My terrible secret

[Randy Bey]

For those who do not surf http://www.audioasylum.com I offer this up as evidence of my decrepitude.

I have been ruminating about ways to extend the bass response on my Khorns. A couple of fairly innocent and reversible suggestions included bypassing the 2.5mH choke and stuffing the rear chamber with fibreglass.

So last night I go on an experimental binge and pull the speakers away from the corners.

Updated the right speaker with both the shunt and the bass chamber stuffing at the same time. I figure this double change to be OK since I had done the choke bypass in essence a while back, found it brought a bit of "spring" to the bass, so was prepared for the results.

The left speaker I started to put the shunt in and..... noticed that the last time I updated the crossovers, adding a couple of Hovland caps to the tweet, I.... I.... this is so embarrassing. I connected the squawker to the woofer and vice versa!

I've been running my left K like this for maybe three months!

Arrgh. How could I not have noticed? Many, many is the time since then that I've sat down and listened blissfully to the music. There HAD to have been a serious dip in response from that speaker. The woofer rolls off naturally around 600 Hz and I can't imagine the squawker producing much below that.

Arrgghh. It hurts just to think of it. I think I'll turn in my "Golden Ears" award. I am clearly a charlatan.

Oh, BTW, the bass now sounds positively subterranean, and the midrange is to die for.

This message has been edited by Randy Bey on 06-04-2001 at 12:50 PM

[Ray Garrison]

Hi, My name is Ray and I'm an audiophile...

I have, at various times:

1) listened to my system for hours on end, thinking how wonderful everything sounded, only to find out (by looking... sometimes you can see a lot, just by looking...) that my daughter had turned the mode selector on the TEAC so that I was listening to the left channel signal only, sent in mono to both speakers;

2) listened to my system for hours on end, thinking how wonderful everything sounded, only to find out that someone ( ) had pressed the MONO button;

3) listened to my system for hours on end, thinking how wonderful everything sounded, only to find out that the voice coil had separated from the cone on the woofer on the right channel (old VMPS system, not Klipsch...);

Bottom line, it's amazing how stong the tendency is to hear what we want to hear... one of the big arguments of the "subjective measurements are worthless" camp. Note that in each case I mentioned above, once I fixed the problem, and heard things played correctly, the differences were not at all subtle. Hard to believe it had sounded so, uh, wrong but I hadn't noticed.

Went to demo a pair of Snell A's at Take 5 Audio in New Haven once some years ago. Sat in listening room with salesman for, like, an hour listening to tunes. Mentioned that I thought the balance was a bit off center, asked if he could check setting. We found ( ) that one of the speakers was DISCONNECTED...

For what it's worth, the only two setup errors that I've found to be absolutely unequivicably unambiguously detectable every time even when I had no idea something was wrong are: (1) speakers don't make any noise 'cause power's off, or cables disconnected, or something ( ), and (2) speakers are out of phase. Out of phase, once you've heard it, sounds really, really weird.

Ray

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Music is art

Audio is engineering

[Randy Bey]

I remember a post I made when I did the capacitor change, and saying that the change was WAY more noticable than I would have thought, expecting a minor change at best.

I continued to listen, as a good drone does, for several days until I got "used" to the sound, and came to like it.

Also, I think the bass driver still had output since I think the squawker is not rolled off at the bottom, but rather the natural attenuation is allowed to take care of it. So at least some bass was making it's way through.

But the midrange had to be way low, being fed a signal derived off the 2.5Mh choke.

[soundog]

I recently attended the Home Entertainment Exhibition in NYC and was most impressed by Perpetual Technologies' speaker correction engine ( a digital computerized device that corrected for the dips and peaks in any speaker sysem) ... it really made a significant difference ... but I have also been amazed to find that when I'm in a great mood my system ,,, even my car system seems to sound a lot bettter ,,, i also remember from my mispent drug using days that even a so so system could sound great while high from smoking pot ... which leads me to beleive that the human brain can be quite a speaker correction engine.

[WMcD]

Well, maybe we can conclude that:

Bass really is non directional,

electronic metering would detect problems our ears don't hear,

Klipsch speakers sound great under adverse conditions.

Makes sense,

Gil

[Colin]

Hi, My name is Colin and I'm a tweaking audiophile...

I have, at various times:

h Listened to speakers that are out of phase despite the fact that the cables are labeled

h Dreamt of chucking everything off a tall bridge and getting a small white Bose system with those cute little jewel horns that twist to face different directions and then because the bass is so bland and dull on those cute little systems, adding a couple of Klipsch sub-woofers, a pair of super tweeters ¡K. (well, you get the idea, right back to where I started)

h Listened to demonstrations at the dealers only to find out that one speaker was not hooked up at all

h Forgot to reconnect a tweeter wire so that the stereo always sounded off on one side

h Plugged the turntable into the wrong inputs and wondered why the sound was so muted (stereo cabinets need lights at the back)

h Collected all sorts of bargain equipment that only needs this new ¡§pot¡¨ or that new driver and yet never gets fixed because it was bargain equipment even when it worked

h Listened to absolutely wonderful configurations of amps and speakers all the while telling myself that my system was just as good and only cost 1/10th of the price

h Conveniently forget just how much "moola" has gone into this live music reproduction system of mine

h Constantly compare this hobby to certain other hobbies that require far more money just to get out on the water, and that donesn¡¦t include the gas and the beer

h Believed that the CD really was the ultimate recording and music format and that they would last forever

h Talked myself into placing the speakers in positions that would look good, but do not sound great, thereby ruining true enjoyment of the system for long periods of time, as much as a few years

h Bought great looking equipment knowing that friends would say ¡§wow, cool xxx, sounds great too¡¨ when really the ugly looking old amplifiers sounded much better

h Considered improving the car audio system just because people think that since I am ¡§into stereos¡¨ my car system should be ¡§good¡¨ too

h Forced guests to sit in the sweet spot and listen to music that they know when actually they could care less and they just want to talk

h Used my precious music reproduction system not as a well though-out, patiently constructed finely tuned tool for audio nirvana but as mere adolescent tool to seduce women

Began a twelve step program at my local BBS ¡K

[jdm56]

As soon as I quit laughing...I'll...wait a minute.

OK. Yeah, been there my friends. Especially, I can relate to the mono thing; I have these Louvin Brothers CDs that are mono, and do sound much better with the system in mono mode. Well of course, being the somewhat dopey human that I am, I have occasionally left the mono button pushed, and then the next day just marveled at the "tightness and solidity" of that soundstage! Usually before an hour or so though, I will realize that it's just a little too tight and solid...

I must also confess to herding guests into the sweet spot, just knowing they will surely hear the magic I hear. I end up feeling like some failed, demented, mad scientist - WHAT? YOU DON'T HEAR THE VOICES?

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JDMcCall

[Clint Phare]

Please take this post as sarcastic humor as it is intended to be:

Randy, I am suprised that you did not find an improvement to your system by connecting the sqwaker to the woofer. Upon reading your post it got about 8- 10 members of this board to do it also and your all happy and just wondering what would happen if you slapped the 10 cell altec ballast in there to boot! Then up comes the post from Al K. saying It does'nt look to good on the scope and you modifiers listen again and say that Al might be right on this one. Kidding aside I can only envy the effort, time and interest all of you put in to your systems attempting to reach the Holy Grail! I can only dream of a time in my life when I could spend the time and effort doing the same!

[John Warren]

there are industries built around "audiophiles", cables and tubes come to mind.

This message has been edited by John Warren on 06-05-2001 at 05:11 AM

[djk]

The K55V will handle full range 30 watts program material.It is basically a paging horn driver.Since it is 16 ohms the 2.5mH woofer inductor will cause it to roll off above 1Khz.Been there and done that.The first Klipschorn I bought had a bad midrange driver.It came from a music store.One of the salesman liked to play his electric guitar straight through the midrange driver.They accepted my very generous offer of $90 for the said Klipschorn.

[Shock-Late]

It reminds me one day after spending an evening at a friend's house, listening to music on a Bang and Olufsen system feeding Bose acoustimass speakers; back in my listening room, in front of my scalas, the sound i heard was strangely similar to that of the Bose system. I spent a few hours thinking "i thought I had a good system and it sound not better than a Bose plastic cube! Then I noticed the speakers were connected out of phase.

Bose has the only speakers that sound like out-of-phase klipsch. It costs less, after all...Does an out-of-phase Bose system sound like in-phase Klipsch? maybe i should try

[Spider124]

Just wanted to add that I may have found myself a pair of La Scalas, and that I look forward to sharing in these experiences.

Shock-Late: Actually, I would guess that an out-of-phase Bose Acoustimass system sounds like a small hunk of crap that you just wasted $1500 on; the same as the in-phase Bose Acoustimass system sounds.

Charlie

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"What's that noise?" "It's the carpet, it kinda mutes the speakers." "No, it sounded more like the chandalier falling."

[sunnysal]

Shock, the real question is WILL THE OUT OF PHASE BOSE CUBES SOUND LIKE MY K-HORNS??? I am gonna run right over to sears and try that right now!...

[cc1091]

story #1

The salesman at the fancy stereo store was trying to sell me a subwoofer. He was commenting to me about how smoothly the sub blended with the B&W 602 sattelites that we were listening to. He kept trying to elicit an opinion on this from me. Finally, on his third try I obliged him by saying Uncertainly, "You know, I just can't hear the sub at all." To which he tried to boost the bass using the sub's loudness controls. Moments later, he was switching switches and tracing wires. Turns out that I was right. I really couldn't hear the sub..neither could he.. Ah yes, those 6" kevlar cones on the B&W 602s ARE pretty good at bass production.

story #2

I was proud of the Boston Acoustic plate speakers that I had mounted in the rear deck of my '80 something Mercury Monarch. The 4" clear plastic drivers coupled with the cubic volume of the Monarch's (Granada by any other name) trunk produced a fair ammount of deep bass, while the Boston Acoustic tweeter lived up to it family name by producing very competent clean high-end. A year or more later (before the end of the warranty), I received a notice from Boston Acoustics that I cold get the low frequency drivers on this speaker replaced for free by bringing it by an authorized Boston Acoustic dealer. "Hmmm..Why is that?" I thought. I drove the car for a few days more, not thinking about the letter I had received & listening to the awesome sounds from these speakers. Finally one day I did hear an odd vibration from these speakers and remembered the letter. Looking through the rear window I could see that the clear plastic 4" driver had SHATTERED. The noise I heard was a piece of the hard plastic vibrating on what was left of the rest of the cone. I wondered how long it had been like this. Strangly, the bass (aside from an extra buzz) didn't sound all that bad.

Sound is often good. Sound with extra high and low end is even sweeter.