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Klipsch KG 5.5 Thoughts and Improvements


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I recently acquired a pair of the Klipsch KG 5.5 speakers in 9.5/10 condition at a garage sale for $200 bucks for the pair! A friggin steal! However as i cranked them up i heard a loud buzzing in the woofer. Upon further research it seems that other people have this same problem with the KG series. The speakers turn 20 this August 27th, so they are old and people have said that with age there will be loose crap under the dust cap that causes the loud and annoying vibrations that i hear when i turn them up to medium volumes. 

 

So far I'm going to buy some replacement Titanium Dome Diagaphrams for the tweeters from bob crites, and I'm looking for a good replacement woofer. I know somebody makes a replacement woofer specifically for the KG series listed here.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/160962694691?_trksid=p5197.c0.m619

Looking at the specs they don't give you any frequency response graphs, so i decided that i will probably use this woofer

https://www.parts-express.com/goldwood-gw-10pc-8-10-heavy-duty-woofer-8-ohm--290-324

The sensitivity and impedance of this woofer is the same as the replacement one so it should work, and the reviews say its great. 

 

Does anybody have any thoughts or opinions on this, or any upgrade ideas to make my KG 5.5's even better?

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I have used the KG 5.5. Speakers for twenty years with a Adcom gfi 5000  , 200 wpc.  Get the Critis xovers. They will wake them up. Some have had trouble with the cabs but mine are still in good shape, I pushed mine hard and only had a stock xover die under warranty . 

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I put some pink fiberglass along the back panel and it improved the bass by quite a bit. The Ti tweeters are a good upgrade as well. You will probably want to get some new capacitors too. I have heard of those replacement woofers but I am not sure if they sound the same to only replace one. You can look up a local speaker repair shop and they can most likely fix it for about the same price. I have a woofer that is giving me some problems as well but I dont crank them up as much anymore.

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14 hours ago, mr.pee1 said:

I have used the KG 5.5. Speakers for twenty years with a Adcom gfi 5000  , 200 wpc.  Get the Critis xovers. They will wake them up. Some have had trouble with the cabs but mine are still in good shape, I pushed mine hard and only had a stock xover die under warranty . 

I'm probably gonna replace the back panel on the cabinets, and put a new port, and new insulation in the cabs. Later on i'll order the new crises crossovers.

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before you run off and purchase expensive woofers do yourself a favor and check the dust caps first. you will need an exacto knife or other fine blade to work all the way around the edge of the cap to cone joint to make sure the adhesive bond is secure. If those are solid then pull your woofers and get inside the cabinet with a rubber mallet and give the baffles (front and back) a good solid whacking all the way around to make sure they are also solidly bonded to the cabinet. Repair if necessary.

   When it comes to damping remember these are reflex cabinets and the main bulk of the internal volume must be allowed to resonate to properly couple the woofer to the vent. You can stuff the volume above the woofer and some below the vent you can even place some damping on the rear baffle behind the woofer but the internal volume needs to stay open and free to be resonant that is critical to how a reflex cabinet works. Enjoy you have a good set of loudspeakers. Regards moray james.

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14 minutes ago, moray james said:

before you run off and purchase expensive woofers do yourself a favor and check the dust caps first. you will need an exacto knife or other fine blade to work all the way around the edge of the cap to cone joint to make sure the adhesive bond is secure. If those are solid then pull your woofers and get inside the cabinet with a rubber mallet and give the baffles (front and back) a good solid whacking all the way around to make sure they are also solidly bonded to the cabinet. Repair if necessary.

   When it comes to damping remember these are reflex cabinets and the main bulk of the internal volume must be allowed to resonate to properly couple the woofer to the vent. You can stuff the volume above the woofer and some below the vent you can even place some damping on the rear baffle behind the woofer but the internal volume needs to stay open and free to be resonant that is critical to how a reflex cabinet works. Enjoy you have a good set of loudspeakers. Regards moray james.

One of my woofers makes a scratching sound when I push in on it and its not the rubber surrounds going bad. Do you think that is from the dust cap issue?

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no that would not be the dust cap but it could well be a close fit (coil to top plate, poor alignment) and when you push (we) don't push evenly in so it scrapes this would be a good time to rotate your woofers 180 degrees to offset suspension sag. If you do not hear this rubbing when the speaker plays don't worry about it. Rotating every ten years is a good maintenance plan, you can write the date on some tape inside the cab or on the woofer basket. Regards moray james.

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34 minutes ago, moray james said:

no that would not be the dust cap but it could well be a close fit (coil to top plate, poor alignment) and when you push (we) don't push evenly in so it scrapes this would be a good time to rotate your woofers 180 degrees to offset suspension sag. If you do not hear this rubbing when the speaker plays don't worry about it. Rotating every ten years is a good maintenance plan, you can write the date on some tape inside the cab or on the woofer basket. Regards moray james.

Thanks Moray- That makes sense and I didnt know about rotating the woofers. I inadvertently rotated the woofer the last time I checked and it nolonger makes a noise when I play which is part of the reason I have put off doing anything about it.

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4 hours ago, twk123 said:

One of my woofers makes a scratching sound when I push in on it and its not the rubber surrounds going bad. Do you think that is from the dust cap issue?

thats because the voice coil is scraping against the side of its magnetic housing thingy(i forgot what its called). When the woofer is being played normally it will stay in alignment and it shouldn't do that, its only when you push on it because the force that you are applying isn't perfectly perpendicular to the center of the driver causing it to tilt out of alignment and scrape the side.

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4 hours ago, twk123 said:

One of my woofers makes a scratching sound when I push in on it and its not the rubber surrounds going bad. Do you think that is from the dust cap issue?

Even still i want to improve the sound. The midrange in my opinion isn't as detailed and clear as it could be. My only point a reference are the homemade 3 way speakers i built that cost $1000 bucks a pair. The bass response is amazing and the midrange is clear and detailed as are the highs. The only downside is the need a good amount of power to drive. I want to rebuild my klipsch to have even deeper bass, better bass response, and a little more detail in the midrange. I decided that i may buy these woofers instead

https://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-ds270-8-10-designer-series-woofer-speaker--295-432

If you look at the frequency response graph you'll notice that they have a peak in the 2k-3k hz range which should make the midrange come out a bit. The sensitivity is 1db less than the real replacement woofers, and i can play these down to 27 hz at maximum power without overdriving the driver. Any thoughts on this woofer?

They look pretty sweet too. they'll be slightly too big but i'll do some diy stuff to make it work

4 hours ago, twk123 said:

One of my woofers makes a scratching sound when I push in on it and its not the rubber surrounds going bad. Do you think that is from the dust cap issue?

 

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22 minutes ago, PerchPerkins said:

Even still i want to improve the sound. The midrange in my opinion isn't as detailed and clear as it could be. My only point a reference are the homemade 3 way speakers i built that cost $1000 bucks a pair. The bass response is amazing and the midrange is clear and detailed as are the highs. The only downside is the need a good amount of power to drive. I want to rebuild my klipsch to have even deeper bass, better bass response, and a little more detail in the midrange. I decided that i may buy these woofers instead

https://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-ds270-8-10-designer-series-woofer-speaker--295-432

If you look at the frequency response graph you'll notice that they have a peak in the 2k-3k hz range which should make the midrange come out a bit. The sensitivity is 1db less than the real replacement woofers, and i can play these down to 27 hz at maximum power without overdriving the driver. Any thoughts on this woofer?

They look pretty sweet too. they'll be slightly too big but i'll do some diy stuff to make it work

 

If you are looking for more detailed mid range then you are going to want to go with a 3 way speaker with a mid horn like the Cornwall, LaScala or KLF-30. The KG 5.5 has always been notorious for being shy in the mid range which is why I use them more for electronic music. As far as bass goes I have always felt the KG 5.5 has enough to melt your face as it is and if you want more you will need a dedicated subwoofer or at least try dampening the back of the cabs with some foam. I dont think you are going to get more bass with those woofers and you will need to play around with the crossover quite a bit to get it all to blend since the sensitivity is less. For subs I would go with this 15'' Dayton audio sub package and a 300W amp and it provides some great low end extension to the KGs:

 

https://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-15-reference-series-ho-subwoofer-and-cabinet-bundle--300-7093

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hard to beat a good two way that's what PWK spent his life working on. A CF3 or a CF4 would be a good place to start. These have the largest wide band one inch horn of any home Klipsch loudspeaker almost as large as a K510 but the K510 has the serious advantage of being a two inch horn so you get to make the big jump up to large format drivers. If you want a better sound go for a larger horn or experiment with a Karlson K-Tube on an EV DH1506 for a one inch driver or with an EV DH1A for a large format driver nominal 2 inch exit but you can remove the extender nose cup for a 1.4 inch exit I like to use the double cutaway profile. Way less money than any horn.

Karlson K-Tubes.jpg

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1 hour ago, twk123 said:

If you are looking for more detailed mid range then you are going to want to go with a 3 way speaker with a mid horn like the Cornwall, LaScala or KLF-30. The KG 5.5 has always been notorious for being shy in the mid range which is why I use them more for electronic music. As far as bass goes I have always felt the KG 5.5 has enough to melt your face as it is and if you want more you will need a dedicated subwoofer or at least try dampening the back of the cabs with some foam. I dont think you are going to get more bass with those woofers and you will need to play around with the crossover quite a bit to get it all to blend since the sensitivity is less. For subs I would go with this 15'' Dayton audio sub package and a 300W amp and it provides some great low end extension to the KGs:

 

https://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-15-reference-series-ho-subwoofer-and-cabinet-bundle--300-7093

Maybe i could buy some Klipsch Hersey horn midrange drivers off of eBay, and add it to the KG 5.5's. I could do one 10" subwoofer and cross it over at maybe 800 hz?

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9 minutes ago, PerchPerkins said:

Maybe i could buy some Klipsch Hersey horn midrange drivers off of eBay, and add it to the KG 5.5's. I could do one 10" subwoofer and cross it over at maybe 800 hz?

a k700 horn is not a quality modern horn that would be a step backwards. what is it that you are looking to achieve? A CF3 would be a big jump forward in overall sound quality. A KLF20 would be a good speaker also but they have often got baffle adhesive issues worth fixing but you may not want to go there. If you like the sound of the KG two way then look for a set of CF3 or CF4.

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Klipsch spent a lot of time and money developing those speakers, thinking you can just throw in different woofers and get better results may be way off the mark. Sure, they might improve in some ways but more than likely at a cost somewhere else. If you are unhappy with their performance I'd recommend moving up the Klipsch line as already suggested, might save you a lot of time, money and frustration in the long run.

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1 hour ago, twk123 said:

If you are looking for more detailed mid range then you are going to want to go with a 3 way speaker with a mid horn like the Cornwall, LaScala or KLF-30. The KG 5.5 has always been notorious for being shy in the mid range which is why I use them more for electronic music. As far as bass goes I have always felt the KG 5.5 has enough to melt your face as it is and if you want more you will need a dedicated subwoofer or at least try dampening the back of the cabs with some foam. I dont think you are going to get more bass with those woofers and you will need to play around with the crossover quite a bit to get it all to blend since the sensitivity is less. For subs I would go with this 15'' Dayton audio sub package and a 300W amp and it provides some great low end extension to the KGs:

 

https://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-15-reference-series-ho-subwoofer-and-cabinet-bundle--300-7093

 

2 minutes ago, jjptkd said:

Klipsch spent a lot of time and money developing those speakers, thinking you can just throw in different woofers and get better results may be way off the mark. Sure, they might improve in some ways but more than likely at a cost somewhere else. If you are unhappy with their performance I'd recommend moving up the Klipsch line as already suggested, might save you a lot of time, money and frustration in the long run.

Im just gonna do the upgraded crises crossovers, the Upgraded tweets, and there is a company that makes replacement woofers that are specifically for the KG series. I'm just gonna use their woofers since they're designed to serve as a replacement for the originals. Another guy did the same thing that I'm doing and he said they improved the sound. Theres no need for me to complicate things. I would like to move up the KG Line in the future, but I'm only 17 and i gotta catch up on my college savings and stock trading investments before i spend any more money on speakers after this project.

 

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3 hours ago, PerchPerkins said:Maybe i could buy some Klipsch Hersey horn midrange drivers off of eBay, and add it to the KG 5.5's. I could do one 10" subwoofer and cross it over at maybe 800 hz?

Even still i havent been able to crank it up loud enough because there is a ridiculous rattle on the left speaker. I gotta get to the bottom of that first

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