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Cornscala - Support with Harshness and Placement


Gints

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Hi Guys - I just got my first "Klipsch" tribute speakers, the Cornscala.

 

I haven't had a lot of time to play and listen yet, but I thought I might post for a bit of advice from people far more versed in these things.

 

On initial listen, I sensed a harsh midrange at certain times - male vocals becoming muddy in REM, and some midrange mush when the volume started to boogie.

 

I really like the clarity, liveliness and presence 99% of the time - but would like to clear this harshness that is present occassionally.

 

My setup is as follows:

- Transcendant SOB 15W OTL Amp

- Transcendant 300B Preamp

- Schiit Modi MultiBit DAC running from a RPi Roon Endpoint

- Rega P2 with Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge, Project Phono Preamp

- DIY Cornscala - ALK Wood mid-range horn, Crites crossovers

 

*I have not taken the backs off the Cornscala yet to comment on the drivers etc.*

 

I have played a bit with room placement, and moved my listening position to the first chair. The room is assymetrical and I could not get the couch to really work, without major wife-angering changes. Chair also gives greater distance to rear wall. Speakers are toed in as per diagram. Imaging is okay, not as good as my previous speakers (3 Way Cone transmission line speakers).

 

Room is effectively not treated. Wooden floors and brick walls as per pictures. I realise this is far from ideal. Centre-rug is coming, interested in other ideas.

 

What I would appreciate an opinion on is:

- Is this placement recommended? What else should I think about? What else should I trial and error?

- How can midrange harshness be treated? SOme reticulated foam in the horn throat/mouth? Some felt on the front edges to stop extra reflection? Burn this brick and wood room into the ground?

 

Any tips from others who have gone before me would be grouse.

 

PIC 1: From the doorway looking across the room

PIC 2: Rough Diagram

Pic 3: Cornscala RHS less Grille

PIC 4: Picture from seated listening position

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38257320_10156152307132839_5400007109326667776_n.jpg

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13 minutes ago, Westcoastdrums said:

+1. Buy the biggest area rug you can to cover your highly reflective floor.  (snip)  That huge rug alone should help very noticeably.  

+2.  You have brick walls and a wood floor.  The sound is bouncing all over the place in that room.  A large area rug is a great idea. 

 

If you have the approval of the wife to do so that room would also benefit from some sound treatment on the side walls.  A lot of guys like acoustical panels to deflect or absorb standing sound waves, I like simply mounting some heavy duty curtains which are at least five feet long.

 

It may sound like a minor thing, but I would also move those speakers away from the wall and further into the center of the room.  The sound is bouncing off that brick wall creating unwanted reflections.  You could also put some acoustic panels directly behind them and that will help the sound.

 

The room is at least 50% of the what you are hearing.  You have great speakers and some nice looking tube gear.  When you get your room treated that combination should knock your socks off with the wonderful sound.

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4 hours ago, Gints said:

How can midrange harshness be treated? Some reticulated foam in the horn throat/mouth? Some felt on the front edges to stop extra reflection? Burn this brick and wood room into the ground?

You really don't have enough damping in the front of that room (within about 5-6 feet of the midrange horn mouths), so anything that you do at the horn mouths or woofer will quickly get reflected off of nearfield objects/boundaries whatever you do at the horn mouths. 

 

Having said that, the midrange horn mouth could use some thick (an inch or even thicker if you can find it) felt type absorption around the mouth exit to reduce diffraction and to absorb some of the far off-axis energy existing the mouth area.  I'd also recommend placing some thicker absorption down just in front of the loudspeakers on the floor and about 2 feet wide on the front wall between the loudspeakers, centered on the midrange horn axis and 2-3 feet tall (at least).  This will clean up the soundstage and center phantom image a great deal.

 

4 hours ago, Gints said:

On initial listen, I sensed a harsh midrange at certain times - male vocals becoming muddy in REM, and some midrange mush when the volume started to boogie.

You may be hearing more of what's actually on the recordings themselves.  While R.E.M. isn't on my playlist locally, I did listen to many selections off of YouTube and was impressed by how uniformly splashy and sibilant the overall reproduction was of the midrange and treble on my setup.  I've seen this type of thing in my demastering efforts with some artists that seem to prefer harsh sounding mixing and/or mastering techniques to give it exaggerated "grit" on studio monitors that are probably too laid back to claim accurate reproduction (which is probably why R.E.M. isn't on my playlists). 

 

However, if you're hearing midrange mush on a wide selection of recordings, then it says that you've got far too many early reflections and perhaps slap echos off the room boundaries.

 

With that room, I'd also recommend one or two Owens-Corning 703 across-the-corner (double panel) bass traps to control the boominess in the 70-200 Hz region.

 

Chris

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3 hours ago, Chris A said:

However, if you're hearing midrange mush on a wide selection of recordings, then it says that you've got far too many early reflections and perhaps slap echos off the room boundaries.

 

Fellow Klipschite  @Youthman produced an excellent Youtube video on that just a week ago!

 

 

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Wow what a community. So much productive feedback so quickly. Thanks.

 

I'll get a plan together and do some trialing and tests. I suspected this feedback - it is an absolutely beautiful and funky room...but it ain't ideal!

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Wow!  Cool room but what an echo chamber!  The unsymmetrical walls make for less predictable reflections but sometimes aiming the speakers on the diagonal in the room can have a positive effect on getting rid of some of the peaks and nulls.   You can hardly avoid that anywhere in the room anyway.  Absorption is needed... first reflections etc... you have been given some direction.  REM produced some harsh recordings I'm afraid... your speakers are just brutally revealing the poor recording choices... no amount of fixing the room will fix those recordings but down the road I'd attack those with Chris A's approach!  

 

Just a thought... a good image and proper sound stage is important to me.  I've found it difficult to get if right in crazy shaped rooms though.  I've found adding some diffusion can help to take crazy placed walls out of the equation a bit.  Others who know more about why that works might be able to add more to the conversation.

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Yeah, I will listen to it more this weekend for further insight. I have AirBNB guests so I cant really have a good listening session at present.

 

I'll sort the rug to help floor reflections, and work on the Mrs for some first reflection absorption. She is still reeling from these gargantuan but beautifully made speakers.

 

Chris A I'll try the felt. Do you mean the inner edge of the mouth, or on the front facing plane (parallel to grill). I presume this reduces additional mouth reflections?

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6 minutes ago, Gints said:

Do you mean the inner edge of the mouth, or on the front facing plane (parallel to grill). I presume this reduces additional mouth reflections?

Well, here is a picture of a Peavey Quadratic Throat Waveguide (QT):

 

gallery_26262_6_85940.jpg

 

Chris

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12 hours ago, Gints said:

Okay, so both effectively. Thanks mate.

I find a thin liner of very porous foam actually in the mouth, can resolve some of the coarseness of horns, which bothers some.  You can play with  how much and how close to the throat it needs to be.  On my KLF30s, a layer on the bottom of the horn (reducing internal reflections), from almost the throat to the end of the horn cleans it up.  On my 511 horns, some in the throat cleans it up.  Reducing the reflections internal to the horn, and definitely in your case, diffraction from the horn's edges will likely help significantly. 

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See the following for a formula for the frequencies at which higher order modes exit the horn's mouth.  This is talked about a lot by Dr. Earl Geddes and is the reason why he uses oblate spheroid (the "OS" in SEOS horns) throat geometries in the horns of his loudspeakers:

 

 

The horns that Klipsch uses in its loudspeakers usually have very low audibility HOMs even though they don't use OS throats.

 

Chris

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I would suspect the DAC as well, I had the Schiit Bifrost multibit and sold it almost immediately after an hour of listening I would develop fatigue, ran it for a few days and nothing helped it. The Multibit on schiits lower end DACs is a compromised design they used filters not on the more expensive such as Gunger (Big thread on Head-Fi)  

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9 hours ago, dubai2000 said:

This is OT but I am contemplating building the same amp you are using - may I ask how difficult you have found building the SOB?

Not too difficult. I am not a good solderer. I just took it slow and steady - measure twice, cut once kind of thing.

 

It took longer than I thought, but it was relaxing. Instructions are very visual with good photos.

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