K HORNS TO BE MODIFIED

[DAX616]

I recently purchased a pair of k horns from the 70's and I am using a david hafler 220 with preamp. I have a large basement room. I love the sound but the highs seem to drive past the mids and base. What can I do to get a percussive mid range (90 to 120Hz?) without piercing highs at higher volume?I believe the woofer must cover 450 hz - 30hz. Is this range excessive? I usually have the tone set @ max for base and treble or minus depending on the selection and I like the clarity and pitch. I am a relative newcomer and if anyone in the herndon va or surrounding area has some mod's I can see and listen to, it would be a great help.

[hwatkins]

Well DAX - if you like the hard right on your tone controls, then I suggest you first turn the treble tone control a bit to the left until you get the sound you desire. It is a reasonable start to equalize - I am not surprised that treble tone control at maximum delivers an over powering HF.

[Frzninvt]

It's not the speakers that need tweeking, it is the amplifier that you are using and the way you have the tone controls set. They should be dead center/flat or just slightly between 12 and 1 O'clock no wonder the highs are unbearable. Either that or the room acoustics are wreaking havoc on the tones. How far apart are they, are they seated properly into the corners? Is this a CD or record you are listening to? What type of CD player is it. There are so many variables that come into play here so the more info you can provide the better folks will be able to assist you.

[DAX616]

Yes I have been told that tone controls are an audiophile no-no and every body hears different but the "flat" adjustment does'nt sound good to me with my equipment. It seems to muddle and the bass doe'snt give me the vibrating back massage. I was only able to afford the dh220 and it was a deal at that, it's older but the spec's looked good far better than my old pioneer.What amp you would reccomend and how does the hd 220 fall short with these speakers? I am using a sony cd\dvd player I'll have to check the model. I have one khorn in a good corner, the other has a patio glass door to one side.I have roughly 15ft between the speakers. I am building a partion hopefully tonight to help the bass. What would be a good material to use speaker side ? Thanks for all of your responses.

[3dzapper]

Dax, Welcome to the forum!

Go down to Odds and Mods and look for the thread "More extended highs for AA network" That little mod might be just what you are looking for. It works great on my 1977s.

Also dampening the K400 horn with rope caulk is a nice improvement that costs very little.

I've brought that thread to tht top for you to read.

Rick

[Frzninvt]

Most if not all DVD/CD combo players will sound overly bright on CD playback, there are only a handful that actually sound good when playing back CD's it is difficult for these unit to do both well. I would try a dedicated CD player to see if anything improves, it need not be a big dollar CD player either.

[Chris Robinson]

Dax, welcome to the forum. I think you'll get lots of input to your questions.

I'm not familiar with you amp (personally), but it appears to be a 220W solid state amp? Is this correct? Based on some quick internet research, it appears to be a nice amp.

A couple of things come to mind. First, Klipschorns have a tendency to be a little "forward" in the mid-range. Depending on the age of your K-horns and the crossover model, some are more forward than others. If you can supply your model type and date of manufacture (or serial number), that will help.

Some folks will try to dampen the midrange horn throat with Dynamat or similar material; it helps to reduce some of the "ring" that people hear in the midrange, again depending on the source, amplification and crossover.

In my 1976 Klipschorns, I replaced the crossover with a pair of Al Klappenberger's ALK networks (see www.alkeng.com). One of the nice features of this crossover is that it give you tap options on the transformer to attenuate the midrange by -7db or so, backing the midrange off a bit. I used this feature when I was running a KT88-based tube amp into the Klipschorns; it was just a little too bright and too forward.

I am now running low power SET 2A3 tubes into the K-horns and have a very smooth midrange. The taps are back to their normal setting.

This begs two questions: (1) are you dealing with unwanted reflections off the walls in your basement room? and/or (2) have you tried a lower-powered tube amp in the same environment?

Because Klipschorns are big and produce a LOT of sound, you can get a lot of secondary and tertiary sound reflections, esp. in the midrange. You may want to search "artto" 's posts in the 2-channel forum for more reading on this. He's posted quite a bit about room acoustics. Sound absorbing material in a big room is a help.

Your amp may be a bit over-powered for the Klipschorns too. Typically, higher powered solid state amps have a lot of distortion at lower output levels, although they're quite clean at higher levels. With a 104db-sensitive speaker like the K-horn, however, you may never get the amp to output more than 20W peak. That end of the power curve is not too clean and may sound shrill in the midrange.

These are all guesses and assumptions on my part, but it's a start.

[ttaylor]

Both the problems you probably have have been brought up. I have La Scalas(same HF and Mid) and they sound mediocre when using my Hafler DH200. The problem is that these Mosfet amps arent designed to be used at a fraction of a watt which is what a 104db efficient speakers does much of the time. I am now using a 20 watt Gainclone built with highend parts and the sound is superb. Im also working on a SET amp with a 3 watt output.

And as mentioned, your source is probably not helping. I used to have a Pioneer DVD player that was replaced so I took it to the garage to use as a CD player. The Philips diskman which had been used, complete with cheezy miniplug adaptor and all sounded far more natural than the Pioneer DVD/CD. This points out that those that really think digital is digital are misguided. Parts and implementation are critial. And if you listen to classic rock, you are going to hear all the crap that is in the poor recordings and bad remixes on such a revealing speaker. I cant play alot of CDs on my Klipsches that I can on my mini-monitors/sub combos.

ttaylor

[Chris Robinson]

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On 1/16/2004 1:59:06 PM ttaylor wrote:

I cant play alot of CDs on my Klipsches that I can on my mini-monitors/sub combos.

ttaylor

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Amen.

One of the nice "helpers" to this problem is the upsampling route, such as what Philips did in their DVD963SA. I have one but use it in the home theater with a digital out only.

Last year, I was over at LeoK's house, and we listened to some of my worst CDs (intentionally selected), and fired up the Philips' up-sampler. Boy, did it make a HUGE improvement. We were using the analog out's into his parafeed, cobalt Moondogs.

For the $360 the Philips costs, it could bring back your CD library.

[hatetubeamps]

I suggest you use a lighter to burn em' Buy a new a pair and your problems will go away. :-)

[Parrot]

Dax,

It's not that tone controls are bad, but turning them full on is unrealistic. You may simply be used to unnatural sound. The Klipschorn gives a realistic bass sound, it does not give the fake kind of bass you hear out of pumped-up subwoofers. If you're used to having the treble spiked, it's understandable that the highs would sound muffled when brought down to where they should be. I'd recommend you listen for some time, days if necessary, with the tone controls flat. This will allow you to get used to what the sound should be like. Maybe you'll end up wanting to move a control a notch or two one way or the other. You are fighting against yourself if you want less highs but have the treble control cranked.

[DAX616]

I will probably try to alligator clip a 1u capacitor in parrallel from the main + terminal to the + of the tweeter as a quick mod ( I think I got that right) as well as pad the mid horn. I will also adjust my tone levels down and try to reach a happy medium. I have a regular cd player for the source, I'l give that a go too. I'll get the measurements of my room when i get home and check the acoustics threads that were recommended. Wow alot to do. Great responses, keep em comming I'm sure I'll have more questions once I get hands on tonight. My last stereo cost about $35.00 from garage sales and hand me downs so forgive my tone dependence. I have noticed these speakers pick up alot of details I've missed previously, and the quality varies from group to group. Can't do much about the amp right now, I'm trying to recoup from the speaker purchase. I do chassis design with solid edge for customers, I have access to a fab shop and prevoiusly did sheet metal work. I may be willing to deal on chassis fab and design for tube know how. I'm in herndon Va.When I was 18 my friend told me I would woe the day I stepped into the bar, someone should have warned me about audio.

[Parrot]

A lot of CDs are mastered with a goosed-up high end so that they sound decent on average speakers. That may account for some of what you're hearing. But whether this applies or not, hard to say, because we don't know if everything you listen to sounds bad or just some of it. Do you have any known well-mastered CDs, let's say some old gold DCC titles? Those definitely will not have a piercing high end, so if those bug you, there is something seriously wrong.

[D-MAN]

Some food for thought... I may be all wet on this, but here's my experience with irritatingly bright frequency response.

If you move around and the sound changes drastically or sounds better in one place than another, its the room, not the system (if the sweet spot is not where it should be, etc). Granted it ALWAYS will sound different if you move around, but we are talking about the "sweet spot", i.e., where you sit and expect the sound to be the best. If your system is ACTUALLY producing (or preproducing) harsh sound electronically then it will be more "harsh" spread around the place a bit more than would be expected. I would not think that this would be the case, although Khorns will certainly reproduce a harsh waveform as accurately as any thing else.

I run my corner horns "flat", i.e., zero bass or treble boost and/or cut and "treat" the listening environment to prevent upper frequency reflections as much as possible, which are probably the problem especially if you are noticing a "bite" or harshness to the upper frequencies; another indication of this is an indistinct "sound stage" or indistict "imaging". Actually rather than trying to boost the bass end which is not going to cure any of the above, I would try to reduce the mid/tweet REFLECTIONS first. This could be a simple mechanical issue that has to due with room absorbtion characteristics, reflectivity and modal effects due to architechural elements in the listening area including the dimensions of the listening space itself (reflection induced mathematical frequency doubling or halving, aka: "modes", etc).

If you can't control the room first, then how can you control the speakers? I think horns tend to be particularily touchy about environment more than other types of speakers due to 2 things:

(1)dispersion characteristics (they are designed for max coverage and sit against a corner and therefore are more subject to wall reflections due to the combination of proximity to each wall and wider dispersion than most direct radiating speakers)

(2)efficiency (they are much more efficient so tend to exagerate the rooms deficiencies sound-wise)

So I have found that I tend to try to "equalize" the room rather than the system...

Good luck

DM

[Klewless]

DAX616

Be very careful about passing more signal to the tweeter, espcially with a high powered amp.

It is very fragil when it comes to power and needs a sharp cutoff.

My experience with Klipsch (35+ years and still counting) has been to turn off all tone controls (or set them flat). If things are too bright, start looking for room problems (too live, need properly placed furniture / curtains, etc to soak up the highs).

As for real gut pounding bass that does not interfere with the rest, a high quality subwoofer does wonders!

Good luck

[Daddy Dee]

Hi Dax,

Welcome to the forum. I'd been using Hafler since 1980 and a DH220 since 1984. When I got a pair of LaScala's, I found them to be too bright. Now, hafler builds pretty good stuff, and perhaps my amp needed to be recapped for it's age, but it was not satisfactory to my ears. A 104db efficient speaker will reveal EVERYTHING about it's source. I ended up swapping out gear and listening to tubes on amplification and even a tubed CD player for a source. I'm very pleased with how this sounds now with my Khorns, and do not even use my tone controls at all. Well, occasionally to boost the bass for MUZAK at low levels.

In my understanding of what the tech savvy people talk about, is that Klipsch Heritage require an amp that is very clean in it's first watt of output. Less efficient speakers are more forgiving. SS amps have the ability to have a really clean first watt, but it can usely be done for less bucks with tubes. That has been true of my experience.

I've had good results with a vintage Harmon Kardon 430 receiver. It was just a few bucks and is complementary to Heritage.

[soundog]

There are a number of great suggstions here. With my Khorns I found the highs sounded smoother with 1) ALK crossovers 2) a tube preamp into a high quality solid state amp 3) a high quality DAC for the CDs 4) jitter reduction devices for the CDs 5) room accoustics with the right combination of absorption, reflection and defusion elements.

A lot of work and experimentation but well worth it!

[AndyKubicki]

A lot of CDs are mastered with a goosed-up high end so that they sound decent on average speakers. That may account for some of what you're hearing. But whether this applies or not, hard to say, because we don't know if everything you listen to sounds bad or just some of it. Do you have any known well-mastered CDs, let's say some old gold DCC titles? Those definitely will not have a piercing high end, so if those bug you, there is something seriously wrong.

Paul is making a good and often overlooked point here. This is especially true of earlier CDs. If you have a turn table you can make the comparison yourself if you have both, the record and the CD. I've done this and found that some CDs, like Emerson Lake & Palmer are REALLY bumped up in the treble range. There are others which are also bumped up, though not to the same point. Yet others will sound almost the same. It's all part of the chain.

[DAX616]

After considering all of these suggestions, my first mod was to dampen the mid horns and tweeters. I happen to have some 4" wider vinyl mastic (rubber tape) It required 2 rolls . This worked wonders. It allowed me to turn my tone controls 2 clicks past nuetral. It seems to me that maxing out the tone controls squeezes the mid range. I have looked at the links concerning accoustics and have decided to put panels opp. the staging wall.I may also use an accoustic popcorn type texture on the ceiling.Any body used it before? My room measures 30' x 22'x 8'.What is the actual formula used by artto to determine the trouble frequencies? My speakers are placed at corners along the longest wall. I have also talked to Al K and will probably purchase his crossovers for the aa's after I dampen the room. It may be my imagination but my amp seems to "clean up" at higher levels. I would reccomend dampening the metal horns along with every body else. It made a great deal of improvement and I am really starting to enjoy my k horns. This forum is invaluable for info on these speakers.

1973 k horns

hd 220 amplifier

david hafler 110 preamp

sony dvd-cd player

[sunnysal]

First: the k-horns MUST be in two good corners to make decent bass (upper bass too which falls into the voice range) before doing anything else build a flase corner for the k-horn without a corner to live in. Then: I would reconsider the amp, high powered SS amps seem to bring out the "shouty" "glary" side of the k-horns almost any time, 2-channel is full of stories about this phenomenon. Lastly: shoot for getting a system together that sounds good to you, most of the time, with the tone controls set flat. use them to tweak in small amounts from recording to recording. if they are run full on all the time you have issues, as mentioned, elsewhere in your system.

I would attend to false corners and amplification before going after source, etc.

regards, tony