene, but why? In a woofer filter, the caps are all operating at low frequency. This is where a cap has it's best Q (Q=X/R) so mylar caps work quite well in woofer filters. You can even use electrolytic caps, but I think it's a bit "tacky"to do so. Al K.

I checked out what effect the old AA .254 mHy inductor would have where the .20 mH should be with the computer. It causes the response of the tweeter filter to sag at the crossover. It's not as bad as the obvious glitch in the passband of the stock AA filter though. You still need to replace it with a .20 mHy Litz inductor ASAP. AL K.

I suggest you move the squawker tap from #4 down to #3. #4 is way to hot! BTW: I'm not sure what you mean by " I used the existing inductors". You shouldn't because thier values are very WRONG and they are of poor quality. The only one you might be able to get away with reusing is the woofer inductor. If you do that the 24+24 uF should be replaced by 20 + 20uF or a single 39 uF. Al k.

"Gentle SLOP"! No, that wasn't intentional. I suppose some would want to accuse me of making a Freudian slip though! The real reason is that the spelling checker didn't catch it because it's actually a word. Al K.

Dave, I think the nice soundstage you hear is mainly the ES5800 extreme-slope crossover. The effects of driver interference due to the gentle slopes of most networks really messes things up far more than people realize. It even sounds cleaner because you only hear each sound once rather then first from the tweeter and again from the squawker since it's farther away. I used to always hear a smearing on highs that was most noticeable on the string section of a symphony orchestra that simply went away when I first installed the ES7500 prototypes. I always thought it was simply the state of the art in recording techniques, but I think it was simply the effects of gentle slop crossovers. Al K.

If there are no passive filters between the driver and the amp, impedance makes no difference. BEWARE though that an amp with a turn-on thump can destroy a driver if it is connected directly. Al K.