Encouragement or Caution for late 80's KHorns?

[fini]

Nice! When I picked up my Khorns I hooked up an amp and CD player I'd brought along. I only played the music long enough to verify all the drivers worked. It sounded so good, I didn't want the seller to change her mind!! Congratulations!!!

[DTLongo]

Good show! Looking forward to the pictures.

[psg]

Good (great!) for you!!!

[artarama]

The trailer cost $20 to rent for the day, I picked it up the night before. The low deck height on the trailer made loading pretty easy.

[artarama]

Nobody wants to see this but just a reminder of what 27 years of dust will do to your speakers. This is bucket number three.

[artarama]

Here is the Right Chanel Beauty!

[artarama]

And now for the Left.

[artarama]

Now for a side view.

[artarama]

Now we have the much maligned AK Crossovers. Pretty sweet sound comes magically from these beauties. I really like the finished surface inside the Cabinet. An extra touch that almost no one will ever see.

[artarama]

Here we have the Input Block for the Left Speaker. I did not realize they were advertising and tagging the speakers as haveing monster cable inside clear back then. I thought that was a more recent marketing campain.

[artarama]

We were real glad to see the ID tags in such good shape. I once had a guy on the phone, I was asking him about the data on the tags on the back of some Cornwalls. He had them stashed in a shed and he said "Hold on a minute I think I can reach to tear it of and have a look!" I suggested he didn't do that.

[artarama]

But..... alas they were not without a flaw.

[artarama]

And finally a view toward Heaven.

[Coytee]

Fantastic! Those are beautiful. Ya dun good!

When you are doing 'kicks & grins' you might swap the Cornwall for a LaScala to see how you like the difference. Having the exact same mid/high horns you might find a slightly better match. The LaScala will keep up better with the Khorns as well.

I like the LP table! [Y]

[PrestonTom]

Looks like things worked out well!

I love a story with a happy ending.

[garymd]

Glad you like them! I had a quite different experience with my first pair.

I was accoustomed to Cornwalls so when I got mine home and tucked into their corners, I was extremely disappointed. It took new crossovers and amplification to make them "amazing" to my ears but since I did that, there's no going back. I also have a room with mediocre acoustics (at best). There's no doubt they can be improved tremendously for a relatively small investment but if they sound great as-is, just enjoy for a while.

Congrats!

[DTLongo]

It looks like you have a very adequate room for your beautiful new babies. Do you have a sense, unlike other speakers, of their energizing the very air in that room? After you've settled in with them for a while plse. give us your listening impressions. Say, "before and after" impressions of recordings you knew well prior to getting your Khorns.

P.S. I have a Belle center. But I've found I need to run the center channel a few db down relative to the mains, otherwise the center image tends to overpower the left-right stereo spread. But even down a few db the center does anchor sound there. This is to say that, if run a few db down, the center sonic quality does not have to be that close a match for the Klipschorns'.

[emmvette]

Congrats on the new additions, they look awesome. The veneer has a nice grain, and they look to be in excellent shape. What do you run for amp and pre?

[Panacea Engineering]

Is that a set of La Scalas in the foreground.....the black beat up looking boxes....?

W. C.

[garyrc]

P.S. I have a Belle center. But I've found I need to run the center channel a few db down relative to the mains, otherwise the center image tends to overpower the left-right stereo spread. But even down a few db the center does anchor sound there. This is to say that, if run a few db down, the center sonic quality does not have to be that close a match for the Klipschorns'.

I agree with DTLongo's comment.

The new (to you) Khorns in your room look great! I like it that the two walls have different types of surfaces .. that might make the effect of the room less monolithic.

I have Khorns and Belle center also. IMO the best level of the center depends on the recording, mic technique, etc. I re-adjust the level by ear, only if it sounds "wrong." The three or four articles by PWK and others on "Wide Stage Stereo" also suggest a lower level for the center. Also, keeping your Cornwall at a lower level may equalize the distortion across the three, since distortion is positively correlated with SPL (but less so in most Klipsch than with most other speakers, IMO), and the Khorns have lower distortion of some kinds (especially frequency modulation distortion) than the Cornwall, for identical dB levels.

Does your preamp or receiver have a "distance to speaker" adjustment? With all speakers against the same wall, the length of the path from the Khorns to the center seat would be longer than from the Cornwall, so some people use that adjustment. Your Cornwall is even closer, so it's sound would arive first. If possible, moving that record rack to another wall might help, but a distance to speaker electronic adjustment is the easiest, and works well. It simply delays the Cornwall a bit. This, like all modifications, is only important if it makes an audible difference, so let your ears decide.

Some people contend that your speakers will change slightly (improve) after a "burn in" period of a few weeks, especially since the networks have not been used in a while. I honestly don't know if this really happens, or if the improvement in perceived sound is due to psychological adaptation, which can be a powerful effect. I was surprised to hear my AK4 upgrades to the Khorns begin to sound better after a few months, and the two Khorn channels began to sound more like one another even with the pink noise test sound my preamp provides. Illusion? Burn-in?