P. Audio PH-4525 horn and BM-D750 (aka. K69)

[mikebse2a3]

In PWK's use of this room this would have been the Front wall with a Belle Klipsch for a center between KHorns.

[mikebse2a3]

In PWK's use of this room this would have been the Left wall and is the wall/corners Roy likes to use for A-B testing of loudspeakers.

[mikebse2a3]

In PWK's use of this room this would have been the Right wall

[mikebse2a3]

In PWK's use of this room this would have been the Rear wall.

[Rudy81]

mikebse2a3....It now makes total sense. If the speakers are oriented along the long wall containging those black boards, it is in fact symetrical and uses the side foam for first reflection control. The poly's are then in back to diffuse the sound hitting the back wall.

One of my goals in going to Hope was to listen to Roy's setup. I truly wanted to hear what you guys are talking about. Those bass bins, no doubt are darn good. I was, however focusing on 'hearing' the quality of the K402 horn in terms of sound control, dispersion etc. I am using the same driver in my 2 way setup, so have a good idea of its capabilities before EQ. My P. Audio horns have turned out to be excellent at imaging and soundstage presentation. I had no idea they would be that good. I expected to hear that or better with the K402, but for the life of me, I have difficulty finding that 'imgage' and sound quality in those big horns.

I still need to tweak my EQ just a bit, although I'm relying on the fact that Audyssey has done most of the work automatically. My only problem is Audyssey will not show me what it has done or if it is at a control limit.

[DrWho]

I expected to hear that or better with the K402, but for the life of me, I have difficulty finding that 'imgage' and sound quality in those big horns.

Hmmm...how bout a few comments? (numbered for simplicity of discussion)

1) I don't think it's fair to compare imaging across different speakers and different rooms. There seems to be a lot of research showing that it is the room-speaker interaction that defines the perception of imaging...not just the speaker, and not just the room.

2) Although it's not the whole story (due to 1 above), I think you can still get an idea of differences between various speakers by listening to them in the same room or even better, outside. I would very highly recommend getting your hands on the K402 in your own listening environment, or outdoors to do a side-by-side comparison. And even side-by-side comparisons are flawed in many ways, but I think the differences between the speakers will be large enough to counter that. Some of us got to do side-by-sides in Roy's room there in Hope and I think you would be absolutely astonished at what you might hear...some of the things we heard would blow your mind at the magnitude of difference...

3) If the speaker-room interaction defines the imaging we'll obtain, then I might suggest that a given room that is optimized for a given speaker in terms of imaging probably is not going to be optimized for a speaker of another approach. Rooms have non-linear reflection/absorption properties, which is going to interact with the linearity (or lack thereof) of the main speakers. Coupled into this is the precedence effect and the chosen voicing of the speaker (voicing being the chosen anechoic on-axis frequency response).

4) When I listen to speakers or systems or whatever, I try to listen for what I think the system might be capable of....and not concentrate so much on the specifics of that particular instance. To put it simply, Roy's room isn't a "great" room for listening to music...it's certainly not horrible, but I would consider it hopped up for analyzing speakers moreso than enjoying imaging or whatever. So with that in mind, I just wanted to mention that most all of my comments about anything audio revolve around the idea of where it could go....so if I have any praise for the K402 based on the listening in Hope, then it's because I can envision (whether correctly or incorrectly) how it might sound in a decked out room. If I could design a room from scratch for someone, then I can certainly say I would have a much easier time building the room to make the K402 sound good versus any other HF section. The thing is, constant directivity with low distortion has never really existed before (bunch of caveats to that), so the perspectives on room acoustics need to change to accomodate.

Now if you can't totally redesign your listening room, then from a system-wide design perspective it may not make the most sense to go the K402 route. From the perspective of pushing the envelope of music enjoyment, I kind of see that as a justifcation of mediocracy, but in another sense it's just plain good engineering to maximize performance within the limitations. I just think it's a shame to sacrifice sonic performance for non-sonic limitations...

5) Btw, if you want to see what Audyssey is doing, then you can just do a before and after measurement of your system. Or if your receiver has pre-outs on it, then you can route the pre-out into the input on your soundcard instead of hooking up a microphone....and then you'll be measuring the signal chain directly. It won't tell you the exact filter settings and types being chosen, but at least it'll show you the curve it's applying...in which case it'd be an easy step to emulate it yourself.

One word of caution with Audyssey is that you can get wildly different results based on where you choose to put the microphone. I personally would rather make positional based decisions rather than relying on the generic built-in algorithms...

[mikebse2a3]

Hey Rudy I have really enjoyed following all your adventures so far.

Rudy based on my own experience imaging is easily masked (even with very good loudspeaker designs) by problems in the setup/integration and acoustical problems in a room. Heck I can remember hearing Klipschorns image so well that they beat the Quad ESL63 (which is well known for excellent imaging again when setup good) for my taste but I can count on one hand the number of installations that had them performing at this level over the past 26 years.

mike tn

[Rudy81]

Hmmm...how bout a few comments? (numbered for simplicity of discussion)

1) I don't think it's fair to compare imaging across different speakers and different rooms. There seems to be a lot of research showing that it is the room-speaker interaction that defines the perception of imaging...not just the speaker, and not just the room.

Absolutely, room acoustics can greatly affect what we hear. However, I think that in most rooms a good speaker will demonstrate the very least imaging and some sort of sound field that can be evaluated.

2. Although it's not the whole story (due to 1 above), I think you can still get an idea of differences between various speakers by listening to them in the same room or even better, outside. I would very highly recommend getting your hands on the K402 in your own listening environment, or outdoors to do a side-by-side comparison. And even side-by-side comparisons are flawed in many ways, but I think the differences between the speakers will be large enough to counter that. Some of us got to do side-by-sides in Roy's room there in Hope and I think you would be absolutely astonished at what you might hear...some of the things we heard would blow your mind at the magnitude of difference...

I truly wish I had gotten the chance to meet Roy and have him teach me a few things. I have no doubt that the Jubilees are capable of what you guys describe, because many of you do. I WANT to hear all that. For some reason, however, I have had difficulty in the Imaging area with the K402. I want to understand why I can't hear good imaging on the systems I have heard.

3) If the speaker-room interaction defines the imaging we'll obtain, then I might suggest that a given room that is optimized for a given speaker in terms of imaging probably is not going to be optimized for a speaker of another approach. Rooms have non-linear reflection/absorption properties, which is going to interact with the linearity (or lack thereof) of the main speakers. Coupled into this is the precedence effect and the chosen voicing of the speaker (voicing being the chosen anechoic on-axis frequency response).

4) When I listen to speakers or systems or whatever, I try to listen for what I think the system might be capable of....and not concentrate so much on the specifics of that particular instance. To put it simply, Roy's room isn't a "great" room for listening to music...it's certainly not horrible, but I would consider it hopped up for analyzing speakers moreso than enjoying imaging or whatever. So with that in mind, I just wanted to mention that most all of my comments about anything audio revolve around the idea of where it could go....so if I have any praise for the K402 based on the listening in Hope, then it's because I can envision (whether correctly or incorrectly) how it might sound in a decked out room. If I could design a room from scratch for someone, then I can certainly say I would have a much easier time building the room to make the K402 sound good versus any other HF section. The thing is, constant directivity with low distortion has never really existed before (bunch of caveats to that), so the perspectives on room acoustics need to change to accommodate.

Now if you can't totally redesign your listening room, then from a system-wide design perspective it may not make the most sense to go the K402 route. From the perspective of pushing the envelope of music enjoyment, I kind of see that as a justification of mediocracy, but in another sense it's just plain good engineering to maximize performance within the limitations. I just think it's a shame to sacrifice sonic performance for non-sonic limitations...

That's just it. If the K402 is a superior horn with great possibilities, then it should certainly be capable of some minimal imaging regardless of the room. On the various songs we listened to, I was got a central image for the singer one time. Only one time. As I said, I sat and stood every spot I could trying to find a sweet spot for those horns and just couldn't find it. Yes, the sound filled the room, but I could not get a good location on a singer or any instruments other than bass.

No big deal really, since that system is not in my near future. I just have heard so much about the Jubilee and how superior it is that I want to hear what everyone is talking about. I figured if I heard Roy's set up, I would know. I just keep thinking that I am missing something and I just don't enough about audio to know what it is.

Thanks for the Audyssey tip. I have done that before and the plots do show where Audyssey has made changes. But, I figure Audyssey has it's limits and there is no way for me to know if my non-EQ system is withing Audyssey's control capabilities or if there is some frequency areas where I need to assist with the crossover EQ.

I am also well aware that mic position is everything when doing Audyssey readings. I found that out when I would put the mic at ear height, well below the Khorn tweeters, and Audyssey would boost the highs' to crazy levels. After contacting Audyssey they helped me place the mic in a more correct position so Audyssey would get a more complete view of what the speaker could do.

[DrWho]

That's just it. If the K402 is a superior horn with great possibilities, then it should certainly be capable of some minimal imaging regardless of the room. On the various songs we listened to, I was got a central image for the singer one time. Only one time. As I said, I sat and stood every spot I could trying to find a sweet spot for those horns and just couldn't find it. Yes, the sound filled the room, but I could not get a good location on a singer or any instruments other than bass.

But that's exactly what I'm trying to get at...you can't analyze the speaker apart from the room. Imaging involves ONLY the off-axis behavior, and while the power response of the Jubilee is rock solid, the "power response" (for lack of a better description) of most rooms are not anywhere close to flat, and that includes Roy's room.

What other rooms have you heard the K402 in?

Btw, I might also add that the K402 really wants to be pulled out a little ways from the corner too since it's closer to 100 degrees in the horizontal polars...

Along that note, I would contest that an ideal room has splayed walls, so it's a non-issue for an ideal room (in fact, it's advantageous to keeping a dense as possible semi-reverberant decay after the Haas kicker)

[Rudy81]

DrWho, you certainly know more about audio than I do, so I will have to continue trying to understand why I can't hear any minimal imaging in those horns regardless of where I hear it. Like I said at the beginning, I'm sure it is my ability to discern the image. I just can't get it through my thick head that I can't make out an image for the very basic singer from those horns any time I have heard them. I have listened to and auditioned many home speakers in my time, but I have never run into this type of difficulty 'hearing' something that I assume must be there somewhere.

Part of my problem is that I have always judged a speaker based partly on its inherent ability to reproduce the localization of instruments and vocals in the soundfield. Of course, many factors such as the recording, the gear, the room and the speakers make a difference to one extent or another.

I will just have to keep auditioning Jubilee's until I hear what you guys are hearing. []

[DrWho]

Well I don't hear any imaging in Roy's room either... []

Btw, I don't agree with the notion that an ear must be trained or learn to hear something that you know you've already heard before. I think I said that right? In other words, to loosely quote PWK, there's nothing wrong with comparing what you hear against what you have experienced for yourself with real live acoustic sounds.

I also question the notion that higher "accuracy" can sound worse too...

[bigrfish]

I have had my system/room in a state of flux for over a year and a half, adding speakers, moving things around, upgrading amps, adding back channels, adding a center channel, etc. At one point in this process I had a condition where I was playing a Blind Boys of Alabama song and it sounded just like they were standing at the end of the room, singing down through my living room from the right to the left of my listening location. It was the most eerie, unnerving thing I ever heard. Finally I found some cables reversed from the way I thought they should have been, and when I swapped those around, the ghostlike aural apparition went away...now, what did I do? I either fixed some sound reflection anomaly, or I destroyed my "imaging" one or the other....the reason I say that is that if they were recorded in the soundstage manner, it just could have beent that they were standing stage left facing the band...and I might have trashed the most perfect "imaging" that I had ever been exposed to. With most multitrack recording, there is no particular imaging to hear. The recording engineer or the producer in the re-mix process pans a particular track to the left or to the right, usually HARD to the left or right, and puts singers in the dead center. There are no norms and conventions I know of per se...each crowd does it just the way they want to, without a lot of thought for anything but trying to balance the bandwidth utilization between left and right channels. There are always outliers, but the majority of producers and recording engineers do not pay any particular attention to this imaging business....and if it's random as it is being cut, there's no way one can extract something from it that's not there in the first place.

This is the case for a lot of Rock, R&B, Jazz, and Pop recordings. It may not be so in classical and choral recordings, and big band jazz stuff like Nelson Riddle's recordings of Linda Ronstadt, or Barry Manilow's live-cut-and-mixed-to-two-track album (I know he made one, saw a documentary, just don't remember the name). By and large engineers and producers pay no attention to stereo imaging, and you may be chasing a red herring. When I have heard stereo imaging I did not like it, found it objectionable, detracting from the music. If I wanted imaging, I would go to a live performance in a hall or theatre.

Grace and peace to all.....Chuck

[Rudy81]

Ok Chuck. You don't like imaging that's great for you. I do, so I'll keep chasing that ghost.

[Chris A]

Rudy: since you last visited I have done some experimenting and testing with the Jubs (as I have described earlier).

While I'm not quite finished testing tidying up EQ in-room, I have found that by simply moving the Jubs forward (into the room) by ~12" and toward the center by ~4", with sufficient gap-filling devices behind and to the outside of the Jubs, I now have a dramatically improved stereo image.

Apparently the K402s like to be slightly out of the corners and in front of the stuff between them. This is really pretty interesting because the K402 horn has the best controlled "polars" that I've ever seen for MF/HF horn, i.e., it doesn't lose control of its polar response in either the vertical or the horizontal direction in the midrange--unlike the balance of Klipsch home speakers. It also has the best "constant coverage" that I've seen in a single horn with this kind of bandpass (5+ octaves)

IMHO, the stereo image clearly depends on room-controlled early reflections and a clean "diffraction pattern" between two stereo speakers, i.e., that there are no obstructions/absorbers directly between the speakers, including equipment racks, mantles, flat-screen and other TVs, etc. If there is anything between the speakers, then it is suggested to move the speakers forward until there is a clean path between the speakers.

Also, moving the MF/HF horns slightly away (a few inches) from the side walls will also improve the stereo imaging even though the MF/HF horns themselves may be capable of controlling their horizontal polars throughout their passband.

If your MF/HF horns don't control polars well (i.e., Klipsch Heritage and home theater lines), you will also have more room dependence on the stereo image, This means that you will likely have to do something to your room to control near-field reflections in order to preserve the stereo imaging. The first dimension that usually loses polar control is the vertical dimension (floor and ceiling) due to a short dimension of the MF horn mouth in the vertical direction. Note that the MF horn's horizontal dimension can also lose control as you progress downward in frequency, which will probably be good cause to use absorbing panels on the walls in your room. Some of the Palladium series apparently attempt to control both the vertical and horizontal polars through means other than horn mouth dimensions.

All this is moot is you really like the sound of Bose, however. []

Chris

[Rudy81]

Chris, that is excellent news. My line of thinking is exactly what you are alluding to. A horn, like the 402, that can control its polars well should image and have a more defined and stable soundstage than a horn that has average to poor control. Particularly when you are out of the sweet spot. The majority of speakers will have at least some basic imaging at the sweet spot. Where we separate the bad from the good and the good from the great speakers is the size, depth, width and precision of the soundstage and image.

This whole issue has come put because, purely by accident and thanks to your testing, I have found that the P. Audio gear I am using has really good imaging and a soundstage that is much better than any other speaker I have had in my room, mainly the Khorn and La Scalas, stock or with the Trachorns and other mods.

Now, I do have my room treated with first reflection absorption for high frequencies, bass traps in every corner, ceiling first reflection absorption and rear wall diffusion. BUT, that image and great soundstage didn't appear until I pulled the speaker well away from the walls. There are plenty of respected acoustic articles on standard speakers that will explain this phenomenon and suggest this type of placement for standard speakers. However, as horn lovers, we rarely do that due to corner bass reinforcement.

You can move your Jubilee's anywhere you want away from the wall since they are not corner dependent and allow the 402 to breathe.

Your comments on the K402 polar control etc, is what has had me in a search to 'hear' a well behaved horn that can control it's polars well like that. It should have superb soundstage and imaging even outside the sweetspot....theoretically. Then again, I my be full of [bs].

[Chris A]

You can move your Jubilee's anywhere you want away from the wall since they are not corner dependent and allow the 402 to breathe.

Well, maybe not "corner independent", but not as sensitive as an open-back Khorn. The Jub bass bins still depend on a corner or a wall/floor intersection to produce good bass, but having the horn subs in the corners removes the need to get "the last ounce of LF performance" out of the Jubs. That is the point - separation of concerns and not trying to maximize bass over imaging performance seems to be the current course that I'm on.

Your comments on the K402 polar control etc, is what has had me in a search to 'hear' a well behaved horn that can control it's polars well like that. It should have superb soundstage and imaging even outside the sweet spot....theoretically. Then again, I my be full of .

Even though it images extremely well off-axis, I've found that the K-402 also has a sweet spot where the imaging really balances the voices spatially (width, depth, and height). The voices are tonally there off-axis and their presentation very balanced but not necessarily locked-in spatially (extreme left or right channel voices remain locked, but the center image voices move when off-axis).

[bigrfish]

Maybe I've never heard it, except that one bizarre time, and maybe that was or wasn't really stereo imaging...but it seemed that they were standing right there...could point to the place.....could be I've got something good to look forward to. I will research further the production side of the matter. I know some qualified people to ask, but I haven't ever heard them talk about stereo imaging issues at all...and I have not seen anybody mix and master with that in mind...interesting topic for sure. Chuck

[Rudy81]

Maybe I've never heard it, except that one bizarre time, and maybe that was or wasn't really stereo imaging...but it seemed that they were standing right there...could point to the place.....could be I've got something good to look forward to. I will research further the production side of the matter. I know some qualified people to ask, but I haven't ever heard them talk about stereo imaging issues at all...and I have not seen anybody mix and master with that in mind...interesting topic for sure. Chuck

Chuck, I highly recommend you look into the concept of stereo imaging. To me, that is the magic of stereo. Granted, not all recordings have been done well and many systems do a poor job of reproducing the imaging well. There are some test discs you can buy that will help you explore the imgaing characteristics of your speakers.

My setup right now has excellent imaging on most recordings, not all, but most. This includes Rock, Country and Classical. The basics of course is to see if a singer is center stage or is difficult to find in your space. A poor acoustic space will make this even more difficult due to reflections etc. But, assuming your room is reasonable for listening, your sweet spot should present a singer stage center and very realistic. In some test recordings you should be able to determine some depth to where the instruments are in the recording space etc. Some of my recordings seem to create sounds 'outside' the lateral limits of the space between the speakers. That is truly cool in my book. Good luck in your journey.

[michael hurd]

Rudy, it's too bad you haven't been able to experience being in an anechoic chamber listening behind a speaker playing a slow cascading sweep from high to low frequency.

I did get to have that experience and it's pretty wild when the horn loses pattern control, and the sound 'wraps' around the cabinet. It's an eerie feeling, it's fairly quiet ( when the sound is concentrated in one direction away from you ) then it gets very loud.

In a nutshell, the K402's are like huge headphones, they minimize the interaction with boundaries pretty good, this may be what you are feeling when you hear them. That particular horn has great pattern control, that is to say it doesn't suddenly get wide in it's coverage pattern until pretty low in frequency.

A smaller horn, that doesn't have good polar control will spill sound off to the sides, as well as up and down. This results in more early reflections and to a degree spatial imaging.

Do you own a decent set of headphones? Try listening to an audio track that you are familiar with on headphones and then listen again on your system. You will hear many differences, namely from the extreme lack of crosstalk, one signal into each ear.

Crossover design in speakers is both art and science. Center to center distances, polar control of individual devices, resistive and inductive components, intended boundary interaction, ( placement ) are factors in how a speaker gets 'voiced'. Depending on the intended usage, speakers of a similar type will be 'voiced' differently.

IE: a concert system used outdoors will not necessarily sound good in a reflective 1/4 or 1/8th space environment.

Hope that helps explain some of what you might be experiencing.

[Rudy81]

Michael, I'm sure that is a strange experience.