What amps would you use if you Tri-amped your Klipschorns

[o0O Bill O0o]

Couple threads here and there about Tri/bi amped speakers plus some of modern tech software that allows one to do active crossovers and time align all in software led me to this thought.

What amps would you use and why?

Even though Klipschorns production run stretches for years and their "high efficiency" lends them to tube amps, I am not fan what I have heard. I been looking at all equal power amps to more for the Bass Speaker, little less for Mid range Horn, and the least for the Treble Horn. Thoughts? thx.

[Guest " "]

I would use marshall 9200 for the woofers, marshall 9100 for the mid driver, marshall el84 20/20 for the tweeters. All tube, that rocks.

[o0O Bill O0o]

I would use marshall 9200 for the woofers, marshall 9100 for the mid driver, marshall el84 20/20 for the tweeters. All tube, that rocks.

What's the cost and availability? Just from my quick searching I found not available new and looks like a collectors item so $$$$

[JBryan]

I've never heard a SS amp on horns that I enjoyed as much as tubes - at least on the top end. I would use a Korneff 45 SET or Sun Audio 2A3 SET on the K-77, a Korneff EL84 SE or Brenneman Cavalier (EL34 SE) on the K-55. The bass bin needs some power but isn't too fussy about the amp as long as its fast and quiet. I prefer the speed and efficiency of digital amps. You can put a 150-200 watt Gainclone or Hypex monoblock in each cabinet and leave them on 24/7 since they use about the same electricity at idle as a small flashlight bulb. Or just find a nice SS amp from the likes of McIntosh, Conrad-Johnson, Krell and Audio Research...plenty to chose from. You'll probably need a digital xover to align the drivers, if not a Marchand XM-9 is quiet, fairly inexpensive and has a nice damping feature to adjust the response at each crossover point.

There are far more amps at more reasonable prices out there but I've had experience with all this gear and that's what I'd try first. Have fun

[Chris A]

What amps would you use and why?

I find that once an active crossover with steep slopes and delay correction is employed to replace the stock crossovers, the need for tubes virtually disappears.

YMMV.

Just my $0.02.

Chris

[JBryan]

What amps would you use and why?

I find that once an active crossover with steep slopes and delay correction is employed to replace the stock crossovers, the need for tubes virtually disappears.

YMMV.

Just my $0.02.

Chris

Well, I've never tried SS amps on my top end but any amp will sound its best when coupled to a speaker system that is properly set up and aligned though I wouldn't imagine that it could go so far as to mask the very distinctive sound characteristics of differing topologies. In my experience, a good speaker system, properly set up accentuates the differences in amps and other gear.

[o0O Bill O0o]

Great responses so far!

1. Please make recommendation knowing that an active crossover is going to handle all frequency dividing.

a. What crossover slope and crossover points would you use and why? i.e 500, 3,000, 12,000 all @ 24dB/Octave (these are just scientific wild *** guesses (swag))

2. In addition, make recommendations that a time delay will be inserted to align all loudspeakers of the Klipshorn. i.e. 0 ms for woofer, 25ms for midrange, 28ms for tweeter. (another swag)

Thanks!

[Crown1]

If you are thinking of tri-amping, use amps which produce a little more than the rated power for each driver so as to have the necessary headroom for maximum clarity. Largest amp for the woofer, slightly smaller amps for the mid and tweeter. Also use a good clean active crossover if you've removed the original internal crossover. I like tubes but a Marshall amp is clearly not meant for high fidelity. A well built solid state amp can sound plenty warm. If its warmth you seek and you have the budget, pick up a few vintage McIntosh amps. If too expensive, try Marantz, they make a few good multichannel amps which can save space and possibly will give you what you're looking for.

[Chris A]

a. What crossover slope and crossover points would you use and why? i.e 500, 3,000, 12,000 all @ 24dB/Octave (these are just scientific wild *** guesses (swag))

There is some explanation for the steep slope crossover and its effects here. I'd use at least 24dB/octave Linkwitz-Riley steep slope filters, while paying a little attention to whether or not they are inverting or non-inverting crossover filters. Usually, the documentation on the active crossover will tell you. Also note that you need to spread the high-pass and low-pass filter frequencies to get proper summing at the crossover point. Again, I'd look to the active crossover documentation first for how to set those.

The second part: what crossover frequencies to use? The Khorn has two interesting crossover regions, both are a bit tight for my tastes because of the physical characteristics of the drivers/horns. I'd use a 400 Hz-440 Hz 24dB/octave on the bottom end. The K-700 horn doesn't go lot a lot lower than that and the bass bin doesn't go higher. so this is a good place for steep slope crossover filters.

The midrange-tweeter crossover frequency and slopes: actually this is the area where I believe that you will hear the most dramatic difference using an active crossover. There are a couple of thread here about what the Klipsch crossovers are doing in the Khorn, La Scala, Belle, and Cornwall, but the bottom line is that the midrange isn't being electrically crossed over presently on its high end(!). I'd use 4.5 kHz L-R low pass and about 5.1 kHz L-R high pass, 24 dB/octave crossover filters. Right now the passive tweeter crossover is crossing at about 5.5 kHz, which is too high for the midrange, and isn't steep enough to cut off the tweeter from sounding, well, not good below about 4kHz. The active crossover will solve these issues, as well as the time delay at crossover, which is the next subject...

2. In addition, make recommendations that a time delay will be inserted to align all loudspeakers of the Klipschorn. i.e. 0 ms for woofer, 25ms for midrange, 28ms for tweeter. (another swag)

Time delays: As mentioned earlier, a good starting point on the tweeter delay is ~8.4 ms and ~6.8 ms on the midrange. If you have any sort of instrumentation like REW, etc., you might be able to get closer. You can also just listen and increment the delay a total of a few 10ths of milliseconds both ways on the midrange (only) until you get 3-D soundstage imaging occurring in the speakers

The bass bin-midrange delay is 10x less sensitive than the midrange-tweeter time alignment, so the 8.4 delay on the tweeter is probably "good enough" as an initial setting. Be careful about filter inversion - read your manual carefully and start with non-inverting, then invert the phase of both and listen again. Listen carefully for timbre changes, in female voices, pianos, and other acoustic instruments - they should sound natural and life-like, neither emphasized nor muted.

Chris

[o0O Bill O0o]

Cask05, interesting post. I will consider your recommendations. I have found 7.1 ch receivers with 8ch input and I even looked for the ability to encode into 8 channel LPCM to send via SPDIF to a 7.1 receiver.. Also Is there a reference to the power rating of each of the Klipschorn drivers?