K-horn owners - How square are your corners? How's the sound?

[garyrc]

I wonder how square most corners are. If you put a square against one wall, how far out of square is the other wall at the point where the K-horn's side grille starts (at the wall)? Mine is 1" out in one corner, and about 3/4 " on the other. In our former house, it was a much snugger fit, and the K-horns seemed to have more impact & power.. I am about to take off the old rubber rug runner gaskets that were recommended in 1980, and replace them with pipe insulation, but the seal is said to affect mid/upper bass and the lowest midrange rather than lower bass.

Is there a carpenter's/contractor's standard for corners?

[Chris A]

Gary,

You can double-up on the pipe insulation to fill extra gaps. I think the issue is trying to keep the two mouths of the bass bin separated. Having said that, I do know that Roy Delgado mentioned that the final flare on the Jub bass bin needs to be pretty close (to within 1/4-1/2 inch or so), but I think the issue is that each "mouth" or side of the bass bin should be symmetric in size/flare rate. So there are two issues:

1) sealing the two mouths from each other via the pipe insulation, and
2) making the mouth exits symmetrical.

The first issue can be addressed via sealing against the wall. The second by setting the Khorn up bisecting the corner with each mouth of the bass bin.

Of course, you could enclose the backs or provide a false corner (thus enclosing the backs) and avoid all of this fuss.

Chris

[JJkizak]

My corners are out as much as yours. I used the pipe insulation and had to cut a notch in the backboard to fit over the floor/wall trim.

JJK

[seti]

My house is 114yo so pipe insulation helps.

[Rudy81]

I have found that the only way to get as good a seal as possible is with pipe insulation. I also made some hefty false corners. Previous to that, my bass was rather anemic. There are several old threads chronicling my journey trying to solve the low bass problem. I eventually solved those issues with pipe insulation and really heavy false corners. The final touch was floor grippers....but that's another story.

If you want to 'see' how bad your corners are, do this. Take the top hat off. Put the bass bin back in the corner. Now, shine a flashlight down behind the tail board between the wall corner. Now, look down the bass bin horn from the front....see any light? That, I found, is the best way to see just what kind of seal you are getting.

[IB Slammin]

My house is 114yo so pipe insulation helps.

Perhaps another question might be "how square (true) is your speaker"? I have measured several Klipsch speakers(not Khorns) and the diagonal was off as much as 1/2". No big deal to me, but the skew did exist. This thread reminded me of that.

tc

[garymd]

My corners are far from perfect but that's what insulation is for!
Fill in as much as needed and you should be fine. No two rooms are the
same so if you aren't getting as much slam, it's probably due to the
room, not the speakers.

[seti]

My house is 114yo so pipe insulation helps.

Perhaps another question might be "how square (true) is your speaker"? I have measured several Klipsch speakers(not Khorns) and the diagonal was off as much as 1/2". No big deal to me, but the skew did exist. This thread reminded me of that.

tc

This is news to me!

[artto]

You have to consider building construction/capentry is done by carpenters who mostly do "rough capentry" - they are not usually , say "cabinet makers" and as such most corners in buildings are not square - no reason for it really - which is one the main reasons motivating the development of the Jubilee. And the reason for that is because a poor corner seal on the Khorn affects the higher bass frequencies more than the lower ones (higher frequency = shorter wavelength = smaller gap affects sound. Lower frequency = longer wavelength = gap needs to be larger to affect sound at lower frequencies).

[WMcD]

I used a lot of pipe insulation on my brother-in-law's SKs. It worked well,

The sheetrock corners were not true. I have heard the term "running away" from a square condition.

One issue is that the pipe insulation I used had an adhesive at the cut guarded by a pull off strip. Like a Bandaid. So you can find pipe insulation with a bigger diameter and press it on just at the edge of the plywood so the insulation arc protrudes as much as possible..

Overall. you have to look at the back of the K-Horn and see where it expects to intersect with the wall. There will be three lines on each side formed by the top and bottom of the bass horn and the tail board. The tail board is the six (?) inch wide piece running from top to bottom. Don't worry about the top cabinet with the mid and tweeter. It is the bass horn which counts.

Using pipe insulation, I used some kitchen sheers to make the, roughly, 45 degree cuts where they intersect. Pipe insulation is realtively cheap and you should start with one sacrificial lenght cut into small lenghts to learn how to get the intersections right. I did it the hard way, using up full lengths and making errors. "Old too soon and smart too late." Smile.

If I had to do this again . . . . The pipe insulation alone is a 'C' in cross section. The area in the middle of it collapses too easily. To solve this, I'd put in a preliminary layer of 1/2 x 1/2 foam insulation on the butt of the top and bottom pieces of bass horn, and the back of the tail board. Then put the C of the pipe insulation over the the 1/2 x 1/2. In this way you have a more plump and thicker foam gap filler.

Wm McD

I

[JJkizak]

After watching a Laser van plotting the corners of a house on the footers within .ooooozip whatever from the actual blueprint I wonder why that couldn't be done for the floor layout of the walls. The Laser costing $65,000.00 but don't know what the van cost.

JJK

[Arkytype]

Gary,

Over the past 30 years I've had my Klipschorns in four different homes and none had true 90 degree corners. You are certainly better off having a corner angle greater than 90 than one less than 90!

Rather than use the less expensive closed cell foam pipe insulation, spend a little more and get the closed cell rubber pipe insulation. Both Home depot and Lowe's carry the rubber type which more easily conforms to the gap between the tailboard and the wall.

Lee

[Chris A]

The Laser costing $65,000.00

Sounds like a good business to be in...if you can make sales.

On the original topic: I remember seeing a Klipsch marketing VP on video making a statement about the 60 Anniv. Khorn (with enclosed back). He obviously thought it was a great idea, expecting that the crossover/balancing network would have to be rebalanced to take into account the enclosed back effectiveness increase (i.e., expecting it to make the Khorn bass more efficient).

He was apparently right about the balancing network having to be reworked: he acknowledged that the enclosed back actually decreased the Khorn bass bin performance [] . This should be a clue to the enclosing of Khorn backs. I would use a false corner approach, and not an enclosed KHorn back approach. Enclosing the back of the Khorn reduces the flare rate on the last fold of the horn, thus decreasing performance. The false corner instead allows the final fold of the horn to expand at a more natural rate by using the corner of the room as its outside form line.

Cheers,

Chris

[garymd]

Gary,

Rather than use the less expensive closed cell foam pipe insulation, spend a little more and get the closed cell rubber pipe insulation. Both Home depot and Lowe's carry the rubber type which more easily conforms to the gap between the tailboard and the wall.

Lee

I second that. I also used the rubber insulation after trying cheaper foam stuff I had lying around the house. Not a HUGE improvement but it certainly made a noticable difference. Any time you can improve the sound quality for less than $20, it's a no-brainer.

[ClaudeJ1]

I used a lot of pipe insulation on my brother-in-law's SKs. It worked well,

I'm amazed at how good my SK bottoms ar with the Crites woofers.........similar to Khorn bottom. Have you found the same ?

[gaspr]

Enclosing the back of the Khorn reduces the flare rate on the last fold of the horn, thus decreasing performance. The false corner instead allows the final fold of the horn to expand at a more natural rate by using the corner of the room as its outside form line.

Chris, I am having a hard time getting my head around this. I really don't see how closing in the back is any different to having false corners in regards to size of the final flare...

[Chris A]

Mentally picture the Khorn in a corner, looking down on top. If you enclose the back of the unit, there is a measurable volume of air between the new back panel of the speaker and the corner wall that gets left out of the action by this enclosing panel...this is the volume that the horn loses in the final fold that negatively affects performance.

Additionally, there is an expansion of the final fold vertically from the bass bin due to less-than-perfect seal between the wall (or false corner) and the top plate of the bass bin. This "leaking" I suspect also increases the performance of the bass bin a bit by allowing a greater virtual expansion of the final fold into the room. I would hazard a guess that this is the major contributor in the performance difference of the two design approaches (traditional Khorn back vs. 60th Anniv. enclosed back).

Remember the sensitivity of lf to final fold volume mentioned earlier, i.e., the comment made by Roy D. I was surprised at the time to the sensitivity as we were looking at a slightly out-of-tolerance Jub bin that apparently warped during a longer-than-usual hold in manufacture (it gets pretty moist in Hope, AR).

Chris

[gaspr]

Ok..I have seen backs put on to Khorns two different ways. The way greg928gts does it is to attach new backs outside of the vertical plane of where the bass bin normally meets the wall...here is a link.

The other way is to do it like indyklipschfan had his done which was to insert the new back panels inside of the vertical plane. Is this the difference you speak of?

[Chris A]

Yes, but...here is the major point:

"Additionally, there is an expansion of the final fold vertically from
the bass bin due to less-than-perfect seal between the wall (or false
corner) and the top plate of the bass bin. This "leaking" I suspect
also increases the performance of the bass bin
a bit by allowing a greater virtual expansion of the final fold into
the room. I would hazard a guess that this is the major contributor in
the performance difference of the two design approaches (traditional
Khorn back vs. 60th Anniv. enclosed back)."

Chris

[gaspr]

Hmmm....so the new"tweak" for owners of closed back Khorns could be to add some leakage?[][][]