Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site drune.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!lll-crg!dual!qantel!ihnp4!mhuxn!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!mtuxo!drutx!drune!mohler From: mohler@drune.UUCP (MohlerDS) Newsgroups: net.audio Subject: Re: RAW SPEAKERS Message-ID: <6@drune.UUCP> Date: Wed, 7-Aug-85 22:14:35 EDT Article-I.D.: drune.6 Posted: Wed Aug 7 22:14:35 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 20:13:50 EDT References: <3177@decwrl.UUCP> <975@teddy.UUCP> <914@druxo.UUCP> <294@ttrdc.UUCP> <512@bonnie.UUCP> <1035@teddy.Re: RAW SPEAKERS Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver Lines: 71 Klipsch speakers have (like all other speakers) a mix of good and bad points, that they chose when balancing variables designing a speaker. To start on a positive note, the Klipsch corner horns have: 1) Very close to the best construction quality of any speaker made 2) A very good older design cross-over with excellent parts quality 3) Very low bass distortion 4) Tremendous efficiency 5) Good quality horn drivers On the negative side: 1) They are billed as the ultimate horn loaded production speaker, which they are not. If you read some of Paul Klipsches early work, you will find that he states to cover a 9 octave range (40 hz to 20480 hz) you typically need 5 horn loaded drivers to get really smooth frequency response. The Electrovoice Patrician P800 (which is quite arguably the best horn loaded production speaker ever made) does just that. It uses an electrovoice W30 30 Inch (no that isn't a typo) woofer into a short horn facing the corner of the room, above that they used an EV SP12B 12 Inch "low midrange" driver in another short horn facing forward, then they used an EV 350 series driver into a large midrange horn, (this is the same midrange as the K-Horn) then they used a smaller 350 series driver into a series 12 horn, and they topped the whole thing off with a T-350a horn tweeter. This yielded awesome sound that was quite linear. Note the previous description was typed from memory from having seen the guts in 1973 when I was 14, so if some of the driver numbers are wrong don't flame at me! The K-horn has some very serious response dips between its 3 drivers and at the low end (below 50 hz). 2) The speaker did not take advantage of the new horn design curves like: hyperbolic and tractrix contours (see good article by Dr. J. Dinsdale published in KEF's speaker publications on these designs). This means that the distortion was not as low as it could be. Much of the "horn - sound" goes away when you loose the abrupt discontinuity at the horn edge by using a tractrix contour. 3) The speaker did not take advantage of the new woofer materials like bextrene and polypropylene, which prevents the driver from being as durable as the rest of the speaker. It also prevented the bass from being less colored. 4) The cross-over has also not been updated to a fourth order Linkwitz - Riley or similar crossover, to help smooth some of those dips between drivers. So really what is bad about the K-horn is that it fails to live up to the potential the concept had. It really could have been the ultimate horn speaker! In 1980 at the CES show Kenwood showed an amazing 10,000. dollar horn speaker that was basically a high-tech revision of the Patrician 800. To those that don't think a horn loaded speaker can't sound musical, you should have heard this giant, it was absolutely incredible! I intentionally avoided a discussion of how good or bad horns sound compared to other speaker designs since it really comes down to what a person can and cannot hear, what a person likes etc. A really good horn speaker can sound very good - and the K-Horn could be alot better than it is. A fundamental objection to horn loaded speakers on my part is the efficiency! It doesn't make sense to me to play any speaker at a level that over time will damage my hearing, and that kind of volume (and small amps) were the reason such speakers were designed. So there you have one set of pros and cons about the horn loaded design principle. David S. Mohler AT&T - ISL @ Denver drune!mohler or druxu!mohler