Chart showing Bass Response

[rockhound]

Has anyone seen a chart that ranks Klipsch speakers by "how low they can go"?

[WMcD]

I have not.  People here would probably have brought it to our attention.

 

The Forte II going down to 32 Hz might well be the lowest before you go to stand alone subwoofers.  I love my Forte II.

 

But it is also necessary to be realistic with actual music, with the exception of pipe organ.

 

One interesting fact is that the lowest open string on the bass guitar, and I think bass fiddle used by orchestras and jazz groups, is E and that is 41 Hz.  Therefore, may well be that we need that to hear Sir Paul on Beatles recordings as well as a lot of other pop and jazz.  The bigger Klipsch will do that. 

 

OTOH 1: Anyone can say that a speaker going down to 32 Hz rather than 41 must be better.  But the musical scale (see attached) is just two whole notes lower to C.  How much better can that be?

 

OTOH 2: I do believe that if a speaker cuts off at about 60 Hz  (there are many), that is an entire octave above what the Forte II will reproduce.  That IMHO is quite significant.

 

WMcD

Edited November 22, 2015 by William F. Gil McDermott

[LarryC]

OTOH 2: I do believe that if a speaker cuts off at about 60 Hz  (there are many), that is an entire octave above what the Forte II will reproduce.  That IMHO is quite significant.

I agree.  I like to feel the depths of those lowest notes as well as hear them.  I like to feel the 16' pedal descend all the way to the 32 Hz low C at the beginning of the Bach Passacaglia in C minor, and I don't think the LaScala will do that.  Each interval between the notes in the 16' lowest octave are only a few Hz apart, but still span an entire C-C octave and deserve to be heard/felt, too, even though the numerical differences are so small.

 

EDIT:  My MacBook Pro speakers are inadequate, but this might give you an idea of what I mean:

Edited November 23, 2015 by LarryC

[Chris A]

Klipsch Model Data.pdf

[rockhound]

Chris do you have the same data for the "extended heritage", Epic, Legend and Reference series? I would also be interested in Pro series data. Thanks for the heritage chart!

[Chris A]

Unfortunately, my interests in those products hasn't been enough to assemble a spreadsheet on them, like the above products.  I assembled the data for the Heritage models in the file above many years ago, and simply cut out the relevant information for the table you see, pasted transpose and saved as pdf.  I see one error: the Belle lower crossover frequency is 450 Hz, not 400.

 

You can get this information from Google searches of "site:klipsch.com" for each loudspeaker model - they're still available online.  It just takes a few minutes to assemble what you want. 

 

Note that for the products that you reference above that are primarily HT products, any LF cutoff performance of the fronts or centers significantly below ~80 Hz doesn't make a lot of sense from a product design standpoint.

 

Chris

Edited November 23, 2015 by Chris A

[rockhound]

Thanks Chris I'll start my own spreadsheet and share.

[swapface]

Appreciate you sharing this pdf Chris!

[MyOwn]

Unfortunately, my interests in those products hasn't been enough to assemble a spreadsheet on them, like the above products.  I assembled the data for the Heritage models in the file above many years ago, and simply cut out the relevant information for the table you see, pasted transpose and saved as pdf.  I see one error: the Belle lower crossover frequency is 450 Hz, not 400.

 

You can get this information from Google searches of "site:klipsch.com" for each loudspeaker model - they're still available online.  It just takes a few minutes to assemble what you want. 

 

Note that for the products that you reference above that are primarily HT products, any LF cutoff performance of the fronts or centers significantly below ~80 Hz doesn't make a lot of sense from a product design standpoint.

 

Chris

Thanks Chris

[DrWho]

There was an old plot a while ago that had the frequency responses with 2.83V overlayed across the board. It was a cool way to see the efficiency of a horn - even though it didn't quite depict the audible experience as clearly. I think it was only for the Heritage lineup though. It was a scan of an old publication...

[garyrc]

There was an old plot a while ago that had the frequency responses with 2.83V overlayed across the board. It was a cool way to see the efficiency of a horn - even though it didn't quite depict the audible experience as clearly. I think it was only for the Heritage lineup though. It was a scan of an old publication...

 

Were those the ones posted by someone named Garrison?  I forget the first name.  I think they were Heritage plots that were briefly parts of spec. sheets from Klipsch in about 1986, or so.  They were a bit smoothed, but indicated how the speakers were balanced.  I seem to recall that the median SPL for the Klipschorns was about 100 dB at 2.83v.  Could be wrong.  The one Roy provided (somewhere on the forum) on the Klipschorn was more jagged, but, in a way, honest, but wasn't as easy to "eyeball" for balance and overall sound.  Audyssey XT and above does a good job smoothing Khorn response out in most parts of the curve (doesn't try too hard, or at all, below F3).

[LarryC]

Each interval between the notes in the 16' lowest octave are only a few Hz apart, but still span an entire C-C octave and deserve to be heard/felt, too, even though the numerical differences are so small.  

I neglected to say the sense of intervals in that very octave is not the number of notes or Hz values, but rather the proportionate difference.  Yeah, two whole tones doesn't seem like much difference, Gil, but it's a third of an octave and you can definitely hear that interval in a scale.

 

In fact, I believe those differences are more noticeable at the extremes of the musical scale than in the middle portion.  Listen to the Bach bass in my link, to hear how dramatic those intervals sound at the end of the bass melody -- even though the intervals are at most one half of an octave, and are only 3 whole tones and a half tone apart.  Yet, the interval difference is dramatic.

 

I think that sense of dramatic difference is somehow related to the greater difficulty and cabinet size differences are also dramatically different, and wonder if there is a relationship or a relevancy in the physics of the inner ear and the physics of the bass reproducer.

Edited November 25, 2015 by LarryC

[cradeldorf]

Play this video on your system and at 34 minutes in the bass is just incredible.

 

[Travis In Austin]

OTOH 2: I do believe that if a speaker cuts off at about 60 Hz  (there are many), that is an entire octave above what the Forte II will reproduce.  That IMHO is quite significant.

I agree.  I like to feel the depths of those lowest notes as well as hear them.  I like to feel the 16' pedal descend all the way to the 32 Hz low C at the beginning of the Bach Passacaglia in C minor, and I don't think the LaScala will do that.  Each interval between the notes in the 16' lowest octave are only a few Hz apart, but still span an entire C-C octave and deserve to be heard/felt, too, even though the numerical differences are so small.

 

EDIT:  My MacBook Pro speakers are inadequate, but this might give you an idea of what I mean:

Great post Larry, I learned a lot from that.

[Marvel]

Larry, very nice! Sometimes during lunch at work I listen to youtube videos, and found some great harp guitar. On my desktop speakers at work, I couldn't even hear the bass strings. I came across this one this a.m.

 

 

His notes explain the tuning. I can hear the bass on my JBL Monitor 25s I use on the pc at home. I know I could also hear this on my LaScalas. Not loud, mind you, but solid.

 

Bruce

[Duckman]

Hi guys. This my first post on this forum and thought this would be a good way to introduce myself and my new Cornwall III's.

This was measured using the FFT app on my iPhone using C weighting. 1/3 octave tones from 20-20k hz generated using the Mobil Fidelity Sound Check CD. Measurement was taken at the listening position with speakers pointed straight ahead, not toed in toward the mic.

Needless to say my old subs are no longer needed with the Cornwalls.

[pzannucci]

Klipsch Model Data.pdf

Seeing all that data together, especially on the Cornwalls makes me wonder.  Didn't they always use a K-33 woofer?  Shows how flexible the art of specifications has become.  Lower frequency response with higher efficiency.  Pretty good.