The Fairchild Klipschorn

[WMcD]

We had an interesting thread going a few years ago.  I came across the paper copy of the article recently and so it came to mind.

 

There were some concerns that the item in the picture might have been something other than a K-Horn; 1943 is pretty early.

 

But I see the K-Horn patent  (2373692) has a application date of October 3, 1942.  Therefore the design had been completed the year before the article.  There is no reason to think the item can't be a K-Horn with Paul having given plans to Fairchild.

 

Perhaps our historian can enlighten us on the situation.  At his convenience.

 

WMcD

[HDBRbuilder]

PWK had applied for the patent of the K-horn (bass bin) prior to his WWII service at the SouthWest Proving Grounds north of Hope, AR; but he continued work on the prototypes both during and FOLLOWING his active duty military service during WWII, until he was satisfied they were ready to go into production .  So anything which was built before then was not the final product that originally went into production.

 

Still, if it was PWK's early prototype design, then that needs serious consideration in whether it is truly a Klipschorn.  I'm not exactly SURE when the term "Klipschorn"  was originally coined by audiophiles for the speaker, either.  It is pretty cool that PWK adopted names for some of his speakers based upon what others came up with!

[WMcD]

HDBR I quite agree with your admonition for careful analysis.

 

Of course we don't know the construction of the Fairchild unit but it appears to be more like the first embodiment in his second patent rather than an embodiment of his first bass bin patent.  I'll give more on this in the next slide because we can only make one file attachment.

 

We see that the first patent 2310243 (only first page attached) was like the Westminster, and many other designs, in that the front of the woofer was open to the air to provide some treble presumably and the horn loaded the back of the woofer.  .That does not seem what Fairchild had.

 

On the other hand.  The question is fine one mixing trademarks and patents, and the difficult interpretation of claims in the patent.  Can anything made according to this patent be called a Klipshorn?  We'd have to check the stickers PWK put on commercial versions, which he calls Klipshorn, and see if he contends the commercial version contains a structure "claimed" in this patent.  I have not examined the claims or the historical stickers.

 

I think it is an academic exercised at this point.  But if PWK said that his commercial product which he calls a Klipshorn is covered by this patent, then, arguably, it is a Klipschorn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

early back loaded bass horn.pdf

[WMcD]

The next issue is whether his second patent (first page attached) is indeed a Klipschorn by a reasonable standard.  Again I think the notice stickers on what PWK called a Klipshorn references this patent   We see in the first embodiment in the drawings a front loaded horn with all the geometry of folding that is very familiar.  This is to say that the compression chamber is in the back and the front of the diaphragm feeds the folded horn.  There seems to be a second embodiment with a box for the compression chamber and the back of the diaphragm feeds a folded horn with a geometry I've never seen built.  Still, we don't have the diaphragm open to the air like in the first patent.

 

I'll venture to make an educated guess that Fairchild unit was built in accord with the drawings of the first embodiment and probably PWK gave these to him.   Later this would be called a Klipshorn.  We may be trying to be too intellectually tidy by saying it is not a "Klipshorn" because the design was only called a Klipshorn at a later date and that some changes were made to the structure at a later date.

 

I'm skipping over the difficult analysis of claims interpretation of patents. 

 

Overall, I believe a fair interpretation is that outside of PWK prototypes and experimental units, Fairchild had the first Klipshorn.

 

WMcD

 

 

later patent with two embodiments.pdf

[HDBRbuilder]

Re: the figure 6 in the patent drawings...I always thought it was kind of cool that PWK included an omnidirectional four-Klipschorn speaker array top-view as part of a patent submission!

[LarryC]

There sure are a lot of ghosts in this thread!

[Travis In Austin]

On 1/26/2017 at 2:21 PM, WMcD said:

We had an interesting thread going a few years ago.  I came across the paper copy of the article recently and so it came to mind.

 

There were some concerns that the item in the picture might have been something other than a K-Horn; 1943 is pretty early.

 

But I see the K-Horn patent  (2373692) has a application date of October 3, 1942.  Therefore the design had been completed the year before the article.  There is no reason to think the item can't be a K-Horn with Paul having given plans to Fairchild.

 

Perhaps our historian can enlighten us on the situation.  At his convenience.

 

WMcD

The Historian @JRH is out of town this weekend, but I will be sure to point him here when he returns to see if he can ad anything.

 

Gil, do you still have your research from that project over 10 years ago?

 

I bet you have come across things we don't have in the archives and I would like to talk with you about possibly sharing some of your finds with the Museum.

 

Travis

[SiliconTi]

I love this thread - so much passion and knowledge. Hopefully more will be revealed.

[SiliconTi]

Forgive me if this is a dumb question, but did he use an Altec horn or a Klipsch horn? Looks very Altec to me, but my audio history is not very good.

[WMcD]

On ‎1‎/‎28‎/‎2017 at 10:56 AM, SiliconTi said:

Forgive me if this is a dumb question, but did he use an Altec horn or a Klipsch horn? Looks very Altec to me, but my audio history is not very good.

It is not a dumb question.  The problem is that while there are timelines for various products by various manufacturers they are not placed in parallel -- unless some scholar wants to do that.

 

After some hunting around the Internet I see that the treble horn could well be an Altec (Lancing) unit.  PWK would not develop the K-5 until later.  The Altec (cast metal?) must have been very expensive.  PWK probably had his own idea about mid horns also and came up with the K-5.

 

http://www.audioheritage.org/html/perspectives/found.htm

 

Gee wizz: that reports on a design from 1937.  Fairchild would have known about in 1943 it as would have PWK

 

WMcD

 

 

 

 

 

 

[WMcD]

While we're trying to identify treble horns from the past . . . or maybe the future?

 

It appears that the Dr. Brown -- OUTATIME - Delorian time machine used them. Or were they mock-ups?

 

 

 

 

[SiliconTi]

Wow, sure looks like an 805 to me...

[JRH]

Sherman Fairchild was a good friend and proponent of PWK.  At Paul's direction he had his "carpenter" build a bass bin from then-existing plans.  From what I can tell, the unit was not like the original patent, but an early version of what would later be the Klipschorn.  [BTW, A Mr. Jurek at Langevin suggested to PWK in 1945 that they were already referring to his horn as the "Klipschorn".]  Paul had to go to Sherman's penthouse to seal up all of the gaps that the "carpenter" left using about a pound of wood filler. 

 

Fairchild's unit used either a WE or Altec top end at first (1943).  When Paul was developing the K-5 horn in 1945, he could not obtain any plywood (war shortages) so Sherman sent him two 4 X 4 sheets to prototype the K-5.  Paul built two, one of which is still with X-3 at NMSU's museum.  The other one was LIKELY sent to Fairchild.  If anyone has it, the Museum is gladly accepting donations!