Klipschorn 2-way driver choice

[Arash]

1 hour ago, Khornukopia said:

 

Do you have a recommendation for a 2" horn with these drivers when used on a Klipschorn or La Scala? 

 

Edgar style Tractrix horn with cuttoff frequency about 258Hz.

[Chris A]

On 10/15/2018 at 4:19 AM, RAzZin said:

So, questions are:

 

1. Is HF20AT really better than HF200?

2. Did someone test the HF2000?

3. Any alternatives around 1000 USD \ pair? TADs seem to be great but I can't afford these

1. Yes, it is--above 10 kHz.  That's why they cost more.  But as it is now known, the HF20AT has been discontinued by FaitalPRO.

 

2. I haven't yet.  It looks as if the HF2000 is an improvement from the HF20AT in terms of frequency response, but I've found that looking at frequency response plots only can be misleading.  You need an impulse spectrogram to see the severity of the diaphragm break-up modes--or alternatively your ears to hear their performance)

 

3. I'd recommend the BMS 4592ND at around $1050 a pair from Thomann, which will basically equal the listening performance of the TAD TD-4001s/4002s.  The 4592NDs are dual-diaphragm drivers.  I bi-amp them. You can buy the passive crossovers that BMS supplies, but I don't recommend them if you've got something like a Xilica 4080 and can tri-amp your loudspeakers.

 

If you have a calibrated microphone (such as a UMIK-1) and a way to drive your preamp input from your computer, you can use REW to measure the performance of whatever you wind up with.  If you need assistance flattening the frequency response and setting the delays, etc., I've helped a couple of dozen guys do that so far.  All you need is email and a way to input the resulting settings into your DSP crossover. 

 

If by chance you're using a Xilica crossover, the resulting configuration file can be imported directly into the Xilica crossover using the PC or Mac-based XConsole (free) application.

 

Chris

[Chris A]

On 10/16/2018 at 6:12 AM, pzannucci said:

The issue is the 400hz crossover required because the bass horn dies a little lower.  Significant information posted over the past almost 20 yrs (OH MY!!!) of this forum on the subject.

I found with Delicious2's Khorn bass bins that this is a non-issue.  The same crossover filter settings that I use for Jubilee bass bins at 425 Hz work without a hiccup for the Khorn bass bins (although there are different PEQ settings needed to flatten the bass bin response, as it is true for every Khorn or Jubilee, etc. installation that I've been involved with). 

[moray james]

if you want to build a two way Khorn the problem that you have to overcome is your mid horn size. The Khorn starts to get into the soup response wise at about 325Hz so you are going to need a large horn (that can dig that low) to take over. What do you think PWK did for most of his life and why do you think the Jubilee an the K402 came about other than to realize his dream?

[RAzZin]

11 hours ago, Arash said:

instead of a two way Khorn I would suggest going three ways with following combination.

you have the woofs already. those are O.K

Faital pro HMF200 or B&C DCM50 (I would not suggest to use BMS 4592)

Faital Pro HF10AK with a Faital Pro STH100 horn or 18Sound XT120 Horn

 

 

 

Well I have my cornscalas gear to use for 3 way tests - Selenium D405 mids and B&C DE120 tweeters that I will be able to compare with 2 way setup..  I want to use 2 way to avoid time alignment issues, also I'm listening my setup from less than 3 meters from each speaker - I suppose 2 way should be a bit more consistent than 3 way (though I don't hear any significant problems with 3 way cornscalas atm). In any case adding tweeter won't be that big of a deal if I'm not satisfied with 2 way.

 

Chris A, I saw your posts and thoughts regarding BMS 4592ND, and I was considering it but right now I don't want to go into active crossovers and bi-amping or tri-amping.. seems a little bit complicated atm. I think I'll try it eventually but not now.

Edited October 19, 2018 by RAzZin

[Marvel]

As a three way, you can do what I did on my LaScala tweeters. I put them in a baffle and moved them to the back of the cabinet to get them in physical alignment with the mids. Having them aligned really, really helped with the imaging.

 

Bruce

[Deang]

How do you know it wasn't because of the better tweeter and bigger horn?

[Marvel]

I am sure the bigger horn helped, driver too.

[moray james]

11 hours ago, Marvel said:

As a three way, you can do what I did on my LaScala tweeters. I put them in a baffle and moved them to the back of the cabinet to get them in physical alignment with the mids. Having them aligned really, really helped with the imaging.

 

Bruce

Hey Bruce (and others who might be interested) I have the tweeters of  my modified H3 up on to of the H3 cabinets (much like yours) which are up on 21 inch four post stands. The tweeters have been phase reversed and are turned around to fire/face at the front wall/corners to emulate the dipole effect (I lived with dipole electrostats for almost 25 years). With some tweaking of the angles you can achieve from the sweet spot much improves sense of depth and width and you cannot really tell this has been done. I find the centre fill is very good plus the overall system sound stage is now very much larger. You have to tweak with the bounce from the tweeter to your listening sweet spot and once the timing is right (by adjusting the angles) it all snaps into focus. It is a very cute trick. I have been meaning to try this for so long I had forgotten until one day last week I just got bored and gave it a go. It is a fun and yet useful exercise for your ears. I figured some might find this of interest.

[dubai2000]

I have heard of this backwards firing tweeter before, but never tried it myself. Out of curiosity - why did you invert their phase (I guess by connecting red to - and black to +?)?

[moray james]

3 minutes ago, dubai2000 said:

I have heard of this backwards firing tweeter before, but never tried it myself. Out of curiosity - why did you invert their phase (I guess by connecting red to - and black to +?)?

because I turned the tweeter around firing at the front wall (behind the tweeter), reversing the phase helped to get the tweeter output closer to in phase at the listening position. You will need to play around as even small changes in angles will result in a significant change in results so don't be disappointed if your first trial is not what you hoped for. This is as I said a good exercise in training your ears to focus and listen more effectively. This is going to be very room dependent so it is not going to work in some set ups. It's never a bad thing to experiment with your system set up.

[NBPK402]

Are you running 2 tweeters...I only see a tweeter horn facing straight forward.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

[moray james]

11 minutes ago, ellisr63 said:

Are you running 2 tweeters...I only see a tweeter horn facing straight forward.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
 

no that photo is of Bruce's LaScala (the photo attached because I quoted Bruce's post). I have been reporting here about my H3. See my post in this thread responding to Bruce placing his tweeter up on to of his LaScala so he could align the tweeter with the mid driver.

[pzannucci]

23 hours ago, Chris A said:

I found with Delicious2's Khorn bass bins that this is a non-issue.  The same crossover filter settings that I use for Jubilee bass bins at 425 Hz work without a hiccup for the Khorn bass bins (although there are different PEQ settings needed to flatten the bass bin response, as it is true for every Khorn or Jubilee, etc. installation that I've been involved with). 

If done with flattening the bass horn, then I can see.  I still think you want to be careful due to the bass horn mouth exit interaction at the higher frequencies.  Although this may be  more room / distance specific.

[Chris A]

By the way, in case you're thinking of using passive crossovers (only) with controlled directivity horns such a K-402, the equalization (EQ) needs for a typical "easy to EQ" compression driver--such as the TAD TD-4002 on a K-402 is shown below.

 

 

 

The raw response of the TAD TD-4002 driver/K-402 horn is the trace that looks a bit like a mountain. It takes four parametric equalization filters (as shown above and below) to flatten the response to ± 3 dB, which actually is not very good in terms of hi-fi requirements.  Passive filters only attenuate, they don't have positive gain/boost, so the PEQs chosen above assume attenuating PEQs only.  You see the PEQ (notch) filters with parameters:

 

    980 Hz,   -3.75 dB, 1.09 oct (BW)

  1239 Hz,   -8.50 dB, 0.50 oct (BW)

  2391 Hz, -17.25 dB, 0.53 oct (BW)

11425 Hz,   -3.25 dB, 0.24 oct (BW)

 

Just as a guess, I would hazard that most people using passives aren't creating any or all of these notch PEQs in their crossover/balancing networks to even get the response flatness to ± 3 dB...which is not terribly spectacular by today's hi-fi standards.

 

You could say, "...well I'm using parametric equalization filters upstream of the preamplifier to correct for this", for which my response would be: DSP crossovers do that much better and also give you the capability delay between channels in order to time align your drivers as well as bi-amping and tri-amping, etc.  

 

If you're using analog EQ filters to try this, like the old analog EQ boxes from the "old days", you're likely inject a lot of noise and phase distortion into your system. (This is the reason why a lot of hi-fi buffs from that period eschewed EQ in any form, which is a holdover even today for hi-fi "purists", even after the reason for it has disappeared since the advent of digital EQ). 

 

As far as polar lobing of the Khorn or Jubilee bass bin at high frequencies: if this is something that is a concern to you, I'd strongly recommend multiple-entry horn designs instead, which eliminate that issue inherent in any multi-way loudspeaker having separate drivers vertically or horizontally spaced on a baffle or in separate horns,,spaced by more than 1/4 wavelength at the center crossover frequency between loudspeaker "ways". 

 

Chris

[RAzZin]

15 hours ago, Chris A said:

 

 

    980 Hz,   -3.75 dB, 1.09 oct (BW)

  1239 Hz,   -8.50 dB, 0.50 oct (BW)

  2391 Hz, -17.25 dB, 0.53 oct (BW)

11425 Hz,   -3.25 dB, 0.24 oct (BW)

 

 

 

Wow, that's some serious attenuation.. here is what my Cornscalas measurements look like, with and without parametric, I'm using digital Roon DSP engine before signal reaches my DAC:

 

[Chris A]

That's one major difference between controlled directivity and non-controlled directivity (for all controlled directivity horns). 

 

The other difference is the sound in-room once correcting EQ is applied. That's the part that makes it worth the extra effort.

 

Chris

[dubai2000]

On 10/20/2018 at 11:12 AM, moray james said:

because I turned the tweeter around firing at the front wall (behind the tweeter), reversing the phase helped to get the tweeter output closer to in phase at the listening position. You will need to play around as even small changes in angles will result in a significant change in results so don't be disappointed if your first trial is not what you hoped for. This is as I said a good exercise in training your ears to focus and listen more effectively. This is going to be very room dependent so it is not going to work in some set ups. It's never a bad thing to experiment with your system set up.

 

Makes sense - thanks a lot for your response.

[Khornukopia]

On ‎10‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 10:24 AM, Chris A said:

The raw response of the TAD TD-4002 driver/K-402 horn...

 

Are the peaks mostly TAD 4002/K-402, or is this usual with other compression drivers on the K-402?

[Chris A]

The peaks that you refer to are less pronounced with the TADs than with other compression drivers I've used.  The FaitalPRO HF20AT uses pretty much the same PEQs as the TADs.  I picked the TAD 4002 as a "best case" to show above.

 

IIRC, the now discontinued K-69-A driver (i.e., P.Audio BM-D750 series I) was the one that required the most PEQs to flatten its response.  Generally, the better the drivers, the fewer the required PEQs.

 

Chris