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Klipschorn AK-3 horn mods


DVDMike

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47 minutes ago, Chris A said:

don't believe that they looked like that when they left the factory

I’m the 3rd owner of these. When I purchased them, there was no signs of any owner modification. Everything looks “original”. In fact, based on the difficulty in getting the back panel removed, I’m pretty sure it has never been taken off by anyone before I did it. There is no sign of being in a high humidity environment. The cabinets are all in excellent shape. So I’m not sure where the corrosion around the terminals came from?  But the wiring seemed chemically attached to the posts through oxidation. I’m not sure there was solder even used on those 4 terminal connections. Everywhere else speaker wire was attached to something there is solder. 
 

the good news is that I was eventually able to get the speaker terminals removed from the plastic housing. I used a little hand hack saw on the speaker wire between the 2 nuts. I was able to cut all the way through one post and cut enough of the melded wire from the others where I could use 2 wrenches on opposite sides to get enough torque to turn the plastic outside out from the nuts inside. 
 

now I have the banana connectors out and I can put new ones in. But in order to get the back off to get access and to then remove the plastic box, I had to cut wires. I took a “before” photo. So hopefully I can get everything rewired back the same as it was. Honestly, I think bypassing the crossovers altogether and tramping with an active DSP is the way to go for me. I’d just like to have the crossover in tact should I ever wish to sell. 

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42 minutes ago, DVDMike said:

So I’m not sure where the corrosion around the terminals came from?  But the wiring seemed chemically attached to the posts through oxidation.

 

42 minutes ago, DVDMike said:

There is no sign of being in a high humidity environment.

AF14A856-CC6B-479A-B462-35E6D8480ED5.jpeg

 

That's solder that's been smeared on those nuts.  You can see the damage to the plastic standoff on the black plastic piece in the foreground that was caused by someone indiscriminately daubing solder on the terminals and instead melting the plastic with the tip of the soldering iron.  You were cutting through solder with your hacksaw--not corrosion.   Solder has flux in it (typically) to self-clean the surfaces that are being soldered, and that looks like dark amber or even black when it's been daubed on like that. 

 

However much you'd like to blame Klipsch for this, I'd say you need to re-evaluate what has occurred to these crossover networks (the portion that you show here).  The seal around the bass bin access door will re-flow slowly over time, so even though you think it wasn't accessed before, if what I'm looking at above is from behind the access door on the bass bin, it's been opened before.  Someone probably decided that they didn't ever want to get inside to torque down the connections, and gummed it up with solder, instead.  That's a particularly bad job, too since those connections were not designed to be soldered, and Klipsch didn't do that...I can tell you without reservation.

 

Is there a reason why you want to blame Klipsch for this?

 

Chris

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It is very difficult to solder wire onto those banana jacks. They have a relatively high thermal mass(don't ask me how i know). if you don't get it hot enough to melt the plastic it is easy to make a cold solder joint.  Even my TAD4002 drivers originally had terminals that looked like that.  I would hacksaw those out of there and get replacements. Then use ring terminals to connect to the new ones Just the way I roll......

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38 minutes ago, Chris A said:

You were cutting through solder with your hacksaw--not corrosion.   Solder has flux in it (typically) to self-clean the surfaces that are being soldered, and that looks like dark amber or even black when it's been daubed on like that. 

 

It would have been easier to pull all the wire off when those were hot, but having the wires cut will make it more difficult.

 

1 minute ago, babadono said:

I would hacksaw those out of there and get replacements. Then use ring terminals to connect to the new ones Just the way I roll......

 

Might be the easiest thing to do at this point.

 

 

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2 minutes ago, babadono said:

They have a relatively high thermal mass(don't ask me how i know). if you don't get it hot enough to melt the plastic it is easy to make a cold solder joint.

 

I know someone with a soldering gun... he uses heavy gauge wire... 🤐

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I am still a little confused how @DVDMike  is hooking these up. He says he is going directly to the woofer with what I will call his bass amp. But leaving the woofer also attached to the crossover. To me that means at least part if not all of the passive bass crossover is still connected. Then where do you hook up the mid/high amp? Trying to use the crossover schematic posted by @RandyH to understand your connections. Have you disconnected the passive bass crossover on the woofer door from the rest of the crossover?

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20 hours ago, babadono said:

Anybody got pics of the same type speaker with this woofer panel exposed like this?

42058848_woofercrossoversmall.jpg.d71c9bb308b54d2f8937bd9a156b9ec4.jpg.dc0c369d955916656026f469fa4ba460.jpg

 

 

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8 hours ago, DVDMike said:


 

the good news is that I was eventually able to get the speaker terminals removed from the plastic housing.

Good job , you can get  some decent quality binding posts installed  ( largest diameter wire  )- avoid plastic ends , all metal and Gold plated

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20 hours ago, Chris A said:

That's a particularly bad job, too since those connections were not designed to be soldered, and Klipsch didn't do that...I can tell you without reservation.

 

Is there a reason why you want to blame Klipsch for this?


so your assertion hear is that a previous owner went to the trouble to open up the panel and do nothing but solder connections? And they did not do anything to the upper crossover which is much easier to access? Any reason why they might do that other than connections and the speaker were loose from the factory install and malfunctioning? 
 

I can tell you there was corrosion, or at least a lot of reddish buildup around those nuts. It cannot be seen in that photo because I removed it trying to get the wire out so I could try to get the nut off. As I stated, I’m not sure anything was soldered on those terminals. But this picture is after quite some time trying to get the nut off with wrenches and pliers. I could have easily damaged the soft plastic in my attempt to get those nuts off following the corrosion that occurred. I don’t have a “before” photo. And I did not claim this photo was a “before” photo. In fact I believe I said I was struggling trying to get the nut off. I thought that made it clear that I had used a lot of force on these posts. 
 

 Is their a reason why you think I’m purposely trying to spread misinformation here? I’m making observations about what I believe based on what I know. I resent the implication that I have some general beef with klipsch and am purposely trying to falsely smear klipsch or something like that. You are free to counter my statements with what you believe to be the truth. That’s acceptable. But making an implication that I’m purposely not telling the true is something quite different and I will not tolerate it from anyone. 
 

im as big a fan of klipsch as anyone. I’ve got something like 28 klipsch speakers plus 7 klipsch subs hooked up and working in my home. I don’t have a reason to begrudge klipsch. I’m a huge advocate of the brand. But I try to tell the truth about what I see and I make opinions based on what I see to the level of knowledge I have. I resent any implication to the contrary. 

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13 hours ago, RandyH said:

Good job , you can get  some decent quality binding posts installed  ( largest diameter wire  )- avoid plastic ends , all metal and Gold plated

Yes, that’s what I’ve ordered. And I salvaged the plastic housing. 

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15 hours ago, Fast996 said:

That is a "bubba" job if ever I saw one.

This photo is after me spending 2 hours trying to get the nuts off. So the bubba job you see here was me using a lot of force trying to get it off. I used wrenches, pliers, screw drivers, wire cutters and such. I wasn’t try to salvage the posts so I couldn’t have cared less about the wire or post.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I thank everyone for helping.  I've got my initial tri-amp setup working now. I'm using the miniDSP 4x10 unit to as my active crossover. The included software doesn't have all of the same features as the 2x4 HD unit, which is a bit of a disappointment. But it does work. I wont bore anyone with the details unless someone is interested. 

I am still considering changing out the horn and or mid driver. But what I have now is better than before with the passive crossovers. I only have 5 PEQ settings per driver in this software. I am missing something in the low mid or high bass area that I should be able to fix with crossover changes and or EQ fine tuning.

 

Attahed is a screen shot of the software that comes with the 2x10 miniDSP unit. 

snipe minidsp a.PNG

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