An important reminder from Our Leader.

[dtel]

I would think so also, I guess that's a big part of why people like those one driver speakers, nothing needed a full signal into one driver ? I could see how that would be an improvement, it's only limited by the driver.

I don't know much about crossovers but I think it's more than just sending the right frequency to each driver by looking at some of them..........i don't really know anything about the technical part.......I depend on the "smart" people here to work out the kinks, then I copy it ! []

[greg928gts]

I know some of you here hate it when I bring this subject up, but is there really much difference between adding loudness and presence to Blastophonic 88's and the EQ curve added to Klipsch Jubilees?

OK I have a question, One forum member built a passive crossover that does the exact same thing that an active crossovers does which is the EQ curve your talking about because he wanted to not use Pro amps and wanted to wire it differently for tubes and not an active crossover. How is that different than any other crossover including some of the extreme slope crossovers ?

I know his were big but a big part of that was because he wanted to use the best parts available no matter cost, so instead of the little coil looking things his where huge, it could have been done smaller and cheaper.

I am NO expert on any of this but to me if you want passive instead of active crossovers what is the big difference if use an EV dX 38 active or normal crossover to design the curves, active just gives you more choices, like an adjustable crossover where you can also adjust the slope and timing of each driver.

I am asking, I thought the parts used in a normal crossover is what they use to call a "balancing network ", it set the signal tone going to the driver ? Some speakers have more or less parts than others looking at just Klipsch crossovers.

I know Klipsch uses a basic crossover, I hate to use the word cheap but there not expensive or the last word in crossovers, there is a large market for improved and better designed crossovers being sold, some are more than what some of these speakers cost used. PWK had to design and build to meet a basic need not to get the max from each of his design, cost was a big deal. With the Jube it's not an official design to be sold it's like a project that does not have to meet cost spec's on the crossover and these active crossovers are about as fancy as available, not the minimum.

Again I am definitely NOT the person to answer these questions, I just thought that was how it worked ?

I don't think it would matter to PWK, whether the signal manipulation was done passively or actively. What I take from his writings is that he believed a speaker should do the job as naturally as possible, with no outboard signal processing required, in order to reproduce the sound as accurately as possible. His point being that the addition of signal processing took something from the accuracy of reproduction. If a person decided to add signal processing after the fact, that was their burden, but I think he firmly believed that the speaker should not (as part of the design) require signal processing to be accurate.

PWK is not talking about crossovers or balancing networks when he writes about the use of loudness, prescence, or tone controls. He obviously thought about the crossovers used in his speakers differently than the treble control on a typical stereo receiver. This goes directly to my point, that the curve NEEDED to make Jubilees work properly (as part of the design) is like cranking the treble knob of your typical stereo receiver up to 8. I'm just wondering how the Jubilee lovers out there square this with what PWK has written.

Greg

[Groomlakearea51]

One of the reasons why I have resigned myself to my fate of not having Jubilees is the lack of a factory standard passive crossover, and the cost of the active components necessary to make them work correctly (or at least as so many of the owners seem to have discovered).

The other reason stems from the voice, the look, the feeling of an omniscient presence in the room when I was at BEC's in March looking at a pair. And it was not the speakers. It was the "Eye Of Sauron"; and the accompanying questioning (oh well, it was actually more of an interrogation with waterboarding later..) from SWMBO who nicely told me that preparing for our son's college, household repairs, and food.... would take precedent over something so large, so expensive, and so "ugly". Having been happily married to an otherwise forgiving and understanding "audiophile tolerant wife" for over 25 years, I was not about to cross the Jubilee Rubicon (or in this case, the Styx into the underworld of pain and suffering)

[H]

[greg928gts]

Greg

Do you want to sell your Jubilees or 402s. I am interested if so!

rigma

Sorry, not at this time.

For the record, even though I've said it umpteen times, I really like my Jubilee speakers. I wish I could listen to them more often. Someday I hope to build a dedicated listening room at my shop where I can move big speakers in and out and store them nearby. It's quite an ordeal right now at my house to switch out a pair of Khorns and install Jubilees, with the speakers being trucked back and forth to my shop. Then there's the polite questions about how long the big black speakers are going to be in the living room.

Greg

[dtel]

This goes directly to my point, that the curve NEEDED to make Jubilees work properly (as part of the design) is like cranking the treble knob of your typical stereo receiver up to 8. I'm just wondering how the Jubilee lovers out there square this with what PWK has written.

Greg

I have no idea what jube owners think of that ?

Myself not knowings what every part of a crossover does and why horn shapes are chosen and final cabinet size and shapes are decided and a list of other things are part of the " I don't know ".

I see what your saying less is more, and it makes sense. I have set the DX 38 to full just to hear what it sounded like with no EQ, I was quite surprised, the 402 horn was actually brighter and the bass bins were almost the same, I can see how the EQ required slightly changes everything but it's way less than I thought, to my ears, on paper it may look like alot ?

I guess it like designing a horn you keep making changes until you get the results you are looking for and always compromising on something in the design to get the overall effect your looking for.

I look at all of this stuff from the simple angle, they can design anything they want, but when I hear it, right or wrong it's my choice if I like it or not, it really does not make a difference to me if it took 10 years to design or 10 minutes.

I think PWK was a great designer and person and really appreciate all of his work. But it's easy for me to be selfish with the easy choices on there designs because I have none of the responsibility, if I don't like them I don't want them. I have 5 of some his most popular models here( and a few others) to compare and every one has compromises and greatnesses and I wouldn't get rid of any of them.

[garyrc]

• After calibrating my ears by attending many concerts, playing in 5 orchestras, and eating my lunch in front of one rehersing for several years, I picked Klipschorns as being the closest I'd heard to the real tuing ...BUT ....
• I value tone controls to compensate for differences in taste between the recordists/producers and me. The great Yo Yo Ma recordings of Bach's Unaccompanied Suites don't have nearly enough very high treble, so I apply EQ.... and the TV people did exactly the same thing -- to great effect -- when they broadcast the Suites (my TV tuner is hooked up to the same Khorn system that I listen to almost all music on, including the Suites). The Solti Mahler Eighth has way too much high treble, so i apply EQ. EQ was a lot easier with my old Luxman with three turnover points for both bass and treble, as well as other EQ capabilities
• IMO, PWK is absolutly correct that it is best to start with an accurate speaker, and then enhance or alter if you want. I find it necessary with some CDs, to make them sound more like "live."

[dtel]

I find that alot also, some recordings have almost no bass even to the point where you can't adjust enough. Some of the most aggravating is recordings that sound overly compressed, they sound dead and lifeless.

It's a shot in the dark whan you buy a CD or DVD, and even some LP's were not right (going from memory there).

[mikebse2a3]

I don't think it would matter to PWK, whether the signal manipulation was done passively or actively. What I take from his writings is that he believed a speaker should do the job as naturally as possible, with no outboard signal processing required, in order to reproduce the sound as accurately as possible. His point being that the addition of signal processing took something from the accuracy of reproduction. If a person decided to add signal processing after the fact, that was their burden, but I think he firmly believed that the speaker should not (as part of the design) require signal processing to be accurate.

PWK is not talking about crossovers or balancing networks when he writes about the use of loudness, prescence, or tone controls. He obviously thought about the crossovers used in his speakers differently than the treble control on a typical stereo receiver. This goes directly to my point, that the curve NEEDED to make Jubilees work properly (as part of the design) is like cranking the treble knob of your typical stereo receiver up to 8. I'm just wondering how the Jubilee lovers out there square this with what PWK has written.

Greg

First I would like to comment that caution should always be used when reading any paper out of the context of the time that it was written. It was not at all unheard of for PWK to correct even his own thoughts/papers with later papers as Research by himself and others, Testing, Equipment and the Art of REproduction itself advanced through the years.

Second I would like to point at the fact that in reality "signal processing" exist from the begining of the REproduction process ie: microphones, positioning of the microphones, recording equipment, monitor loudspeakers and there placement in the room, monitoring room, recording storage medium(all types have flaws), playback equipment, playback loudspeakers and listening room. All of these degrade and create errors of some form or another and this degradtion can even range from unpleasent to pleasent to listeners depending sometimes on their individual biases. So bottom line for me it comes down to which "signal processings" maintains the most accuracy as I assemble my REproduction system.

What I don't believe some here fully understand is "signal processing" is happening with all drivers and horns. It is in the form of electrical and/or acoustical manipulation(ie; colasping polar response to compensate for the driver design's inherient rolloff). There is no free lunch..!!! The horn that uses colasping verticle polar response for example is using "acoustical signal processing" to maintain a balanced on axis frequency response at the expense of it's off axis frequency response(ie: power response). The consequence of this is that it is more unpredictable how the loudspeaker using this horn will sound to listeners in different areas of the room because the perceived frequency balance of the loudspeaker will shift more dramatically depending on the location of the loudspeaker and listener in any given room. Of course we all know that a loudspeaker using such a horn can still be made to sound very good with proper attention but is it the most accurate way to deliver soundwaves into the room? Some very good research by FLoyde E. Toole and my own experience tells me that there is a better way and more consistant way to REproduce soundwaves in our rooms and that is with a horn that maintains Flat ON and Off Axis Frequency Response as provided by the Klipsch K402. This horn does require "electrical signal processing" versus "acoustical signal processing" but don't be deceived both horns require "signal processing"..!!!! This electrical compensation for the K402/K69A ranges from a reduction of around -10db at the low frequencies that rises to about +6db by 20Khz (note: only this small amount of gain is being used with the active setups and it only begins at approximately 13.8khz and gradually rises to 20khz and this is only because we are going 2-way and with the active approach it is easily available). Are there potential benefits to this active approach you ask???? Absolutely...!!! Distortion in the amplifiers are reduced because of less voltage drive required from them as well as other forms of distortion from a reduced frequency range that they are required to reproduce. Given todays advanced DSP processors precise compensation is available that was pratically unavailable even a few years ago and IMHO and experience there are some very good processors available that when installed and used properly provide a gain of accuracy in many areas of loudspeaker performance.

Speaking for myself, I have owned what some would consider very minimalist systems(CD-Player/Tube-DAC/ Passive Volume Control and Tube both single ended and push-pull amplifiers all played through KHorns in several different rooms over those years) that I enjoyed for over a decade lest anyone think I don't understand the less is more mindset. I still believe and pratice simple is better but only when it still provides accuracy in the form of clarity,distortion,frequency response,dynamics and imaging and IMHO I have experienced an improvement in all these important areas when I added the K402 and Active DSP Processing to my system.

So, as far as a Jubilee/K402 owner I have no problem squaring the signal processing required with the K402 with what PWK had written decades ago because I firmly believe they allow this system to provide a higher degree of accuracy than what would be available without the use of the K402 and this satisfies PWK's goal and his real point of this paper which was accuracy of REproduction. Who knows what PWK would have thought given time and experience with this approach but keep in mind even after decades of using the Exponential Horn he came to understand the many potential benefits that was offered by the Tractrix and Modified Tractrix Horn and unfortunately he never got the chance to experience this system so we will never really know will we?

mike tn

[mikebse2a3]

I value tone controls to compensate for differences in taste between the recordists/producers and me.

It's not just a matter of differences in taste. There are so many unpredictable variables that it is extremely unlikely that you will hear what the recordists/producers heard when they created the recording.

Most collection will show an extreme difference in tonal balances because there are no standards that anyone follows and any revealing system will show this all to obviously.

The only way to deal with this under our present methods is some well designed tonal compensation capabilities in our systems designed for and dedicated to recording variations tonal compensation which might make possible the ability to hear something close to what the recordist/producer intended in the begining assuming they are talented in there area of expertise.

Mark Levinson and Cello produced a very reasonable designed set of compensation controls for such purposes in their equipment. Below is a link showing how with a Behringer and actually other brands of DSP processors I've used can be programed to provide the same type of tonal compensation and more. The great thing about this method is if the tonal correction isn't needed the unit can even be bypassed.

http://community.klipsch.com/forums/p/112125/1127553.aspx#1127553

IMO, PWK is absolutly correct that it is best to start with an accurate speaker, and then enhance or alter if you want. I find it necessary with some CDs, to make them sound more like "live."

I absolutely agree an accurate loudspeaker is essential..!

mike tn

[seti]

If you take any pro theater horn system and put it into your home
right out of the box you will have to use some form of eq to get it
right. That does not make it wrong or in any way inferior. How do they sound in the theater? It is a different tool for a different job. Does that mean you can't use it in the home? No you just have to do a little more work. The same goes for other brand pro horns. Also does it really
matter if you are doing the eq in the crossover be it passive or
electronic for home or pro environment? I imagine PWK
was in favor of delivering a product to his customers that needed the
least amount of tone controls or preferably none. Didn't PWK use a little eq in his crossovers for home products?
The 402 510 and a few other horns are being used by horn enthusiast to complete various
systems which I think is very cool. These horns also happen to sound great. There are
many more pro products that could be really cool in the home for someone willing to invest the time to make it work. I wouldn't mind giving a couple
KPT-415s a try I bet it could shake the rafters.

I'd love
to know what PWK would think of people using MWM systems in their homes
with modified tractrix horns in two way configurations. We will never
know this of course. I did tell an ex klipsch employee about this and I
got a big long belly laugh out of him. Don't think he really believed me
until I showed him the pics which only made him laugh harder. He
thought it was great yet insane.

[The Dude]

If you take any pro theater horn system and put it into your home
right out of the box you will have to use some form of eq to get it
right. That does not make it wrong or in any way inferior. How do they sound in the theater? It is a different tool for a different job. Does that mean you can't use it in the home? No you just have to do a little more work. The same goes for other brand pro horns. Also does it really
matter if you are doing the eq in the crossover be it passive or
electronic for home or pro environment? I imagine PWK
was in favor of delivering a product to his customers that needed the
least amount of tone controls or preferably none. Didn't PWK use a little eq in his crossovers for home products?
The 402 510 and a few other horns are being used by horn enthusiast to complete various
systems which I think is very cool. These horns also happen to sound great. There are
many more pro products that could be really cool in the home for someone willing to invest the time to make it work. I wouldn't mind giving a couple
KPT-415s a try I bet it could shake the rafters.

I'd love
to know what PWK would think of people using MWM systems in their homes
with modified tractrix horns in two way configurations. We will never
know this of course. I did tell an ex klipsch employee about this and I
got a big long belly laugh out of him. Don't think he really believed me
until I showed him the pics which only made him laugh harder. He
thought it was great yet insane.

I think this is a very good point, nicely said Seti[Y]

[dtel]

I did tell an ex klipsch employee about this and I got a big long belly laugh out of him. Don't think he really believed me until I showed him the pics which only made him laugh harder. He thought it was great yet insane.

There are always a few goofballs in every group, you know how that is ! []

[seti]

If you take any pro theater horn system and put it into your home
right out of the box you will have to use some form of eq to get it
right. That does not make it wrong or in any way inferior. How do they sound in the theater? It is a different tool for a different job. Does that mean you can't use it in the home? No you just have to do a little more work. The same goes for other brand pro horns. Also does it really
matter if you are doing the eq in the crossover be it passive or
electronic for home or pro environment? I imagine PWK
was in favor of delivering a product to his customers that needed the
least amount of tone controls or preferably none. Didn't PWK use a little eq in his crossovers for home products?
The 402 510 and a few other horns are being used by horn enthusiast to complete various
systems which I think is very cool. These horns also happen to sound great. There are
many more pro products that could be really cool in the home for someone willing to invest the time to make it work. I wouldn't mind giving a couple
KPT-415s a try I bet it could shake the rafters.

I'd love
to know what PWK would think of people using MWM systems in their homes
with modified tractrix horns in two way configurations. We will never
know this of course. I did tell an ex klipsch employee about this and I
got a big long belly laugh out of him. Don't think he really believed me
until I showed him the pics which only made him laugh harder. He
thought it was great yet insane.

I think this is a very good point, nicely said Seti

Thank you. Some people forget that the consumer jubilee with all the eq built into the passive for hf and lf never made it to market. However it did make it to the pro environment where the people that buy them mostly theater techs use them differently and have the knowledge and tools to do this properly. It is like buying a sports car built for racing and complaining that there isn't an air conditioner.

[IB Slammin]

If you take any pro theater horn system and put it into your home right out of the box you will have to use some form of eq to get it right. That does not make it wrong or in any way inferior. How do they sound in the theater? It is a different tool for a different job. Does that mean you can't use it in the home? No you just have to do a little more work. The same goes for other brand pro horns. Also does it really matter if you are doing the eq in the crossover be it passive or electronic for home or pro environment? I imagine PWK was in favor of delivering a product to his customers that needed the least amount of tone controls or preferably none. Didn't PWK use a little eq in his crossovers for home products? The 402 510 and a few other horns are being used by horn enthusiast to complete various systems which I think is very cool. These horns also happen to sound great. There are many more pro products that could be really cool in the home for someone willing to invest the time to make it work. I wouldn't mind giving a couple KPT-415s a try I bet it could shake the rafters.

I'd love to know what PWK would think of people using MWM systems in their homes with modified tractrix horns in two way configurations. We will never know this of course. I did tell an ex klipsch employee about this and I got a big long belly laugh out of him. Don't think he really believed me until I showed him the pics which only made him laugh harder. He thought it was great yet insane.

............."I wouldn't mind giving a couple KPT-415s a try".........

Now your talkin Seti!!

tc