why is klipsch called fatiguing and diliked in other forums

[Wuchak]

No work needed on them. I will upgrade the crossovers and try the titanium diaphragms someday when I get the itch to change something in the system. They amount of sonic information they provide took a while to get used to coming from a more relaxed speaker. Like anything it took some adjustment on my part. A big part of that was to stop listening critically all the time for every last lip sound from the singer and just enjoy the music.

[garyrc]

Klipschorns, Belle Klipsches, and La Scalas have a pure, clean sound with good recordings. Some other horny speakers -- some horn loaded JBLs and Altecs -- have a similarly pure and clean sound.

All of the above can create the illusion of the instruments being right in front of you. This is particularly true with the brass, woodwinds, and drums.

None of the above sound good with bad recordings, and one way a recording can be bad is to be harsh, or to sound like the studio electronics or microphones have been overloaded. An engineer I used to know suggested that a touch of microphone diaphragm crashing shows up more on horn speakers. He thought that if a studio did not use horn speakers, that some of their recordings were worse than they thought, and others better, for the above reasons.

I actually know someone who has horn speakers for his good recordings and non-horn speakers for his bad ones.

[garyrc]

... becomming unbalanced on older klipsch speakers, producing a shrill irritating midrange. There is one person who claims they were made that way due to cost cutting--that the whole crossover setup is defective. He makes a kit to correct this problem.

Some people actually prefer the old networks (like the AA on the Klipschorn) ... especially with new caps.

The only thing I've heard that resembles "made that way due to cost cutting--that the whole crossover setup is defective" is the numerous complaints that the Klipschorn, La Scalla, and Belle K55 midrange driver wasn't electronically rolled of above its useful range, but just allowed to roll off naturally, exposing a little peak coming from the midrange driver in the range where the tweeter should be operating. This was filtered out in later models, including (at least) the AK4 and AK5 Klipschorn crossovers.

[garyrc]

Of those people complaining of being fatiged by Klipsch speakers I would like to know how many are over 60 years old, that being the problem.

JJK

In my experience, the age group you mention is far more likely to enjoy the sound of horn type speakers! As high frequency hearing declines with age, the fatigue some complain of when using horns with crappy solid state electronics becomes less apparent. I've encountered far more complaints about the sound of horn type speakers from much younger listeners.

Yet .... the harshness (when it happens) in recordings is in ample
supply at about 3K through about 8K, where most seniors don't experience
much loss. I used to have a sharp 7K cut-off scratch filter, and tried
to cut out harshness by using it. I don't remember it ever
working -- the harshness was below 7K. All the 7K filter did was cut
the smile out of a voice, and the shimmer out of cymbals and other
instruments. Many of the speakers reviewed in Stereophile, which
may be requested for audition by younger people just starting out
building a system, actually have elevated high frequency response
compared to Klipsch Heritage speakers, for instance. Sam Tellig characterized the La
Scala as "reticent" in the highs, compared to the typical speaker he
encounters (the review of the La Scala depicted it as generally
excellent, however).

If younger listeners are complaining more
about horns, an alternate hypothesis might be that a number of younger
listeners may become habituated to speakers that mellow out harsh
sounds. guilding the lilly. Fewer of them have heard live orchestras
playing classical/romantisist/modern orchestral music with lots of
strings, etc. than at anytime since the dawn of High Fidelity, so they
may not know what orchestras sound like. I heard some young people
complainig about a live Charles Ives peice this way.

Also, many young people tend to be too poorly paid to afford electronics other than "crappy solid state." electronics.

I maintain that most of the fatigue and harshness (with either my not-too-crappy solid state, or my former McIntosh and Dyna tubes) comes from bad recordings, and is better revealed by horn loudspeakers, due to cone or dome speakers having the masking effect of frequency modulation distortion and somewhat pleasant (but inaccurrate) harmonic distortion ("richness" or "musicality" in goldenearspeak).