Newbie has 2 general questions

[zandern]

Ok my first question is, is it true that you can't blow a horn or is that a rumor. Or is it just hard to do?

My second question is that I hear the Klipsch horns can be painfull after a while if listening for awhile. For example someone told me that after a 2 hour movie their ears hurt. Is it just because they listen to loud? Is it just during the break-in period? Should someone just turn down the treble to avoid this?

If people could give me their honest opinions it would be appreciated.

[Klipschguy]

Zandern,

You've been the victim of propaganda. Firstly, you can fry anything if given enough power. Horns tend to be very efficient, so they get fed less power, hence the voice coils get burned up less often - but can still overheat if overdriven.

The big Klipsch I've owned and heard tend to have an exceptionally non-fatiguing sound that I would characterize as musical, dynamic, punchy, very clear, low distortion, somewhat midrange foward, and somewhat mellow in the highs. Musical is probably the most decriptive of the forementioned adjectives.

The Cornwalls I'm using are definitely not a "bright speaker." Funny, many of the newer "cone and dome" speakers are way too bright, IMHO (I guess one just has to turn down the treble, right?).

Of course, no speaker is perfect, but you really owe yourself a listen so you can let your own ears be the judge. I hope you get a just demo.

Welcome to the bulletin board.

Regards,

Andy

[Deang]

Hey Zandern

check out this review:

http://www.audio-ideas.com/reviews/loudspeakers/klipsch-rb5.html

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dean

[Colin]

As to the second question, it could be a couple of things. It may be simply the brightness of the high end that people find wearying them. Horns reproduce treble in a such sharp way, that while it does more closely approximate the live event, can also be bothersome to newly exposed ears.

Or it may be the harshness of a typical receiver on revealingly efficient horns -

Most speakers actually use very little power to reproduce most sounds at normal, conversational levels. I have seen the blue MacIntosh needles waver ever so slightly at 2/10 of a watt while powering Martin-Logan electrostatic Prodigies through a dramatic movie. Most of the time, tweaking audiophiles are running their amps at a fraction of a watt. Particularly with high efficiency Klipsch speakers.

A very high efficiency speaker, like a horn and woofer design, rated at 95 dB/w/m, needs much less power than a conventional 85 dB/w/m cone speaker. To reproduce a momentary 88 dB peak in a listening room, a horn might temporarily need 1 watt, where the conventional speaker needs as much as four watts. Or, to put it another way, extremely sensitive speakers like big old Cornwalls will reproduce a 1 kHz note at 82 dB, in the same room where cone speakers like Sony, Infinities and Axioms reproduce that note at 61, 67 and 61 dBs. About 20 dB louder.

Unfortunately, the poor standards of power specifications for the audio industry provide little or no published information from amp manufacturers about the actual performance of moderately priced home receivers at the milli-watt level. Yet, this is where we do our listening. I think some high power solid state amps may have uneven output or distortion when played at very low levels.

Therefore, it makes some sense to use low power amps, especially for music reproduced at conversational levels. Low powered amps may also have defects at low power levels, but these the defects are below our listening level.

Following this line of thinking are amps that operate with the purity of Class A mode. These amps do particularly well at low power levels. Super-amp maker Nelson Pass is an advocate of Class A operation and simplified design for solid-state amps. His SS amps consistently get excellent reviews, especially from the Stereophile magazine crew, which often views audio equipment as if money and budgets are not the primary constraints that they are.

The audio industry is not as smart as the food industry. With food, we measure the different kinds of fat, ignoring the total. We measure the types of fat in food as if they are more important than the total amount (it isn't). The amount of trans fat is more important than saturated fat. But in audio, we measure the Total of Harmonic Distortion (THD) at the amp's optimum level, as if that was all that mattered (it isn't, either).

Solid-state amps do really well with this measurement, sporting THD figures of 0.1% or less. Tube amps are belittled by engineers for their high THD figures of 1% or more. But the level of total distortion that is tolerable on SS amps is not even unpleasant on tube ones. A 5% THD on the SS amp is horrible, for example, but the tube amp might actually sound better than the SS amp with that same level. Especially with super sensitive horns.

Yet amplifiers of all shapes and sizes are measured with for total harmonic distortion (THD) specification. It is curious, however, that THD is rarely quoted for loudspeakers. You certainly wont find that sort of measurement in Stereophile Magazine. The reason is that the figures are pretty bad. There are many speakers out there that routinely exceed 5% THD or even 10% when pushed hard. Thats one of the reasons so many tweaking audiophiles are drawn to big old horns. They dont sound grainy, rough, or harsh when going from soft to very loud. They exhibit an amazing lack of distortion, a magically musical quality of effortlessness and a pure tone that sounds delightfully close to the actual instruments.

This sensitivity is a double edge sword. When it comes to revealing the nature of the front-end equipment, high sensitivity cuts both ways. It can make great recordings and equipment sound wonderfully life-like in pace and dynamics, but it can also make mediocre ones seem harsh and relentless.

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Colin's Music System Cornwall 1s & Klipsch subs; lights out & tubes glowing!

[Guest BobG]

One more point. Frequently, the ear judges volume by the presense of distortion. Ever go to a concert and when trying to talk to the person next to you, you find you have to yell even louder than you expected? That's because that megabuck horn loaded PA system is able to play very loud with very low distortion - just like Klipsch home speakers. People frequently listen at higher volume than they think because the distortion from the horn loaded mid/high driver is so low. Thus, after a couple of hours listening to a movie, they start to experience fatigue. Listen to a horn loaded speaker and a direct radiator (means non-horn) at the same volume and the horn speaker will be less tirinug than the direct radiator.

If your amplifier had a knob that could turn up the distortion without changing anything else, you'd swear it was changing the volume too.

[zandern]

Thanks for all of your quick respones. You know all the people on the Klipsch forum really know their stuff. I also joined the Polk Audio forum to learn about the 800i and compare them to the RF3=II. The polk people don't seem to know as much. Also these Klipsch and Polk Audio both sound great, so I couldn't decide what I wanted, both are great. But after numerous messages, research and listening I think I am ready to buy the Klipsch before the summer. Thanks to everyone who helped.