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Room Size for Khorns?


Blacthorn

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I am sure this is elsewhere in this forum, so please forgive me.

What I want to know is what is the minimum size room you should have for KHorns? also what would be the optimum size? I am probably slightly off my rocker, but I am considering purchasing Khorns (probably 2 pair) for HT. Then probably would try and find either a LaScala or Belle for center channel. Okay yes I know this is probably overkill to say the least, but hey you gotta dream right?

Anyway, thanks for any ideas.

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Optimum room size is 27X16X10. PWK performed studies in the 50's and came up with these dimensions. Its a golden means ratio. The diagnal of the room is 32 ft. the lower cut off point of the Khorns. PWK did state in an addendum to his paper that smaller rooms would suffice however. I'm going for the large room myself as I have the equipment for the PWK 2PH3 3 channel sterep setup. 2 K-horns and a Belle all in walnut oil!

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the hobbit has the right specs from PWK. however I think most of us have found that the k-horns can work in a variety of room sizes and shapes. corners are not optional BUT these darn things sound sooooo good that even in a room that seems overpowered by the k-horns' size they still sound great! I suspect that the most importan thing to to assure that your listeing position sits nicely in the crossing point or slightly behind of the two speakers. 4 k-horns + a belle or la scala is indeed a dream system. tough then room size is crucially important. I personally think k-horns are wasted on surround channels given the small amount of info found there. heresies for those my friend. regards, tony

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Hi

The Golden mean rule is good for 2Ch, but does not work good for HT. I have built many rooms for Khorns, Golden mean, 1 to 1.3, 1 to 1. My current design has them 22' apart and a room depth or 34' for HT. It has only 2 single nulls, no double or tripple nulls, sounds very live.

Personally with Khorns, I would not ever go less than 15' apart.

HornEd posted a topic last year about using a diamond shaped room (using a room on a 45 degree angles) with Khorn pockets in the side walls. I plan to try this next.

I beg to differ on SunnySals reply, I agree Khorns sound good in any room, but to really shine, they should be in a room designed for them.

BTW - Welcome to the Forum, you will get a lot of help here.

JM

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JM, I meant that assuming the room was not a closet, a pair of k-horns sound so much better than "normal" speakers that even in a less than ideal room they will sound better than the previous speakers. I lived this experience. when switching from a pair of beloved maggies to my new k-horns, even in a far less than optimum room I was wowed by the sound from the k-horns, the strengths still shine through. MTC, tony

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There is no such thing as an absolute optimum room size for the Klipschorn. Obviously, the larger the room, the fewer acoustical problems you will have, especially at lower frequencies.

More important than room size, are the rooms proportions. As mentioned above, there is a mathematical ratio commonly called the Golden Mean. Also known as the Golden Section or Fibonacci Sequence. As applied to room acoustics, it can predict the Eigenton distribution of a room (the rooms modes where resonant frequencies will occur, and/or overlap). The smaller the room, the more modal problems occur, primarily in the lower frequencies. Also the smaller the room gets, the more (higher) frequencies are affected.

The Golden Mean ratios for proper room proportions is: 1:1.26:1.59 (1 to 1.3 to 1.6) (height to width to length). There are a wide range of ratios that are suitable. And certainly good sounding rooms can be found outside of these proportions. Obviously the worst case condition would be cubical where all 3 room dimensions are the same as that of a particular wavelength of sound, causing a substantial room resonance at that frequency.

A range from 1 to 1.26 to 1.59, to 1 to 1.6 to 2.5 can be considered good. The old studio 116 at Klipsch in Hope, AK. was 10x16x25, which falls outside of the ideal ratio but was still considered good.

Just as important (if not more) are the rooms acoustics. It will do you little good to get the rooms proportions ideal, and then ignore proper BROADBAND diffusion & absorption, and reverberation time relative to frequency.

See arttos klipschorn room in the architectural topic area for a more in depth description of construction methods & acoustic techniques.

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I have mine in an 18' x 26' room with 9' ceilings, on the 18'wall. Using LaScalas for surrounds in the back corners, Heresy's for center channel. The main listening position is just behind the center of the room. I know it is not optimum, but it still sounds good. Definitely not a closet!

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The golden ratio not only specifies room size ratio, but also position of speakers in the room. For proper sound staging and imaging the speakers need to be one fourth of the length of the room away from the back wall, and one fourth of the width of the room away from the side walls. The sweet spot needs to be in the center of the room one fourth of the way from the front wall. Khorns do not have to be in the corners. With the use of 3x4 foot false walls, Khorns can be positioned out in the room for proper imaging while maintaining the full 35 Hz bass. There is a minimun room length of 16 feet required to fully develop the 35 Hz of the Khorns. This can be determined by dividing the speed of sound, or 1130 feet per second by two times the length of the room. 1.gif

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RE: The golden mean not only specifies room size ratio, but also position of speakers in the room.

Im going to be as polite as possible. Because what has just been stated sounds about as stupid as some of the things KH was attempting to argue with me a while back.

Anyone making such a statement obviously doesnt understand what the Golden Mean or Fibonacci Sequence is. Nor how to apply it. And it has absolutely nothing to do with determining the position of speakers in the room.

The Golden Mean (or Golden Section) is represented by the Greek letter phi. The decimal representation of phi is 1.6180339887499. (Not one-fourth)

If, for instance, you start with the numbers 0 and 1, and make a list in which each new number is the sum of the previous two, you get a list like this:

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, ... to infinity-->

This is called a 'Fibonacci series'.

If you then take the ratio of any two sequential numbers in this series, you'll find that it falls into an increasingly narrow range.

1/1 = 1

2/1 = 2

3/2 = 1.5

5/3 = 1.6666...

8/5 = 1.6

13/8 = 1.625

21/13 = 1.61538...

34/21 = 1.61904...

and so on

The number that this ratio is oscillating around is phi (1.6180339887499...).

These ratios or proportions are used to determine which frequencies the room will have resonances at. Where you have gotten the idea that the Golden Mean specifies speaker placement to be one fourth of the length of the room away from the back wall, and one fourth of the width of the room away from the side walls is beyond me. Id like to see you do the math on the above sequence of numbers & come up with a value of one fourth¼.

The Geometry:

If you have a rectangle whose sides are related by phi (say, for instance, 13 x 8), that rectangle is said to be a Golden Rectangle. It has the interesting property that, if you create a new rectangle by 'swinging' the long side around one of its ends to create a new long side, then that new rectangle is also Golden. In the case of our 13 x 8 rectangle, the new rectangle will be (13 + 8 =) 21 x 13.

Anyone see any one-fourths in this?

RE: The sweet spot needs to be in the center of the room one fourth of the way from the front wall

It is not possible to be in the center of the room if you are one fourth of the way from the front wall in three dimensional space. Furthermore, if you position the speakers as you have proposed, you will be positioned in the same frontal plane as the speakers themselves. You & the speakers will both be one-fourth of the distance from the front wall.

RE: Khorns do not have to be in the corners.

So what shape are you proposing those 3x4 false walls be? Parabolic? Convex? Trapezodial? (actually, I believe the correct term PWK coined is false corners). Its still has to be in a corner to achieve proper performance. And while Negligible improvement will be obtained from extending further than four (4) feet from the corner (note: CORNER), its obvious from Gary Gillums statement (Klipsch Dope From Hope False Corners Vol. 15 No. 5) that further improvement can be obtained with a larger false corner or true room corners, albeit negligible.

Every time the stage has been confined by adding artificial corners, the results have been less satisfying than where natural corners were used. (Experiences In Stereophony, Audio, July 1955, Paul W. Klipsch)

RE: There is a minimum room length of 16 feet required to fully develop the 35 Hz of the Khorns.

The rooms diagonal distance may be used to calculate the lowest fundamental full wave frequency. And using the Half-Room Principal, this dimension may be effectively doubled. Using the Pythagorean Theorem, one may calculate the diagonal distance of a rectangular room. Using 35Hz as the lowest frequency to be produced, a 35Hz tone has a wavelength of slightly more than 32 feet. A 14x10 room will have a diagonal distance of 17.2 feet. 17.2 x 2 = 34 feet, well within low frequency tolerance as 34 feet equals a 33Hz tone. This is especially true for a speaker like the Klipschorn which was designed for room corner placement. (see Room Dimensions for Optimum Listening and the Half-Room Principal, IRE Vol. AU-6, No. 1, Jan-Feb 1958, Paul W. Klipsch)

RE: For proper sound staging and imaging the speakers need to be one fourth of the length of the room away from the back wall, and one fourth of the width of the room away from the side walls.

This is only valid for speakers that were designed specifically for non-corner placement in an attempt to have the speaker ignore the rooms physical & acoustical properties. If one ignores the rooms physical & acoustical properties, how are you to maximize speaker performance to take advantage ideal (or even near ideal) acoustical/room conditions? You cant.

Those opposed to corner speakers, should be subject to scrutiny for motive, for certainly their views are the opposite of the scientists who have been mainly responsible for the creation of the art and of evaluation and advancing its features. PWK

You need to do some more studying regarding things like Basic Principles of Stereophonic Sound, W.B. Snow, or the Bell Labs Symposium on Auditory Perspective. The laws of physics have not changed since 1934. And neither has the human auditory apparatus.

Welcome to the Forum

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FWIW, my music room dimensions are 18.6' x 16' x 8.67'. The horns are on the long wall. The listening position is about three feet behind the the point where the speaker axis' cross. Subjectively, the sound is very good, with the exception of some problematic bass response that is noticable on some material. The room measures very flat with the exception of a dip at 100hz, a bit of rise in the 60-80hz range, and then a major dip at about 50hz. response at 31.5hz is nearly back up to the midrange level, due to room modes at 31 and 35 hertz. Subjectively, the bass sounds tight and solid with my seeting position near the back wall, although the measured peaks and dips do manifest themselves at times, usually as noticable changes in level of bass guitar or bass fiddle during ascending/descending lines.

I find it difficult to get the desired room dimensions in a basement because of the ceiling height limitations. Using the 1/1.3/1.6 ratio, my 8.67' ceilings would only allow a room of app. 11.27 W by 13.87 L. Hardly klipschorn proportions!

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I had a set of lascala's that sounded great in my house and figured that the k-horns would sound better,not so.My friend Jim (a very talented carpenter) wanted a pair of K-horns also.He bought a junk pair,we took them apart,measured and built two pair.It was not good for me.His sounded great and still do,my room did not do so well.

I traded mine away and just last week finally bought another pair of lascalas and am happy again.the back wall where the speakers sit is only 11 feet wide,the room 30 feet long.8 foot ceiling.On the right is an alcove app. 5 foot by 7.5 feet then an openig to the foyer then an area(dining room) that is 12.5 x 9.5 with bar opening 7 foot by three foot into the kitchen.

The k-horns I traded away sound great in my friends house,it's a large room with cathedral ceilings.

Sorry to be so long winded,Randy

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Our music room is 20x12x8. We have excellent corners. The Klipschorns are on the long wall. A (additive phantom chanel) Cornwall is in the center. A sofa is on the other long wall. No carpets. All Williamson driven. If it gets any better than this my wife will have to call the mortuary.

As a footnote, ceiling fans can cause faux doppler distortion! Turn them off for serious listening.

DR BILL

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  • 17 years later...

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