KG926 First Look

[Professor Thump]

[imageattachment]

Many of our Klipsch fans have been curious about the actual size of some of our headphone armatures. So I thought I would give them a peek at how small they really are. For reference there is a 1/4" phone jack next to a KG926 and guitar pick next to Custom transducers.

[Professor Thump]

[imageattachment]

Here is another photo of the family of armatures for Klipsch Headphones.

[mikebse2a3]

Very interesting, thanks for these pictures and the one in the Blog section of the forum.

mike tn

[BLSamuel]

Thanks for the pics Professor Thump.

Let's see, the headphone page says the Custom 1 uses the KG 332, the Custom 2 uses KG 534 dual balanced armatures, the Custom 3 uses the KG723 (tweeter) and KG731 (woofer), and the IMAGE uses the KG 926. So what do the KG 702 in the picture belong to?

I should know this, but in Custom 2 with the KG534 dual balanced armatures are there 2 armatures in a single KG 534 device or 2 KG 534s? Doesn't really matter.

Fascinating stuff. Sound SO BIG out of devices so smal.

Of course it would be nice to see some nice larger than life photos of the components... but I'm suret that'll have to wait at least until the patent process runs it's course.

[Professor Thump]

Thanks for the pics Professor Thump.

Let's see, the headphone page says the Custom 1 uses the KG 332, the Custom 2 uses KG 534 dual balanced armatures, the Custom 3 uses the KG723 (tweeter) and KG731 (woofer), and the IMAGE uses the KG 926. So what do the KG 702 in the picture belong to?

I should know this, but in Custom 2 with the KG534 dual balanced armatures are there 2 armatures in a single KG 534 device or 2 KG 534s? Doesn't really matter.

Fascinating stuff. Sound SO BIG out of devices so smal.

Of course it would be nice to see some nice larger than life photos of the components... but I'm suret that'll have to wait at least until the patent process runs it's course.

Hi Ben,I wondered if someone was going to ask that question. The KG 702 is the entire assembly which includes the Xover and armatures. We will show closer pictures in time. I would like Klipsch to sell a couple before we give our competitors any more information. They will need to buy a sample and tear it apart to see the extra things that we have done to get that Klipsch Sound Signature. Some things will still not be obvious once the assembly is apart. A design engineer can modify dimensions and add dampening materials and resonant circuits to modify the primary resonances of an armature assembly. This will shift the EQ to the designers needs. Some of this is electro-acoustic some of it is mechanically related. With analysis through listening tests at Klipsch it has been determined that getting the midrange EQ is most important. If you don't get the vocal region correct the rest doesn't matter. This area of the DRP response is quite unusual as it transitions to the resonant frequency of the ear canal. See attached for the response in the 3 kH range:[imageattachment]Source:http://www.bksv.com/pdf/Bo0455.pdfIf this doesn’t help B & K has a presentation with more information at this link:http://www.aes.org/technical/documentDownloads.cfm?docID=177

For the Custom 2, KG 532… even though there are two sets of armatures and diaphragms inside we refer to it as a KG532. I guess because there is only one spout. This assembly is similar to the KG 702 with a subassembly inside.

Now that I have thourougly confused you....

This is Professor Thump telling you to... stick it in your ear!

[PeterDLai]

I can't wait to hear these. []

[BLSamuel]

Professor Thump,

It occurred to me that the KG 702 could be the assembly for the Custom 3 after I posted my last response. In this view we can clearly see the 2 separate armatures, or more accurately the enclosures for the armatures as they're really inside with the sound exiting out of the small nozzles - somehow being combined into one nozzle somehow (that too can wait for more thorough understanding) and passed through the tip into one's ear as exceptionally high quality sound.

For the KG 534 (or is it 532? - or is 534 the complete assembly and 532 used to identify each armature inside - I don't really need to know) I suspected the dual armatures were in the same enclosure sharing one nozzle somehow - with each armature having different dampening materials and loading.

Yes, please don't post nice expanded images of how these things are put together until the competition has had time to buy a few sets of their own and dissect them.... maybe you'll never be able to show us too much ... we want to keep that special sauce special...

I will try to read through the documents you're referenced if / when I want (or think I need) to better understand the effects of the ear canal on the sound of IEM's. The objective for floor standing speakers is to reproduce perfectly flat full range sound in the room so it makes sense that for IEM's the goal is to produce perfectly flat full range sound in the ear. I suppose the ear canal's effect on the sound gets the most confusing as sound one hears from a live performance or a stereo goes through the same ear canal - so is part of eq for IEM's to compensate for the ear canal's resonant requency required as the outer ear and outermost parts of the ear canal have been removed? (The ear canal is tuned if you will to work with how the outer ear funnels the sound in?) Or is it just the sound behaves differently somehow when it originates in the ear canal? (Biggest difference, as before, is that the outer ear and outermost ear canal has been bypassed). Thinking along these lines, the IMAGE eq for the ear canal would be different for the Cusom models as even more of the ear canal is bypassed as it doesn't really start pumping in sound until the ear canal starts to bend.

I'm probably less confused than before though I can't even pretend to understand much about acoustics or how the ear works.

But we don't really have to know how these things work, we can just stick 'our Custom or IMAGE 'phones in our ears and enjoy.

(Though it is fascinating to understand, or at least pretend to understand, how you get such great sound out of such small devices.)

Thanks for all your hard work and explanations!

I hope the Custom 3 production catches up / picks up so the people patiently waiting can finally get to hear them. I suspect the wait will be well worth it.