it's Heresy World

[colterphoto1]

footnote for interested parties

I purchased the Pro Cinema Surrounds model KPT1201's from an eBay auction. They were probably gotten from a small theater that went out of business. I did not buy these directly from Klipsch.

[bhendrix]

I anxiously awaited your and Roger's review and comments, especially about the 1201.

As I recall, Michael, the 1201 crossover is configured with the THX curve. Did you remove/bypass the THX curve or was that intact during your listening

[colterphoto1]

Everything played bone stock.

I'll let Roger go first with the telling of the tale.

[IndyKlipschFan]

Well, where do I start? Or even end? This is a work / quest in progress for me. I will apologize before hand this might be a long rant, but bear with me.. Please....

I had a fantastic day in spending it with my resident historian and professor of all things Klipsch, Michael on Wednesday! I have learned a lot of things about just HOW and WHY speakers sound a certain way from
Michael. He patiently, again, shows me for the 20th time things like drawing out a crossover
and showing where the signal path goes and what parts do what, as we repaired and tested some
different offerings he had in his new big workshop / garage.

Several hours into the "what if" scenarios on certain speakers and lunch with some great chineese food, we got back to the topic of my love of singing and what and why I liked certain set ups better than others. As far as singing, we all hear to some extent a warmness and clarity in the midrange... So much so that PWK said we "live in that mid range" as well. When I built my HT, I had originally gone with Cornwalls, but Arvis Cannon III (Trey) said, "Roger, if you really like the K horns sound dynamics n feel, get instead La Scalas all around. If that sound pleases you, you can get some good subs and you will be in heaven." Trey is almost always 100% right... and yes, I feel my HT is outstanding too. So I guess what were trying to achieve is a feeling of is it live and real sounding to us. (Not what some spec sheet sais, not some article from a intellectually constipated reviewer, but rather what WE think, We feel We hear emotionally too.) When Trey played two of the KSW 120 THX Subs with the KA 1000 amp at a early pilgrimage in Indy with a pair of La Scala's, I was hook line n sinker in love with "THAT sound" all over again! It is magical to me. I listen to 2 channel all the time in my HT with La Scala's and the THX subs with just the music in stereo. Just as I am now typing this too.. I have the "Soundscapes music channel" on from Comcast, with beautiful new age piano and effects and yes to me.. It seems just ALIVE and wonderful.

So for me.. Back to singing and now singing Karaoke, that first step, of course, was to hear music and vocals on a great pair of "reproducers" such as Klipsch. I was at Michaels with 5 speakers 4 of which were Heresey like and a easy (a vs experiment and was a good chance to hear the options. And yes... some do sound better than others.. When I used to sing in top 40/ cover bands in HS and College, one monitor mix was always dry with my vocals turned up with the band mixed in. The other monitor was wet with my effects. I did this, so I had an idea what I sounded like, and what the room was hearing too. When I started singing Karaoke at home, I did the same with Cornwalls only playing the music.. And Heresey speakers on top of those for the vocals. I had them pointed back at me in a large basement at my old house. It is / was an awesome combination too.

I have been neglecting singing for a few months.. OK, many months... It is a passion / stress reliever for me really. At 47, it is a silly hobby I guess, but it keeps me home at night. LOL I am now blessed that my 2 kids ages 5 and 7 also love to sing. My wife tolerates it, and me as well. I am learning no matter how well I might nail the style with a song in my range and pull it off, really getting the song right, my kids can blow me away with the cuteness factor in 2 seconds to grandparents, friends, and other people here... LOL. And I am OK with that too. I can pass on the torch so to speak. Maybe I have a future singer / performer as well when they get older. For now, I can teach them how to sing properly with a microphone, showing some mic tips, and hopefully really create a atmosphere for them, that singing is fun, enjoyable to yourself, and a gift to share with others. In the long run, I hope it enables them to have no stage frieght at all in performing. This will help them in public speaking, in meeting strangers, and life 101 in my book.

So on to Michael and our afternoon experiment.

With no EQ and a 200 WPC JBL amp with a ipod.. We approached a very unscientific test to hear what we liked playing through what speakers before us. It was a real treat to hear the 262's, as these were specifically created for Vocals too.

So on to my review...

KP 301's, A great full range speaker.. A Cornwall on steroids... Great 3 way.. but a little muddy for me in the vocals.. Compared to the others. (Sorry)

KPT 1201... Really unfair here... it is a cinema speaker... No hiss or sizzle in the high end at all.. very flat maybe too much to feel alive for me, but would be a great surround speaker... Dead silent and only give you the info that is fed to it too. No hiss at all.

KP 262 In the sweet spot, this was a good vocal speaker as designed.. Not enough high end.. for me..but the vocals almost seemed to push out of it at a higher level... I feel it would be interesting to hear these in a stereo pair...Very defined sweet spot too. off axis, not quite as good...

Not shown here next was a Heresy HI. It was old.. Micheal said needed to be refreshed... I thought going into this, the cute industrial ones with metal trim would be the the hands down favorite. I had sang through these in 1980- 1985 ish... I was surprised.. it was a little dull and it seemed to almost be out of gas.. Musically. Again, after refreshed, it might be a LOT better... But it is probably at least 25 to 30 years old too. (I know my birch raw 1979- 1980 ish Heresey's sound a LOT better than this pair.) Then again, Michael said these were run hard as band / PA drummer type roadie speakers...and it showed.. They are also really really heavy too.

Next was the KP 250's. OK now were back to normal. I know "this sound" and the three way works well too. I hear all of the notes, nothing is pushed and that classic in my head Klipsch sound is there... Probably happy here..... We were almost done at this point.

Michael then said, "You have a pair of the KSM 12 II's Roger, have u heard them side by side?" Of course not, so let's listen too. OK, it is a 2 way but seemed smoother in the highs than all the rest (It is newer too) I know Monitors are notoriously supposed to be flat n dull but this was smooth in the bandwidth and clean and clear, and as luck would have it, my favorite from all the others? Go figure...?? The speakers I had away in the closet, had the best vocals for me... The KSM 12 II's to be fair did not go quite as low as some of the others... but again vocals were just wonderful both male and female too. (Well that is what they were created for..) Ad some EQ at home, I bet I could / will make these even a tad better too.. LOL

So my pic for now.. KSM 12 II's for vocals.... I will let you know how I like them at home later....

Sorry so long! As always, Michael is such a great host, he served me with Diet RockStar drinks, and he heard my bad jokes and wild stories from Las Vegas. A True friend indeed!

Roger

[Arky]

Nice write-up Indy.

[colterphoto1]

Thanks for sharing an afternoon at Roadie's! It's always a pleasure having Roger over and sometimes we takes things apart and sometimes we just sit and listen. Last Wednesday was a bit of both.

Klipsch Mentor Trey Cannon had just been over a couple nights before and had run me through how to draw a network schematic from eyeballing the crossover itself. I already had a good idea of circuit architecture and what it did to the signal arriving at each driver so giving Rog a primer on this was piece of cake. I think he gets it. One day we may take apart all those LSI's and tweak them but since they'e in close boxes, why bother?

I started with my little walnut decorator Heresies, wanting to inventory them to see what was inside there. Every time I take a speaker apart I put door seal on it and check all connections. Today we were checking some CT125 tweeters and after hooking one up to a separate xover and placing on top of the cabinet we 'sock swapped' the tweeters by taking a sock/rag and alternately stuffing it in one tweet or the other. Both of us preferred the output of the K77M, so my speakers will stay stock. I'll try this with some other cabinets just in case it was an anamoly.

That was really all I wanted to do with Heresies. I have a pair of BEC reworked E2 networks, but since I only have one pair of Heresy with the E2/K53 setup and have the caps to do those, these will get shipped to Marshall.

The listening evaluation with other 12" speakers was the highlight of the day. We just kept picking up speakers and adding them to the stack (and we can create quite a stack over here) until we couldn't make sense of it any more. Roger's impressions are unique to his perspective of singing through monitors. Without such a voice I cannot dispute or confirm what he heard. Next time I'm going to have him actually sing through the speakers though! We stacked them all as closely as possible with horns oriented correctly (the KPT1201 is a square tractrix so it didn't matter) The trick was getting all the odd shapes with their motorboards perpendicular to the line of fire. There was trapezoid, monitors, surround configurations in the mix.

Up front I knew the KP301 would be more full bodied because of it's much larger cabinet and 15" driver. This speaker is a fave of mine and I intend to compare it to trap cabinet the KP362 one day. In my mind it blew the others away for bandwidth and efficiency. So no contest.

Let's discuss the other four. KSM12II is two way monitor with pretty small volume, ported, and high crossover point. It's aim it to deliver hot vocal sound and not blow up. The KP250 is an industrial Heresy with the K42 woofer, it's ported which sacrifices LF for efficiency, for a good all-around do-everything sound. The KPT1201 is a pro cinema surround and is THX certified, hence the purposeful rolloff at 17k, but deadly response, very smooth. The KP262 is a smaller version of the KP362 with a 60x40 horn for longer throw. It's built for small arrays in houses of worship and we have the word that it was voiced with the voice (follow that) in mind. It's usually going to be reproducing the spoken and sung word. We rolled in some KSM2 large cabinet monitors (the drummer's dream), that are based on CW mid horn/driver and K43 15" woofer with ported cabinet.

More tomorrow, I need to get back to beddies. More on the comparisons later.

I did want to say that if our little afternoon was enough to get Roger to pick up the microphone and rediscover the joys of singing, then it was a day well worth it. Roger has a fantastic voice and I know he derives a lot of pleasure from his karaoke system, alone or with the kids. His KSM12 monitors are quite nice, and having given them a run down with some 'better' speakers, they are ideal for his situation and I think he appreciates them more for their positive qualities.

yer buddy,

Michael

[colterphoto1]

and here's my little workbench area in the corner of the shop.

To the left are hardware parts bins over a shelf with small parts bins, under which is a rack for rolls of wire with shelfs for crates of cables

The old workbench was my Dad's. He always had it painted Craftsman Red so a few years back I refreshed it with a second layer of 3/4" plywood and fresh red paint. keep my first Craftsman tool box there for small bench tools, solder station, and heat shrink gun. Mostly been fixing crossovers and building up cables. I build a lot of cables for some reason.

The big white binder has the spec sheet/manual to every major piece of gear I own, organized by 'how to articles, then following signal flow with line conditioners, effects boxes, eq stuff, amps, and Klipsch speakers, then other.

On the right is another set of wire shelves with JBL/Urie 6360 amp, ipod other sources. Piles of unused electronics and extra small amps, stuff to be repaired, Roadies complimentary beveridge bar (ok water and Rock Star), and stuff

This all fits along the 12' wall of what will be sectioned off as a 12x16 'clean room' that will be protected from shop dust and be easier to heat/cool. Along the back wall of this area are some commercial shelving units packed with Klipsch smaller pro speakers, unused residential speakers in cartons, and parts. Another wire shelf holds just horns and drivers!

sorry it's not neater, it's how I live....

[IndyKlipschFan]

I feel likeThe Roadmaster band in 93 here....now

U gotta laugh We grew up with these guys... Now we look like them now... hahahahahahahaha

I was at this concert too...... heheheheheeh

[Arky]

sorry it's not neater

Holy crap, is that your new shop?[:|][]

Nice putting your dad's bench to use.

[IndyKlipschFan]

It is a very big cool shop. You should be proud Michael.

Gonna be awesome in the summer when you can just keep the doors n windows open!

[colterphoto1]

KP pro 'Heresy' sized speakers for comparison.  For potential buyers of my KP262 cabinets. 

 

I still have all these cabinets, as well as a few other of the smaller Klispch pro speakers. Recently did some SMAART testing and plotting response curves. Will get those from my friend soon and post as well as doing another listening evaluation. 

 

Since then I've added a fresher pair of HIP to the mix, and KP172, KP110 to the collection. It'll be interested to see all the curves, not quite sure how to display them all but stacking 2-3 per chart of somewhat similar curves seems to visually show the differences in response. 

Edited February 24, 2015 by colterphoto1