antelope

quote: Originally posted by jwgorman: Antelope I must ask what it is you find redeeming about Klipsch at all? If you chop off the top horns and are left with a PWK designed bass cabinet why not pay an Pro Sound engineer to design a push/pull dual woofer system using JBLs pro woofs? This arrangement (at least in theory) results in comperable lower bass distortion. Then you could be done completely with PWK, tailor the tonal balance and--at least to a certain extent--cabinet size to your room/liking. I guess then you'd really show us, by golly! I happy that you now have nothing about which to complain.(Though judging from your posts I don't believe that for a minute) So then I'm led to belive you are bragging up your UBERDESIGN to lowly "bad-listeners" or are merely wild-eyed zealous. Please provide specifics, including component values, etc, about your mods. Send photos if you have them. If you wish to discuss science fine. If you wish to rehash JBL marketing and your complete and utter acceptance of it this is really not the forum.(IT'S PWK's BOARD MAN!) Also, leave the condescension at home. It really is quite pretentious of you to cast aspersions on the listening/engineering skills of members of this board. Especially considering the admitted limitations of your own. Until you are ready to play nice in Paul's sandbox...FINIS! JWG Bad Listener PWK Lackey General Know Nothing 1. I rather like and admire the Klipschorn Woofer. 2. I am not a scientist nor an engineer but people who are have critized the Khorn midrange/driver. They say its poorly designed. I agree. One such group is the current Klipsch management who are now using the traxtrix-type horn design. It's nothing like the Khorn midrange in appearance or in performance. It seems the first thing they got rid of with their recent Jubilee experiment was the old midrange! Quit attacking me for noticing! 3. You are entitled to believe what you want about the old Khorn design. So I am I. 4. I think Mr. Klipsch is a brilliant engineer, and I've read he's also a fine gentlement. None of which makes his poorly designed midrange horn sound any better. 5. Good sound tends to cost more money than lesser sound. That's life. 6. By "...ready to play nice in Paul's sandbox..." I presume you mean "perpetuate the Legend" and never critize the idol?

quote: Originally posted by oosting: I don't understand. Some say that the throat size is critical to smooth frequency response. Paul Klipsch was not modifying the throat size to improve the response of the squalker. He was modifying the PHASE PLUG. Please help me here. What's the Physics behind the assertion that throat diameter determines smoothness of frequency response. I thought the main determining factor was flare rate. Raggedness is proprotional to flare rate. When I say help me with the Physics, I mean give me equations, not hearsay. Ed O. I'm not a EE. Try the JBL Professional website, which discusses their "Optimized" horn series in the componets section. Much analysis went into the current designs. Phase plugs, throat size, flare rates (compounded) etc. To quote Drew Daniels (former JBL engineer): "Such transducers are acoustic transformers, and generally represent science and experimentation of the highest order when they are designed and executed correctly. It has taken over 40 years, aerospace-style dynamic finite-element analysis, the highest-tech materials, ten-year development cycles (I'm talking careers here), and endless tweaking and testing to get the near-theoretical performance the largest "professional" compession drivers provide."

quote: Originally posted by jwgorman: Let's see, First we buy a speak for $6000 a pair and then an additional $3000 in a mod. Obviously the economics of this equation prohibit Klipsch from using this horn on the Khorn. Maybe the Jubilee (If it's really not vaporware) has a similar plan. I must say however, that modern Khorns seem to be pretty smooth, particularly in the low and mid midrange. Having never heard a JBL prohorn take the place of Klipsch drivers I can't comment on the difference. It would be nice to hear them sometime. Having said that there are things one can do without breaking the bank and utilizing existing resources. Many feel the midhorn is a bit "hot" in terms of absolute tonal balance particularly in bi-wire mode. Fine, 3.3 ohms in series and 39 ohms in paralell and you've padded it a couple of db. I even have a friend who's made a jig to cut off the driver end of the horn and then rethread it for a JBL driver. This mod also opens up the throat. Many people swear by this mod and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I am not troubled by the Khorns run with a single cable from a Wright SOund Company 2A3 amp. BUt I appreciate your mods. To me, it represents one end of the spectrum with packing the back of the horns with rope caulk representing the other. BTW PWK says in a recent interview that the bass horn was a relatively easy thing to nail down after the first prototype suggesting that the majority of R&D went to the mids and highs. Personally, I feel they've done a pretty good job given budget contstraints. No doubt given a larger retail price they could make significant advances! JWG It's funny you mention caulking the upper cabinet! This is one of the things I tried! before I bit the second bullet (realizing the unfixable can't be fixed). It may be Mr. Klipsch spent lots of time developing the upper cabinet. I don't know? My feeling is the results of all that effort are poor. Everyone who I've spoken to (except those fundamentalists who have deified PWK) agree that the upper cabinet has problems. Klipsch dealers and factory reps. (retired) admit this. Also the current management of Klipsch is trying to correct the Khorn. There must be something wrong with it, eh? Many current Klipsch models use a tractrix-design horn, a technology which dates from the 1920-30s. As to cost, yes I've spent a lot of money, half of it on the excellent crossover/EQ/etc. unit. But hifi improves only with greater and greater cost. Half measures really waste $$ and the good listener is never really satisfied. Myself, I've run out of complaints.

quote: Originally posted by antelope: You say the modern Klipsch tractrix horns use a 1.5in. throat! Once again we (indirectly) are in agreement: the optimized JBL horns use the same throat size. My main point is the Khorn midrange horn is poorly designed. That particular equine is defunct, flogging may now cease! The Klipsch engineers must agree because they've designed the tractrix to come closer to the modern JBL optimized horns, and no one but you has anything favorable about the old design. My mod sounds great! The stock design sounded bad! Finis. ****** Another point. You have offered me fifty bucks for my midrange horns, tweeters and crossovers. The world can see how highly you value these careless designed components!

quote: Originally posted by filmofreddy: Dear antelope, my "silly" throat explanation was used as an over simplification for our audience who may or may not know what the heck we are talking about. Just for academic purposes you may want to re-measure your K400s' throat/gasket/and "actual" working area off the K55s' phasing plug behind the protective screen, I think you'll find no mis-match. I used a micrometer long ago on these units when modifiying the K 400 to take Altec & JBL 1" drivers. And again your update approach is certainly a viable(albeit)expensive approach to the problem. My only problem is again that rather flippant attack on Klipschs' engineering choices. You hate them,cool. I think they can improve in their present state, cool. But their are others who have much grander credentials then ours who consider them outstanding examples of the horn makers art. Regarding the jubilee. The only thing it shares in common with the Klipschorn is that its a corner horn and it suppossidly can be used against a wall ala JBL Hartsfield. Its' bass horn contains 2 12" drivers crossed over at 800cps to a Tractrix horn with I believe a 1.5 in. throat. The original K-horns were 2 ways back in the 40s'and Paul Klipsch has worked to eventually wind back up with a 2 way at $15000.00 a pair. One parting shot regarding correctly designed horns. The proper damping from a horn is imparted by its correctly designed flare rate and geometry not by the particular materials used in construction. I've heard dreadful as well as sublime JBL horns in wood,cast aluminum,and fiberglass and the same from other manufacturers. Most are now made from plastic(ugh) for cost reasons alone. If you plan on keeping your K-horn bottoms and hate the tops so much sell me those KKK(Kasual,Kareless,Klipsch)400 midrange horns and drivers, tweeters and xovers too. I'll give you $50.00! You say the modern Klipsch tractrix horns use a 1.5in. throat! Once again we (indirectly) are in agreement: the optimized JBL horns use the same throat size. My main point is the Khorn midrange horn is poorly designed. That particular equine is defunct, flogging may now cease! The Klipsch engineers must agree because they've designed the tractrix to come closer to the modern JBL optimized horns, and no one but you has anything favorable about the old design. My mod sounds great! The stock design sounded bad! Finis.

quote: Originally posted by filmofreddy: Dear Antelope, While I have no Quarrel with your Mod( We know JBL horns also as sound system designers and dealers)My critic if you will is in your assesment of Klipschs' engineering choices. You have 1977 horns with AA xover & K55V mid. In late 1979 Klipsch himself re-designed the phase plug architecture to address this "roughness" in response. This smoothed them considerably,unfortunatly Atlas the oem manufacturer of this driver redesigned the driver to use a crappy ceramic magnet and they lost their quality hence a change to an EV driver which was not as good as the Klipsch modified atlas driver. ALL 1 3/8 inch screw on drivers use a gasket to get a tight seal between horn throat and driver. Your JBLs' have a larger throat because they have a larger internal diaphram and are designed for a much higher maximum output than one inch drivers. Remember the Klipschorn is a home speaker and should not be held to the standards of sound reinforcement loudspeakers. As to your JBLs' being better I think they are pretty Damn fine also but, you paid $3000.00 for your top end and I believe using the Klipsch top end with some judicious mods you could have accomplished your goals in a much more economical fashion. I have Heysers' article also and his only complaint was the roughness in upper midrange response at the xover to the tweeter(which can easily be fixed electronicaly)Paul Klipsch spent MANY more years on the development of the top end than on the woofer. You obviously don't think he got it right, I think it needs help also, But Klipsch made excellent design choices 40 years ago when he designed the K400 mid horn and, with some electronic help, I'll put the Klipsch top end up against ANY JBL in the home(and have)and come out a winner. **** Another point: My troubled Khorns were vintage 1977, but the set Hayser tested were from the troubled 1986 era. Improvements without much improvement.

quote: Originally posted by pzannucci: Parts Express has some nice JBL Pro Bi-radial horns and Titanium drivers. A wee bit expensive but... If you visit the JBLPro site, you will see the response of those drivers drops off with in the very high frequencies with the Bi-Radial horns. If you wanted to have have a nice two way system without the shimmering highs, which I have a hard time handling, those would probably work out very nicely. Some might opt for equalization though. Peter Z. I haven't noticed any deficiency in treble response sans tweeter. A 3 or 4 dB boost in the EQ flatens things out nicely. Alternatively, one can always buy a modern horn tweeter. JBL has 2 or 3.

quote: Originally posted by filmofreddy: Dear Antelope, While I have no Quarrel with your Mod( We know JBL horns also as sound system designers and dealers)My critic if you will is in your assesment of Klipschs' engineering choices. You have 1977 horns with AA xover & K55V mid. In late 1979 Klipsch himself re-designed the phase plug architecture to address this "roughness" in response. This smoothed them considerably,unfortunatly Atlas the oem manufacturer of this driver redesigned the driver to use a crappy ceramic magnet and they lost their quality hence a change to an EV driver which was not as good as the Klipsch modified atlas driver. ALL 1 3/8 inch screw on drivers use a gasket to get a tight seal between horn throat and driver. Your JBLs' have a larger throat because they have a larger internal diaphram and are designed for a much higher maximum output than one inch drivers. Remember the Klipschorn is a home speaker and should not be held to the standards of sound reinforcement loudspeakers. As to your JBLs' being better I think they are pretty Damn fine also but, you paid $3000.00 for your top end and I believe using the Klipsch top end with some judicious mods you could have accomplished your goals in a much more economical fashion. I have Heysers' article also and his only complaint was the roughness in upper midrange response at the xover to the tweeter(which can easily be fixed electronicaly)Paul Klipsch spent MANY more years on the development of the top end than on the woofer. You obviously don't think he got it right, I think it needs help also, But Klipsch made excellent design choices 40 years ago when he designed the K400 mid horn and, with some electronic help, I'll put the Klipsch top end up against ANY JBL in the home(and have)and come out a winner. ******** Describing the shortcomings of ATLAS and EV drivers doesn't make me feel any better. Your point about the driver/horn-throat diameter is silly. The ugly resonances caused by the Klipsch design have nothing to do with whether it's driven at 90dB in a home or 140dB in an auditorium. Good design works, bad design doesn't. We seem to agree that the midrange response of the Khorn "needs help also". If Mr. Klipsch kept trying to improve the midrange, that midrange must have been flawed. Richard Hayser seemed to agree too. The truth is Klipsch sold thousands of Khorns with jagged midrange response. I suspect many people were unhappy with the sound of their Khorns because of this. They agreed without understanding why. I bought my Khorns from a former Klipsch factory representative! He couldn't stand them anymore. He agrees to this day. The present management at Klipsch is working on improving the Khorn. Hence the Jubilee prototype/experiment last year, which used an optimized tractrix (fibreglass?) mid/tweet horn. I guess we all agree now! Perhaps I've spent too much money on my speakers, but on the other hand it's impossible for a stereo system to sound too good! I feel I've bought a $20,000 sound and paid a total of $5,000 for it!

quote: Originally posted by filmofreddy: Dear antelope,R.E. "such casual,careless designs" Paul W. Klipsch ?????? As Jimmy Durante often said: "Ev-er-y-bod-y's a critic!" One independent critic of the Klipschorn was the late Richard Hayser of Audio magazine. In the November, 1986 issue he expertly reviewed the Khorn and found many nice things to say, except that he found the midrange response to be "jagged". My Khorns were jagged too! - its nice to agree with an expert! By jagged I mean there were audible gaps (holes, suckouts) in the midrange response. I found these suckouts annoying in the extreme. What bothered me the most was an apparent casualness about the upper cabinet design (including the crossover) as compared with the woofer. It appears that most of the design effort went into the magnificent woofer while little attention was paid to the actual performance of the midrange and tweeter. Hayser found this. I found this. Many people I spoke to in the HiFi community (Klipsch dealers and customers) found this too. There are 4 problems with the midrange horn in the Khorn system. The first is the throat of the horn is too narrow. If I remember correctly, the throat is about .75in. in diameter. The JBL horn that replaced it in my system has a 1.5in diameter. So, .44 inches² vs 1.77 inches². Four times the area. The second problem is the OEM driver output is WAY too narrow: only .5 inches (.2 inches²). The third problem is the mis-match between the driver diameter and the horn throat diameter. To "fix" this mis-match an orange rubber washer was placed in front of the driver output. It didn't work too well! The fourth problem is the design and materials used in the horn are not optimal. This in turn causes nasty honky ringing which has, I think, discouraged many people from buying horns. I became frustrated with the Khorn myself. After listening to them for 2 years I bought a pair of Studio Monitors from Paradigm. These are nice speakers but they put me to sleep (87 dB sensitivity) so I had to persevere with the Khorns (nobody would buy them anyway!) JBL claims their horns are optimized as to size, shape and materials. I think they are the best horns available. Much of the science that goes into the shape of the JBL horn was, I'm told, known in the 1930s. They certainly have improved my listening. I've run out of complaints about my horn system. Has everyone else?

quote: Originally posted by John Warren: Antelope, What did the JBL horns and CO cost? John About $3,000.

quote: Originally posted by lammers: Sounds great, who helped with the journey? In other words did you decide on the JBL mod's yourself? ****** My local JBL PRO dealer advised me about this mod. He's not afraid of horns because they are part and parcel of his business. I doubt a home-audio store would steer anyone toward JBL PRO horns? I guess this is a basic piece of advice: If you want help with a horn system, go to a horn dealer!

Seven years ago I bought a pair of Klipschorns which were built in 1977. The bass response was lousy until I accepted the oft-stated need for 2 solid clear corners. I bit the first bullett and rebuilt two corners in my living room. I now have at least 5 feet of clear wall coming from each corner. The walls up to 48", have 3/4in. plywood facing, glued and screwed to a continuous line of 2x4s, glued and screwed together. One wall is an interior partition where the cavity between 2x4s is filled with sand! These corners are SOLID! and the bass response is outstanding. I've never heard such natural, accurate, clean bass. The other woofers I've heard sound distorted and artificial by comparison. Over the last year I bit the second bullett: The realization that the midrange and tweeter horns and crossovers in the Klipschorn system are poorly designed, and to try to improve them is futile. I decided that a horn with only a 1/2in. throat (at the driver) is never going to sound smooth. The reputation of honkiness in horns is attributable to such casual, careless designs. The upper cabinets are now sitting in a closet where they will honk no more. I replaced the midrange with a modern, carefully designed, JBL PRO 2354 fiberglass horn, coupled with a 2447 compession driver. The new crossover is a totally 20-bit digital JBL PRO DSC 260, which also has a time allignment feature, full EQ, 29dB of cut, and a host of other important features. Like PWK I've decided there is really no need for a tweeter. My system is now smooth as silk, but silk with massive, effortless dynamics and zip for distortion. Klipschorns need only low powered amps to drive them. I have two 35-40 watt amps. These cost about $1400. Part of the money I spent buying a high efficiency system I saved in not buying big expensive amps.