Klipschorn Tweeter Diapraghm Break In ???

[ka7niq]

I just had my tweeter diapraghms replaced in my Klipschorns.

I had one blown tweeter, but I replaced both, as suggested by DJK and others.

Is there a break in period for them, or am I just hearing how awful my amp really sounds , LOL

My gut instinct is to turn the tuner in between stations and play em fairly loud.Is there a break in period where they will "mellow" out, or should I just shit can this particular amp ?

I have 4 others to try, including a Teac tri path one that I use in my bedroom.

This amp actually sounded "Ok", but that was with one blown tweeter.

I just listened to the one good speaker, and now I have tried it with the replacement diapraghm, and the highs have a harshness to them that wasnt there before!

[TBrennan]

You're most likely simply hearing the T-35 in all it's glory. Some like the T-35 and some don't.

I don't know about T-35 diaphragms but woofer spiders with a similar coating to the phenolic of your tweeters break in very fast, almost immediately.

When talking speaker breakin a little math is always interesting. If running at 10,000hz a tweeter will cycle 600,000 times in one minute and in an hour 36,000,000 times. Now imagine you had a brand new, starched and pressed linen shirt. Then you put it on and take it 36 million times. See where I'm going? ;-)

This is why I laugh when people say it takes 300 hours for the highs on their Lowthers to smooth out.

[ka7niq]

The tweeter sounds "spitty" to me.

Perhaps its the amp ?

i am going to change some things around, and see.

The Klipschorns are 15 feet apart, and I am 15 feet 7 inches away.

They dont seem to be pulling together, and I can clearly localize sounds in the right and left channels.

I am getting a resonant coloration in the lower mids that I got in the Belle's.

Honestly, at this point, I am far less then impressed.

Fortunately, I bought em cheap, so if I have to bail, I can.

I REALLY like em for watching TV though ?

I also like the fact that they sit in the corners, out of the way.

Makes the room seem bigger.

I dont "hate" them in the way I hated the LaScala's and the Belle's.

But, if my memory serves correctly, they are no match for my old Altec 19's , and ESPECIALLY no match for my beloved old EV Interface D's!

But, this can change, I am told, by changing amps, crossovers, etc ?

I do NOT care for their Imaging so far.

There aint any, just a wall of sound, and the speakers call attention to themselves far too often.

Perhaps I am not far enough away ?

I am going to give them every chance to "make my team" but so far, it aint looking real good for them!

I also own Von Schweikert Vortex Screens, B&W 801's, Klipsch CF 3's, Von Schweikert VR 4JR's and Yamaha NS 200M's.

I have some old Forte;s coming.

DJK reccommended them, and Cornwall 2's.

I just missed some Corn 2's, dam it!

Actually, and i hate to say this, Especially here, but I have built Altec 604 speakers that sounded better then these, at least so far

But, as we all know, it may be my amp ??

I really wish I hadnt sold my CF 4's !

Now I know why Roy Delgado liked them so much!

Tom, let me ask you something ?

Do you hear the problems with the K Horns I do ?

Will they ever "go away", or should I sell em ?

[TBrennan]

KA----Myself I'm not much on using amps as equalizers. With a decent amp a speaker's basic nature will show through and I think one either likes that nature or doesn't. Amps don't change a speaker's distortion, it's resonances or it's dispersion. I never heard a speaker I thought was bad get good.

IMO Khorns are much better than LaScalas or Belles becuase they have a much more robust tonal balance. However if one perceives basic flaws in big Klipsches such a tonal balance may make those flaws bearable rather than eliminating them. The basic flaws I see in Khorns are the narrow dispersion and the distortion of the mid horn and the roughness of the tweeter. These flaws are especially evident in the bass-shy LaScala and Heresy.

The last Khorns I heard were John Molotky's and the rig sounded very good, much better than any other Klipsches I've heard. So I think one can hate LaScalas and Heresys and like Khorns.

I have no problem believing your 604s sounded better than your Khorns, I would think they would.

It's up to you buddy, you can experiment with different things and see what happens, give it a little time. But mind that Khorns are a controversial speaker that often divides people along a love-or-hate reaction with little middle ground. So if you don't like them don't feel bad, you're not alone.

Note than many on this forum are so impressed by the performence of the basshorn that they go to great lengths to save it while changing mid drivers and horns, tweeters, crossovers---everything save the basic basshorn. One wonders if such speakers are actually really "Klipschorns" any longer.

[sfogg]

"I just listened to the one good speaker, and now I have tried it with

the replacement diapraghm, and the highs have a harshness to them that

wasnt there before!"

Do you mean the tweeter that had a good diaphragm in it now sounds very harsh with the new diaphragm?

I wonder if the diaphragm(s) might be rubbing in the tweeter?

Shawn

[Deang]

The type and quality of the network makes or breaks them. It's that simple.

[WMcD]

I have read reports of spitting. I have not heard it myself with the home made K-Horns or the real Belles. The home made have an AK3 type with Electo Voice drivers.

There is a known issue with the midrange. As you can see in the schematics, the midrange crossover is just a highpass filter. Not necessarily bad.

The Atlas midrange drivers have a peak at 9 kHz, it is relatively low in magnitude on a plane wave tube. However, the K-400 horns have increasing on axis gain, and bring the peak up to a significant level. There is Dope from Hope showing this but it is not in the collection I posted. It is on the forum someplace.

The solution is a tank circuit in series with the feed to the mid which notches out the peak. This described in the Vacuum Tube Valley review of the K-Horn.

Granted, this is not the tweeter causing a problem. However, the peak probably does interact with the tweeter. This may account for the harshness you heard in the LS and the present problem with the K-Horns.

As far as x-overs, you may want to consider going to the most simple, like the A.

You may wish to avoid the bother. In the A the tweeter is fed with just a 2 uF cap. You could disconnect the present filter (remember what I said about the LC to ground effect with no load) and feed the tweeter with just a 2 uF cap.

I used to get Tampa more often. Sorry I can't stop by with equipment to help you.

Best,

Gil

[djk]

In general, Klipsch speakers are like a magnifying glass, they tend to show any system problems real big time.

But....

The AK, AK2, and AK3 networks (compared to the A or AA) tend to sound 'spitty' especially on female vocals.

I think it is because the elliptical filter induces ringing (maybe not on paper, but driving a real tweeter).

Heyser did a TEF on the Klipschorn with either the AK or the AK2 (the tweeter portion of these are the same) and noted this ringing. I removed the elliptical portion of the filter, going back to a type AA Chebychev, and it sounded much smoother. The ALK uses a Butterworth that sounds even better.

There are, of course, much better sounding tweeters available. They are more expensive, require custom network solutions, and will not fit inside the top.

In the past I have replaced the K77M in AK Klipschorns with a Motorola KSN1016A (no longer available). With the flange cut down it fit the stock Klipschorn top perfectly. It required a custom network solution. This solution not only measured better, but it sounded vastly better too. I wish I had a 100 or so of those still laying around, they used to only cost me $2.85 in qty.

[mikebse2a3]

ka7niq said:

The tweeter sounds "spitty" to me.

Perhaps its the amp ?

i am going to change some things around, and see.

The Klipschorns are 15 feet apart, and I am 15 feet 7 inches away.

They dont seem to be pulling together, and I can clearly localize sounds in the right and left channels.

I am getting a resonant coloration in the lower mids that I got in the Belle's.

Honestly, at this point, I am far less then impressed.

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

Something just doesn't sound right here!

Khorns shouldn't have a problem with a good centerfill with a setup as you described above. I would suggest you recheck all the drivers/crossovers wireing for correct polarity. Many times I've went to someones home to find that the polarity of some of the drivers had been turned around causing sound problems similar to what you have described.

If you have any good test CD Disc I would suggest you use those to investigate at what frequencies you are loosing your centerfill image and also maybe to help identify where some of the sound imbalance is coming from before worring about different crossovers and drivers/horns. You should be getting better sound than what your describing so far.

mike[]

[ka7niq]

Holy Cow,

All the "problems" have mostly disappeared !

I went in the bedroom, and removed a little TEAC PL d100v POS combo VCR DVD/CD surround unit.

All 25WPC of it, and threw it on the Horns.'

My Gawd, I was totally unprepared for what I am hearing!

The spitty, flat, dimensionless sound has been replaced with an almost tube like sound!

The center image has firmed up, and there is now some Imaging too.

I can live with this sound!

And I thought the CF 4's were touchy>

The little Panasonic digital receiver sucks, it sounds NOTHING like this!

I believe this TEAC has a Try Path digital amp in it ?

The Panasonic has a Texas Instruments chip, and it is very different, almost "mechanical" sounding by comparasion.

For the first time, the KHorns put a big grin on my face.

Tom Brennan is right!

Its got to be the next best thing to tubes.

The little TEAC POS has freaking spring terminals for speaker wire, YUK !

I need one of these Try Paths with a bit more power.

I like this one though, it has remote control bass/midrange/treble controls!

Yes, I said TONE Controls !

I seldom use them, very very seldom.

But, I am into musical performances that arent always recorded as well as I would like.

Now, I have to listen some more to you guys, and get these as good as I can within reason ?

But, I no longer want to dump them, not now!

Thank you Tom Brennan!

[3dzapper]

Ka7niq,

Here is a great "chip amp" at a good price if that is what you are looking at:

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampstran&1132029943

http://www.belcantodesign.com/prod_evo2.html

Rick

[Deang]

http://www.martinsoundpro.com/item.asp?id=340

http://www.adelcom.net/MOTOROLA_ksn1016a.htm

It's always fun to play. Would you mind sharing the tweeter filter for it?

[homemade]

djk, how did you work out the efficiency difference between the Motorola piezo (92db ) and the khorn? It looks like the tweeter (from Radio Shack though) I used with some homemade Bose 901's to sweeten up the top end.

[ka7niq]

That looks pretty cool, is it Try Path chip based ?

The reason I asked is I had the little Panasonic because a lot of people over at Audio Asylum were raving about it.

I tried it on 5 different speakers, including my CF 4's and CF 3's.

It did sound pretty good on some Von Schweikert VR 2's I had at the time.

It sucked on the CF series horns, hard and mechanical sounding.

That pretty much soured me on Digital amps, until I came to this Klipsch forum.

I started reading old posts, and I saw Tom Brennan's comments on Try Path digital amps.

Then, people started takling TEAC !

I remembered that "thing" in the bedroom was a TEAC, and it had a digital amp in it!

So, I hooked it up, and WOW !

That was 4 hours ago!

I listened as I watched our Florida Gators kick Tennessee's *** pretty good.

I have absolutely no listening fatigue, and I want to go listen more!

Now I see the magick these speakers are capable of.

They are even imaging now, imagine that ?

I am convinced that the Try Path digital chip is a true advance in audio.

In my other hobby, Ham Radio, Digital signal processing has greatly improved reception.

DSP works by converting the analog signal to digital, then removes the noise.

This allows us Hams to converse with very weak signals that are impossible to hear in the analog domain because they are below the noise floor!

I wonder if in audio, the chip filters out distortion, because I must say I dont think I have ever heard a cleaner sounding amp ?

I am hearing stuff regularly I didnt even know was there!

I have never heard SET on the Horns yet, but any amp is going to have its work cut out for it to beat the sound of the TEAC amp.

At least on my KHorns.

And, I dont even have my Tube DAC hooked up!

I was so blown away by the sound, I just parked my *** and listened!

I am going back for another round of listening, this time, I am going to hook up the marvelous Lite Dac 72 .

I cant wait!

Bye!

[TBrennan]

Well I'm glad things are working out for you. Frankly I didn't think an amp would make such a big difference.

[ka7niq]

Neither did I !

Hey, what Tri Path amp are you running ?

[TBrennan]

KA---The Teac 700, with Altec 605s. I also sometimes use a diy gainclone Kurt Chang made for me, about 15 watts a channel.

[JohnA]

djk,

You have mail. Apparently some of these are still around.

[cwop]

"This is why I laugh when people say it takes 300 hours for the highs on their Lowthers to smooth out."

Well, for my part, its not so much that I dont like Lowthers (with their 3mm xmax) its that I generally dont like the people who like Lowthers........

RJP

[cwop]

In general, Klipsch speakers are like a magnifying glass, they tend to show any system problems real big time.

But....

The AK, AK2, and AK3 networks (compared to the A or AA) tend to sound 'spitty' especially on female vocals.

I think it is because the elliptical filter induces ringing (maybe not on paper, but driving a real tweeter).

Heyser did a TEF on the Klipschorn with either the AK or the AK2 (the tweeter portion of these are the same) and noted this ringing. I removed the elliptical portion of the filter, going back to a type AA Chebychev, and it sounded much smoother. The ALK uses a Butterworth that sounds even better.

This web page is on today's date but is this information accurate? The piezo horn is listed........

http://www.martinsoundpro.com/item.asp?id=340

There are, of course, much better sounding tweeters available. They are more expensive, require custom network solutions, and will not fit inside the top.

In the past I have replaced the K77M in AK Klipschorns with a Motorola KSN1016A (no longer available). With the flange cut down it fit the stock Klipschorn top perfectly. It required a custom network solution. This solution not only measured better, but it sounded vastly better too. I wish I had a 100 or so of those still laying around, they used to only cost me $2.85 in qty.

This web page is on today's date but is this information accurate? The piezo horn is listed........

http://www.martinsoundpro.com/item.asp?id=340