Belleman Posted July 9, 2006 Share Posted July 9, 2006 Well so far the wealth of help and information that has come from this site with respect to my newly acquired '75 Klipsch Belles has been awesome. I've upgraded the caps in my AA networks and even changed a tap for the squawker on a transformer. The sound keeps getting better and better. So I've been listening and listening to music that I am familiar with and I'm noticing one thing with respect to the sound. At lower levels it's not so prevalent but as I turn it up it is. I tend to hear a "box" sound. It sounds, for lack of a better word "boxie". Does that make sense? Not sure how else to describe it. I'm wondering if the internal cabinet for the 15 inch driver could use a material like black hole five or such. I have used such product before on cabinets and it mellowed out the box sound. Anyway, hopefully others have been across this bridge before and might have some ideas for me. Maybe I am barking up the wrong tree here all together. I just don't know... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted July 9, 2006 Share Posted July 9, 2006 For starters you will want to go around and check for panel vibrations. So crank up some bass heavy material and stick your hands in the mouth of the bass horn and feel around. Feel outside the cabinet too. And isn't there an access panel hatch thing on the bottom? Or is it on top under the tweeter? Anyways, go ahead and take that off while playing some music and feel around inside there as well. Make sure the access panel is securely fastened too. If you don't feel any vibration then I'd wager you're experiencing an effect called "lack of low frequency extension" and I'd recommend you get a subwoofer [] If you're not a fan of subs, then go ahead and go the route of stereo subwoofers - basically turning your lascalas into 4-way speakers. If there are no panel vibrations then lining the sides isn't going to do much at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belleman Posted July 9, 2006 Author Share Posted July 9, 2006 No, there's no vibrations and I'm currently running a quality sub woofer bi-amped at this time. I hope to build dual subs in the near future. Product like Black Hole five isn't installed to stop cabinet vibrations. I'm not hearing cabinet vibrations. I'm thinking I want to deaden the interior box and stop this echo type of sound. Everything is tight cabinet wise on the Belles, it's just a sound that may be natural to this horn type of configuration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 oops, I shoulda read your signature... Be careful adding damping material inside the sealed cabinet as it can greatly alter the behavior of the driver. I can't remember the full reason off the top of my head, but it is overdamped on purpose to fix something in the low end. And are you sure it's an issue with the speaker itself? The fact that it increases with volume and is not a cabinet vibration doesn't sound like an inherant sound to the type of horn it is (but if it is the horn, then the only thing that will fix it is a new horn....). One way to verify would be to take the speaker outside or into a different room and see if the sound is still there. But right now it sounds like it might be an acoustical situation with the room. For the sake of stating the obvious, it could very well be a placement issue - if it doesn't change with a new location then it's back to blaming the speaker. Are you running any kind of high-pass filter on the lascalas? Or is it a natural roll-off with the subwoofers dialed in underneathe? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest " " Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 "boxie" as in tunnelish sounding (like listening to music with cardboard tubes over your ears? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Spinner Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 betcha it's the Mid horn that is bothering you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundbound Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 Acoustics of the wood horn cabinet itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belleman Posted July 10, 2006 Author Share Posted July 10, 2006 Acoustics of the wood horn cabinet itself. That was my first guess. Anyway, I may just get used to it as I am married to these speakers for a while as we remodeled a whole damn room around them. I may try some budget sound deadening treatments to the box and see what happens if I can do it on the cheap. If it's the squawker horn then I'm simply stuck with that for a while. (but for some reason I don't want to believe that's it). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-MAN Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 betcha it's the Mid horn that is bothering you I'm with Duke - probably isn't a true bass-horn "coloration" that you are hearing - its somewhere in the 400-600 Hz range, I'll bet. Here's how I describe some of these artifacts and what I think some of the causes and fixes might be: 1) "Hollow" sound - that's the back reflections from the back chamber coming back through the cone out of phase. Since the LS/BELLE have parallel top and bottoms in the back chamber, add a little insulation to the bottom of the back chamber prevent standing waves from developing between the two parallel surfaces. 2) "Boxy", "Woody" or "Nasal" sound - that's more than likely a peak somewhere between 400 and 600Hz (500 is a good average) that makes it sound extra-nasal, especially vocals. 3) "Boomy" sound - results of peaks in the LF response, usually attributed to the room and its various modes. Add room treatments, especially some absorption. 4) "Muffled" or "Muddy" - usually indicative of too much damping in the back chamber or a back chamber that has too much volume for the particular driver, in other words. Can also be caused by too much reflectivity in close proximity to the horn exit channels. DM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belleman Posted July 10, 2006 Author Share Posted July 10, 2006 Hey thanks DM... I think I'll try a bit of insulation as you mentioned in item one. If its a peak in the 400 to 600Hz range, what's the fix? New squaker, new network other than the AA? [:^)] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-MAN Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 try the "felt strips" approach - that will tell you what you want to know about as cheaply as possible. DM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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