The History of the Jubilee

[ClaudeJ1]

I would argue that the factory setup is probably great for the speaker in an ideal room...

The factory setup is designed to get the horns, drivers, and crossover working together in a way the math says they'll work best. If you want to tweak, you can use tone controls and/or room treatments. It's statements like these that simply show how many here don't know the first thing about loudspeaker design.

The setups that Roy did for 2 different drivers (K69 and Tad 4002) in the K402 configurations for the EV Dx-38 were done in an anechoic chamber in Hope. this means the flattest response possible with time delays and a Xover point of around 500 Hz. where the polar responses of the 2 horns are matched up.

If I had Jubilees with either of those drivers for my K402's that's where I would start. Then on top of that, use Audyssey's global room correction, which would take care of the room anomalies. But the inintital setting, though limited to 2 drivers would be the best place to be "out of the box."

[ClaudeJ1]

Soon I am going to listen to all my passives and actives in one day. This will be very interesting.

One of the "big holes" in the audio electronics market right now is an integrated preamp (that can handle audio and video) combined with an active crossover, such that the extra D/A, A/D conversion can be eliminated, thus effectively eliminating passive or outboard active crossovers altogether. I haven't seen one of these yet, and especially not for multi-channel systems (e.g., 5.1, etc.). Handling all bitstream conversions (digital domain) and separating into bi-amp or tri-amp output channels would be a nice capability to have for higher-end multichannel systems.

Another approach is for active crossovers to accept digital inputs instead of analog-only inputs like all the active crossovers that I've seen to date, e.g., an HDMI input channel to the active crossover(s), and HDMI output from the preamp. Complete immunity from noise and analog transfer issues is the holy grail, IMHO.

Chris

While I agree that such a product would be on the "nice to have" list, it would have to be expensive since the volumes would be VERY LOW.

[Deang]

I would argue that the factory setup is probably great for the speaker in an ideal room...

The factory setup is designed to get the horns, drivers, and crossover working together in a way the math says they'll work best. If you want to tweak, you can use tone controls and/or room treatments. It's statements like these that simply show how many here don't know the first thing about loudspeaker design.

The setups that Roy did for 2 different drivers (K69 and Tad 4002) in the K402 configurations for the EV Dx-38 were done in an anechoic chamber in Hope. this means the flattest response possible with time delays and a Xover point of around 500 Hz. where the polar responses of the 2 horns are matched up. If I had Jubilees with either of those drivers for my K402's that's where I would start. Then on top of that, use Audyssey's global room correction, which would take care of the room anomalies. But the inintital setting, though limited to 2 drivers would be the best place to be "out of the box."

I wish there was a way of explaining this in a way that's easy to understand. It's frustrating, and instead of being in help mode I slip into jerk mode.

EDIT: Roy also modeled out his passives for all of the various combinations (don't forget the K-510) with LEAP, the chamber, and listening tests.

The only analogy that comes to mind is one of a finally tuned race engine, and some guy comes down from the bleacher section and says, "Hey, could you do me a favor and hand me a wrench".

[ClaudeJ1]

EDIT: Roy also modeled out his passives for all of the various combinations (don't forget the K-510) with LEAP, the chamber, and listening tests.

The only analogy that comes to mind is one of a finally tuned race engine, and some guy comes down from the bleacher section and says, "Hey, could you do me a favor and hand me a wrench".

I like the race engine analogy. If I could afford factory jubes instead of all my DIY meanderings, I would make sure to be a better driver, meaning I would run Roy's factory race engine but work on getting better recordings (fuel), and MORE importantly run them on the best paved road possible (a better room for listening).

[RRFL]

Being able to listen in real time as you make changes to the xover is very educational.

Yes, this is something that a believe a lot of folks miss using only passive crossover/balancing networks, and I think that those folks that haven't used active crossovers have missed a really big deal.

If you want to hear different crossover points, steep slope filter effects, time alignment, and overall speaker balancing changes (via the active's PEQ filters), and even help to protect your drivers (limiters, etc.) then all these changes are at your fingertips - immediate A/B comparisons, no additional cost, and also have stable performance even if you are using your speakers for heavy duty...as in very loud...service. It also allows you to make driver and horn changes at home and get VERY, VERY close to having balanced/well-implemented changes, that you can change again at any time.

As you might can tell, I'm not in the passive crossover camp. The advantages of good active crossovers far, far outweigh any perceived disadvantages relative to passive crossover networks, IMHO. In addition, the newer active crossover units from EV, Ashly, and others are exceptionally high quality devices with 105+ db dynamic range, and in other technical performance areas. And you can reuse your active crossovers with future speakers without having to pay for another crossover network. The price of these new high quality units is now getting down to below the cost of good quality third-party passive crossovers that are custom-designed for specific speakers.

I notice that many people discount the effect of driver/horn time alignment until they hear it corrected for their horn-loaded speakers. You get the ability to step through different time alignments to your heart's content with active crossover units, and the effect I've found is big even crossing at 400 Hz and aligning a horn-loaded bass bin with a horn-loaded midrange. The same thing goes for bi-amping and tri-amping - the effects on SQ are really positive changes for speakers with complex input impedances, like Klipsch Heritage, especially the Khorn.

Chris

I'd also like to try an Ashly as I really liked what I heard at JC's a few years ago. I have always felt that active and passives have their places. I do see the benefit of biamping especially with the crossover in the line stage. I'll experiment with the actives for a while longer. I still have a few things to try. Soon I am going to listen to all my passives and actives in one day. This will be very interesting.

Yes Yes Yes, I set this up listening in real time while making changes to the xovers, the EQ, the delay, the limiters, for all 10 channels and I set in place saved presets so I could recall them to do A-B comparisons. I also set presets so I could mute & un-mute combinations of the 10 output channels.

There are 6 channels for the Jubilee@535, 1 channel for the flying centre KPT-4350, 1 channel for the pair of THTLP "LFE" ( My 3rd experiment in prep for my home Jub system, lol ) 2 channels for the 8 KPT-8001 surrounds.

In this case we used the Allen & Heath iDR8 "non expanded" driving QSC Cinema Amps with the OPPO DVD as the front end. The expanders are available as a Digital inputs format (mentioned in response to this quote below) which is my sentiments exactly...

Soon I am going to listen to all my passives and actives in one day. This will be very interesting.

One of the "big holes" in the audio electronics market right now is an integrated preamp (that can handle audio and video) combined with an active crossover, such that the extra D/A, A/D conversion can be eliminated, thus effectively eliminating passive or outboard active crossovers altogether. I haven't seen one of these yet, and especially not for multi-channel systems (e.g., 5.1, etc.). Handling all bitstream conversions (digital domain) and separating into bi-amp or tri-amp output channels would be a nice capability to have for higher-end multichannel systems.

Another approach is for active crossovers to accept digital inputs instead of analog-only inputs like all the active crossovers that I've seen to date, e.g., an HDMI input channel to the active crossover(s), and HDMI output from the preamp. Complete immunity from noise and analog transfer issues is the holy grail, IMHO.

Chris

I send this pic to Roy and after I had done the initial rushed setup to make the system safe for use. A month later when I went back to do it properly there was a river of compliments. After I finished I wrote to Roy with the comment " The Jubs are Exquisite Roy, I knew they would be" He then requested more photos and was please there was a great sounding multi purpose system in Australia.

[seti]

I send this pic to Roy and after I had done the initial rushed setup to make the system safe for use. A month later when I went back to do it properly there was a river of compliments. After I finished I wrote to Roy with the comment " The Jubs are Exquisite Roy, I knew they would be" He then requested more photos and was please there was a great sounding multi purpose system in Australia.

Wow That is really really cool!

[RRFL]

Thanks Dean, I liked your post also about Roy's fully engineered Jubillees. I forgot to mention that I also heard the 3-way Jubillee, which is in the Cinema catalog, with K-402/K1133 and K510/K69 as tweeters. That was actually my favorite top end of because of the full 90 degree dispersion above 5 Khz. In my case, I went with the QSC horn and the excellent B&C DE-250 1" driver for a tweeter, since a K-510/K69 in the home would be seriously expensive OVERKILL, according to Roy, even if I had to push it though a movie screen, like Rigma does for his center channel Jubilee.

Yeah I agree the K-402/K1133 and K510/K69 is my favorite top end of anyhing I have heard so far. This was clearly evident when we listened to them at JC's house a couple years ago. We listened to the 403 w/b&cde82, 402 with various drivers, 510, 402/510 also several of the tractrix top hats one from Greg Roberts, one from Gothover or Alk. This was all on top of JC's killer tractrix bass bin. The 402/510 combo just sounded better than anything else that was there. That was alot of work rolling through those horns but at the end of the weekend we all wanted to hear that combo again.

My Jubs are still in their boxes as I have distractions that are causing delays in completing my home system.

This is the K-402/K1133 and K510/K69 factory Cinema configuration with the new 510's.

I note that during my setup I did route the centre channel through the left and right Jubs with a 3db cut and this created a virtual centre channel. Therefore, I would be happy with no centre speaker as the capacity of the pair of Jubs was more than sufficient to cause impact in the seats that was better than many major top shelf cinemas. We don't know how loud it can go. the room is 40foot by 40foot by up to 26foot high. I did set it for cinema mode with a mix of the centre channel into the centre KPT-4350 and the Jubs so I could place the virtual image into the centre of the screen. The room is used for live bands, seminars and gymnastic presentations as well as cinema.

All the walls etc are covered with special acoustic treatments to remove the walls as much as possible. There is some surfaces that unavoidably are reflective e,g, the screen.

[RRFL]

here is the newer design with 'shelves' in there as supports.

ah...yes...and thats how I would do it if I were going to include a passive radiator.

This is most interesting for me as the "shorter table version" THTLP build number 9 that I'm building at the moment will have all the internal bracing as what is described as a shelf and I'm doing this to make the assemble less tedious. I will be drilling large holes with various size hole saws through the bracing so it will be more like and aircraft frame and so I don't get pressure differences in the 3 throates.

This experiment number 9 is for the Sydney Cinema Dealer to go with his home stereo system. It will have dual 10" drivers.

The pair of THTLP for the cinema build numbers 5 & 6 are above the screen pointing mouth to mouth with a panel centred between them.

Number 7 & 8 are a 16" wide pair for my LaScala.

Number 10 might be isobaric.

Number 11 & 12 will be a LFE pair for my Home Jubs so I think by then I will be happy I got it right.

[RRFL]

I send this pic to Roy and after I had done the initial rushed setup to make the system safe for use. A month later when I went back to do it properly there was a river of compliments. After I finished I wrote to Roy with the comment " The Jubs are Exquisite Roy, I knew they would be" He then requested more photos and was please there was a great sounding multi purpose system in Australia.

Wow That is really really cool!

After I had been in there most of the day on the final setup. I soooooooo really wanted a room like that for mine. We sat there listening for about half and hour and then had the idea lets turn it up louder. That was just a though. I played many audio tracks and movies and listening to Voice by Hiromi was off the scale remarkable.

[Speakmeister]

It would be a major pain in the behind to service the lower woofer in a jubilee once it's positioned behind a theater screen and up on its scaffolding...

[colterphoto1]

this is no longer a 'history' thread.

[Panacea Engineering]

WOW.....I go out of town for a day and this went to 9 pages.......

We have been so involved with trying to get the new building finished and traveling back and forth to SC (Flying Field) that I have not had much time to post.

This is turning out to be a great thread, with a lot of information and yes, it may be slipping off of "History" a bit, but it is sometimes hard to stay completely on topic....[].

We will be updating our site tomorrow, if anyone is interested, please visit.....

[jorjen]

Just sayin' []

If someone is retentive about looks over sound (for a speaker of all things...) then it's easy... buy the K510 and build a top section much like the Khorn that would then fit on top of the Jubilee and slap that K510 in there and move on with life.

I would assert that Dave's Eliptrac 400 with driver of choice could be put in a nice looking top and make an attractive looking set. If they weren't so freaking wide.

[jorjen]

Maybe showin' off a little too! []

[psg]

One of the "big holes" in the audio electronics market right now is an integrated preamp (that can handle audio and video) combined with an active crossover, such that the extra D/A, A/D conversion can be eliminated, thus effectively eliminating passive or outboard active crossovers altogether. I haven't seen one of these yet, and especially not for multi-channel systems (e.g., 5.1, etc.). Handling all bitstream conversions (digital domain) and separating into bi-amp or tri-amp output channels would be a nice capability to have for higher-end multichannel systems.

Another approach is for active crossovers to accept digital inputs instead of analog-only inputs like all the active crossovers that I've seen to date, e.g., an HDMI input channel to the active crossover(s), and HDMI output from the preamp. Complete immunity from noise and analog transfer issues is the holy grail, IMHO.

Chris

So true!!!

[bracurrie]

Maybe showin' off a little too!

Yeah, maybe a lot.[H] But hey thats really pretty. I am sorry of I hadn't seen it before, but can you share the story of the origins of your system. The more details the better. I am using the same mid horn, but with a Faital HF200 alone to cover from 500 to 20,000.

Thanks for chiming in.[Y]

[ClaudeJ1]

Maybe showin' off a little too!

Yeah, maybe a lot. But hey thats really pretty. I am sorry of I hadn't seen it before, but can you share the story of the origins of your system. The more details the better. I am using the same mid horn, but with a Faital HF200 alone to cover from 500 to 20,000.

Thanks for chiming in.

The JBL Baby Cheek Tweeters (had them on my Khorns about 5 years ago) are an excellent tweeter from 6K on up and provide much better dispersion angle the ANY midrange horn with any driver, including the TAD. There are several reasons for going 3-way instead of 2-way, and this is certainly one of the main ones, including lower distortion.

[mikebse2a3]

The JBL Baby Cheek Tweeters (had them on my Khorns about 5 years ago) are an excellent tweeter from 6K on up and provide much better dispersion angle the ANY midrange horn with any driver, including the TAD. There are several reasons for going 3-way instead of 2-way, and this is certainly one of the main ones, including lower distortion.

And yet PWK and Roy designed the Jubilee with 2-way as a prime goal..! []

Next time I talk to Roy I need to ask him how they could have made such a bad mistake..? Maybe Klipsch should hire some of our forum experts to straighten out this gross engineering screw-up...[8-)]

miketn

[bracurrie]

Maybe showin' off a little too!

Yeah, maybe a lot. But hey thats really pretty. I am sorry of I hadn't seen it before, but can you share the story of the origins of your system. The more details the better. I am using the same mid horn, but with a Faital HF200 alone to cover from 500 to 20,000.

Thanks for chiming in.

The JBL Baby Cheek Tweeters (had them on my Khorns about 5 years ago) are an excellent tweeter from 6K on up and provide much better dispersion angle the ANY midrange horn with any driver, including the TAD. There are several reasons for going 3-way instead of 2-way, and this is certainly one of the main ones, including lower distortion.

Ok, I'll admit my experience in audio is not very extensive, but I thought the trade offs of using a two way were worth it. How does a three way result in lower distortion?

[Chris A]

Brad,

As far as I know, there is only one form of distortion that is reduced for using multiple drivers to break up the high frequency spectrum, e.g., 2-way, 3-way, 4-way, etc., and that is Frequency Modulation Distortion (FMD). Below you will see a posting that is duplicated from another thread that I wrote on this subject:

One of the issues that I had up to the moment was understanding how

to measure or distinguish loudspeaker AM distortion (AMD) from FM

distortion (FMD). The following link from Klippel shows a test

procedure on how to do that using their equipment. I'm impressed by the

clarity of the examples used:

http://www.klippel.de/fileadmin/klippel/Files/Know_How/Application_Notes/AN_10_Loudspeaker_FM_and_AM_Distortion.pdf

The

last graph shows contributions from AMD and FMD on the speaker that

they tested (...obviously a direct radiator full-range speaker...).

FMD is dominant at high frequencies while AMD is dominant at low

frequencies.

Remember that AMD is something that can be reduced

through better driver magnetic circuit design and better cone

surround/structure design, while FMD is a function of amplitude of rigid

body cone or diaphragm motion only. In the article, FMD is also called

"phase distortion" and its cause is uniquely attributed to "radiation

distortion".

Also note that there is a set of IEC standards for

the definitions used: they all start with "IEC 60268". Unfortunately,

they want ~$50 (US) for each part of this standard, i.e., "highway

robbery"

.

Note that horn-loaded drivers have 20-25 dB lower modulation distortion than do direct radiators. This is the key reason why PWK remained with horn-loaded speakers throughout his long audio engineering career, and why we have a "Klipschorn II" (Jubilee) instead of a new direct radiator speaker as the last design that he worked on.

PWK wanted to return to his original two-way design because he knew that FM distortion in well-designed compression drivers/horns (like the K-402, etc.) is inaudible as compared to the issues produced when one adds yet another crossover filter and physically separated horn/drivers, thus creating phase distortions and diffraction issues in speakers with tweeters. Instead, one uses a single horn-loaded driver that can easily reproduce the high frequencies as well as midrange frequencies. Nowadays single compression drivers are easily capable of supporting this full audio frequency band entirely due to improvements in technology since the 1940s--70s.

The reason why this hf band is broken up in commercial/cinema speakers is due solely to power handling issues of hf compression drivers while used in disco-like environments.

Chris