Klipschorn dispersion and bass response

[George Roland]

I have been listening to speakers for awhile now. I began with PSB Stratus Golds, then bought a pair of Klipschorns, then a pair of Magneplanar MG 1.6/QR's all three of which were in my listening room for quite some time. The K-horns recently were modified by putting my K55V's onto Altec 511B horns.

I would like to check these listening impressions with you to see if you have had similar experiences, have a different take on these thoughts or maybe some suggestions on how my K-horns are set up that might contribute to my impressions.

The Maggies and PSBs both seem to have wider dispersion than the K-horns. The sound stage through the K-horns always seems narrower. With the other two speakers, the sound seems spread over a wider area allowing for more information/inner details to be heard. When I switch back to the K-horns, I can often pick these sounds up, but the K-horns are seldom the speakers that first allow me to pick up on these sounds.

For example in listening to Gordon Lightfoot's "Winter's Night" from the "Gord's Gold" CD, over the Maggies, I was startled to hear a small chorus of "ooohhhs" come in at the end. I had never heard this over the K-horns. When I returned to the K-horns, it was there, sure enough, but harder to hear, much less noticable. The PSB's sound closer to the Maggies than the Klipschorns in this regard.

The second impression is about bass response. Here the Maggies and PSB's seem to go deeper. There are some bass notes, deep down, that the K-horn just doesn't let me hear.

The K-horn's bass seems more articulate and sharp. Onset transients are better than on the PSB's or Maggies, that seem softer and blurrier on attacks. The Maggies in particular seem downright wooly, almost producing one-note boom at times. They seem very sensitive to placement, however, and this one-note boom can be considerably bettered with careful adjustments of position. The PSB's are somewhere in between. They go deep and have better focus than the Maggies. They aren't as sharp and clean as the K-horns, but the K-horns don't go as low...or at least that is my impression.

As with the Maggies, though to a lesser degree, the PSB's are also influenced greatly by repositioning. I have read many of your statements regarding the often-neglected importance of the room, but these experiments have convinced me of the soundness of that advice.

Do these observations conform to those any of you have made?

My K-horns are in the narrow end of a long room. Placing them across the widees room walls, and perhaps using a center channel is impossible in my room. I cannot really set them up as intended and sit on axis between them. The best I can do is fit the bass bins tightly into the corners (with pipe insulation seals) then rotate the top cabinet towards the outside so as to bring the high end in lign with my listening position. This results in much better sound.

Any and all thoughts on these topics are welcome.

Oh, and BTW, I sold the Maggies. They're gone now. I kinda miss them. but there's only so much room in the room!

George Roland

[Duke Spinner]

yes, the KH does drop a lot of detail

also, the dispertion from the bass bin seems to narrow about 250 hz

you really need a better setup as far as positioning

[m8o]

seems like the free-standing Klipsch bass horn, the La Scala, would be a better fit for that room.

[3dzapper]

Dr Who's sig is relative here: "it's a compromise".

Maggies use the room boundries more than horns to present their "spacious image". This presents it's own set of problems with placement, etc. With Khorns, it's easy: stuff 'em in the corners.LOL

More bass from the maggies or distorted bass? You decide. Here is the anechoic plot published by Stereophile: http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/595/index6.html

[JJkizak]

Placing K-horns in the narrow end of a room is like putting a restrictor plate on a Nascar racing car. You need the wide end with a center channel Cornwall power driven. I have had K-horns in 5 different rooms with different sizes and the best performing was the largest room. Avoid a room with a 17 ft dimension. (Acoustic engineering books).

JJK

[DTLongo]

I have 2003 Khorns in 17-ft.-apart perfect corners with a 2004 Belle center. The bass from the Khorns is the best I have ever heard from ANY speaker in terms of pure, unstrained, musical quality. For virtually all music, it's fine. For "beyond" music - bottom-octave organ, electronic - the Khorns, just like the specs say, don'y have much at all below 35 hz. They are incredible from 35 or so hz on up but, for bass nuts, a little lacking below. Solution: a good subwoofer. Yes, that sounds like bringing coals to Newcastle. But if you're really into bass, Khorns with a good sub give you the best of both worlds. Just be careful not to turn the sub up too much lest it smear the pure bass from 35 hz on up coming out of the Khorns.

- Tom in Delmar, MD

[Klewless]

I too once had Magnepan towers and loved them very much.  I agree that their placement was very critical.  Depending on that the sound image wandered from a hole in the ground (couldn't figure out where the image was) to excellent depth and breath.  However when I got a good image I didn't have much bass; get the bass and the image went to pot.

I admit to having a very bad room; long narrow with the short wall almost half the length.  That spells double trouble and it showed.  The image was also very large at times and sometimes felt it was just too large.

I have had LaScalas in the same room.  Same type of problems but they had much easier time in finding a good place to live in there.  I have had no problems with their imaging nor their clarity.  Obviously a sub (Rel) made for an excellent system.

Now Khorns occupy the corners, with the same sub.  The Khorns simply do not do that last octave the organists like to step on.  Their placement is less perfect than the LaScala due to the corner restraint.  But few problems with imaging nor clarity.

With the Khorns I have placed a Heresey for center channel.  I use a Rotel home theater receiver which supports 3-channel stereo.  I set all speakers to small and crossover to the sub at 40 Hz.  This is the best sounding system I have ever achieved.

My room problem was basically:

  1. Good image resulting in no bass.

  2. Good bass resulting in no image.

  3. The center was always absent.

Room alterations were out of the question.  Too much glass, doors and poor length to width ratio, which the Klipsch was better able to handle.

With the Klipsch I have always felt that when all was said and done after a LOUD session with classical and Pink Floyd type of rock, the Klipsch left a feeling that they were just getting started.  The Magnepans seemed like they were tired and needed a rest.  I guess it is the dynamic range is where the Klipsch always won.  The Magnepans seemed more up close than the Klipsch but Klipsch just took everything in stride better.

That was my experience with these two.  Both excellent in different ways but I ended up liking the Klipsch better overall.

[m8o]

Klewless, you are anything but! [8-|] Entertaining synopsis of your experience.

[DrWho]

How wide is your front wall? And how far back do you sit? You're
already aware of the importance of room acoustics, so I won't go there
[] Are you running the khorns 2-way right now? How did you decide
upon the final crossover?

A lot of what you're describing seems
like a few of the things I don't like about the Altec horns - I've only
heard them in home environments a few times though (most of my
listening has been PA use)...that's not to say that the Altecs don't do
other things well, they're just not perfect at everything. Just trying
to be sensitive to the many people here that enjoy the Altecs (and they
probably listen to music more similar to your tastes).

As far as
what's left of the khorn in your system - everyone knows the bass bin
struggles above 250Hz. Couple that with a squawker that is stretching
to go below 400Hz and you're left with a very difficult transition;
further compounded by signal arrival differences and a non-ideal bass
bin layout in the room. An extreme measure would be to employ an active
crossover like the EV Dx38 which will allow you to acheive better time
and phase alignment along with some EQ options to smooth out the HF
extension of the Altec horn. If you're going 3-way, then it's going to
be a bit more difficult. Though now that I think about it - no way in
heck the K55 is going to go very high - so you must be using a tweeter.
You'd need two Dx38's to do tri-amping ($$$).

Another alternative
would be to build false walls for the khorns so that you can toe-in the
bass bin as well. This should improve the crossover transition between
the bass bin and squawker.

And yet another alternative would be
to move to a better bass bin. The Jubilee was PWK's improvement to the
khorn and a few forum members have acquired a pair so far. They are
much smoother and extend up to 1kHz - allowing for a much easier
transition. They have just a tad less deep bass than the khorn, but I'd
argue that both of them require proper subwoofage. The Jubilee also
doesn't 'require' being mounted in a corner (but benefits from being
close). I think a complete Jubilee package (bass bin + K69 on the K402
horn) with active crossover would leave the KHorns in the dust, while
also achieving all of the attributes you enjoyed with the Maggies.

Ultimately it comes down to how much you're willing to spend and what compromises you're willing to accept.
The Khorn simply doesn't excel with the frequency response so there is
going to be a lot of variation between songs. Recordings with minor
flaws over the bandwidths that the speaker accentuates are going to
sound that much worse.