timbley Posted April 20, 2005 Share Posted April 20, 2005 I haven't seen any other posts about damping the RF-7 tweeter, so I thought I'd share this. I've been noticing a slight coloration from the RF-7s that I'd best describe as a "tock", like a tick tock from a wooden cuckoo clock. If you tap the horn with your fingernail, you'll hear what I'm talking about. This tap test led me to try damping the horn I used removable contact putty and a bunch of yarn. I didn't realize until I was done that there was so much talk on these forums about the damping of horns, or I'd have known to buy rope caulk. Putty and yarn is effective. I don't know if the yarn was really necessary, but in any case I'm not hearing the "tock" effect any more, which makes me very happy. Here's a couple pictures. I forgot to take one with the yarn. It looks like it's wearing a nice thick sweater. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZAKO Posted April 20, 2005 Share Posted April 20, 2005 After doing some calculations....Thats not mutch of a Track-Trix flair design, But closer to a squaired conicle design. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacksonbart Posted April 20, 2005 Share Posted April 20, 2005 How does it sound with the putty applied? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timbley Posted April 20, 2005 Author Share Posted April 20, 2005 ---------------- On 4/20/2005 9:28:22 AM jacksonbart wrote: How does it sound with the putty applied? ---------------- Mostly the same, but just a little more open. It's taken a sligth glare off that was affecting woodwinds particularly, and making some other instruments sound slightly hollow and wooden. That's been pretty much cleared up now. I'm not noticing it. My theory was that the 10" midwoofers might have been exciting the horn from inside the cabinet, making it amplify their frequencies a little, with the weird effect of trying to push a low frequency through too small of a horn. I've noticed a similar sound if I try to push the horn down to too low a crossover frequency. It gets that wooden "tock" effect with pink noise around 1.4kHz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylanl Posted April 20, 2005 Share Posted April 20, 2005 Timbley, I noticed your saying at the bottom of the thread Tri-amp and loving it. Can you explain to me how you are doing this with the RF7? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timbley Posted April 20, 2005 Author Share Posted April 20, 2005 ---------------- On 4/20/2005 2:29:38 PM Dylanl wrote: Timbley, I noticed your saying at the bottom of the thread Tri-amp and loving it. Can you explain to me how you are doing this with the RF7? ---------------- I have my system listed up to date under my info if you want more detailed info. I'm using a Behringer DCX active crossover with two JVC RX-f10 receivers. Each receiver uses 3 of it's 5 available amplifiers to power the tweeter and each mid-woofer. The DCX crossover has 3 analog outputs per stereo channel. I use one of them for the tweeter, and the other two for the woofers. The two woofer outputs are the same, so the woofers are moving together like usual, but they each have their own dedicated amplifier. I had to run one speaker cable in through the lower port to do this. The passive crossovers have been removed. I've been waiting to talk more about this set up. I've been working on it for a while, and I think I've finally reached a point where I'm very close to optimized with the EQ and crossover settings I want to listen for a good while and let my ears settle in before I rave it up too much. So far, I absolutely love it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timbley Posted April 20, 2005 Author Share Posted April 20, 2005 ---------------- On 4/20/2005 9:24:02 AM Maron Horonzak wrote: After doing some calculations....Thats not mutch of a Track-Trix flair design, But closer to a squaired conicle design. ---------------- It does look like a straight squared conical flair for most of it's surface. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylanl Posted April 20, 2005 Share Posted April 20, 2005 Thats interesting. I have always wanted to try true bi-amping with an active crossover. Then eliminate the crossovers all together on my Khorns. From what I have found the process is expensive. You also need a good equalizer right? I like the thought of running the bass with SS and horns with tubes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timbley Posted April 20, 2005 Author Share Posted April 20, 2005 ---------------- On 4/20/2005 7:20:28 PM Dylanl wrote: Thats interesting. I have always wanted to try true bi-amping with an active crossover. Then eliminate the crossovers all together on my Khorns. From what I have found the process is expensive. You also need a good equalizer right? I like the thought of running the bass with SS and horns with tubes. ---------------- I first got interested in this idea reading about the DEQX, which is said to be a fantastic unit, but pretty darned expensive for my budget at 3 grand. I did a lot of reading about the Behringer DEQ and DCX units before I decided to give them a try. One guy who had used both said you got most of the benifit with the Behringer stuff that the DEQX could provide, he threw up a number like 70%. That was good enough for me. You can get a Behringer DEQ2496 equalizer, the calibrated microphone to go with it, and the DCX2496 crossover for about $600.00 total. Throw in a Panasonic or JVC digital receiver and you've got decent amp channels and coordinated volume control for under $1000.00! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylanl Posted April 27, 2005 Share Posted April 27, 2005 So make a comparison from before with passive to after for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timbley Posted April 27, 2005 Author Share Posted April 27, 2005 ---------------- On 4/27/2005 8:30:21 PM Dylanl wrote: So make a comparison from before with passive to after for me. ---------------- In a nutshell, it's clearer and more detailed, from top to bottom. I was expecting more massive impact in terms of large scale dynamics, but I'm not really being super wowed by anything like that, although I do notice that some compression effects I used to hear during passages with heavy bass are gone now. One song like that is Gorillaz's "Clint Eastwood." It has cymbols bashing with heavy bass at the same time, and the cymbols used to get sort of flattened, which I thought was just how the recording was. They just couldn't shine very will with that bass. And I really couldn't hear the bass clearly either. Now I hear both very well. However, I could see how a good, single, high current amp may be able to flesh this effect out just as well with the passive circuit installed. But back to the clarity and detail, it's pretty spectacular. I find it hard to believe that any amplifier could be as clear with this speaker going through it's passive crossover, but I say that with some reservation because I haven't had experience with much high end gear. I notice that sounds seem to hang in the air better between the speakers, and the textures of those sounds are excellently resolved. Maybe this is microdynamics? It sounds like the edges are not rounded off, making a lot of things sound scintillatingly realistic to me. When I first hooked up this system, I noticed the bass improvemnt, an it struck me as majestic. It brought flashbacks of when I used to hang out at "Nuts about Hifi" in Silverdale, WA and listen to the big Wilson Grand Slams in the high end room. For whatever reason, this effect has worn off now and just sounds normal and good to me, and not as good as I remember hearing from my friend's Klipschorns. (I need to go listen to those again.) I think tuned port bass has it's limitations. The bass is very good though, and I think it might border on spectacular in a better listening room. It seems to go deeper than it used to, and I actually see some movement occasionally now on the RTA all the way down to 20hz, although it's dropped off a long way by then. I don't know how to describe it as far as warmth or richness, because I can control that to some degree with the EQ, and I'm still trying to decide what kind of balance I like best. I'd say it has no more or less than it did with the passives. I have heard a certain dreamy, romantic quality to other systems that I can't seem to copy with any EQ setting. I've also heard other systems that seemed more liquid smooth in the midrange and highs. I can't copy that either. Everything has some texture. But I couldn't get that effect with the passives either, and I think it actually is a little smoother and sweeter than before. But you know, I got to hear some Russian singers last week, live without amplification down at the University of Oregon. They were superb, and just three of them sounded like 10 somehow. What really wowed was their dynamic range. They started out soft, and I mistakenly thought that's just how things were going to be without amplification. But later they nearly shook the roof down! The whole auditorium reverberated, and my sense of direction of where the sound was coming from was largely lost, like bad stereo imaging. A lot of things that I thought were shortcomings of my system happened in real life. I heard their voices overlap and ocassionally cancel eachother out, leaving nothing for breif moments but the crackling breathy edge of one of their voices, or create oscillation effects like two drivers cancelling eachother out at a certain frequency and location. I heard the sound loud in one of my ears and muffled in the other if I didn't look right at them. The real sound didn't have that dreamy, romantic quality, nor was it liquid smooth like it was riding on a minsicus of medium weight oil. Their voices had a degree of hard edge. The Behringer/JVC combo seems to mimic the real sound pretty well to my ears, but not perfectly. It might suffer from a certain degree of "digititus," and may be unacceptable to someone adjusted to a more silken sound. I wouldn't mind having that silkly smooth sound sometimes myself. Now if they could just put in a setting for that... Mixing the Behringer crossover with some tube amps might make some beautiful magic. I'd say this system is mighty in "PRAT." I just can't sit still when I listen to anything with any kind of rythym in it. The whole body's got to move. I think it has more of that now than it did with the passives. One last thing, it resolves at low volume better. It sounds really nice down low, but will also go louder if you want it to without sounding strained. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KathyMason Posted May 7, 2005 Share Posted May 7, 2005 Wow, nice to see what the horn looks like in the RF-7! I wondered what the other side looked like. Any more pictures of the inside of the RF-7 and it's components that I may have missed on the Klipsch forum or anyone have any to post here??? I must say that I love my RF-7's! Sound wonderful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timbley Posted May 8, 2005 Author Share Posted May 8, 2005 They really do sound wonderful, even without any modifications. I didn't take any other pictures while I had them open. But I've seen some others posted. The big 10"s have magnetic sheilding enclosures just like you see on the horn. There's plenty of bracing to make the cabinets rigid, and the veneer is on the inside and the outside, which helps prevent warping. These speakers are made to last. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KathyMason Posted May 8, 2005 Share Posted May 8, 2005 Thanks timbley!!! That's the kind of info I like to hear about! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Speedball Posted July 5, 2005 Share Posted July 5, 2005 I was just about to start a thread concerning damping an RF7 horn, glad I found this. My crossovers are out for a bit of tweaking and now would be a good time to do so. I may at least try a little. I puttied the horn on my KG4.2's heavily and later removed it due to giving the speaker a just plain weird sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frzninvt Posted July 5, 2005 Share Posted July 5, 2005 Why in the world would anyone putty a composite horn? It is not going to make an audible difference. If you think it does, it must be a mental placebo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baxter Posted July 5, 2005 Share Posted July 5, 2005 Did you detach the tweeter from the wiring? How does the connector work? thanks B Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Speedball Posted July 5, 2005 Share Posted July 5, 2005 Hey Fritz, Some time ago I had my 4.2's open and I covered the backside of the horn with damping material with lousy results. I was trying to tone down the tweeter and that was before the crossover mod, which worked quite well. Baxter, On the 7's I discovered today(with someones help)....to disconnect the wiring from the tweeter/horn just push down on the spring loaded release "thing" and the wire will slide right out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deang Posted July 5, 2005 Share Posted July 5, 2005 Man, I've been reduced to "someone". Pat, I wouldn't bother with the horns. If you'll notice, the composite material has been reinforced with "ribs" to prevent flexing. Also, the throat of the horn is very short, and with that heavy driver on the back mass loading the whole thing -- I wouldn't worry about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Speedball Posted July 5, 2005 Share Posted July 5, 2005 Yeah, probably not going to too much effort. Thanks for the explanation, Dean ! WOW!, 401 posts.....I get a prize....Right? edited: Dean, I used the only box available and it took about 15' of bubble-wrap to fill up space....lol...use what you wish to send them back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.