Rudy81 Posted December 9, 2008 Share Posted December 9, 2008 Soundbound: Is your top hat attached to the bass bin in any way? I would guess the weight of the top hat will be enough to keep it in place. My problem is that I would have to remove the threaded rods that currently connect the top hat to the bass bin. I try hard to not do any damage to the speaker cabinets. I like the idea of being able to orient the false corner square to the room corners, but yet be able to angle the mid and tweeter toward the sweet spot. I played a lot with those angles and I like the imaging and soundstage much more whith the tweeters aimed at my head. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundbound Posted December 10, 2008 Share Posted December 10, 2008 My top hats are not attached to anything. My top hat just sits on two halved racket balls, one under each front corner and one tennis ball in back middle. As you move the tennis ball toward the front more, it tilts the top hat down more toward your ears level as needed. The balls also stops all resonance from the bass bin and false corner from reaching the top hats and their horns and I think that's very important, because that bass can really resonate them squawker and high horns! People talk about the squawker driver ringing its metal horn, but that bass from the bass bin really resonates them top hats and their horns and that's not good. The false corners can resonate good at high volumes and big bass, but I have found that the rubber balls stop all resonating from reaching the top hats and their horns. The balls also stabilize your top hat from moving anywhere. Like you found the rubber slippers do for your bass bins on your false corners. I painted the halved racket balls black to match the corners and you can't see them well nor the tennis ball either because its too far back. The added false corner top board also helps to stabilize the false corner walls. Make sure the top board goes all the way to the very rear of the false corner, just like your bottom board should be too. It also allows you to direct your top hats toward your sweet spot. Being able to angle the high hat's squawker and tweeter toward the sweet spot is a major plus for better imaging and sound stage. Using the balls even allows a downward position too. Pin point high hat aiming. Very nice indeed! With a top board, you'll have to make the false corner height enough to be able to slide the bass bin in easy enough. Mine is very close. I only gave mine around 3/4". I'd go an 11/4", because you'll have a little sag. I had to put some small wedges between the false corner top board and bass bin to stop the slightly sagging top board from some buzzing against the top of the bass bin. I also added some Home Depot stiff carpet padding between the false corner's walls and the walls of the house to help keep the false corners walls from resonating and the house walls. The padding is tacked to the rear of the false corner's walls. Once the bass bin is in, I give the false corners a good push into the house walls/corners tightly and the total weight keeps them in place real good. You being able to orient your false corners square to your room corners will give you better bass because of direct use of your house walls for your bass bin's extended horn mouth. My false corners are completely air tight. All parts silicone and screwed together. I went with 3/4" MDF because it's a stable wood and has good heft to it. 1" MDF would be even better. I used silicone so I can take them apart if needed to move. They're too big and heavy in one piece to move out of room to another location. Easy enough to take apart by removing screws and razor blade silicone between board joints. The original board that's on the very back of the Klipschorn is removed. I made a new one out of 3/4" MDF and it's mounted to the false corner direct instead and sealed air tight. The bass bin just slides back until it hits that board. The two extra added boards that flare out from the bass bin's front to the front of the false corners are not permanent. They just have felt on their tops and bottoms. I push the false corner's slightly sagged top board up and slide them into position once the bass bin is in place. The top board holds them in place when I let it go. They also help to stabilize the top board. We found that they even helped by improving the bass response some. The link I already posted on my corners will give you more information. No guarantees applied by me for those who build these will get my results. Mileage/sound results will surely vary. They don't cost much or are too hard to build, so if you want to try them, I recommend giving them a try to see if you get good results with them. Let me know. Klipsch actually built Klipschorns with corners built to their backs, kind of like mine, but only to the front of the bass bins for movie theaters without good corners. A forum member here has some as his avatar photo. I'm not talking about the 60Th anniversary closed back edition. This spring I'm building top hats to original factory style with the K-77 and K-55 in one cabinet. Only difference will be removable grill cloth fronts screens. My original top hat cabinets were in bad condition, so I just built me some seen in photo I posted. I don't blame you from not wanting to damage your original cabinets and I wouldn't do that in anyway myself if mine came with good original ones. I hope I was able to help you out in someway. If you have any further questions, feel free to ask. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy81 Posted December 10, 2008 Share Posted December 10, 2008 Soundbound: Thank you for the detailed explanation. Like yours, my false corners weigh a heck of a lot. In my case, each side is one piece of 3/4 MDF sandwiched between two pieces of 3/4" plywood, glued and screwed. They are vey heavy and not easy to move. My tentative plan is to remove the top hat, ensure the bass bin is tightly sealed along the tail board, add the top board to the corner and attach it to the false corner 'walls'. Then just sit the top hat as you did. As I said earlier, I do not want to make any major changes to the top hat in case I don't find this change to be permanent. I have to figure out what to do with the two threaded pins that extend from the bottom of the top hat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundbound Posted December 10, 2008 Share Posted December 10, 2008 If the two threaded pins that extend from the bottom of your top hat aren't too long, the balls that the top hat will be sitting on will keep them high enough from hitting the top board of the false corner. My top hat doesn't sit flush on the false corner's top board, but is suspended up on balls. Kind of like shock absorbers or shocks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy81 Posted December 10, 2008 Share Posted December 10, 2008 If the two threaded pins that extend from the bottom of your top hat aren't too long, the balls that the top hat will be sitting on will keep them high enough from hitting the top board of the false corner. My top hat doesn't sit flush on the false corner's top board, but is suspended up on balls. Kind of like shock absorbers or shocks. I am currently in the planning stage for this project. I will need to cut one piece of 5/8" plywood in order to raise the bin height to equal the height of the false corner. Then, I plan to add the top 3/4' plywood to the structure and attach it to the sides as well as screwing it into the first piece of plywood. I may take a look at how difficult it would be to carefully remove the threaded pins....or see what I else I can come up with. I sure hope this project is worth the time. I already spent 3 hours working on the first iteration of this idea which produced no improvement in my room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundbound Posted December 11, 2008 Share Posted December 11, 2008 It will be OK if your false corner is 5/8" higher than your bass bin. You want some extra false corner height so you can slide the bass bin in and out of the false corner. Make sure your top board goes all the way to the very back of the false corner where the walls come together. You don't want any sound getting out of the very top of the back of the false corner where your walls meet back there. That sounds escapes out of the bass bin's top without a false corner top board to direct it down and out the sides. I will tell you straight up that for me adding my false corner top board gave me bass bin sonic improvement. My good buddy an audio guru was present during testing and he can surely verify. When I dropped that top board on, the bass output improvement was very apparent with no doubt at all. It would not be there if I got no benefit from it. I would have just screwed the top hats to the bass bins and slid them into the corners like you have done. Actually if any of the false corner or the false corner itself did no sonic improvements for me, they or it would not be there. I have two good house corners and would be happier with just the Klipschorns in them. Sure would look better without those big ugly false corners. We tested bass bin only placed in house corner. Sounded good. Bass bin on false corner bottom board in house corner. Improvement. Bass bin with walls of the false corner in house corner. Improvement. Bass bin on false corner bottom board and walls in house corner. Improvement. Bass bin on false corner bottom board, walls and top board in house corner. Improvement. Sorry you got no results with your already spent 3 hours working on the first iteration of this idea which produced no improvement in your room. You need to consider what I stated above, " No guarantees applied by me for those who build these will get my results. Mileage/sound results will surely vary." I'll be disappointed too if you don't get sonic benefits, but audio is a funny thing at times, so nothing surprises me anymore. Everyone's audio system, room, hearing, tweaks and expectations vary. I enjoy putting time into this hobby of audio. I've spend a lot of hours doing things that I just had to right off as not being a benefit after all, but enjoyed doing them anyway. Only go further with this if you'll be OK with no end sonic benefits in case you get none or you'll for sure be mad at me and I don't want that. I'm not trying to sell anything here, just sharing something that worked for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy81 Posted December 11, 2008 Share Posted December 11, 2008 Soundbound: Well, the results are in. I spent over half a day working on a full enclosure for the bass bin, using my false corners. I went all out to ensure the top, bottom and tailboard of the bass bin were totally sealed. I removed the top hat and got a piece of 3/4" cabinet grade hardwood plywood to make the top for the corner, thus enclosing the bass bin like you did. It took all day since I spent extra time totally sealing the bass bin and ensuring the new top was sealed against the top of the bin. I really had great expectations for the project. The only thing I did not do was paint the top. I figured I would work on cosmetics once I proved the concept. After working for many hours on this project, spending about $100 on rubber seals, screws, oak plywood etc, the results were truly disappointing. Fortunately, I only did one bin and figured I'd use the other speaker to compare. Adding the top to the bass bin did absolutely nothing. There was no difference in just listening to music, or running a low freq. sweep and measuring various points on the sweep with my sound meter. Both speakers performed the same. Frankly, the original one sounded better to me with music. The low freq. sweeps were the same. I really expected bass performance to improve by sealing the top of the bin with a full size 'lid'. In my case, it made absolutely no difference! In fact, I prefer the sound of the speaker with just the false corner and no top. I spent some time, energy and money on the project, but at least I know it made no difference for me. As a matter of fact, I even moved the modded corner flush against the wall corner to see if that provided a deeper bass. Not so, no advantage over the basic false corner that is a little over a foot from the room corner. Spent another hour returning the modded speaker back to the way it was. For me, it looks better and sounds just as good if not better than the totally enclosed bass bin. In sound, it is all subjective and YMMV. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundbound Posted December 12, 2008 Share Posted December 12, 2008 I'm sorry your money and time were waisted. I am surely surprised and also very disappointed that you got no sonic benefits. I figured you would and that's why I put in the effort into this thread for you, but made sure I only told you what it did for me and not what you would get. It's good you only did one for comparison and was able to return it back in a short time. It's also surprising that placing your false corner completely back into your house corner gave you no benefits either. I've spent many hours and some money doing audio improvements others swear by and got no results myself. Learning that, I never do anything with expectations anymore. I've learned in audio that what works for one may not for another. I still do them anyway, because I enjoy this audio hobby and spending time tinkering in it and if I get improvements it's good and if not I still enjoy trying and learning. From this thread experience, I've learned it's probably best for me to be silent on audio tweaks. It seems in audio, your mileage will vary. YMWV. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy81 Posted December 12, 2008 Share Posted December 12, 2008 Please don't be silent on your tweaks. Had it not been for the discussion on this thread regarding removing carpet and adding grippers, I would not have had the great benefit in bass that I discovered for my system. Heck, I just tried the Crites woofers since some had reported slightly better bass, which I am not sure is the case. I think part of the reason I did not see a major improvement with your tweak is that my corner was really heavy and thick to begin with. The sides of my corner are triple ply plywood and MDF. Had it been only a single sheet of plywood, it may have made a difference by stiffening the structure. Like you, I too enjoy the process of learning and trying new things. At least now I know that my setup is as good as I can get it performance wise without doing major structural changes to the house. These changes are a lot like folks who swear by better sound when they change brand of interconnects and speaker wire. It is all subjective. I tried to be as objective as possible. Heck, I hoped it would make an improvement, in my case it just didn't. No big deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IndyKlipschFan Posted December 12, 2008 Share Posted December 12, 2008 Spend some time on my original thread... Lots of good info here... http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/t/83016.aspx?PageIndex=1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy81 Posted December 13, 2008 Share Posted December 13, 2008 Spend some time on my original thread... Lots of good info here... http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/t/83016.aspx?PageIndex=1 I had originally followed your thread with great interest and now just finished reading it again. I have considered trying that idea as well, but don't beleive it will improve my bass performance any over my current setup. My large, very heavy false corners allow me to turn my Khorns and set my sweet spot where I want it. I would try the idea just for fun if I didn't have to drill holes in the cabinets. Perhaps sometime I will have a chance to listen to some Khorns with backs. Then, I can judge if any more changes would be worth the effort. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbakedq Posted December 17, 2008 Share Posted December 17, 2008 You can also take a look at what I did. Very easy, and it works. http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/t/109982.aspx Rich Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy81 Posted December 17, 2008 Share Posted December 17, 2008 Rich: Very interesting idea. I like that it is minimally intrusive on the original cabinet. I really like the ES crossovers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbakedq Posted December 17, 2008 Share Posted December 17, 2008 Yes, only a few holes. I do like the ALK ES Xovers. Is that what you have? Rich Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy81 Posted December 17, 2008 Share Posted December 17, 2008 No, I have the ALK universals with Bob Crites CT125 tweeters and cast woofers. I also saw you had Al's trachorns. Those must be amazing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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