5K for new Khorns.....and you say they can be better?

[Elydaman]

All my adult life I dreamed of the day I could buy a pair of Khorns...I finally did, ordered them brand new in 2000. I love the sound and quality of the music. Now on this site I hear that they can be so much improved! They say the midrange horn is poor....the crossovers can be better....individuals building their own....God! What can I do to make my Khorns be the bomb without spending another 5K to do it? If Altec horns are so good, why does Klipsch not use them to make their benchmark the very best?

--Very frustrated with beautiful black Khorns.

[mike stehr]

I wouldn't worry about it.....

[AndyKubicki]

What do your own ears tell you? Although I got the ALKs and have been very happy with them, I don't know how the newer crossovers are and if the improvement would be similar or nonexistant. But there are cheap mods you can do, like dampening the horns...why not start there?

[Daddy Dee]

You've gotten good advice from Mike and Andy.

The Khorns you've got are KILLER speakers. IMO, there is VERY LITTLE you could do to improve them. The biggest part of the population wouldn't be able to hear the difference anyway. If you want to go after that very little, you might want to check out some ALK crossovers.

Otherwise enjoy. Enjoying the music is what this is about.

[TBrennan]

Ely---Many audiophiles like to tinker and having tinkered they want to think the tinkering has benefit. Often it doesn't.

Many audiophiles are also screwballs with delusional ideas and they think they're hearing things that actually exist only in their overheated imaginations.

If you like your Khorns as they are enjoy them. No speaker is perfect anyway and those changes some here make to them are often making the speaker sound DIFFERENT, not better, there is no objective "better" only a subjective one. You know what you like, why worry about what others like?

[WMcD]

Your horns probably have the K-401 composite horn. It shouldn't need any damping. That is for metal horns.

Some people remount the tweeter to the front of the board. Yours probably already has that.

I believe that any wire upgrade is pretty much without technical merit. So don't worry about that.

I've used Al. K's crossover topology in some of my home brew stuff. I like the ability to adjust level. His design presents a more constant impedance to the amp in the midrange. This may solve some problems with some amps. But if you don't have a problem with level adjustment, and your amp is happy, there may be little to gain.

I'm being diplomatic. There are very favorable reviews of Al's product. I'm not in a position to validate all of them. Even when things are changed, and different, it may not be so much better that you damn the original equipment.

Please consider that a lot of folks have K-Horns dating from the '60s with the K-5 midrange horn and a comparitively ancient crossover. They like them just fine. If you want to do some hand-wringing, maybe it should be to go retro. Smile.

- - - -

You should read some the articles I've posted in Technical Questions. Search for "article". There are many words of wisdom by PWK. An essential point is that the freedom from distortion is the hallmark of PWKs products old and new. He puts that at the top of the list. You've got that. None of the tweeks are going to alter this fundamental characteristic.

- - - -

In my view, much of what is going on with mods is like a young guy buying a car. The speedshop makes vague promises of increased performance with bigger carbs, headers, ignition systems, etc. Most don't add very much horsepower if things are right in the first place.

This is because "there is no replacement for displacement". The latter means a bigger engine always wins over tweeks and there is no getting around it.

You've already got the big engine in your K-Horns.

Please tweek if it makes you happy. But please do not feel you've got an inferior product on your hands.

Best,

Gil

[steve]

Ely

I have a set of KHorns bought new in 1983..completely stock. I made a lot of changes, but only to the electronics hooked up to them. The speakers remain stock. Not to take away Al K's crossovers, I bet they are phenomenol, but I like what I hear from the speakers when mated to the right (for me) electronics. It's here where you can go nuts, drive yourself crazy, but have a grand time doing so. I have finally settled on an all tube system, CD player, preamp, and amp, and have flat found it. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it sounds right to me, and that's what counts! As the others have stated, you have the finest speakers, and if they sound good to you don't feel slighted! Just enjoy the music. If you're NOT happy, then try changing out some upstream components. garbage in, garbage out. Just my opinion.

Regards,

Steve

[neo33]

"Many audiophiles are also screwballs with delusional ideas and they think they're hearing things that actually exist only in their overheated imaginations."

Tom Brennan is also a screwball with delusional ideas and he thinks he's seeing things that actually exist only in his own overheated imaginations! .

[edwinr]

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On 2/23/2005 11:12:05 PM Elydaman wrote:

Very frustrated with beautiful black Khorns.

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Like the rest of the guys said. Relax and enjoy them. You have some of the best sounding speakers on the planet. Generally speaking (sorry!), your money would be better spent upgrading the rest of your system, and not trying to tweak near perfection. Klispch have been finetuning the Klipschorns for years and the ccurrent model has probably the best sound reasonable money could buy. In saying that, some of the older models may benefit from some crossover tweaking due to the normal aging that occurs with any electronic components.

[Frzninvt]

The 2000 Khorn will have the AK-3 crossover network which is one of the better networks that Klipsch produced.

If you feel compelled to upgrade Klipsch has a kit for $1800 that includes the new AK-4 networks with the newer X series midrange and tweeter that you can install in your Khorns. However, I honestly don't think that will make them leaps and bounds better but it may yield some level of improvement.

Then again for $1800 I would buy a another pair of Khorns or Belle's and leave well enough alone. Your 2000 Khorns should be fine, as stated I would concentrate any improvements on sources and other downstream gear.

[Speedball]

Frustrated?,

Maybe it is time to tweak and have a bit of fun. Like Steve mentioned, upstream components or even crossover work by whomever... Dean G.?

No, I don't have K-Horns but I have had Klipsch for some time and yes, it is time for me to start playing around with the above mentioned because it is enjoyable to tweak and hear differences.

Maybe if Klipsch or any speaker maker used top quality high dollar parts first time around it might be too expen$ive to manufacture.

I bet those do look very good in black.........kick back and enjoy!

[Q-Man]

I know that I'm nuts, and I enjoy tinkering and building things.

There is always better, and room for improvement, it all depends how far you want to take it.

Get off of this Forum now, before you become addicted.

[3dzapper]

Too, most of us except Dean who is quite insane , have Khorns that are thirty years old. In that time many improvements in quality electronic components and design have come about. Your 2000s have taken much of this in the implimentation of the AK-3 network.

You can upgrade to the AK-4 as stated above. One of PWK's concerns was that every Khorn made could be upgraded to the lastest specs by the owner.

In a lot of instances Tom Brennan is right, some of us are just tweakers. Not every change is for the better.

I myself do not like the sticky sweet Altecs in my Khorns and my wife would not buy into the 511B multisection horn. But, I like the JBL 2404H tweeters better in separate enclosures atop the Khorns with WAF OK, ALK crossovers and I am currently using University squaker drivers.

That is just me in my room with my ears. YMMV

Rick

[JJkizak]

I used to use Fisher tube amps in the 60's and 70's and 80's. Switched to Denon solid state and it cleared up all the mushy tube sound. Then just recently installed the Dean crossovers and it really cleaned up, and I can actually go louder on the volume. But I wouldn't mess with new speakers like yours and forget the tubes, they are nothing but a pain in the butt.

JJK

[J.4knee]

You have year 2000 K-horns! What do you have to be frustrated about? Yes a lot of folks around here like to "tinker and putter" around with their respective speakers. Some have produced exceptional results but I believe most of them have done so with 20 year old or older speakers like myself. My networks were aging and sounding kind of like a blanket was over my La Scala's. I upgraded to ALK's and ta'da no more blanket. Your crossovers are only 5 count em' 5 years old...they are fine. If you read what is done here with too serious an eye you will never be happy with what you've got. Let you ears judge what you hear. You can always find some tweak to maybe improve your sound. But when you reach the new K-Horn level that tweak often comes at a pricey expense. The law of diminishing returns definitely applies here. Listen to your system do you like the way it sounds, most of all be honest with yourself during your listening sessions. If you like it then it matters not what anyone else has done. We all have our own idea of audio nirvana. You have K-Horns lighten up and enjoy them and quit worrying about what others have done. You could sink a couple hundred grand into an HT system and still be in a position where there is something else better out there. So just relax and enjoy those very precious K-Horns. Some of us dont even have them!!!

[Colin]

It is true what people say here: new Khorns represent the near pinnacle of acoustic expression without the cost of a Corolla. Dont touch them at all. Just sit back, sip a little wine and click your way through disc after disc until bedtime. Thats what I do. Though my Cornwalls has serious flaws in ther freq res, so that I had to try many things to tame and improve their sound (even though they were also quite wonderful for the price), my 89 stock AK-2 Khorns have no such obvious problems. All is good. So Gil is right as usual.

Yetone can only sit on the couch so long. What is this musical magic with horns and tubes, you muse? What if I spend a day and made a 15 Titanic to add even more bass? What if I added some thick acoustic panels? What if the critical horn was bigger? The tweeter wider and sharper? What if EQ flatten the freq res within an inaudible .5 dB - across the entire spectrum audible at 75dB? Lets see, what can I do for a few hundred bucks? What tweak will make an long-term improvement worth a few days pay? What if my amp ahd only a few quality watts?

Oh and then the bug bites. A tiny prick here. You make this adjustment, turning the tops only so they point more towards the center, adding vibration isolation under the player, etc. Another tiny prick. Insert low cost refurbished tube pre-amp into the line. Next thing you know it, you are fully infected. A full-blown tweaking audiophile disease that distracts you from everything e---

****! I missed my appointment, gotta go!!