Al Klappenberger

Jeremy, The combinations you have there will work since they total to the values you need, but I think you have overdone it a bit. It's the old law of deminishing returns. I would not parallel any more than three caps to get the total. Just two caps should do it! Al K.

Jeremy, Do a search for "great inductor face-off" here on the board. I did a technical review on several popular inductors. I think it was under "Odds and Mods" section. Al K.

Randy, Yep.. I remember that spring. It holds the framus to the Farteling-swivet! Al K.

Hi guys, My earlier off-the-cuff kidding about comparing Steve's home theater system with Qman's got me thinking. How can you make a comparison like that? Both setups were put together by two different guys with two different rooms and two different sets of goals. Both are gorgeous and both will no doubt sound great. I'm also thinking of the outright competitions that are held between car stereo buffs. I've not been to such a competition, so I don't know much about it, but it seems kind of silly to me. I'd like to hear what everybody thinks about this. Comments? Al K.

Steve, I was just kidding about the vote bit, of course! Both yours and Qmans setups are out of sight! Al K.

Steve, I agree with Seb, it's very impressive. Qman's setup is the only other one I can think of that is in the same league. Maybe we should get the webmaster to set up a vote on it when the male / female thing is over! Al K.

Clint, When I first started, my dad bought me a soldering gun that cooled off when I set it down. He know I would be buring holes in something too. Maybe even burning the house down! Go for it! http://www.web-span.com/alk/klipsch.html Al K.

Clint, If you want to save some money and you can swing a soldering iron, the details of my crossover design are right on the web to download. You could build them yourself. Al K.

Mark, It looks like you have had a lot of experience with Altec speaker components. I wonder if you might be able to identify the drivers that were on my old Malibu speakers. I edited out some of the comments about them in my earlier post because it sounded like rambling after I read it a second time, but they had a sectored horn that looked like yours but were smaller. Someone had put drivers from a larger horn on them. Do you know what model number they might have been? I would like to find out what I had. At the time I don't much about this stuff. It was about 1970 to 1972 that I had them. For that matter, have you heard of the Malibu model? Also, when you get some free time, could you please email me a larger version of the little insert of my network in your photo. I would love to see how you mounted them. Thanks! Al K.

Mark, DAAAHH! How dumb can I get. I just realized the sectored horns in my Altec Malibu speakers where the 800 Hz jobs. Yours are the big 500 Hz version! I think I need another cup of Coffee! AL K.

Derek, Yes, microwave transmission line filters are usually plated in silver. It is almost as good to plate them in copper and then a very thin layer of silver over that to stop the copper from oxydizing. I have actually done that. Silver is only a little lower resistance than copper. Using a larger gauge copper wire will be better than a smaller wire of silver and a heck of a lot less expensive. I use #14 AWG wire intended for automotive use on my networks. Al K.

Mark, Man, that's a serious looking set of speakers! It reminds me of the speakers I traded in for my Belles. They were Altec "Malibu". They used horns just like that (they might have been the identical same type) but ran them full range above 800 Hz. They had two 12 Inch woffers in an open port woofer. You have used the big sectored horn only as a midrange. I always thought using that big horn full range was stretching things a bit! Nice! Al K. By the way, I forgot to mention that I am proud to have my name on a piece of it!

I think the Celeron has no math harware in it. That makes it much slower on stuff like spreadsheets or anyhting that is math intensive. I think the Celeron is Intel's economy CPU. I am no expert on that stuff though. Al K.

Gil, Yes, I got a Mighty Mike II calibrated mike from Old Colony Sound Lab and a used Wavetek 188 sweep / function generator from eBay. I'm using a AC voltmeter to look at the output of the mike. This lets me do CW testing, full or partial sweeps and a warble tone of sorts. About all I can seem to do is verify the +-5 dB specks of the drivers. Attempts to measure absolute sensitivies and efficiencies is questionable. I can get in the ball park but I think my room response is messing things up. An anechoic chamber might help! I haven't got the gumption to haul the speakers outside. Al K.

Gil, Those wooden mid-range horns ar neat! What are you using for drivers? Do you have the equipment to run frequency response curves on them? Al K.

Tony, DAAAH! I forgot to ask!!! Sorry! Al K.

Hi K55V fans.. Good news and bad news! ... I spoke to Mr. Steve Albin at Atlas Sound today (September 27, 2000). I was given some very authoritative sounding information about the Klipsch K55V driver: The K55V WILL BE AVAILABLE again directly from Atlas sometime after the first of the year. There is a company who is trying to buy this exact driver for use in their production speakers and are pressing them for a prototype. The driver will still be designated the PD-5VH but will be a revision of the current production PD-5VH driver. If you order a PD-5VH from Atlas now, it will not be the correct driver to replace a genuine Klipsch K55V. It will not have the extended frequency response of the Klipsch K55V! The current production version only is flat to about 4200 Hz. I was told that the engineer who is working on the design for the upgraded PD- 5VH used to work for Klipsch and knows exactly what is expected of a K55V. Mr. Albin also indicated that he will long on to this board and post a message himself announcing when the upgraded PD-5VH will be available. Al K.

Jim, Fow whatever it's worth, before I had my Belle Klipsch I had a set of Altec "Malibu" speakers which used the 800 Hz crossover sectoered horns. I think it might have been the 811, but I an not sure. Anyhow, they had the 500 Hz driver on them (511?). It was a fine speaker, but I think the Belles sound better. It was a two-way system. The bass was two 12 inch drivers in a bass-reflex cabbinet. Al K.

DJK.. I can see that squawker driver isn't the right thing. I agree. If it's a PD4, I think you better replace it with something better! My network crosses over at 6 KHz and you would have a big hole in the response if you used it. Al K.

Hi Guys, yes, the K55V driver will require a tap on the T4 transformer that isn't there. You will have to replace the T4s with the UTC T2a upgrades and use tap #4. Th T4 only has tap #3. Al K.

Stanley, I have never had a chance to measure the tap position on any of the Klipsch autoformers except the T2A. I have a hunch that the T4 is simply a T2A with the unused taps removed to reduce cost. Why else would a single tap be marked "3"? Besides, tap 3 on the T2A is the right one for the K55M squawker. All this leads me to believe that the #3619 from Universal Transformer will work in the AL-3 perfectly. There's no guarantees though. It is possible to make fine adjustments to the ratios using the extra "x" tap on the #3619 by "floating" the ground return of the squawker and the 5 mHy inductor connected across it (AL-3) and connecting the common connection to a different tap than "0". This allows all sorts of possibilities. For example: connect, turns ratio, -dB x-3, .3234, -9.8 dB 0-2, .3548, -9.0 1-4, .4567, -6.8 0-3, .5012, -6.0 x-4, .5301, -5.5 2-5, .6452, -3.8 NOTE: This table does NOT apply to my network, only the Klipsch networks. Al K.

Tony, I hope that is just what I have done. Providing a matched imnpedance allows the filters to operate with a smooth response. I figure that helps. The big factor controling frequency response is the quality of the drivers, not the network! Al K.

Stig, Yes, you can replace the transformer with a resistor pad if you like. The theory behind the transformer is that it allows closer coupling between the squawker and the amp giving better damping then a pad. I have been told that Klipsch is the only speaker maker that uses transformers. Everybody else uses pads! The engineering details of the pad are that it must be designed to operate between 8 Ohms and the squawker impedance, which is actually 13 Ohms (I measured it) while yielding about 6 dB loss. Remember that it will replace the 10 Ohm swamping resistor also. You will also have to connect the tweeter inverted. Connect the + (red) wire to common and the - lead to the pad. I would not advise changing any other values or the number of elements in the filters. If you reduce the order of the filters you may run into phasing problems at the crossover. Al K. By the way, the values would be ("L" pad") 12.9 Ohms across the 2.2 uF cap (replaceing the 10 Ohm swamping reisitor) and 8.06 Ohms in series with the squawker. This will yield about 6.2 dB loss.

Tony, Thanks for the complements! By the way, some rescent research here has established that the new network, when set to the 2 - 5 position, comes extremely close to having the same squawker and tweeter levels as the "AA" network. The was for the K55V squawker. That seems to say that the K55M squawker should be set to a lower level. This is unproven however. You ears must still be the final judge. Thanks to all! Al K.

John, If you are building my network design and want to Bi-Wire it, you can do it this way: Separate the connection between the big 2.5 mHy inductor and the 39+1 uFd cap. Connect the woffer cable between the inductor and the amp. Connect the high frequency cable between the 39+1 uFd cap and the amp. It's that easy! Figuring out where and if you want the fuse is you problem though! Al K.