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ALK ES500T extreme-slope network design ready


Al Klappenberger

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15K 20K who cares? They are all too beamy for my taste run full range. I'd rather stick with the 100x100 dispersion of the JBL2404s on top cutting the mids off at over 6K. Right now I am using K-55 spring terminals with ALK As and a P-trap to drive them down further at the upper end.

I have a pair of ALKtenuators for the 2404s, but I stole one to tame the K-77 on my "new" Belles. Now, I have to buy another pair.(

The 808-8As that I have are sitting idle in the back room.

Rick

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I just did some figuring. If you assume an 8 Ohms driver set to -9 dB on the transformer, the correct swamping resistor would be 9.1 Ohms (which is what I put on the ES series networks). To put 10W into the driver you would need to apply about 80W of power. That's 25.2 V RMS. The resistor would be takling 69.9 W. Obviously the 10W resistor can't take any more that 10 W, so the driver would only be seeing 1.25W.

AL K.

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I agree with Rick 100%. Go 3-way. The only complication is the driver interferance. That is solved by an extreme-slope squawker / tweeter network. The only question left is the power handeling of the squawker. It's limited by the 10W swamping resistor I use. I have only heard of one guy claim it was getting warm. He was intentionally trying to annoy the neighbors with it! It looks like you would need a 100W resistor to keep up with the driver. That just isn't reasonable!

Al K.

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Rick,

I'll have to try the 902s on the 805s at some point. I have some 1" to

1.4" adapters I could use to try it. It would be interesting to

hear how that compares against the 511s as the multi-cells spread out

the high frequencies more then the 511s which narrow their

dispersion at the high end.

With the 805/288s on axis they are a little softer then 511/902s but move off axis and they sound brighter.

I also have some smaller Altec Mantaray CD horns that I want to play

with at some point. They cut off too high for the mid-horn but they

would keep dispersion constant over the whole bandwidth. Because of the

CD nature of the horns though they would need EQ to keep response flat.

Shawn

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  • 12 years later...

Hi Mark, I appreciate that i'm late to this party.  I asked Al and he respectfully advised that the designs are out there somewhere if I look hard enough.  He wasn't averse to me building it, he just didn't want to be involved.  

 

I did find out that the es5800 was never in the public domain so I'll have to buy that one anyway.  I can't for the life of me find the es500.  

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I don't think Al ever released the design for the ES5800.  I have purchased a few pairs of those over the years.

 

I recently purchased a set of ES500 + ES5800 for the Jubilees. 

 

I doubt you could save very much by building yourself.  Also, when Al does it they are a work of art.  I have been satisfied with the performance as well.  

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3 hours ago, mark1101 said:

I doubt you could save very much by building yourself.  Also, when Al does it they are a work of art.  I have been satisfied with the performance as well.  

I second this. You MIGHT save a few bucks on the big ticket items but once you get every little terminal  and misc. piece and spend the time searching for them, it's a wash.

@brownaye I'm sending you a PM.

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3 hours ago, Marvel said:

I usd to have some of those he posted saved at home. If I still have what you need, I will let you know.

 

Bruce

 

Thank you Bruce!  I think I'm all set now.  A good samaritan sent me the ES500 design and the I'm hearing from multiple people the ES5800 was never made public.  

 

3 hours ago, mark1101 said:

I don't think Al ever released the design for the ES5800.  I have purchased a few pairs of those over the years.

 

I recently purchased a set of ES500 + ES5800 for the Jubilees. 

 

I doubt you could save very much by building yourself.  Also, when Al does it they are a work of art.  I have been satisfied with the performance as well.  

 

Agreed, Al's work is impeccable.  Unfortunately I can't afford impeccable at the moment lol.  I was going to build the ES500 with lower quality parts and upgrade them incrementally as I have funds.  I haven't put together a BOM yet so I'm not sure if that will save enough money to justify building it myself.  On the other hand, not all the choices we make in this hobby are driven by cost; the tinkering is the fun part.  

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its been a couple years since i made an attempt.   but i remember the Sledgehammer coil or whatever it is, had to be ordered from somewhere in Canada.   by the time i would have purchased the parts, it was about a couple hundred dollars less than what Al sold them for.

 

 

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10 hours ago, Schu said:

Does that work for the Jubilee?

How does it sound?

 

Yes.......AL designed these ES500s specifically for the dual K31 woofer system (Jubs).  Not the same networks as his ES500 for a single K33 system.  The sound is excellent.  Of course you have to EQ the horn and driver as you would with a digital system.  In this implementation I have 100% analog and use an NBS preamp, Ashly 31 band graphical EQ, and McIntosh mono blocks.

 

I had Craig install a tape monitor loop on my NBS so I could add an EQ to the preamp.  The NBS has two outputs.  The second output I feed to the Xilica processor to delay and band pass my 684 subs.  This works very well and although I digitized the subs I can't detect it.  The delay definitely helps.

 

I have used ALK ESNs along with an outboard graphical EQ on other systems involving a K402 horn and so I knew what I was getting.  This is a great solution to stay analog.  Also, Roy tested this very solution and many on this board were present in the Klipsch lab when we heard it vs. the EV dx-38 Jub solution.......several years ago.

 

You can't get the EQ exactly to Roy's settings with a graphical but you can come very close.........and it is a very easy system to setup and tune.  Less amplifiers too.

 

Originally I ran my Jubs all digital for many months with Roy's settings in the Xilica and that was a very good sounding solution as well.  I didn't feel I had to fool with that at all.

 

As many know I'm fortunate enough to have a 5 way digitally controlled MCM across the room.  When comparing my analog Jubs to the digital MCM it is one of the hardest things for me to say which one sounds best or which one I prefer.  They both have pros and cons.  We could go on all day about this.  But being able to compare is enlightening and I feel fortunate to have both types and the flexibility to make these changes to learn more and enjoy.

 

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18 hours ago, brownaye said:

Agreed, Al's work is impeccable.  Unfortunately I can't afford impeccable at the moment lol.  I was going to build the ES500 with lower quality parts and upgrade them incrementally as I have funds.

 

This was Al's complaint.  He did not want anyone changing the design to lower quality parts and then blaming the design for poor sound. 

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I am obligated to point out that a DSP crossover may be less expensive, more versatile, and give better performance than an analog circuit. There are plenty of good DSP boxes out there, especially on the used market. By the way, are we to assume this is for a Klipschorn?

-Tom

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27 minutes ago, PrestonTom said:

may..................give better performance than an analog circuit

 

I must say that I'm still drawn to passives and analog despite the control and versatility of DSP.

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