Khorns vs. ?

[Dmitry]

Which high-priced speakers have you compared the Khorns to, preferably directly, and what were your impressions?
In my case it would be B&W Nautilus 804, half the price of Khorns, but that was my only direct comparison .B&W's were sold shortly after.

 

[Coytee]

Well...with no intent of sounding snarky....

I had Khorns and heard the Jubilee which was originally intended to become the Khorn II.

After the 30 second intro to Hotel California and that initial BOOM of the drum kick, I had an ear to ear smile saying 'THAT is what I've been looking for"

I went home and literally within a week my Khorns were sold/gone and I had an order in for the Jubilee's. I've not missed the Khorns for 53 nano-seconds since.

Same room, same electronics in my house.

Couple years later, heard the Khorn vs Jubilee in the listening room at the Klipsch engineering facility (Hope, Arkansas)

It wasn't pretty. It verified what I had concluded a couple years prior and brutally displayed the 50 years of experience that PWK put into its design.

 

[mkane]

If you like that BOOM.

 

[Stan man]

To each their own- when it come to BOOM.
As with any aspect in audio, set up, and just plain how you prefer your bass to "slam" is a matter of taste. Yes, I'm sticking up for my 15" Khorns. From my experience and preference, the larger woofer has better "weight" than numerous smaller ones. I would love to hear a pair of Jubilees though.

 

[usedto]

The biggest factor is that no two people hear the same. You can lay out all the technical specs, etc. etc., and none of amounts to a hill of beans if it doesn't sound right to YOU.

It all depends on what you want. If you want specs, it's a simple as black and white. If you want what you like to hear, no one but you can make that decision.

 

[twiiii]

I compared them to Bozak Concert Grands with the line array and purchased the Grands. I later compared Khorns to stacked pairs of Mcintosh ML-4C and chose the ML-4c driven by 2 MC 2300. Lately I compared K-horns to Magico Q5 and if I had the money I would take the Q5. I also compared the Khorns to XR 290s driven by a 2600 and the 290's won easily. The speakers the Khorns did beat were, JBL Paragons and Hartsfield (no highs), Altec Carmel, Capistrano, Magnificant and A7-500, EV Patrician and Georgian and Model 6, JBL Olympus was a tie, but I thought the 4435 was a better speaker as were Urie big monitors with either one or two extra 15" woofers. There are very few speakers with less than 93 db sensitivity that can equal a corner horn. But it it isn't always a matter of quantity, but the guilty that I feel is more important. 110 db peaks is about all I can take, thats only 10 watts to Khorns in my room and about 50 watts to my Grands tri amped with added super tweeters. .The ML-4c stacked required 400 watts. The XR 290's required a little over 200 watts and they and the ML-4 would reach 16 hz, which a Corner horn can't. .

 

[Polarbear]

I've compared them to Altec 19s, Kef 105.2, Acoustic Research AR98ls, JBL Jubals, Infinity Kappa 7 and they survived all those. I did however end up parting with them and now run Harbeth and Monitor Audio.

 

[hugeroost]

I compared them to Bozak Concert Grands with the line array and purchased the Grands. I later compared Khorns to stacked pairs of Mcintosh ML-4C and chose the ML-4c driven by 2 MC 2300. Lately I compared K-horns to Magico Q5 and if I had the money I would take the Q5. I also compared the Khorns to XR 290s driven by a 2600 and the 290's won easily. The speakers the Khorns did beat were, JBL Paragons and Hartsfield (no highs), Altec Carmel, Capistrano, Magnificant and A7-500, EV Patrician and Georgian and Model 6, JBL Olympus was a tie, but I thought the 4435 was a better speaker as were Urie big monitors with either one or two extra 15" woofers. There are very few speakers with less than 93 db sensitivity that can equal a corner horn. But it it isn't always a matter of quantity, but the guilty that I feel is more important. 110 db peaks is about all I can take, thats only 10 watts to Khorns in my room and about 50 watts to my Grands tri amped with added super tweeters. .The ML-4c stacked required 400 watts. The XR 290's required a little over 200 watts and they and the ML-4 would reach 16 hz, which a Corner horn can't. .

a couple things, you mention quality, which I feel is important, korns are super built imo, like a grand piece of furniture with really good material. How did they stack up there, also of the ones you liked better, what was price difference. I figure there are speakers out there that sound better, but dang some of these are 50k a set. My local Mac dealer has a monoblock setup with a set of Mac towers that are 50k, they may sound a little better but not 5x better...Roost

 

[twiiii]

IF you want a thrill voice a 3 channel set up of corner horns and a Belle. Follow the small room X curve for a start. Then use your preamps tone controls if you want the sound a little brighter or the more weighted on the bottom. You can easily get the perfect balance from 32 to over 16.3 Khz. If the room has a moderate degree of absorption and no nasty reflections off rear walls the presentation will be stunning. You won't believe your ears. That said newer speakers with updated woofers will have less harmonic distortion and more appropriate sound reproduction in the bass below 150 hz. I'm not very fond of point source speakers as the info recorded is being thrown all around the room before it reaches your ears. So i still prefer horns and line arrays. Magico came out with a new model that can reach down to 50 Hz at 120 db they say with very low distortion. But they'll be lucky to reproduce 110 db at 25 hz. So, Im not impressed especially when it takes over a THOUSAND WATTS!!!!! Any one want to hear 120 db from a 1" tweeter?. Of course they won't tell us how they take there measurements. Are they using short term tone bursts to prevent the large amounts of current from frying the coils? Are they limiting the band width like JBL and Altec do when they make their measurements. Are they using sign waves, filtered pink noise, come on guys be straight with us like Paul Has for over 60 years.

 

[analog addict]

a couple things, you mention quality, which I feel is important, korns are super built imo, like a grand piece of furniture with really good material. How did they stack up there, also of the ones you liked better, what was price difference. I figure there are speakers out there that sound better, but dang some of these are 50k a set. My local Mac dealer has a monoblock setup with a set of Mac towers that are 50k, they may sound a little better but not 5x better...Roost

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my Khorns, but the actual driver quality is generally mediocre at best. PWK was an expert at taking inexpensive drivers and getting the most out of them. I've always wondered what Khorns would sound like loaded with Altec quality drivers. Not necessarily Altec drivers but purpose built drivers of the same quality. Of course, if Altec components of the right specs were available to replace the OEM drivers, I could live with that as well...

 

[damacman]

I've never heard a pair of Jubilees but if they sound like I think ithey would I'm sure they're freakin' awesome! I think what I like best about K-horns is the attack of the woofers. I've never heard another speaker that could replicate it.

That being said, K-horns are not without fault. For one, homes are simply no longer built to accommodate them with a long wall and corners. Secondly, nearly any well designed ported or sealed design can outperform them below 50Hz. One of my best friends had K-horns, McIntosh ML4Cs, McIntosh XRT-20s, and Carver Amazings. He sold everything but the K-horns. I bought my XRT-22s as a direct result of enjoying his XRT-20s.

twiiii - stacked ML4Cs with a pair of MC2300s is mental. That's 1,200 Watts and (16) 12" woofers ... (8) mutually coupled 12s per side. I don't know anything that could match that for output. Richard from Contemporary Sounds in OKC told me they sold such systems as well.

 

[Coytee]

I've always wondered what Khorns would sound like loaded with Altec quality drivers. Not necessarily Altec drivers but purpose built drivers of the same quality. Of course, if Altec components of the right specs were available to replace the OEM drivers, I could live with that as well...

AA, this isn't a perfect parallel.... but it might suffice (?)

The Jubilee was PWK's last project. The current setup for residential users has the huge K402 on top with the K69 (tweeter) driver that I think is made by Atlas. I don't know their model number.

If you were to swap the (what I have heard called pedestrian) K69 driver for a generally respected TAD 4002, you WILL hear a difference. It is a higher level of clarity and detail.

That said, I don't know that I personally could walk into the room and have an "ah-ha" moment and recognize which driver might be playing. Side by side, I think I could pick it out every time. Walking random into the room, I'm not so sure.

Using that as my analogy, I'd wonder if a Khorn with better drivers could be distinguished walking blind into a room?

Side by side, perhaps. Walking into an unknown situation, I don't know.

 

[Coytee]

I've never heard a pair of Jubilees but if they sound like I think ithey would I'm sure they're freakin' awesome! I think what I like best about K-horns is the attack of the woofers. I've never heard another speaker that could replicate it.

I'd say to consider the Jubilee as a LaScala on steroids. Since it has the rear panels it's different than the Khorn.

Imagine walking up to the Khorn and with your arms wrapping around it, refocusing it's output from the back wall (and therefore pressurizing the entire room) to a more focused output from the front.

I'd say you don't have the room pressurization that the Khorn gives you but it's a much more visceral assault on you, more like the LaScala.

Hope that made at least some sense.

 

[Pauln]

In regard to comparing the Khorn with what I suppose are direct radiators...

twiiii said, "That said newer speakers with updated woofers will have less harmonic distortion and more appropriate sound reproduction in the bass below 150 hz."

damacman siad, "Secondly, nearly any well designed ported or sealed design can outperform them below 50Hz."

- horn loaded bottoms have vanishingly low harmonic distortion compared to direct radiators.

- the "more appropriate" bass sound may reflect the modern preference for "bass slam", which is just a euphemism for harmonic distortion during playback

- "outperform them below 50Hz" is also a reflection of modern popular belief that there is additional and mandatory content below the frequencies of instruments (which there is now days, boomy, bloated, and unnatural)

Ask yourself how many speaker manufacturers (other than PWK) have published the design, methodology, and measurements of their actual speaker distortion experiments... Is it because the majority of direct radiator designs are well into double digit percent harmonic distortion at normal listening levels?

 

[damacman]

I don't disagree with anything you've said. I personally listen to a wide variety of music, including electronic music, and the occasional Telarc or Dorian disc. If I did have Klipsch speakers I'd simply supplement the bottom end with a sub.

 

[twiiii]

Back in the late70's there were a couple of professional distributors that had taken their Corner horns and attached JBL drivers to the mid range horns and replaced the Ev t-35 tweeter with JBL tweeters. I thought I hear a noticeable improvment for mid horn production. I would like to hear Klipsch k-horns with woofers of the latest up grades. maybe with a bigger LF horn to extend the bass a half an octave lower. I bet there are some K-orn owners with Crites up grades that experience the same improvements. It would be fun to hear K-horns driven with amps with a Mac MEN220 connected to correct the timing between the woofer and mid horn. It might be fun to tri amp the speakers using a Rane processor to act as crossover, precision time delay and equalizer. to bring all the drivers into focus.