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More V-Trac Khorn upgrades


greg928gts

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  • 2 weeks later...

I installed the V-trac horns, BMS 4592 mids, Beyma CP25 tweeters and ALK Universal crossovers in my 1987 Klipschorns replacing the stock drivers and crossovers last weekend. Ive got at least 15 hrs of playing music on them, the sound has pretty much stabilized, so I thought I would share my impressions so far. I have not finalized the attenuation setting for the midrange drivers yet. I started at X-4 (6.2 dB attenuation), and subsequently tried 0-1 (12.5 dB), 0-2 (9.5 dB), 1-4 (7.4 dB) and now 0-3 (6.7 dB). Ill probably leave it at 0-3, but might go back to 1-4.

The rest of my system: Scott 299 integrated receiver (run in triode, Platinum modification by Sam Kim), Rega Saturn CDP, and MIT Shotgun S3.3 speaker cables.

First of all, the V-trac, driver and crossover changes improved the speakers way more than I expected. And I expected substantial improvement. Bottom line: I cant recommend the upgrades highly enough. The K-horns have been DRAMATICALLY improved across the board, without any downsides that I have identified so far. The modifications were expensive, but at least for me, I feel like the huge improvement in the sound more than justified the cost.

Now for the details. The most obvious change is one of much greater clarity. Its almost like a substantial amount of distortion, grain and harshness is now gone, yielding a much lower noise floor and making the music more emphasized. Individual orchestral instruments are now easier to follow. Lyrics are easier to understand. Voices are much more natural. Instruments have more accurate timbre. There is more air around instruments and more sense of the acoustic space. There is also a bit more liquidity and midrange warmth. Altogether MUCH easier to listen to for hours. The biggest problem I have is wanting to turn up the volume too loud. I think before the upgrades, I listened at lower volume levels because of the grain and harshness. Thats much, much reduced now, and a big improvement.

Before the upgrades, I thought the K-horns had a very wide if somewhat indistinct and unstable soundstage. I have the speakers in exactly the same place and the soundstage has improved a LOT. Wider, deeper, stable and more natural.

For those who may be curious, I don't have any experience with with any other driver/horn/crossover modifications. And I don't foresee any need to: these K-horns sound wonderful!

There is one other thing I would like to comment on, and that is the bass performance of the stock speaker, which I did not replace. About a month ago, prior to installing the upgrades, I switched out my Kimber 8TC speaker cables for MIT Shotgun S3.3 cables. Holy cow! For those of you who feel like the K-horn is somewhat bass-shy (and I formerly felt that way), you might want to try MIT cables. I feel like I almost have too much bass now. At least in my system, the MIT cables made a dramatic (and welcome) change. Very highly recommended.

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Hey Chris,

I think that the tweeters Greg recomends and likes are better than the k-77 but, I happen to think that by moving the tweeters to the outside of the tophat you are able to hear it better. In my system the k-77 sounds alot better on the outside vs when it was directly over the mid horn. I just like what I am hearing now the way it is set up. Maybe in the future I'll try something else but, I'm good for now.

Jay

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I think you need to get a spray gun though and stop buying all those little cans.

I thought so too, which is why I got a free demo of a gun/spray setup from my local Sherwin Williams. The setup worked really well, and I was able to adjust the spray pattern to get it exactly the way I wanted. The gun was small enough so I could maneuver it good, and the hose didn't bother me much. I figured out that I would save a little money in paint, but my labor costs would more than double due to the time it takes to mix the paint and especially clean up. I spent much more time cleaning everything than I did painting. Going to a gun sprayer would add at least $50 to the cost of a pair of V-Trac horns.

If I painted all the time, and did larger items, the gun would make sense. But right now, I do pretty well with the bombs.

Greg

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