Jump to content

Driver Comparison for the K 402 Horn


Recommended Posts

Heli, The Jubilee crowd is among the toughest I have seen ever. There is no compromise,argument, or suggestions with this crowd, just tell them what they want to hear.

Tell them the Jubilee with Roys setting and the K-402 is the greatest sounding best looking most wonderful thing on the planet, and they will agree with you. Anything less is sacrilege.

I am serious, it a no win situation.

Craig

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Jubilee crowd is among the toughest I have seen ever. There is no compromise,argument, or suggestions with this crowd, just tell them what they want to hear.

Craig,

What rigma (Marion) says, above, isn't unfriendly but rather encouragement to hear the real thing. He is speaking from experience and cares enough to share the benefits with us. Personally I thank him for sharing. It's the folks that know but don't share that are the unfriendly ones.

My recommendation to you is to hear it...then discuss merits and demerits: anything less is argument for its own sake. After hearing Jubs/K-402s/TADs with well-implemented crossovers set up in a reasonably good
environment, I find that those that first argue that it cannot be true uniformly change their
opinions, without exception.

I personally know of no other loudspeaker setup that does
that, unfortunately.

Chris

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Heli, The Jubilee crowd is among the toughest I have seen ever. There is no compromise,argument, or suggestions with this crowd, just tell them what they want to hear.

Tell them the Jubilee with Roys setting and the K-402 is the greatest sounding best looking most wonderful thing on the planet, and they will agree with you. Anything less is sacrilege.

I am serious, it a no win situation.

Craig

You are right. It is a no win situation.

Given the difference between "us" and the engineering staff at Klipsch, "we" are not going to win. Years of experience, education, facilities, measurement equipment on one side vs good intentions on the other side do not make a very level playing field

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Heli, The Jubilee crowd is among the toughest I have seen ever. There is no compromise,argument, or suggestions with this crowd, just tell them what they want to hear.

Tell them the Jubilee with Roys setting and the K-402 is the greatest sounding best looking most wonderful thing on the planet, and they will agree with you. Anything less is sacrilege.

I am serious, it a no win situation.

Craig

I actually find this post humourous, in the sense that we are a passionate crowd. Having owned 2 Khorns and a LaScala in the classic 2 channel with mono phantom center for over 30 years, I got the bug to upgrade about 5 years ago. I have owned every type of older and newer heritage Klipsches as well for home and commercial use. When I sold my Khorns, I even had MWMs "stacks" with JBL and EV drivers on top with various mid horns.

Starting with JBL baby cheek tweeters on top of my Khorns I evolved into what I have now, which rivals or even beats out a Jubilee 2-way. Now that I own a pair, I can say with hearing and measurements that the K-402 horn lens is the best midrange/tweeter horn I have ever had. All of the other fanatics here have this in common as well, regardless of a Khorn, Jubillee, LaScala, or MWMs, or double 15" BR bottoms, the common denomiator is the K-402 with different drivers. All of them have also required an active or passive balancing network with mono or bi amping.

I prefer bi amping passive or active, because there is a differnce in sensitivity between bass and mid by about 5-6 db depnding on the driver used. There are other settings besides Roy's. ALL bass horns need some sort of EQ to flatten out their inherent peaks........this is a modern improvement which makes a huge difference. Even the latest factory built Khorn has introduced a pretey fancy network for the bass section vs. the old AA.

Some people are still blown away by the traditional Khorns, understandably, but when you consider that the Jubilee bass bin is flatter, has better transients (two motors instea of one), lower distortion, better bandwidth, and better polars, it hits all of PWK's principles on all cylinders and Paul himself would have wanted the Jube to be made pretty and sold as the flagship. Alas, it was not be, except for those fanatics who insist on making it happen because it is truly better by anyone's standards..................Even JBL fanatics who have actually heard them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

fanatics who insist on making it happen because it is truly better by anyone's standards..................Even JBL fanatics who have actually heard them.

In my case, a tapped horn sub has had a domino effect on my bass, so I'm able to use a bass horn that is cheaper and has fewer folds than a Jube, so the extra expense and cabinet height is not necessary............see my Avatar. As a result I cross over into the 402 at a much lower frequency than the rest here, with a scary amount of transient response from 320 Hz. on up, because I'm not going through the bass section, which, while having the lowest moving mass possible with the strongest magnet, it's still a cone going through a labyrith as opposed to a staight axis horn............superior, in my opinion.

Next step for me is a straight axis horn of my own design to replace the FH-1...........no jubes for me because of the tapped sub.

So the bottom line, is, knowing that W.C. has some good ears and good program material, I'm confident of the outcome of his testing, once he gets it all set up right for his taste.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

WC,

Obviously, you are hearing from the Jub experts and the passives you have aren't right. OK. I haven't seen you discuss how you are EQing the 402s with that passive.

From my experience with the 402s you can change the crossover point, and yeah, it changes the sound.

But IMHO the EQ is way more important. The horn is not really listenable if you don't have it EQ'd. The EQ on a CD horn is a design spec. It's a requirement, not a listener's tweak for optimized sound.

The only issue I have ever needed to deal with concerning the 402 is optimization of the EQ since I don't use an EV dx38 processor. Even off by a DB or 2 here and there makes a big difference in sound on the 402. It's a fussy beast that really needs to be setup properly to shine.

So in these preliminary listening tests you have done with the passives, how did you EQ the horn?

In my passive days I had an ALK ESN that AL Klappenburger designed and I used an outboard DBX 31 band graphical EQ. It actually was doable and sounded pretty good, but it wasn't as good as the active method which allows the precise Klipsch spec (or really close to it) to be implemented.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would have expected an update by now.

Then again, perhaps WC got things to mesh and is still standing there mesmorized by what he's hearing, not realizing it's been a couple days and he's missed sleep, dinner and...potty breaks... [:o]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Richard and Everyone,

I am hoping to get the DX-38 up and running today. Yesterday was a complete bust, as I had to take the Black Lab to the Vet in the morning, for a little surgery. She had a growth on her left paw that needed removing, along with all of the blood work, testing for whatever and surgery to recovery. We picked her up at 7:00 PM and Seven Huindred Dollars later, she is doing fine. The Human in the group also had a Doctor's appointment yesterday at 2:00 PM for continued Pain Management for a back injury, so the day was pretty much shot.......

I wish being mesmorized by something that sounded THAT good, was truly the case........

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I haven't seen you discuss how you are EQing the 402s with that passive.

are we talking about the passives from the golden jubilee's? those were custom for a different type of horn and I am sure with those horns, no SS EQ gimicks are needed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK.....Very Long Day........Had to do some work on the Construction part today...Really wish I had the time you guys think I have, so we could do this full time, but we are also building a building and it takes away from the other stuff I would like to do.

Anyway, what I have hooked up is the DX-38 ahead of two SS amps: SAE A-502 for the Base Bins and A302 for the K 402/TAD's. We are Biamping, if that is OK. If there is another configuration that you would like me to use, please let me know. I am pretty sure that I have the files loaded correctly and we will send some signals through them tomorrow. Been a very long day and I am tired...........[|-)]

As to the EQing...NO I did NOT EQ anything Thursday. I just hooked the TADS up to the HF output of the two way passives that we have. I really do not know how anyone can tell they are wrong for the application, when you have NO idea of what I am using for passives. That is a completely different thread and this one is about the DX-38 and the K-402/TAD's in comparison. I connected them just to make some sound/noise, as everyone was SOO anxious for me to do something. As I said earlier, I was very surprised at how good they sounded on the poor ole passives, that we have.

Mike, sadely, the Martinelli's nor the Eliptrac's need any "gimmicks" (Your Term) to soud pretty good through the two way I presume you mean EQing the passives.....?

W. C.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Really wish I had the time you guys think I have...

Lets me understand why I haven't heard anything about the WACI... [;)] Your plate is full to overflowing, obviously.

You are doing soooo much, and I still have a 32 input mixer sitting here with some replacement parts that I haven't even started opening up...

Bruce

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bruce,

The WACI is hard at work....I sent you a PM....The plate isn't overflowing but we are getting ready for two events at the Flying Field in SC, that are at the end of August and the beginning of September. I will be down there from next Tuesday through September 10th.....so I am having to divide time between several different projects.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anyway, what I have hooked up is the DX-38 ahead of two SS amps: SAE A-502 for the Base Bins and A302 for the K 402/TAD's. We are Biamping, if that is OK. If there is another configuration that you would like me to use, please let me know.

W.C.

Have you taken into account the different sensitivity/gain of the amplifiers and made the correct level adjustments in the EV DX38?

If not the level adjustments will need to be changed.

If you want to keep it simple for now use the same amplifier for both the LF and HF and you can figure out how to balance things for different amplifiers later.

miketn

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We are listening to the Dx38/Jub/K-402/TADs now..!

Don't forget to try out some absorbent material on the side walls and front wall closest to the K-402 mouth exits if you have the Jubs in corners. One or two absorbent pads (2' x 2') or some thick tapestry/soft blanket material tacked up temporarily. If you have anything between the speakers on the front wall, especially anything within about 30" of the K-402 mouths, try throwing a blanket or other absorbent material over those objects temporarily.

Listen for a dramatically improved center image when setting on centerline between the horns.

Chris

Link to comment
Share on other sites

W.C,

I can't remember if you said that your TADs had been used or if they were new. Be aware that it takes a few multi-hour sessions of exercising TADs at medium-loud levels to loosen them up. The effects are very audible in terms of before vs. after sound from these drivers.

Chris

Link to comment
Share on other sites

try throwing a blanket or other absorbent material over those objects temporarily.

Listen for a dramatically improved center image when setting on centerline between the horns.

I tried this once... with the wife. Yeah, she was standing in the middle of the room saying something or another so, I threw an absorbent blanket over her head and it did, dramatically, improve my center imaging once she pulled it off... [:#] [;)]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

try throwing a blanket or other absorbent material over those objects temporarily.

Listen for a dramatically improved center image when setting on centerline between the horns.

I tried this once... with the wife. Yeah, she was standing in the middle of the room saying something or another so, I threw an absorbent blanket over her head and it did, dramatically, improve my center imaging once she pulled it off... Zip it!Wink

Coytee; Did you end up with bruises ???
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...