klipshorn speakers


awile back i posted that my son is looking for a speaker that will shake his room.he is buying a klipshorn. is this a good choice??
128x128g_nakamoto

Showing 3 responses by mijostyn

sns, in order to make it work you would have to use a multi channel processor like a Trinnov Altitude 8 and use it's DSP to create the two cross over points then tri amp the K horns and measure the group delay of each driver.  You delay the early drivers to match the latest ones.
Then you would run the room control measurement and finally you would use a measurement microphone system to check the results and make adjustments in delay as indicated and correct the frequency response so that the two channels match as perfectly as possible. I can usually get within 1 dB from 100 Hz to 10 kHz. I think that would do the trick but I could never be 10% sure without hearing the results. This approach works perfectly with Sound Labs speakers but the Acoustat 2+2 did not get there all the way and I am not sure why, probably the transformer I used. 

I am not trying to be derogatory in talking about this. Only a small percentage of audiophiles have the experience of hearing a system that images at the level I am talking about. I doubt you would ever hear it at an audio show. In my experience only one system ever imaged this way without digital correction, the very first time I heard this, and as I said above I was flabbergasted. It took me another decade to get a system to imaging that way and it was probably more luck than brains the first time, I was using Apogee Divas. 

My wife is dragging me out for a bike ride. Talk about it later.
@sns , no they don't. You are mistaking venue depth for 3 dimensional imaging. I have spent hours with K horns set up perfectly using early Krell amplification. These speakers as they are, are incapable of relaying the third dimension. This is a common misunderstanding many listeners have because they have never heard a system image correctly. I was an audiophile for almost 20 years before I heard a system that imaged the third dimension and it was not my system. I was flabbergasted. I spent another 10 years trying to get my system to image the same way and to understand what the requirements for proper imaging were. They all center on the speakers and the room. For multiway speakers the crossover, group delays and phasing are major issues. The K horns major fault is that it has three different group delays. The difference at the woofer/midrange crossover which use to be at 500 Hz and is now at 350 Hz is huge. Lowering the crossover may have helped a bit but I would be stunned if it resolved the problem entirely. That crossover is right at middle C.  
1+ jallan, any frequency response problems can be managed but there is no way you can get them to image properly. They will do the basic 2 dimension image but that is it. You will never get that sense of space around the instruments like they are standing in your room. Jallan is probably correct. The woofer is five feet behind the rest of the loudspeaker and the midrange 18" behind the tweeter. You have three different group delays. We had them in the store comparing them to Magneplanar 3.6i's and the difference in imaging was night and day. It would be an interesting experiment to tri amp the K horns and manage the delays digitally to see what happens.