Sealing Bass Bin of Khorn

[hoggy]

Hi guys/gals,

Got done with my trade last night of my Belles for Khorns. Now I need to seal them to the walls. I've read a few desciptions on how to do this but am still unclear exactly where on the Khorns I put/make the seal. Yes I hear tail board but am unsure exactly where on tail board? Any of you fine people have a picture or 2 of this?

Thx in advance,

hoggy

[artto]

Many have used foam pipe insulation that you can buy at Home Depot or other hardware stores. Vinyl/rubber/plastic floor runners or step covering material can also be used. You can slip the pipe insulation over the vertical edges of the tail board or staple the vinyl sheet to the back of the tailboard to create a 'flap' that lays firmly against the wall.

I have also sealed the gap between the top housing & the bass horn with ½ wide, ¼ thick closed cell foam, the type used in weather striping. I used the same thing around the outside edges of the top housing that fits against the corner walls. If your walls are not square, you may need to use larger material than suggested between the top & bass units. Same for the floor gap at the bass horn bottom if its on a hard floor surface.

[hoggy]

Thanks Artt,

I think I read this before. Was looking for pics to make sure I got everything sealed that needed to be. Seems this will not seal bottom of bin though where it's offet for molding and wireing. How tight of a seal does that need to be. Is it as close to a 100% seal we're trying to achieve here?

Again thx,

hoggy

[Q-Man]

hoggy,

You can buy the tail board gaskets from Klipsch. Call

and talk to the parts department, if they don't know what your talking about ask for Steve. The Klipsch gasket has a nice U shaped channel that fits on the 1/2" thick plywood tailboard. The tail board is the board that is in front on the exit hole from the bass horn on the back of the speaker. This tail board fits into the room corner at a 45 degree angle and deflects the sound waves to the left and right into the adjoining walls.

Look under Home Theater for the topic called K-Horn center channel srarted. I have a picture called side view. The second one called side view, I made a mistake and posted the wrong picture in the first one. In the sideview you are actually looking down on the Klipschorn as if it was standing in a corner. You can see how the tail board interacts with the room corner. Where the two outer sides of the tailboard touches the two walls is where the gaskets go.

[hoggy]

Thanks Q-Man,

That's what I needed.

hoggy

[HDBRbuilder]

Hoggy,

Also it is best to have the panel atop the bass bin itself sealed to the walls...not the one atop the H/F section but the one atop the BASS BIN.

If you are installing the K-horns on a SMOOTH-surfaced floor (floor without carpet or rug under the bass bin)and you want to get the most out of them, then it is best to seal them to the floor too...here is how to do it. Remove the metal gliders that are hammered into the bottom of the bass bin...there should be three or four of these. Go to Wal-mart and get a package or two per speaker of the 1" to 1-1/2" diameter black neoprene "Grippers"...they are self-adhesive. They are found in the hardware section where you find furniture leg feet and stuff. Place a minimum of one gripper at each corner of the BOTTOM of the bass bin, with another two or three or so centered at the bottom of the bass bin. This will provide a better seal to the floor which is also a part of the horn extension to either side of the bass bin.

If you doubt how this could make a difference, on a smooth surfaced floor, then listen to the K-horns with the gliders first, then give them a listen with the gliders replaced by Grippers...you will hear a NOTICEABLE difference in the bottom end extension! Grippers are a cheap fix that few ever try on K-horns on smooth surfaced floors, but some of the forum members with LaScalas have tried them and, to the best of my knowledge, EVERY one of them has noticed an improvement in bottom end extension and such.

[artto]

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On 2/19/2004 7:58:28 PM HDBRbuilder wrote:

Hoggy,

Also it is best to have the panel atop the bass bin itself sealed to the walls...not the one atop the H/F section but the one atop the BASS BIN.

----------------

Andy, I could swear I've already said that. But I guess reinforcement is always good.

[hoggy]

Thanks alot guys,

I have carpeted floors so I'm stuck there. Will do the mods asap. I now fully understand (I think :0)how to seal them.

hoggy

[hoggy]

Hmmm no see any gliders on the Khorns I have. Guess whoever was the original owner removed them. I know what they are so am sure they were removed or never installed. HDBRbuilder should I install something to the bottom when I'm on carpet? I have some speaker spikes I never installed on my Belles but have no clue how I'd get the Khorns in the corner with spikes on so thats a no go.

hoggy

[Q-Man]

No speaker spikes, unless you can give the Klipschorn a bear hug and pick it up and set it in place. And you can't do this without bending or breaking the side grill cloth attachments. Don't worry about the missing feet, they are there to make the speaker easier to slide in and out of the corner. They also help prevent chipping of the veneer plywood while draging the speaker.

Some of my Klipschorns are on carpet , so I made triangles out of 3/4" plywood and put them in the corners on top of the carpet for the Klipschorns to sit on. All this is simply using a little common sence. Have you ever seen the inside of a bass horn lined with carpet? Your floor is the bottom fold of the basshorn. Think of it like this. Paul never finished building the speaker, because if he had it would be to large for you to carry through a door way in your house. You need to finish the build once you get it into your room. That is the genius behind this speaker, the walls and floor finish out the final folds. You receive it in kit form, so maybe there should be better instructions with it. But then this would have kept a lot of non do it yourselfers from buying it. You need to read between the lines.

[hoggy]

Q-Man,

I never knew before today that the floor was part of the Bass horn. I was under the misconseption that the walls made up the rest of the woofer. Thanks for letting me know. Maybe by my ignorance this post will help others that don't know these things. How big does the triangular piece of wood have to extend past the front of the speaker? I can make these with no problem just don't want to make them bigger than need be? BTW all the pictures I seen with Khorns on carpet doesn't show them on a board.

Thx,

hoggy

[ssh]

hoggy,

My Khorns sit on 3/4", 3'x 3' plywood. I sealed the tailboards with stair tread rubber that works very well with my unplumb walls. Major improvement.

SSH

[HDBRbuilder]

Hoggy...

Look at it this way...the K-horn bass horn is basically two horn lenses in its final stage. There is one horn lens to each side of the bass bin firing forward. The horn lenses have four sides each....the mouthes of the lenses are like big vertical rectangles. One vertical side of each is the side of the bass bin itself, the other vertical side of each horn lens is the wall on either side of the bass bin. The upper horizontal sides are completed by the panel immediately atop the bass bin where it seals to the wall on each side. The bottom horizontal side is the floor itself on each side of the bass bin. Just kinda picture the midhorn lens mouth, enlarged, and rotated 90 degrees firing toward the front...one on each side of the bass bin...see? The point being made here about carpeted floors in relation to the final portion of the bass horn is similar to one carpeting the interior of the lower side of the mid-horn lens...it has the same effect. Therefore, for the maximum performance of the bass horn, the bottom horizontal sides of each BASS-Horn lens mouth (the floor) should be smooth like the vertical sides and the upper horizontal sides....IOW...smooth surfaced floor. That will yield the optimal results...but with carpeting on the floor there are other options to achieve this...one can remove the carpet in those corners...NOT very WAF-friendly!...OR one can put the bass horn down on something that sits atop that carpet...like the plywood mentioned above. That plywood need not extend any further from the corner than the front panel of the bass bin to do its job...but it needs to extend all the way to the walls on each side to finish the seal and to optimize its effect.

Artto...

Yeah, ya did!...sorry bout that...I had a long day here! LOL!

[hoggy]

Thanks,

Wonder why they didn't just put a double bottom on the Khorn with 1/2' or 1" spacers. That would have also made them easier to carry. A few more pounds wouldn't have mattered. Oh well, just one more project to get these working right. After all this I sure hope Al's crossovers do the trick because I'm favoring the Belles for overall sound. The Belles were sooooo smooooth. Dynamatting the mids in the Belles I didn't care for but I think these Khorns need it. I can get rope caulk at work and will try that. I'm off to my fathers tomorrow so won't be replying/following the forum much over next few days.

Again i want to thank all of you for your input.

hoggy

[sheltie dave]

Hoggy, the Khorns will grow on you. The sound of the Belle bass , though from a folded horn, fires at you in the same paradigm as a front firing bass reflex. The bass is "in your face," so to speak. With the Khorns, because the room enclosure is the final fold of the enclosure, you are inside the speaker.

They really are two completely different sounds. For rocking out, I run the Belles. For listening, the Khorns. It took me two months to make my peace with the Khorns, and I still have the Belles, while you are going cold turkey.

The Khorns are so good you may find you start listening to other music genres, 'cos they sound like heaven

[ZAKO]

HDBuilder....I did some frequincy tests On Khorn bass bin with & with out carpet with George Ashworth many years ago. And their wasnt a 1/2 db difference between the wood floor & carpeted floor. Ashworth was the scientist that worked with PAUL on woofer compliance issues.

[Q-Man]

Maron,

I know what you mean, when you start doing some of this stuff it is minor changes in sound.

If your a tweaker, then your always doing something to gain that 1/2 db here and there and hope they all adds up to something. If your not a tweaker, then forget about this stuff and just enjoy the music.

Many times I wish I could just sit back and enjoy. I can't, I'm always listening for stuff and I'm never satisfied untill I know that I did everythig that I could. I for one will never get there.

I recently tried adding a full top to the Klipschorn bottom. It helps at some frequencies and hinders at others. This might be better left alone.

[HDBRbuilder]

I just kinda wonder if you did anything more than just a frequency response test...numerical testing results mean little to me...unless I am testing with my ears...the seal to a smooth surfaced floor is just as important as whether it is carpeted or not...to one's ears...for that matter, it is also important how dense or stable that wooden floor is...there are so many variables involved that a simple frequency response test to determine decibel ratings is just NOT enough! Look at how many speakers you see with the same testing results as other models of other brands, then listen to them...they seldom SOUND the SAME! One would get completely different results if testing with or without carpet on, for example, a concrete slab, or a wooden floor made up of three layers of diagonal solid pine flooring, or one with two subfloor layers of solid pine with top layer of plywood, etc...the list goes on and on! In your particular test...I have no idea what the standards were...so to state flat out that a test produces "X" results without going into all the standards under which the testing was done means very little UNLESS one is planning to LISTEN to speakers in an identical environment. Not only that, but one decibel IS much more difference than many realize, since 3 decibels difference can be TWICE as loud to one's ears...wouldn't you agree? Very few home listeners do so in a laboratory...the listening environment is just as important as the set-up of a speaker. BUT it is the set-up of the speaker I was writing about here...and ...no matter how little a difference it MAY make, if that difference is an IMPROVEMENT, then it is a more OPTIMAL choice to do it that way...agreed?

[ZAKO]

HDBuilder.....Difference?...Nonsence. Remember these guys (Paul & George) AT THAT TIME. were not working in a anechoic enviroment. That came mutch later. So the frailties of a room they studied in are the same rooms you & I live in. with all the falts imagend. The last 2 feet of the floor did not show mutch to effect audability. These were repeated in many rooms. George had two rooms both identicle in size & shape. one carpeted the other not. All doors & openings the same. George Ashworth was a monophonic audiophile One Klipschorn in each room. If he wanted to do stereophonic tests on Khorns he,d come over to my place dragging mics & test equipment. Making measurments upon measurments seeing what two Khorns do to what he called Inferior phony stereo in a average room. He (like I) Recorded the St louis Philharmonic orchestra I in stereo George in mono All mics strapped to the same microphone stands. Difference? 1/2db? nonsence.

[HDBRbuilder]

Maron,

Methinks you have missed my point here. Sure, if one tests in two rooms with the same floor structure, for differences between having carpet or having NO carpet on that floor structure, then one MIGHT draw a conclusion that the results of the experiment would hold true across the spectrum of ALL floor structure types, but that would not be very scientific would it? There is much more to how the FLOOR IS BUILT that makes a difference than just what it is covered with. And there is much more to the type of carpeting, the thickness of the padding and....well...you SHOULD BE ABLE TO SEE THIS....think about it for a minute!

I am in no way refuting your measured results under the particular circumstances of your test...but those results are not written in stone...since the standards under which they were conducted do not represent a true SCIENTIFIC sampling. I could take measurements of the differences between the carpeted floor in one of my rooms here and then rip out the carpet and do a second comparison...in the same room in the same corner, and the results would likely be far different than if I did it in YOUR house...get my drift?

Mr. Paul once came by to listen to a pair of K-horns we installed in one of the sales rep's homes when I worked there. A few days later we removed the carpet from just the K-horn corners of that room, and laid wood flooring down in those corners. Then we up-ended the bass bins, and laid out a continuous bead of silicone caulk around the perimeter of the bottom of the bass bins...just about a half inch in from the edge....laid another concentric bead down to the inside of that perimeter...about another inch in...etc...etc...etc...until we had what looked like a more-or-less triangular "target" lay-out of silicone caulk beads on the k-horn bottoms. We let those beads set up overnight to where they would become akin to silicon o-rings, then uprighted the bass bins and sealed them to the floor with those set-up o-rings of silicone and the weight of the speaker, as we sealed them into the room's corners again.

We told Mr. Paul what we had done...he came by a few days later and even HE remarked on the difference which he heard compared to earlier when the K-horns were just sitting in the CARPETED corners! He did NOT, however, use any measuring devices other than his own ears, NOR did he make any comment on whether the decibels he heard the second time there were any higher or lower in number. He just remarked that the new set-up was a noticeable improvement to his ears. One thing about Mr. Paul...if he DIDN'T notice a difference, then he would NEVER have said so...he was NOT one to cater to what people WANTED to hear from him in order to appease them...IOW...if he had heard NO difference, then he would have stated something akin to "My horns sound good" instead of "My horns sound better here when installed in this manner." He also would NOT have whipped out his little notebook and written anything down about it!

Of course, he also particularly liked the tracks we played from Laurindo Almeida on guitar and Susann McDonald on harp from two DBX-encoded albums we ran using my DBX 124 unit both times he came over. One of the best ways to get Mr. Paul to stop by for a listen was to have something he really enjoyed listening to when he arrived.

If tests and measurements are your thing...then go for it...but I just go by what I have HEARD that works. I didn't mean to ruffle your feathers any.