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Klipsch MCM Advice


AlmostGod

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3 hours ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

Late to the party, I know, but the Gauss drivers will go out to 15 Khz., according to an interview I had with Gary Gillum, Klipch's retired/former Chief Engineer and co-patent holder with PWK. so You don't need a tweeter, unless you want wider dispersion.

 

 

 

Are the Gauss better than the quadruple K-55's? I have both the Gauss and 8 of the K-55's

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2 hours ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

Yep, they are even bigger/heavier than my JBL 2441's.

 

When I met Bob Moers in 1976, I saw photos of Raw Plywood prototypes of the MCM1900. They were a 2-way setup with K-33's in them.

 

But like all things abused by PA idiots with too many watts, they were burning out diaphragms up, so PWK came up with the Quad K55 module, Eminence came up with the K-43, and the MCM ended up as a 4-way design to help out and was still abused by the PA Idiots with too much power.

You do know low intelligence is a prerequisit for most SLV crews, right? I have seen more total boneheaded stuf with pro gear than most could imagine.

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20 minutes ago, AlmostGod said:

 

Are the Gauss better than the quadruple K-55's? I have both the Gauss and 8 of the K-55's

They were the original drivers for the original MCM1900's. PWK and Gary Gillum were both impress that the drivers had output to 15,000 hz. so the original was a 2-way.

 

For home use, I would say the Gauss is better and simpler. It was an incredible driver and still is if the diaphragms are good. The Quad K-55's are overkill for home use and require Super Tweeters. You can't go wrong with either, but 2 way's are easier to deal with. 

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20 minutes ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

They were the original drivers for the original MCM1900's. PWK and Gary Gillum were both impress that the drivers had output to 15,000 hz. so the original was a 2-way.

 

For home use, I would say the Gauss is better and simpler. It was an incredible driver and still is if the diaphragms are good. The Quad K-55's are overkill for home use and require Super Tweeters. You can't go wrong with either, but 2 way's are easier to deal with. 

Alright. I'm having the crossover built by a friend. He's making them with the schematics posted else on the forums, is there a good filter for three way available?

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3 minutes ago, AlmostGod said:

Alright. I'm having the crossover built by a friend. He's making them with the schematics posted else on the forums, is there a good filter for three way available?

You can get a used Active Xover pretty cheap and use some cheap class D chip amps from China on all the channels rather than commit to passives that were designed for commercial use instead of home.

 

Most of the time, you will be using 1/4 Watt per channel and never exceed 10 W in the house. I had a big stack of MWM stuff in my house. Also Khorns for 30 years. Indoors is low watts on a horn!!!

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23 minutes ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

You can get a used Active Xover pretty cheap and use some cheap class D chip amps from China on all the channels rather than commit to passives that were designed for commercial use instead of home.

 

Most of the time, you will be using 1/4 Watt per channel and never exceed 10 W in the house. I had a big stack of MWM stuff in my house. Also Khorns for 30 years. Indoors is low watts on a horn!!!

 

Yeah but I like to be able to switch between them and my Tannoy studio monitors, and i have never used an active crossover, maybe I'll use them in the future tho. I'll install those Gauss drivers and try them!

 

Edit: Is it difficult to use an active crossover?

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21 minutes ago, AlmostGod said:

 

Yeah but I like to be able to switch between them and my Tannoy studio monitors, and i have never used an active crossover, maybe I'll use them in the future tho. I'll install those Gauss drivers and try them!

 

Edit: Is it difficult to use an active crossover?

Let us know how it all sounds when you are done. Best of luck!

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29 minutes ago, AlmostGod said:

I will let you guys know!

 

Can someone explain why the K-55's are in series? That's bad for impedance... Why did they do this? 

 

I didn't know they were in Series. If they are, then the nominal impedance is 64 ohms, which is not bad at all. Acoustically you are getting a 6 db power boost for a Midrange section that is 6 db more sensitive, so using them in series means they don't need an Autoformer to raise the impedance, like they do for a Cornwall or Heresy. The woofer section is always the weakest in the sensitivity area so the Mids always have to be brought down to that level somehow. Increasing the impedance is the best way to do it without throwing away energy with resistors of L pads.

 

Using multiple amplifiers in an Active Crossover setup allows you to drive the voice coils directly without energy loss or phase shifts, using either the Crossover itself for gain reduction where needed or the gain controls on power amplifiers if they have them.

 

 

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On 9/13/2021 at 6:51 PM, AlmostGod said:

Alright. The crossovers are here, but my Lf driver's sensitivity is way to low. What drivers do you recommend to replace the original K43 with? I've an Eminence LAB15, but the sensitivity is just terrible. 

 

Any tips?

 

Cheers!

What's in there now that is too low in sensitivity? What crossovers did you get? What are the settings/crossover points on the crossovers you got?

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On 9/13/2021 at 7:51 PM, AlmostGod said:

Alright. The crossovers are here, but my Lf driver's sensitivity is way to low. What drivers do you recommend to replace the original K43 with? I've an Eminence LAB15, but the sensitivity is just terrible. 

 

Any tips?

 

Cheers!

 

You have the MWMs with two woofers, correct? Are they wired in parallel? I believe they should be.

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@ClaudeJ1 probably would have a good recommendation.

 

7 hours ago, dwilawyer said:

What's in there now that is too low in sensitivity? What crossovers did you get? What are the settings/crossover points on the crossovers you got?

He's got Eminence Lab 15's with 88.5db efficiency in there with

Usable Frequency Range 20 Hz - 0.1 kHz.
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On 9/13/2021 at 7:51 PM, AlmostGod said:

Alright. The crossovers are here, but my Lf driver's sensitivity is way to low. What drivers do you recommend to replace the original K43 with? I've an Eminence LAB15, but the sensitivity is just terrible. 

 

Any tips?

 

Cheers!

Wrong driver for that horn. What is your woofer driver budget? Times 4 right?

 

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12 minutes ago, Dave A said:

So what's killing it then, the efficiency? Good morning by the way.

Just like all the turkeys and chickens out there who asked me "will woofer xyz123va4b that I happen to have laying around work in a Super Heresy, the answer is 99% of the time: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

 

Now that we have had Thiele/Small Parameters (published in 1971, but created by Thiele in 1961), it has been standard practice to use those for any kind of box or horn design, even though PWK did fine without them using a "cut and try" and analog filter analogy.

 

It a SYSTEMS approach of cabinet and driver parameters working together. It's a complex problem and just sticking a woofer that "fits the holes" in whatever you have is almost GUARANTEED never to work right. Bill Fitzmaurice in the High Efficiency Speaker Asylum has the same issue with most of the posters in that forum.

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On 9/18/2021 at 11:28 AM, ClaudeJ1 said:

Not in those horns, he doesn't. The horn dominates, not the driver specifications.

I should have said, the horn design REQUIRES the driver it was designed for, which narrows down the choices quite a bit. The MWM was originally designed for a K-33, but Eminence created a K-43 to handle more power since PA Idiots were burning up the K-33's with too many watts. Ask Jim Hunter about his experiences in the 80's. I first saw the 2-way Moutengator prototype in 1976-77 when I was kid and met Klipch and Assoc. President Bob Moers, who helped the company become a greater success!

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On 9/7/2021 at 11:03 AM, AlmostGod said:

 

Yeah but I like to be able to switch between them and my Tannoy studio monitors, and i have never used an active crossover, maybe I'll use them in the future tho. I'll install those Gauss drivers and try them!

 

Edit: Is it difficult to use an active crossover?

 

Active crossovers are generally set-and-forget, IF you can find the correct settings.  With the Jubilee (and the JubScala, JuBelle, and related variants), the settings are well known, and are readily available on the Forum.  I’ve been using an E-V Dx38 processor/crossover since 2008 with no problems, and no experimenting on my part.

 

If you stick to the recommended components, it should not be too hard to set up an active 2-way system.

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