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K-Horn power need per PWK


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3 hours ago, richieb said:


} There he is - kinda like “wack-a-mole”  Appears only when his button is pushed —

Yep, turned into a bit of a lurker recently. Been too busy wrapping up my working life to concentrate on fun stuff. However, that all changes the end of this month. I’m officially retired on the 29th. 

 

Can’t wait to bust your balls on a regular basis. 

 

Cincy

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4 minutes ago, cincymat said:

Yep, turned into a bit of a lurker recently. Been too busy wrapping up my working life to concentrate on fun stuff. However, that all changes the end of this month. I’m officially retired on the 29th. 

 

Can’t wait to bust your balls on a regular basis. 

 

Cincy


} Congrats 🥳 Let the games begin —

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12 minutes ago, cincymat said:

Yep, turned into a bit of a lurker recently. Been too busy wrapping up my working life to concentrate on fun stuff. However, that all changes the end of this month. I’m officially retired on the 29th. 

 

Can’t wait to bust your balls on a regular basis. 

 

Cincy

Congrats BRODY.   I wish!   Enjoy! 

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5 minutes ago, richieb said:


} Congrats 🥳 Let the games begin —

 

Looking forward to it.

 

Now, what about those giga watt per channel monoblocks I bought from you? Those puppies would have made your Jube"s blow the walls out of your basement. 

 

Cincy

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2 minutes ago, Westcoastdrums said:

Congrats BRODY.   I wish!   Enjoy! 

Thanks, been watching your for sale goodies. Nice stuff. Too bad I'm retired and poor. 

 

And, live down the street from my sister in law. Who unlike her sister doesn’t like loud music.

 

 I’m buying her a Klipsch T shirt for Christmas. The one about passing off the neighbors. 

 

Cincy

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14 hours ago, tube fanatic said:

...Besides, my new “specialty” of desktop systems requires even less power!

 

Maynard-

 

Thanks for sharing the interesting and informative article.  Please describe one of your “desktop systems.”

 

I constantly have to explain that the relationship of amp power to speaker size is counterintuitive.  Present an audio layperson with a pair of Klipschorns and a pair of BBC ls3/5a monitors and ask which requires more power to play at a given volume. 11 out 10 will say the bigger speaker.  When I explain the Klipschorns respect the laws of physics and are very efficient, but the ls3/5a monitors try to defy the laws of physics to get small drivers to produce big sound waves, they begin to understand.

 

I have demonstrated the difference by producing glorious music from my efficient Klipsch speakers using only a tiny chip amp that cost less than lunch and fits in the palm of your hand.  That same amp will produce sound from my BBC monitors but, by the time the electrons navigate the complex equalizing physics cheating crossovers, the sound emanating from the small KEF drivers can hardly be described as music.  It takes 100 times the power to get “music” from the BBC monitors.  Even then they lack the effortless dynamics and live sound of larger horn loaded efficient speakers.

 

428C9205-470F-4E66-9A51-F2770A3D9A5A.jpeg.67983305d633a45893b3f11bbc76fa45.jpeg

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5 hours ago, babadono said:

And that requires headroom out of your amplifiers. Of course it ALL depends on how dynamic your source material is.

I had a peak power meter on my Khorns about 40 years ago when I first got them. I sold off my 200 watt amplifiers for 75 watt amplifiers. On most days, from vinyl sources of course, I was measuring 2 watt peaks when played at "normal/loud" levels. PWK told me average power was 1/4 watt in a Khorn. He was right about all of that. Stupid loud was when the PEAKS reached about 10 watts per channel. Since you hardly ever encounter more than 10-20 db peaks from most recording today (30 db peaks for live music throught a PA system) this means a 10 watt amp, indoors can handle 117 db peaks with no trouble in a pair of Khorns, Belles, or LaScalas without clipping. Since most sane people listen to music at 83 db or less (typical for modern recordings and movies), it means you are drawing under 1 Watt most of the time, with 10 db headroom above a 30 db dynamic range (unlikely in recorded anything). Even when you do on blockbuster movies, you have 5-11 channels working and most of the real POWER goes to subwoofers anyhow. PWK was correct about the "5 Watt amplifier." He also claimed about a 17 db headroom was all that was required for Symphonies, which is all he ever recorded and listened to for himself. I heard it for myself at his house and he repeated all this information for me.

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4 hours ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

I heard it for myself at his house and he repeated all this information for me.

His living room was large, by any standard, since it held TWO Grand Pianos to the right of his 2PH3 setup. His wife, Ms. Valerie was a classical piano teacher that gave private lessons in their home. Hers was a Bohsendorfer, and the student's was a Steinway right next to it. To the left of that were Right channel Khorn in a false corner (the one PWK gave plans for in the Dope from Hope), then a Mono Center Belle, then the Left Khorn in the other false corner. All 3 speakers were Walnut (Oil or Lacquer, not sure) right from the factory floor, nothing special. I do recall that there was 3-4 feet of space forward from the huge Bay Window in their living room with those false corners. Let's just say that he played several of his recordings for me and they sounded fantastic. He said they were all done with 2 Omni microphones about 15-20 feet apart, depending on the size of the Orchestra. PWK literally PRACTICED what he PREACHED, that's for sure, and everything he wrote about in the Dope from Hope he actually did for himself and, subsequently published for the benefit of others. ALL of his music was his own recordings and all was on reel to reel tape at 15 IPS.

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On 11/13/2019 at 2:28 PM, richieb said:


} I enjoy single ended amps as much as anyone, as pure as any amps I’ve heard. Owned 3.5 watt, single ended 2a3 monoblocks at the early stages of Jube ownership. Showing them off to another member while picking up my KHorns it became apparent 2a3 amps quickly 

ran out off steam as his lovely wife kept saying “louder, louder”. Among other solid state amps I now have 20 watt single ended amps with transformers nearly as big and heavy as the entire 2a3 mono chassis, or as I like to say single ended with ballz. Delicate, transparent and detailed at low volume, enough juice to get your attention when needed. Even with 105 dB speaks there is still some validity with the 

“no replacement for displacement” mantra —

Can we see those 20 watters please?

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49 minutes ago, seti said:

This was a great post on DIY Audio

A Test. How much Voltage (power) do your speakers need?

https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/204857-test-voltage-power-speakers.html

 

 

 

 

Indeed!  I posted that on here a while back and was amazed at how few were even willing to take the measurement!  I guess if a person invested in a costly SS “arc welder” they don’t want to find out that they only need 1 watt to satisfy their loudest possible listening level. 😀

 

 

Maynard

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7 hours ago, tube fanatic said:

 

 

Indeed!  I posted that on here a while back and was amazed at how few were even willing to take the measurement!  I guess if a person invested in a costly SS “arc welder” they don’t want to find out that they only need 1 watt to satisfy their loudest possible listening level. 😀

 

 

Maynard

 

I ran them quiet and pretty dam loud.and it went from 1/4 of a watt to 6 wpc.. Pretty cool test....

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 11/14/2019 at 12:50 PM, babadono said:

And that requires headroom out of your amplifiers. Of course it ALL depends on how dynamic your source material is.

Yes, and Dolby Atmos Blue Rays (2k or 4K) give the most dynamics. I charted over 60 db dynamic range from a recent movie I watched. From dialog to explosions with floor shaking subwoofage. This is why I built my system for this over several years and the reason why I have minimum 97-100+db/watt efficiency on speakers, including tapped horn subs.

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On 11/13/2019 at 12:44 PM, briney said:

So, what is the K1 re-equalization?

 

I'm not sure. I think he removed a cap on the imput that rolled off the bass. The PWK Brook has been examined but it has also been restored by Modaferri of McIntosh fame back in 93. The feedback is different than in the original. I put these changes in my Brook clones and it improved a bit. I am running them right now. If I could build them again I'd only change a few things. 

 

IMG_3422.jpg

 

 

 

 

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So, 26k+ views and Seti is the only one who measured his power requirements and posted the results!!!  This is unfortunate because so many of you are purchasing amps with as much as 100 times the amount of power you need.  Apparently, reading the comments of PWK himself is not enough to convince you.  If there is interest, I’ll post the link to the thread I had started about this which contains the required test tones. 
 

 

Maynard

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