Jump to content

DIY KHorn building. A couple of pictures ...


tzehbe

Recommended Posts

Last year I build two KHorns. Now most of the pictures are scanned. You can find them at my newly created and still *very* site

http://www.thomas-zehbe.de

My special thanks are going to BigD, Erik Forker and BerndH for providing indiviual Help!

And of course to PWK who designed this great speakers!

And many thanks to the forum members for sharing all your knowledge.

If it´s of interest here are some information on the building process.

First of all I drawed my own contruction plans using a 2-D Cad System on my LINUX box. That had to be done because I used material of different thikness than used in the plans I had.

I used 12 and 18 mm Birch Multiplex. The construction is based on the 1941 PWK plans, and on plans from Speakerlab, Erik Forker and ATK.

The speakers used are new stock K-33-E, bought from vienna, and used K-55-M with K-401, EV-T35 and AL Crossovers. As you can see I made some minor mods. I left out the side grills and therefore the side walls have hand rubbed finish, too. The woofer door is mounted on a flange so the side wall (I used 18mm Multiplex) has an undisturbed surface.

I put light bulbs just in front of the tailboard so I got some very nice indirect light. Looks much like a sound cathedral in the evening ...

The building process took about 160 hours (drawing time not included).

And the sound? Great! I love it. The KHorns put the musicians in my living room. Comming from a concert and putting a live LP of the musician on the TT and closing the eyes just beamed me back to the concert hall ...

With the first tone I started smiling ... 16.gif Especially when I´m thinking of all the poor guys using direkt radiating speakers.

I think there has not benn any progress in speaker building since 1941. And the WAF is very good. My wife loves them, too.

Have a nice weekend!

Thomas

Now I´ll go home to hear some Music.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice Job!

After a while, you should start looking at better crossovers. The forum is full of them. Not many of ours are bad, but some are better for different applications, mainly the power amp and sound level you listen at.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"...but some are better for different applications, mainly the power amp and sound level you listen at."

Ha! Someone smarter than me actually agrees with me!!

A very nice job on those Klipschorns btw.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Construction techniques seem top notch with every screw hole pre-drilled and counter sunk. I also like the flush mounted woofer access door. Very nice...

I looked through you assembly photos but am I the only one who didn't see the "completed" pics? Just curious about the grilleless look with the lights?

Rob

Link to comment
Share on other sites

W-O-W

F-A-N-T-A-S-T-I-C

V-E-R-Y C-O-O-L

What a strange hobby. If we aren't helping each other find bargains and/or transporting speakers half-way across the USA for each other, we're drooling over step-by-step progress photos of a set of home-made cabinets. As trite as it has become to repeat this ad infinitum, how many other speaker manufacturers have a group of users that would appreciate this level of detailed (and precise)photos of what goes into the construction of their cabinets? Of course this is a rhetorical question since only JBL and (a few others) have web sites devoted to their users.

Far out man. You absolutely did a great job on your cabinets! Thanks for sharing the photos. And I second the vote for photos of the finished product 1.gif

My hat is off to Klipsch for allowing us to have a forum to share these experiences and knowledge.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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

On 6/3/2005 8:47:42 PM blindman wrote:

... As trite as it has become to repeat this ad infinitum, how many other speaker manufacturers have a group of users that would appreciate this level of detailed (and precise)photos of what goes into the construction of their cabinets? Of course this is a rhetorical question since only JBL and (a few others) have web sites devoted to their users.

My hat is off to Klipsch for allowing us to have a forum to share these experiences and knowledge.

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

As you say, JBL is one of the few. Those guys are fanatics about their products too (including me, since I have JBLs). The Lansing Heritage site can be pretty cool.

And too, it's great that Klipsch has this site for us to play!

Marvel

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi!

Thank you all for beeing so kind. It is a good feeling to be welcome.

@John: I read the crossover threads and I am thinking about doing something new, but probably it will be a three way electronic crossover with three amps, probably class A for the mids an highs. (Of course DIY after plans from Douglas Self or Rod Elliot :-).

@Rob, blindman: The "Completed pics" are still missing. There some but I have to find them. As I don't have a pixel camera it would be faster than taking new ones ...

@Stan: The components are very simple. I use a Linn Basic Turntable with Akito arm and a cheap Grado pickup. Followed by a receiver FineArts R3 from Grundig (from which one says it has a good phono preamp). And a FineArts CD player from Grundig. That's it.

@Maron: You seem to be right, a sale is lost. But here in Germany the prices are somewhat hight. Two years ago Audiotrade in Reutlingen offerd KHorns for 7500,-Euro each. That is simply unreachable for me now. So there woud not have been a trade instead. And used KHorns a very seldom here. And another aspect of DIY is having fun, learning a lot and being a bit proud to make things work.

As you may have read I redrawed all the plans. Doing this I got deep respect for PWKs work done at a time as no electronic calculator was laying around on every desk. I hope to give back a bit of publicity with putting informations about him on a german website. And if somebody would ask me I would answer "You can buy every speaker you like as lon as it's labeled Klipsch.

Thomas

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, you've done real good, Thomas. Wonderful work...you should be very proud of yourself.

Just curious...where in Germany do you live? I used to live in Ludwigsburg (outside of Stuttgart). Beautiful country!2.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thomas- very beautiful work, you should be proud! I especially like your upgrades, the countersunk screw holes, AL network, and your idea with open sides and lighting. Sounds beautiful, can't wait to photos of completed work, make sure to take a night photo of your cathedral of sound.

Thank you for posting

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi!

@jt1: I live on the country side near Hannover in nothern Germany.

@Micheal: Your welcome!

Here are the missed pics ..

You se the top of the bas bin. The black thin felt stripes are for sealing the bass horn channel.

box-4-k.jpeg

The two ready to mount tops. I don't use any brackets to fix them. They just sit on the felt stripes and are fixed by their weight ...

box-5-k.jpeg

Sitting in the corner ...

box-6-k.jpeg

Both. The wall is about 19 feet wide. The long walls are 36 feet with a recangular coutout on one side in the back.

box-7-k.jpeg

The following bad quality mobile phone vga pic shows the mentioned indirect light.

box-8-k.jpeg

The same somewhat brighter.

box-9-k.jpeg

The 7 W energy saving bulb sitting at the bottom enlighting the sound ;-)

box-10-k.jpeg

Hope this helps

Thomas

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...