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BS Button List of worthy Myths


ClaudeJ1

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34 minutes ago, Edgar said:

 

Don't forget that the definition of "optimum" depends entirely upon what one is trying to optimize. Roy, like all engineers, has to balance a number of performance criteria, including price, measured audio performance, manufacturability, shipping costs, availability of raw materials, and so on. Even "cost is no object" designs are subject to this same balancing act.

 

Fair enough... ..So let the question be:  Would the CW4's sound better if they were made from BB?

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2 hours ago, Dave A said:

Yes I know that so perhaps you misunderstood I was talking about two things here. Ovations and solid body guitars.

Sorry Dave... I conflated the two.

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19 minutes ago, 001 said:

klipsch use MDF because it's straight as an arrow , it's shipped pre-veneered , and book matched  ,   it sure cuts and fits perfectly , you wanna do the same thing with BB , you'd have to charge 1k$ more per speaker  for very little difference , if any in sound performance  -

 

I'm thinking ZERO difference in sound performance, but point taken.

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19 minutes ago, ODS123 said:

 

I'm thinking ZERO difference in sound performance, but point taken.

Or not enough difference in sound performance to overcome the advantages MDF brings to the design, whatever they may be.

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2 hours ago, Khornukopia said:

 

Why do you say $1000 more per speaker?

let me be more precise , and generally speaking   Heresy 250  $   ,  500$  CW   , 

1k$  ,  khorns -LS  Jubilee .

 

 

.

 

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11 minutes ago, the real Duke Spinner said:

I do 🚫 t particularly care for Ovations

A bit harsh when recorded with a studio quality mic

Think Royer ..

 

the plastic back was a cheap way to avoid the Wood work

 

They also project well, but it also more difficult for the player to hear the instrument (at least for me...). I like the feel and sound of an all wood guitar.

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13 hours ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

I agree with all the collective comments about this. So I guess the "myth" part is calling one superior over the other, depending on application and cost factors (which are always present in decision making). My fist pair of Khorns were made intirely of Baltic Birch from Russia in 1977, and sounded great for 20 years until I "upgraded" to Walnut ones I sold in 2007 to go with the Klipsch MWM stack instead. I went from "pretty Walnut" to ugly black used stuff after hearing a single MWM with a K-402 on top, which was a big Reveal to my ears, almost 15 years ago.

Anything is possible, but the Khorn wasn't ever made entirely of Baltic Birch (from Russia or anywhere else)*. They bought a huge amount of Baltic Birch  in the mid 70s and had a stock pile, but it was used for Heresy backs, bass back panels and some interior parts. The person who would know for sure is @HDBRbuilder who may have made those '77 Khorns, but he is the one who told me that the Baltic Birch they had was used for very specific pieces and applications on specific products. It was on metric scale (12 and 18 mm), and Russian Baltic Birch is much lighter in color that Birch Plywood so it would be used on exterior pie

 

This is what Jim Hunter has posted in the past about Baltic Birch in the Ask the Historian Section:

 

"Baltic birch has been used in Heritage products sparingly over the years due to its void-free properties, most notably in 1/2" for K-horn woofer back panels and interior parts, as well as Heresy backs.  While 3/4 & 1" may be in current use in some pro products, I Don't believe it has seen use as 3/4" material for Heritage.  Klipsch has 3/4" laid up custom in 4 X 8 sheets for non-veneered applications (think old LaScalas).  Currently veneers are laid up on 3/4" MDF since the early 80's.  Prior it was lumber core.  This is a denser, more dimensionally accurate material when kept dry.  PWK was in on the decision."

 

*Some people refer to void free plywood at "Baltic Birch" as opposed to where it is sourced. Baltic Birch, made from wood in the Baltic area is made in either Russia or Finland and their are standards for it all.

 

The birch plywood from that era was custom specified (probably still is) as to the number of interior plys (5?),  thinner cabinet grade outer plys, to be "void free" under outer plys, etc., etc. Again, @HDBRbuilder would know all of the specifics. 

 

Back then you could spec anything on Khorns, like marine grade plywood (HDBR/Andy remembers some of those being made IIRC), maybe their marine grade plywood was sourced from Russia at the time, or maybe someone special ordered Russian Baltic Birch, 

 

But, again, their Birch Plywood wasn't off the shelf stuff either, they had specifications for it all.

 

 

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MDF is thicker 1", denser, straighter and cheaper than the other two so it seems to be a wise choice for speaker boxes for Klipsch. Good business decision IMHO. The other two are probably stronger and take more abuse but it seems MDF is plenty good enough for speaker boxes from all accounts by owners of said speakers. 

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19 hours ago, Travis In Austin said:

"Baltic birch has been used in Heritage products sparingly over the years due to its void-free properties, most notably in 1/2" for K-horn woofer back panels and interior parts,

For me, it was pure luck and the fact that as a young man, the pair of KCBR's were the only ones I could afford. I also got a bank loan for $1,000 to establish credit. I was always a "cash and carry" guy before I married my credit rating, who had lots of WAF.

 

AFAICR, I paid $1,600 plus 4% sales tax for them. Translated to modern inflated dollars, including the REAL 2022 inflation numbers on lumber and drivers (not the CPI.gov calculator bullshit), they would be about $10,000 today as an economical choise.

 

All the pieces I could see from the rear were made of 1/2 Baltic Birch. I had never seen 1/2" (or metric equivalent) plywood of any kind with 9 layers before (counted them myself). I was impressed. I also have a Dope from Hope somewhere, about that time, where PWK talked about the "Russian Plywood" in my speakers that stated that those particular Khorns of that model year weighed 20 lbs. MORE than the older one with Fir Plywood in it's innards. I paid cash for a center channle LaScala made of Birch plywood, but I'm not sure if it was the Russian stuff. But I'm very sure the Khorns were mostly made of that. I sanded the tops and fronts down to #0000 steel wool and they were almost shiny BEFORE I hand rubbed 3 coats of Homer Formby's Satin Tung Oil into them. I had asked a pro who did exotic wood installs (Staircase, railings, fireplaces, etc.) what was the very best finish I could put on them. I followed his advice and those were simply beautiful with the Black Grille Cloth when I was done with them. 

 

To quote PWK quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson: "The Excellent is new forever."

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3 hours ago, Shakeydeal said:

One thing I do know is that my LS IIs with MDF cabinets sound far better than an 80s pair of Lascalas with plywood cabinets. YMMV......

Yes due to the much heavier side panels. The same would be true for 1" plywood and especially 25mm BB. Having replaced some LS sides with 25mm Baltic Birch I can assure you the MDF is not the secret weapon but the thickness most assuredly is.

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10 hours ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

For me, it was pure luck and the fact that as a young man, the pair of KCBR's were the only ones I could afford. I also got a bank loan for $1,000 to establish credit. I was always a "cash and carry" guy before I married my credit rating, who had lots of WAF.

 

AFAICR, I paid $1,600 plus 4% sales tax for them. Translated to modern inflated dollars, including the REAL 2022 inflation numbers on lumber and drivers (not the CPI.gov calculator bullshit), they would be about $10,000 today as an economical choise.

 

All the pieces I could see from the rear were made of 1/2 Baltic Birch. I had never seen 1/2" (or metric equivalent) plywood of any kind with 9 layers before (counted them myself). I was impressed. I also have a Dope from Hope somewhere, about that time, where PWK talked about the "Russian Plywood" in my speakers that stated that those particular Khorns of that model year weighed 20 lbs. MORE than the older one with Fir Plywood in it's innards. I paid cash for a center channle LaScala made of Birch plywood, but I'm not sure if it was the Russian stuff. But I'm very sure the Khorns were mostly made of that. I sanded the tops and fronts down to #0000 steel wool and they were almost shiny BEFORE I hand rubbed 3 coats of Homer Formby's Satin Tung Oil into them. I had asked a pro who did exotic wood installs (Staircase, railings, fireplaces, etc.) what was the very best finish I could put on them. I followed his advice and those were simply beautiful with the Black Grille Cloth when I was done with them. 

 

To quote PWK quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson: "The Excellent is new forever."

I think it's four pieces that were Baltic Birch, 2 woofer back panels, woofter motor board, and another inside piece that Andy mentioned. Everything else was birch ply from with custom specifications from Georgia Pacific. 

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On 5/30/2022 at 4:41 PM, Dave A said:

I gave up trying to convince you of anything some time ago. However you asked a civil question so I gave you the courtesy of a real answer. I wonder, can you see others from the mountain top?

  For what it is worth BB is tougher on tooling then MDF. Ask me how I know :D

@HDBRbuilder would tell you the exact same thing. When they got all of that Russian Baltic Birch they started to figure out different uses for it. The backs of Heresy's, but also Cornwall motor boards, etc. He would go through 2 or 3 router bits to do the same work as one on birch ply. The bits got so hot they burnished (not sure the right term, but when the heat gets intense enough to change the color of the metal and allow the cutting edges to dull) and they would sometimes explode. He had several bits come apart on him. 

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On 5/30/2022 at 4:51 PM, Dave A said:

@CWelsh I can believe that and add to it the density of the wood. Northern hardwood is denser and mills better when I am cutting Black Walnut and Red Oak for instance. When you get right down to it the variables are considerable.  Scientists are trying to uncover what makes Stradivarius violins special – but are they wasting their time?

I didn't read the article, but for violins the sound board is spruce, "alpine" spruce, because it has tight consistent growth rings. The Strad family than treated it with chemicals that will never get figured out. 

 

Today one of the woods of choice for violin makers is "Sitka Spruce" from Alaska. Same thing, tight growth rings, similar to the Cremona Spruce.

 

Travis

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On 5/28/2022 at 7:09 PM, Edgar said:

 

I don't have sufficient breadth of experience to comment, but I found this to be interesting.

Interesting article:

 

"With a bass-mid driver handling everything from the lowest bass up to around 2kHz, it seems like the domestic speaker builder just can't win. For top midrange performance choose a carefully damped lower-mass material of consistent stiffness, like 12mm birch plywood. Voices are more natural, better articulated and other midrange instruments seem to have more accurate timbre with heavily damped 12mm birch-ply, but could be even better when we find out how to achieve similar without lossy damping.

 

For tight accurate bass, a heavier rigid material, 25mm birch plywood, provides the cleanest, fastest, most tuneful bass. Experiments with other 25mm materials (MDF and 'far Eastern ply') were not far behind the birch ply at the lowest end of the spectrum, perhaps below 300Hz. However, this was difficult to evaluate with a single driver handling up to 2kHz. More cabinets and tighter bandwidth gating later offer more data. In the late 80s I could only try the 2 cabinet experiment with birch-ply of 12mm and 25mm. MDF of both 18mm and 25mm thicknesses seemed to have a singularly unfortunate effect on music, even compared with conventional chipboard, which one might expect to be similar, but was actually very different in character."

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23 minutes ago, Travis In Austin said:

Interesting article:

[etc.]

 One theory is that the woofer enclosure should be so rigid that any wall resonances occur at frequencies higher than the upper frequency of the bass driver. By contrast, the midrange enclosure should be "floppy" enough that any wall resonances occur below the lower frequency of the midrange driver. The text that @Travis In Austin quoted supports this theory, and emphasizes that those requirements conflict when the driver handles both bass and midrange.

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1 hour ago, Travis In Austin said:

For tight accurate bass, a heavier rigid material, 25mm birch plywood, provides the cleanest, fastest, most tuneful bass.

Agree 100%. You build a correctly sized bass bin matched with 12" woofers, like perhaps the 400 watt Eminence Kappa 12A, and it is as close to pure horn distortion free bliss as you will get. Explosions and drums are far more precise as is everything else withing the range of your bass bin output. There is no mushy sound from something like this. My days of wanting 15" woofers are over except for the Super MWM's which also happen to be made out of 25MM Baltic Birch and do really well with K-43's.

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