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Klipschorn hurting wifes ears. what to do?


Jim Cornell

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The K-55-V and on the K-400 horn, hurts my wifes ears, I have the Klipschorns on the H/K 430, im not using that much power, the 511-b isnt in my opinion any smoother.

Due to the size of my house, my room is 15X15, I wonder if I should just go back to cornwalls?

Im using the old Sansui XP- X8000, more than the Klipschorn's.

What mod could be done that would be irreversable, to tone down the K-400? The altecs to me seem to have the same output. I could disconnect it and have a 2 way LOL.

Regards Jim

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LOL I had the wife and freind over the other day, I noticed the wife covering her ears, and my freind saying to tone it down, Either Im going deaf, and can take it, or they were just being rediculous. I was only pushing 4 watts at the time, SO the thought in my mind at the time was BLOW ME lol.

Regards Jim

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LOL I had the wife and freind over the other day, I noticed the wife covering her ears, and my freind saying to tone it down, Either Im going deaf, and can take it, or they were just being rediculous. I was only pushing 4 watts at the time, SO the thought in my mind at the time was BLOW ME lol.

Regards Jim

FOAM EAR PLUGS might help them out, or maybe a few more watts might clear things up. Hang in there Jim, don't let them get you down.

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Jim,

I really got happy with my Khorns after running the squawker off the #3 tap on the autoformer. The #4 tap is the factory spec, and the #3 will drop the squawker output by 3db. I don't know whether it was my ears, or my room acoustics, but I thought they sounded much better after making that change. This little tweak will make the bass more apparent relative to the HF.

The tweeter can be padded down a little if you want, too. I have used Al K's tweeter attenuator boards for that with good results. That runs about $80.

Some people use L pads, to accomplish this. I think it can also be done by changing the autotransformer tap for the tweeter, but I have not tried this so have no report on that matter.

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DD - I've not tested #3. Mine were on 5/2 and I tried 4/x for a few hours. Perhaps it was because I was so used to #5, but I thought #4 removed a few things from the mix. I felt like I lost a tad of detail and since the squawk was toned back, perceived more bass which made things sound a bit unbalanced to me.

I guess I should try various settings again and leave them there. I wish I had a mixing board on my coctail table. Do you not find that #3 took a few good things off the table as well?

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The result on the #3 tap here in my house, is truely do to the room size, listening to Klipschorns in my sitting room at 10 feet apart, sitting approximately 8 feet from them is very hard on your ears even on the #3 terminal. I dont feel that I lost to much sound, the tweeters stand out a bit more, as well as the bass.

I wish I would have known this for the children, instead of putting the Klipschorns in my room, and not using them for a year.

Everybody should be cautious with db levels and thier ears.

Regards Jim

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DD - I've not tested #3. Mine were on 5/2 and I tried 4/x for a few hours. Perhaps it was because I was so used to #5, but I thought #4 removed a few things from the mix. I felt like I lost a tad of detail and since the squawk was toned back, perceived more bass which made things sound a bit unbalanced to me.

I guess I should try various settings again and leave them there. I wish I had a mixing board on my coctail table. Do you not find that #3 took a few good things off the table as well?

meagain,

hmmm. well, I'm using stock type A crossovers. The factory squawker setting on these is the #4 tap. For most recordings the #3 tap is my preference. The midrange is a little laid back compared to the #4. I'm happy with it most of the time. Don't think I'm missing much. On some bass heavy recordings, a little more mids are nice. Most of the time, my levels are not really loud.

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Four watts into Khorns is very loud (as much as 110 dB CONTINUOUS), especially in a 15' X 15' room. If the room is even slightly "live," you may be getting room reflections piling up. That's what always hurts my ears--and not distortion--when I use the volume knob too much.

Try dampening your room a little with sound absorbing materials and see if the sound improves.

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When moving the K55 down to tap #3 it is a good idea to add a 15 ohm resistor in parallel with the K55.

It will sound smoother, and the crossover frequency will be correct. Without the resistor the crossover frequency will go down an octave (to 200hz), this won't hurt the driver (rated for 30W of full range signal), but it will sound better at 400hz.

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IF you drop to tap 3 you have to add the 15 ohm resistor Dennis recommends or change the 13uF capacitor to 6.8uF. Running the K-55 as a midbass driver isn't really a good idea.:)

I don't know the condition of your present networks, but if they are populated with the original parts I can only imagine how bad it must sound. Rebuild the networks with some decent polypropylenes and you'll find you don't have to listen as loud to capture the dynamics you crave. If you want more smoothness you are going to have to go to a different network design.

I use my wife and daughter often to help me evaluate my work -- I watch their faces carefully, and it takes about 5 seconds to see if they are picking up on something I can't hear or isn't bothering me. The female ear is extremely sensitive to resonances and ringing.

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