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Disappointed with my KHorns!


fgarib

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Hey there!

I've been reading your posts for the past few months in order to get an idea of what to expect from a used '91 set of KHorns that had come to my attention.I finally went ahead and bought them a few weeks ago.

Since then, I have tried and tried to make them sound anything remotely like the quality that I have imagined from the users in this forum, but "it just ain't happening!"

The bass is loose even though I have placed them in the corner. The tweeters are painful in comparision to the woofer, and, all said and done, the sound is just plain flat.

I have checked the polarities, tried different amplifications, bi-amping, single amping, different cables... Nothing seems to work.

Is it possible that this room (13'x 30') is just not meant for the horns? (the speakers are placed on the 13' corners.)

The amps I've tried are as follows:

- NAD C230 in both mono and stereo modes (bi wired & single).

- Rotel 1080 (bi & single).

- The best result I got was from the Quad 606. Still, even that was far from a tight sounding bass.

The room itself is looong, and sparsely furnished, with a marble floor. This flooring might be the reason for an echo which translates into painful listening. However, sad as this sounds, even the imaging that I get from my Kef Q7's with a Marantz HT amp is far superior.

HELP!

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On 9/23/2004 12:57:55 AM fgarib wrote:

it just ain't happening!"

HELP!

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Hi. Welcome to the forum. Congratulations on your purchase of the Klipschorns. They are a fine loudspeaker. I've listed some general points for you to consider. Other forum members more experienced than me will more than likely tackle your query in a more technical manner and ask you specific details about your speakers...

Your room dimensions are interesting. I would suggest you try the Klipschorns on the long wall. In that way you will not have to sit 6 or so feet away from the wall to get the sweet spot. The longer wall should allow a more normal seating postion. Your ideal listening position should be equidistant from both speakers and where you can see the mid/tweeter horn of both speakers pointing right at you.

In relation to the speakers, are they complete with a tailboard gasket? If so, then they should fit nice and snug into your corners. If your corners are good, you should be able to achieve a tight seal. What are the walls constructed of? The sound of the Klipschorns, particularly in the lower frequencies, are influenced by materials used in wall construction. I guess you won't be able to do anything about that, but the information may be helpful in sorting out your poor sound problem.

Certainly you may need to do some room treatment. Does your room sound echoey? It's likely you are getting too much reflected sound. You should investigate the need to put some mats or rugs down. What about your walls? If they are bare as well, then I suggest some of your problems can be fixed by some curtains and wall hangings.

I'm not sure about your amplifier choice. Please post a detailed description of your source and preamp used with your power amps. While anything can drive a Klipschorn, they thrive on quality amplification. If you drive them with brash sounding solid state, that is exactly the sound you will get. Good quality, not necessarily expensive, tube or solid state amplification will make your Klipschorns sing.

But priorities first. Get your room treatment started and move the Klipschorns to the long corner. While you are doing this, forum members will point you in the right direction.

Edwin.

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My living room is 13 x 24 roughly and the K-horns are in the 24 ft. corners with a Corwall center speaker. I uses a Denon receiver with an equalizer for the left/right speakers only. The sweet spot ends up on the opposite wall in the center. After installing the RSW-12 subwoofer the bass filled in at most of the leaner spots in the room but picked up some boominess in the sweet spot. The low volume performance was really enhanced with the subwoofer. I also use a Hughes expander with the equalizer. With the addition of 4 SC-1's

on the rear walls for the 7.1 stuff and another Denon receiver for the rest of the channels the sound pressure level gets a bit annoying when cranked up to full volume. Too many things start to vibrate. Playing the old CBS test records indicates that the glide tones are all over the place but the frequency response is very good. I can only hear from 40 to 14khz on a good day. If your into the 5.1 or 7.1 syndrome where you have to sit in the center of the room +-1 inch your marble floors basically suck. The previous setup you mention must be almost totally dead in the upper range for it to sound ok.

In my opinion if the K-horns came with 10 extra tweeters I would have them. When a drummer clobbers a cymbol for real the one tweeter doesn't make it.

Get some nice thick rugs and an equalizer for the left/right front speakers and place them at the 30 ft. corners and start experimenting.

JJK

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Looks like a very difficult room. If at all possible, I would try temporarily setting them up in different rooms to see if there is any difference/improvement. I did that in my house, and there was a substantial difference. This may tell you whether the Khorn sound is just not to your liking, or if your room needs some specialized treatment. Others may chime in and say that the networks and/or drivers may not be working up to spec as well. But I would try placing them in a different room first as it won't cost you anything. If they don't sound good in other rooms, then you can start looking at networks and/or drivers (or other speakers).

-PB

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Sounds like room modalities are cancelling things out (and/or doubling them for glaring peakiness - either way - not good). Sparsely furnished rooms and bare floors and walls are a series of reflections ready to happen...how tall is the ceiling?

I have a very odd listening room, but it sounds better with corner horns than with any other speakers that I have had in it. But I had to use panels and bass traps to tame reflections in order to make it happen.

It's 15 feet x 20, with the horns in the short end. Listening spot is 9 ft or so away from each.

I would say some room treatment is in order. You should have extreme bass from Khorns. Carpeting doesn't really help that much, so don't go there right away.

DM2.gif

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PB, Tried it in a different room. Much smaller but carpeted, furnished, and curtained. HUUUUGE difference!

Now they're actually getting fun to listen to.

However, the bass is still certainly lacking. The oomph is just not there. And the highs are still very overpowering. On some recordings, the vocals almost sound harsh, although the Quad 606's have softened them up to some extent.

FYI, the pre I'm using is a NAD C162 (until I can locate a nice CHEAP tube pre) with a Rotel CD-02 player. Amplification, I've switched between three different setups mentioned in my original post.

How do I check to see if drives and crossovers are working ok? Also, I read in one of the posts some speakers tend to have leaky bass cabinets. How do I check? Can I get a "technical guide" somewhere on the web?

Thanks,

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DM,

Bass Traps? Panels?!?! Dude, I live in Pakistan. Not easy to get here, but will try to ask around. But being a liiiitle bit more specific would help.

One thing though. The bass has certainly improved since I've shifted rooms... But it's still a far cry from how you're describing it. Will check to see about the leak if someone tells me how to do it.

Thanks,

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Glad to hear your liking them a bit better. Try walking around your room (while the speakers are playing) especially close to the front and back walls. If the bass starts to sound overpowering or boomy, you likely have some nodes to take care of. The bass likely sounds lacking due to cancellation effects in your listening position, I know this is the case in my room(s). Bass traps and other room treatments help minimize reflecting sound waves from the walls, and hence, minimize these effects.

There are lots of threads on this topic on the forum, I suggest if you have the time, to use the search engine and review what others have done, and where they purchased their room treatment goodies. Lots of good advice here.

As far as the harshness in the upper end is concerned, maybe some better equipment will help. But also some different/better x-overs (i.e. ALK's (only an example!!!)) may be the ticket for you. Again, you can do a search on this topic, but you will definitely need a lot of time. I still haven't gone through and made sense of all the information on x-over improvements on this BB.

-PB

-edit - I just noticed you said that the speakers are harsh on some recordings. Khorns usually show every flaw upstream of the speakers, right to the recording level. Bad recordings will sound bad, however good recordings should sound amazing. I have quite a few bad recordings in my collection that I can't play on my khorns, however these same recordings alright on other speakers.

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Sorry. Perhaps making your own would be a better choice.

Here's a very quick and rather poor explanation (Artto and the architech dudes have a much better handle on this environmental stuff, check that out in the other group, too).

Basically the panels I use are absorbing panels covered in cloth that are hung (or somehow attached) to the walls to lower reflectivity at certain points in the room.

These can be made with a cardboard backing or such and then some thick absorbent material (foam, carpet layers, etc.) and then are covered with a cloth of some sort for aesthetic reasons. Commercial versions use metal foil (as a reflective strip) and "special" sound-absorbing materials and the like. The materials used are often chosen for their respective weight and absorbtion quotient, which is frequency based. They can also have a wooden or plastic frame put around them, too. They usually are longer than they are wide and hang vertically, but can be any shape. Corner ones are triangular. Where to hang them is up to you and is determined by where you listen to them and where the speakers are located, in a somewhat geometrical manner, that is, in straight lines based on the soundwaves path and where they bounce on the walls on the way to your ears.

Good luck.

DM2.gif

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You say you are listening to cd's? Try using a more realistic source such as vinyl or SACD. Cd's reproduce sound with a squared off wave while actual sound has a rounded wave. Always remember, GIGO, garbage in, garbage out.

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

"spent my money, took my car, started tellin' her friends she's gonna be a star"

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PB / DM and others,

Hmmmm... got your responses. Man this sounds like it's going to be a classic battle b/w the speaker that needs a great, sound-treated room, and a wife that just will not understand! Gonna put my money on the horns, though. Might have to play some Indian Punjabi dance music a few times to get her on "our" side!!! (Shudder at the thought!)

The bass does get a little boomy when I walk around. So I guess that room treatments are in order. Will get to researching a bit. But it sounds like I will be keeping the speakers. I shall continue to post updates, in case anyone out there is interested. Should be getting down to changing their look as well. The black is a little sheen-less and quite dull and boring now. Was thinking of some two tone finishes.

Let's get the sound in order first, though.

Thanks,

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They may not be the speakers for you. Heck do you really want to go build an entire room around a pair of speakers that don't sound that good to you from the get go. I know I wouldn't. You may actually benefit fit from trading down your speaker. Keep the cash flow for future electronics upgrades. I beleive the size of the speaker to room is very important. If you can't get that just right from the corner your going to have way to much boom and harsh highs from early reflections, and I know the Khorns were designed for corners. But your home may not be designed for them by the sounds of it. I am a Klipsch fan, but I wonder how your other speakers would sound after you went through all the trouble to set these up? I am betting pretty darn good. They could also be defective. You never know. In my opinion I know I wouldn't even mess with a speaker if I didn't even like anything about it right from the start. Heck if you go through room treatments and everthing else any speaker will sound good. Just my opinion, and those Khorns should sound really good.

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There in Pakistan, you have an excelent source for wall treatment, your native rug weavers. They make gorgeous products that look just as fine hanging as laying on the floor. Their heavy weave will absorb some of the reflected waves and help to deaden your room and break up standing waves.

The power conditioner idea would be a great help also. High frequency hash from the power company or RFI induced in the power lines can wreck havok to the quality of your sound. There is a fellow from Hong Kong that sells a nice one made in China for $85 US plus shipping on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=67780&item=5722088999&rd=1

To tighten up the bass, make sure they are "coupled" into the corner. There are quite a few methods of doing it but one of the simplest is what Klipsch recommended when I bought my Khorns in 1977. Get a length of rubber carpet runner or similiar material and staple it to the rear of the back board. When you push the horn home into the corner this will make a seal with the wall and take up for any irregularity in the corner.

Keep plugging, properly set up and fed Klipschorns are worth the trouble IMHO.1.gif

Good luck and do keep us informed.

Rick

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On 9/24/2004 12:07:37 AM fgarib wrote:

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PB / DM and others,

Hmmmm... got your responses. Man this sounds like it's going to be a classic battle b/w the speaker that needs a great, sound-treated room, and a wife that just will not understand! Gonna put my money on the horns, though.

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fgarib, what sort of speakers did you have before? Did you have any trouble with them sound quality wise? If you did this would definitely point to poor room acoustics. I suggest you persevre with a few throw rugs and some anti wall reflection treatment as has been suggested here by others.

Also you may be used to a totally different sounding loud speaker. The Klipschorns can be a shock when you first hear them. After a bit of audio retraining, your ears will quickly begin to appreciate the high end sound the Klipschorns can deliver.

Your comments concerning the bass bothers me. Klipschorns should deliver a truely symphonic bass response. Properly functioning Klipschorns should pin you to the wall with their dynamic response below 80 hertz down to around 35 hz. I think you should take some extra care in ensuring your speakers are properly sealed into the corner according to the advice posted above.

Perhaps the lack of bass response you are experiencing is partially (or wholly?) contributing to the perceived brash sound you currently have. If the room treatment and corner sealing doesn't work, then you should have a closer look at the speakers themselves. Maybe they've been badly treated and require a little TLC to bring them up to scratch.

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The sound pressure level of your room is very important as if you exceed it

distortion will prevail. The K-horns are going to work best in about a 25 x 25 ft. room with normal 8 foot ceilings and a center speaker fill in for stereo. (1935 Bell Labs test) Your room (as mine also) puts limits on the K-horn's performance./ Thats why I had to go to an equalizer to boost the 30 to 60 hz range (8 to 12 db)and reduce the 200 to 400 hz range (2 to 4 db). If you drive the K-horns flat you will be dissappointed. They are designed well enough so that you can really pound on them without distortion. You really don't even need a subwoofer with the equalizer as the subwoofer I use is just a "node" eliminator and low volume augmentation device). Remember I can only hear from 40 to 14khz. I couldn't hear 39 hz sound if a one million watt amplifier was in my ear. Those K-horns should be loosening the nails holding your house together without a subwoofer.

JJK

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OK. Khorns are the most revealing Klipsch speaker made to date in their home line. Garbage in garbage out. There are a few things you can try to remedy your problem.

1. Buy aftermarket crossovers. This will allow you to adjust the output of each speaker component. This will allow you to tailor the sound to your room. The ALK crossovers are very good. I had my own built for a lot less.

2. Buy a new player. Your old player may be too grainy for the K's. I just invested in a Denon 2200. You can also get a Pioneer Elite 47a for about 300.00. With a Universal player you can get into SACD and DVD-A. This is a huge upgrade from CD output. These new formats are dynamic, warma nd have incredible bass and detail. (most disks).

3. Buy a better amp and preamp. Your amp my be too tinny and not have the output for the bass you need. My Khorns are from the 50's and sound incredible.

4. Buy a sub and cross over everything under 100hz to the sub.

If you're still married after all these upgrades you'll have a killer system. I suggest the Sherbourn line of amps of McCormak.

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Intersting the advice given here to make a supposedly good speaker actually sound good to someone. Use different amps, change the crossovers (an admission the speaker has a problem, no?), change CD players, change the decor and other heroic efforts are prescribed. Seems senseless and desperate. IME when a person likes a speaker they like it from the get-go. Oh sure, one can perhaps improve the sound but transform it? Go from subjectively bad to good? I don't think so.

Perhaps Khorns simply aren't for this fella. Afterall he describes the very problems that many who hate the Khorn describe, and there are people who hate it. It can be that simple.

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