AL Crossovers Klipschorns

[mrparisi]

Hi,

 

When I bought my Klipschorns, which are from the 50's, they came with new, updated crossovers.  Anyway, I recently bought a pair of original Klipsch AL crossovers. Did I waste my money?  Are these even original to Klipschorns?  Is there anyway to date them?  I only paid 90.00 so.........Thanks

[minermark]

Buying the wifes 89s, i got in touch with Bob Crites, he set me up w/new updated Xovers. $300 and change, wife extreamly happy. 

 

And the old Xovers will fetch you $150+ on the bay.

Edited November 7, 2015 by minermark

[Deang]

What settings do you use?

[mrparisi]

I actually have a pair of high end crossovers that are highly applauded form Meniscus Audio.  Anyway, I did an A/B test last night (very unscientific) and I actually enjoyed the AL's slightly better.  In all fairness I have lots of settings on my custom made crossovers which is nice to have but all in all the AL crossovers sounded great to me.  Klipsch was a smart engineer and he did a great job desgning the Klipschorn.    Now I have decide if I want to keep the vintage crossovers.

[JohnA]

Hi,

 

When I bought my Klipschorns, which are from the 50's, they came with new, updated crossovers.  Anyway, I recently bought a pair of original Klipsch AL crossovers.

 

Did I waste my money?  YES!!!

 

Are these even original to Klipschorns?  No.  They are from LaScalas beginning in 1982 and they are abysmal. 

 

Is there anyway to date them?  I only paid 90.00 so.........Thanks

 

Your best bet is a pair of Type AA crossovers with quality components, if you have a metal squawker horn.  If you have a K-5-J squawker horn, I'd look at a pair of K-500-5000 crossovers with high quality components.  Beyond that, several forum members should be able to gin up some custom crossovers to account for the 500 Hz crossover point of the K-5-J. 

 

Which crossover did your K-horns have when you got them?

Edited November 8, 2015 by John Albright

[mrparisi]

Not sure.  It was so long ago.  Like a dummy I got rid of them.  Anyway, I was pretty happy with the AL corrsovers.  No leaky caps either.  They are in very good shape.  I took my compressor and blew out all the dust.  My Klipschorns are from 1958.  They sound wonderful.

[Deang]

@wdecho, people who experiment with this stuff invariably come to different conclusions about some things. What's interesting is when the conclusions intersect and agree.

Everyone with networks using adjustable attenuation all end up at least 6dB down. Should we argue that all rooms require this additional 3dB adjustment, I think not. I believe the reasonable answer is that the adjustment is required because of the use of low loss parts.

The idea that constant impedance should be desired or required is nonsense. It's a byproduct of the swamping resistor which provides the sometimes useful attenuation feature -- which is only useful when using different compression drivers and horns. I can attenuate an additional 3dB without swamping the whole network back, which allows for better quality parts and sounds better. It's also easily reversible.

I have an anechoic plot which shows the frequency response of a worn out pair of Type AAs (70s era) superimposed over the ALK Universal. With the exception of the elevated response of the ALK after 12kHz, the responses are near IDENTICAL.

Consider that the ALK has near ruler flat impedance through much of its response, while the AA begins at 5 ohms and goes beyond 30 ohms. If constant impedance is as important as we are lead to believe, surely we would see its influence in amplitude - but we don't. What we see are two near identical traces, with the differences in HF response being caused by differences in circuit design and 40 year old capacitors.

Al's website has become so bloated that I can't find it, but he used to have a place where he argued in favor of autoformers over L-pads because L-pads "divorce a loudspeaker from the amplifier's damping". With that in mind, one should wonder what happens when we strap a resistor in parallel on the autoformer? The resistor flattens the impedance just like an L-pad does, and with similar effect. This is all smoke and mirrors, but I continue to offer the SuperX because it's a great network for those who are experimenting.

It's no secret that I prefer the early Klipsch filters built with PIOs or wax paper capacitors. I can support any driver/horn combination by scaling the primary capacitor, and it sounds very good. These parts produce a sound that is more natural and rich.

As you pointed out, there are many ways to do this, and we all have our preferences. In my opinion, a modestly priced Type AA, with a resistor in parallel with the K-55, sounds every bit as good as the SuperX. Attenuation exceeding 6dB begins to degrade the midrange and doesn't sound right to me.

You mentioned cornering the market, which I have no real interest in doing -- we really have no desire spending all of our free time being in the work room, though maybe someday it might come to that.

Austin has been building a lot more. He has actually built the last two or three sets of Jupiter builds as well as the most recent Jensen builds. His eyes are better and he has more energy. He wants a more affordable build in the lineup, and likes building the SuperX. I would prefer a Charge Coupled AA -- so after we get caught up, I think we are going to have a bit of a competition, and the ladies of the house will act as judges. I also want to build something nice for the next Roadshow. I was hoping to have that ready in time for the Klipsch gathering in Hope.

Edited November 8, 2015 by Deang