ClaudeJ1:

Well that statement simply isn't true. We are all in the Pro Loudspeaker arena here with large format drivers. 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 (it's in the LOBBY of Indy HQ for a reason) is a 4-way, so your comment is simply not true.

 

Do you need to do 140dB in your listening room? Performance was comrpomised in all those systems to achieve the higher SPL.

ClaudeJ1:

....and still need a ton of PEQ to work right.

Did you know that changing the K402 to get rid of the need for PEQ will increase distortion and negatively impact the polars?

 

ClaudeJ1:

Since I'm the only serious listener, I'm not concerned about what is sounds like anyhere else in the room, where the listening is just background or exercise music anyhow.

 

While the direct sound may be lined up, there's no way to avoid the comb-filtering in the off-axis (which I think is what your'e referring to)....the only catch is that 90% of the energy arriving at the listening position comes from the off-axis (to loosely quote a comment by PWK in the DFH). Of course it only matters in the vertical planes, and you've got some precedence effect benefits for the direct sound....probably putting you at around a 30% perceived impact on the energy arriving at the listening position.

All that to say, I would be very hesitant to ignore the off-axis performance in a typical home environment on the premise that there is a single sweet spot.

DrWho:

ClaudeJ1:

Basically the MWMs is a 6-foot horn, while the Khorn is an 8-foot horn, so they go lower.

The khorn is a 5ft horn (58" or whatever).....and corner loading benefits for the khorn will also apply to any other horn in the same corner. To claim the Khorn gets an additional 4ft from the wall, but the MWM doesn't is inconsistent logic. I never said there was not room gain from the MWMs. I just said that 4 of them were not necessary for good sound INDOORS. All measurements were done at the sweet spot by the equivalent of your rig. There is a huge hump in the MWM and reduced output in the 200 Hz. range. I have not yet measured the Khorns I substituted, but the overall improment in detail and depth was immediately apparent. The curve shown is an old one and doesn't reflect the larger horns and more efficient JBL driver now used in the 1-6Krange.

Sure, the khorn was designed to work in a corner and the MWM was designed to not require a corner, but that's irrelevant....it just means the MWM takes care of most of its corner itself. The Jub LF was designed to work without a corner, but it also benefits from being in a corner....just like the khorn, and just like the MWM and any other undersized mouth horn. 

What is relevant is that both bass horns were used in the exact same room in almost the exact same place with the exact same woofer, electronics and Xover. I just unplugged the old and plugged in the new. I already know all the stuff you speak of here. The diffence between you and I is that you are a theorist and I'm a doer. You are a very bright young man, but you have not put your time and money where your mouth is. This is not a persoanl flame, just an observation over the last 3 years. I drove my Khorns to Toronto and picked up the MWMs bins from Ottawa. Hauled them into the house and started swapping and testing woofers. Against the "convention of K43's" I found the K33 woofers to be sonically superior and verified by measurement. Also, Gary Gillum, whose name is on the MWM patent, emphasized to me that the MWm horn was originally designed around the K33. My evidence and the designer's statement shall override popular opinion and convetion, ok? Plain as daylight, the Khorn bass simply sounds deeper, more detailed, and just as impactful in the same room as the MWM. After going to all this trouble, do you think I would have sold of one of the best woofers in the world to put a Khorn back in if it wasn't an improment?

The reason I bring it up is because the MWM is way more efficient at 40Hz than the Khorn.

Well, again actual OWNERSHIP and my measurments disagree with your statment in MY room. With room gain, the bass peak moves from about 60-70 Hz. as measured in the Hope anechoic chamber by Roy, to a 50 Hz. peak in my room than a sharp dropoff so that by the time it gets to 40 Hz. it's 19 db down from the peak. According to Roys chamber measurments of the Khorn and MWM, the Khorn has 6 db greater output at 40 Hz. than the MWM, so your statement bears no resemblence to Roy's cuves or to reality in my room. Don't believe me, believe the numbers.

ClaudeJ1:

So if the K-33 is the best woofer for hi-fi

Best? I don't think so.  Maybe best bang for the buck.

Well again specifically for the MWM bin there have been 2 choices with the Klipsch brand, all the other woofers in the world need not apply.  It's between the K33 and K43. I have owned and tried both. I concluded the K33 measured and sounded better even before I talked with Gary Gillum about it. When you add that the K43 is not as good of a choice for over twice the money, I would say yes, even if price were not the issue. I even had the super expensive/obsolete Gauss woofers in there, and those were the worst. So I rest my case.

ClaudeJ1:

while maintaining ALL of PWK's principles of good sound.

I take issue with that comment because if you maintained "all" of his principals, then you would end up with the exact same designs.....or you would be saying that PWK didn't know how to best implement his own principals.

Principles are the same, I just choose to make different tradeoffs with superior components on the top end.

The crux of the matter is you want to justify your sound by trying to associate it with PWK. If you notice the changes made to the Khorn over the years, and then PWK's (and Roy's) achievements with the Jubilee (which PWK felt was better than the khorn), then you should notice that you're moving backwards relative to PWK's progression.

Not true on any account. I'm not justifying anthing with PWK's name, just that he ignored time delay, which technology now allows anyone to easily correct digitally. I chose to do it easier and cheaper by simply trying to align each source to one corner, and it works well, despite all the naysayers who have never tried it. What I learned from Roy, the heir apparent to PWK, is the bigger the horn the better the horn. I don't need to justify or associate anything to create better sound, I don't know how you can infer that. I think the Jubilee bass bin is the least important aspect of the progress. What makes the Jubilee so great is the top end. PWK always maintained that the midrange is where we live and played down the importance of the bass in his acceptance speech of the AES Silver Medal. Where the improvment in the Jubilee lies is that it behaves like a LaScala out of the corner and like a Khorn in the corner BUT much better high end cutoff than either of the old designs. PWK wanted an 800 Hz. Xover point to mate with a vertically collapsed horn. Roy chose his own large CD horn (which PWK didn't live to hear) with PEQ and a 500 Hz. Xover. The same could be easilty achieved by PEQing a Khorn at 500 hz.. The Jub bin would still be marginally better, I admit, but where's the real "achievement" then? It's still in the 402 horn not the bass bin if you believe the midrange is most important.

Why can't it just be that you enjoy your system? Why try to justify it with ancient theory?

Well I do enjoy my system. Do you enjoy yours? I was just explaining to someone else why I got rid of my MWMs because he found it hard to believe tha I had. I don't thinkg I was "justifying"  anything except to reason.  This is not a religion or a romance novel for me. There are also other horns in the world besides Klipsch that have very good performance in their application. All of them adhere to PWK's principles (promoter/assimilator rather than abolute originator by his own admission) and make different tradeoffs in the process. As far as I know, modern theory is the same as ancient theory. Jubliees have evolved in detail rather than principle, just like any other horn or waveguide.

 

DrWho:

Do you need to do 140dB in your listening room? Performance was comrpomised in all those systems to achieve the higher SPL.

ClaudeJ1:

....and still need a ton of PEQ to work right.

Did you know that changing the K402 to get rid of the need for PEQ will increase distortion and negatively impact the polars?

In what way is the performance compromised? If a Ferrari is designed to reach 220 MPH, does that mean it can't cruize through a parking lot at 15 MPH as well as a conventional automobile in the correct gear?

Power compression and other non-linearities creep in at high output levels, so moving air with less intensity with milliwatts instead of 100's of watts means proportional reduction in distortion. I can neither hear nor measure the "compromises" on the electro/acoustic level. The only compomises I see are the black paint, heavier weight of lumber, larger sizes and more expensive materials.

Again, you merely theorize. Who said anything about changing a 402? Do you want to pay for new molds? I would own 402's as they are if they were made available for a reasonable cost without the K-69 drivers, which are a compromise in themselves. I don't see this as a relevant point.

Here's an old plot with the 4 MWMs bins and an EV horn and driver, which have both been replaced since. measurement from where my head sits on the couch, about 15 feet from each corner. Gives you an idea of the bass peak and sudden drop I speak of. Pink noise with 1/12th octave resolution on the RTA. It was worse with the K43.......didn't go as low and had a big dip before 100 Hz. I deleted that curve. What is shown is what I achieved about 3 iterations ago. I have since lowered and smoothed the bass and filled in the dips at 1.2Khs and 7Khz.with the big JBL 2360's.......curves not saved. Keep in mind that there is no EQ of any kind here and that I'm plus/minus 5 db at my sweet spot in a real room, using only a single capacitor in the lower mid/midbass, midrange, and tweeter sections. By using the natural mass rolloffs and the flattest part of the horn driver combos, I'm achieving this tight envelope.........comb filter or not. Everyone that has heard it from casual listenter to audiophile with great ears said it's the best sound they have ever heard. I don't think the latter statement is true in the absolute sense, whatever that means, but it is the best sound I have ever had in that room and I did it on the cheap.

Here's a composite of various curves in the chamber in Hope. Both the Khorn and Jubilee put out way more bass at 40 Hz. than the MWM bin.

 

 

ClaudeJ1:

Here's a composite of various curves in the chamber in Hope. Both the Khorn and Jubilee put out way more bass at 40 Hz. than the MWM bin.

 

 

unless I'm reading the chart wrong...which I could be...the chart compares Khorns in corners and Jubilee's in corners to MWM's not in corners...so the message I get out of this is that corners put out more bass than non corners.

 

 

speakerfritz:

 

ClaudeJ1:

Here's a composite of various curves in the chamber in Hope. Both the Khorn and Jubilee put out way more bass at 40 Hz. than the MWM bin.

 

 

unless I'm reading the chart wrong...which I could be...the chart compares Khorns in corners and Jubilee's in corners to MWM's not in corners...so the message I get out of this is that corners put out more bass than non corners.

 

 

 

If you look at my curve, it was done in corners, in my concrete basement, 7-foot ceinlings, 13.3 feet apart with a 35 foot room depth. My  MWMs contained 4 of the old style (square magnet) K-33's with the super low resonance. The ones Roy tested in the chamber had modern K-43's in them, so it's an apples and oranges kind of comparison, but my point remains about the K33 being the smoother driver (just trust me) and the additinal "effective horn length" that occurswith the corners/room gains is still way down at 40 Hz relative to the rest of the curve, whereas the Khorn bass clearly goes lower and has greater output at 40 Hz, refuting Grasshopper's comments.

I'm not trying to argue with anyone or mess up someone's quasi-religious beliefs about horns or the Klipsch brand itself. I'm just presenting the why and how I achieved great results in my room and why I still think even more highly of the Khorn bin and the vernerable K-33 woofer. They have withstood the test of time even though it is bested by the Jubilee's twin 12" motors and simpler folds. I'm sure if I had Jubilee bass bins, my story would be different, but keep in mind that the curve on large, straight-axix, Constand Directivity, very rare, Peavey MB-1 horn from 180Hz. to 1 Khz.blows away anything coming out of a LaScala, MWM, or Khorn bin, and yes, it even bests the Jubilee's curve from 500 to 1Khz. There's a reason why no Folded horn of any kind from Klipsch is crossed above 500 Hz. in the real world. Folded horns work and sound best in the BASS and maginally well in the midbass, which I prefer to call lower midrange. If you listen to a 200 Hz. it's sounds  alot higher than you think. Most of the work done by any power amplifier is below that frequency on music, with extreme power going to the subwoofage. It's really expensive to get flat to 20 Hz. and not necessary on acoustic music, where 35 Hz. is plenty (almost too much for the vinyl guys and their record warpage and rumble). I do use twin large subs with lotsawatts for movies, but I find it muddies up the bass on music, hence my goal of building twin LAB horns with EQ as subs. But there is diminishing returns there for sure.

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

 "If you look at my curve, it was done in corners, in my concrete basement, 7-foot ceinlings,"

-so then you have all kinds of room gain, negating any really meaning full data, other than 'these sound like this in MY room'. 

mark1101:

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

Mark, that's an impressively flat curve, well, not even really a curve.  Were you able to get similar results with the K-69 drivers?

ClaudeJ1:

ClaudeJ1:

Basically the MWMs is a 6-foot horn, while the Khorn is an 8-foot horn, so they go lower.

The khorn is a 5ft horn (58" or whatever).....and corner loading benefits for the khorn will also apply to any other horn in the same corner. To claim the Khorn gets an additional 4ft from the wall, but the MWM doesn't is inconsistent logic. I never said there was not room gain from the MWMs.

 

Sure, but you said the khorn goes lower because it's a longer horn, but it simply isn't a longer horn.

The length of the horn also has nothing to do with where you bought your speakers, what drivers are in them, or even how you got them into your basement and hooked them up. Heck, it doesn't even matter who helped design the speaker or whatever other broken record name dropping you want to do.

ClaudeJ1:

According to Roys chamber measurments of the Khorn and MWM, the Khorn has 6 db greater output at 40 Hz. than the MWM, so your statement bears no resemblence to Roy's cuves or to reality in my room. Don't believe me, believe the numbers.

You need to learn how to read measurements. Those measurements are showing the MWM doing well over 6dB better than the Khorn. Find the plot that shows the Jub in the middle of the chamber and compare that against the Jub in the door. I'm working off memory, but I recall it being about a 15dB difference at 40Hz. Now apply that transfer function to the MWM and it is totally killing the Khorn.

ClaudeJ1:

Principles are the same, I just choose to make different tradeoffs

Principals and choice of tradeoffs are the same thing to an engineer that fully understands the tradeoffs.

Btw, you've got a huge room mode at 38Hz. There is no reason a horn will drop off at ~45dB/octave. If the khorn doesn't exhibit the same dip, then it is because the khorn or microphone have moved relative to the modal response of the room. I know this because of experience....not because I want to twist the lines on a graph to say what I want them to say.

ClaudeJ1:

As far as I know, modern theory is the same as ancient theory. Jubliees have evolved in detail rather than principle, just like any other horn or waveguide.

Modern theory is not the same as ancient theory because the solution sets are very different. Modern tools free up compromises that had to be made in the past.

It's also a shame that PWK's beliefs from after the 80's aren't published. He very much became a fan of time-alignment, and the interesting thing is that it doesn't invalidate all the data he used in the past to verify his original claims...it just requires looking at a different form of human aural perception than he was originally focusing on. After talking to Roy, he seemed very convinced that PWK would have eventually adopted a CD horn for the top too. But regardless, my personal experience agrees with Roy that CD is the way to go....and all of my reasons have nothing to do with combining the wavefronts at the listening position.

Btw, I just wanted to add that I would probably go with a Khorn over the MWM for the home (for purely sonic reasons). I would go with a Jub LF over the Khorn though...the entire 50-100Hz octave of the Jub LF has way lower distortion than the Khorn (I wanna say around 6dB). My reasononing would simply be that the MWM has way too much LF, and the folding of the horn doesn't maintain a good consistent impedance transfer (thus the craziness in the higher frequencies).

I'm personally going with tapped horn for 20-80Hz and straight tractrix midbass from 80-800 with a K402 on top.

I'm gettin a kick out of this thread...

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

jc

Having had Khorns, Jub clones, and currently having MWMs, they were all excellent in there own right and all different. It is still my perception to this day that it is a very close contest of which playes LOWER, the Khorn or the Jub. This goes beyond chamber measurements and gets into what you actually hear in your home. IMHO the Jub was better because it fires right at you like a lascala and you feel more impact. Overall better bass. The MWMs have the BIGGEST sound of all 3 and while they don't go quite as low as the Jub nor Khorn, you can see my curves. I get the MWMs down there into the 30s easily. They are in corners. There is very little boosting going on. That is what you can get. That is 1/24th octave resolution with a 300 reading average. It is also smoothed. It is VERY clean sounding, and it does go low.

Claude, no offense but your curve from 4K on up is taking quite a dive. Why is that? 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. Again, I'm just going by what you posted. Please take no offense. I'd just like you to explain the anomalies so I can understand.