Sealing Klipschorn to corner wall

[Arizona Dan]

Hi all

Well, I have had the Klipschorns for one week now. I am having a lot of fun with them. I will post some pictures later.

I have been reading the various post on sealing the Klipchorn to the corner of the wall. There is a lot of information on this topic and I will try to summarize what I have read.

Option1: Use pipe insulation, or something similiar, to seal the cabinet to the wall.

This seams like it is pretty straight forward, except for the cutout at the bottom of the back piece. I am talking about the cutout for the baseboard. One option is to replace this piece of wood with one that has not cutout. Then fur out a piece of MDF to the corner of my wall so the baseboard does not interfere. Add some sealing material and slide the speakers in place. I might of simplified this a bit, but I think I understand the basic idea.

Option2: Add side panels like the Anneversary models have.

This appeals to me alot. Pretty straight forward. But I do wonder about one thing. If adding side panels works as good as sealing the opening to the wall, why wouldn't Klipsch make this part of the design.

I am hoping that these options have been debated and tested and a clear winner has emerged. Both options are pretty easy, I just need to pick one and go with it.

So what does the Klipsch communtiy think - any and all suggestions are most welcome.

Sincerely

Dan

[WMcD]

Welcome to the forum.

I think you don't have to choose one over the other. I'd suggest you start with the pipe insulation. It costs about $20 and takes an afternoon.

You probably saw my comments on sealling my brother in law's SKs. It took me some experimentation to get the insulation cut correctly to mate at the right angles. Buy some extra; even with the extra, you're looking at $20. I did not experiment with rubber cement to hold it in place but such might be necessary. It is helpful to take off the side grills to take a look.

I found I had to get down on the floor with feet on the front panel near the bottom to slide the units into the walls in a sort of squat press. A bit undignified, but no one was watching. If you have hardwood floors you might consider a triangle of carpet or a triangle of hardboard, just to make sliding easier and save the floor.

As you point out, the anniversary models have backs and some theater models have extended "wings." The Jubilee's have their own backs and somewhat of a wing extension. I'm running home made Jubilees.

Some homebuilders of K-Horns from the early days did put on a back, if I understand correctly. Other people have pointed out that some Electro-Voice units built under license had a structure which did not allow a seal at the top of the bass horn. Maybe this reduced an aspect of bass response which EV did not like.

By the way, if I have to do this again, I would use thick window insulation of square cross section and use the self adhesive to glue these to the wall. You'd have to trace out the points of intersection with a pencil. That might do better with the base board cut out.

Why wasn't that back structure of the anniversary units used from the start? I suspect it was a matter of the original patent(s) on the K-Horn. One innovation was the use of the room walls as part of the structure. Therefore, maybe the inventor did not wish to create what would actually be a structure outside of some of the patent protection. Many year ago I read the patent claims and found that some but not all required the use of the room walls.

My guess is that you will get all of the advantages of a simple back structure with a good seal to the wall. The experiment of taking a good look at the intersection between the back of the speaker and the walls can reveal some problems with the corner itself. Walls are not plumb and corners not square. I Think these issues can be addressed with thicker sealing material.

If not, you might want to do some woodworking. From what I've seen here over the years, people just love to tinker and hot rod their beloved toys; it is pointless, and counterproductive, to discourage it.

Let us know. Everyone loves to see photos and hear about experiences.

Gil

[Daddy Dee]

I'd echo what Gil has said here.

the pipe insulation is easy and effective

[ByteWrangler]

Another possibility is the foam tape used to seal between pickup beds and camper tops. It's about 1/4" thick, and 1 1/2" wide (I think), and has adhesive on one side. One roll is plenty for a pair of speakers. You can get it from places that sell camper tops, maybe elsewhere.

Clean all the dust and grime off the wood you'll apply it to so it'll stick well. Wrap it around the edge of the tailboard and secure the front and back (not the edge) with a few staples or maybe thumbtacks to 'help' the stickum. Just stick it to the edge of the top and trim to width with a sharp single-edge razor blade or box cutter. Works great as long as the walls are within 1/4 inch of true. You could probably use 2 layers if needed.

[WMcD]

I did have some problems with my brother in law's situation. The walls were really out of perfect geometry.

The pipe insulation at HD is split and some comes with a sticky surface with a protective strip which you peel off, like a Band Aid.

So you have a "C" cross section. The problem is that the stuff is still only about 1/4 inch thick. If you have a big gap you have to stick the ends of the arc to the speaker panels at the edge so that the rest of the C bulges out. With some extra rubber cement, this could work. I think the Band Aid like adhesive is not quite enough.

Hard to describe without drawings. It is like you're working toward C- where the hyphen is the top panel of the bass bin, and the tail board and the C of the cross section of the insulation just bites it at the edge and it bulges toward the left. Otherwise, the hyphen moves left (or C to the right) and you only have the 1/4 inch of foam to fill the gap.

OTOH look at http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=96326-1410-AC42H&lpage=none

This comes in smaller sizes, of course. It looks to me you could attach this sort of stuff to the wall at the intersections without any permanent damage to paint. It would fill a very large gap including the baseboard cutout. Naturally you can stick it to the back side of the bass bin as an alternative.

Of course there is no one right way of doing this, you're just trying to fill the gap.

Gil

[WMcD]

BW has a good point which made me think again.

The pipe insulation comes in various sizes. That is to wrap around pipes of different sizes. It might work out that you can nest a small one inside a big one to increase wall thickness. That like a c inside a C to get greater thickness.

Gil

[Arizona Dan]

This forum is great. Everyone is so helpfull and very responsive.

Here is my story so far. It's Saturday and beautiful weather, so I went to Lowe's to look around. Bought five strips of 5/8" X 1/2" X 6" of rubber pipe insulation. I installed it on one speaker. It was very easy and appears to be a very good choice for this application. The rubber is very soft and pliable. After I pushed the speaker into the corner, I got curious, so I pulled it out and removed the side panels. Pushed it back into the corner and took a look. The seal appears to be up against the wall, except at the bottom. I took some pictures and will post them if I can. I need to rethink this a llttle to figure out the easiest way to deal with the cut out and the baseboard.

O.K. Please somebody tell me how to add pictures to a post.

Sincerely

Dan

[Champagne taste beer budget]

Great timing for this as I just picked up my Khorns today and was going to be searching the sealing threads anyway. Thanks to all that have offered ideas and personal experiences.

To post a picture, type in what you were going to say in the post like always, then look way at the top of the page, above the grayed out section that is the body of the post you are replying to. Above that box is a row of small tabs labeled Compose, Options, Related, Preview and Smilies Library. Click the Options tab, it will open a new window, click Add/Update, it opens a new window with a Browse option, click it, that will open your available files on you computer, search through it to find the desired picture, double click on the picture, it will then show up in the box next to the Browse button. To it's right is a Save button, click it, and you should be good to go.

p.s. This forum doesn't seem to like people using the preview button, it often eats posts or uploaded pics. Just post it, and it'll work, need to have faith.

[JJkizak]

I used 3/4" pipe insulation as my walls and floor are really crooked. Also had to notch out the baseboard cutout a bit. Then add those slippery 8" carpet slider dinguses to level the speaker. One speaker is next to a furnace vent but I don't have the expertize to explain the effects of blowing hot air on the base horn response. I suppose the "purist" would shut the furnace off while listening in his "parka".

JJK

[artto]

I simply made a "corner plate" from 2"x10" wood to fit the corner befind the tail board. The outside edges are angled to fit the wall and this is also where I lined the angled edge with closed cell foam weather striping to seal the corner plate against the wall. The corner plate is screwed to the wall. In my case, I lag bolted the corner plate to the corner walls , which are heavily reinforced (and also lag bolted to the house foundation). You can then move the Khorn up against the corner plate and screw or lag bolt the tail board to the corner plate. Of course, remember to seal the gap between the top and bottom units, and the floor too.

Quite honestly, from experience, I didn't find much difference in bass performance, percieved or measured from the above exercise. However, by structurally securing the Khorn, literally to the foundation of the house, I surprisingly noticed subtle improvements in the midrange/treble performance. There was more clarity and transparency , definition in the sound. Its almost as if the vibration from the bass horn was moving the enitire speaker enoungh, relative to the extremely small excursion distances of the mid/treble drivers, to cause a "smearing" of the sound as their diaphrams "bounced" around from the vibration while moving back & forth.

[LarryC]

I don't know about a heat register affecting the bass horn response, but would worry about hot or cold air drying out or warping the wood. I felt I had to completely close off one register to forestall possible long-run damage. When the front-panel vane control couldn't do it completely, I found an internal damper in the register that could close it off completely, and had an alternate duct and register installed nearby.

[Arizona Dan]

Thanks for explaining how to post pictures. Here is the first one.

Dan

[Arizona Dan]

Here is another picture. This is a picture with the side grill removed. The seal looks O.K. except at the bottom. I need to work on that.

[Arizona Dan]

Here is another picture showing the top of the seal.

[Arizona Dan]

Here is another one showing the speaker in the corner.

[PrestonTom]

Dan it looks like you are doing all the right things. It also looks like you are serious about getting the room set up right (the diffusers etc).

As far as the bottom, baseboard cutout, what I tried (as someone else suggested) was to "telescope" some larger pieces underneath at the bottom portion of the foam. The contour filled in nicely without any discontinuities.

BTW, it is not the deep, deep bass that is improved. Rather it was the region around 250-400 Hz (roughly) that was augmented.

Good Luck and I am interested in what other treatments (in addition to the diffusers) you will be using and how you are selecting them.

-Tom

[Arizona Dan]

Thanks so much for all of the replys.

I will start another post to tell you about my diffusers. Unfortunately, I have some yard work that I need to get to. I'll take some more pictures and post them later.

Dan