Subwoofer with Klipschorns ... Positive Experience

[dlb945]

I spotted what appeared to be a nice subwoofer for a low price on the Atlanta Craigslist. I've been wondering what the combo of a subwoofer and Klipschorns might sound like in my listening room. I called the seller, made the deal, and drove to pickup the JBL 125 Watt RMS PSW1200 unit. Although an older unit, it was in excellent cosmetic shape. I downloaded a copy of the User Manual from the JBL website and decided to use the line inputs with cables to the 2nd pair of outputs from the preamp. The equipment rack contains an Adcom GFP-555ii Solid State Preamp, a Conrad Johnson MV75-A1 Tube Amp, a Cambridge D-500SE CD Player, and a Harmon Kardon T65C Turtable with Ortofon MC-3 Moving Coil Cartridge wired to a nice pair of vintage K-horns with DIY ALK crossovers.

I set the volume level of the Preamp for a K-horn listening level of 80 db using an old Shure vinyl test LP. Finally, I adjusted the frequency and level settings on the JBL SW using a mix of Rock, Symphony and Opera cuts. My listening room is 21 feet wide and 19 feet deep with the K-horns placed on the 21 foot wall. My head position in the center chair is about 11 feet back from the speaker wall. The Subwoofer was placed 'dead center' between the two K-horns about 12" out from the back wall facing forward.

The big surprise was no boom or bass when the recorded mix had little bass but ... when there was bass ... the room filled with a bottom end fullness not previously produced by the K-horns alone. Even more surprising was the sound image which became deeper as well as slightly lower in height overall. Quite an improvement on both LPs and CDs.

It was a steal at $110 to try this add-on. Will I keep it and use it with the system from now on you ask? I believe so.

Have any other forum members tried a subwoofer with K-horns and if so, what are your thoughts?

[HatTrick66]

I can't speak to the khorns, but I like a sub with my corns.

Is too much bass ever enough?

I think we need The Ear on this one.

[IndyKlipschFan]

YES... An RSW 15 with K horns in the upstairs HT / Family Room . Works awesome..

As a rule of thumb.... Just turn it up where you hear it.. back it off some and it will blend in nice.. Not needed most of the time for music.. YES 99% for movies..

[oldbuckster]

I own the same JBL Sub, bought it new years ago, not the Best, not the Worst, I have been very happy with it. Many laugh when I say what I own, but dollar for dollar it's a good Sub. Bought it to use with KG4's, now use it with me Heresy 2's...................How much Bass does one need anyway? Ooops, that was a dumb question to ask here .............................. EH EAR !!!!!!!!!!!

[ClaudeJ1]

I have had 3-channel stereo since I was 20 years old. Having built my own 15" woofered, bass reflex cabinets with VOC horns and EV T-35's back in the mid-seventies. When I saved up enough "paper route money" I got to my goal of the PWK classical Array of Twin Khorns and a La Scala in the middle using PWK's passive mono center box and 3 amplifiers. Over a quarter century later, I "upgraded" to a surround sound receiver from Onkyo and added the compulsory sub for the Dot One channel.

I found a TWIN set of VMPS Large Sub-Woofers (passive) with a free 200 w/ch. Amplifier for $400 on Ebay. A steal by any standard, for 2 boxes with a 12" and 15" with a 15" passive in a big bottom port in each box.

My thoughts were that I would need lots of cone area in big boxes to make up for the inefficiencies of Low Frequency Bass Reflex/Drone cone design. My thoughts proved correct as I find this combo to fill in the missing bottom end I never knew about all these years.

It took a Radio Shack SPL meter and the AVIA test DVD to get the system tweaked, but I'm happy to say that listening to music has added another dimension. This is what "Quadrophonic" should have been, but they didn't have the Digital Signal Processing standards to do it at the time.

I can watch Pearl Harbor or Master and Commander with bombs and canon shots rattling the flesh on my legs, while without changing any settings listen to CD's in Neo6 mode or DVD concerts without any exaggeration of bass at all, which I hate to have in music. This, as opposed to people who need to use 2 different sub settings, one for music and one for movies.

Good subs help complete the picture, even on Khorns, but until the birth of the LFE channel made it a must, there was never much signal there to justify it, unless you were a pipe organ freak.