New Khorns, Please help

[PrestonTom]

Well, it sounds like you ruled out the most common problems.

I was confused about two conflicting statements. At one point you said the cabinets were fully in the corners. But in a later thread you said it was hard to tell something about the bass because it "was away from the wall".

I must be missing something, was it snug in the corner or not. If not, this would decrease the output in the the 200-500 Hz region (or there abouts) by many dB.

I think what you mean by "lifeless" could translate to what I mean by "lacking dynamics", although to some it might also imply a lack of high frequency energy. This does not make sense to me. You can put a hundred folks in a room to listen to K-Horns (and I don't care what the amp, capacitors or speaker wire might be) and NONE of those 100 people would complain about a lack of dynamics.

Some however might mention the bass as being "lean" (that is because they are used to hearing the distorted bass produced by non-horn loaded cabinets).

On what instruments does this problem seem to be the most severe?

-Tom

[BEC]

Bob

Ive heard Khorns before at dealers and from memory they have the sound described.

What i cant figure out is the lack of scale and excitement in the music, what could be causing that ?

Is there anything in the setup or cabling that could be overlooked ?

Is there any form of interaction between the Khorms and an amp that could be taking place ?

Could it just be really bad acoustics in the room ?

Thanks

Alan

I doubt we are dealing with room acoustics with the problems you are describing. I doubt we have any amp compatabilty problem if the amp drives the other speakers adequately.

Let's move back to one place close to where we started. You were unsure if the tweeters were actually working when you listened to them connected to the crossovers. You then heard them clearly (I suppose) when you drove them with an amp separately. If you are playing something with significant HF energy in it, there should be no question about the tweeters working while in normal configuration. Do you have some music with a lot of HF that you could play for that test.

I could email you an MP3 file if you have a way to play it through your speakers.

Highly improbable, but I am beginning to think you might have a bad polyswitch in both crossovers. If you can't manage to clearly hear the tweeters when they are connected to the crossovers, that would do it.

Bob Crites

[Welshstar]

Tom

They are snug in the corners, i was referring to testing the drivers when i mentioned the bass sound, obviouslt they were pulled out to get to the back at that point.

The bass im referring to is say a rock drummer, i was expecting soome punch and feel to the drums, another would be say a kettle drum. Im listening to things like Pomp and Circumstance and Pictures at an Exhibition if your familar with those peices.

I was expecting large Orchestral peices to really jump

It could be that they are just more accurate and lean compared to a small floorstander, they do seem to be a little bit better with albums than CD's.

If thats the case then i dont think ill get along with them long term, they just dont at the moment sound very musical.

Alan

[tigerwoodKhorns]

Try different source material. If Diana Krall CD's or other newly recorded CD's sound full and have nice bass your stuck. My K Horns always seemed lean in the bass until I went with an active EQ. I tuned them by ear and liked the results. B&W's did the same thing. No deep bass punch in teh pit of yoru stomach because most music is not recorded that way. (Be ready, someone here will tell you to get Jubilees and this thread will be a downward spiral).

[Deang]

I've been following this thread and waiting for you to finish your basic tesing before saying anything. I second Bob's suggestion that the polyswitches in your tweeter circuits might be blown. It was actually the first thing I thought of when you said you could barely hear the tweeters when you unhooked the other dirvers. This is a very inexpensive fix!

You don't want to sell them until you're sure they are functioning right. If not, you will either be cheating yourself or cheating the person you sell them to. Once you know they're O.K., then you know you just don't care for them and can sell them without worry about passing on a problem to the buyer.

You should seriously consider sending the crossovers out for testing and possible repair:

[Deang]

(Be ready, someone here will tell you to get Jubilees and this thread will be a downward spiral).

Ha ha. I would say to stop the downward spiral -- get Jubilees.[]

[ZAKO]

I would say get Jubilees,,, But keep looking over your shoulder, I,m right behinde you.

[LarryC]

Alan, I've been in & out of this thread and probably missed it, but where are you located? Somebody needs to go listen to these IMHO.

Larry

[Welshstar]

Im in Chicago South West burbs

In does seem to be honest that everythng is working fine, i can hear the highs OK. We got onto the tweeter issue because of an overall lifeless sound. I think that is just the sound that is to be expected and ive just made a mistake in not reasearching and auditioning more closely.

I know that I could i put EQ in the line but i hate the thought of having $10,000 worth of speakers and equipment running through a $99 EQ box adding all sorts of things to the sound. The other problem with EQ is that it really needs to be tweaked from song to song to get it perfect.

Thanks

Alan

[Deang]

If you're sure that everything is working fine then that only leaves one thing: The networks in vintage Heritage are low order designs, they tend to open up fairly fast and sound very good at low to moderate listening levels. The newer networks are high order with a corresponding high part count, and tend to sound a little closed in and flat until you push some power into the speakers. I had 2004 Klipschorns and didn't think they sounded good at all until they hit 95dB or higher, where they really came to life. I eventually pulled the networks and dropped back to the old Type A network. If you want to try something like that, a newly built pair of Type A's is relatively inexpensive -- and you can revert back anytime. It sounds like you have a near perfect room for them, it would be a shame to offload them.

[Welshstar]

Dean

What your saying does make sense.

The thing that is missing most of all is the sense of scale, dynamics and energy that i was expecting.

I cant play at very loud volumes but i was still not expecting this flat sound.

Im assuming that BEC could supply a pair of Type A networks to try, Bob what would the cost for a drop in pair be ? id like to avoid any serious rewiring changes of course in case it didnt work and I wanted to go back before selling. Im sure just temporary wiring would do fine to try things out.

Thanks

Alan

[BEC]

Alan,

Send me an email if you want to discuss price and such for a pair of Type A networks.

Bob Crites

bobcrites@mac.com

[Deang]

Since this is more of an experiment than anything else, sort of a troubleshooting exercise -- I'd be willing to build up something for you to try before you buy, with an option to return if you're not satisfied. Another option would be to see if someone could lend you a pair. I might even be able to arrange that with a phone call or two. You can reach me on my cell at 937.414.2351

[Brac]

Well if you can't get them working with both Bob, and Dean helping, there is big trouble in the universe!!!!

[Jeff Matthews]

Welsh, your posts are very interesting. I couldn't imagine "lifeless" as any fitting description. You mentioned "Smoke on the Water" and "Pictures at an Exhibition." I have both; I am a Deep Purple and ELP fan. IMO, you picked some inferior test tracks for KHorns. KHorns are very revealing of limited quality production.

Some ELP is pretty good, but not great. If you go with ELP, it sounds best during the lively parts of songs on either the Brain Salad Surgery or Trilogy albums. I don't know of any DP that is all that great production-wise. (Of course, the music is fantastic; just not the production). By the way, I used to think DP was rock-solid quality when I listened to it with my Cornwalls, but after getting KHorns, the KHorns just revealed a sort of "air" in the mix that used to not be there. They took the intensity down a notch. Probably due to much larger mid-range.

I think you would find the best test tracks to be from Rush's "Moving Pictures." My guess is you probably have that, since you have DP and ELP. I would test on good quality production. If, after listening to it at modestly loud volume, you are not blown away, the speakers or something else is defective.

Hang on with Bob and Dean, and I bet they can help you find the solution. They helped me gain an appreciation of just re-capping crossovers and what a difference that could make (for cheap, too).

Ignore suggestions about room set-up and anything that does not pertain to some sort of defect within the speakers or electronics. Those speakers should blow you away regardless of your room and how snug they are to the well, etc. They should sound very good even with a mediocre quality amp, like Sony or Yamaha. They should blow you away using lamp cords as wire.

So forget about upgrades and find the problem. It is in the system. Good luck!

[Welshstar]

Jeff

Thanks

I really do appreciate the help and friendliness shown by everyone on the forum.

The bottom line though from what im hearing is that ive made a mistake buying these khorns and they are not the right speaker from me. I do not want to offend anyone at all and im not knocking the Khorns, they are a fantastic product. The thing is when i have to start selecting music and crossovers to match my speakers something is wrong.

So once again i really thank everyone for their time but they will be up for sale in the Chicago area if anyone is interested.

Thanks

Alan

[nu2toobs]

I hate to be a vulture, but what price are you going to ask for these?

[Welshstar]

Hi

Email me at Alaneden72@aol.com for a price.

The only thing is that i see your in Utah and im not really prepared to ship these, they will need to be picked up.

Thanks

Alan

[nu2toobs]

I wouldn't ship those either. I may know of someone closer to you. Nice price though.

Thanks

James

[fenderbender]

I hope that your are not just frustrated and acting to quickly....it's true that any horn loaded high sensitivity speaker will show the faults of poorly recorded music, it still should not sound awful, you should just simply be able to state that "hey thiey didn't do a good job on this " or hey that's a bad pressing". But on all of your well recorded music you will go "Dang...that sound good.

Kinda like getting a ripe peach and going "man thats tasty"....when the one before was "that peach was ok."

As far as the crossovers go......stock networks that have been recapped sound at worst .....fantastic.......I have the ALK extreme slopes and its kinda like putting a 100 shot of NOS on a Porsche , but even with out the NOS it's still a Porsche!!!

haven't read every post on this topic but maybe its something more fundamental like poor interconnects or bad source connections....My only advice is to take a few weeks and try to tweek your system to find out what's wrong and how to improve it.

IMO bone stock Khorns with just OK amps and Just OK sources .....still sound awesome!!!!