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Drawing plan klipschorn


Cobalt

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Hallo,

My name is Peter and I,m from the Netherlands in Europe. My english is not very good, so I hope you will understand me.

I want to make a klipschorn by my self. In the Netherlands they are to expensive to buy at the dealer. They cost more ten thousand US dollar each !!!

I can't afford that amount of money.

Can you help me to a drawing plan of the Klipschorn. If possible in millimeters.

Thank you very much.

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Welcome Peter!

My first question would be - How good are your woodworking skills? If I remember correctly, each cabinet has around 50+ pieces, some of them cut with a compound angle. Depending on who you ask here, there are other bass horn designs that are the equal or better than the Khorn, and much easier to build.

The newer Klipsch Jubilee would be easier to build, but it is a newer design and plans are somewhat guarded. It uses two 12" woofers.

Concerning the KHorn, I haven't seen drawings in metric, other than the ones that Erik Forker in Germany posted on his website. He only built the bass cabinet portion.

Photos of his build:

http://volvotreter.de/khorn.htm

His dimensions are here:

http://volvotreter.de/downloads/klipschorn.pdf

He doesn't give actual build instructions, so a copy of something like the Speakerlab K might help. I have a CD with those along with notes and other changes that could be made, along with drawings of the Cornwall and LaScala. Postage to Europe would be inexpensive if you would want me to send you this (all English measurements, unfortunately). I would need your complete mailing address. You can send me a PM through the forum.

Bruce

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Hallo Bruce,

Thank you for your message.

How good are my woodworking skills? I'm not a carpentar by profession. It's more a hobby working with wood.

After many years by working with wood,I got more and more experiend.

Since a couple of years I have an excellent mitre saw (Dewalt DW 708). This machine is very accurat.

So I think I can handle the job, making a Klipschorn. It's a challenge.

Indeed, there a lot of bevels and mitre's to saw, but merely in the smaller pieces. That can be done with the Dewalt mitre saw.

In the wood market in my village there's a plate saw (I don't know the exact American name for it, but i think you understand what i mean). With this machine they can saw the bigger pieces en then those pieces will also fit in my small car for transportation.

No, I want to make a Klipschorn. No other design. I read a lot about it.

I already found three drawing plans on the internet and including the site that you gave me. The problem is, that there are small differences between the three plans.

Especialy in the smaller pieces that have a lot of bevels and mitre's. I also found sure mistakes in the plan's. For example piece G with a bevel of 20 degree. That is

not possible.

I hoped that the Klipsch forum would have the absolut correct drawing plan. If not it would be no great dissaster. It only takes more time. I have to work now from piece to piece and checking each piece if it is correct.

Thanks for offering to send the CD, but it is a problem if they are not in millimeters but only in inches. It takes a lot of time to change that in millimeters.

Peter

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I hoped that the Klipsch forum would have the absolut correct drawing plan. If not it would be no great dissaster. It only takes more time. I have to work now from piece to piece and checking each piece if it is correct. Thanks for offering to send the CD, but it is a problem if they are not in millimeters but only in inches. It takes a lot of time to change that in millimeters. Peter

It will take you a lot longer to build the speaker than it will to convert the measurements on the design from inches to millimetres, and doing the conversions yourself will give you a useful familiarity with all the pieces. It might even be the fastest way to get plans that you can use.

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I think the problem is that the 1/2 inch converted to mm isn't exactly what is available. So you end up tweaking the dimensions a little bit. More difficult than it would seem. For example, 1/2 inch ply converts to 12.7mm , but that isn't really what is available

Bruce

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Dear Peter,

Look at this string where I posted the SpeakerLab SK plans. They are reported to be very accurate for the bass bin.

http://community.klipsch.com/forums/p/135072/1368533.aspx#1368533

A plate saw is probably what Americans call a table saw.

Long ago I built a pair from the SK plans but used 3/4 inch plywood -- which was a total waste of a lot of time, and created a lot of scrap wood because of my mistakes.

If your metric plywood is a bit different than the 1/2 ply used in the SK you should be okay. you will have to examine the assembly and figure where the thickness dimension affects the design and cutting.

Converting the Imperial (inches) to metric should be easy with a spreadsheet. Open Office (free) has one. If you need some help there I can set up a spreadsheet for you to put inches in column A and calculate mm in column B. Let me know.

Let me agree with the advice given in a post above. You should seriously consider building a Jubilee bass horn instead. It is a better bass horn and easier to cut and build. The Jubilee does not have nearly as many, difficult triangular pieces using multiple bevel cuts. A majority are rectangular of the same height using 90 degree angles on two sides in the height measurement. Therefore you can use a table or plate saw to rip that dimension from the large plywood you start with. It is important that this height cut is uniform (equal height) but if you set up the saw and leave the settings established, you've make almost half the cuts of the entire bass horn project.

I built a pair of my version of the Jubilee using 3/4 ply but modified for 15 inch drivers by just making them three inches wider. I had a bunch of 15 inch drivers and wanted to avoid the "rubber throat" issue of the initial flare.

Best,

WMcD

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Building a Jubilee instead is a better idea. It has lower distortion and does not have to fit tightly into a corner, so it can be used in rooms where a Khorn could not.

The Jubilee was intended as the successor to the Klipschorn and was originally called the Klipschorn II. After all the calculations were done and the speaker was actually built and tested, PWK decided that it sounded so much better than the Khorn that it deserved its own name. Jubilee was chosen.

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Thank you all for replying. Well most of you consider the Jubilee Horn as (much) better than the standard K-horn. I've heard a little bit of the Jubilee Horn and I thought it was a very luxurious version of the standard K-horn. But it appears to be a complet new design. A surprise for me.

And a lot easier to build.

In an earlier reply Bruce wrote that the drawing plans of the jubilee are guarded on this forum. In that case it will be difficult to make this speakers. No plan, no speaker.

Or will you make an exeption for me. I'll promise you that I will not send them tot anybody or put it somewhere on the internet without your permission.

I already have the orginal K-horn speakers; K33 B; K 55 and K 77 from the year 1979. Are they suitable for the jubilee?

Peter

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One of the advanced features of the Jubilee is that it uses a pair of 12 inch woofers, rather than a single 15 inch unit. This allows for faster response and lower distortion.

The Jubilee is a 2-way speaker, and uses a much newer tweeter driver and tweeter horn than the Klipschorn parts. Making it 2-way instead of 3-way eliminates one phase transition, and the distortion it would cause. The tweeter driver used is the K-69, which covers the range from about 450 Hz to 19 KHz, something the K-55 and K-77 together are unable to do.

The tweeter uses one of two horns: the small K510 or the very large K402. Both are Tractrix designs, which give better sound than the old exponential horns.

The Jubilee has no built-in crossover. It's designed to be bi-amped (ideally with a matching pair of 2-channel amps for stereo) and equalized with a pro audio processor like the EV Dx38 or equivalent. The processor works as an active electronic crossover, and allows for a degree of precision in correcting frequency response dips and peaks that's not possible with a passive crossover.

As well, the processor has built-in delay units, so the woofer and tweeter can be time-aligned. That doesn't make a huge difference in itself, but this is a speaker that tries to get every detail right, and the overall effect is worth it.

Some members have built their own Jubilees and are happily enjoying them, while one or two others have built a number of Jubilees, some made with questionable precision, and offered them for sale. Since the Jubilee is a current production model, that does not go over very well with Klipsch management, nor with some forum members.

I suggest you continue to learn about the Jubilee. Information is available, but it's best to respect Klipsch's position. For them, every Jubilee built at home is a sale lost, and it's not a big seller in the first place.

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It seems you already have the mids and tweeters. They should work as well with the Jubilee as with the K-Horn.

So my thought is to complete the bass horn and use the mid and tweeter which you have before making the big investment in the bigger midrange horn.

Best,

WMcD

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I will respect the policy of this forum not to handover drawing plans. I understand the reason behind that. This makes it for me impossible to make the jublilee. As I said earlier, the price to buy the K horn or jubilee is for me way tot high.

So I'm gonna make a K-horn. I've got three seperate drawing plans with some differences here and there.

The biggest problems are the L en M pieces. The bevels of those pieces I can calculate.

Plate K has a bevel of 30 degree. The underside of plate M has a bevel of 45 degree.

Plate M is perpendicular on plate K. So the bevel of plate M is 30 x 45/90 = 15 degree. (in the drawing plan from the internet stood 25% degree. Not correct!)

The underside of plate L has an angle of 30 degree.. So the longside bevel is 30 x 30/90 = 10 degree.

The only problem are the mitres. I don't know how to calculate that.

Well with experimentation with cheap thin board-plate, this problem can be solved too. It only takes a litle bit time.

But that is no problem.

Thanks all of you.

Peter

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I will respect the policy of this forum not to handover drawing plans. I understand the reason behind that. This makes it for me impossible to make the jublilee.

I think you misunderstand. We are only fanatics of Klipsch products, not employees of Klipsch. Klipsch hasn't published the drawings for the Jubilee. The only ones that are available are ones that someone reverse engineered from the AES papers and measuring real ones.

It's also the reason you will find mistakes in drawings of the KHorn and LaScala cabinets. They aren't Klipsch drawings but user supplied.

Good luck!

It's possible that someone here will email you info on whichever route you wish to go. Above all, you will need patience.

Bruce

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Some members have built their own Jubilees and are happily enjoying them, while one or two others have built a number of Jubilees, some made with questionable precision, and offered them for sale. Since the Jubilee is a current production model, that does not go over very well with Klipsch management, nor with some forum members.

I suggest you continue to learn about the Jubilee. Information is available, but it's best to respect Klipsch's position. For them, every Jubilee built at home is a sale lost, and it's not a big seller in the first place.

I took my conclusion of not give drawing plans from what Islander wrote. Which I can understand. Nobody wants to have troubles with the Klipsch company. Your reply makes clear why there are mistakes in the drawing plans.

Peter

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Sorry that my posts are a bit messy to read. When I make my post, I make a structure in the text by not putting all the lines behind each other. And I make open spaces between each subject. But the software of the forum puts all the lines behind each other, wich makes it nog pleasant to read.

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Sorry that my posts are a bit messy to read. When I
make my post, I make a structure in the text by not putting all the
lines behind each other. And I make open spaces between each subject.
But the software of the forum puts all the lines behind each other, wich
makes it nog pleasant to read.

Cobalt,

Some we browsers don't put in the line breaks properly. Safari on the Apple platform for one (not sure about the Windows version). You can insert a "less than" character, the letter "p" and a "great than" character to put in a new paragraph break. If you see the little HTML link in the message reply you can look at the code to see what I mean.

The forum is moving to a new piece of software that will hopefully resolve the issue.

The Jubilee has no built-in crossover. It's designed to be bi-amped (ideally with a matching pair of 2-channel amps for stereo) and equalized with a pro audio processor like the EV Dx38 or equivalent. The processor works as an active electronic crossover, and allows for a degree of precision in correcting frequency response dips and peaks that's not possible with a passive crossover.

As well, the processor has built-in delay units, so the woofer and tweeter can be time-aligned. That doesn't make a huge difference in itself, but this is a speaker that tries to get every detail right, and the overall effect is worth it.

While using an active crossover is ideal, there is a published passive crossover for the Jubilee, and there are users on here who have built them and find them very good sounding. Don't immediately give up on the idea of building your own. A pair of Jubilees would cost around $7000 (5200 Euro). What they would cost IN the Netherlands I can't imagine.

Bruce

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Lets see if its works. I use google chrome as browser.

I'm gonna search more information about the jubilee. What I have red sofare, there's more advanced electronic components. Two woofers ect. The jubilee would also have less bevels and mitres and there fore easier to build. That could mean it is no longer a horn loudspeaker. A horn loudspeaker is exponential and must have because of that a great number of bevels and mitres. I will try fo find the answers in the forum. No doubt there must be a lot of information.

I don't know what they cost in the netherlands. But i'm sure its a lot more than 5200 euro. This amount must be raised with transportation cost America to Europa; border money ; money for the importeur and at last the dealer.

As far as I know, there's only one dealer in the Netherlands who sells k-horn and perhaps jubilee. Radio Correct in Rotterdam. I'll have a look there soon.

Peter

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Good call suggesting Werner Enge, Marvel. He's been a Klipsch dealer for years, and may have some pre-owned speakers or trade-ins at good prices. I don't think he'd be all that far away.

It would be a good idea to see what the dealer in Rotterdam has available, also.

As for what makes a horn loudspeaker, there are several types of horns: conical (the simplest), exponential (used for a long time), and tractrix (more popular lately, and better-performing).

Many Klipsch speakers use a combination or two or three. For example, the La Scala uses a conical bass horn, and exponential mid and treble horns. JubScalas use a conical bass horn and a modified tractrix treble horn. That's a JubScala II in my avatar. It is truly a horn speaker, just as the Khorn, Belle, and Jubilee are horn speakers.

The tractrix horn is much shorter than an exponential horn, and has lower distortion, which are two reasons why they are becoming more popular.

You may be thinking of folded horns, which have bevels and mitres. Folded horns take up much less space, but can only be used for bass, since treble sounds don't go around corners very well. Straight bass horns are built sometimes, but they can be so long that the throat (and driver) is placed outside the house, while the mouth is inside.

Horns also become very large if they need to reproduce deep bass tones, which is why the Klipschorn is considered such a marvel of compactness.

This is what a straight bass horn that can go down to 30 Hz looks like:

post-23736-1381986117235_thumb.jpg

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