Islander, As far as the K69s go, no not quite as flat but almost. The K69 dropped off on the top end. I always ran 3 way with a tweeter because I never was able to be satisifed with the K69 in 2-way. No matter what I did with EQ......I wasn't happy with the sound in 2-way. Looking back now, I was never a true 2-way believer until those TADs came to my house.

Good to know.  Well, actually, bad to know.  When I finally get a pair of Jubilees, I'll be wanting the TADs to go with them.  Just like with bikes and cars, performance costs money.  How fast can you afford to go?  At least my dream speakers are much closer to affordable than my dream car, the Veyron... 

Keep in mind, those were just MY comments. There are many satisfied Jub owners using K69s in 2-way. I was just always a dedicated 3-way guy.

Oh, good.  I always had 2-way speakers until I got the 3-way La Scalas, which sounded great, but I found that going from them to the 2-way JubScalas was a big step up in sound quality.  In my room, with my amps, with the 09/2008 Dx program, the high end sounds fine, with quite realistic cymbals and the like, so no grumbles here.

jwc:

I would take MWM's anyday over jubes or Khorn.  Jubes easily over the Khorn.

I meant to clarify about using a single MWM vs a single Khorn when choosing the Khorn....just wondering if you felt the same way if it were just the single.

I was going to qualify further that I'd want EQ on the Khorn, but I've not heard what an MWM can do with proper EQ either. I'm not a big fan of the 50Hz "bloom", but then I can see how it would compliment a lot of music.

mark1101:

Also, it appears that there are drop outs at your crossover points or other areas. Are your drivers out of phase, or of different sensitivities? It just doesn't look right to me.

Looks like every single pole xover topology I've ever measured....the acoustic centers shift throughout the passband in addition to the natural phase rotation of the driver, which prevents one from being phase aligned over a wide bandwidth. Low slope xovers have a wider region where the two drivers interact, which often forces one to choose where the phase is aligned. Getting rid of each individual dip will cause two smaller dips to each side. It gets a bit more complicated when you take into account that the driver impedance isn't flat either. It should also be noted that shifting the dips around also "steers" the polars around. This can actually be beneficial in live sound settings if you happen to have a xover frequency near a feedback frequency....steer the polar away from the microphone and you can increase your gain before feedback. In a home setting, you're changing the tonal balance and time arrivals of the indirect sound, which is why it is often far more complicated than just making it measure flat on-axis in an anechoic environment (unless it has flat polars, and then it accomplishes both at the same time).

DrWho:

jwc:

I would take MWM's anyday over jubes or Khorn.  Jubes easily over the Khorn.

 

I meant to clarify about using a single MWM vs a single Khorn when choosing the Khorn....just wondering if you felt the same way if it were just the single.

I was going to qualify further that I'd want EQ on the Khorn, but I've not heard what an MWM can do with proper EQ either. I'm not a big fan of the 50Hz "bloom", but then I can see how it would compliment a lot of music.

I can't really comment on a single MWM....not sure I would pick that over a Khorn or Jube

A single MWM has nothing below 60hz in 2Pi.

(I made the mistake of putting in such a system in a dance club)

The full four-way MCM system is just OK for live music, but deep bass..................

Not really.

mark1101:

Here's what you can do with a little EQ. MWM / K402 (TAD4002). Both channels shown.

My curve is over a year old and doesn't represent what I have achieved recently, so I will post that when it's done. Right now we are dealing with severe medical issues in the family so this audio stuff has to take a back seat. Also, the reason I posted it was to show the NATURAL behavior of the MWM bins without EQ, not to show the ultimate flat curve.

Islander:

Oh, good.  I always had 2-way speakers until I got the 3-way La Scalas, which sounded great, but I found that going from them to the 2-way JubScalas was a big step up in sound quality.  In my room, with my amps, with the 09/2008 Dx program, the high end sounds fine, with quite realistic cymbals and the like, so no grumbles here.

Like I said in my prior post, the reason for the better sound was NOT the bass bins, but in the Large Format drivers and a better horn.......midrange again.

 Mark EQ's his MWM bins and his TADs in the 402, which cost more than my entire 7.1 system, receiver included. I'm sure it sound way better than unequalized MWM bins, but if he's EQing that much low end on a short horn, the distortion must increase at least a "tad." LOL, but with 4-15" drivers, it's probably just fine.

Out of 31 sliders on each channel of my graphic EQ, exactly 4 are above 0 (boosted).  2 are near the crossover point and 2 are at the extreme low end (20 and 30 hz).  Everything else is a "cut".  I have been very careful to try and minimize any distortion via EQ.  Obviously just having the EQ unit itself adds some small amount.  But it is not because I boosted anything significantly.  With my McIntosh equipment it is very clean.  Come to think of it it was very clean with my Peach and Latino Dynaco too.

The HF EQ is basically just for the K402.  The curve is so smooth the driver really isn't getting much correction.  The EQ curve peaks at 0 around 10K then turns downward slightly.  I am never boosting anything in the HF (above 500hz) in my setup.

So my EQ was done with a minimalist approach based on room measurement and a few absorbent panels and some diffusion.

Claude you are right, the mic was 3 ft. from my speakers at the height of the center of the K402.  The curves I posted are highly averaged and then smoothed as well as I posted.  So what you see is a heck of a lot of "room" in that curve.  No doubt.

mark1101:

Claude you are right, the mic was 3 ft. from my speakers at the height of the center of the K402.  The curves I posted are highly averaged and then smoothed as well as I posted.  So what you see is a heck of a lot of "room" in that curve.  No doubt.

Well based on our conversations and your great attitude, I'm sure I would be very impressed listening to your setup.

I just don't understand why everyone seems to want to criticize the differnt path I have taken, and tell me it's all "wrong," especially for how cheap it was for me to do 7.1 and 2-channel in the same receiver and plate amplifier setup. Maybe in the absolute theoretical sense, it has lots of warts that I can't hear of don't have insturmentation to measure. But either way I have achieved the best sound I have ever owned with simple components operated in their most linear range with a reasonable alignment of voice coils from the listineing chair. The dynamic realism and imaging is there with whatever imperfections are deemed to exist by the naysayers. I love the sound and I didn't mortgage my house to do it, and that is what matters.I gurantee that it beats my old stock Khorns hands down by a huge margin for a lot less money than any other solution.

I think that the most important thing is that you enjoy it.  I didn't take the same path as anyone else either.  I have 1/2 a Jub, MWMs, custom passives, and outboard EQ.  No one that I know of has tried that.  I could care less.  I love it.

ClaudeJ1:

This is BY FAR the best sounding setup I have ever had, with careful matching of all components has taken me over 2 years to evolve while maintaining ALL of PWK's principles of good sound.

I responded:

All designs are a balance in compromises! I would differ with you on following all of PWK's principles of good sound and call your attention to the fact that PWK always expressed and designed for as few horns/crossover points as possible to acheive each systems design goals. To overlook this is to overlook the history and orginal design goals of the Klipschorn. The fact that his personel decision and design goal for the improvement of the Klipschorn was a return to a 2-way Horn system is a clear indication of his principles for sound and what direction improvement would come in and it wasn't to complicate and make it a 4-way design and then try to make all 4 Horns acoustically sum again.

Claude then responded with:

Well that statement simply isn't true. We are all in the Pro Loudspeaker arena here with large format drivers, including you. The Jubilee bin is in the Theater line. the TSCM was nothing but a black Khorn bass bin with built-in corners and a beefier woofer married to large format tops. The MCM 1900 evolved into a 4-way system, and the final/ultimatedesign (some of Roys's best work with PWK's blessing) was the KP-600 modular system which is 5-way and considered the best by many. The flagship of the company currently (it's in the LOBBY of Indy HQ for a reason) is a 4-way, so your comment is simply not true. If I see an economic and sonic benefit to reducing the number of components in the future, I will do so, but I sure as heck won't do it with 2 berrylium diaphagmmed drivers that cost more than my entire used system and still need a ton of PEQ to work right.

Well Claude we will have to just disagree because I believe my statement is backed by the facts as I know them and is very true in principle and reality. Roy himself has said the reason the theater Jubilee is a 3-way is because of the increased SPL needed in a theater enviroment and in his opinion for home use performance is superior in the 2-way version that many of us own..

As far as your comment;  If I see an economic and sonic benefit to reducing the number of components in the future, I will do so, but I sure as heck won't do it with 2 berrylium diaphagmmed drivers that cost more than my entire used system and still need a ton of PEQ to work right.

The PEQ comment is just a sign that you really don't grasp what is being done with the K402/TAD 4002. Value versus Cost of the TADs in your comment is a personel choice but performance itself is a different matter Claude and the K402/TAD has a clarity and coherence that must be experienced and to make comments such as you have based on no experience of them(if you have used the TADs then I apoligize but you have said nothing to indicate you have any real amount of experience with them) is really meaningless.

Again Claude my orginal response to your post wasn't about wether the MWM, KHorn,or Jubilee was the better reproducer but instead about the ways you were forming your many conclusions and stating them as fact which I believe to be flawed/wrong based on again the reasons I orginally stated.

The above being said again Claude you obviously enjoy your system very much and have worked very hard at your goals for it as well as done it very economicaly and I really do think that is great! We obviously see the path to the ideal loudspeaker reproducer differently but that's OK and if I was close by I would love to listen to your system.

On a more serious note Claude I read about the Health issues in a later post and I hope all goes well!

mike tn

mark1101:

Out of 31 sliders on each channel of my graphic EQ, exactly 4 are above 0 (boosted).  2 are near the crossover point and 2 are at the extreme low end (20 and 30 hz).  Everything else is a "cut".  I have been very careful to try and minimize any distortion via EQ.  Obviously just having the EQ unit itself adds some small amount.  But it is not because I boosted anything significantly.  With my McIntosh equipment it is very clean.  Come to think of it it was very clean with my Peach and Latino Dynaco too.

The HF EQ is basically just for the K402.  The curve is so smooth the driver really isn't getting much correction.  The EQ curve peaks at 0 around 10K then turns downward slightly.  I am never boosting anything in the HF (above 500hz) in my setup.

So my EQ was done with a minimalist approach based on room measurement and a few absorbent panels and some diffusion.

Claude you are right, the mic was 3 ft. from my speakers at the height of the center of the K402.  The curves I posted are highly averaged and then smoothed as well as I posted.  So what you see is a heck of a lot of "room" in that curve.  No doubt.

My red curve from last year was 1/12th octave resolution and is not smoothed at all., nor is there any EQ of any kind. It also take into account the effect of the room (strictly frequency response) since it's done 15 feet from the corners that are 13.3 feet apart on a wall. So it looks way worse than yours........what PWK used to call a "dirty curve."

It represents a setup that is way worse than I have now, and it was still good sound. All of the further improvements I have made since then have had smaller increments. The biggest improvement over my old stock Khrons is the large format drivers and horns in the treble sections, of which, there are 3. Part of the efficiency-bandwidth equations that Don Keele talked about in his papers.

Mark as far as your EQ goes, plus/minus 6 db boosts and cuts from a reasonably good starting point is certainly not going to tax a system with high efficiency in a home. After all these systems are designed to put out 20-40 acoustic watts, when we only need about 1 Acoustic watt when we are "cranking" indoors.