Why do so many people modify Klipsch?

[LAB3]

In 1979 my Cornwalls were just over $900.00 with risers for the pair. 30 plus years later the only mod I have done is purchase new cross overs on new boards from Bob Crites. They still played just fine but after some oil filled "Caps" in my Revox R2R started to leak I figured the Cornwalls could stand new caps too.

 

[audiomagnate]

...I do not know many people who have modified their Wilson,Sonus Faber, or B&W speakers...

I've modded the snot out of my B&W 801s. They didn't cut corners, but they did use electrolytics for the large value caps and they had to pull all sorts of tricks to keep the drivers in this inefficient studio monitor from being destroyed. Removing the protection circuitry and the series cap from the woofer (yes, you read that right) does wonders. Modding is cheap, fun, educational and highly cost effective. BTW, can anybody point me to a FR graph of a stock KLF-20?

 

[LAB3]

I've modded the snot out of my B&W 801s. They didn't cut corners, but they did use electrolytics for the large value caps and they had to pull all sorts of tricks to keep the drivers in this inefficient studio monitor from being destroyed. Removing the protection circuitry and the series cap from the woofer (yes, you read that right) does wonders. Modding is cheap, fun, educational and highly cost effective. BTW, can anybody point me to a FR graph of a stock KLF-20?

Good luck on the graph for the KLF....nice speakers. I wish someone with a Cornwall I like mine would do a test and post a graph.

 

[libertycaps]

I can find no fault in making great speakers greater. Love my modded Cornwall II's with Bob Crites XO'ers, new production front mount 15" woofs and Ti tweets. They are absolutely heavenly for all kinds of music and still surprise and delight after daily use for a few years now. I will never part with them.

 

[LAB3]

I can find no fault in making great speakers greater. Love my modded Cornwall II's with Bob Crites XO'ers, new production front mount 15" woofs and Ti tweets. They are absolutely heavenly for all kinds of music and still surprise and delight after daily use for a few years now. I will never part with them.

DITTO on Bob Crites new cross overs and new cedar boards:thmbsp: they sound like New again and we have had the Cornwalls from day one...if the stock woofers ever go bad I will try a pair of Bob's cast woofers. I have my Corns as my fronts on my 5.2 HT system and my Heresy II as fronts in the bedroom with the TT and one of Akai R2R. It's about time to recap the HII but they still sound great. I have my Corns in a very small den about 12X14 and have them in the corners towed "IN" towards my shoulders center of my sofa 7 feet back and rear surrounds 7 feet behind me up on the wall aiming down at the back of the sofa. I was told Klipsch Reference would NOT mate well with Heritage... rubbish my Yamaha room correction program nailed it close and I tweaked with my SPL meter wow HD Blurays shake the room. 30 plus years of enjoying my Corns they are keepers forever. I thought about purchasing Bob's tweeters but in this small room I still hear the tweeters just fine.

 

[hotroady]

Klipsch usually have good combination of cabinet, bass and other drivers for the money. Crossovers are not usually the best, some times they skimp on bracing and dampening. Incremental upgrades can be very satisfying.

 

[SET12]

I've modded the snot out of my B&W 801s. They didn't cut corners, but they did use electrolytics for the large value caps and they had to pull all sorts of tricks to keep the drivers in this inefficient studio monitor from being destroyed. Removing the protection circuitry and the series cap from the woofer (yes, you read that right) does wonders. Modding is cheap, fun, educational and highly cost effective. BTW, can anybody point me to a FR graph of a stock KLF-20?

Did you see these http://www.northcreekmusic.com/801web.html

 

[Dukiedook]

Unless a set of speakers are sold as cost no object speakers there are always design choices designers must make to hit a certain price point. This is where the modder comes in and does some upgrades in certain places. I think Klipsch make decent speakers that are a good jumping off point for modders to hack on and improve where those design limitations left off.

 

[SET12]

Of course there are price points, but then again...

Its a shame when $10,000 plus loud speakers like 801's have networks that are like the tiny ones on the left that restrict so much performance. B&W really could of done a better job. The above modified networks use the same design essentially just subjectively superior parts.

When the same approach is used with a Klipsch as I have, I can assure you they can very easily exceed much of the performance of the stock performance of an 801.

That makes modding very desirable and very amazing if the mods are taken far enough and often IMO they are not in trying to achieve very,very high end performance.

I understand that not everyone desires such a high level of performance nor even needs it. Some just desire as good or better performance from their stock networks and there is nothing wrong with that.

For myself just good enough has never been enough for me, as I have friends with $40,000 sound systems. I can't afford $10,000 speakers or amplifiers or CDP's at this cost. But I can afford the extreme mods that I have done.

Doing the above or what I have done to my Forte's is indeed extreme, but so is the performance returned.

SET12

 

[hotroady]

"Trust me, with a crappy noise figure you will really object."

I do and I don't. Noise level acceptance varies from individual to individual in my experience. The problem often with tube circuits is people often go to kill so much noise they kill the amplifiers ability to move energy which while measures well sounds absolutely boring.

SET12[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I dunno..I like the black background of low noise amps. I find amp noise very annoying.

 

[SET12]

"Trust me, with a crappy noise figure you will really object."

I do and I don't. Noise level acceptance varies from individual to individual in my experience. The problem often with tube circuits is people often go to kill so much noise they kill the amplifiers ability to move energy which while measures well sounds absolutely boring.

SET12

Yeah, I dunno..I like the black background of low noise amps. I find amp noise very annoying.

I can understand that hotroady, especially depending on what you listen to! if one is into PP amplifiers low noise is very easy. And with PP I like to tie the output stage right to the rectifier just like SS amps do. The famous EICO HF81 Tube Amp does this as well. Depending on the system you can easily hear much better micro dynamics or should I say the dynamic response of each instrument or voice more profoundly. Its much more involving. The Macro dynamics are also heard.

The amps below are 45 SET mono amplifiers 1.8 watts/channel used with modified LaScala's, they quite large with a very large supply, the final supply caps are a 24uf and a 34uf that are highly isolated in a unique power supply configuration. The supply is highly transparent yet it is nearly 2000uf total/mono.

The Amplifiers are currently being fitted with 6D22S tube bridge rectifiers. But the interesting thing about these amps is the supplies speed. The DC resistance will be about 10 ohms including the chokes and power transformers. Many tube amps have 50 plus ohm's on one leg of their center tap power transformers alone not to mention the resistance of chokes if being used.

I was the circuit designer but the builder tells me that one would have no idea that they were ever listening to a 1 watt anything. This because of the supplies speed and the amplifiers clipping recovery capacity.

The noise generated by these mono's are 1.5mV which aren't heard by the owner who says his Geogre Wright 2A3 SET monoblocks are much louder. Of course these 45 amps with 22 pieces of iron totally just dwarf the Wright Mono's, and the sound I'm told as well.

So fast supplies can be be built to be dynamic and transparent but not in the classical way that they have been tried.

The amps will be posted on AK when the bridge/mono is completed and tested.

SET12

 

[hotroady]

Those are some impressive looking amps! :thmbsp: They do say the first Watt is the most important. Dynamic range being the difference between the soft notes and the loud ones, so the black background would be part of it. Yes circuit dependent. I use mostly NOS tubes this also helps. I tried a highly regarded sub with two stacked 12in woofers; acoustic suspension with high power amp. Sent it back 'cause heard the amp at low listening levels. I have two modded RW12'S now and may add more. Seems you have to be heavier into the gas peddle, before those two acoustic suspension drivers respond right. Another case of less is more.. the lone RW12 sounded better to me than the double 12 driver acoustic. I don't crank subs up..I only hear there effect when the music passages calls for it. Also I crossover between 80-100hz which frees power to the midrange in 2 way speakers. Works well with either my modded RB-75's or Martin Logan Clarity's. By the way the Martin's do have excellent midrange, save for the 80-400hz area. I'm attempting to switch out the 8" 5ohm ML drivers with huge 12lb magnets, 3" voice coils, 8ohm drivers to address that. I'll see how that goes..tough fit.

 

[SET12]

Those are some impressive looking amps! :thmbsp: They do say the first Watt is the most important. Dynamic range being the difference between the soft notes and the loud ones, so the black background would be part of it. Yes circuit dependent. I use mostly NOS tubes this also helps. I tried a highly regarded sub with two stacked 12in woofers; acoustic suspension with high power amp. Sent it back 'cause heard the amp at low listening levels. I have two modded RW12'S now and may add more. Seems you have to be heavier into the gas peddle, before those two acoustic suspension drivers respond right. Another case of less is more.. the lone RW12 sounded better to me than the double 12 driver acoustic. I don't crank subs up..I only hear there effect when the music passages calls for it. Also I crossover between 80-100hz which frees power to the midrange in 2 way speakers. Works well with either my modded RB-75's or Martin Logan Clarity's. By the way the Martin's do have excellent midrange, save for the 80-400hz area. I'm attempting to switch out the 8" 5ohm ML drivers with huge 12lb magnets, 3" voice coils, 8ohm drivers to address that. I'll see how that goes..tough fit.

Thanks hotroady,

Yes, for me its the first watt, that counts. And yes these amps express the contrasts between soft and loud with greater range not only on a whole but among individual performers and instruments. It is something to hear this as it makes the music more live or involving otherwise the sound is kind of homogenized and can put one to sleep as a friend told me when we were auditioning power supply mods, low DCR vs high DCR. I guess for me I like impact and these amplifiers are about this as well.


I would say your probably right on those Acoustic Suspended Subs.
Not an easy thing to do sometimes to integrate subs, a friend yrs back tried with ProAc Response Two's and ended up taking the sub back as we were perceiving kettle drum bass to far forward into the stage rather then to the far rear of the stage as the ProAc's defined the recording. The ProAc's BTW just had superior bass response in contrast to the very expensive sub at the time. But for $3000 the ProAc mini monitors should be good and they are.

Myself, I would rather spend the money on high end Inductors for greater frequency range of performance enhancement say 30-700hz on my Fortes then the 20-100hz with a sub. The 100hz to 700hz has a lot of low frequency information in it that IMO is just lost from my experience, There is body and impact to be had in this range that standard inductors make sound wimpy falsely leading people to believe that they need a sub. People often ask what subs I'm using especially people that have heard Forte's and I have to tell them I don't have any! and their response often is you got to be kidding? and then to tell them they are just listening to 10 watts usually results in expletives from them. Better yet are silent facial stirs, just priceless. But all this is my path certainly not everyone's cup of tea. But its been working for me.

I have always admired Martin Logan's great transparency.

Your project sounds pretty challenging with the ML woofers. I wish the best of luck with the project.

So with the thread asking why modify Klipsch?

Well for me its to get the most I can from amplifiers like this battleship contrasting a pretty decent 2A3 amp.

For my friend owning these amps he's looking to do this project with his LaScala's and probably in a different layout. He currently is using ALK ES networks but those work better with high power,ALK himself has said simpler does sound better with lower power. To my ears the simpler has more body while the ES is more leaner sounding at lower power. So the ALKjr network below will do the trick and as ALK would point out it is far more electrically correct than the stock Klipsch networks.

The parts on this network are of some of the highest subjective quality one could ask for.

Here is the schematic of the ALKjr

Cheers

SET12

 

[LAB3]

WOW.... Nice :thmbsp:

 

[SET12]

Thanks LAB3!

Projects like these is what makes DIYing a thrill :thmbsp:

Especially the listening.

SET12

 

[Frank Sol]

pretty stuff , SET12

 

[SET12]

pretty stuff , SET12

Thank's very much Frank,

I think the builder did a great job for a first DIY build.

Wish they were mine! But I'm very happy I could design them

The builder thought long and hard on his project, says they are all about the

And hearing everything that's possible from his modified LaScala's with ALK ES networks

SET12

 

[LAB3]

The sound. Many buy them initially enthralled with the...uh..... dramatic... sound and then tire of it. Rather than starting fresh they start adding different parts and eventually end up with a box with a Klipsch badge but full of Altec, JBL , TAD, Bruce Edgar clones (or "ripoffs") and other parts. It's actually making DIY speakers one step at a time rather than starting with a clean slate.

I went through the whole thing myself before finally throwing over Klipsch entirely and going mainly with Altec and JBL. When I was finally finished with horns my best ones were dead stock Altecs and JBLs.

I have been enjoying my Cornwalls for 30 plus years and I am still NOT tried of them. The only mod was new cross overs from Bob Crites..... almost like stock.:thmbsp: Pop had Altec, University Classic's etc then Khorns and I had JBL's many years ago, all of them sounded just fine but to each his own. Khorns and Cornwalls are my favorites if you have them placed and tuned correctly for the room.
Louis

 

[BPSHEEP]

If your into moderately loud music, then as Dr. Bruce Edgar one of the worlds foremost horn experts has said simpler is better and I agree. But then if your into the very loud more complex networks are the order like ALK's ES networks. But even ALK will agree for lower levels the simpler networks excell over his ES networks.

Cheers

SET12

When I talked to AL, he didn't tell me this. His recommendation was the AP12-500 matched with the ES-5800, combining a "simpler" gentle with a "complex" extreme slope. But I typically listen at around 70-90 dB. I ordered these, but still waiting for them to arrive.

Just curious... What do "you" consider "very loud" and "lower levels" that you refer to in terms of SPL?

 

[SET12]

I have been enjoying my Cornwalls for 30 plus years and I am still NOT tried of them. The only mod was new cross overs from Bob Crites..... almost like stock.:thmbsp: Pop had Altec, University Classic's etc then Khorns and I had JBL's many years ago, all of them sounded just fine but to each his own. Khorns and Cornwalls are my favorites if you have them placed and tuned correctly for the room.
Louis

Hey LAB3, if your happy that's all that counts. But I can tell after my experience with extreme networks I can no longer live with most speaker manufactures networks. And I suppose this may be due to the fact that I can't afford 10-$20,000 speakers that I like. But unbelievable to some I have been able to approach these with extreme networks as hard as it is to beleive but hearing is believing I like to say.

As I have pointed out many times, parts are not just parts to my ears especially in a minimalist system like I have, I have heard all my parts and some where substantially better than others, its all about voicing and some of the parts just were not widely know about yrs ago, or simply did not exist. Or the very,very good parts are simply just to expensive to try with a variety of speakers which is one reason I have stayed with Klipsch and another is the Klipsch parts values are often small enough to be able to afford the high subjective value parts.

I just simply had no idea what was possible.

When I talked to AL, he didn't tell me this. His recommendation was the AP12-500 matched with the ES-5800, combining a "simpler" gentle with a "complex" extreme slope. But I typically listen at around 70-90 dB. I ordered these, but still waiting for them to arrive.

Just curious... What do "you" consider "very loud" and "lower levels" that you refer to in terms of SPL?

Well he tells people and he doesn't, lets face it, he makes $ when he sells the more expensive networks. I have seen his comments in print in various places. I think if you mentioned the power you have he automatically might make an assumption. Or he if you mentioned your room size and volume level he made an assumption from that. Whether its correct I guess is to be determined by you!

I know what I like and I have heard LaScala's with ES networks and LaScala's with DIY Universals and hands down the Universals or ALK jr's are for low power. They have the body for the levels between 70-90db for me.

I spent some time on his site, he has made some changes since I have last been to it, wow!

110db at my chair would be very loud for me, that would be near a 120 db at the speakers approaching their upper limits which with the ALK's would likely be higher than any stock Klipsch network could obtain.

I have been able to get 100db plus from my 10 watt SET amplifiers of course they are designed to have a lot of reach or what I like to call burst power capacity, http://www.stereophile.com/features/357/
Still one can improve the classical amounts of burst power as well.

So you have the gentle slope for the woofer and extreme slopes for the the squawker.

One thing I saw about the AP12-500 is the use of a LF Iron Core Inductor, myself I can never live with one again after experiencing massive air cores. All I can say is they are typically lean and wimpy sounding and darn near peaky sounding lacking continuity through out the bass range it covers, IMO. I would dump ALK's Iron Core in a heart beat.

I can understand his point of protecting the squawker and tweeter.

Like he says here "Extreme-slope woofer to squawker crossover networks almost completely remove the lows that can overload a squawker driver. Gentle-slope networks can't do that."

I use a first order for the squawker but in reality its used like a second order to match the woofers second order, so the cap to my squawker is tuned to 1400hz as a first order to make it behave like a second order at 700hz, pretty nifty I thought. But the stock Forte network is not electrically correct because as ALK points out the impedance at the Auto-transformer is near 100 ohm's. Still its amazing how good my networks sound with extreme subjective parts.

But the Klipsch Titanium squawker diaphragm's I'm now using really showed just what is meant by control and freedom from breakup especially in the 100db range. An amazing diaphragm and others have reported the same characteristics with high power use. So there is something to be said with ES networks.

But for many of us that are in the 70-95 range I don't feel an overbearing need for ES in fact I don't think I could live with its leanness that I hear at 80-90db range but that's me!

So I guess its all about give and take but most of all what you can live with or without.

SET12