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Convert Klipsch 535B Jubilee into KPT-445-B?


diamonddelts

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I am ecstatic with my Klipsch 535B Jubilee  speakers however I was thinking that I've always preferred a well-made three-way versus a well-made two-way speaker for 2-channel music. So going by that mode of thinking I was thinking about converting my Jubilees into a four-way. The cheapest 4 way model I've seen is the KPT-445-B.

 

I don't want the bass bins from the KPT-445-B but I'm thinking about going with a quad tweeter set up. Looking for thoughts from other people on this. I could also switch out my Jubilee bass bins with the 4-way fifteen bass bins if that might make a better combination with a quad tweeter set up.

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Are you already running your Jubilee's in the full 3-way format?

 

Seems to me you are going in the direction of complicating your sound verses simplifying....  then again, I know there are those that simply prefer (for example) the sound of a 3-way over a 2-way...

 

What are you trying to fix?

 

 

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7 minutes ago, Coytee said:

 

Are you already running your Jubilee's in the full 3-way format?

 

Seems to me you are going in the direction of complicating your sound verses simplifying....  then again, I know there are those that simply prefer (for example) the sound of a 3-way over a 2-way...

 

What are you trying to fix?

 

 

 

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Not trying to fix anything per se. I am enjoying my 3-way Jubilees immensely. However  I've always preferred 3-way models over two-way models for music. The reason being is the the two way models are often giving up high-frequency extension for more extension into the lower mid ranges. So going by that logic I figured  maybe there is a good chance I would prefer a four-way Jubilee over a three-way Jubilee for articulation with two channel music.

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Since you asked...adding "ways" to a loudspeaker is something that's usually done out of necessity only:

  1. to cut the electrical/acoustic load on the drivers for PA/commercial use (i.e., extremely high output well beyond the needs of consumers), or
  2. to do something like John Dunlavy did with his SC series of loudspeakers: to get phase coherence by using only first order crossover filters and drivers with lots of frequency overlap capabilities with the drivers on either side.  Dunlavy's loudspeakers were not only time coherent, they could also reproduce square waves accurately up to a fairly high frequency. 

The down side?

  1. Having to match polars and phase at each crossover interference band and matching phase in each interference band with the other relevant drivers. 
  2. More drivers creates a quality control issue and a logistics issue in the event that the customer wants to replace a single driver--which now must be matched with the loudspeaker box by serial number. 
  3. The cost, weight, and added size of all those drivers and crossover filter components is also an big issue. 

Unless you really, really know what you're doing, in every case that I've seen a lot of ways used in a loudspeaker, the results are poorer performance--not better.  So why would you willingly add more issues and costs?  What are you trying to achieve by adding ways to a fully horn-loaded system?  I can tell you what it's not...it's not really higher fidelity unless you do a ton of work and quality control to push the phase coherence up to the next level.  Basically no one other than Dunlavy did it--and he passed away over 10 years ago, his company folding in the process.

 

Secondly, replacing horn loaded bass bins with direct radiating ones is also something that doesn't make any sense to me.  You're decreasing fidelity by doing this.

 

YMMV.

 

Chris

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You do know (I have to presume?) that the 2-way Juiblee uses the same tweeter driver (on the K402) as the 3-way version (on the K510)....  I'm no Roy (though I have much nicer looking legs) but I would think they would both have the same upper extension?

 

I believe that mine already go beyond what I can hear....so for me, it wouldn't make much difference.

 

Perhaps one of the technical type will chime in...

 

 

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On 12/30/2017 at 4:40 PM, Chris A said:

Since you asked...adding "ways" to a loudspeaker is something that's usually done out of necessity only:

  1. to cut the electrical/acoustic load on the drivers for PA/commercial use (i.e., extremely high output well beyond the needs of consumers), or
  2. to do something like John Dunlavy did with his SC series of loudspeakers: to get phase coherence by using only first order crossover filters and drivers with lots of frequency overlap capabilities with the drivers on either side.  Dunlavy's loudspeakers were not only time coherent, they could also reproduce square waves accurately up to a fairly high frequency. 

The down side?

  1. Having to match polars and phase at each crossover interference band and matching phase in each interference band with the other relevant drivers. 
  2. More drivers creates a quality control issue and a logistics issue in the event that the customer wants to replace a single driver--which now must be matched with the loudspeaker box by serial number. 
  3. The cost, weight, and added size of all those drivers and crossover filter components is also an big issue. 

Unless you really, really know what you're doing, in every case that I've seen a lot of ways used in a loudspeaker, the results are poorer performance--not better.  So why would you willingly add more issues and costs?  What are you trying to achieve by adding ways to a fully horn-loaded system?  I can tell you what it's not...it's not really higher fidelity unless you do a ton of work and quality control to push the phase coherence up to the next level.  Basically no one other than Dunlavy did it--and he passed away over 10 years ago, his company folding in the process.

 

Secondly, replacing horn loaded bass bins with direct radiating ones is also something that doesn't make any sense to me.  You're decreasing fidelity by doing this.

 

YMMV.

 

Chris

 

I keep telling myself  the Jubilee's bass signature  will grow on me. I even thought that maybe there's something wrong with my setup so I went to a engineer's home in Houston Texas to hear his pair of properly set up 2 way Jubilees using active crossovers. They sounded fantastic however their bass was still a bit lean to me. There's just something about the bass of the Jubilee's that is not quite full to my ears. It's a very tight bass.

 

It's a very good sounding bass. And it's very articulate with music. But it's not full sounding to me especially with home theater. I figured the quad fifteens could give me the full sounding midbass slam I'm looking for. I am willing to try them as long as they don't give up any articulation with music.

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25 minutes ago, diamonddelts said:

There's just something about the bass of the Jubilee's that is not quite full to my ears. It's a very tight bass.

I've found that good horn-loaded bass is free of audible modulation distortion and largely free of group delay distortion...that you get with direct radiating bass bins with ported cabinets...so when listening to good horn-loaded bass, your ears don't hear the higher order sideband distortion that isn't recorded with the music tracks.  If someone has imprinted on that distortion, I can understand why they might prefer listening to direct radiators.

 

PWK recommended attending live music performances regularly, but he was actually talking about those type of music performances where the instruments are not playing into distorting direct radiating woofer boxes, but rather are playing on acoustic instruments that aren't creating lots of modulation distortion sidebands.  The reason for his advice is to recalibrate your ears by listening to this type of music, regularly.

 

If someone prefers their music using gear that's not hi-fi (and thus ignoring PWK advice), then that's their prerogative.  However, I wouldn't recommend getting defensive if someone points out that what you're listening to isn't hi-fi...

 

Chris

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3 hours ago, Chris A said:

I've found that good horn-loaded bass is free of audible modulation distortion and largely free of group delay distortion...that you get with direct radiating bass bins with ported cabinets...so when listening to good horn-loaded bass, your ears don't hear the higher order sideband distortion that isn't recorded with the music tracks.  If someone has imprinted on that distortion, I can understand why they might prefer listening to direct radiators.

 

PWK recommended attending live music performances regularly, but he was actually talking about those type of music performances where the instruments are not playing into distorting direct radiating woofer boxes, but rather are playing on acoustic instruments that aren't creating lots of modulation distortion sidebands.  The reason for his advice is to recalibrate your ears by listening to this type of music, regularly.

 

If someone prefers their music using gear that's not hi-fi (and thus ignoring PWK advice), then that's their prerogative.  However, I wouldn't recommend getting defensive if someone points out that what you're listening to isn't hi-fi...

 

Chris

 

Your knowledge and audio is outstanding. I know you are one of the most knowledgeable members here. I take no offense to your opinions or the scientific information that you provide.

 

 I'm actually quite thankful for it. However please keep in mind that I don't use my Jubilee's for  2-channel music only. I also use them for home theater. They are listed as Pro Cinema speakers first and foremost.

 

And the dual 12s struggle with certain movies. I continue to read  horn loaded bass is the cleanest bass. I've owned over  fifty subwoofers. And I've owned subwoofers of all different types.

 

I've also owned  over sixty speakers of all different types. I have yet to hear any significant difference in  clarity between horn loaded speakers and subs vs. Higher end direct radiating speakers and subs.

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I wonder if you have a standing wave condition in your listening room, causing a cancellation of your favorite bass frequencies. It happened to me with my front pair of Klipschorns. I had to make some adjustments to speaker position and move some furniture to fix the problem. As Chris has mention on the forum before, boosting with an equalizer will not correct a null.

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If extremely low bass and/or bass slam are your issue with Jubes than Roy's 1802 or new 1502 horn loaded  sub woofer might be a solution. Granted they are big but for ultimate tight, yet room shaking bass, one of these will do it. The 1802, one 18 inch horn loaded driver was incredible at the last Hope gathering. I believe I heard the story correctly that when Roy was to make a presentation to a cinema group he was asked how Many 1802's were being shipped, he said one. As the story goes this one 1802 left the group astounded as it blew away four conventional subs. 

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2 hours ago, richieb said:

If extremely low bass and/or bass slam are your issue with Jubes than Roy's 1802 or new 1502 horn loaded  sub woofer might be a solution. Granted they are big but for ultimate tight, yet room shaking bass, one of these will do it. The 1802, one 18 inch horn loaded driver was incredible at the last Hope gathering. I believe I heard the story correctly that when Roy was to make a presentation to a cinema group he was asked how Many 1802's were being shipped, he said one. As the story goes this one 1802 left the group astounded as it blew away four conventional subs. 

 

I am heavily considering purchasing one 1802 subwoofer with my tax return in March. My only concern is getting it up into my loft which is upstairs. The 1802 is listed as weighing 330lb. I thought it was because it was using cheaper MDF but it turns out from the spec sheet it says it's using plywood. Seems like it would be a huge pain in the butt moving it into position upstairs.

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Yep, it is large and yes made from ply. Have several good sized boys for the move. But will a loft floor be solid enough for not only the 1802 itself but the the bass output ? I would imagine these big cinema subs are built/designed with commercial concrete construction in mind. In other words a solid, immovable structure.  Maybe Dtel will chime in on this as he has one of the first 1502 's. Although in his neck of the woods I'm thinking he has concrete slab foundation so his comparison to wood frame flooring may not apply. ??

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1 hour ago, richieb said:

Yep, it is large and yes made from ply. Have several good sized boys for the move. But will a loft floor be solid enough for not only the 1802 itself but the the bass output ? I would imagine these big cinema subs are built/designed with commercial concrete construction in mind. In other words a solid, immovable structure.  Maybe Dtel will chime in on this as he has one of the first 1502 's. Although in his neck of the woods I'm thinking he has concrete slab foundation so his comparison to wood frame flooring may not apply. ??

 

That is a very good question I have not considered. The 1802 will no longer be an option if  my wooden floors upstairs in the loft cannot support it's massive weight.

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14 hours ago, diamonddelts said:

They sounded fantastic however their bass was still a bit lean to me. There's just something about the bass of the Jubilee's that is not quite full to my ears. It's a very tight bass.

 

I'm guessing you are wanting that bottom octave....  I'd imagine that if that's a true presumption, then indeed, the Jubilee's might need some assistance.

 

I've never owned a pair of (non-sub) speakers that would shake the house as nicely as my old EV Interface D speakers (-3 db @ 28 Hz, max 106 db if I recall) 

 

Heck, I still listen to things today that I first heard on them and lament a bit that the same bottom end isn't there....  interestingly, Art Garfunkel is one that comes to my mind and in general, I don't think he's usually associated with room shaking bass songs.  

 

 

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14 hours ago, diamonddelts said:

I continue to read horn loaded bass is the cleanest bass. I've owned over fifty subwoofers. And I've owned subwoofers of all different types...I've also owned  over sixty speakers of all different types. I have yet to hear any significant difference in clarity between horn loaded speakers and subs vs. Higher end direct radiating speakers and subs.

I find that it's dissatisfaction that drives people, not satisfaction.  I also find that most people that talk about their audio "self actualization" (Maslow's terminology) are actually talking about their journey...their path...while it's actually the dissatisfaction that drives us all to endpoints...final states. 

 

In the case of your audio experiences, it's clear that you've experienced much self actualization--but also loads of dissatisfaction, too.   I see that.  Audio is a subject of great interest to me, and I wish to share that wealth that I've invested time and effort to understand more fully. 

 

I've also have experienced some of that "self actualization" of buying audio stuff, but I find that experience to be highly overrated and turning empty very quickly.  It's the satisfied endpoint that I've enjoyed so much.  Since 2007/2008, I've experienced a sustained level of audio satisfaction that I didn't think was possible.

 

Some of what I wrote above wasn't directed at you, but rather others that read ideas presented in this thread thinking that increasing the number of ways of their loudspeakers and substituting direct radiating bass for well-implemented horn-loaded bass will achieve what they're looking for in terms of sonic bliss.  So there are many aspects that need to be considered in reading my above posts in this thread and elsewhere on this site.  It's not just a "two-handed game" unfortunately.  I wish that it were.

 

I've found that the greatest obstacle to achieving a successful endpoint in audio is seizing on fuzzy ideas of "what makes great sound" and holding those ideas constant without careful inspection of whether or not that they're true or false, then typically going about buying and selling (or making) stuff that supports those seized beliefs--without first trying out competing ideas that are based on physical principles that have been found experimentally to be reproducible and applicable across all applications.  This leads to the type of situation that you describe: literally dozens of purchases, usually plunked into a room without much thought or effort to understand room acoustics issues, and then the inevitable dissatisfaction appears again.   Rinse, repeat...over and over again.

 

In the present case, I've found that it's not found in increasing the number of "ways", substituting direct radiating bass bins' distorted response for well implemented horn loaded bass, perhaps placing the Jubs in the room without having a full room corners on both sides, not integrating horn-loaded subwoofers in the room corners that are up to the task of providing the lowest octave of audibility/sensation, and not using a good DSP crossover combined with measurement to correct the response.  I've found success rather in using proven methods that rely on physical and psychophysical principles, not belief systems based on branding, hearsay, and other amorphous ideas of "what makes audio sound better".

 

The methods described actually work and the results have been spectacular.  Instead of "YMMV"--your mileage will be assured using these techniques.

 

Chris

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