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The DSP adventure begins, LaScala bins with KPT-904-HF tops. (Jubescalas?)


zeagan

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So this the culmination of about two years of incremental increases in my main setup. First started with some black ‘78 LaScalas, fell in love with the horn sound but while they looked cool they didn’t really look “living room appropriate”. So I got to reading about “jubescalas” (are we calling them that? Is the jube part the bass bin? Frankenstein speakers are confusing) and fell down the rabbit hole.  
 

So I sold the LaScalas and used the money to buy a bunch of wood and some drivers. Built clone LaScala bass bins using 1” Baltic birch for the outside panels and 3/4” for the doghouse. Woofers are Eminence Kappa 15C’s, finished those up about a year ago. 
 

Now for the top half, anyone that has looked for k402’s or k510’s (especially in Canada) knows you’re basically SOL barring a miracle, so I picked up the K510 clones from eBay. I was then going to get b&c de75’s as they’re very very close to what comes on the KPT-904-HF (that being the k510 with driver). Some JBL 2446h’s came up for sale locally for less than a new pair of de75’s so I gave them a try for the last year, tried my hand at DSP and got them dialed in enough that they’ve been a great set of speakers for the last year. 
 

Then I got a pair of K-691’s on here, and after being artfully bent over by UPS they arrived today and the process of getting the DSP settings just right has begun. In this thread I’ll post some response graphs, waterfalls, spectrograms, stuff like that and document getting them where they need to be in room using my Ashly Protea 3.24cl processor and umik 1. 
 

Also huge thanks I’m advance to ChrisA who graciously offered to help out with the settings. spacer.png
 

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First impression now that I’ve got the drivers off. The Klipsch ones would definitely be easier to steal if you had to run off with them. ~10lbs vs 32lbs for the big JBL’s. God help whoever ends up paying to ship these when I sell them. spacer.png

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Anyone wondering how differently they measure, here are the 1/48th smoothed frequency responses of the K691 vs the 2446h, both on the same horn, all variables normalized between the two with the same measurement setup. JBL is clearly a bit more efficient running about 3dB hotter between 450 and 1200Hz with a bit more wildness happening above 13kHz. Curious how this will translate to subjective listening tests.

 

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22 hours ago, zeagan said:

JBL is clearly a bit more efficient running about 3dB hotter between 450 and 1200Hz with a bit more wildness happening above 13kHz.

Hi @zeagan Very interesting. Tried a 510/691 combo with a set of Forte's ... made the Forte's pretty "anemic." So; sold the Forte's and the 510/691's - bought some CF-3's which sound much better.

 

However, could not resist "playing" some more and got JBL 2446H's mounted on 18x11 JBL horns. First impressions are much better than the previous combo, but have not dialed it in yet. (And still running on a cheap Chinese class-D amp - Yamaha M-45 replacement is on the way to me.) If you are using an electronic crossover maybe we could exchange some info :) And haha; guess I'll have to find my mike and run some REW :) 

 

Keep us posted!

 

Thanks, Emile

 

 

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On 8/30/2021 at 11:01 AM, zeagan said:

Well they have a rough EQ/delay/crossover setup in them now and going to send off the raw measurement files to ChrisA for some feedback. In the meantime it’s time to listen to a few tunes. Definitely no issue with volume. spacer.png

 

That's a different style, but it works, for me at least.  With the 510 horns, you have the ability to move them around on the Scala bass bins.  When I was using 510 horns on my JubScalas (I think the name looks better without the "e"), I slid the 510s to the outer edge of each cabinet, to get the widest possible stereo image.  It probably wasn't a big difference, but I preferred the look that way.

 

You also have the advantage, just like with the "split" Industrial La Scalas, of being able to aim the tweeters independently of the bass bins, so that adds flexibility, too.  I'm looking forward to hearing about how you get your speakers dialled in, and your impressions of them.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Isn't there a vaccine for the mumps?

 

Those are very nice looking!  You evidently know how to use a hammer!!  Not a hammer mark to be seen.  

 

Question about a profile view of the tweeter box....  is the back perpendicular to the front or, does it have an angle on it?  The picture looks (to me) like it has an angle.....  to be blunt, if so, I think that's a nice design touch.  

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20 minutes ago, Coytee said:

Question about a profile view of the tweeter box....  is the back perpendicular to the front or, does it have an angle on it?  The picture looks (to me) like it has an angle.....  to be blunt, if so, I think that's a nice design touch.  

I agree, I like the look of the boxes.

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On 9/19/2021 at 10:20 AM, Coytee said:

Isn't there a vaccine for the mumps?

 

Those are very nice looking!  You evidently know how to use a hammer!!  Not a hammer mark to be seen.  

 

Question about a profile view of the tweeter box....  is the back perpendicular to the front or, does it have an angle on it?  The picture looks (to me) like it has an angle.....  to be blunt, if so, I think that's a nice design touch.  

 

Yep there's an angle, the idea was that the outer edges of the HF cabinet are the exact width of the doghouse in the lascala bass bin so if you're looking at them dead on the lines line up. The angle on the back side was mostly to keep them from being too "box on a box" looking. 

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21 hours ago, absolve2525 said:

How to the Klipsch drivers compare to the JBL, sound quality wise? Those look great! 

I'd say the k691's are a little less sibilant in the higher frequencies, especially when played at higher volumes. Not huge difference but that little bit of extra smoothness up top makes the detail feel more accurate. The JBL's are no slouch though and I'm half tempted to use them to make some three way DIY speakers with a tweeter taking over above 7kHz or so. 

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Today was a fun day, the mumps K510's showed up. Unfortunately don't have the time today to swap them out as I want to do a few sweeps to compare them to the ZXPC clones without the mumps. Honestly mail day is just fun no matter what shows up, especially when it's a large and light box you've been waiting on for a month.

 

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Make sure that the mumps version is also EQed flat before trying to evaluate the sound differences.  If you think about it, the difference in sound (after EQ in both cases) shouldn't be much different, with the only real difference being a little wider polar coverage around an octave above the cutoff point (about 1-1.5 kHz) with the mumps version.

 

Chris

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1 hour ago, Chris A said:

Make sure that the mumps version is also EQed flat before trying to evaluate the sound differences.  If you think about it, the difference in sound (after EQ in both cases) shouldn't be much different, with the only real difference being a little wider polar coverage around an octave above the cutoff point (about 1-1.5 kHz) with the mumps version.

 

Chris

 

That's what I was expecting based on my readings, was planning to do some off axis measurements to compare. Honestly I'm not expecting any night and day differences with the mumps but it will be interesting to see how they compare. Also they look a little cooler in my opinion, which for some reason makes me happier about them haha.

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