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Hesitant On New X-Overs....


SWL

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Deano, you wrote, Ever read Robert Stout's stuff.

 

Yeah, I've read those same arguments years ago. What's your point?

 

Let's try some newer stuff such as research showing how our auditory memory isn't as good as subjectivists such as yourself thinks it is.

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140312-auditory-memory-visual-learning-brain-research-science/

 

Lee

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I've never had the x-overs out before.....much-less ever really looked at them. Any tips or things I should be aware of when changing out the old and putting the new ones?

 

Bob made it sound like it's pretty self explanatory once I dig in.

 

 

Thanks.

 

It's very simple to do. I did it with KG 4.2's and Forte II, if by any chance a wire isn't connected to a terminal that has a plus or minus, the one that has a white dot on it is the positive one.  I just left mine intact to the original while rewiring and connecting each wire while taking the other off until I finished each connection and put everything in the base of the speaker with the new crossovers. Took me about 10-15 minutes to look over the 1st speaker for wiring and hooking it up, and less than 5 minutes on the 2nd speaker. I also redid the tweeters on them and in less than 30 minutes had a complete pair of speakers with crossovers and tweeters done and up for music. It took less time on the 2nd pair. I just went through the passive radiators for the crossovers and then did the tweeters after.

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Thanks Jim I have 2 pairs of kg 4.2 myself that I'll be doing in addition to some 3.2's and another pair of KLF-30's.

Sent from my SM-G920R4 using Tapatalk

 

Those 4.2's will really sound nice when done. I was considering doing my KG 3.0's as well but I'm tossed on whether to keep them or sell them.

 

They thump really nice,and the mids and highs are very very good. They won't sound bright at all IMO.

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Let's try some newer stuff such as research showing how our auditory memory isn't as good as subjectivists such as yourself thinks it is.

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140312-auditory-memory-visual-learning-brain-research-science/

 

 

Lee, I want to make it clear I'm not arguing with you on what I'm about to say.  My comment is regarding the "research" you linked to.  The link does NOT connect to any research, and the "research" which was referenced in the National Geographic magazine has some problems.

 

I am not going to bore anyone pointing out technical flaws with research conducted on college students.  Well, actually, I am.  :rolleyes:

 

The link you provided points to a National Geographic article.  It is not legitimate to refer to that as "research."  It's not.  At best it is someone's opinion on research, and it actually looks like it is a third opinion based on a second opinion based on a single research study at one minor university with a small number of subjects.

 

Inside the National Geographic article, there is a link to a "University of Iowa Study."  Actually, that link does not point to a study.  It points to a news review by an on-line magazine called "Iowa Now." 

 

Finally, Iowa Now provides a link to the original research.  At last, it looks like we have real research!  :)  With some problems.  :(

 

I won't go into the entirety of the problems, but here is the big one that jumped out to me:

 

Subjects.

 

A total of 54 undergraduate students (37 female) with normal or corrected-to-normal vision and hearing participated in this experiment for course credit.

 

 

A major flaw is that you can't generalize the sex-biased results of 54 undergrads to the rest of the world.

+++

 

I'm not picking on you Lee, and nothing I pointed to above invalidates the results of the study, which ultimately relies on SUBJECTIVE opinions by the subjects.  Part of the stimulus/response studied by the researchers was having the subjects listening to dogs barking while listening to headphones.

 

Relying on subjective opinion is what you suggested Mr. DeanG was guilty of.  Dean G was not giving an opinion of dogs barking through headphones, and I would argue Dean's ability to discern minute differences in auditory stimuli is MUCH higher developed than most of the undergrad students in the original study.

 

That is just my subjective opinion.  B)

Edited by wvu80
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Wvu80,

 

Thanks for your comments on my post. If you do a Google search for “human auditory memory studies”, you will get far more results for studies of the auditory memory of primates than for humans. As mentioned in the Introduction to the published study in question, primate auditory memory capabilities fall short of their visual and tactile memory capabilities. I encourage the reader to read the study as linked below.

 

As you may know, university-level research can be expensive even when funded by corporate or government underwriting as this one was. With a campus full of potential test subjects, it was natural for Poremba and Bigelow to use this low-cost resource rather than solicit suitable test subjects from the general population of Iowa City. Sure, a test with an equal number of male & female participants and a range of suitable ages and ethnicities would have been ideal but probably cost prohibitive.

 

You wrote:  A total of 54 undergraduate students (37 female) with normal or corrected-to-normal vision and hearing participated in this experiment for course credit.

 

There were two parts to the study. In Experiment 1, there were indeed 54 test subjects. In Experiment 2, there were 82 undergraduate students (42 female). Would having 540 subjects in Experiment 1 and 820 in Experiment 2 result in a different study outcome? Maybe, maybe not.

 

You wrote:  Part of the stimulus/response studied by the researchers was having the subjects listening to dogs barking while listening to headphones.

 

Barking dogs was but one of the ninety auditory stimuli the test subjects listened to.

 

You wrote: Relying on subjective opinion is what you suggested Mr. DeanG was guilty of.  Dean G was not giving an opinion of dogs barking through headphones, and I would argue Dean's ability to discern minute differences in auditory stimuli is MUCH higher developed than most of the undergrad students in the original study.

 

I thought my post was aimed more at questioning Deano’s belief that passive components like a metalized polypropylene capacitor needs to “settle down” after 10 -20 hours of listening.

 

There’s no point questioning what he (or anyone) hears or claims to hear. We all have our filters, biases and emotional blind spots when it comes to the listening experience.

  

Here’s a link to the published study.

 

 

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0089914

 

Lee

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I've never had the x-overs out before.....much-less ever really looked at them. Any tips or things I should be aware of when changing out the old and putting the new ones?

 

Bob made it sound like it's pretty self explanatory once I dig in.

 

 

Thanks.

 

I've never had the x-overs out before.....much-less ever really looked at them. Any tips or things I should be aware of when changing out the old and putting the new ones?

 

Bob made it sound like it's pretty self explanatory once I dig in.

 

 

Thanks.

 

I always like to install just one to start.  Then you can run the system in mono and rotate the balance to hear the difference between the old and new networks.

 

People are talking about "harshness"............My opinion of that is that it is NOT a brightness perception at all.  Brightness is exactly what it sounds like, brighter (too much treble/highs).

 

What I attribute as "harsh" is the mis-aligned timing of the drivers.  You have the same information coming out of the tweeter and squawker simultaneously on both sides of the crossover frequency and out of time with one another.  The louder you turn it, the worse it gets.  Especially with the lower sloped networks that allow a lot of overlap.

 

This is why when you use implement a set of higher sloped networks you hear reports of how "clear" it is at the higher volumes.  The overlap is reduced, reducing perception of the problem.  The mis-alignment is still there but since it is mostly confined to each driver separate from one another, it is far less noticeable.

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Ordered them from Bob on Monday......received them today (Friday). Packed very well. I was surprised at how big they were.

 

Installed the first one in under 15 minutes. The second one I think I did with my eyes closed.

 

All the connections are a tight perfect fit. The new wiring Bob supplied was adequate in length with a little to spare. (unlike the stock wiring)

 

 

Initial listening impressions:

 

I can't say that it sounds that much different. Slightly smoother, maybe. Slightly more defined, sure. Slightly more crisp, yep. Definitely not harsh! Imaging and soundstage sound and present themselves the same as before. (that's a good thing)

 

Here's the kicker....and the main reason I upgraded the x-overs. Last year about this time I was noticing that the bass wasn't as tight, almost on the verge of sounding 'tubby' in comparison to typical KLF-30 bass. After some research and reading some of Moray James' tweaks, I experimented with extending the ports among many other tweaks. Well, the other tweaks eventually went out the window but the extended ports were a dramatic improvement in bass response. After trying sooo many different lengths I could not deny and kept going back to an 18" long extended port tube (10" in the cabinet, 8" sticking out).....as compared to the 3" stock port length!

 

So, now I'm sitting here listening with the new x-overs installed and I remembered that I didn't put the port extensions back in. Before, if someone had taken the port extensions out without me knowing, I would have been able to tell the difference. It was that noticeable.

 

So this has become a worthwhile investment and also interesting. When KLF-30's first came out all you heard about was how tight and powerful the dual 12' were. Can't argue with that. Then as time went on, as in the last few years I keep reading how guys are describing the bass along the lines of what I was experiencing. A lot of the cases were apparently a room thing but maybe some of the cases were a deteriorating crossover thing as what appears to be what I've just found out.....not to mention the cheap crossover components that came from the factory originally.

 

I'll let them break-in a little and post my impressions. :P

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