Suggestions on Integrated Amp./Seperates to Run my Klipschorns

As many have said you only need a few watts to bring the Khorns to life.  I have Klipsch Belles which I purchased 36 years ago because I didn't have suitable corners.  The Belles are in the same family with the Khorns and Lascalas.  Initially I ran them from the 25 wpc headphone amp in my Mac C33 preamp until I purchased a set of Bryston 2Bs set up as monoblocks in the late 80s.  Bryston 4B in the 90s with 2Bs on Heresys in a 5.1.  Today I'm back to 2 channel (2.1) and still have the C33 (solid state) but also have a Primaluna Dialogue tube preamp that I can plug and play when I want to  experiment.  Power comes from either a Cary SLA70 Sig (35 wpc with EL34s) or a First Watt SIT-3.  With the C33 I can adjust output at different frequencies to compensate for the room, speaker placement and diff types of music to get proper balance and bass response.   With the Primaluna (no tone controls) I prefer to enhance bass with a powered SVS preamp especially at low listening levels.  I did upgrade the tweeter and crossover last year with help from Bob Crites.    From time to time I also replace the Belles with Hersey IIs paired with the sub.    All the above combinations sound great in my opinion.  Good luck and have fun with your selection process.

As others have pointed out you don’t need a lot of power but you do want clean power. The design of the speaker is such that many solid state amps will sound brighter and harsher than normal (this is part of why horns got a bad name; nothing to do with horns in general so much as its just a poor match) due to the impedance curve and the design of the crossover.


Also as others have pointed out its that first watt where you are likely to do the most listening, so you really want to make that watt a good one. But the power after that should be clean too (this is where SETs fall apart) because with any good system, even though it might *be* loud, you don’t want it to **sound** loud. If anything, that single quality is what sets a great system apart from the rest. So the amplifier power should remain clean as you run up the volume.


There’s a funny thing about how we hear and amplifier power in general. For each 3dB increase in power, which is doubling the amplifier power, the increase in volume isn’t that much. A 10dB increase in power is perceived as ’twice as loud’ and that requires a **10-fold** increase in amplifier power. The result is that when you run up the volume you can wind up using a bit of amplifier power (even on an efficient loudspeaker), and in practical terms this means that SETs will not be able to show the system off, since you really don’t want to run them past about 20-25% of full power, otherwise distortion will cause them to sound loud. I know this seems tricky, but the ear has several rules that are the same with everyone- it interprets distortion as tonality, and it uses the higher ordered harmonics to sense sound pressure. In SETs above that 20-25% power level, distortion in the form of higher ordered harmonics shows up (initially on transients) and so causes the system to sound loud- not because it is, but because of the way the distortion interacts with the ear.

Which Klipschorn do you have? Is it the corner horn version? How big is your room? This will say a lot about how much amplifier power you need.

I have a pair of 1978 K-horns run through a tube Conrad-Johnson PV2ar pre and had a CJ MV75 tube amp which, as mentioned on other posts, is a great match. I'm presently happy with a modified 100Wx2 Hafler DH-200 amp.

To addend a previous comment, a factory-spec kit is available to rebuild the K-horn crossover and, while you're at it, think about replacing ALL the Klipsch lamp-cord wiring they came with from the factory.  
You'll have to remove a plywood bass enclosure access cover and carefully solder the internal, replacement woofer wire, but it's worth it for the sound improvement.
This is the first time I've heard of the Dynamat mod but will investigate.
Any other recommendations? 

Dennis Had's most recent power amps come with a level control, although you likely can order one without it. Single ended pentode (or triode) all day, and a bargain...mine drives a pair of Heresy IIIs with plenty of headroom,. and these amps (when he decides to make 'em...ebay is his connection to consumers) are a hand wired bargain and sound astonishingly good.

https://www.audiogon.com/listings/lisa32c4-dennis-had-inspire-sweet-807-tube

This Dennis Had SET looks sweet deal.