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An Unofficial Klipsch Jubilee Buyer's Guide


Chris A

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3 hours ago, audioquest4life said:

Howdy all, 

 

Trying to ascertain how big or small of a stereo amp I want to get for the bass bins of the Jubilees. What amps and how much power are people using for their bass bins? Granted, with this community and the fact that people have differing listening environments and loudness tolerances, there is apt to be some fluctuations in the responses, but that’s okay. Are pro amps such as Crown or Peavey preferred for the bass section of the Jubilees? I have Mac daddy 300 watt McIntosh tube amps for the top horn section. I don’t feel like I need to put my previous big appetite audiophile hat towards the bass as it is only low frequency region, not to sound disparaging to the bass section of course. But, I don’t mind spending money at all for quality stereo amp or mono amps and preferably no fans to deal with either if going pro route. Crown has so many series that I don’t know what I don’t know. I think Emotiva amps or used Brystons might be a way to go. What say you Jubilee community? Thanks. 

I ran my Jubilees with TAD drivers with a pair of $25,  chinese built, stereo class D "chip amps" that use the Texas Instruments chips. They are the size of a pack of cigarettes used a standard 19 volt laptop power supply. I could easily reach 120 db on drum test recordings with those. So, spend the money on the Jubilees and you ROOM, not the electronics. Roy used a $39 DVD player for his demo CD's when I heard Jubes the first time. Nuff said.

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4 hours ago, babadono said:

300 watt Mac tube amp on the HF portion of the Jubilee? Youwzer thatza gonna be loud. Be careful you CAN blow the diaphragms on the HF drivers.

Yeah, I think it would be overkill too. Perhaps, I should put the Big Macs on the bass bins and get some flea watt amp for the top end. I really want to buy into the Jubilee mind set, but I am not relinquishing my beautiful MC2301 300 watts that are my dream amps. I wonder how they would do in the bass....hmmm, only one way to find out. 

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9 hours ago, rosey said:

hi chris, could you please explain why you decided on using the bms 4592 pb be on your meh 402 over a radian, faital, tad, 691, etc.?

would you use the bms for your left right if you couldn't use your tads? merry christmas!

Well, I wanted to get the dual-diaphragm BMS 4592ND to give it a try since I had heard one at Hope many years earlier, albeit hastily dialed-in then with a Dx38 crossover and mono-amped using the available passive network.   I knew then that this driver was the answer to those folks that demanded three-way operation over two-way, and that's what the BMS 4592ND provides.  There are two reasons why it makes sense:

  1. lower FM distortion over a single dome diaphragm compression driver (the predominant form of audible distortion in compression drivers used over wide band operation),
  2. the ability of its two ring radiator diaphragms to avoid non-pistonic break-up mode distortions, especially in the 10-20 kHz band.

This driver, bi-amped (not mono-amped using the little add-on passive crossover available from BMS) does all of the above.  There is simply no excuse for 3-way die-hard fans to deny that they can have it all with this driver on the K-402-MEH or Jubilee (the first spectrogram from the K-402-MEH and the second from a K-402/TAD Jubilee):

 

991335207_BMS4592NDonK-402HornSpectrogram.thumb.jpg.69204eb09e8bf0721aa0f36dd3a9391c.jpg

 

442338861_TADTD-4002JubileeSpectrogram(FractionalOrderCrossoverFilters).thumb.jpg.92dbf4fb65b5ff8ae5e5b7992619b3f2.jpg

 

 

What I learned is the 4592ND strongly benefits from tri-amping if you are wanting the same performance as the TAD TD-4002 at less than 1/4 the price, and it addresses the three-way-only crowd and puts all that to bed.  It took me a while to figure out the settings for this driver, which I believe that I've published on this forum for the K-402 horn (MEH). The last bit of dialing-in was the one period time delay of the HF diaphragm relative to the MF diaphragm at the crossover frequency, and the use of crossover filters that do not introduce phase shifts (i.e., "fractional order" crossover operation). 

 

Now all that work is done, I can enthusiastically recommend the BMS 4592ND at ~$530 each from Thomann US.  This driver goes toe-to-toe with the TAD 4002s/K-402s on each side of the K-402-MEH, and at a small fraction of the cost of the TADs (assuming that TADs were still available new).  This 4592 driver beats all other 2" compression drivers hands down--except the TAD, which it mimics perfectly (to my ears).  (Note that I haven't gotten my hands on a Radian 950BePB beryllium dome driver yet so I can't compare it, but I'm giving that driver the same benefit of the doubt as the known TAD 4002 performance.)

 

So what's the downside of the 4592?  One extra amplifier channel, cables, and an available DSP crossover channel (all of which the three-way purists would require, anyway).  Those items put together are not nearly as expensive as a TAD 4002 or even a Radian 950BePB.

 

As far as the other competing drivers you mention, just note that the 4592ND can easily be used in mono-amp operation, albeit with the little add-on crossover network from BMS and not require an "extra" amplification channel over Jubilee two-way operation.  In fact, you don't need that little passive crossover since the driver will work with both diaphragms in series or parallel wiring without the network.  You give up the ability to shape the natural response of the HF/MF diaphragm crossover frequency, but it turns out that the 5.5 kHz natural crossover point is a better than the nominal 6.3 kHz that the passive crossover provides.  No phase shifts are introduced between the diaphragms using this method of driving them, and as far as I can tell, the ring radiator diaphragms are basically indestructible as compared to Be dome diaphragms. I think that you can see, however, that the little bit of extra attention to detail here is worth the extra amplifier channel and associated hardware in order to get that extra 5% of performance.

 

Chris

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2 hours ago, Chris A said:

the little bit of extra attention to detail here is worth the extra amplifier channel and associated hardware in order to get that extra 5% of performance.

The greatest benefit of this BMS driver, is it's ability to go down to 300 Hz. My experience with large MIDRANGE horns in the last 10 years says, the lower the crossover the better. Even when I had mismatched polars and phases when using passive networks, my large Peavey Mid Horn, being used from 180-700 Hz. was nothing short of wonderful on guitars, saxes, female vocals, etc. It taught me that when it comes to midrange ("where we live".....PWK), the lower the crossover, the better, if the driver can handle it. In the case of the Peavey, it had a special, inverted cap, 12" driver with a huge phase plug, so no problem going that low.

 

If you look at the history of Klipsch Midrange horns designed by Paul Klipsch after the K5J, they got "longer and lower," culminating in the ones for the MCM and TSCM systems. I rest my case.

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6 hours ago, audioquest4life said:

Yeah, I think it would be overkill too. Perhaps, I should put the Big Macs on the bass bins and get some flea watt amp for the top end. I really want to buy into the Jubilee mind set, but I am not relinquishing my beautiful MC2301 300 watts that are my dream amps. I wonder how they would do in the bass....hmmm, only one way to find out. 

Tubes on the bass is not the best place for tubes. I'm sure your "big Mac" is a great amp, but a total waste of SYSTEM VALUE in light of putting your money in the best HiFi horns Klipsch has to offer, the JUBILEES. You should not be "in love" with any piece of gear, and 300 Watt is ri-frikkin-diculous, on a bass bin that has 106 db sensitivity at about 1 watt, not to mention the lack of damping factor control (which could be a partial myth also). Sell the damn thing, and put the money in the speakers and room with lower, cheaper watts. I know it's hard to shift one's mindset, but it's not impossible. But hey, if you like the sound of your overpriced space heater, then go ahead and keep it and ignore good advice. It's your sonic life, after all, but the money is best used elsewhere. Take the red or the blue pill, it's up to you. 

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47 minutes ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

The greatest benefit of this BMS driver, is it's ability to go down to 300 Hz.

First off, you fail to qualify this statement.  That's definitely not what I see at all.  In fact, I'll demonstrate why I believe that is (below).  I've posted the corrected response of the BMS 4592 (both diaphragms) on a K-402 horn, which holds its polars down to 170 Hz (1/4 wavelength axially):

 

194514450_BMS4592NDRawRepsonse(HFMFdiaphragms).thumb.jpg.b4a40a3435c9673b4b8e9cc9adc371e9.jpg

 

I left the smoothing at 1/24th octave and increased the resolution of the vertical scale to 2 dB divisions in this plot.  You can see a couple of things immediately:

  1. The HF diaphragm is down by at least 3 dB relative to the MF diaphragm on-axis.  This is very easy to correct using a DSP crossover, especially if bi-amping this driver.
  2. The crossing of the HF and MF diaphragms naturally occurs between 5-6 kHz.
  3. The roll-off of the MF driver on the K-402 horn starts at 550 Hz (as shown) and is 3 dB down at 482 Hz. If you really want to cross at 300 Hz, you'd have to boost the low end by approximately 11 dB to do it on a K-402.  Since the K-402 doesn't lose polar control or axial wavelength formation at 300 Hz, this is indicative of the performance on well-designed midrange horns that also do not lose polar or axial capability at 300 Hz. 
  4. The phase plots show controlled performance of the two diaphragms well outside of their natural passbands (show below):

1502953018_BMS4592NDRawRepsonse(HFMFdiaphragms)Phase.thumb.jpg.407a0299095d9b42a0ef8248a8dc6146.jpg

 

The value of this driver, in my estimation, is far greater than its ability to be boosted in LF performance below its natural roll-off point (which I wouldn't do, BTW).  It's in its ability to match the performance of TAD TD-4002s.

 

Since this thread is entitled "An Unofficial Klipsch Jubilee Buyer's Guide", I think it wise to stay focused on that subject here and to not dilute the subject to other subjects, i.e., if there is sufficient interest in the BMS 4592ND to warrant its own thread, then I strongly recommend taking that conversation to another thread focused on that subject.

Chris

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7 hours ago, Chris A said:

The value of this driver, in my estimation, is far greater than its ability to be boosted in LF performance below its natural roll-off point (which I wouldn't do, BTW).  It's in its ability to match the performance of TAD TD-4002s.

I guess this is what I get when I read manufacturer's specs rather than buy and measure, like you did. My bad. I got my eye on an Axi2050 from Celestion anyhow, for my K402's.

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22 hours ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

Tubes on the bass is not the best place for tubes. I'm sure your "big Mac" is a great amp, but a total waste of SYSTEM VALUE in light of putting your money in the best HiFi horns Klipsch has to offer, the JUBILEES. You should not be "in love" with any piece of gear, and 300 Watt is ri-frikkin-diculous, on a bass bin that has 106 db sensitivity at about 1 watt, not to mention the lack of damping factor control (which could be a partial myth also). Sell the damn thing, and put the money in the speakers and room with lower, cheaper watts. I know it's hard to shift one's mindset, but it's not impossible. But hey, if you like the sound of your overpriced space heater, then go ahead and keep it and ignore good advice. It's your sonic life, after all, but the money is best used elsewhere. Take the red or the blue pill, it's up to you. 

 

Red pill or blue pill...I will take both! I will let my ears be the determining factor as to what components work together in my room and for my listening preferences. I thought the current Jubilee bass bins are rated at 800 watts and the MF/HF 400 watts according to the published specs on Klipsch. Room is built to my specification based on technical training and project management in sound mitigation for facilities I gathered working for the government. My contractor thought I was crazy with these specs: spray foam under joists, Roxul Safe and sound batting in ceiling and all walls, Quietrock 530 Radio Frequency Sheetrock, resilient channel, Green glue, double back wall with 2inch gap between walls, all surround walls are concrete as well as concrete slab with custom bamboo floors. It’s a bunker, 😆 
 

My room may not be an auditorium but it’s nice sized at 33 x 20. At the end of the day, I want to explore the Jubilees after my listening demo at a fellow owners home. My mantra is garbage in garbage out and to that end will embrace the new journey. 

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1 hour ago, audioquest4life said:

 

Red pill or blue pill...I will take both! I will let my ears be the determining factor as to what components work together in my room and for my listening preferences. I thought the current Jubilee bass bins are rated at 800 watts and the MF/HF 400 watts according to the published specs on Klipsch. Room is built to my specification based on technical training and project management in sound mitigation for facilities I gathered working for the government. My contractor thought I was crazy with these specs: spray foam under joists, Roxul Safe and sound batting in ceiling and all walls, Quietrock 530 Radio Frequency Sheetrock, resilient channel, Green glue, double back wall with 2inch gap between walls, all surround walls are concrete as well as concrete slab with custom bamboo floors. It’s a bunker, 😆 
 

My room may not be an auditorium but it’s nice sized at 33 x 20. At the end of the day, I want to explore the Jubilees after my listening demo at a fellow owners home. My mantra is garbage in garbage out and to that end will embrace the new journey. 

Thanks for the info on your room. The biggest bunch of BS foisted on an entire industry by the Marketing Types is "Watts" because the number look bigger, but don't represent the real world.

 

Much like ISO/ANSI ratings of light sensitivity for film and digital vs. the more accurate DIN ratings. The difference between ISO 400 and ISO 1000 is only 1 1/3 stops. In the same manner the difference between a 400 watt and a 1,000 watt amplifier is only 4 db, which is barely perceptible by human hearing. 10 db is twice as loud and 10 times the power. The only time loudspeakers behave linearly is only up to 10% of their "rated power." After that, there is THERMAL COMPRESSION, as the voice coils heat up, and resist the current going through them. 

 

Using the more accurate term "DB Watts" means that a common 100 watt amplifier is really 20 DB Watts, while a 1,000 Watt amplifier is only 30 DB Watts, and perceived as only twice as loud.

 

The woofer section of a loudspeaker requires way more power than the treble section, because it has to move WAY MORE AIR, which makes sense. Most compression drivers from 500 Hz. on up have about a 110 db/watt sensitivity at one meter, depending on the dispersion angle of the horn it's mounted in. Since normal listening is about 83 db, and a pair of stereo compression drivers would produce 113 db/watt of input. So having a 10 watt amplifier, which is also 10 DB Watts, on a compression driver will yield 123 db of output at 1 meter, which is what I call "Stupid LOUD."  When I measured my big JBL 2446J drivers, I was reading about 10-20 MILLIWATTS of power input to get 83 db in my sweet spot. According to PWK, classical music recordings need 17 db of headroom, which is easily provided by a 1 watt amplifier on a modern compression driver. Having a 10 watt amplifiers give you a total of 27 db of hearoom, which guarantees no clipping or thermal compression in the driver, since most of them are rated at close to 100 watt max. power input, they easily meet the thermal requirements of linear behavior.

 

With a Jubilee bass bin, which defines the speaker as a "Jube," has 106 db/watt sensitivity, but that's an average rating. When you apply Roy's 4-6 db boost at 30 Hz. or so, it increases the power requirements up to 4 times. So yes, the bass is where the power is needed most, and using your "BIG MAC" tube amp on the bass would be a wiser choice. So if 10 watts is plenty for the top end, then 100 watts should be plenty for the bottome end, which makes your Big Mac a VERY expensive overkill with less than optimum woofer driver control at the voice coil level, which may translate into the legendary "flabby bass" that one can get when using tubes on woofers.

 

That being said, when I met the late, great, Saul Marantz, I talked to him for almost 30 minutes back in the 70's. Being one of the best tube amp designers of the last century, he told me to ALWAYS use Solid State on the bass section for greater woofer control, since the source impedance and feedback mechanisms play a big part in bass accuracy. I have always successfully followed his advice.

 

So in your specific case, your Big Mac is too powerful, EXPENSIVE,  and a total waste of a "good space heater" on the delicate mechanisms of mid-tweeter drivers in a 2-way system, even with a 10 db shelving boost!! Putting it on the bass means not listening to the advice of Saul Marantz himself.

 

But hey, even if using your Big Mac on the Jube bin sounds good enough to you, who am I to tell you otherwise?

 

Enjoy the music!!

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On 12/19/2019 at 10:37 AM, ClaudeJ1 said:

Tubes on the bass is not the best place for tubes. I'm sure your "big Mac" is a great amp, but a total waste of SYSTEM VALUE in light of putting your money in the best HiFi horns Klipsch has to offer, the JUBILEES. You should not be "in love" with any piece of gear, and 300 Watt is ri-frikkin-diculous, on a bass bin that has 106 db sensitivity at about 1 watt, not to mention the lack of damping factor control (which could be a partial myth also). Sell the damn thing, and put the money in the speakers and room with lower, cheaper watts. I know it's hard to shift one's mindset, but it's not impossible. But hey, if you like the sound of your overpriced space heater, then go ahead and keep it and ignore good advice. It's your sonic life, after all, but the money is best used elsewhere. Take the red or the blue pill, it's up to you. 

 

Red pill or blue pill...I will take both! I will let my ears be the determining factor as to what components work together in my room and for my listening preferences. I thought the current Jubilee bass bins are rated at 800 watts and the MF/HF 400 watts according to the published specs on Klipsch. Room is built to my specification based on technical training and project management in sound mitigation for facilities I gathered working for the government. My contractor thought I was crazy with these specs: spray foam under joists, Roxul Safe and sound batting in ceiling and all walls, Quietrock 530 Radio Frequency Sheetrock, resilient channel, Green glue, double back wall with 2inch gap between walls, all surround walls are concrete as well as concrete slab with custom bamboo floors. It’s a bunker, 😆 
 

My room may not be an auditorium but it’s nice sized at 33 x 20. At the end of the day, I want to explore the Jubilees after my listening demo at a fellow owners home. My mantra is garbage in garbage out and to that end will embrace the new journey. 

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On 12/19/2019 at 2:35 AM, audioquest4life said:

beautiful MC2301 300 watts that are my dream amps

 

Quoted from the McIntosh website;

"The MC2301 is the first McIntosh vacuum tube amplifier to use our Quad Balanced design. This design cancels virtually all noise and distortion in the audio signal."

 

Nice amplifiers for a very fine audio system. Very attractive, too. I have always admired the McIntosh designs. 

 

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@ClaudeJ1

 

Thank you for the analogy with regards to film and digital photography. I can relate for sure as we moved into digital photography from film in the the late 90s at my organization. I am prepared to share my results no matter how bad or good they turn out😬, afterall, someone has to do it. My contingency, and yes, I have been paying attention, is to look at some David Berning design amps, or something similar from Linear Tube Audio, their Zotl40 amplifier which I heard driving Spatial Audio M3s and kicking their behind for sure. I know OB design vs horn, but based on my listening session, they sound pretty decent. 
 

in the mean time, I have to plug in my newly arrived Crown amp to test biamping my B&W N800s.  This bi-amping experiment is to help me prepare for the purchase and arrival of the Jubilees after I sell off the 800s. More to follow. I just want to let you all know I have been all over the map and it’s driving my wife crazy. Avantgarde Duos, Legacy Aeris, Spatial Audio, Classic Loudspeakers, and this past week, the Volta or something like that, looks like a Lascala clone,,,but no, things I keep reading about the Jubilees, and sheer peer pressure from you guys, are making me disavow my wannabe audiophile roots and just enjoy the music, that’s what it is all about. 
 

That is so cool that you met Mr. Marantz himself. 

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6 minutes ago, Khornukopia said:

 

Quoted from the McIntosh website;

"The MC2301 is the first McIntosh vacuum tube amplifier to use our Quad Balanced design. This design cancels virtually all noise and distortion in the audio signal."

 

Nice amplifiers for a very fine audio system. Very attractive, too. I have always admired the McIntosh designs. 

 

That’s why I won’t discount them yet for my Jubilee experiment. Someone has do it. I used to own Octave Audio MRE130 amps with Super Black Box while I was stationed in Germany, but sold them and bought the McIntosh amps when I returned  to US and turned 50, my birthday present to myself. I also had a pair of Bryston 4BSSTs and used one set on the B&Ws and the other on some Polk Audio SDA series speakers. Man, sold that stuff too before coming back to states. I still have my Denon DP62L turntable that I bought in the PX in 1986 and it’s serving duty in the living room. 

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3 hours ago, Khornukopia said:

Nice amplifiers for a very fine audio system. Very attractive, too. I have always admired the McIntosh designs. 

Me too. I had a C-26 pre amp, and regretted selling the MC 240 tube amp, my Citation II, and my Marantz Model 8B! But now with Hypex, I'm totally happy.

 

As a quick side story, I attended a meeting at Universal Instruments, right next door to McIntosh HQ in NY. It absolutely killed me that I was so close, yet so far away from being able to walk in and ask for a tour at Mac HQ. But we were there to buy some Radial Component Assembly equipment to fulfill a 10 Million dollar contract to manufacture control electronics for Honda Accords that year, and zero time for audio stuff, since I wasn't driving and we had to fly back shortly after the meeting.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 1/13/2020 at 9:32 PM, Randyh said:

which model , series Crown amp did you buy -

@Randyh

 

Well, that was quick. I purchased the Crown XTI2002, and that was based on lot of available power to drive the bass on the 800s. One thing I overlooked was that it had fans, ughhh. Anyway, the Crown XTI did a great job of increasing depth in the bass, and also I noticed a better width in stereo dispersion; however, the organic sound I had biwiring the 800s with the McIntosh MC2301s on the 4 ohm taps was gone. In other words, here’s the BLUF: it sucked. I used the Crown app to dial in the amp and adjust the bass parameters, crossover, slope, etc, to try and extract some sense of good from this setup, to no avail. Going back to the 800s and biwire on the Mc amps, and using the Velodyne SMS1 bass EQ with two sealed 15 inch subs yields much better and harmonious sound than the bi-amp setup with the Crown.
 

I did not use the Velodyne SMS1 Bass EQ with the Crown experiment as the whole purpose was to not use subs. Not knocking the Crown as it can play loud for sure, but it’s all about system compatibility, synchronicity, and music to me at the end of the day. Oh, the fan kicked in as I played louder and louder too. The subs I have are 1500 watt subs and with the Velodyne I can dial up or down the volume independent of the preamp volume. 

 

After many years of listening hours, when listening to equipment,  my mantra is it either sounds good or sucks, haha. I like to tweak and adjust things as well, but when it’s bad sounding to me, it’s bad, and is a waste of time to try and optimize the sound. I have spent many years and dollars in that attempt in my equipment, acoustical environment, and room design and have my own reference points though listening, as well as all of you. If these were attached to horns or other speakers, results would undoubtedly be different. 

 

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I bought a Crown xl1800 to use on my La Scalas for a large party. It worked admirably for that. Back at home, I started using it with my MWM bass cabinets with my LaScala mids and tweets. It sound very, very good. I have to stick my ear right up against the tweeters to hear any noise. They I was looking at reviews online and most were negative.... no bandwidth, noisy, fans, etc. I am ignoring the reviews. In my room, of course,the amp gain is only up to about 9:00 o'clock, and I still can't turn up the preamp very far (a JMA Merlin tube linestage). I like that it is NOT a class D, the only one now in the xli series that isn't.

 

Somewhere along the line is the issue of that slippery slope term of synergy. Some things just work while others don't and out they go.

 

Bruce

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