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Sideways Heresy's


pkeller

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For vastly improved imaging, turn your Heresy's on their side with tweeter toward the middle. Adjust the angle facing the listener (you) for best time alignment. Trial and error works well. Also, on type 1's, install the "P trap" crossover mod detailed elsewhere on this board. Just search "P-trap" to find it.

Report back and tell this board what you found.

Regards:

Paul Keller

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I tried this technic with my cornerhorns but the bass performance seemed to be adversely affected by the sideways orientation.

Then, being no ones fool, it dawned on me that I should achieve much the same effect simply by lying on my side on the couch in front of the speakers. I must say though, that imaging was not in any way enhanced, and in fact the soundstage seemed to be rather vague and poorly defined.

I did think that the music seemed to take on a more relaxed and soothing quality that I can't fully explain. Even to the point of inducing sleepiness. Repeated testing produced similar or even more pronounced states of drowsiness, especially after a long days work, or late at night.

Although I am at a loss to explain such phenomena, I know what I heard. I wonder if anyone else has had similar experiences with what I now call "sideways imaging"? wink.gif

Really,

Blind Melon McCall

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Perhaps I should explian in better detail.

The Heresy mid and tweeter horns are of a "diffraction" type. That means that they have a wider dispersion prependicular to their mounted axis. Therfore, a vertically mounted set of Heresy horns will have less critical side-to-side listener location than if those horns were mounted horizontally (standard mounting).

Heresy's, Cornwall's, and Bells used these horn designs. Klipschorn's and LaScala's did not.

Early Cornwalls had their mid and high frequency horns mounted vertically for just this reason. The problem is, this requires individual left and right speakers to make a stereo pair. This created a huge inventory problem for Klipsch dealers and numerous shipping mistakes. They finally just rotated the horns horizontally and cured the problem at the cost of reduced imaging.

Heresy's are the only one of the three designs that can easily be turned for vertical horn presentation.

Give it a try. mine have remained on their sides since I heard about this and found such a great improvement.

Paul

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Hi Paul, I do have Heresy's and don't understand possibly due to to my lack of terminology or ignorance. What do you mean by imaging (separation)? Wouldn't turning the speaker on it's side increase separation and reduce soundstage and bass (speakers would have to be placed on stands). With the 60x40 degree horns vertical, the 60 would go up and down and 40 left and right. I have a 16ft x 25ft room with standard height ceiling. I don't understand this benefit. I'll try it but am confused. My cabinets have no damping, bare wood only. Is this typical of stock Heresy's? Thanks, Trip

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  • 3 weeks later...

I listened to my vintage EV systems for two years with the horns VERTICAL,tweeter on the left, mid on the other side of a 15 inch woofer. Moving the horns to above the woofer, mounted HORIZONTAL (like a "la scala") made a huge improvement in imaging. Vocals and instruments that belong in the center stay there, even when moving about the room. Reflections from the floor and ceiling were greatly reduced, and with the mid and hf drivers so close together, the effect is almost like a "point source". No way is turning a speaker on it's side, woofer to the outside and tweeters to the inside, going to make a beneficial change. Think about the time phase differences being created by such an inappropriate configuration! EV claims 180 degree dispersion patterns with the T-35(K-77m in klipsch speak), and with my rat shack meter the 180 seems to be along the long axis of the horn. So horizontal horns spread out along that plane. The vertical way means much of the dispersion is towards the ceiling and floor, greatly increasing reflections that might be misinterpreted as a "good" thing. I think that true "physics" diffraction is not at work here, although the T-35 horn was called a diffraction horn.

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"At least" let's talk about the same kind of speaker. Comparing different baffle mounting locations, Mid horn flair, 3/4" of baffle thikness surrounding the horn opening (Heresy 1's), edge diffraction from the baffle / grill cloth recess, room acoustics (I bet you didn't measure that response in an anechoic chamber), driver characteristics, 15" -vs- 12" woofer, crossover points, extreem phase change from you having the mid and tweet drivers so far apart, are all significant changes from Heresy 1's.

Your conclusion, while strongly stated, ignores that we are talking about a specific design.

Buy some Heresy 1's and give it a try.

Paul

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Gee, I was under the impression that the EV T-35 series are the forerunner of the K-77m, and the K-55 is really an EV 8HD horn with an 1824 driver. Just because K can't figure out how to front mount tweeters on a baffle doesn't make my comments invalid. Recessing the tweet horn behind the baffle was a convince decision, not an engineering one. Too bad K wasn't clever enough to insist that the "new" square magnet K-77's be narrow enough to mount from the front. You missed my point that the vertical horn positioning he had used as an example had evolved to horizontal in 1959.

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The K-77 series are T-35As. Some years, and maybe still, they were tested and hand selected for best performance. The K-55-V was made be Atlas and modified for Klipsch. The K-55-M was made by E-V especially for Klipsch. I was told by E-V that it may have been based on the 1824 or 1828, but was modified to meet Klipsch specs. The K-400 Horn is an adaptation of a dsign Mr. Paul got out of another horn designer's trash can. The K-500 and K-700 are shortened versions of the K-400. It was not intended to be a diffraction horn, though I guess it could have some of those properties. The T-35/T-35A/T-35B/K-77/K-77-M are known as diffraction horns and at lower frequencies they are said to behave that way. However in the band Klipsch uses them they are said to disperse like a normal exponential horn.

I found flush mounting the K-77-Ms in my La Scalas smoothed their sound noticeably. As an experiment, line the opening in the baffle with heavy felt to reduce diffraction. If you like it Klipsch has brackets used on the K-horn you can use to flush mount you tweeters (after enlarging the hole).

John

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I received no comments to my original post. Tried Heresy's on stands on their sides for several days then upside down on stands (tweeter down). Sounded better, more like live music not music coming from two boxes upside down then on sides. Bass response was decreased in any position when on stands. Sounded best when on floor. Just my conclusion.

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The EV speaker design that you compared Heresy's to has the mid and tweet at least 18" apart by your description. When you re-mounted them closer together with the woofer at one end, you vastly changed the polar readiation pattern. This is vastly more responsible for the improvement you experienced than verticle or horizontal mounting.

And yes, that "does" make your comments invalid.

Once again, we are talking about Heresy's and Heresy's only. Extrapolation of findings from other designs is not justifiable. Yes, Heresy's could have been a better speaker. The realities of the market and tecnological limitations of the day take their toll. But I, and I suspect most, don't want to hachet up a good speaker in search of better performance. I like to make sure any modifications are completly reversible.

Give it a try "with Heresy 1's".

Paul Keller

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>>The K-55-V was made be Atlas and modified for Klipsch.<<The Atlas driver was a paging horn driver and typically used on 100 hz horns.This required large diaphragm excursions.Using it for midrange only allowed Klipsch to reduce the clearance between the diaphragm and the phase plug and thus improve the midrange above 2Khz. >>The K-55-M was made by E-V especially for Klipsch. I was told by E-V that it may have been based on the 1824 or 1828, but was modified to meet Klipsch specs.<<The K55M is a copy of an Atlas design and does not resemble the 1824/1828/1829 in any substantial way.With the exception of the DH1012/DH1, EV compression drivers are of a convex dome construction.The main section of the K55V/K55M diaphragm is concave,similar to the construcion seen in JBL/Altec/and the EV exceptions noted.>> The K-400 Horn is an adaptation of a dsign Mr. Paul got out of another horn designer's trash can.<<The horn in question was a Heresy sized horn and deemed too expensive for the intended application by Jensen, the company that designed it.>> The K-500 and K-700 are shortened versions of the K-400. It was not intended to be a diffraction horn, though I guess it could have some of those properties. The T-35/T-35A/T-35B/K-77/K-77-M are known as diffraction horns and at lower frequencies they are said to behave that way. However in the band Klipsch uses them they are said to disperse like a normal exponential horn.<<The T35/K77 has 60* X 60* dispersion in the 16Khz octave.In the 8khz octave it will have better dispersion in the horizontal plane with the long axis of the tweeter mounted in the vertical plane,ie: rotated 90* from current build.This is not possible in most models.Flush mounting with the Klipsch Z-bracket improves the sound.My old K-horns had the T35 vertically mounted on a bracket in the mouth of the K5J wood and fiberglass radial horn.

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the mid and tweeter horns used on the Khorn should be pack away in a box, sealed and stored in the attic for 40 or 50 years.

at that time, get them, and sell them on Ebay for 10X what they are really worth--make sure you call them "Vintage". Also throw the word "Alnico" in too, even if it's a mud magnet, most buyers don't know anyway.

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