I Bought Klipschorns :)

[meagain]

Quick question.... At the bottom of the rear 'tail fin' as I call it - the vertical board that's about 8" wide... There's a cut out at the bottom about 8" from the floor. Should the pipe insulation not go there? Obviously, it wouldn't touch the wall so I think we shouldn't put it there. yes?

[3dzapper]

The cut out is for baseboards. Put it on it will still be at least closer to the corner. while you are at it, put some across the top of the bass bin.[]

Rick

[3dzapper]

Pardon my brevity but I mixed my after dinner cocktail a little strong this evening.[D][6] Peter, Paul and Mary were leaving my room on a jet plane and I had to see them off.[]

Rick

[thebes]

Pardon my brevity but I mixed my after dinner

cocktail a little strong this evening.[D][6] Peter, Paul and Mary were

leaving my room on a jet plane and I had to see them off.[]

Rick

Peter, Paul and Mary, my god, you are... what's the word I'm searching for, oh yeah, decrepit, yeah that's the one.[][][]

[MarkBK]

...Everyone's been most helpful to me and I really appreciate it!

Mark - I didn't know there was actually a store around that had khorns set up. Amazing. The wall these are on is about 12' wide. If that. We hope to remodel and when we do, will design the room for these babies.

.

.

Meagain,

Your room width is probably close to the room size at Simply. Is that the wide wall? If not, in the remodel - try the longer wall layout. Back when I had Cornwalls - 3 friends bought the same after hearing mine and one of them had a party in a large park lodge to which he brought the Cornwalls. The speakers just kicked in that large space set about 30 feet apart - K horns would have been even more impressive! You have a lifetime speaker with that purchase!!

[3dzapper]

Pardon my brevity but I mixed my after dinner cocktail a little strong this evening.[D][6] Peter, Paul and Mary were leaving my room on a jet plane and I had to see them off.[]

Rick

Peter, Paul and Mary, my god, you are... what's the word I'm searching for, oh yeah, decrepit, yeah that's the one.[][][]

You left out depraved, demented, deceitful and delightful.[A]

Rick

[meagain]

OK - we tweaked things & listened. Not sure how/why, but I seem to have lost my bass that before bathed me in splendor.

It doesn't go as deep, bass pedals & drums seem a bit higher and the whole effect is very "hall-like". Like it's distant, more airey. Hubby agrees with me. I've triple checked the receiver settings and it's all the same.

Other than moving it an inch closer & adding the foam pipe, speaker wire was upgraded from under 14 to 16g? Grey stuff from Home Depot. Bass not as deep and almost echoish. Can't make the house or my innerds rumble. I'm puzzled. Tomorrow is another day.

[jbsl]

Welcome to the madness[]!! Sometimes when you make a change it may not make it sound better to you. That is why you do one change at a time. If the one change makes the sound undesirable then you know what you did and can change it back without having to figure out which change is causing the bad sound.

Put the old speaker wire back first, then take the foam pipe out but leave one inch closer to wall, then pull out 1 inch from wall. When you find the one causing the bad bass try putting the others back in one at a tme and see how it affects the sound.

I just bought a new TAD 60 tube amp from Paul and I'm letting it burn in, break in for a good 50-60 hours before I make any judgements on the sound. Then I'll try different tubes until I find the right combo that makes me happy.

To get the best sound from KHorns and La Scalas it can take time, research, trail and error, and hopefully some fun in between. For some people getting there, the best sounding system, is most of the fun. For other people they want to get KHorns hook them up and enjoy. But it does not work like that cause stereo equipment can have great synergy or none at all. So don't be in a huge rush. Slow down and get it right or you could spend alot of money!!

Get the bass back where you like it and stop tweaking for a couple of weeks. Listen to all your music with the system you have right now. Then you and your husband decide what is missing from the sound, if anything is. You both may like the sound enough and not want to upgrade for the moment. If you do then decide what area needs improving, bass, midrange, treble, speakers are bright, harsh, etc.

This forum is a wealth of information at your fingertips but it is also very dangerous since it is one of the top reasons people get bitten by the very dangerous to your bank account upgrade bug[A][6], upgrade this amp, upgrade this cd player, etc, the upgrade bug. I've learned alot from everyone on the forum and have enjoyed reading the posts.

Have fun with your KHorns and then maybe upgrade latter.

Xman

[Jeff Matthews]

First, I want to bet you have your gauges backwards as to the wire. 14 ga to 16 ga would be a downgrade. The smaller number is the bigger wire. Anyway, the wire won't make a difference, so you wasted your money there. We tried to tell you that.... [] LOL.

So, next is you moved the speaker an inch closer and added foam pipe. If these are all you did, then, it's either the foam or the inch or both. I just can't imagine how it would be distance. My Khorns are 15 feet apart, and they are not perfectly snug on the walls. I have even moved them off the wall a little because when they get too snug, I can't position the top box on properly (my walls are not perfectly 90 degrees, obviously). So, I'm probably an inch or so off the walls. They sound the same as if they were 1/4" from the wall IMO. They also sound the same when they were a couple inches off the wall - before I knew to put them closer. And I have no issue at all with bass. It is great.

I wonder how you applied that foam. If you're projecting your bass into it, you know what that will do, right? Try talking through a big wad of insulation. []

[ricktate]

I dont think the pipe foam hurt the bass it should help the horn couple to the wall..Horn=unbroken flare..right?So what happened to her bass?Maybe foam not on right...foam not on horz. part of bass binn...did you retighten all the screws on the terminal block?and on the woofer door?are the speakers in phase and woofers in phase?Easy to get them out of phase when trying new stuff.Phase =...+ from reciever to +on terminal block and the + from the terminal block to the drivers. Alot of people get the bass binn wires crossed when moving them.Since you had good bass before it still should be there now so go back to the basics check everything.Did you take out that screw in the inductor?In another post here BEC has shown metal in the inductor is bad.Well hope this helps Meagain just take a close look at that wiring more than a few of us here have messed up on phase...and some even admit it...lol.Rick

[Jeff Matthews]

Yes, I think Rick's suggestion is right on. I didn't think about it. I've heard that if you get your wires crossed, it should have that effect.

[meagain]

Ricktate - I didn't undo that wire/screw from the inductor mostly cuz IDK what the inductor is.

I can't imagine anything is mis-wired cuz hubby's pretty good. I know if I ask, he'll dismiss this as a possibility - but will. The foam pipe insulation was split open and shoved on the edge of the vertical 'tail-fins' then another horiz piece across the top of bass bin area. There was another kind of gasket/foam type thing at Home Depot that involved tape. Hubby called me from the store and we decided to go with the cheaper pipe foam route as a test. The foam appears pretty thick. I'd say?? 2" wide?

Yes, I got my wire gauges a**-backwards.. The wire was thinner than 14g on initial setup, then upgraded to thicker than 14g last night.

Hubby found his missing detail (some sax & bass clarinet part) on the Miles Davis' 'Amandela' track after this change, but now he questions if it's cuz the bass is just chilled out more to allow him to hear it clearly. He played a Kevin Gilbert song that had 1-2 hits of a bell in the entire song. He said on many systems he's heard, you can't even hear it. Others are very soft. I personally didn't even know this bell sound was in the song till last night. The bell was so loud & distinct that it shocked me. (cool)

Vocals, etc sound amazing too. Can practically hear any spittle hitting the mic.

But right now, I think on most stuff, I'd want to crank the bass up from zero to +2db. Will play again after coffee & waking up. Right now, hubby is stoked about these speakers. Keeps saying 'Amazing' & shakes his head. But he's not the bass freek that I am.

Tonight we listen to bass & harder stuff.

But Did we put the foam on wrong maybe? I've been a bit skeptical about this foam idea from the get go. I wonder if the speakers need the small corner part of the wall junction that the foam is now blocking? Wondering also if the speakers 'use' walls for the bass that when sound hits the foam it's being semi-absorbed into it? Is that possible?

Ricktate - What is the "woofer door"?

Mark - I sent hubby your post on the DeeDee stuff & before he went to bed tossed that CD in my lap. Tonight we give a listen. Taking suggestions as to what specifically to look for or what song(s) to choose.

[Jeff Matthews]

Rick might have been thinking that you opened the woofer door (a panel w/screws) to access the woofer when you changed the wire. Of course, you probably did not, as the connections are on the outside of the panel. Still, check your polarity.

I think you'd have to have alot of foam in the way to dampen the bass significantly.

[ricktate]

The woofer door is where the wires go from the crossover down to this square piece of wood,,,its an acess door to get to the woofer.The screw in the inductor ...look at crossover and see if there is a singlescrew holding something down...thats it and it may have a round piece of wood with screw going through it.Also while your back there tighten down the woffer door screws.Rick

[ricktate]

I still dont think the foam is causing a problem but you may have 2" instead of 1" foam.Rick

[3dzapper]

When properly set up and in phase, when you sit in your "sweet spot" and close your eyes there should be no speakers in the room, just musicians arrayed across the center stage. When improperly phased, there will be two distinct speakers left and right. This is easy to test by simply switching the leads on ONE side of the amplifier. You can sit and "hubby" can swap.[]

When it is right, you'll know![D]

Rick

[meagain]

Ricktate - Yes, this is bigger than 1" foam. It's about the size of a spray can of Pledge furniture spray. I'm hesitant to remove wires, etc. cuz the bass sounded great before the changes so first I want to address just the changes we made.

Oh, we also swapped out the thick 1"? MDF slab with a longer piece. Old MDF went 16.5" beyond the rear side grill edge and now extends maybe 3'.

When I asked hubby about the phase issue, he laughed and said "we'd know if it was wrong. It would be blatant". Hubby feels it's not the speaker wire so maybe I should first remove the foam and test.

EDIT: Embarassingly, this might be a receiver issue. [:$] Has some sort of built-in EQ with an "EZ-set" feature that calibrates the speakers, etc. I think something's changed and we need to re-run it or tweak manually. This receiver is ridiculously complicated. I think this might be the problem as I turned things off/on - we did a "oh yes, better!" deal. Ooop!

[Jeff Matthews]

Glad to hear you figured it out. I'll bet the foam did not make any difference, did it? I'll make the same bet for the wire gauge.

You've got the mdf in place, so the speakers should be sounding like they are supposed to...... Period! Mark my words.

Now, if you'd get somebody who has a serious amp to bring it over, that will be your next step. You still are not hearing it right. Trust me. Nickles and dimes on foam and wires, and nada! A few bucks on a good amp, and you'll see.

People push tubes pretty hard around here, and the SS'ers say the tubes don't have the punch. I'd listen to both before buying.

I have not heard the tubes as I have had my SS for 20 years. Mine definitely has serious punch. There are many who'd say tubes do, too, and I don't know what I'm missing. They might be right, but I don't know. Honestly, I can't say that I'm going to go out of my way to find out, as I am very, very happy with my SS. I have also seen people selling tubes because they want to go back to SS. So, who knows?

But, trust, me. A good amp.... Okay?

[tigerwoodKhorns]

Meagin,

Some simple advice (you are getting a lot here)

You have AA networks. The most cost effective, no nonsense, "must do" at this point is to contact Bob Crites and get some new capacitors in your AA's. These are very good networks and if yor caps are shot, you will never be able to diagnose other problems. Even if you go with other higher dollar crossovers later, this will be money well spent (like under $100 I think - you can definately get your money back out if it matters). You will now have property functioning speakers (assuming all of the connections are good) to establish a baseline.

Reading through all of your posts here, I would next get a Behringer DEQ 2496 equalizer (Guitar Center put them on sale for $250). Now you will be able to compensate for room problems, peaks, etc.

This will last you a while. No other changes. Just listen and learn. After you are very familiar with everything, you can then move on and change source, amps, etc.

Chris

[Jeff Matthews]

To prove my point, here's my downstairs set-up. Corns with a Marantz 2230 receiver. I used to run my Crown to drive the Corns until my recent purchase of KHorns. We have an old Marantz 2230 I hooked up downstairs to drive the Corns. Note: the link below provides some specs of the 2230 - particularly, it is 60watts continuous - only 5 watts less than your HK.

http://www.superseventies.com/marantz.html

That said, there is absolutely NO - AND I MEAN NO - comparison to driving the Corns through my Crown. Yes, the 60 watt Marantz is still decent, but I will tell you the difference would be like the speed comparison between a Buick Century and a Corvette.

This not my opinion, so I will not add any "IMO's" or "IMHO's." This is fact. See for yourself. You do not know what you are missing with those KHorns!

Have a Merry Christmas, and I hope you get to hear the difference soon.

EDIT: I looked more carefully at the Marantz specs on another site, and it actually is 30w per channel x 2 channels, for 60 watts. Still, you have not heard the KHorns properly. Best of all, you can test my advice for free and with minimal effort. Just get someone to bring over a good amp.