Improvements to the Khorn design

[greg928gts]

I'd like to know what you would do to improve on the Khorn design.

Obviously there are many component upgrades available, but that's not exactly what I'm talking about.

My focus is more on the bass bin design/construction and the aesthetics/design of the whole package.

From the technically-minded forum members - What would you do to the bass bin design/construction to improve it? I've heard people talk about various compromises that are a part of the Khorn, like the woofer chamber size, slot size, horn flare rate, horn mouth size, etc... so, if you could start from scratch, what would change to get rid of some of the compromises and improve on the overall design? Cost no object by the way.

From any forum member - what would you do to the aesthetic design of the whole package, if anything? I think the Khorn is beautiful, but I'm looking for ideas from the people here that know Khorns the best, on what can be done to update the looks of the speaker, or to just plain change the look of them. What are the most beautifully designed speakers on the market today? What elements are part of the design of those speakers? Could any of those elements be incorporated into the Khorn design?

I appreciate any input.

Greg

[DizRotus]

Greg,

I'm not being facetious, but I think what you're describing is Jubilee.

[Guest David H]

I think getting away from the 15" woofer is a good start, and eliminate its need for corner loading. Smaller woofers respond quicker and a often cleaner sounding than the 15's. I also think a smaller footprint is more desireable. I know these comments are stating the obvious, but there has to be a better design than the massive folded horn bass enclosure.

Dave.

[mikebse2a3]

From the technically-minded forum members - What would you do to the bass bin design/construction to improve it? I've heard people talk about various compromises that are a part of the Khorn, like the woofer chamber size, slot size, horn flare rate, horn mouth size, etc... so, if you could start from scratch, what would change to get rid of some of the compromises and improve on the overall design? Cost no object by the way.

It's already been done by the designer of the Klipschorn LF himself, PWK..! PWK and Roy Delgado believed the best way to improve on the Klipschorn(while maintaining the same usable floor space) was what became the Jubilee LF (with the possibility of a ported version as well).

In other words if someone wants to start from scratch so to speak, then it would be very wise to start from PWK's last design which was a culmination of all he had learned from previous designs of his and others. The AES paper on the Jub pretty much points out the areas of folded horn designs that need improvement.

I suppose in an ideal world it would be nice not to bifurcate the horn with the resulting two seperated horn mouths but one would have to ask themselves what compromises would result from any folding method to reach this goal and so far in all these decades of horn design to at least acheive the Frequency Bandwidth of the Khorn and Jubilee (in any package close to their physical size especially) when integrated into the average home listening room hasn't been done that I'm aware of.

mike tn

[mikebse2a3]

I think getting away from the 15" woofer is a good start, and eliminate its need for corner loading. Smaller woofers respond quicker and a often cleaner sounding than the 15's. I also think a smaller footprint is more desireable. I know these comments are stating the obvious, but there has to be a better design than the massive folded horn bass enclosure.

Dave.

OH No! Dave...you didn't suggest getting away from the corner loading......what would PWK say?.......[][]

Whenever possible IMHO the highest accurate reproduction available in most rooms would be acheived with corner loading of the LF horn and M/H Horns that can maintain constant coverage over as wide a bandwidth as possible for the best ratio of direct to reverbrant soundfields in the listening room. In other words start with a loudspeaker design that does whats required when integrating the system into the room for the most accurate reproduction and then be willing to deal with any room issues that allows the use of the most accurate loudspeaker design. Doing this will give you the most accurate tonality, clarity, dynamics and bandwidth from the complete loudspeaker/room system.

mike tn

[ZAKO]

It has already been done,,, from 18hz to 22k hz +- 3db ,,Two way and looks great,,, TANNOY Westminster Royal.

[Don Richard]

1) Go back to the original throat size - 6" width.

2) Use a woofer with a very large Xmax, 23 Hz or so Fr. Use EQ below 45 Hz.

3) Use a constant directivity midrange operating from 200 Hz - 2000 Hz.

4) Use a constant directivity HF operating from 2000 Hz - 20,000 Hz with CD comp EQ.

5) Tri -amp with at least 24 dB/oct. slopes. Time - align all drivers.

6) Stiffen front and sides by using 1" or thicker material.

7) Brace top and bottom of woofer chamber ala Speakerlab.

[tigerwoodKhorns]

Everyone has given the responses that make sense. It has been done, the Jubilee was the next step when PWK did it. Others have built horn speakers.

Gothover addressed my concern, corner loading is a PITA! It is really hard to find a home that has 2 decent corners and the dimensions to sit where you need to sit.

If you really want to just build Klipsch speakers then here is where you are:

If you do have good corners, the chances of having the proper seating position AND not being right up against the rear wall are very slim because the midrange and tweeter are fixed. My K Horn project will use an adjustable top to angle the mid and tweeter at the sweet spot. This has been done before. My goal is to design something that does not look like an afterthought. It needs to look like it is supposed to be adjustable, which means a separate top section that does not look anything like what you normallyu see on a K Horn.

I also want to add that when I built false corners years ago, and I was then able to adjust the toe in, my imaging was much better after that.

If you want to build horn loaded speakers that are not a K Horn based design using your exceptional skills, then you are wide open. A regular bass driver and horn loaded mid and tweeter or 2 way are designs that you can run with. I attached a photo of what one short time member did. It is stunning.

There are other designs. One member wardsweb, built a speaker that looks like a speaker manufactured by thsi company:

http://www.classicaudiorepro.com/page5.html

His results were absolutely beautiful. I wish that I had a pair.

With yoru skills, I can see you designing and building speakers like this and taking off. The nice thing is that the tractrix horn can be made narrower if you want to use 2 10" drivers or 12" drivers instead of one 15". They will also be somewhat more affordable (or lets say not as expensive because they will still be very expensive) because the labor in the K Horn is huge.

[kevinmi]

I think the Khorn corner placement is a great speaker style if you want corner speakers. I think too many people are trying to make the Khorns into something they are not. Beyond the great improvements with the different crossovers and tractrix horns, I think the Khorn bass bin is the "anchor" to the whole corner loaded design. Any modifications to the bass bin along with the mid and high designs,you no longer have a Khorn. I'm not saying that the Khorn is the best a speaker can be, I'm saying that a Khorn is pretty good at being a Khorn.

But I've often wondered what would a Khorn bass bin sound like with a direct radiating mid woofer unit built on the front. The cabinet would stick out further, but still sit in the corner. That way you could have the benefits of corner loading and direct radiation. Just a thought.

[seti]

It has already been done,,, from 18hz to 22k hz +- 3db ,,Two way and looks great,,, TANNOY Westminster Royal.

Its not nice to tease I'm going ot Florida and San Francisco this year. Hopefully I can find a Westminster to hear on one of these coasts.

[ZAKO]

It has already been done,,, from 18hz to 22k hz +- 3db ,,Two way and looks great,,, TANNOY Westminster Royal.

Its not nice to tease I'm going ot Florida and San Francisco this year. Hopefully I can find a Westminster to hear on one of these coasts.

There are plenty of them in New York,,, And will flap your trousers and peel the green off your teeth.

[Coytee]

And will flap your trousers and peel the green off your teeth

you mean I've been gargling with straight bleach for 10 years for nothing? [:|]

[Edgar]

Greg,

You've already seen the following in a private email message, but the other forum members have not.

Both the KHorn and the Jubilee have approximately 400° of folding angles. They also have split mouthes, which cause "double-slit" diffraction well within their upper frequency ranges.

Reduce the folding to two 90° bends, and eliminate the split mouth. Use two Altec/GPA 515-8GHP woofers in a cabinet approximately the same size and shape as the KHorn. Do that, and you'll have something that looks like the attached rendering.

Optimize the design to compete with the standard KHorn, and the first Hornresp plot results (KHorn in gray).

Optimize the design to compete with the standard Jubilee, and the second Hornresp plot results (Jubilee in gray).

(another) Greg

[Edgar]

KHorn comparison.

[Edgar]

Jubilee comparison.

[Marvel]

Greg, you built a pair of Dana's folded horns, didn't you? What was the result of those?

Bruce

[greg928gts]

Greg,

I'm not being facetious, but I think what you're describing is Jubilee.

So many great responses, thanks.

I understand that the Jubilee is better than the Khorn, and I know that it is what PWK designed as an improved Khorn and eventually a whole new speaker. But I'm interested, specifically, in addressing the compromises to the bass horn of the Khorn.

If someone told me that the Khorn woofer chamber would work better if it was a little larger, I would work to find a way in the design to make it a little larger. If someone told me that they did some calculations and have figured out that the mouth of the Khorn bass horn is smaller than it should be, I would try to work on the design to increase the mouth size.

I've heard these rumblings over the years, about the compromises with the Khorn bass horn. That is specifically what I'm interested in looking at right now.

I can't build Jubilees to sell, even though I've been told there isn't a patent on the design, I still wouldn't do it out of respect to Klipsch. It's just not right.

Greg

[greg928gts]

I think getting away from the 15" woofer is a good start, and eliminate its need for corner loading. Smaller woofers respond quicker and a often cleaner sounding than the 15's. I also think a smaller footprint is more desireable. I know these comments are stating the obvious, but there has to be a better design than the massive folded horn bass enclosure.

Dave.

Thanks Dave. I will certainly look at other speaker designs in the future.

Right now, I don't know of a better way to make bass than a massive folded horn. I still haven't heard anything that I like better than bass from a bass horn, especially when they're set up in a nice room.

Greg

[greg928gts]

From the technically-minded forum members - What would you do to the bass bin design/construction to improve it? I've heard people talk about various compromises that are a part of the Khorn, like the woofer chamber size, slot size, horn flare rate, horn mouth size, etc... so, if you could start from scratch, what would change to get rid of some of the compromises and improve on the overall design? Cost no object by the way.

It's already been done by the designer of the Klipschorn LF himself, PWK..! PWK and Roy Delgado believed the best way to improve on the Klipschorn(while maintaining the same usable floor space) was what became the Jubilee LF (with the possibility of a ported version as well).

In other words if someone wants to start from scratch so to speak, then it would be very wise to start from PWK's last design which was a culmination of all he had learned from previous designs of his and others. The AES paper on the Jub pretty much points out the areas of folded horn designs that need improvement.

I suppose in an ideal world it would be nice not to bifurcate the horn with the resulting two seperated horn mouths but one would have to ask themselves what compromises would result from any folding method to reach this goal and so far in all these decades of horn design to at least acheive the Frequency Bandwidth of the Khorn and Jubilee (in any package close to their physical size especially) when integrated into the average home listening room hasn't been done that I'm aware of.

mike tn

I agree Mike, the Jubilee is definately an improvement on the Khorn. But I can't build Jubilees and sell them, so I'm concentrating on the Khorn design. The patent has expired on the Khorn and the design is ripe for improvement. The FLKhorns that I built for Mike Lindsey, with the enclosed backs, really closed the gap between the Jubilee and a typical Khorn in the bass department. I think more can be done with the design and construction.

Thanks for your input.

Greg

[greg928gts]

1) Go back to the original throat size - 6" width.

2) Use a woofer with a very large Xmax, 23 Hz or so Fr. Use EQ below 45 Hz.

3) Use a constant directivity midrange operating from 200 Hz - 2000 Hz.

4) Use a constant directivity HF operating from 2000 Hz - 20,000 Hz with CD comp EQ.

5) Tri -amp with at least 24 dB/oct. slopes. Time - align all drivers.

6) Stiffen front and sides by using 1" or thicker material.

7) Brace top and bottom of woofer chamber ala Speakerlab.

Thanks for those great ideas Don.

Greg