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Chorus 2 modded with more efficient woofer?


Bubba_Buoy

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I'm relatively new to Klipsch Heritage (though not to HiFi) I bought my Chorus 2s around 6-7 months ago.

I've searched these forums as a guest, and joined to ask this question of the awesome and generous folks found here...

 

My Chorus 2's either lack bass, or have too much of the rest. It's not zero bass, it's just the ratio doesn't seem quite right.

It seems to me that the woofer is less efficient than the other 2 speakers in the box. If I was to guess, I'd say 4-5 db "quieter". And, not just in the "subwoofer realm" but well above that too.

 

Could the 15-in. woofers be replaced by a slightly more efficient one? If so, would that be basically the woofer in the Cornwall's? (I don't know part numbers, forgive me)

 

I bought them from a Klipsch lover with an 8 watt tube amp, who sold them to me because he couldn't get bass he liked out of them, which we assumed was due to the amp he was using, and he now has Cornwalls (3 or 4s) which he raves about.

I power them w/ a Rogue Sphinx V3 integrated amp, (100w @ 8 ohms)...so I figured I'd be good to go. They have titanium tweeters, and were re-capped (per Crites) by previous owner. 

I've positioned them everywhere from 6 inches to 20 inches from the "back wall" and they are in the closed end of a good sounding room. Tweeters are 9 feet apart and speakers are 10-11 feet from listening position. 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

 

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the original klipsch woofers in a Chorus 2 can handle 2x the power rating , so bass should not be a problem ,.....

 

.remove the woofers , are they original  klipsch parts ?  ,  are they connected correctly  ?   move the cones up and down , is there any rubbing   ?   take an Ohmmeter , what is the DCR of each woofer  ? 

 

 

I will echo  @the real Duke Spinner please post pictures of the crossovers  

 

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@Bubba_Buoy And it could just be that a) they don't work in your room(s) like the other person had trouble with, or, b) they just aren't the speakers for you.  Room acoustics can be a killer even with speakers that may be "known" to have good/decent bass.  Sometimes it takes a sub, or subs, to get to that point.  My upstairs room acoustics do that to me when I compare the bass of any speakers being on the long wall versus the short wall in a 15 x 28 room.  Being on the long wall always gives me better bass but the layout is a little rougher.  When on the short wall, there's more room nodes where I lose bass in my listening spot.  I'm currently torn on wanting to put it back the way it was where I was sitting on the long wall and I was about 10 feet back so I'm less dependent on a sub (Sunfire HRS-12).  

 

What's the room dimensions?  Is it carpet, wood, tile, etc?  Are there rugs?  Does the space behind you open up into another room as in open floor plan?  Got pictures of the room?  I doubt you have speaker or crossover problems but there's always a slim chance.  What speakers did you have in the room before?  How did they sound?

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16 hours ago, avguytx said:

@Bubba_Buoy And it could just be that they don't work in your room(s) like the other person had trouble with

  Room acoustics can be a killer even with speakers that may be "known" to have good/decent bass. 

 

 This is very true I've experienced this several times over the years it could also be that your listening position is smack square in the middle of a "dead spot." Play some bass heavy music at a decent volume and get up and walk around the room maybe behind your seat or near corners to see if the bass gets louder in other places of the room-- maybe a rearrangement could help if possible. 

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few things to mention, the room & speaker position play a huge roll in how they sound, especially for bass.  as mentioned, move around the room & notice how the bass changes, usually it will get much stronger at the rear wall of the room & in those corners,  for rectangular rooms theres usually a very dead spot around half way, thats where mine is in a 23x14 room,  due to canceling waves of the bass freq.  for speaker position, in or near corners will get the best bass but at least a couple feet off the side wall & 1-2 foot or more off the rear wall but not too far away as that will hurt the bass due to the rear passive.  sometimes the corner loading of the room can make the bass too much & will become boomy, my chorus 2s do that when real close to the corners.

 

the K48 woofer is hard to beat for any home audio brands, but trying to experiment with other woofers will likely cause mis match to the cabinet tune & volume, gotta know what youre doing with things like that.  the k48 is used in the PRO line up & is at least 2 times beefier & handles a lot more power than the woofers in the fortes or most other models of this era or the heritage models.  others have recommended a current eminence model,  they made many of the klipsch woofers.  i dont think the woofer is the problem. 

 

another thing to realize is the chorus 2 dont go overly low for bass, only 39hz,  there is a lot of bass below that for most modern music & definitely movies.  the chorus have very strong bass within their freq range, but a good sub will add that missing octave & improve the higher bass punch too. 

 

the crossovers shouldnt be causing bass problems, at least not the capacitors since they are in the mid & high signal path.  there is a electrolytic for woofer but most say its not in the signal path so doesnt have an effect on bass, if its gone out of spec it will let some higher freq through but not harm the lower freq.  the rest of the crossover components dont usually go bad so that shouldnt be an issue but always worth looking to see if they've been messed with or have an obvious failed or damaged part.   

 

last thing to mention is a minor mod that was suggested from a long time (former?) member here moray james who has done all kinds of modifications to speakers, you can lower the tuning of the speaker box a few hz by adding 1-1.5oz of weight to the rear of the passive cone, some have tried it & said it made a slight improvement, others frown upon it or any mods for various reasons or just that its not how it was designed... while that may be true, many mods & upgrades can make almost any speaker better than it was originally designed, especially these vintage models.    

 

hope some of that helps you find some better bass on your chorus2.

 

  

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24 minutes ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

Been saying for years, as well as PRACTICING what I preach: ALL Klipsch speakers need subwoofers. 

 

Hofmann's Iron Law -- If you want Klipsch efficiency and 20 Hz, it's got to be big.

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On 7/18/2022 at 8:28 AM, Bubba_Buoy said:

I'm relatively new to Klipsch Heritage (though not to HiFi) I bought my Chorus 2s around 6-7 months ago.

I've searched these forums as a guest, and joined to ask this question of the awesome and generous folks found here...

 

My Chorus 2's either lack bass, or have too much of the rest. It's not zero bass, it's just the ratio doesn't seem quite right.

It seems to me that the woofer is less efficient than the other 2 speakers in the box. If I was to guess, I'd say 4-5 db "quieter". And, not just in the "subwoofer realm" but well above that too.

 

Could the 15-in. woofers be replaced by a slightly more efficient one? If so, would that be basically the woofer in the Cornwall's? (I don't know part numbers, forgive me)

 

I bought them from a Klipsch lover with an 8 watt tube amp, who sold them to me because he couldn't get bass he liked out of them, which we assumed was due to the amp he was using, and he now has Cornwalls (3 or 4s) which he raves about.

I power them w/ a Rogue Sphinx V3 integrated amp, (100w @ 8 ohms)...so I figured I'd be good to go. They have titanium tweeters, and were re-capped (per Crites) by previous owner. 

I've positioned them everywhere from 6 inches to 20 inches from the "back wall" and they are in the closed end of a good sounding room. Tweeters are 9 feet apart and speakers are 10-11 feet from listening position. 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

 

Welcome to the forum. This question of poor bass  comes up frequently with many models of speakers. The best thing to do is run some test tones into them and see if they are performing properly  . Test one at a time at 3 ft or less with the other speaker turned down( balance )and see what they do . Make sure if you use the c weighted scale that you compensate for the readings .They will probably  be down 3 db or so at 40 hz , which would likely be normal .Also left and right should measure the same , if all is well .🤓

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9 minutes ago, Tom05 said:

Welcome to the forum. This question  comes up frequently with many models of speakers. The best thing to do is run some test tones into them and see if they are performing properly  . Test one at a time at 3 ft with the other speaker turned down( balance )and see what they do . Make sure not to use c weighted scale unless you compensate for the readings .They will probably  be down 3 db or so at 40 hz , which would likely be normal .Also left and right should measure the same , if all is well .🤓

Also to add to my post , I have found that a speaker that plays 35 hz flat , can at times sound a bit bloated on some music , so my personal preference is a gentle down slope to about  -4 at 35 hz for music . Lots of members will definitely not agree on this , just  my personal observation.🤓

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1 hour ago, Racer X said:

Forum handle decoder:  OO1  formerly Randy H or 001

                                          001 formerly EpicKlipschFan

                                         Crankysoldermeister formerly DeanG

 

Others ?

I used to be me, now I'm myself.

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