Updates and Modifications

510/K69 Belle Project Finished

fyrpwr — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:56:45 GMT

Here is the first picture of the finished Belle center

It was topped off with 11/4" Black Absolute granite

Sounds great thanks to DrWho

I will have better pics soon

Steve

Capacitor Value Matching

papashawn — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:10:36 GMT

Is it possible to use capacitors of a slightly higher value than that used in the original capacitor? I would like to swap out the caps in my new-to-me Forte II's, and I would like to use ClarityCaps based on the positive reviews and modest pricing. There are 3 caps per crossover, one 1.5uf and two 2.0uf's. I'm able to find the 1.5's, but the closest I can find for the 2.0's is 2.2uf. Would it be detrimental to use these in place of the 2.0's? I could technically put two 1.0's in parallel, but the cost effectively doubles as the price difference between the 1.0 and 2.0 is negligible. I dug through old threads but wasn't able to find a definitive answer to this particular scenario.

Refinishing an Academy

jhoak — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:07:52 GMT

So I've got this "cosmeticly challenged" Academy. I've updated the caps and changed to a titanium tweeter diaphragm. It sounds really nice.

My plan was to re-veneer it to match the La Scalas I just finished along with a pair of HBRs. My 5.1 system plans have taken another direction and I no longer need the Academy.

I really don't think I can get anywhere near what I have in it in it's current condition so I was thinking about new veneer. I have ready access to most of the "standard" veneers (oak, walnut, cherry, etc.) and can certainly get exotics but I'd like to keep the costs reasonable.

The question is... Which veneer and finish would be the most "desirable" in terms of resale?

? usable horn for a CornScala???

bigrfish — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:24:31 GMT

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350277044610&ssPageName=ADME:L:CORT:US:1123

This looks interesting....in my own case, it would fit the CornScala cabinets I got from the Cigar Bum without having to do much to the motorboard. The hole for Mr Al K's big wood horns is 18" wide, and this "H4427" horn is 17.5" wide, so it will fit handily with only a little to spare laterally. I figure a bead of silicone and we're through here. This horn is 10 and five-eighths inches high, which is a little taller than what came out of these cabinets(but not much), so it might be possible to mount without doing butchery to the motorboards. The bottom frequency cutoff is 500Hz, so this might be a good, economical alternative until I can get my wood horn mojo working.....

What say ye???

Chuck

Slimmer CornScala port dimensions

brians7 — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:22:53 GMT

Great information here.

I am going to try and build a pair of CornScala's myself.

Personally I like the slimmer profile, and was going to build a pair with the basebin dimensions being 21.5 wide, 21.5 deep, and 28 high, this should give the interior volume 6.2 cu. ft.

Now for the port shelf, if I am understanding this correctly the port needs a cross-sectional area of between 70 and 75 cu in. and if the interior width of the cabinet is 20 in. and I make the support board for the shelf the enitre height of the port that makes the width of the port 18.5 inches wide, and if the port is 4 in high 4x18.5 is 74 cu. in.

The port shelf length remains 9.5 in.

I hope that these calculations aren't wrong in any way, because I plan on starting this project really soon. And if the they ARE wrong that someone will chime in and revise them for me.

A bit more insight about the speakers, they will be split top design.

I will be using Crites Speakers CW1526C Cast Frame Woofers, Altecs 811 horns which I already have, Great Plains Audio 902, and JBL 2404H baby cheeks which I also already have, ALK Engineering crossovers.

Thanks. Brian.

Khorn bass bin, 1/2" or 3/4" ??

Invidiosulus — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:22:06 GMT

I'm thinking about building some Khorn bass bins for my living room as they would fit nicely and we have two good corners.

Would it be worth it to work out the plans to use 3/4" plywood for all the internal bits instead of the usual 1/2" ??

I think the 3/4" would be easier to work with although it would mean a little more expense in the wood and tweaking the plans slightly.

Thoughts?

-Josh

Building new Cornwall cabinets. MDF or Ply?

edeit — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:27:13 GMT

A question for all of you out there. I am building a new set of Cornwall cabinets and would like to know peoples' opinions on whether I should build them out of veneered MDF or veneered plywood.

Help needed with "Baby Cheeks"

sootshe — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:00:41 GMT

Can anyone assist with the purchase of some Eminence horn flares & adaptors?

I've tried to source these in Australia, but it could take up to 4 months to get them here. They are available from www.bltsound.com at a very reasonable price, but unfortunately he will not ship to Australia.
Here is the link to the horn flares http://www.bltsound.com/index.php/categories/screw-on-horn-flares
& the link to the adaptors http://www.bltsound.com/index.php/categories/adaptors

Can anyone with a PayPal account purchase these for me & then send to me here in Australia?

The items are:

4 x APT200F Horns
4 x APT-3 Adaptors

If anyone has any ideas please email me....thanks, John

Cornwall port dimensions

tagger — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 20:06:04 GMT

Hi all. I've been lingering around the forum for a while, but this my first post. I recently drew up some plans for a Cornscala type speaker that I plan on building. Actually, Chris (Popbumper) is going to help with the cabinets. It will consist of a separate bass bin and top hat, using the K-33 (or Bob's replacement woofer), the K-55 w/ Altec 511 horn, and the K-77 (or Bob's CT125). For aesthetic reasons, the 511 and K-77 will be mounted on a baffle in a top hat cabinet, rather than sitting freely on top of the bass bin. To accomodate the size of the 511 horn, and to keep the width of the two cabinets constant, I increased the internal width from 23 7/8" (ala Cornwall) to 25". Now for my questions...

First, what are the accepted dimensions for the Cornwall port? After searching the forum, I found two different answers. 22 3/8" X 3 1/8" X 9 1/2" ... and ... 22.25" X 3.38" X 9". Which one is correct?

Second, If I keep the same port dimensions found in a Cornwall, the port shelf will not extend from side wall to side wall due to the increased cabinet width. Can I simply decrease the depth of the shelf to achieve an identical port volume? My instincts say "no" and I think it has something to do with a change in air resistance with the larger cross-sectional area of the port, but I'm not quite sure. Would the answer be (as counter-intuitive as this may seem) to increase the shelf depth? Does anyone know a formula for this?

Thanks all,

Joe

jc's tractrix bass bin

jwc — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 19:49:47 GMT

OK. Here is a sneak peak. Won't give all the details just yet. Tractrix bass horn. For starters..dual K31's.

More V-Trac Khorn upgrades

greg928gts — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:49:35 GMT

I thought I'd share this cool picture

ALK Trachorn upgrade complete

sootshe — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:06:13 GMT

Hi all,

Finally got the Trachorns up & running, so here are a few action shots. I was originally going to stain the horns to match the cabinets but that was a disaster!

The paint shop I went to mixed the cans of stain up & they ended up a horrible orange colour. After many hours I finally ended up with them as you see them now.
They have 2 coats of grey undercoat, 3 coats of satin black enamel & 2 coats of satin clear lacquer. I jigsawed the original motor board to accept the larger horn which meant removing the grill cloth, making the cut out & re installing the grill cloth...turned out better than I thought it would. All that,s left to do now is veneer the bass reflex cabinets.

And how do they sound?
I originally built these cabinets for my wife to use as a second set of speakers. My reference has always been my Altec Model 19's that I have had for about 15 years. Whenever I would listen to another system or another pair of speakers I would come home, put the Altecs on & always think that they were the better sound. When I got the LS home in standard form (Crites stamped woofer, K400/K55, CT125's & A 4500's) I found that I couldn't listen to them as they had no bottom end, were glary & generally not very pleasant, but that was OK as they were only my second pair of speakers & the Altecs were still my favourites....then I met you guys!!

First was the bass reflex cabinets, plus cast frame woofers....now I had some sort of botom end. Then was the crossovers (change to ALK Universals), much more refined & detailed (the Altecs still beter overall) & now the Trachorns. Well, I'm afraid the Altecs now take a back seat & I don't say that lightly, as I really wanted the Altecs to still be better.

The Trachorns have changed the whole character of the sound. No more constriction, edginess, harshness. The sound is now completely natural & a lot more open. I hooked the Altecs up again for a comparison & they now sound strained in comparison. These horns open the sound up completely & produce an effortless quality that is hard to beat.

As you can see, I'm extremely happy with my final result....thanks for all your help.

John

Hey Lascala, your Tractrix is showing.

GotHover — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:26:45 GMT

The Fastrac Lascala project is the byproduct of input from forum members. At first, I wasn't even sure it could be done, however after a few phone calls with JWCullison and a dozen emails to Al Klappenberger I was convinced a Tractrix horn that fits in a factory Lascala cutout was not only possible but a really good idea. Now comes the hard part, design and execution. The design and math for this still eludes me, so I have to thank JWCullison for taking the time out of his unbelieveably busy day to design this fantastic horn. The execution is a good way to describe how I felt after spending 20+ hours in the garage building the tools and Jigs necessary to produce this horn.

I also have to thank Paul B for allowing me to experiment on his Lascala's, Johnny 5 for his time and ears, Greg928gts for his shared ideas, one heck of a sander and keeping this horn on the DL while it was undergoing tests.

KSP-400 Hum Fix/Possible Non-Powered Tower conversion?

EdmundGTP — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:13:01 GMT

So as of right now, the electronic guts of my right side KSP-400 is on it's way back to an electronics repair facility to eliminate the dreaded hum/buzz.

I think it's safe to say that I've read just about every single thread on these forums regarding this problem, and have tried every single DIY Fix that
has been mentioned. All to no avail.

When the issue first came up, I contacted Klipsch Tech Support to get some more information on possible fixes. Obviously we're way past the time when
replacement parts for this speaker were readily available. And they had mentioned that they now farm out a significant portion of their electronics repair
work to a repair company, and suggested that I contact them for a repair estimate. Which I did. I sent them the unit about a month ago with a detailed
description of the issue. The unit returned with an invoice stating that a transformer capacitor was replaced. Hooked the unit back up. Hum was still there.
So today I called them back and they said to ship it back so they could take a look at it. As of now it's on its way back.

So now I have to ask myself. What happens if they cant fix the problem? I'd love to be able to keep and continue to use these speakers because frankly,
they kick ass. I love them.

So I wonder what the possibility is that these could be converted to Non-Powered towers, and if so has anyone here
attempted it? Obviously the midranges and horns can be driven directly without the subwoofer portion even being powered. Can anybody tell me what the
impedence ratings for the midranges and horns are, and in what specific configuration they're wired? And also what is the impedence value for the subwoofer
itself? If I can find that information, I'd like to at least try bypassing the sub amp all together, perhaps tapping off one of the main speaker input binding
posts to in effect bi/tri/whatever-wire the system, and running an in-line 80 hz low pass crossover directly to the sub. Obviously a more complex fix could be better such as a custom desgined passive crossover. Any input on that would be appreciated as well. But, how horrible could it really sound?
What would be the harm in trying? These are awesome speakers, and it would be a total shame to see the lower half of them go to waste.

Thanks in advance guys!

-Ed

Klipsch KG 3.2 X-overs

kingpin — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:46:33 GMT

Hello everyone.

I am new to the Klipsch boards after purchasing a pair of KG 3.2's a week ago.

As a good DIY'er the first thing I did when I got home was tear them apart and have a look inside.

What I found wasn't very good x-over wise.

It seems to me like someone tore apart/or took parts off the x-overs/or they miraculously disappeared from the boards.

Either way, I would like to rebuild them with new parts.

I am requesting a shematic so I can get the values of the components to do this.

I don't know if this is allowed or not, so if not I understand this thread being removed or locked.

I have heard of a gentelman named Bob Crites( i think) and visited his website but at this time $80 in parts for the x-overs, plus shipping, plus the exchange rate, not to mention what I get hit with at the border(I am in Canada) is a little too much at the moment. My guess from previous experience after buying parts at places like Parts Express is that they would probably cost me somewhere near $110-120 cdn. by the time they arrived at my door.

Anyway, not to drag on but I am wondering if anyone has a schematic and the values of the components cause right now these speakers are sounding awful.

Thanks for any help.

Mike

Anyone here ever wind their own inductors?

idahodewitt — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:40:34 GMT

I am always looking to save a few bucks, so I'm considering to take a stab at winding my own inductors instead of purchasing a finished product. Has anyone here done that? Just wondering if its worth the effort.

I was looking at using 10 gauge enameled motor winding wire. Looks as if I may be able to save around $180 on just my two woofer inductors over buying a finished product. I haven't found a formula (that I can understand) that calculates the amount of windings it takes to reach a specific mH value. (I'm challenged in the advanced math arena.) Is there another way to do this or could someone explain the math in simpler terms?

Question.....Could I use a meter that measures mH and with needle pointed probes just pierce through the skin of the wire and measure from the inner end of the coil to the proposed end of coil. The remaining coil of wire I'm feeding off of should not affect the readings should it?

I have alot of other inductors I could wind for other speaker crossover upgrades, so I'd like to be able to figure out how to do this. I'm trying to see if its feasible to try this or just pay for the someone else's finished product. Its just doesn't seem right to pay as much for four inductors as I'd paid for my KLF-20s.

Klipsch KLF 10 spike feet covers

nonobaddog — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 07:50:12 GMT

I have a pair of KLF 10 speakers with the spike feet. One of them has 4 slip on things that go over the spikes so they don't kill wood floors. The other speaker does not have these slip on things. I would like to use these on wood floors. Is there a place to get these spike covers?

DIY AP-12 600 xovers and a big thank you to Al K.

Hashimoto — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 03:38:34 GMT

Here are pics of my DIY AP-12 600 crossovers built from Al's design. Every one of Al's upgrades to my Belles have improved the sound, starting with his universal crossovers, then Trachorns, now the AP-12s with GPA 902s and Beyma tweeters, using the universals as the squawker/tweeter network. Al always promptly and patiently answered all my questions. Thanks, Al.

FREE to good home (again!)...

DTLongo — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:28:06 GMT

GaryMD wrote that he didn't know when he might be able to come out to pick these up and graciously suggested I offer them anew. So, here is my slightly-edited offer from several days ago:

FREE to good home: a pair of Klipschorn top-hat grille and midrange horn assemblies (less drivers). These came from my 2003 Klipschorns recently upgraded with ALK Trachorns and crossovers as described elsewhere on this forum. These assemblies are in absolutely new, pristine unblemished condition. They include mounting brackets as shown. They would be ideal for someone seeking cosmetically to upgrade a pair of old Khorns, or building a Belle, for instance.

WILL DELIVER GRATIS within a 75-mile range of Salisbury MD. Otherwise, recipient pays shipping, which could be pricey (? - guessing $100.00 or so) because of challenge of packing and shipping these rather bulky items.

See photos.

COMMENT: I would very much prefer for someone to come pick them up. Second choice is for me to deliver them within a 75-mile radius as mentioned. Distant third choice is to ship them, but I really weant to avoid the packing + shipping chore.

KLF-20 Crossover Components

idahodewitt — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:39:26 GMT

Where can I find the information on the values of the components (inductors, capacitors, & resistor) used in a KLF-20 crossover? I can read some of the caps and the resistor. I'd like to upgrade the whole thing if possible and not knowing the values of what I want to replace makes a complete upgrade rather difficult.

I picked up the KLF20s last week, got them hooked up Sunday night, and I'm definitely happy with their sound. I just know that there's room for improvement by at least replacing the caps. I'd like to replace the inductors too, but I have no idea what their values are. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

L.D.

New Heresy caps improve sound at low volume?

MikeSt — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:35:17 GMT

Hi, I was just wondering if replacing the caps in Heresy I would cause any noticable improvement at low volume? Or replacing the tweeters?

H700 Heresy

Editor B — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:10:06 GMT

I don't know a whole bunch about high-fidelity audio, but I inherited a pair of speakers last year when a friend passed away unexpectedly. From the label on the back I gather that they are Klipsch Model H700 Heresy speakers.

I plugged them in to my stereo and wow! I was blown away by the quality of the sound.

Heresy — what a cool and intriguing name. There must be a story behind it. Some internet searching led me to this forum, where I'm hoping someone more knowledgable can enlighten me.

Here's the label on the back of the speaker. Sorry it's such a bad photo — it was taken with my phone.

I'm hoping to learn a little bit more about these. What kind of speakers are they? When were they made? Are they hand made? It doesn't look mass-manufactuered to me, but I've never seen or heard anything like this before.

They look kind of old, and they are covered with some burlap-like upholstery that has seen better days. I'm afraid one of our cats treated it like a scratching post. I'm wondering what's under the upholstery but I'm a little leery of prying up the staples.

I'm sad to have lost my friend, but the sound of these speakers fills me with joy. My friend's last name was Speake, so they will always be Speake(rs) to me.

Stain - light Oak Quartet - Would like to darken the color

jrader01 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:53:44 GMT

How would I go about darken the stain for a light oak stained speaker? I don't want to ruin the cabinets by just trying to apply a darker stain.

Ported Heresy Project.

GotHover — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 01:28:00 GMT

Does anyine have info on a ported Heresy design? I picked up a full set of drivers for a Heresy project, I may integrate one of my Fastrac horns or build another suitable for a Heresy.

Thanks, Dave Harris.

PH-800 Horns

Riot260 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:44:20 GMT

Are these horns the ones referred to in the Cornscall upgrade?: http://www.kcnproducts.com/KCN-Products-MG-Electronics-PH-800-p/kcn-ph-800.htm