old vs new K-horns

[John Zermani]

Does anyone know how the current-production K-horns stack-up against the older models sonically? Is there a particular vintage that's considered to sound best?

[Coytee]

Some might say that any vintage that is in your posession is the best vintage to own! Just as long as you own it. Restricting myself to Khorns alone, I'd speculate that a factory fresh unit would probably sound a little nicer than an older unit. Once you update the older unit to make sure everything is in spec, then I don't know if someone like me could tell a difference (I've never heard an updated older Khorn vs a new version)

Then of course.... you have the tweekers and you can put in fancy crossovers, biamp/triamp, swap out midrange horn, swap out tweeters.... at which point one has to ask, when does it become something other than a Klipschorn?

I don't pretend to know that answer as I did some of the above (swapped out for extreme slope crossover, put a JBL 2404 tweeter on top) I never did the midrange horn upgrade as I ended up going a different route.

[ZAKO]

Like Paul Klipsch said to me, The Klipschorn is a tweekers dream,, But when the Klipsch Jubilee bass bin was developed,, that was the end of the argument,,,

[JJkizak]

If there is a difference old people cannot hear it, young people can hear it, and middle aged people think they can but most can't. Make sure that whoever advises you has a hearing response from 30hz to 18KHZ. Mine is 19hz to 12khz.

JJK

[garyrc]

I'll bet that every time someone makes a change, something is gained and something is lost. I still haven't determined whether my Khorns with both the AK4 upgrade (developed c. 2002) and K401 horn (introduced in 1987) is better or worse than my original 1982 K-horns with the AA and the metal mid-horn. I'd call them about equivalent overall, but I think:

• To my ears, the old '82 Khorns were a little bolder (louder) in the treble range -- which meant they sounded a little brassier and "better" with great recordings, but had too much edgyness with bad recordings ... and there may be more careless recordings now (?).
• The new ones got rid of a little anomoly that lurked in the mid driver/horn above its range by rolling it off up there, and letting the tweeter take care of that range alone. Can I hear this improvement? Sometimes I think I can.
• My 2005 Belle Klipsch (same drivers as the Khorns) is tamer and blander than either the old, unmodified Khorns or the upgraded ones....but still good.
• Every time I change to a component (including power amps and CD players, for instance) that is reputed to be "better" I think I can hear more anomalies in average to bad recordings.
• If you have really good recordings, I suspect that either '82 crossovers or the 2002 AK4 design would be good, Khorns sound great loud.
• A potential problem is that the crossovers are matched to the efficiency of the particular set of drivers that were used by Klipsch at the time the crossover was made. There have been minor variations over the years. "New wine in old wineskins ... " So old drivers and a new crossover design may be a mismatch (the AK4 includes new drivers). This might include the special tweeked or completely redesigned networks that some sell. I woudn't expect it to be a problem with newly build old designs that match a certain vintage set of drivers, like the AAs Crites builds.

[consistent]

Hi

I have had the 'oldies' now the AK4 modded with tractrix and Altec 288 mid driver with Bob's tweet. PWK said eveything lives in the midrange, so I fiddled with it, used a new tweet and repostioned the drivers alignment and have never looked back, awesome advice I have recieved in this forum. The mods open up the sound stage front to back and side to side, more detail and clarity and no squweeling/honking and tinniness.

Cheers