Khorn Crossover advice

[Pland]

Gents,

I just bought a pair of 1985 Klipschorns.Can you get me up to speed on crossover and other mods?These are my first Klipsch speakers,and I can't wait!

Best,

Pat

[No Disc]

Congrats on the K-Horns Pat. I'm sure you will enjoy them. When do you get them?

- tb

[JCturboT]

Pat,

I take it these are the black K-horns you purchased off e-bay? Did you get a good deal?

Regarding X-over mods I would wait and see if you need to do anything at all-these should have the AK-2 crossover which is suppose to be pretty good actually.

Actually the only thing I would do for starters is check the connections from the crossover to the bass bin.If these are like my 1994 models they have 12g Monster Cable with Banana pins.I noticed on loud passages some distortion and checked it out and the banana pin was actually working its way out from the connection.Bending the tabs out on the banana plug did nothing to help.I also noticed the cable was starting to oxide green about a half inch past the connection.

Solution....

Got rid of the banana connection altogether and went with spade connections from Analysis Plus.Picked some up from www.audioadvisor.com for about $10 for a 4 pack.Much better connection.

Problem solved.

Jeff

[AndyKubicki]

Congrats Pat!

You will never part with them! You have them for better or for worse, in sickness and in health...I just get so emotional!

[JohnA]

Pland,

Don't modify anything until you have listened to them for about 6 months.

I'm asuming from the year that those have a Type AK crossover. It should be nearly identical to the Type AL I've had and dislike. If you want to stay with Klipsch, parts, call and order the Type AK-3. It's the latest for your driver set and is said to sound VERY good. If you want to roll your own, or want to try the ALK crossovers, search the forum archives. Don't use a Type A (or derivations of it) with a high powered amp; say over 40 watts. I like the Type AA, especially if the caps are changed to Hovland Musicaps. I have a pair of ALKs for my La Scalas and they are superb, sound well integrated and clear. They will be a great match for your K-horns.

Another hot mod is to damp the squawker and tweeter horns. You can use rope caulk from Home Depot for both, or use Dynamat on the squawker horn as I did. The consensus here is that either works as well as the other.

I stuffed the top of my La Scalas with polyester fiberfil. It reduces the hollow knock it has and perhaps some cabinet resonances.

For a K-horn, you need to ensure the cabinet fits tight into the corner and seals and that the walls are plenty stiff. A stiff corner may be a multi-day winter project, but the seal to the walls is easliy accomplished with some weather stripping on the tailboard. Make sure your baseboards and shoe molding doesn't hold the cabinet away from the wall.

Work to make your electronics as good as the speaker. It is notorious for showing all flaws on the system.

[Mike Lindsey]

I agree with John here except the AK-3's are so expensive. They are a 2-piece unit and are expensive to build, according to Klipsch (can't remember where I read that). Believe it or not, the ALK's are cheaper than the AK-3's and sound just as good (if not better). They allow you to adjust the attenuation on the midrange horn and also allow for bi-wiring, as do the AK-3's I believe.

The other thing you might think about is building the A networks. These are very simple and the schematic is floating around on another thread that mobile posted to yesterday. Congratulations with your Khorns. I'm sure you will love them...

Mike

[artto]

John, you are the first person I've run across to do the caulk rope thing to the horns. I did that to mine years ago. If you haven't already done so, you might want to take a look at some of my other posts in the architectural section as well as the $25K room thing.

I too have my K-horns sealed air tight into VERY REINFORCED corners as well as being secured, literally, to the foundation of the house. The fascinating thing is this yielded something I didn't expect. I expected the bass to be tigher, deeper, more defined, etc. But the biggest improvement came in the midrange & upper frequencies. The only thing I can figure is that the minute vibrations of the (speaker cabinet) structure must be "smearing" the higher frequencies because movement of the driver/horn elements as a percentage of the wavelengths being produced are a larger. Just a theory. But the observation is true.

[Q-Man]

I agree with everything said so far.

But don't do a thing for a while untill you get used to them, as they also said. I'm willing to bet you won't feel like you need to do any of them.

The only thing you need to address right away is

those darn banana plugs like Jeff said. I don't know where Klipsch bought them but they are the loosest fit of any banana plug I've ever seen. They won't even push in all the way. You will see what we mean when you go to plug them in. Next check the oxidized Monster Cable. Then I repeat, don't do any mods for a while.

One reason you hear about all the mods we do on the LaScalas, Belles and Klipschorn is that they are an easy speaker to work on and change things.

They are a tweakers dream. The Klipsckorn is the hardest one of the three to mess with. Mainly because of the two part network and everything is soldered. The LaScala and Belle use disconnects and barrier strips.

I ordered barrier strips from Parts Express to put in my two pairs of Klipschorns. I need to replace the green oxidized wire in mine and when I do the barrier strips are going in them. This way it will be easier to mess with them in the furture.

These tweaks and mods we do take place over years and we live with doing just one at a time.

That way you know what you like and which you don't.

You don't even want to hear what I'm doing to mind now.

Oh yea, John mentioned weather stripping. Klipschorns already come with a tail board gasket on them from the factory. For some reason they are missing from a lot of second hand K-Horns. If yours are missing you can order a new pair from Klipsch, just ask for Trey. No one else will know what a tail board gasket is.

[mobile homeless]

Pat, after having talked to you a bit today and knowing some of your taste in gear I think you would ultimately like the very Simple Type A unit that is right up your alley. Although I do agree with others that you should listen to your Khorns for a while before doing anything at all besides adding something like quality connections of some sort although it seems a bit problematic with the design as Q talks above (you will probably make sure all the solder connections are excellent and clean).

Here are the crossover mods and the schematic. Just click the pic below for Schematic.

You can choose whether you want film/foils or oils. I can tell you that I am really happy with my vintage oils in my very simple Type B networks in the Cornwalls. Guy Landau, who has somewhat similar taste, also love the oils in his Type A and acually took out the 13uf Multicap and put in the vintage OIL and preferred this. It's your call but the oils can sound very musical with detail with an amazing purity to the sound. Guy is one of the few that has gone there and back. He also has a lot of the same tube gear. I know I love my oils but I have yet to try the ALK version. The Type A strikes me as very nice and several of the SET guys have run this route.

Just take in the tunes for awhile and dont worry about anything yet as you get a handle on the sound. They will be quite unlike anyhing you have had yet, I can assure you that!

I envy the fun!

kh

[AndyKubicki]

Another hot mod is to damp the squawker and tweeter horns. You can use rope caulk from Home Depot for both, or use Dynamat on the squawker horn as I did. The consensus here is that either works as well as the other.

I did mine with both, mainly because the Dynamat is good forlarger surfaces (like the squawker), but when you get closer to the driver, rope caulk can get in there better. I don't think you can Dynamat the tweeter...caulking it is easier.

[Randy Bey]

I would add my vote for the type A crossover, especially if you have a lower-powered amp (say, less than about 100 watts).

I made my type AA's into A's by just simplying the circuit a bit, desolder a coil here, bypass a capacitor there, voila!

Very highly regarded in my opinion. And a very cost effective ($0) tweak.

[Guy Landau]

Hi Pland,

congratulations for your new speakers.

I have been enjoying the type A networks for a few months now and enjoy them very much(they have replaced the ALK networks).

I have used the original oil type 13mf capacitor which added a lot of air and musicality to the mids when compared to polypropylene Multicaps ppmfx.

I have been using the 2 mf Hovland for the tweeter.It sounds more open and detailed than the 2mf oil but you can experiment and try to reach the sound that you like.

[sunnysal]

Guy, can you describe what differences in the sound you achieved when swapping out the ALKs for you updated type As? I have ALKs in my k-horns and was wondering what type As would do to the sound...thanks, tony

[JBryan]

Guy, Mobile, etc.

I've been pondering the idea of building a pr of xovers to replace the AK-2s that presently reside in my Khorns. With your comments and opinions in mind, I'd very much like to try to build a modified Type A however, I have a few questions. Does the Type A simply replace the AK-2? If not, what needs to be done? What about the inductors in the bass cabinet? Should they be replaced or taken out completely? Also, with my soldering skills bordering on ineptness, I would not paint myself into a corner by pulling parts from the AK-2 - at least I'll have a fallback xover if I screw up on the Type A. Is there a consensus in regard to the parts used - caps, inductors, wire, terminals, base, etc. and where can I source them? Finally, should I lose my confidence or fail miserably, does anyone on the BB build the Type A commercially and if so, how do I contact them? I've read the wonderful reviews of the ALK xover and I'm sure it works like a charm but I use flea-power amps and feel that a simple design with premium parts will better suit my needs. I'm obviously a complete novice at this so any suggestions and advice would be most appreciated. Thanks, Bryan

[Guy Landau]

Tony,

The simplicity of the type A sure contribues to the beauty of its sound.

I have found the type A to have better depth,the bass is fuller and the midrange resulution is much better I can defintly hear more information in the mids.

Bryan,

I do not know the AK-2 so I can not comment on this one.I have built my type A with premium parts and it sure helps.It is also very simple and the best parts will cost you less than 200$.

Regards,

Guy

[sunnysal]

guy forgive the dumb questions:

1. it look sin the photo like the x-over has three caps, the t2a and a coil but the schematic shows two caps...is one of these in the photo a bypass?

2. do you think a 13mf oil in paper like a jensen sound like your old oil caps? or perhaps just stay with 13mf of new poly caps...

thanks, tony

[JBryan]

Guy Mobile, etc,

How about this for a shopping list of parts...

Jensen PIO caps (x2): 8.7uf; 4.2uf; 2.2uf

2 autoformers (T2A) from Universal Transformer Co.

2 sets of Vampire binding posts

2 AlphaCore 2.5mH inductors (bass cabinet)

3' of Cardas OFC wire

2- 10"x6" pc of MDF

Is this a complete list for 2 type A xovers or am I missing something? Any substitutions or recommendations for the parts/plans? I plan to rewire the cabinets with Goertz M1 2 cooper since I already have some laying around and I will most likely try it in a biwire config. It also been suggested that I bypass the inductors altogether and simply run the wire directly to the woofer. Any thoughts on that idea? Any advice as to where I can source the parts would be most helpful. Thanks in advance for all your help and support - wish me luck and feel free to send email, Bryan

[Randy Bey]

that's the stuff alrighty --

Tony, the three caps are because you won't find a 13uF anywhere, you need to run two caps in parallel that will add up to 13uF.

[sunnysal]

thanks randy, I thought so...a few more questions...I was reading some catalogs searching for caps and found this quote: "...TRT recommends bypassing Infinicaps with no more than 1/100 the value of the main value to avoid spectral overlap..." sounds like, at least for Infinicaps, a 10mf should not be bypassed by anything more than .1mf...right? but that won't work...anyway I can do a 12 and a 1 or a 10 and a 3 right? any preference on combos or are they the same? (excluding the spectral overlap, lol) also, lots of decimal point values in caps...can they add up to close to 13 (like 13.3)? or is it best that is be exactly 13mf? last question, I see I have two basic choices in inductors, the alphacore flat wire type or the litz wire type...any preferences there? thanks, tony

btw jbryan don't forget to buy the barrier strips!

[JohnA]

The only difference between a Type AA and a Type A is the tweeter circuit. Specifically the Type A has only one capacitor and no KLiP protection.

There sbould be NO DIFFERENCE in the bass and mids switching between the AA and A. The forgoing statement is void if the Type A is built with superior components like the one pictured above that Guy built. The Solen inductor alone should be a great improvement to the bass. My Type AAs were noticably improved by the Hovland caps in the tweeter circuit.