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Basic KHorn XO Question


rplace

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3 minutes ago, Khornukopia said:

Do you have a picture of the wiring label that came with this AA x-over?

 

No, email instructions or printed paper that was shipped along with them. Long since gone. :emotion-45:

 

So can we agree that at least I'm reasonable in thinking a full signal is going to my bass bins all these years?

 

17 minutes ago, avguytx said:

 

Also, in this scenario of no inductor on the woofer.....this was quite common to let the woofer "roll out" on its own natural mechanical roll off plus them being in a folded horn also was an "order" in the network and factored in.  Many companies did this.

 

And can we further conclude that I didn't do anything wrong by accident way back when?

 

And if the two items above are right, am I at least sane in my thinking that I would not have limit what goes to my bass bins in an active crossover situation? Not saying that is ideal, because of all the other stuff I could do like EQ and time alignment. I'm just trying to determine if my original thinking was correct and it is not necessarily a bad thing. i.e. I don't need to fret that I've been doing my khorns with passive crossovers a disservice for 5 or more years?

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I get all that about the benefits of an active XO. I'm just so new to all of this I'd like some confirmation that my thinking is correct.

 

  • Is my current set up with passives giving the full signal to the woofer?
  • Is my current set up with passive wrong, fine or ok but not optimal? Maybe something beyond those three choices?
  • Is my thinking arrived at based on my current set up correct that I could (but don't want to) give a full signal to the bass bins with an active crossover
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Thanks for all the replies. Perhaps these next questions are too broad. Please feel free to tell me I am overthinking things or point me to some info that would better help me understand the brain/goal behind a crossover builder.

 

If a standard AA crossover has one full signal input and three outputs to the various high/mid/low drivers and the AK2 (maybe AK3 and AK4 I don't know) do the filtering inside the bass bin access door; why would I have not kept those parts in the bass bin? As I understand things the K400 mid horn goes down to 400hz give or take. So the bass bin must be doing everything around 400 and below, correct? If my crossovers are only really working on the mids and highs why not have less than "everything" going to the woofer. I'd guess it has to work less hard if not fed a range of things it can't use. Where less than everything above is up for debate as to which is best. To be clear I don't have any complaints about my speakers with the original AK2 or the Super AA crossovers. Different yes, neither bad. I'm just more and more curious about how they work, not content any longer just using them.

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5 hours ago, rplace said:

 

I totally could be wrong about what was removed. It was a while ago. How about a more general question. For those of you with AA networks how are they hooked up? Do you have your wires from the amp to the crossover then three sets out to Low/Mid/Highs?

YES. I'm with you @rplace I'm confused. If you took out all the woofer filter components then hooked the output of the amp directly to both woofer and input to the AA or Super AA then the woofer is getting a full range signal and the impedance your amp is seeing is who knows what.

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I didn't want to take the side grill off and the woofer door, but I will tomorrow. I'm 99% sure then when I removed all the stuff inside the woofer door I connected the wire left over to the other set of binding posts. Meaning my white +/- goes to the woofer and the clear set of wires from the top HF binding posts to the actual crossover. There are only three sets of connections on the barrier strip (think that is the correct term) Up/In from the HF binding post then out to K44 and out to K77.

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3 minutes ago, babadono said:

A question I have: Did this sound OK? Or was the AK2 so bad anything would sound better?

 

They sound great, in my mind and may others that have visited (or they were to polite to say anything) At least 4 Klipsch forum members have been to my house for a listen.

 

I have a friend with khorns, Volti mid horns the same VRD amps that I do and the same brand TT but nicer model than mine. His sounds better but not by much. Could be the room the horns who knows. Mood, time of day, drive between houses....in short not a huge difference.

 

I never thought the AK2s were bad. In fact I was a bit disappointed with the super AAs till I had lots of ear time. Initially the AK2s sounded more alive, but I came to realize that was also where the ear fatigue was coming form. Super AAs for sure a step in the right direction for taming fatigue. but like I said initial A/B impression first few days was a bit lifeless.

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I am still curious about the wiring in the picture of your Super AA.
 
In my picture of a Klipsch Type AA, the white wires go FROM the crossover to the woofer.
 
22974258_TypeAA.jpg.93749fb42a71e4bf1f162ef30a9a5604.jpg


I think what's going on is there is a crossover that looks to be at least partially based on an ALK design. In addition, what to do with a Klipschorn and this crossover change, the consensus was to wire it as it is now. Hoping for no smoke, it was tested and sounded like it worked. Success was proclaimed. And now here we are. There was no log recorded of any of it.


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6 hours ago, PatC said:

I have the exact same question with my La Scala splits..........I have not looked behind the cable inputs on the bass bins....but the xo is in the top section.  So what is filtering the signal to the bass bin?

 

Funny, I have split LSI too. I've always wondered if they were just like my Khorns. Full signal to bass bin XOs up top. It is my understanding the XOs are in the top. I've never had either section apart.

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I built those to be run WITH the low pass components in the door. So, either a misunderstanding, or I sent you the wrong pair. 

 

As for the concern related to there being no low pass coil - it’s not a problem, since the horn determines the cut-off frequency. PWK ran his Klipschorns for many years this way, and I did it for five. That low pass coil does very little. 

 

Like you said, it sounded pretty good. 

 

It’s not about impedance, it’s about low distortion and amplitude response. 99% of amplifiers could care less about flat impedance. These are loudspeakers, not Transmission Lines which require matching impedance (for best power transfer).

 

With that said, Al’s designs sound good, and swamping the network allows for a very nice feature (attenuating the midrange without causing the crossover point to shift). 

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Funny, I have split LSI too. I've always wondered if they were just like my Khorns. Full signal to bass bin XOs up top. It is my understanding the XOs are in the top. I've never had either section apart.

I have AA networks in all my LSI splits
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Reading a schematic can be challenging to a newbe. 

 

The lines are wires but are often longer than shown.

 

Let’s look at the schematic of the AK2 since it is here. Print it out by saving the graphics file and importing it to MS Word.

 

Very often, the inputs are to the left and the outputs to the right, as here.

 

It is true that there are three filters.  Their inputs are all wired in parallel to the overall electrical input on the left.  Also, they all have a common ground or minus (-) connection.  In fact, you can trace from the minus terminal of the input to the minus or ground of each of the three drivers. 

 

Now we take a look at the devices mounted to the woofer door (dotted lines).  Why is this different from the AA which has everything on one board?  Probably because they wanted to add fuses and the cap in the woofer circuit.  There is not room on the AA board.  It is sort of a flaw but it should show a ground or (-) terminal on the woofer board which connects physically up to the board in the tophat.   It should (and doesn’t) show another terminal on the woofer board which is the other lead to the tophat or the plus (+) red.  More on that later but this is important.  We have two pairs of terminals on the woofer board:  one pair is the input from the amp, the other pair connects wires to the top hat.

 

Looking at the woofer filter, we see the plus lead goes to a 2 ½ amp fuse (protecting the woofer) (wiggly line like a sine wave), then to an inductor and then to the woofer plus.  Across the woofer is a cap.  So that inductor and cap is the filter which keeps high freqs out of the woofer.  The AA doesn’t have the cap. And there might be two in paralled.

 

It is correct that the wires up to the tophat carry all freqs (physically up, but down on the schematic) there.  You should understand that in an AA, there are short wires doing the same.  The mid and tweeter filters will prevent bass from getting to those two drivers but the input to the filters are fed as if connected to the amp (though the 1 ¼ amp fuse).

 

Looking closely, we see that the plus lead from the input (in addition to feeding the woofer fuse)  goes to a 1 ½ amp fuse (to protect the mid and tweeter) mounted on the woofer board.  The line (wire) out of the fuse goes over the dotted line.  Really, they should have shown the terminal on the woofer board and its mate, which is the ground connection.

 

Let’s go over that again. On the woofer board there are two pairs of terminals.  One pair is the input from the amp.  The other pair are in parallel with the input and feed the mid and tweeter filters in the tophat as if they were connected to the amp except that there is a fuse (wiggly line) in series. Also on the woofer board physically are the fuse holders. Also on the board inside are the inductor and cap for the woofer filter.

 

Moving down the schematic we see the filters for the mid and tweeter.   

 

There is nothing in the design which keeps bass notes from going up the feed line to the tophat.  They are removed by the mid and tweeter filters.

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