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Opinion on Chorus ll


gagelle

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One of my biggest letdowns with the Chorus II is the fact that they voiced the woofer about 2dB quieter than the midrange section...which even shows up in all the frequency response posted so far. I can only imagine this was to maintain the very high sensitivity rating for the speaker. I've never gotten around to it, but I've been dying to design a passive xover for the Chorus II that pads down the MF/HF section a bit to improve the overall tonal balance and really show how well that K48 can thump. Instead, I've moved to an active xover where I can dial it in with the flip of a few buttons.

But in stock form, I would still take the Chorus II over any vintage of the Cornwall. That tractrix midrange has way less coloration than the exponential horns, and then the Chorus II doesn't have a peaky bass response (which also shows up in the Cornwall measurements).

That said, both sound great and for most source material it's hard to tell which is which when you get them volume matched. It's all about what frequencies are present in the music and where they fall in relation to the natural behavior of the speakers. Over the majority of the passband, both are very low distortion and have rather similar polar responses.

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I've never gotten around to it, but I've been dying to design a passive xover for the Chorus II that pads down the MF/HF section a bit to improve the overall tonal balance and really show how well that K48 can thump. .

But unlike some purist I'm not afraid to bump up the woofer with a little tone control. I'm a headbanger at heart anyways. The music I enjoy isn't considered to be audiophile music by any means. Classic rock, hard rock and heavy metal mostly for me. Now finding a tone control that does what its suppose to and leaves the other frequencies alone is a little tougher but I'm getting closer.

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That said, both sound great and for most source material it's hard to tell which is which when you get them volume matched.

Well Doc I think thats right as long as your not talking 100 dbs or higher. The Cornwall performed well for me at low to medium volumes but lost all control at higher volumes. Between the screaming and the rumbling I had enough very quickly.

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I also wonder if while testing a khorn do they use a false corner.

The "false corner" in the Hope anechoic chamber is actually a revolving corner of the room to the left of the shot that you posted above.

Chris

Thats pretty cool, I hadnt seen that before.

You gotta get in on the Klipsch Pilgrimages...

I am definately going to be in on the next one if it is any where near my part of the country !

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With regaurds to the Chorus II being a little hot in the mid and hi section in regaurd to the base, could you pick a tap of of the autoformer that has less output? If it was that simple I guess several out there would have experimented with it. I recall a visit to GLA51 and he said that could be done with the Heresy. Opinions?

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But unlike some purist I'm not afraid to bump up the woofer with a little tone control. I'm a headbanger at heart anyways. The music I enjoy isn't considered to be audiophile music by any means. Classic rock, hard rock and heavy metal mostly for me. Now finding a tone control that does what its suppose to and leaves the other frequencies alone is a little tougher but I'm getting closer.

[Y][Y][Y]
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DrWho, If there were a multitap autoformer in the network, or if maybe the Bob Crites version included a multitap, do you feel that it could achieve the cooling off of the mids or is it just grasping at straws?

Well there are many ways it can be done, and an autoformer can certainly work, but there is some more EQ'ing beyond just the overall level that can take some of the bite off when listening on tubes. In other words, I think it can be done without the extra expense, but that's prob just the engineer in me coming out.

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But unlike some purist I'm not afraid to bump up the woofer with a little tone control. I'm a headbanger at heart anyways. The music I enjoy isn't considered to be audiophile music by any means. Classic rock, hard rock and heavy metal mostly for me. Now finding a tone control that does what its suppose to and leaves the other frequencies alone is a little tougher but I'm getting closer.

YesYesYes

You are both dead on !

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  • 2 months later...

Had both, sold both. Sold CW first because Chorus II beat it out on sound and styling. Always wanted a pair of CWs until I had them. They sound okay, but they look kind of funny to me. Big box for the drivers, and kind of skinny in depth for their height and width. Chorus look much better IMO. I also like the grills on the Chorus with the beveled edge and the magnets instead of velcro. Ultimatley, I sold all my Heritage speakers that didn't have horn loaded bass. I found out that was the quaility I was truly looking for.

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But unlike some purist I'm not afraid to bump up the woofer with a little tone control. I'm a headbanger at heart anyways. The music I enjoy isn't considered to be audiophile music by any means. Classic rock, hard rock and heavy metal mostly for me. Now finding a tone control that does what its suppose to and leaves the other frequencies alone is a little tougher but I'm getting closer.

YesYesYes

You are both dead on !

You can add me to this category... +1!!!!!

It was hard to find speakers that can do metal well....

Heritage did it for me in the form of Heresies plus a good sub.......

In my case.... the mids need dropping about 3-5db, so an eq is essential......

To this day I am still blown away.......

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But unlike some purist I'm not afraid to bump up the woofer with a little tone control. I'm a headbanger at heart anyways. The music I enjoy isn't considered to be audiophile music by any means. Classic rock, hard rock and heavy metal mostly for me. Now finding a tone control that does what its suppose to and leaves the other frequencies alone is a little tougher but I'm getting closer.

YesYesYes

You are both dead on !

You can add me to this category... +1!!!!!

It was hard to find speakers that can do metal well....

Heritage did it for me in the form of Heresies plus a good sub.......

In my case.... the mids need dropping about 3-5db, so an eq is essential......

To this day I am still blown away.......

I guess I'm in the same boat as well. Hit the loudness button and hike up the bass pot...play some Sepultura on the Cornwalls...no subs required. Although the subwoofers are there if needed.

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Had both, sold both. Sold CW first because Chorus II beat it out on sound and styling. Always wanted a pair of CWs until I had them. They sound okay, but they look kind of funny to me. Big box for the drivers, and kind of skinny in depth for their height and width. Chorus look much better IMO. I also like the grills on the Chorus with the beveled edge and the magnets instead of velcro. Ultimatley, I sold all my Heritage speakers that didn't have horn loaded bass. I found out that was the quaility I was truly looking for.

I used to have 7.1 with ALL horns top to bottom, except for the subs, which were twin Large VMPS. Now I still have all horns in the 3 front channels, but giot rid of the CheapScalas in the rears because I moved to a smaller basement. I now have Heresy's for the rear channels and I"m back to 5.1, since as far as I have experienced, 99% of the Blue Ray movies are still mixed in 5.1 and 6th or 7th channel made very little difference in either of my rooms. I tried to give up all horns in the Front Center, but wen back to all horns after trying twin Fortes and Twin Heresy's. I'm even using the same JBL drivers in the mid (different horn) than the flanks............................but all horns, espeically BASS horns rule.

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In my case.... the mids need dropping about 3-5db, so an eq is essential......

Passive bi-amping takes care of that problem for me. I've been doing it with Klipsch speakers for the last 4 years or so. A sweet low powered tube amp on top and a heavy duty solid state amp on the woofers works like a dream. I ditched the eq a long time ago since trying this. As long as both amps have gain controls you can blend them perfectly. It's not "active" bi-amping but it works.....takes away that "forward" midrange making it sound rich and sweet. [Y]
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Well I have been in search of improving the sound of my Chorus IIs for some time now. When I orignally purchased them I ran them with a Marantz 8500 avr.

The mids and highs were so much better than what I was used to with my KLFs, but the bass was lacking a real punch. After taking some advise from this forum I upgraded the power to the Emotiva XPA-5 while now using the Marantz as a pre-amp. A big improvement. Several months ago I refreshed the x-overs and tweetes with Bob Cs products. Anoher noticable improvement but still with the bass lacking. Further advice from the forum had me turn the treble down(-2db) and I up the bass(+2db) and it made a hugh difference in the precieved bass output. This weekends project was to make the CIIs bi-ampable feeding the lows and mid-highs with seperate channels out of the XPA-5. I also purchased 3 and 6 db attenuators from Parts Express and put the 3dbs in line to the input of the amp on the mid/high channels. I was hoping for a big change because the attenuation/boost would not be taking place at the freq of the tone controls of the Marantz and then bleeding off db wise at the surrounding octaves.

All I can say is WOW. Not only has the bass appeared to come alive like never before but also the mid/highs are much more open. The CIIs now seem more balanced form top to bottom. I sampled some of my regular cds and it was like hearing brand new music. Simply stunning.

This was a very easy and inexpensive tweak and would recomend it to anyone that was in the boat that I was in. The attenuators, RCA splitters and new terminal cups were well under $50. Money well spent!

This was origanally posted under updates and mods but I have moved it here as it seems like a more appropriate thread.

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The CIIs now seem more balanced form top to bottom.

Congrats on your discovery vnzbd. [:D]

Do those attenuators have any kind of gain adjustments? I suspect that they don't......do you ever find the need to make an adjustment or did you just luck out?

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I can say that it was just by chance that I found a value that works well. I have only tried the 3db thus far and really like it. After a week or so I will put in the 6db just to see but I suspect it will be too much. I purchased the Harrison Labs versions from Parts Express. They carry 3,6 and 12 versions. It would be neat to find a quality adjustable attenuator to dial it in for each persons exact taste. I have been listening to Clapton, Simply Red, SRV, Michael McDonald, and Sade the last two evenings and feel like I am listening to a brand new system.

One thing that may or may not factor into the equation is the amplifier. It is rated 200wpc @8 ohms, what the Chorus II is rated at according the input cup. When I mesured the woofer circuit after it had been seperated from the rest of the x-over it measured at 4.2 ohms. The XPA-5 is rated to 300wpc @ 4 ohms. I know that there is an impeadence curve and the amp will see different resitance at different frequencies so maybe yes, maybe no. I do believe pulling the high/mids off of the woofer circuit also played a big part in the new sound.

As far as the KLF's go, I have had several sets of the 10's and a set of the 20's. The 10's seemed to carry better bass( punchier,deeper) than the 20's and I found the 20's mids harsh after a half hour of listening at moderate levels. The 20's were bone stock and did not feel that I wanted to start to tweak a speaker that I enjoyed less than the 10's. I would expect that to be an unpopular opinion here but once I heard the CIIs I could not believe the difference in the mids, even with a 20 year old x-over.

All I can say is I love what I have. Blessed indeed!

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