One More Jubilee ?

[bigdnfay]

There is one thing I have noticed. To get the full effect of the Jubilee, you have to stay within the listening field. I have mine on the short wall (about 12' apart), slightly toed in and not completely tucked in the corners. The bass get weaker as you leave the field. I have an open floor plan and walking from the listening area to the dining room makes a huge difference.

Big D

[seti]

There were 3 khorns along the back wall in the same room but it didn't

cross my mind to ask for an a / b test of jubilee / khorn. I'm not sure

they were hooked up either but not like it would have taken long. I was

just happy to hear the Jubilees remember we didn't know we were getting

a factory tour till the last minute!

[Tony Reed]

We did a side by side comparsion with the K-Horn in Feb., 2001 in the Klipsch theater room. (which no longer exists) There was quite a difference. I've listened to the Jubilee in several different "rooms" (treated & untreated), it sounds good everywhere! This thing just has authority!

Tony

[D-MAN]

That description doesn't help much - can you specifically compare the two for those of us who haven't heard Jubilees but do know what Khorns sound like?

I have a bunch of specifics things to ask:

Low frequencies? Which went lower, etc.

mid-bass? Punchiness, Whack, Thump - percusive elements - ect.

High frequencies? Clarity, "noise level", any bells, cymbals, chimes, etc.

Soundstage, imaging, depth? This is some room-sensitive stuff, but could be helpful.

What "music" did you listen to for a comparison?

How "loud" was it and did both seem to be the same in volume, were adjustments needed?

Gear used for "tests", etc.

Granted, it was a long time ago... we will take anything that we can get.

DM

[colterphoto1]

Trying to give a description of soundstage, etc might be difficult. Please remember that first, we were in total awe just to be there. The WOW factor simply had a lot of us stunned in the first place. We were only treated to a few minute playback on each speaker, of only two different songs, one James Taylor with band and one Eagles Farewell. There was only a single speaker of each type, so really no 'soundstage' per se. Most of the guys even stayed seated throughout the listening tests. I think I was the only one in our group to move around to get a feel for the speakers' dispersion and characteristics throughout the room.

The volume was moderate to loud, then they really let er rip with the Jubilees. I think it was Crown DC300A amplification, there was EV digital delay crossover used on each of the Jubilee samples. I think they did a good job of equalizing the volumes between the different speakers. Please review the Hope threads for our initial impressions of the testing. I think those posts would be far more accurate than anything anyone could post at this time.

Sorry I don't have more to offer. We were speechless. I was shocked. As I said before, when the Jubilee played, I just couldn't stop the tears from running. It was THAT beautiful. I've never heard such a powerful, punchy, deep, effortless, less-distorted (by any means) sound. Ever. In my life.

Michael

[BEC]

Michael is right, the bunch of us were suffering from shock and awe. I don't have anything to compare the Jubilee to. It made me forget about how the three speakers we were there to hear had sounded. The Jubilee sound was "big" and powerful if that makes any sense. I was looking around for the subwoofer and tweeter that I, at first, thought had to be there. Several people in the room stated that it was the best sounding speaker they had ever heard.

Bob Crites

[Deang]

Nice post Michael.

Certainly a lot of things come into play here that account for the strong opinions -- it makes sense: Better bass bin (better design, including two 12's as opposed to a single 15), Tractrix horn with a 2" exit and high quality compression driver, electronic crossover optimized by Delgado himself, and some decent recordings -- I'm sure it sounded glorious.

[Deang]

What Bob sent me in an email after the trip to Hope.

"I was absolutely blown away by the commercial Jubilee he

demonstrated. I don't know how the thing could produce the highs it

seems to do with that 3 inch pro compression driver on the large

format horn he had on it for the demo. But, I am not kidding, the

bass out of that Jubilee bass cabinet is impossible to describe. You

just have to hear it. Some of the good sound may have had to do with

the electronic crossover he had it connected to. No doubt it was

highly tweaked. He said that thing was 107 db in efficiency. You

might actually be able to drive that one adequately with a 3 watt amp.

He said that he and Paul had been working toward an electronics box

for the home version but that was never completed. Anyway, he

indicated that electronic would be the way to go with the Jubilee.

If I heard Roy right, (it was loud in there), Paul had even agreed to

work on the 3 ms delay between the low and high. I am pretty sure he

said he is taking that delay out in his demo rig. I would love to

have Roy all to myself in that lab. He is very friendly and smart

and seemingly willing to tell anything he knows."

[DrWho]

so why aren't more of you guys buying the commercial units? Heck, it

seems like a much better investment "refurbishing" them into a pair of

great looking speakers than all this craziness with 'the other'

speakers. It's like what, $3000 for a pair of bass bins? Then just get

a fancy horn custom built by those crazy wood builder people and you'll

have yourself an amazing speaker for about the price of a new pair of

khorns. AND you get the satisfaction of building it yourself and

knowing that it's the best sounding speaker out there []

[LarryC]

Many similar comments were made in the "Cornwall III" thread, started right after the Hope pilgrimage (http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/5/605220/ShowPost.aspx#605220). Myself, I believe the size of the mouth of the horn makes a lot of difference. I have always thought that the larger mouth of the Klipschorn bass horn is a major factor in how special the K-horn sounds, compared with the LaScala for example.

There were two Jubilees, both apparently with identical bass bins (one dressed up), and identical treble drivers EDIT: and crossovers. The ONLY difference between the two jubilees was the size of the treble horns. RE-EDIT: Roy Delgado confirms this on p. 5 of this thread.

The one with the larger horn is the one everyone raved about. It was far more open and had a far larger sound, literally speaking. The other demo speakers were the Heresy III, Cornwall III, LaScala II, and the jubilee with the smaller treble horn.

This is a picture of the quintet of speakers; altho' only part of each jubilee is visible, you can see how much larger the treble horn is on the left, and that's the speaker folks are talking about.

Larry

[D-MAN]

PWK said "We all live in the midrange".

I should add "then why is it we spend all this time and money on the bass horn?"! That's where the facination lives...

DM

[DrWho]

well first of all, anything PWK says isn't infallible...(that's not to say I disagree though)

secondly, the bass response of a system has a huge impact on the

percieved midrange. not just psychologically, but physically with how

the air waves propagate as well.

[colterphoto1]

PWK said "We all live in the midrange".

I should add "then why is it we spend all this time and money on the bass horn?"! That's where the facination lives...

DM

and seconding DrWho's comments about the bass regions. We might live in the midrange (the natural sounds our ears were 'designed' for), but so much of the acoustical energy of music is in the bass regions that it deserves a disproportionate share of design and attention.

And I especially liked Dman's description of the twists and turns not present in the Jube vs the Khorn. That discourse makes a lot of sense toward understanding the accuracy of the Jubilee bass.

And YES, I will be buying/creating/modifying a pair of these beasts someday.....

Michael

[sfogg]

The bass horn is covering a fair amount of the midrange too. Muting the

upper drivers in my tri-amped setup and it is very obvious that the

horn is covering a lot more then what most would consider as 'bass.'

As far as mid-horns has anyone priced out the KPT-402 horn? I am

assuming that is the big horn that was on the one Jubilee. It is

*large* around 40" wide.

Shawn

[D-MAN]

Yep, guys: buy the empty commercial cabinets and start 'a postin'!

DM

[WMcD]

I was at the 2001 event and will give my observations. I have posted most of this before.

As reported by Tony, the Jubilees were in the equivalent of a small movie theater. They were in corners at the front wall. A Belle was in the center.

There were at least two K-Horns on the back wall.

The Jubilee bass bins were what seemed to me to be regular commercial units. Trey showed the hardwood facade and wedge shaped grills which were very clever cover-ups.

The mids were DE-85s on fiberglass horns.

I did not see any crossovers in use but there is no telling what might have been inside and behind.

The best part of the demo was some Roy Orberson (sp?) on video.

There was a brief comparison between the Jubilee and the K-Horns. My impression and recall is: Better bass on the Jubilee, better treble on the K-Horns. I believe the location for the K-Horn was not optimal. The treble for the Jubilee may well have not be optimized at all. So it was not a fair comparison.

Toward the end a lot of music on the Jubilee was very, very loud. Obnoxiously so. It was probably my ears which were distorting.

I sorry I missed the recent trip to Hope. So, I can't comment on anything which occurred there.

My thought is that any full range horn system which is optimized, perhaps through equaliization, a good room, good placement, etc., is going to be very, very good. Otherwise any shortcoming can be blamed on any of these factors.

I will throw out one thing for thoughts. The AES publication shows different harmonic distortion for the two bass units (K-Horn and Jubilee). I don't know if it can be heard. I don't know why they should be different.

Gil

[djk]

The B&C DE72, 75, 82, 85, 700, 720, 750 all use the same diaphragm.

If you are going to make a two-way with one of these drivers on a tractrix horn, the models with a '2' in them have a 1.4" throat which will have better dispersion in the top octave. These drivers all have a big peak around 16Khz or so that seems to add 'air' to the sound. A good driver for the money, it is not the last word in performance.

"The most critical aspects of design, final assembly and quality control are performed internally. B&C Speakers entrust the other phases of the production cycle (casting, mechanical parts and surface treating) to third parties specialized in specific sectors, thus offering state-of-the-art facilities in all facets of production."

I have seen at least three other brands that look like they use the same diaphragm, two of which are from the Pacific rim and are much less money. Someone mentioned that Klipsch is doing some in-house work on theirs. It may be a deal like the JBL2406/07, where JBL buys the diaphragms from BMS, but makes the rest. I'm not sure of how much of these drivers are actually made by B&C.

[seti]

The HF for jubilees in Hope consisted of the following........

The small horn on the right Jubilee was a k-502 and a B & C driver.

The big horn on the left Jubilee was a k-402 and a K1132 driver.

[sunnysal]

A 402 doesn´t sound right....it would only go up to about 12khz, maybe 14khz...would kinda sound rolled off compared to a k-horn, no? I can see the 904 but 402 sounds like it would need a tweeter...tony

[Deang]

No, it's the 402, and I'm sure they EQ the piss out of it.