• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

EQ'd speakers are still too shouty

Nobody's asked yet but do you have a THD measurement?

@Duke and @terryforsythe have also posted some plausible explanations for what you're hearing.

Diffraction (close up to the horn) might be overemphasizing some high frequencies, and if you look at the compression chart from Erin's review, you're getting a little boost at 2Khz every time there's an SPL peak, which would tend to be "shouty" as well.

And that 4dB peak around 1500hz could be contributing. Hard to EQ that out, but maybe some room treatments would help.

If you want speakers with a similar design that are more suitable for nearfield you might look at selling these and getting some JBL 305 or 308p - I usually see them pretty cheap secondhand on facebook marketplace. Generally people seem to like them, haven't heard anyone call them shouty.
 
If you want speakers with a similar design that are more suitable for nearfield you might look at selling these and getting some JBL 305 or 308p - I usually see them pretty cheap secondhand on facebook marketplace. Generally people seem to like them, haven't heard anyone call them shouty.
Mind you, plenty have called them noisy though... But yeah, there may be better alternatives for the desk. Kali LP6v2s are about the same price as a set of these Klipschs.
 
Mind you, plenty have called them noisy though... But yeah, there may be better alternatives for the desk. Kali LP6v2s are about the same price as a set of these Klipschs.
yeah i think im gonna sell them and get the lp6v2. i would have to sell the amp as well
 
FWIW (which, admittedly, ain't much):
In my four-plus decades of experience (albeit with occasional/rare exception): Klipsch = shouty.
:(
I love Klipsch.
I love the legend, the thinking behind the designs, the aesthetics of their Arkansas built speakers, I respect PWK and Roy Delgado, but gosh darnit, like you, for the past 40+ years every Klipsch speaker I have owned I have sold off. (Heresy, a couple of versions Cornwall, La Scala, Klipschorn, and DIY Belle Klipsch) I find them all to sound too shouty for my taste.
 
I'm a layperson, so can someone let me know if this makes sense? if I said something with cupped hands around my mouth, then said the same the same thing with hands cupped around my mouth but in a different tone, it'd still sound like I had hands cupped around my mouth. right?

is this an appropriate analogy for horns + EQ?
 
Since you already have them, you might as well try equalizing them without the Harman curve to see if it at least helps. But, there probably are better speakers for the application.
my target (gray dotted line) is less bright than harman. i used to use -1db/oct tilt, it didnt sound that much better
graph (2).png

graph (3).png
 
Last edited:
I love Klipsch.
I love the legend, the thinking behind the designs, the aesthetics of their Arkansas built speakers, I respect PWK and Roy Delgado, but gosh darnit, like you, for the past 40+ years every Klipsch speaker I have owned I have sold off. (Heresy, a couple of versions Cornwall, La Scala, Klipschorn, and DIY Belle Klipsch) I find them all to sound too shouty for my taste.
I concur, FWIW.
I like the notions that influenced the Klipsch loudspeaker designs, and Col. P. W. Klipsch himself was an utterly unique presence in hifi*, with a good bad attitude ;) vis-a-vis the audio status quo and the "Establishment".


1732105218025.png

Klipsch owneship led me to discove good horns and drivers, so there is that. ;)
PS I still maintain that the ultimate take on what Klipsch tried to do with the Heresy was Electrovoice's Esquire.



______________
* no mean feat, given the proliferation of 'characters' in the business, past and, yes, even present. :)
 
Last edited:
I'm a layperson, so can someone let me know if this makes sense? if I said something with cupped hands around my mouth, then said the same the same thing with hands cupped around my mouth but in a different tone, it'd still sound like I had hands cupped around my mouth. right?

is this an appropriate analogy for horns + EQ?

Yes....roughly speaking. But with some caveats.

Much depends on the actual design of the horn and it's implementation of course. The so-called 'cupped hands' coloration does seem to be more pronounced/noticeable in higher frequencies. Say upper midrange and higher. Also, the horn profile itself can strongly influence the 'honky' sound. As well as the material used. For example, generally speaking metal horns will have certain resonances which must be properly damped to avoid ringing.

But here we must apply a modicum of common sense. Horn loaded drivers have been a staple of the pro sound industry for many many years now. As I stated in my first post, horns are really designed to throw sound. To project it out across a room. There has been a good bit of research which shows that the further you get from a horn loaded driver, the more those colorations seem to disappear and the sound becomes more coherent. That's why I said they are not really designed for near field listening.

TO THE OP: Here's a test. Listen to your Klipsch from your usual listening position. Now walk across the room and listen - on axis of course. I'd be willing to bet there is a whole world of difference in how they sound. And that is my point.
 
Last edited:
I'm a layperson, so can someone let me know if this makes sense? if I said something with cupped hands around my mouth, then said the same the same thing with hands cupped around my mouth but in a different tone, it'd still sound like I had hands cupped around my mouth. right?

is this an appropriate analogy for horns + EQ?

Imo it's not that simple, and good horn design has advanced well beyond "cupped hands".

"Cupped hands" coloration is often a resonance caused by the reflection at the horn's mouth. The reflection at the mouth propagates partially outwards (away from the speaker) and partially back down the horn (towards the throat and compression driver). The back-down-the-horn portion of the reflection energy ping-pongs (resonates) back-and-forth between the mouth and the compression driver as it decays. Because this resonance arrives at the ears later than the original signal it is not "masked" by the louder original signal, so it tends to be more audible and objectionable than a look at the frequency response curve would predict. (I've simplified a bit for the sake of brevity.)

Let's see what happens when we short-circuit this reflection: Cup your hands around your mouth and say "aaaah". Keep saying "aaaah" while you move your hands forward away from your mouth by about half an inch. The "cupped hands" sound goes almost completely away, almost as much as if you remove your hands from your mouth entirely. What you did was, allow an escape path for that back-down-the-horn reflection so it couldn't build up into a significant resonance. (Again I've simplified a bit for the sake of brevity.)

Obviously what I described above won't work for a real horn, so imo the solution is to have a very gentle round-over at the mouth which minimizes the reflection back towards the throat.

"Cupped hands" can also arise from a hump in the frequency response which should have been fixed in the crossover. But crossover design and/or EQ cannot fix the resonance described above; that has to be addressed in the design of the horn itself.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom