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Khorns on raised platforms


sutlhynt

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Hello all.Newbie to forum.

Question 1: What say all about placement of (to be acquired) Khorns on raised platforms 28" high at corners of short wall of dedicated audio room in basement with air cavity walls (external concrete, internal brickwork) with half of total surface area of walls and ceiling treated accoustically with glass fibre sheets covered by thick tapestry. The Room measures 11'H x 17'-9"W x 25'L. Sweet spot triangulated at 12 feet but ears end up level with 12" to 15" from bottom of speakers when seated on couch. Noteworthy that said sweet spot location sounds distinctly better (more solid bass) than when I raise seating position higher by 30"(sitting temporarily on backrest of couch at said sweet spot) with existing speakers. Not stating present gear set up to keep discussion free from going on tangents. Have trawled forum but this issue has never been explored.

Question 2: What say all about running a two channel set up with 'wall of speakers' i.e.like 4 pairs run through dedicated 4 amplifiers plus powered sub? Yes...WAF has no application in my man cave fortunately. The issue of multiple full range speaker pairs covering complimenting areas of audio spectrum where the sum of sound produced is gloriously full has also not been discussed in the forum.

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Edited by sutlhynt
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doesn't the "wall of sound" layout, while full and very robust(I have done it myself), diminish imaging and dimensionality?

My personal preference is for focused placement in the lateral position rather than the "wall of sound" positioning.

Edited by Schu
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Hi Schu. The wall of sound speaker set up gives me a good soundstage with height depth and spread. The short wall is 17'9" long with a 28" high and 28" deep platform running across the width. At the corners are placed three pairs of speakers while in the centre another pair is laid flat tweeters oriented outwards. My seating position is lower than midpoint of stanning speaker heights bup level with those laid flat. The height of the sound stage creates the illusion of say 5th row centre seats in a good auditorium with a 3 foot high stage and of course concert levels.

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Question 1:

What say all about placement of (to be acquired) Khorns on raised platforms 28" high at corners of short wall of dedicated audio room in basement with air cavity walls (external concrete, internal brickwork) with half of total surface area of walls and ceiling treated acoustically with glass fibre sheets covered by thick tapestry.

The Room measures 11'H x 17'-9"W x 25'L. Sweet spot triangulated at 12 feet but ears end up level with 12" to 15" from bottom of speakers when seated on couch.

Noteworthy that said sweet spot location sounds distinctly better (more solid bass) than when I raise seating position higher by 30"(sitting temporarily on backrest of couch at said sweet spot) with existing speakers...Have trawled forum but this issue has never been explored.

I believe that you're really asking two questions:

a. what is the effect on lf response if you raise the Khorns 28" high?

b. what is the effect on everything else (imaging, FR, etc.) besides the bass bin performance if you raise them up 28"?

If you are not leaving any void spaces under the Khorns, then the effect on bass response should be minimal if you are placing the Khorns against the corners and on top of said risers (...with no voids underneath...)

The effect on midrange imaging performance could be good or bad. I've found that having the midrange/tweeter at ear height or slightly higher (aimed downwards at the listener) by less than 10-15 degrees vertical angle seems to be a sweet spot. Note that your high ceiling is a really big deal - this is good. Placing acoustic panels and tapestry close to the front and side walls of the Khorns will dramatically increase imaging performance, but will not affect bass performance measurably below 100 Hz. The more absorption that you use, the smaller the room will feel, however, so I'd recommend using diffraction panels once you get more than four feet from the Khorns: the surround sound performance will not be audibly affected if you adopt this rule of thumb.

The lf loss effect of raising your head higher off the floor is due to room modes: as you get closer to a room boundary, bass will always increase, and decrease as you move toward the room mode "nodes", including (but not limited to) the center of the room in height, length, and width. This also includes 1/3, 1/4, and perhaps 1/5 of a room dimension.

Chris

Edited by Chris A
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Question 2: What say all about running a two channel set up with 'wall of speakers' i.e.like 4 pairs run through dedicated 4 amplifiers plus powered sub? Yes...WAF has no application in my man cave fortunately. The issue of multiple full range speaker pairs covering complimenting areas of audio spectrum where the sum of sound produced is gloriously full has also not been discussed in the forum.

Personally, I prefer horn-loaded all the way to decrease mass effects of sound reproduction (i.e., "anything that moves--distorts: anything that moves more--distorts more"). So if you're talking about using direct radiators instead of Khorns, I'd probably prefer just the Khorns.

Note that properly setup Khorns will have imaging performance that will fill the entire front of the room with a large image. Jubilees with K402 horns will do this much more dramatically.

Direct radiating loudspeakers will have larger amounts of modulation distortion than Khorn, basically no matter how many direct radiators that you use. When you turn up loudspeakers with modulation distortion, they sound "loud": when you turn up good horn-loaded loudspeakers, they sound "more live" but not necessarily "loud".

Chris

Edited by Chris A
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Hi Chris.

I'm delighted to see you responded. In all honesty my post was directed to draw you out. I consider you the big daddy here.

The platform is located along the 17'9" front wall and is solid concrete and brickwork. It measures 28"x28". On the back wall are (real hardwood) wooden cabinets flanking on either side a heavy hardwood panel (solitary) door. The side walls have glass wool sheet panels covered with heavy tapestry upto a height of 3'9" (4'9" for front half of the room- the floor is split level with a one foot step down). All four walls are double walls with a 3" air gap between a concrete outer and brickwork inner wall. The ceiling is vaulted in the sense that it has 2 fat inverted concrete beams running width wise and 2 length wise suspended 18" from the ceiling and 18" wide...all cladded with similar glass wool and tapestry dividing the ceiling into 2 grids corresponding to the split level floor dimensions. At the step down is a large equipment cabinet made of ply wood and hardwood. Thereon lies a projector projecting on a 8'6"x5'6" screen rendered on the front wall centered between speaker platform. This way line of sight is above the central equipment cabinet from recliners on the upper deck to the screen on the front wall while for 2 channel music one sits on a couch on the lower deck backrest touching the equipment cabinet. From front wall to back wall floor division is 28" platform then 10' lower deck then 28" equipment cabinet and 10'upper deck. I hope you have an accurate mental picture of the room. Take away being:The walls are partly reflective and partly absorbant. The speakers corners are lined with absorbant material to a height of 2'6" above the 28" platforms. Said lining extending from behind the speakers (4'6" upto screen) to entire side walls viz,mid range and tweeters of existing speakers are flanked by brick wall covered by a textured finish.I believe this would obviate the need for diffraction panels.I also feel that the reported imbalance between hf and lf of Khorns would be somewhat resolved due to ear position in relation to speaker height rendering solid bass.

I know that a picture is worth more than words so will post some soon together with gear details.

You did not respond to the 'wall of sound ' part. Oh by the way I'm in India. A lawyer by profession and an amateur musician (I play the drums). Once again regards Chris. Hope to interact with you again soon.

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I always thought that having the Klipschorns "coupled" to the floor was part of the design intent/acoustical engineering as far as the bass horn was concerned...

Me, too. Klipsch used to circulate pictures of Khorns with reflections helpful to the bass; one was provided by the floor. So, although the bass is thought to be helped by these particular reflections, the midrange and highs can be harmed by nearby reflections, but this is taken care of by using the nearby absorbers, as Chris recommends, and apparently they don't affect the bass.

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Question 2: What say all about running a two channel set up with 'wall of speakers' i.e.like 4 pairs run through dedicated 4 amplifiers plus powered sub? Yes...WAF has no application in my man cave fortunately. The issue of multiple full range speaker pairs covering complimenting areas of audio spectrum where the sum of sound produced is gloriously full has also not been discussed in the forum.

What you are describing was quite popular in the mono days when some would run as many as a dozen speakers across the wall. It definitely created a wall of sound! Some also used multiple speakers placed on the floor, walls, and ceilings with crossovers and multiple amps to fully saturate the room with sound. The effect of this was quite astounding to say the least. In the 60s, a speaker project was presented in Popular Electronics called the "Sweet 16", which used 16 full range drivers in one enclosure. Some guys chose a different route and installed the drivers across an entire wall instead. Great for mono, but not for stereo. However, trying to do this with a 2 channel system is likely to ruin the imaging and soundstage, and simply bring you back to a mono type effect. Nothing wrong with this, of course, if that's what you're looking to achieve.

Maynard

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Hi Maynard.

Sitting in the sweet spot with eyes closed I can pinpoint location of instruments in terms of placement (left to right), depth (back to front) and height....ooh the drummer is on a raised platform 10 feet behind the vocalist and 5 feet higher...his snare drum is dead centre perhaps in my lap and his haha is to my left and look at that spectacular roll panning snare to floor tom going left to right and he hits a crash higher up to the right and then one to his left. I am obviously sitting on the drum throne...and there is the sax player left of centre ahead of the piano with the trumpet right of centre and the guitarist just behind him but further right. Need I go on? That was last night listening to "The eternal triangle" -Igor Batman big band. So...sorry I wholeheartedly repell your hypothesis.

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The khorn bass horn needs to have three sides in the room (bottom, right, and left side) to work correctly. The khorn is made for eight space placement. Raising it on a 28" platform, unless that platform extends several feet past the horn into the room (like a stage) will impact the bass performance.

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