Switch from La Scala to K-Horns

[Shodrewken]

I'm expecting these to dig down lower, and have a bigger overall presentation. Given the same power I fed my La Scalas, will they be much louder? How close to the wall will they need to be to get the best bass response? Any advice to get the most out of them will be appreciated! 

[Budman]

are you asking how close to the walls for k-horns to get the best bass ???

 

simple answer,    if you don't have them sealed into the corners their won't be ANY bass

hopefully yours will have the factory tailboard rubber gaskets, if not pipe foam from home depot will work

Edited March 17, 2016 by Budman

[Axz Hout]

x

[Shodrewken]

So they literally need to be touching the wall for any bass at all?

And secondly, I was expecting the bass to be like the Scalas, just more of it. Since I've grown accustomed to the the Scala bass, will the K-horns not be as prominent?

[Zim.]

x

[Chris A]

So they literally need to be touching the wall for any bass at all? And secondly, I was expecting the bass to be like the Scalas, just more of it. Since I've grown accustomed to the the Scala bass, will the K-horns not be as prominent?

 

The Khorn bass bin's last fold is the corner of the room.  It needs to be a tight seal with the corner.  If you can't do that, then you can either build false corners to place your Khorns into, or you can enclose the backs of the Khorn directly (thus making a somewhat smaller false corner out of your Khorn bass bin), but they need to be within 18 inches of the room's corners.

 

The two mouths of a Khorn bass bin are angled at 72 degrees to each other, whereas the La Scala and Belle mouths are set at zero degrees at their exit.  This angled geometry of the Khorn bass bin mouths redirects the on-axis midbass frequencies (the "punch" in the bass bin...about 60-200 Hz) and higher midbass (200-400 Hz...in the range of bass and baritone vocalists) along the boundaries of the room's walls.  Below ~120 Hz, the bass is omni-directional, so being on-axis doesn't really matter, but above that point, up the to the crossover frequency of 400 Hz, the bass will seem less prominent, but will be there, filling the room.

 

As far as "louder", what you are describing is the "sensitivity" of the bass bin.  The La Scala, Belle, and Khorn bass bins are all about 104-105 dB given a nominal one watt input at one metre.  So the Khorns won't sound louder, only deeper - a bit more than an octave deeper.  That's the difference.

 

Bass bins really don't "dig"...they either reproduce low frequencies or they don't.

 

Chris

Edited March 18, 2016 by Chris A

[Shodrewken]

I have perfect corners for them, I just wasn't sure if I actually needed to seal the little gap between the walk and the speaker to get the best bass results.

[Shodrewken]

A side note, I've been reading that the K-horns have a time delay with the bass bin. Is it painfully noticeable? If so what fix is there for it?

[ricktate]

You need to seal the bass horn to the wall.....vertically and horizontally use foam pipe insulation. Just put foam anywhere the wall is close along the tail board and the horizontal part of the bass bin just below the top hat. I also use grippers on the bottom since mine sit on hardwood. Rick

[Shiva]

A thing worth mentioning though I also don't have K-horns is where the 45 degree angle sets the sweet spot in a room.  Does one have to take that into account and adjust ones sitting position in reference to that?

[Chris A]

A side note, I've been reading that the K-horns have a time delay with the bass bin. Is it painfully noticeable? If so what fix is there for it?

 

You could correct the time misalignment using a digital crossover and tri-amping, the settings of which can be found here.  If you don't want to do that, you can simply release the tweeters from inside the top hats and place them on top of the Khorns in a small baffle, but centered toward the back of the cabinet to approximately align with the midrange compression driver.  This will improve the soundstage of the Khorns by a very large measure, and it costs almost nothing to do.  You will also have better HF coverage of the tweeter by not mounting it behind the baffle surface, but in front of the baffle. 

 

The way that you find the proper alignment is to move the tweeter a little bit, then listen to the stereo soundstage.  Once you find the right position, you will hear a rather dramatic widening of the soundstage image.

 

Relocating the tweeter to the top of the cabinet at the back won't do anything for the bass bin-midrange time misalignment, but it will significantly improve the performance of the Khorns.

 

Chris

Edited March 29, 2016 by Chris A

[garyrc]

I have perfect corners for them, I just wasn't sure if I actually needed to seal the little gap between the walk and the speaker to get the best bass results.

 

 

Seal it!  Also, the Khorn seems to take moderate bass boost (if you have tone controls) better than the La Scala.  That may be because the part  of the bass boost below about 50 Hz "goes nowhere" with the La Scala, and works very well down to about 35 Hz with Klipschorns.  Below 35, there is considerable roll off, but my Khorns -- sealed in corners in a big room -- reach cleanly to 24 Hz, albeit at greatly reduced volume.  For some vinyl and some CDs, the bass is shaved off if the mix was originally intended for vinyl, on which bass takes up more space than can be allowed.  For these, I use between 3 dB and 9 db bass boost.  Remasters, especially for SACD tend to be better, but as Chris A has pointed out, some remixes are worse than the originals, in dynamics, and, sometimes in other ways.  Newer Blu-rays of movies made in the last 10 years are usually fine ... but most people use a subwoofer for these, coming in at 60 Hz or 80 Hz.

[Chris A]

A thing worth mentioning though I also don't have K-horns is where the 45 degree angle sets the sweet spot in a room.  Does one have to take that into account and adjust ones sitting position in reference to that?

 

The bottom line answer is: yes.  But not as much as you might think.  It's actually better to sit behind the crossing point of the loudspeaker centerlines in order to stabilize the stereo imaging width sweet spot.  I use a rule of thumb of about 2-6 feet behind that crossing point. 

[Shodrewken]

Thanks for all your responses guys! I had originally thought it would be just be drop in the K-horns snugly to the wall and call it good, but its starting to sound I'm going to have to tinker a bit more to achieve the best sound. As much as I enjoy the incredibly tight bass from the Scalas, I am very excited to hear the room filling bass of the K-horns!

 

I should have mentioned this earlier, the corner they'll reside in are just shy of 12' apart. Will the K's be too close to each other?

Edited March 18, 2016 by Shodrewken

[twistedcrankcammer]

You have a Pm

[Shodrewken]

Thanks again Twisted!

[Chris A]

the corner they'll reside in are just shy of 12' apart. Will the K's be too close to each other?

 

The closer together they are, typically the closer you'll be sitting to them.  Getting the tweeters time aligned to the midrange drivers by moving them to on top of the top hats will significantly reduce what's been referred to as the "minimum listening distance".  Eleven to twelve feet apart is usually considered a minimum corner-to-corner separation distance, but time aligning them will reduce this minimum distance a bit. 

 

The biggest single thing that you can do with Khorns is to make sure that there is nothing within about 6 feet radius from them, including equipment racks, furniture, and electronics boxes at or near midrange horn mouth level--or at least place some acoustically absorbing material around the sides of this equipment/furniture to absorb early reflections.  You'll notice when someone walks in front of you to the side of the centerlines of the Khorns pointed toward your listening position--it will be a big disturbance if everything is set up correctly in-room to eliminate early reflections.from around the Khorns.

 

Chris

Edited March 18, 2016 by Chris A

[babadono]

+ 1 on sealing the bass bin to the walls with pipe foam. I bought a pair of used KHorns in 1988 went over 20 years without doing this, did not know any better.

 Also time aligning the tweeter with mid-    DO IT. This also I did not know to do until recently.

Now I am just starting down the path to get all three drivers aligned with a digital crossover.

Edited March 18, 2016 by babadono

[Shodrewken]

Chris A, thanks for you info man, I'm going to play with the tweeter like you had mention. Luckily there wont be anything obstructing the horns from the listening position.

[Budman]

Thanks for all your responses guys! I had originally thought it would be just be drop in the K-horns snugly to the wall and call it good, but its starting to sound I'm going to have to tinker a bit more to achieve the best sound. As much as I enjoy the incredibly tight bass from the Scalas, I am very excited to hear the room filling bass of the K-horns!

 

I should have mentioned this earlier, the corner they'll reside in are just shy of 12' apart. Will the K's be too close to each other?

20' apart would be optimal to sit back 10'

hey if you have 12' you have 12'

you have k-horns, how many people can say that