Schu Posted May 1, 2016 Share Posted May 1, 2016 Ruminate... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted May 1, 2016 Share Posted May 1, 2016 Chewing my cud and pondering... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason str Posted May 1, 2016 Share Posted May 1, 2016 The K-402 is a dam good sounding horn. I have not heard all the aftermarket horns but it blows away any other Klipsch model or Altec offering If you can live with big and ugly or even spruce it up or build a sweet cabinet to house it in my vote is yes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ski Bum Posted May 1, 2016 Share Posted May 1, 2016 I really liked the light colored curved fabric covers someone was showing off in another thread. Made the Jubs look like giant Quad ESLs, very cool. But I think we could be drifting off topic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deang Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 Only fit for the best recorded material. So, one must choose between well recorded material one isn't particularly fond of, or having their ears shredded by music they like. I envy you lunes that love elevator music. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mustang guy Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 Dean, Wouldn't the K510 be a good alternative for folks who don't want elevator muzak? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erik2A3 Posted May 2, 2016 Author Share Posted May 2, 2016 What makes a recording bad, better, good, or best? I suspect we all have our own goals and objectives when it comes to spending hard-earned cash on audio playback equipment. One of my primary goals in choosing loudspeakers has been transparency, clarity, detail, and fidelity to recording. All of these traits often mean different things to different people, particulalrly the last element, since it's hard to know how faithful a reproduction of a recording is being presented without having been present at the studio (or other venue). Even then we are are ultimately left with the colorations and artifacts imposed on the signal by the recording equipment used. If it's on the recording, I want to hear it...horn or woodwind musucians breathing between notes, fingers sliding on frets of guitars, brushes on cymbals, and so on. Those are the sounds that to me help generate the most organic and 'living' recreation of a recorded musical event. The crossoverless Lowther PM5A drivers I have installed in large, back-loaded horns are more efficient and ruthlessly (or truthfully) revealing than were our Klipschorns or our present LaScalas. The drivers alone cost $2.5K. The response of this system is far from linear, and driver impedance is all over the map. Some use swamping resistors and other equalization (zobel) networks, in attempt to reduce crazy impedance fluctuations. I have tried all of them over the past 20 years; and as someone who has played music in live entertainment settings, prefer the sound of these horn loaded (or open baffle mounted) drivers totally bare. The more of an open - or at least very clearly polished - a given system is to the reproduction of a recording, the better...for me. Dean, I remember a long time ago you described Klipschorns as great for tearing one's ears off one's head (or making them bleed...something to that effect), so I can thus understand your cautions regarding the K402. However, it's the qualities you are warning against that are precisely the reason I am interested in them. At this stage in my life I listen almost exclusively to acoustic jazz and classical, with occasional prog rock/fusion thrown in here and there for old-times sake -- Jeff Beck, Yes, King Crimson, older Genesis. The K402s might be the door even more widely open onto those captured musical events...for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DizRotus Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 The only K402s I've ever heard were in the system of ClaudeJ1, before he built his Quarter Pie bass horns. As I recall, the bass was provided by La Scala bass bins and large tapped horn subs. In any case, the K402s were superb. We listened to female vocals, jazz and rock. The imaging was scary good. There was no sense of fatigue. In the right space with no budget constraints, they would be my choice. BTW, how is it that post #1 of this thread started by erik2a3 shows Schu as its author? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 (edited) At this stage in my life I listen almost exclusively to acoustic jazz and classical, with occasional prog rock/fusion thrown in here and there for old-times sake -- Jeff Beck, Yes, King Crimson, older Genesis. The K402s might be the door even more widely open onto those captured musical events...for me. I've found that the typical mastering EQ used on most "classic" acoustic jazz and classical albums are actually much greater in magnitude than most typical "classic rock" recordings. In particular, I've found that, once these recordings are re-EQed to something approaching what the musicians actually played together in ensemble on a recording stage (i.e., not individual recording booths), the music's naturalness and interest-holding qualities increase substantially, as in "I'm not subconsciously clinching my teeth while listening". I've mentioned this phenomenon in the "Missing Octave" thread. EDIT: As an example of how much mastering EQ was used originally, here is an unmastering EQ curve that I used for one of the Blue Train tracks: and the resulting spectrogram of the track (using -18 dB/decade correction): Combining the unmastering EQ of these classic jazz and classical recordings with the above-mentioned imaging properties of the K-402s plus really good compression drivers (TAD 4002s), EQed anechoically flat using Roy's settings and certain other low frequency room corrections...in an acoustically treated room, the resulting listening experience is something that I've looked forward to, for a long time. Chris Edited May 2, 2016 by Chris A Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 By the way, those Jeff Beck, Genesis, Yes, and Peter Gabriel albums are some of my most favorite to listen to now--after unmastering. It took a while to get my learning curve down to the point that I could successfully unwind the mastering EQ originally used on those albums back to something much more realistic and natural. The results are worth much more than the effort to learn, IMO. These recordings are wonderful to listen to now. Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schu Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 (edited) I just listened to a 5.1 version of Foxtrot yesterday... it was absolute magnificence, specially suppers ready. Edited May 3, 2016 by Schu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erik2A3 Posted May 2, 2016 Author Share Posted May 2, 2016 Chris A (and of course other contributers here) I appreciate the time you took to share that information and images here. I've read some of your other posts with great interest, as well. You have definitely put some effort into this! And "Supper's Ready". Absolutely one of my all time favorites from Genesis. I will say I also really like Collins doing the vocals on the Seconds Out version. With Bill Bruford, Chester Thompson, and of course Phil himself doing the drumming on that album, the percussion is amazing. All of it is good though! From measurements I've done in the room where they would go, the K402s would be about 12 feet apart. Does that seem doable? DizRotus: I wondered the same thing about my original post...maybe it was deleted in favor Schu's munching pet cow - which I admit is much more funny than mine. But what happened, I wonder? deleted for some reason? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 From measurements I've done in the room where they would go, the K402s would be about 12 feet apart. Does that seem doable? Certainly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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