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In Reply to: Re--Klipsch Woofer posted by Tom Brennan on April 23, 2001 at 15:33:38:
TommyYou know, I put myself through school working at the local hi-fi store-selling folks on the benefits of cast aluminum baskets, high gauss levels, and edgewound voice coils with narrow gaps. When I think about it, I probably sold over 100 pairs of JBLs (mostly L19, L26, L36 to poor students, and Jubals, L100s and 200s to well heeled ones) while I was in their employ. The quality of construction of JBLs and the higher end Altecs (Altec was also producing low-end junk in the 70's) seemed to me to have a direct correlation to sound quality. When I got out of school I became the Tannoy rep for the Rocky Mountain States, and becoming familiar with that line reinforced this belief, as they were made in the same fashion as JBL and Altec.
I could never reconcile the fact that Klipsch, particularly the Cornwall and the Belle, was a damn good sounding speaker in spite of using what I was trained to believe were second rate drivers. Perhaps the benefits are in the margins and the nuances, as a three way JBL system (L300 for example) has to me greater detail than the Klipsch, even though both sound good. Maybe it also points to the great potential of a good horn design, in spite of less than top notch manufacturing.
As an aside, I hear a rumor that Klipsch has curtailed the shipment of all Heritage series speakers, pending the selection of a new source of midrange drivers. Have you heard anything about that?
Follow Ups:
It is not so much a matter of quality (though I don't think anyone
questions Klipsch quality) as it is design parameters. You can't
just stick any old woofer, no matter how fancy-looking, in a K-horn
and expect it to work.Modern woofers, especially those designed for subwoofer duty,
typically have long-throw designs, soft suspensions, and very low
resonant frequencies. Such a speaker would sound _HORRIBLE_ in a
K-horn. Modern speakers, often used in acoustic suspension boxes,
are made the way they are because the air trapped in the box adds
to the effective stiffness of the cone, raising the resonant
frequency.A horn does exactly the opposite. The column of air in the horn
acts like extra mass on the cone, _LOWERING_ the resonant frequency.
And, incidentally, loading the speaker so that it doesn't need much
excursion. A long-throw, low Fs speaker in a K-horn would flop
around like a bird with two broken wings. The K-horn speaker has
a high resonant frequency and short throw, because it doesn't _NEED_
long throw.Jack
Tweak--The Heritages will be back for sure, a couple of sourceing problems (mids and tweeters)are being ironed out. Personally I think they should have JBL run them off 2470 phenolics and 076 catseyes but that won't happen. :-)
nt
Tweak---I know what you mean, I have a basement full of nice JBL and Altec drivers but I also get very good sound from a K-33 in a Peavey FH-1. I think the fact that the Altec and JBL stuff had it's origins in motion picture sound and not home use has much to do with the way it was made. For home use a driver isn't worked near as hard and thus maybe need not be made so fanatically, I know PWK was of that opinion as I heard him express it so many moons ago. Sometimes it isn't so much the quality of the tool that's important but the manner in which it's used. The Dunlavey speakers use inexpensive (even by direct-radiator standards) VIFA drivers yet they are pretty good, at least by non-horny standards. :-)
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