most optimal klipschorn room re-build

[Guest " "]

got an area that is 48ft by 15ft. plan to split it up two rooms. one end on the 45ft side can be blown out 4 adittional feet along a 12ft lentgh from the end. so in khorn terms some options, 20ft wide by 15ft deep, if I blow out the 12ft section by 4 feet I could get 30ft wide by 19ft deep which would move a listening area back by 4ft. The area once had 3 rooms, 16X14, 12X11, and 18X14 and I had khorns in the 16X14 space which did not sing as well as a pair of Belles I put in the same area. LaScala's do not sing as well in that space either. Cornwalls of course did fine.

[garyrc]

I suspect 30 feet X 19 feet might be great, with the Khorns on the long wall and a Belle or La Scala dead center.

A good friend warned us that the sound we would get with Khorns and a Belle on our 17 foot wall, as heard about 13 feet back from the Khorn wall would be unnatural, producing soloists many feet wide, etc. That's a common opinion, but nothing at all like that happened with our 3 channels-in-front Wide Stage Stereo -- it sounds great, although better with some recordings than others.

We flush mounted our Belle in the wall, behind an acoustically transparent wall fabric. We think this aided in the illusion; without the Belle being visible, people don't hear the center sound coming from it alone. We also elevated the Belle so the tweeter is the same height as the Khorns. We probably got away with this only because we do use a sub below 80 Hz -- otherwise, creating a void under the Belle might attenuate bass response. We have the Belle rolling off below 80 Hz, but not the Khorns! Contrary to the advice of THX and Audyssey, we let the Khorns operate full range. This both sounds better, and measures better with REW, with no phase problems observable on the sweep. The clean impact of drums, etc. comes through better using the Khorns full range. We have a curtain of sound.

Just out of curiosity, how high will your ceiling be? Klipsch says Khorns sound better with ceilings 8.5 feet high or higher. Heyser advised a high ceiling and thick rug with Khorns. Both Bolt and the mode calculators take ceiling ht. into account.

[ryanm84]

From Arto's Klipschorn room build-

First things first. Ideally.you need a room with the proper proportions to achieve uniform distribution of eigentons (low frequency room modes). The ratio is 1: 1.26: 1.59 (called the Golden Mean) (see Klipsch Dope From Hope newsletter Vol9, No1 Feb 1968). It doesnt have to be exact. And rooms outside of these proportions have been known to sound good. Use the long wall for the stage. It makes a dramatic difference & you may even find that you dont have to turn-it-up as loud.

Another trick you can use is the Half-Room Principal (Room Dimensions for Optimum Listening and the Half Room Principal, IRE Transactions on Audio, Vol AU-6, No1 Jan-Feb 1958, pp 14-15). For instance, my room is 27 wide. A 42Hz note has a wavelength of aprox. 27. So based on the longest dimension of the room, the room will accurately convey the full wavelength of a 42 Hz tone. But based on the Half Room Principal, you can expect a reasonably flat room response down to 21Hz (21Hz=54 wavelength. 54/2 (one-half of the wavelength)=27.

If you take this one step further & use the diagonal dimension (which you can do with K-horns because of their corner placement & 45 degree angle toe in) it works even better. My room has a diagonal dimension of 32 which ½is one-half of 64. 64 puts you at about 17-18Hz. My system has measured down only 9Db below 20Hz with no electronic EQ. Not bad for folded horn-loaded speaker of this size. And in fact, that puts the K-horns at about 95Db/watt below 20Hz. Much better efficiency than any of the sub-woofers or so-called flat audiophile speakers out there.

A dimension you want to avoid is 19 (or multiples & fractions) thereof as it is the wavelength of 60Hz (electrical hum).

[Guest " "]

Just out of curiosity, how high will your ceiling be? Klipsch says Khorns sound better with ceilings 8.5 feet high or higher. Heyser advised a high ceiling and thick rug with Khorns. Both Bolt and the mode calculators take ceiling ht. into account.

This is why I like to post here...sometimes I overlook the obvious. I heard some khorns in a 30X30 room with open cathedral ceilings that must have been at least 16 feet high. and they were awesome....so yes...maybe thats why the belles and cornwalls sound better than khorns and lascala's in the area I am thinking. My ceiling is just short of 8 ft high.

[Guest " "]

From Arto's Klipschorn room build-
First things first. Ideally…….you need a room with the proper proportions to achieve uniform distribution of eigentons (low frequency room modes). The ratio is 1: 1.26: 1.59 (called the “Golden Mean”) (see Klipsch Dope From Hope newsletter Vol9, No1 Feb 1968). It doesn’t have to be exact. And rooms outside of these proportions have been known to sound good. Use the long wall for the “stage”. It makes a dramatic difference & you may even find that you don’t have to “turn-it-up” as loud.

Another “trick” you can use is the Half-Room Principal (Room Dimensions for Optimum Listening and the Half Room Principal, IRE Transactions on Audio, Vol AU-6, No1 Jan-Feb 1958, pp 14-15). For instance, my room is 27’ wide. A 42Hz note has a wavelength of aprox. 27’. So based on the longest dimension of the room, the room will accurately convey the full wavelength of a 42 Hz tone. But based on the Half Room Principal, you can expect a reasonably flat room response down to 21Hz (21Hz=54’ wavelength. 54’/2 (one-half of the wavelength)=27’.

If you take this one step further & use the diagonal dimension (which you can do with K-horns because of their corner placement & 45 degree angle toe in) it works even better. My room has a diagonal dimension of 32’ which ½is one-half of 64’. 64’ puts you at about 17-18Hz. My system has measured down only 9Db below 20Hz with no electronic EQ. Not bad for folded horn-loaded speaker of this size. And in fact, that puts the K-horns at about 95Db/watt below 20Hz. Much better efficiency than any of the “sub-woofers” or so-called “flat” “audiophile” speakers out there.

A dimension you want to avoid is 19’ (or multiples & fractions) thereof as it is the wavelength of 60Hz (electrical hum).

I was afraid of that...here's a pic of the max possible size..basically a belle and cornwall room if I don't pop it out and a lascala room if I do.

[ryanm84]

That said I think you would probably still get good results but have to stay away from 19 feet, just to be safe.

[Guest " "]

That said I think you would probably still get good results but have to stay away from 19 feet, just to be safe.

I guess I could pop it out 5 feet instead of 4. that would give me 20ft. code only requires 3ft from building to property line.

[mikebse2a3]

That said I think you would probably still get good results but have to stay away from 19 feet, just to be safe.

I guess I could pop it out 5 feet instead of 4. that would give me 20ft. code only requires 3ft from building to property line.

I see no reason to stay away from a 19' dimension ......if you have hum issues with equipment generating hum then replace it with properly designed equipment.

If you are willing to use some acoustical treatments such as diffusers or absorption panels on the ceiling at the first reflection points (which is what Heyser was pointing to in his review of the Khorn with his comment about ceiling height) then lower ceilings heights can allow excellent performance.

It should be pointed out that just because you calculate a certain room mode for a given dimension doesn't guarantee that a mode will actually be developed at that frequency because real room wall, ceiling and floor construction as well as materials used in construction can cause shifts in frequency as well as amplitude/Q of any modes developed.

miketn

[garyrc]

I see no reason to stay away from a 19' dimension ......if you have hum issues with equipment generating hum then replace it with properly designed equipment.

I had a NAD preamp that sent a little hum through my Klipschorns with the volume control all the way down. It was not the power amp! When the preamp was left off, and the power amp turned on, no hum! My dealer sent the preamp back to NAD, and they checked it over and pronounced it to be in good health and hum free. Klipschorns are so damned efficient that they will reveal the slightest hum at volume control levels that would not transmit hum with typical speakers. So I would probably avoid the 19' dimension, since he has Khorns.[]

[mikebse2a3]

I see no reason to stay away from a 19' dimension ......if you have hum issues with equipment generating hum then replace it with properly designed equipment.

I had a NAD preamp that sent a little hum through my Klipschorns with the volume control all the way down. It was not the power amp! When the preamp was left off, and the power amp turned on, no hum! My dealer sent the preamp back to NAD, and they checked it over and pronounced it to be in good health and hum free. Klipschorns are so damned efficient that they will reveal the slightest hum at volume control levels that would not transmit hum with typical speakers. So I would probably avoid the 19' dimension, since he has Khorns.

Hey Gary it sounds like you had a ground loop issue which as you have already pointed out that due to the Klipschorn's efficiency the hum will be exposed much quicker than lower efficiency loudspeaker based systems would do. I still maintain that the best answer is to solve the problem creating the hum.

miketn

[garyrc]

Hey Gary it sounds like you had a ground loop issue which as you have already pointed out that due to the Klipschorn's efficiency the hum will be exposed much quicker than lower efficiency loudspeaker based systems would do. I still maintain that the best answer is to solve the problem creating the hum.

miketn

Yeah, I agree, it sure does sound like I had a ground loop, but I went through the ground loop thing with my dealer/service person (an engineer) and endless experiments. For instance, I tried "lifters" one at a time and in various combinations. It didn't help. I read everything I could find online about hum and ground loops, including some contradictory information. No dice. I disconnected the refrigerator. Hum still there. I put the audio equipment on its own circuit (20 amps) on the leg least used. etc., etc. We subsituted an old Dyna PAS-3 tube pre-amp for the NAD in the system, with all connections and the physical location identical. This produced far less hum, although it was still there, but very, very soft. The Dyna did have higher hiss, though. The NAD did not hum at the dealer's shop with his Paradigm speakers (89 dB, 1 wt, 1M), and it measured up to specs both in the dealer's shop and at NAD. But at home, my Khorns (105 dB, 1 wt, 1M) transmitted a nice hum from the NAD, which I lived with for about 4 years.

I now have a Marantz pre/pro, purchased for its processing, and guess what? No hum! We made one other change at the same time, and we never bothered to unconfound the variables; we installed a new power main to the house. The dealer wonders if the old main had a corroded, defective ground, or something. Or, the NAD could have been picking up hum (after the volume control, and before the separate power amp) "through the air" due to something weird or EMF or something. Or _______. Or _______. Or ________.

[mikebse2a3]

Wow....Gary that had to be frustrating to live with for 4yrs..! You sure are more tolerant than I could have been.

miketn

[artto]

Regarding the 19' dimension and hum issues ~

This is not as much of a problem as it used to be. The scenario goes something like this ~ if you have a large listening room (which requires more amplification gain to achieve the same sound pressure level/acoustic output as in a much smaller room), and lets say the room doens't have much in the way of absorption (somewhat on the live side), and you're using phonograph, which in turn requires much more amplification (than, say digital) and typically has more hum/noise/grounding issues, especially with certain turntable/phono pickup combinations (AC motor/Decca pickup), you would would definetly want to avoid the 19' dimension. Just like a radio can sound louder in the room after its been playing for a while, the hum/noise can "build" over time and become more noticable. There's also the issue of mechanical induced hum, even from highly reputable manufacturers, and especially older vintage equipment. I have some old Crown D60 for instance that have some very low level mechanical hum from the transformers. In a "normal" environment this is not an issue. But in a room with an extremely low noise floor its easily audible. Its things like this that you want to avoid "multiplying" simply because of room dimensions if you can avoid it in the first place.

[bobdog]

My room is 19X32 My Khorns are dead silent. They make no noise even with your ear to the grills with the volume up all .the way. My Phono section makes some noise at volumes much higher than anyone would listen at, but not 60hz line noise. I fail to see any reason to design a room to quiet a noise that you should not have in the first place. I designed my room from scratch for my Khorns. 19 feet is not a consideration IMO.

[garyrc]

My room is 19X32 My Khorns are dead silent. They make no noise even with your ear to the grills with the volume up all .the way.

No noise of any kind? Not even a soft hiss? My NAD c 272 power amps produce a hiss that can be heard up close through Khorns, but not at the 12 to 16 foot listening positions. Of course, your amps are about 4 to 5 times the cost of mine! Good for McIntosh!

[bobdog]

No noise of any kind? Not even a soft hiss? My NAD c 272 power amps produce a hiss that can be heard up close through Khorns, but not at the 12 to 16 foot listening positions. Of course, your amps are about 4 to 5 times the cost of mine! Good for McIntosh!

None. You can not tell if the amp is on or off unless you look over at it.