Quiet_Hollow Posted July 26, 2015 Share Posted July 26, 2015 (edited) Last weekend involved a road-trip to the Paul & Valerie Klipsch museum located on the NMSU campus in Las Cruces, NM. We've been to Indy, Hope, and finally here. Edited July 27, 2015 by Quiet_Hollow 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quiet_Hollow Posted July 26, 2015 Author Share Posted July 26, 2015 (edited) This museum is not so much technically-orientated like the Hope Audio Museum nor an iterative account of Heritage design, rather it is much more personal. Lot's of professional memorabilia, early photo's, and documentation leading up to and including Paul's business. The majority of the items on display where Paul and Valerie's personal belongings. A few technical tid bits here and there. I had to make sure I wasn't missing anything. Edited July 26, 2015 by Quiet_Hollow 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quiet_Hollow Posted July 26, 2015 Author Share Posted July 26, 2015 (edited) The museum affords the opportunity to listen to all of the speakers on display in the room, although the rather tight quarters doesn't really do any of them justice in terms of acoustics. I joked about A/B'ing the Cornwall right next to the La Scala as shown..."will sell a pair of Cornwall speakers every time!" ...Then there's Valerie's pair of Golden Jubillee, front and center. The two-way top end arrangement goes a long way to passively cleaning up the time domain issues of three-way design. I'll admit, it was a grave mistake to try and film them using a brand new cell phone, while I had my "real" video camera stashed out in the car. I risked it and naturally it murdered them. Didn't want to impose any further than we already had. It was a treat to experience all of this and the NMSU campus none the less. Edited July 27, 2015 by Quiet_Hollow 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sancho Panza Posted July 26, 2015 Share Posted July 26, 2015 Thank you; enjoyed that thoroughly. Pics turned out fine; any more? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twistedcrankcammer Posted July 26, 2015 Share Posted July 26, 2015 Thanks Dude! Enjoyed the pics! Roger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swapface Posted July 26, 2015 Share Posted July 26, 2015 Very enjoyable, thanks for sharing the pictures and videos! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derrickdj1 Posted July 26, 2015 Share Posted July 26, 2015 Last weekend involved a road-trip to the Paul & Valerie Klipsch museum located on the NMSU campus in Las Cruces, NM. Thanks for the info and pic's! It would be interesting to know how NM was picked for the museum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schu Posted July 26, 2015 Share Posted July 26, 2015 Very nice... what are the daily hours? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted July 26, 2015 Share Posted July 26, 2015 It would be interesting to know how NM was picked for the museum. That one is easy: it's where PWK got his undergraduate degree in EE. His masters (EE) was at Stanford, when Dr. Fred Terman was the department head. PWK was also a brass instrument player in the band at NMSU (then called NM A&M). Nice shots, Tom. Thanks for posting. How was the stay in Los Cruces? Chris 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quiet_Hollow Posted July 26, 2015 Author Share Posted July 26, 2015 (edited) Thanks everyone. That's all the pics I've got related to the museum. Had great weather for the drive both ways. Thankfully no crazy winds which are always a possibility through the Wilcox-Deming stretch. The Rio Grande was/is running right at the brim. Both New Mexico and south eastern Arizona are extra green this year with all the rain. Shot some video of that, otherwise that's about it. Our stay was nice. Hit the road Sunday, spent the night, then saw the museum and mingled around campus, pestering the library staff and archive departments most of Monday. Although it's a little more developed since Paul's time, the area is still very much a junction-town. Texas Roadhouse for steak and raiding Hasting's used music and video department was the highlight of the action for us. As the University does not regularly staff the museum, viewing was by appoinntment. We called a week in advance to arrange a private tour. Edited July 27, 2015 by Quiet_Hollow 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schu Posted July 26, 2015 Share Posted July 26, 2015 (edited) One thing I would like to understand from a technical perspective... why the switch by Klipsch from the LONG throat horn of say the 400 to the much short compressed horn of say the 402 or 510? I mean I have seen tests of sound output from the 400 and it imparts a sound/signature, but it looks so much smoother. Edited July 26, 2015 by Schu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Travis In Austin Posted July 26, 2015 Moderators Share Posted July 26, 2015 Thank you for that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted July 26, 2015 Share Posted July 26, 2015 (edited) One thing I would like to understand from a technical perspective... why the switch by Klipsch from the LONG throat horn of say the 400 to the much short compressed horn of say the 402 or 510? I mean I have seen tests of sound output from the 400 and it imparts a sound/signature, but it looks so much smoother. Once again - you are curious and perceptive. I'm sure that Chief bonehead will have his own, much better, explanation for this (perhaps not expressed openly on the forum, however). There is an article on tractrix horns written by Roy Delgado, Kerry Geist and Jim Hunter that discusses the "why tractrix?" questions. Note that an unmodified tractrix-of-revolution area expansion formula (i.e., it can be a round or rectangular horn, but the area expansion function is based on tractrix) sounds "neutral" as mentioned in Bruce Edgar's Tractrix horn article. So Klipsch's gradual shift to using tractrix horns for everything (basically) starting in the early 90s was based on this observation, and on the notion that spherical waves inside a horn remain spherical. This is the basic difference between the exponential profile and the tractrix profile - assumption of wave shape within the horn. Additionally, the straight-sided horn (i.e., "SSH", nominally called "conical" by others) also enjoys that neutral sound relative to other horn expansion profiles. Bill Woods (the horn designer) is a proponent of SSH's. If you read the Danley literature on "conical" or pyramidal horns, it will show you that the SSH profile actually has a variable flair rate based on where you are at along the axis of the horn. This comes in handy for other tricks of the trade. If you marry a SSH ("conical") profile with a tractrix mouth, and Roy calls this "modified tractrix" (because it is a modified tractrix in terms of how it's constructed), you get the advantages of a very short horn along with a very neutral sounding horn, and good loading across a very wide passband, based on the mouth size rather than on the flair constant of the horn. Also note that the "rubber throat" discussions that PWK used to have about horn design were mostly about fast throat expansion, followed by slower expansion as you go toward the mouth. This technique reduces nonlinear distortion due to moisture in the air and very high SPL in the throat of the horn. The result is a very short, high quality horn (i.e., the K-402 and K-510 profiles) that surpasses everything else out there by a very large margin in terms of smooth angular coverage vs. frequency, and low distortion in a very short, wide mouth horn. Chris Edited July 26, 2015 by Chris A 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schu Posted July 26, 2015 Share Posted July 26, 2015 Hmmm... very interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted July 27, 2015 Moderators Share Posted July 27, 2015 Very nice, cool looking museum, Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Naseum Posted July 27, 2015 Share Posted July 27, 2015 man o live that was fastically done well! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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