artto and the khorn - a (depressing) review

[Marvel]

Griff,

Aphex was the original and still probably the best. I think Behringer suffers from what a lot of the semi pro companies have to deal with. Bad quality control with offshore manufacturing.

I know you haven't been around for awhile, or at least not as much. How's the back doing? Also curious if you have upgraded to the newer version of Sonar. I think that was what you were using in your studio.

Laters,

Marvel

[Griffinator]

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On 8/1/2004 2:38:32 PM Marvel wrote:

Griff,

Aphex was the original and still probably the best. I think Behringer suffers from what a lot of the semi pro companies have to deal with. Bad quality control with offshore manufacturing.

I know you haven't been around for awhile, or at least not as much. How's the back doing? Also curious if you have upgraded to the newer version of Sonar. I think that was what you were using in your studio.

Laters,

Marvel

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Hey Marvel.

Back's been terrible, really. Forced to go back to work, I've been putting terrible punishment on it of late. I expect my next logical step is going to be heading to the SS office, unless I can find a way to generate some investment dollars for my HT install business and commit to it full-time. Oddly enough, working with a few contractors (to do my gruntwork for me, i.e. lifting those Sherbourns, etc.) makes installing systems a breeze - I can sit down when I need to and rest it, and I'm moving around constantly, instead of standing in one spot for extended periods of time.

Studio's all but closed at this point. There just isn't a market for it in this area. Too many musicians convinced that they can do it themselves, and putting out crappy sounding records as a result. This area's a real uphill battle in that department - so many people looking for "good enough" instead of "the best it can be"....

I do, however, have 3.0 installed, and am enjoying the hell out of the new Sonitus stuff. I love their comp algos and have nearly forsaken my Waves collection completely as a result.

[dubai2000]

Paul,

thanks for the advice - it's appreciated. Fortunately I am on holiday right now and the shop gives me a month to try the unit. If it's crap, that should be long enough to notice its shortcomings.

Griffinator, Marvel,

I understand your points and know that Behringer hasn't got the best of reputations for the facts mentioned, but being in Europe Aphex gear is more difficult to get hold of....plus this is for experimenting purposes foremost, because unless gear is tried in one's own home (for some time) one cannot really evaluate its qualities (hopefully). Plus the Behringer incorporates tubes (like the bigger SPL units) so it might actually fit into my tube setup . But thanks for your responses!

Wolfram

[sunnysal]

very interesting observations here, two bones to pick;

1. horn speakers ARE widely used in a variety of studio monitors, many in the best studios in the world. JBL, TAD, westlake and others all produce studio monitors with horn mids and tweets, though I must admit the trend has changed towards direct radiators in recent years (I suspect due to the fact that horn speakers are now a rarity in home systems).

2. I don't see how artto's klipschorns go down to 16hz, those woofers unload pretty rapidly below 35hz, they are reduced to rattling once they get to 20hz...perhaps it was 40hz?

room effects continue to be the number one (maybe number behind speaker selection) factor in music reproduction, it is very hard to get it perfect. have you guys visited http://www.silcom.com/~aludwig/

? he has been tweaking his room and system and documented it all, VERY usefull stuff here!

warm regards, tony

[edwinr]

Thanks DrWho for your candid review. It's refreshing to read such honesty.

Also thanks to Artto for your excellent response.

I worked in radio many, many, years ago as a production and program assistant - my first job out of school. I used to help set the recording studio up (mics and stuff - no I didn't know what I was doing) and act as a gofer for the recording techs. It was really interesting watching and hearing the techs when they were recording bands and muso's. They'd 'eq' this and 'eq' that and add 'reverb' here and 'reverb' there. The end result was clearly not the sound that I had heard live in the studio. The monitors used varied between huge custom built studio speakers (I think they were Tannoy's) and small BBC LS3/5a bookshelf monitors - we didn't have Yamaha NS10m's back then. I remember the tech's were equalising the sound so it sounded good over the radio. I guess this process still happens in recording studio's world wide.

I have hundreds of cd's. Since I've owned Klipschorns, there are a sizable number of discs that sound frankly, horrible on my sound system - but sound okay in my upstairs system (based aroung my old KLF10's). I think the Klipschorns can be ruthless sometimes, and show certain recordings up for what they are. On the other hand, certain cd's that I thought before were ordinary recordings, now sound absolutely fantastic! For example, the other day I dug out Roxy Music's 'Avalon'. I hadn't heard it for a while. I played it for the first time on my Klipschorns. What a revelation! I listened to the entire album, then ran upstairs to get my wife, sat her down in the sweet spot and played it again for her. She said it was fantastic; "...was that a new recording of it?" Well there you go.

True high end, as portrayed by the Klipschorns, will not please everyone all the time. But if you want to hear musical instruments and voices as they really sound, rather than a bland mish mash of everything sounds nice and the same as everything else, then that's a cross I'm prepared to bear.

[j-malotky]

I'm still trying to figure out what "boxy" sounds like.

Dr Who, I enjoyed reading your posts. It would be good for you to jump in your TARDIS and get around to hear a few more set of Khorns for reference.

I have had the pleasure of spending an afternoon at Artto's last summer and it was a real treat. The imaging was absolutely brilliant.

Will be interesting to see what Artto thinks of my system next weekend when he visits.

JM

[DrWho]

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On 8/1/2004 10:50:07 PM j-malotky wrote:

I'm still trying to figure out what "boxy" sounds like.

Dr Who, I enjoyed reading your posts. It would be good for you to jump in your TARDIS and get around to hear a few more set of Khorns for reference.

I have had the pleasure of spending an afternoon at Artto's last summer and it was a real treat. The imaging was absolutely brilliant.

Will be interesting to see what Artto thinks of my system next weekend when he visits.

JM

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Haha, if only the TARDIS still worked! Actually, I wouldn't mind at all running around and hearing more khorn systems, but I wouldn't know who to ask and I would feel kinda akward asking in the first place. Though I suppose that I shouldn't feel akward cuz I'm just giving the host an opportunity for bragging rights!

I have a feeling Artto is going to want to attack your room and throw masonite everywhere and throw out the couches. Oh, and probably add a bass trap or two here and there.

[DrWho]

First Id like to clarify a few things, for you, as well as for others reading so as to not cause any confusion. You mentioned modular distortion. I believe you meant modulation distortion (or even more appropriately frequency modulation distortion) (not to be confused with intermodulation distortion).

that's the term! sorry, didn't mean to confuse it with intermodulation (i don't think i meant to anyway)...when i said modular, i meant the distortion that is basically the doppler effect from the diaphragm moving in and out and all that other crap that comes into play with trying to shake a fat piece of cardboard.

Much of what we hear from recordings is due to what goes on (or doesnt take place) in the entire production process. Mike, Im quite sure that if we had the opportunity to hear the original masters of Nightwish or Three Dog Night, we would have an entirely different impression of those recordings on mine, or any superior playback system. The more accurate the reproduction system, the more variances it will expose.

I'm finding that to be a terrible truth...I guess I had no idea that it was such an extreme reality.

I do have some effects units that I use in my professional music playing activities. Ive experimented inserting these into my system. All have their pros and cons. The Aphex C2 Aural Exciter with Big Bottom certainly can make the bass sound bigger and fuller, more like what you say you experience with your system. But Ive found these devices always seem to add something undesirable somewhere else, and it doesnt take much.

I gotta totally agree with you here...By the time you've added enough of the fancy effects to produce the desired result, you've already screwed up the rest of the mix. You can probably get away with small amounts added, but then it's only a half fix and I find that half fixes sound worse than original crap.

I dont feel my system has a boxy bass sound. I play bass professionally (on the side, but hey, how many pro musicians dont have a day job? LOL). And as you heard, with the Telarc SuperBass SACD, recorded live at the Blue Note in NYC, acoustic basses sound very natural and appropriate. Also, I might point out that some of the very recent changes Ive made in the room, have to do with the bass range. Most recently was the removal of a large six piece sectional sofa, in its place three lightweight contemporary leather swivel chairs. Im not sure why yet, but the audible bass doesnt seem as powerful, although you can certainly feel it more, through the floor (carpet on concrete) as well as up your spine through the chair, so its obviously there. I havent taken measurements with this setup yet so something may show up after doing so, and I can make any additional changes if necessary. As I also mentioned to Mike, most speakers that sound fuller and heavier in the bass range are almost certainly due to their producing higher amounts of second and third harmonic distortion. But IMHO, in my room, most of the differences we were hearing are do to the recording itself, the way it was EQd and the amount of compression applied on conventional recordings. At the moment, I also explained to Mike (albeit, probably a little too late), that at this point in time, I slide my chair forward or backward, closer tot the rear wall to adjust the bass response. Being closer to the rear wall makes the bass stronger and fuller. This at least partially compensates for the sound and amount of bass deviation from recording to recording.

Haha, the "boxy" sound. I was thinking about that all day today and how it sounded different with lots of different recordings and all that. I also remember hearing it more and more as our listening session continued...I was starting to get fatigued (like I said, over 105 easily gets uncomfortable) so perhaps that's a factor as well.

I was wondering though, when running your system with the 3 channels like we were listening, you've got equal frequency reproduction from 54Hz and up. From 54Hz and below, only the khorns are reproducing those frequencies. Wouldn't it make sense that at 54Hz, you begin about a 6db drop in volume?

As far as defining the boxy sound...crap yourself a cardboard box and wack it with your hand and try to get the deepest thump you can out of it. A subwoofer that sounds boxy sounds like the thud you get from wacking a box. And now that I've defined it, i think "tubby" might be a better term...would that be the sound of smacking a tub? lol

one more thing about the bass and this is just for the sake of asking...I noticed that your masonite panels are pretty much attached on both ends and there's not much support underneathe the bowing of the masonite. Wouldn't these panels suffer from sympathetic vibrations and produce their own sound? perhaps this is what i was hearing?

for what it's worth, i did want to mention that this boxy tubby thing is on a very low magnitude and I have no clue what it is I heard...that's why I'm discussing it so much, trying to rule out everything before the actual source material. in other words, it really didn't sound like Art was banging on a box in the corner with the beat of the music, lol

This room is a work in progress. It is currently in its fourth revision (in progress). Most of this is in small acoustic details, some of which Mike pointed out, which confirms my observations. Other things have to do with better sound isolation/resistance and architectural/lighting details. I guess the most important thing for me is Mikes initial comments. Its as if the room disappeared, as if I were transported to another world, a different space. Ive been asked many times, both in conversation and on this Forum does any sound seem to come from the speakers or do the speakers seem to disappear? I usually just chuckle and smile. The whole objective was to make the entire room disappear, not just the speakers. So for the most part, I guess its mission accomplished.

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Indeed it was mission accomplished...and I'm still "bitter" about it, lol

[Griffinator]

I gotta interject a few things here....

1) Acoustic basses don't give that kind of bass presence that we all are so accustomed to in a mix. Most of what an acoustic bass reproduces are overtones of the fundamentals it sounds, and those fundamentals don't even go to 20Hz. Even electric basses, in a live situation with garden-variety amplifiaction, still reproduce more harmonic overtones than fundamentals - even 5-string basses that reach down to 20Hz and below with their fundamental tones.

2) It is very nearly a matter of habit for most mastering houses to roll off <50Hz. There are two reasons for this:

- most playback systems cannot deliver anything lower than 50Hz, and instead distort when exposed to excessive energy in that range

- there is a ton of energy down there, and applying whole-mix compression, limiting, etc, is going to be fouled up by excessive bass energy

- most studio playback systems cannot reproduce subharmonic frequencies with any degree of accuracy (mine will hit 20Hz, but at -18dB) so attempting to manage these frequencies without a roll-off runs the risk of having a sub-heavy mix that screws up most playback systems unnecessarily

- with the renaissance of limited-release vinyl, mastering houses are compelled to follow RIAA vinyl specs, which include a limiting of the bass frequencies to prevent the needle from jumping the groove.

Therefore, when you hear a speaker that "hits hard" in the bass range, you can take it to the bank that such a speaker is designed to do so, and is therefore not a terribly accurate speaker.

So much for "boxy" (or "tubby", as Dr Who puts it) sounding bass.

[dubai2000]

Griffinator,

very interesting details. Of course this makes one wonder how close a recording (i.e. the finished consumer product) is to the real thing and why some of us spend so much money/care etc. on equipment if the source is already flawed.

BTW: Do the same 'limitations' also apply to classical/jazz recordings?

Wolfram

[NOSValves]

The old Catch 22 for all us 70-80's rock fans !! The better your system gets the worse the music you love sounds. I have had this problem for the last 3 years as my system has progressed to what I think is excellence although my room could never acoustically compete with Artto's I solved my 70-80's rock problem by using a PC for all this type of music running a M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 soundcard into a Magenta ADE-24 digital buffer stage and high quality MP3's recorded myself from original CD's for this type of music. It really seems to take the hash off most of the horribly recorded stuff.

Craig

[garymd]

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On 8/2/2004 6:56:34 AM NOSValves wrote:

The old Catch 22 for all us 70-80's rock fans !!----------------

They had rock in the 80s?

[gullahisland]

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On 8/2/2004 3:24:02 AM Griffinator wrote:

1) ..... - even 5-string basses that reach down to 20Hz and below with their fundamental tones.

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In the interest of accuracy - 5-string basses don't extend to 20Hz (and certainly not below). If my math is correct, the low "open B" string on a 5-string bass is around 30.5Hz.

A great recording to hear this is the title track to Lyle Lovett's "Road to Ensanada". On many systems, you may not even hear it...or you may perceive it to be an octave higher than it actually is.

[Griffinator]

dubai:

To some extent, yes. We're chasing a phantom of sorts. However, bear in mind that the good studio engineer is chasing the same phantom - trying to create the illusion that the listener is right there in the room as the musicians as they play, even if they all played their instruments individually.

Ironically, some of the best recordings for this effect these days are coming out of Nashville - yes, that's right, country records. Why? First, their B-list session players are every bit as good as the best players most other cities have to offer. Secondly, and as a result, they throw the musicians in a room, hand them all chord charts, and press "record". Only the vocal gets overdubbed, and typically the vocal is the only thing that gets processed.

The good news for all you bass addicts out there is that mixing and mastering for multichannel music is now being done on 5.1 systems, so they're working to give you the impact you so crave.

Guilah:

Thanks for the correction. I was thinking in terms of a bottom "A flat" (lotta nu-metal bands still detuning their 5th strings right along with the guitars) which would put the lowest fundamental at right around 24Hz, although I was also thinking the next octave down for some bizarre reason.

[fini]

A bass is like a big violin. Sure. I like the way you say that. Wimpy, wompy, wombly.

[gullahisland]

So....Is it just me, or are there A LOT of musicians frequenting the Klipsch forum?

Perhaps the makings of a new thread.

I find it interesting the presence of REAL knowledgable folks frequenting this forum. You don't find this level of knowledge in most "audiophile" circles.

Very interesting and highly refreshing.

It makes me wonder what specifically attracts so many musicians to Klipsch and Heritage models more specifically. And...fully horn-loaded Heritage models to be even more specific.

[artto]

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On 8/2/2004 2:25:20 AM DrWho wrote:

I was wondering though, when running your system with the 3 channels like we were listening, you've got equal frequency reproduction from 54Hz and up. From 54Hz and below, only the khorns are reproducing those frequencies. Wouldn't it make sense that at 54Hz, you begin about a 6db drop in volume?

As far as defining the boxy sound...crap yourself a cardboard box and wack it with your hand and try to get the deepest thump you can out of it. A subwoofer that sounds boxy sounds like the thud you get from wacking a box. And now that I've defined it, i think "tubby" might be a better term...would that be the sound of smacking a tub? lol

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Im not sure why you would want to do that. Actually, the Klipschorns architects & engineers specification is 35Hz, 45Hz for the Belle. At those low frequencies, the sound essentially becomes omnidirectional (45Hz=25 wavelength, almost the length of my room, and certainly longer than its depth or height). On most recordings, if I reduced the volume of the Belle to zero, you would still hear the bass predominantly from the center of the soundstage. Its only the higher frequency sounds associated with bass instruments (string buzz/slap, mallet striking a drum head, harmonics, etc.) that give you clues as to an individual bass-type instruments location.

This brings up another point, which just occurred to me, after reading your post Mike. You probably recall our discussion about the output level of the center speaker, and how I mentioned that more recently, with true fully digital recordings, I have been using the center speaker at the same volume level as the flanking speakers. And how in the past, especially with analog recordings, because of the increased crosstalk (less channel separation), I typically ran the center speaker -3dB to -6dB lower than the flanking speakers. I wonder if the center speaker running at the same level as the flanking speakers is whats causing the boxy sound, as you put it. The Belle (and LaScala) have slightly different low end than the Khorn. With analog, this becomes more apparent in the center channel because of the greater amount of mixed bass signal it receives, especially considering that center channel is L+R mono signal (try listening to your system switching between stereo and mono, and notice the increase in apparent bass loudness). My conclusion is that possibly, the center speaker may be contributing the boxy bass sound you perceived. When Im sitting in the captains chair sweet spot, (as opposed to being way off to the side and back as I was while you were listening) I tend to notice these types of things more easily and get up to make the necessary adjustments on the center channel circuit box and turn its volume down. Its not the Belle or LaScala have a tubby sound per se, as much as this may be due to the combined L+R mono signal, and the center speaker being turned up too much (for your liking). Just a thought.

On 8/2/2004 2:25:20 AM DrWho wrote:

one more thing about the bass and this is just for the sake of asking...I noticed that your masonite panels are pretty much attached on both ends and there's not much support underneathe the bowing of the masonite. Wouldn't these panels suffer from sympathetic vibrations and produce their own sound? perhaps this is what i was hearing?

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Youve brought up an interesting point. One of the reasons I reinforced the wall corners so heavily (out 8 from the corner), bracing the walls tightly against the foundation walls, and literally lag bolting the Khorns to the wall/foundation, was to provide a strong mechanical conduit for bass vibration to dissipate into the largest, most massive object I could find, the earth itself, so that the lower walls that are related to the bass horn contribute as little as possible as passive radiators. The Masonite cylinders do in fact vibrate. This is also how they absorb the bass vibrations and dissipate it as heat. I too have often wondered if, and how much, this might be contributing to any coloration. The Roxul rigid insulation samples I showed you, which are wedged tightly between the large front vertical diffusors and the upper half-wall diffusors behind them are going to be part of this current acoustical upgrade revision. My intentions are to backfill the diffusors with this rigid insulation. This will serve several purposes. One being, as the SPL increases, to absorb more, and more reflected full bandwidth sound, as it gets trapped behind the cylinders, hopefully keeping the reverberation time in check so that the room doesnt go into acoustic overload at higher SPL, yet remains appropriately live at lower SPL. The second objective is to damp the vibration of these cylinders so that they dont act as passive radiators. This should also make the polycylinders act as better bass traps, and provide additional sound transmission loss in the walls. The diffusors will be coupled to the difussors behind them, and to the 1 laminated Celotex wall behind them, by the Roxul wedged between them. The large front vertical diffusors will have Roxul behind them only about one-third of the way down so as not to interfere with projection of the bass horns.

[artto]

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On 8/1/2004 6:14:00 PM sunnysal wrote:

very interesting observations here, two bones to pick;

2. I don't see how artto's klipschorns go down to 16hz, those woofers unload pretty rapidly below 35hz, they are reduced to rattling once they get to 20hz...perhaps it was 40hz?

warm regards, tony

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Tony, I used a 'little trick'. Just as room size and proportions can work against you, especially with lower frequencies, if done right, you can also take advantage of this. Im my particular situation, the fundamental room resonance is about 19Hz due to the room's combination of length and width, axial/tangental modes. The room itself is providing quite a bit of reinforcement below the Khorn's cutoff frequency. In reality the system is probably down about 3dB at 16Hz. But the graphs I posted in my thread were taken with both 20-20KHz broadband white noise, and single tone sine waves at standard test frequencies, at the primary listening position. The results of both graphs are similiar.

[DrWho]

perhaps it was the center channel that i was hearing...to elaborate a bit on the point i was trying to make, i was thinking that the low lows (like 30Hz) are only being produced by the khorns where say 100Hz, is being produced by all 3. If a mono signal of equal magnitude is played to all speakers. Wouldn't the 100Hz signal be louder than the 30Hz signal? 3 speakers versus 2. And yes, I did notice that the bass from the belle did sound a bit different, but that's because it's a different speaker And I didn't really want you to turn the center channel down because it created a depth i've never heard before and i was enjoying it way too much.

[artto]

These are the full bandwidth frequency response graphs taken directly from the real-time spectrum analyzer in SoundForge. Some of the bumpiness you can see at higher frequencies is the result of 'comb filter efect' due to operating all three speakers simultaneously with the same signal. I'll be running these tests again with only one speaker at a time.

The roll-off at higher frequencies is partially due to the microphone which has a known roll-off in that region, but is also somewhat intentional, acoustically. IMO a good sounding room that's used for 'listening' shouldn't be "flat". It was my intention to have a roll-off that mirrors a compromise between what we experience in smaller venues such as where one might hear a jazz band and that of larger concert hall/auditorium for orchestra. What's important here, IMO, is that there are no major peaks or dips across the "flat", 'roll-off' response. And of course, without the comb filter effect, the graph would be much smoother.