The beautiful Klipsch Horn Speaker - question?

70'sMusic

Well-Known Member
Hi Everyone,

Got a question for those of you who own and love the Klipsch Horn speakers. Although I've never heard them in person, over the years I've only heard great things about them. In my early forays into high-end audio, when I was purchasing my original system, I was told by many "in the know" to get a pair of Klipsch Herseys (e.g the very first edition back in the early to mid 1980's). I auditioned them and found the horns to be too harsh for my ears and the vocals sounded as if they were coming from inside of a tunnel. But, then a friend who was helping me build my system told me to check out the Klipsch Horns.

I listen to a lot of vocal music so I wanted to know from those who own a pair, how do you like vocal music playing through your Horns (e.g. if you listen to vocals through them?) I just find the idea of creating a pair of speakers to work in any room that can produce high-end sound fascinating. If you own a pair of "Horns" please share what type(s) of music you listen to and why you purchased these speakers.

 
Korner horns have changed over the years. Different drivers and even with the same drivers different crossovers. So what. one pair sounds like is not necessarily what. another pair will sound like. A room has a big influence on the sound too. Hersey don't put out much below 65 HZ so they can sound a bit sterile. Specially those models with the early third order crossovers on the tweeters introducing a 6 to 8 db bump at 6.3 KHz area. Earlier and later models were smoother. The Klipsch started building their own tweeters and changed mid drivers and the sound changed again. They changed from metal midrange horns to plastic and the sound changed. Corner horns didn't have the rock solid bottom I like. , but using room equalization to smooth the bass really caused me to have new respect for the speaker. Not much voicing was needed above 400 HZ, maybe 1 or 2 db here or there and a touch up of that pesky hump at 6.3 Khz made for a very enjoyable sound. All the power you will ever need is around 10 watts, The last pair of Korner horns I heard were in the San Diego area with Rosewood cabinets. For non voiced speaker system those Khorns were mighty nice. Yes the bass bloomed a bit and the female voice were a little forward but most horn loaded speakers from all brands are that way. The thing about Khorns is because of the large long midrange horn they project the direct sound further into the listening space. This can sound un-natural to a lot of folks. Its similar to the same effect of placing the recording mic to close to the performer. So depending the combination of the long horn and the to closely miked performer can make for very un-naturally sounding recording. This is what can turn people off about. Klipschorn. They just don't work in smaller rooms or placed in corners on the short wall. Folks who have listened to recording on point source speakers can really be startled by the over intimacy of a Klpschorn. Because you are in the direct field of a corner horn in smaller rooms highs aren't diminished either. These qualities can turn a person used to listening to a point source loudspeaker off very quickly. Same issues happen when folks are first introduced to line array speakers. There is just so much more HF energy with line arrays and horn loaded speakers because the total energy does not drop off with well designed line arrays and horn loaded speakers as it does with point source speakers. So if the sound is mixed in a studio where the monitors speakers have a natural roll off and they confirm the sound with small point source speakers near the console, those of us with line arrays and horn loaded will find our sound to be to bright, because they are to bright. Recordings that represent the true dimension of the space of the performance will sound to mild and slightly ill-defined by point source speakers will be portrayed by directional speakers to be very natural and true to the performance.

If recordings are made with mics placed to closely to be played on point source speakers to gain some sort of realism is one solution, the other is to back off the mics to capture more of the true sound of the performer and the space around the performer will be produced more naturally by a line array or horn loaded speaker. Electronic gimmickry is required to make a to closely miked performance sound natural. Recordings using tried and true stereo or three channel mike pickup will sound as the performance was presented with horn loaded speakers with true dynamics. Its all about the recording you choose. Whats the old saying, different strokes for different folks. Well its all about different recording techniques for different speakers and the environments they are placed in.
 
I think twiii makes a lot of good points. Some folks love Khorns and evidently, some folks highly dislike them... (so be it).

I personally love them for their fantastic dynamics.

I don't agree with twiii's comment regarding

They just don't work in smaller rooms

Well, no....let me rephrase that because he's referring to Khorns. I'll alter what I said to I tend to agree with what he says. in my experience, (I had some 'extreme slope' crossovers in mine....what I found is they took about 30 feet before their sound gelled into "one voice" (yes, I measured).

I replaced them with the Jubilee which has an outrageously large horn.... Roy Delgado (PWK's right hand man and co-designer of the Jubilee) stated that (paraphrasing) "the larger the horn, the better it will work in a room"

His point about saying that is the larger the horn, the better it will control the sound and prevent it from wrapping around the horn to then splash on the walls of the room, creating destructive interference.

If you're looking at a pair of Khorns and like the idea of having PWK's swansong last project speakers, look into the 2-way Jubilee. Side by side, it will put the hurt on the Khorn....but then.... it's got PWK's 50 years of experience built into it verses his zero years of experience when he designed the Khorn. He must have learned a thing or two along his journey!!
 
The fewer crossover points the better. Arrival times between drivers is another issue. You either have to be right on the mark, or space the drivers far enough apart as to prevent narrow anomalies but not to far apart to introduce echos. Don Davis of Altec fame had demos set up using precision time delays to show the differences in sound with the drivers synced and then with different arrival times. It took a while but after listening for extended periods you could recognize the differences. I have never heard a Korner horn using precision time delays and the appropriate crossovers to prevent issues at the crossover region. It. would be expensive, but an interesting experience. If the Chief engineer at JBL can do it for the DD 67000 he designed using digital circuits, I imagine others could do it for a Korner horn or a Jubilee.

Another point is if you ever become. dynamics junkie you will never be able to return to normal consumer speakers...
 
I'm in the Chicago area, where are you located?

I'm in Knoxville. There is probably a decent airport somewhere near you....we have a slightly smaller one here. There used to be direct flights between the two, probably still is. You could fly down in the morning. I could pick you up, take you to my place and give you the keys to the system for the day. I could take you back to the airport and see you off (after wrestling the keys back out of your clutched hands!!!)

Don't have Khorns any more but instead the 2-way Jubilee with a killer big horn on top.

Had people here to listen to them from:

Maryland
Lexington
Atlanta (twice)
Athens (Georga) twice
Nashville (three times)
Oak Ridge
Charlotte
Florida

and of course, a number of locals. Back in the day, there were only two of these in homes and I happened to have one so you had to put some effort to find/listen to a pair. Today, there are something like 50 pair across the country (including Germany, England and Australia)

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Thank you all for sharing, I have learned a lot. One of the best things about this forum is the growing, learning and sharing that takes place. Given that my initial experiences with horn speakers were negative, I will audition some again to see if my ears or listening tastes have changed over the years. I just find the idea behind the KHorns to be fascinating and way ahead of it's time. I am not the most knowledgeable about speaker design but other than the KHorns and speaker by Boston Acoustics, I don't know of many speakers that were designed to sit against a wall or corner in any room and sound great. Being able to do this would solve a lot of problems for most stereo buyers.

 
Since we've been talking about the KHorns, although they were not designed to sit in a room's corners do the same principles apply to the Klipsch La Scala's and Belle's?


 
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My understanding is as you near them to the wall / corner, you will enhance their bottom end (like with any speaker). I know of one guy that wanted to take his LaScala II's, rotate the bass horn so it faced the corner, thinking he was making a quasi-corner horn.

I have no idea on the physics of his idea if it would work or not.

I am pretty sure there is at least one Jubilee owner in the greater Chicago area. I might be wrong... they might have the Jubilee bass bin and a different top. If they have a different top, one would have to wonder... did I hear "the Jubilee" or not....according to one of their engineers, the answer would be a resounding "no".

(doesn't mean it might not sound great)

The real secret sauce on the Jubilee (which was originally designed to replace the Khorn and become the Khorn II but, that never evolved that way)

Anyway, the real secret sauce to the sound of the Jubilee in my opinion, is the big K402 on top. You can slap that horn on top of a Jubilee, MWM single bass bin, MWM double bass bin, their (forget model number) four 15" dynamic drivers bass bin, (forget model number) TWO 15" drivers bass bin, Lascala bass bin...and on any / all of them the system sounds fantastic.

They also have the much smaller (like 15"x10"???) K510 which is also a fantastic sounding horn. It was designed to sound the same as the K402 but, needs a higher cutoff.

and yes, I have heard many of these combo's side by side....and also owned several of them.
 

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seems I lost the other pictures I tried to post

browser crashed, pardon any duplications
 

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That's a great collection of photos! Meanwhile I found these on USAM and am smacking myself for not having any place to put them. The veneers are spectacular but it's the 'cane grilles' which put these over the top for me. (No affil of course, though I wish I could arrange one.)

2155502-klipsch-klipschorns-walnut-with-cane-grills.jpg

2155500-klipsch-klipschorns-walnut-with-cane-grills.jpg

I'd love for someone here to buy these knockout Klipschorns, so I can share the joy!
 
That's a great collection of photos! Meanwhile I found these on USAM and am smacking myself for not having any place to put them. The veneers are spectacular but it's the 'cane grilles' which put these over the top for me. (No affil of course, though I wish I could arrange one.)

2155502-klipsch-klipschorns-walnut-with-cane-grills.jpg


2155500-klipsch-klipschorns-walnut-with-cane-grills.jpg

I'd love for someone here to buy these knockout Klipschorns, so I can share the joy!

Can you share the link where they are available? Just curious...
 
Can you share the link where they are available? Just curious...

It's on the photos, but I'll PM you a link because I don't want to violate forum regs.

Frankly I call it the deal of the century, but then I like Klipsch speakers
drool.gif


Would love to see them go to a forum member!
 
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