Bi-Amping K-Horns

[jcmusic]

Hey Colin, thanks so much for the time you spent on advising me.

Jay

[Dylanl]

I have pursued this same application but I have a question. I am currently running Dynaco Mark III's to my horns and SS Dynaco 410 to the bass bins. I have along with another purchase McIntosh received a Crown 2 channel active crossover ( its said to be a great vintage piece by many ). AL Klappenberger said that I should follow the ALK setup for Bi-AMP since those are the crossovers I am running and run an in-line active or passive filter to the bass bin from the SS amp at or around 500 - 400 HZ. I am currently running full signal and the bass is overpowering the horns. It seems the match is not there as you spoke of above. Others on this forum said that the natural roll off of the drive would be fine but I would have to test. So, what will the crossover do as I plan to put this in-line when back from traveling.

Thanks

[garyrc]

• The Klipsch RSW-15 subwoofer keeps up just fine with my Klipschorns while simultaneously accepting additional bass management assignments from the preamp's surround and center channels. I have the volume control on the side of the sub turned all the way up, but I have to turn the volume control for the sub on my preamp/control center down a little for some music (i.e., below 0). The balance was originally achieved by ear by setting the preamp sub channel at 0 (it goes from -12 to + 12), then adjusting the control on the sub, As I said, it ended up all the way up. A later check with the Radio Shack SPL meter from listening position agreed with my ears. I have the sub coming in at 40 Hz, which sounded better to me than at the THX recommended 80. The K-horns in my room do very well down to well below 40 (to about 35). After many trials, I decided to leave the K-horns operating all the way down. The K-horns are cleaner above 40 than the sub (another reason for setting the sub at 40), and not really dirtier at 30/35 -- they tend to get out of there (with no filtration) before they get too distorted. The surrounds (when used) and the center channel are robbed of a few dB between about 55 and when the bass management starts feeding the sub at about 40 (and above 40 with attenuation), but that;s O,K, with me. I like to preserve the clean sound of the K-horns as far down as possible.
• PWK tried bi-amping in 1972, and at least with the equipment he tried then, said it provided no audible improvement to the K-horn. He also said that several pairs of "golden ears" he had audition it could hear no improvement, including a guy who could reliably distinguish between the sound of a Marantz 9 and a McIntosh 275, two of the most luscious tube power amps of all time (they used McIntosh 275s at Wally Heider recording studio in San Francisco well into the late 70s, preferring them to anything solid state they could find). I can't access my Dope from Hope set right now, but I'm pretty sure the biamping missive was in 1972. It figures that the K-horn might show less audible improvement than many other speakers when biamped, because amplifiers have an easy time with K-horns.
• There was some article, somewhere, in the late 70s that indicated that there was a slight increase in distortion with biamping (with the set-up they used).
• The truth might be that many inefficient speakers might benefit a lot from the division of labor in biamping, but those as efficient as the K-horn, which are also as good as it is in revealing any anomalies, might benefit the least (with great amps and biamp circuitry), or actually sound worse (with different or inferior electronics).

[Dylanl]

Hmmm, don't know if I am in agreement with the last post. I would really like a comment on the question that I asked regarding Bi-Amping with those with experience or who have done it.

Thanks

[Colin]

If you have ALKs, I would do what Al said, he knows as much about crossovers as anybody

The Khorn bass is more like natural acoustic bass

Many people want the movie theater blast - hard to match to Khorns without very big and very powerful subs

A smaller amp on the bass bins might be a better fit, the peak power of my bass amp is ten times the peak output of my mid and high end tube amps

I beleive that ratio is important to acheive proper balance

[Dylanl]

Thanks, Colin I will let you know after I try.

[Crossman]

I also upgraded with Greg's V-Trac's and BMS drivers/ALK Universal's. Also like you, I thought they sounded great but the bass didn't have the punch that I like to hear. My solution was to built just the bass bin of a Bob Crites' Cornscala and use it as a subwoofer powered by a Dayton SA1000 with a ceiling of 275hz. The power on the Dayton is barely on and I get the punch I was looking for. If I listen to Brahms or Mahler I usually turn it off.

[Dylanl]

I don't want to add anything like a subwoofer. I want the most out of just the Khorns therefore bi-amping with active crossover.

[Coytee]

PWK tried bi-amping in 1972, and at least with the equipment he tried then, said it provided no audible improvement to the K-horn. He also said that several pairs of "golden ears" he had audition it could hear no improvement, including a guy who could reliably distinguish between the sound of a Marantz 9 and a McIntosh 275, two of the most luscious tube power amps of all time (they used McIntosh 275s at Wally Heider recording studio in San Francisco well into the late 70s, preferring them to anything solid state they could find). I can't access my Dope from Hope set right now, but I'm pretty sure the biamping missive was in 1972. It figures that the K-horn might show less audible improvement than many other speakers when biamped, because amplifiers have an easy time with K-horns.

• There was some article, somewhere, in the late 70s that indicated that there was a slight increase in distortion with biamping (with the set-up they used).
• The truth might be that many inefficient speakers might benefit a lot from the division of labor in biamping, but those as efficient as the K-horn, which are also as good as it is in revealing any anomalies, might benefit the least (with great amps and biamp circuitry), or actually sound worse (with different or inferior electronics).

I'm certainly no expert on this stuff...but this intrigues me.

I would wonder if they had the means to aligne the signals back then such that they could hear "the bubble" of sound coming out of the Khorn as a singular sound wave. Sounds to me like they simply put three amplifiers onto three drivers and had at it?

Regarding biamping AND aligning the signal, I am here to tell you that I personally found a SUBSTANTIAL difference when I went there. Granted, I went there with the Jubilee and not Khorns however, I'd have to speculate there would be some crossover benefits.

When I had my Khorns (stock horns & drivers mated with Al K's ESN networks) I had a substantial enhancement to the sound when I was standing 30' away (yes, I actually measured it).

When I slapped the Jubilees into the same location the Khorns were previously located, I soon went to that 30' spot and interestingly enough, I did NOT hear any improvement of the Jubilee at 30' (verses 10') that I heard with the Klipschorn at 30' (verses 10')

I'll admit that my gut reaction was one of viewing the situation as "gee, the Khorns sure sound a lot better at 30' away" when in fact, what I later learned I should have been thinking was "isn't it great that the Jubilees, with time aligned signals, sound as great 10' away as they do 30' away" and "isn't it unfortunate that I had to be 30' away from the Khorns before their sound gelled into (an incredible) wall of coherency.

I'd contend that if PWK had the means to align the signals back then, as we have today, there might have been a different conclusion. (??)

[Chris A]

Richard,

I assume PWK wasn't using an active crossover, since they were probably not available then (at least, not of the musical quality of an EV Dx38).

I think that the real advantage of biamping (active biamping, that is) is that you get to correct for other issues--including EQ, delay, and steep crossover filters. With a Dx38, you can take anechoic measurements of the speaker (like Roy does), then put the speaker in your real room and correct for the polars of the horns and drivers -- all in real time. Try all that with a passive crossover.

I also believe that systems that lose their pattern control at some frequency (like the Khorn) need in-room EQ and some flexibility in adjusting crossover frequencies to achieve a happy medium for in-room response. Additionally, the critical (i.e., steep) crossover settings don't change as the components heat up.

Chris

[Coytee]

I assume PWK wasn't using an active crossover, since they were probably not available then (at least, not of the musical quality of an EV Dx38).

I think that the real advantage of biamping (active biamping, that is) is that you get to correct for other issues--including EQ, delay, and steep crossover filters. With a Dx38, you can take anechoic measurements of the speaker (like Roy does), then put the speaker in your real room and correct for the polars of the horns and drivers -- all in real time. Try all that with a passive crossover.

Ok, so you said in 20 words what took me 200. I'm a blabbermouth.

[]

I'd speculate that if someone triamped their Khorns, added in appropriate delays and used simple PA style amps (forget anything audiophile) they'd find a more dramatic coherence in their sound than if they took stock Khorns, added fancy wires, fancy crossovers and the fanciest audiphile amp.

Mind you, I don't 'know' that... but that's the side I'd wager on.

Where's Maron when I need him [Y]

[AltmanEars]

I havent tried that with Khorns but I have tried that kind of experiment with Maggies, Linn BRIC's, and the big Naim speakers and in all cases you are better off with a single really good amplifer than 3 suspect sounding amplifiers and, in the last two cases, a purpose built active crossover.

BUT --- BIG BUT --- there are many good inexpensive relatively low powered amps like the parasounds and the ATI's which I would bet would sound better run actively than more esoteric, passively run, higher powered SET amps.

I've heard the urban legend that active is for inefficient speakers and while this makes all the sense in the world it actually does not seem to work in practice. The big efficient Westlakes sound much better actively than passively.

[Chris A]

I'd speculate that if someone triamped their Khorns, added in appropriate delays and used simple PA style amps (forget anything audiophile) they'd find a more dramatic coherence in their sound than if they took stock Khorns, added fancy wires, fancy crossovers and the fanciest audiphile amp.

Richard,

This is pretty much my point of view, too. I would think that even biamping the Khorn (mid/tweeter on one side, lf on the other) would make a pretty big difference, especially with correcting that 8.4 millisecond delay between the tweeter and the woofer. That's a 4x bigger delay than on a Jub with K402 horn. That's really big. Richard Heyser's Nov 1986 Audio article on the Khorn really zeros in on that issue, among others, that an active crossover/bi-amp could address.

Chris

[Chris A]

...I havent tried that with Khorns but I have tried that kind of experiment with Maggies, Linn BRIC's, and the big Naim speakers and in all cases you are better off with a single really good amplifer than 3 suspect sounding amplifiers and, in the last two cases, a purpose built active crossover...

I think that the Khorn is a horse of a different color, unfortunately. While I have experienced a big difference in the type of power amp on output sound quality, I believe that it's the speaker that is 10x more important than anything else in your system (assuming some sort of digital device on the input source material stage), and anything that you can do to improve upon that first will yield the greatest returns on investment. This is based on recent experience.

Chris

[Dylanl]

OK, well here is how I am going to hook up my system (OPTION 1): I have 2 amps Dynaco Mark III tubes for tweeter and mid range horn and 1 McIntosh 2300 SS amp for bass bin. I am going to send the signal out of the pre amp from dual output to the Crown VFX-2. I will set the crossover to 400 low pass and 400 high pass. I will the send the 400 and below to the MacIntosh SS and the 400 and above to the Dynaco MarkIII's. The high signal will then go to the ALK to separate for the two drivers. Or (OPTION2) I could send a full signal to the Dynaco Mark III by-passing the Crown and only set the crossover 400 and below signal to the bass bin. Which would you do?

[Coytee]

BUT --- BIG BUT --- there are many good inexpensive relatively low powered amps like the parasounds and the ATI's which I would bet would sound better run actively than more esoteric, passively run, higher powered SET amps.

I don't want to sound like I'm putting meanings into your words (since I'm not 100% sure who you are addressing)

My basic contention is a Khorn (LaScala/Belle/Jubilee) would sound more coherent (which I'm suggesting is different than sounding better tonally) if it were biamped and fully "time aligned" with a decent amp, than the same speaker with the fanciest of wires, fanciest of passives and the fanciest of audiophile amps while maintaining the delay (and therefore smear) between the drivers. Although I understand that steeper crossovers might help this problem a bit, you then (as I had in my situation) have the reality of needing more distance from the speaker before the 3 drivers meld into a singular sound wave. In my case they sounded out of this world.... when I was 30' away. This is not to say they didn't sound great while in the room but the difference was clearly noticable.

Moving to the biamped, signal aligned Jubilee gave me the best of those worlds.

I've had some SET amps in my system over the last years, although there might have been a qualitative improvement in the tonality of the sound, the amp is not what increased the coherencey and intelligebility of the system, that was done by the active and fixing the delay.

[Coytee]

Crown VFX-2

1. Does that allow you to add some delay?

2. Do you have the ability to use XLR's? If you do a biamp with the Khorns where you let a passive split the Mid/Tweet, I could send you one of my Dx38's which would allow for some delay to be added. I don't know anything about the Crown. I have to think though, if you have a Crown in your system, you probably have some XLR's in there as well.

Honest offer if you'd like to borrow the Dx38. It's a 2 in, 4 out so it would not allow you to tri-amp but... if I understand you on the midrange/tweeter, you could use it to biamp like that.

[Coytee]

Pittsburgh, PA

But...you gotta root for the Bengals next week... []

[Dylanl]

Yes the crown is a vinitage 2 channel crossover that is highly regarded. It has XLR and 1/4". Have a look: http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=11

No it does not allow for delay.

[Dylanl]

Pittsburgh, PA

But...you gotta root for the Bengals next week...

The price may be to steep[:S]