Klipsch K-402 another controlled directivity horn

[Fitzcaraldo215]

Not to upset the thread, but as a confirmed fan of multichannel, it is quite clear to me that the addition of more speaker/amp channels vs. stereo considerably improves "dynamics" from most any definitional standpoint. It seems to me to be able to play louder but with lower distortion, among numerous other advantages.

 

[oivavoi]

My panels move less than that, unless I'm mistaken.

Good point. But by popular consensus - which may or may not be correct - panels are said to have less dynamics, right? Or is this mostly the case in the bass region?

 

[oivavoi]

Not to upset the thread, but as a confirmed fan of multichannel, it is quite clear to me that the addition of more speaker/amp channels vs. stereo considerably improves "dynamics" from most any definitional standpoint. It seems to me to be able to play louder but with lower distortion, among numerous other advantages.

Btw, what speakers/amps are you using, Fitzcaraldo?

 

[hvbias]

Here's my very simplistic understanding of what "dynamics" means in any amp/speaker combo: The ability to go very fast from quiet to loud, and from loud to quiet again. Is it really more complicated than that?

A further question is whether there are any apriori reasons to think that horns would do a better job here. My hunch would be that it's not so much about the sensitivity, but rather about the range of movement that the driver has to perform to generate a certain soundwave. Compression drivers simply have less movement than ordinary drivers. They have less work to do. It seems logical to me that this may translate to larger dynamics.

One other theory is that a compression driver/waveguide is the most efficient way of coupling with the impedance of air (applies to bass horns using traditional dynamic drivers as well). Bjorn Kolbrek has written a bit about this, but the math is over my head.

WRT to multichannel I agree if the speakers being compared are the same for two channel and surround. In the case of my own Ascend surround system it wasn't remotely close to the two channel K-402.

 

[RayDunzl]

Not to upset the thread, but as a confirmed fan of multichannel, it is quite clear to me that the addition of more speaker/amp channels vs. stereo considerably improves "dynamics" from most any definitional standpoint. It seems to me to be able to play louder but with lower distortion, among numerous other advantages.

I added more cheap subs, and reduced bass distortion, when playing at equivalent levels.

Good point. But by popular consensus - which may or may not be correct - panels are said to have less dynamics, right? Or is this mostly the case in the bass region?

I momentarily achieved 116.9dB peak on a drum solo before I decided not to risk damage because it was "drum kit in the room" loud.

Last Beer Saturday 112.1dB was the peak in regular slightly extra loud listening.

At the listening position, of course, as is my measuring habit.

As for panels being deficient by consensus, I'll blame any of the common problems - lack of power, placement, quality of ancilliary equipment, the usual suspects. I've had mine for 19 years, and if I thought they were deficient, they wouldn't still be here.

My question remains - what are "dynamics"? Just clean loud and louder, or something else?

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

Btw, what speakers/amps are you using, Fitzcaraldo?

I have 7 Martin Logan electrostat hybrid dipoles of various sizes plus a JL Fathom f133 sub. So, I am a Ray Dunzi fan, but have gone bonkers beyond him by adding even more channels.

To your earlier point, yes, dipole panels are perceived to have dynamic limitations primarily in the bass due to dipole cancellation. However, there are also dynamic constraints due to excursion limits in the "vibrating membrane between two fixed stators" principle of electrostats and certain other panels. That is also primarily a bass issue, due to normally larger bass excursions with music.

Personally, I hear no obvious issue with this in my system. If the membrane is hitting the stators, the distortion would rise quite drastically. (Quads used to short and arc on this, but ML's never did). But, I have not measured. Also, my MLs are all hybrids crossing over to dynamic woofers at some frequency in the several hundred Hz range that avoids this.

That is why I think the concept of the dipole hybrid, incorporating a dynamic woofer, is really good. There are potential integration problems between dynamic woofers and electrostat panels. But, I am impressed with how ML has iteratively refined and improved this integration over multiple generations of their speaker concept going back to the early 80's Monolith.

 

[Cosmik]

Here's my very simplistic understanding of what "dynamics" means in any amp/speaker combo: The ability to go very fast from quiet to loud, and from loud to quiet again. Is it really more complicated than that?

Yes. Isn't it really just an aspect of accuracy? So I don't think I would want a speaker that was 'tuned' for great dynamics because that would suggest it was somehow not great at other things..?

As I tentatively suggested above, even if a system's frequency response is flat with steady state sine waves, it doesn't tell us how well it can reproduce a transient 'edge' - it is here that you would need good phase response and time alignment between drivers as well. Maybe a tardy or difficult-to-get-going bass response (bass reflex?) that doesn't match the timing of the mid and treble drivers could let down an otherwise capable speaker in terms of its dynamics..?

 

[hvbias]

Yes. Isn't it really just an aspect of accuracy? So I don't think I would want a speaker that was 'tuned' for great dynamics because that would suggest it was somehow not great at other things..?

As I tentatively suggested above, even if a system's frequency response is flat with steady state sine waves, it doesn't tell us how well it can reproduce a transient 'edge' - it is here that you would need good phase response and time alignment between drivers as well. Maybe a tardy or difficult-to-get-going bass response (bass reflex?) that doesn't match the timing of the mid and treble drivers could let down an otherwise capable speaker in terms of its dynamics..?

Accuracy is having it all. Dynamics, gobs of headroom, perfect impulse response, flat power response, flawless off axis, immeasurable distortion, DSP crossovers. It is the have your cake and eat as much as you want; it's never going to effect your health

On your second point, I believe the JBL 4367 is bass reflex and IIRC dallasjustice wrote on WBF that they were the most dynamic speakers he owned. Coming from Vivid and YG.

Just speaking for myself, it takes hearing something "different" to hear the deficiencies of my own system. My brain has burned in well to the sound of my own. I notice the same thing when I listen to various remasters of CDs; comparing side by side, having another reference or blind testing tells me more than the solitary case.

 

[fas42]

Here's my very simplistic understanding of what "dynamics" means in any amp/speaker combo: The ability to go very fast from quiet to loud, and from loud to quiet again. Is it really more complicated than that?

No. It's rare to find setups that are capable - the ideal is to go from just barely audible to the edge of the point of the amplifiers clipping with no variation apart from the intensity of the subjective experience - the parallel with live acoustic sound is being from just in earshot of the event, to then walking up to the performers until you're a few feet away - the sense of what's happening in the sound field is the same.

A further question is whether there are any apriori reasons to think that horns would do a better job here. My hunch would be that it's not so much about the sensitivity, but rather about the range of movement that the driver has to perform to generate a certain soundwave. Compression drivers simply have less movement than ordinary drivers. They have less work to do. It seems logical to me that this may translate to larger dynamics.

IME range of movement is not the problem, it's the quality of the movement. Ordinary drivers are good enough, but they have to be driven well to achieve this - and a high percentage of amplifiers aren't up to it. A decent compromise is higher sensitivity drivers, like horns, used with ordinary amps - the integrity of the horn structure can degrade quality though - as always, it's the overall execution that will dictate the end result.

 

[oivavoi]

Accuracy is having it all. Dynamics, gobs of headroom, perfect impulse response, flat power response, flawless off axis, immeasurable distortion, DSP crossovers. It is the have your cake and eat as much as you want; it's never going to effect your health

I want this cake.

 

[Sal1950]

To your earlier point, yes, dipole panels are perceived to have dynamic limitations primarily in the bass due to dipole cancellation.

The perception also stems from the days of Quad ESL's that were known to turn into toasters if played too loudly.. There have always been the work-arounds put into place like subwoofers and just using low power amps to avoid the delicate nature in the first place.
But IME high sensitivity speakers like good horns just bring a dynamic life to the plate that I've heard in many systems over the years and my purchasing preferences has always went that way.

 

[FrantzM]

The perception also stems from the days of Quad ESL's that were known to turn into toasters if played too loudly.. There have always been the work-arounds put into place like subwoofers and just using low power amps to avoid the delicate nature in the first place.
But IME high sensitivity speakers like good horns just bring a dynamic life to the plate that I've heard in many systems over the years and my purchasing preferences has always went that way.

Hi

During most of my audiophile life, I have been a fan of panels... I've had Quad, ML and Magnepan for the most part... I've heard tons of speakers during my audiophile life and to this day, in my subjective experience nothing compares to what horn can do in term of dynamic verisimilitude. The best horns simple do better in that verisimilitude department. I would like to know why. I wouldn't dismiss it offhand because it doesn't show on some measurements. I do understand that there is such a thing as a bias .. perversely my bias has been against horns for years because ... well .. they weren't "audiophile" enough... It took me a while to realize and admit that ... this is a fact.. Horns, even when those that aren't that sensitive , some under 90 dB such as the JBL 530, a smallish 86 dB/W/m speaker BTW, do sound, for the lack of a better term, more dynamic than most speakers... If you are in front of something like a JBL K2 or S9900 then you would know what the deal is.. I know we want to be fact based, then this is a phenomenon that needs to be investigated: Horns sound more dynamic, more "alive" than (most?) other speakers.

 

[hvbias]

The perception also stems from the days of Quad ESL's that were known to turn into toasters if played too loudly.. There have always been the work-arounds put into place like subwoofers and just using low power amps to avoid the delicate nature in the first place.
But IME high sensitivity speakers like good horns just bring a dynamic life to the plate that I've heard in many systems over the years and my purchasing preferences has always went that way.

IMHO the "acoustic transformer" having very high impedance with the coupling with air seems to be the most sound theory that I have read. And since horn/waveguide are naturally high sensitivity, people correlate the high sensitivity to the dynamics.

I've heard > 100 db/w systems that sound flat and bland, for instance nearly every full range driver or full range driver plus tweeter. Even when both have plenty of bass assistance, by swarm setup or something similar.

 

[hvbias]

Hi

During most of my audiophile life, I have been a fan of panels... I've had Quad, ML and Magnepan for the most part... I've heard tons of speakers during my audiophile life and to this day, in my subjective experience nothing compares to what horn can do in term of dynamic verisimilitude. The best horns simple do better in that verisimilitude department. I would like to know why. I wouldn't dismiss it offhand because it doesn't show on some measurements. I do understand that there is such a thing as a bias .. perversely my bias has been against horns for years because ... well .. they weren't "audiophile" enough... It took me a while to realize and admit that ... this is a fact.. Horns, even when those that aren't that sensitive , some under 90 dB such as the JBL 530, a smallish 86 dB/W/m speaker BTW, do sound, for the lack of a better term, more dynamic than most speakers... If you are in front of something like a JBL K2 or S9900 then you would know what the deal is.. I know we want to be fact based, then this is a phenomenon that needs to be investigated: Horns sound more dynamic, more "alive" than (most?) other speakers.

Most acoustic music has its "meat" or foundation in the bass/lower to mid midrange, where the levels are higher than the rest than the rest of the frequency response. The majority of commercial designs do not horn load in the lower areas of that region, it gets too large for home installs. Not to say I'm discounting using a horn/waveguide higher up, in that region I personally think they're more important for pattern control, dynamics are nice benefit.

These are all taken from dynamic segments. Window set to 1024, linear. I wish there was a way to get more resolution in the 20-1000 hz region.

Bruckner, S5 Wand from Finale Adiago. Average performance, I happened to have this on the computer so here it is:

Brahms Concerto for Violin and Orchestra from the Allegro Non Troppo (Oistrakh/Svetlanov). Highly recommended.

Annie Fischer Beethoven Sonata 5. The greatest Beethoven piano sonata cycle I've ever heard. Recording quality is average by classical standards, but decent enough that anyone would be able to pick out she is playing a Boesendorfer.

Bartok Concerto for Orchstra, Solti. Another great performance.

I'm a ESL57 lover, though I don't consider them high fidelity by modern standards but they are lovely to listen to with certain classical and jazz. I'll more than likely always keep mine for a different room/house not really worth the hassle of packing and shipping them.

 

[RayDunzl]

I wish there was a way to get more resolution in the 20-1000 hz region.

Use logarithmic instead of linear display and the 65536 window instead of 1024.

 

[fas42]

The best horns simple do better in that verisimilitude department. I would like to know why. I wouldn't dismiss it offhand because it doesn't show on some measurements. I do understand that there is such a thing as a bias .. perversely my bias has been against horns for years because ... well .. they weren't "audiophile" enough... It took me a while to realize and admit that ... this is a fact.. Horns, even when those that aren't that sensitive , some under 90 dB such as the JBL 530, a smallish 86 dB/W/m speaker BTW, do sound, for the lack of a better term, more dynamic than most speakers... If you are in front of something like a JBL K2 or S9900 then you would know what the deal is.. I know we want to be fact based, then this is a phenomenon that needs to be investigated: Horns sound more dynamic, more "alive" than (most?) other speakers.

Again, this is an overall system thing - for me, it has turned out that I've never heard a JBL setup in the flesh that that has done anything for me, but I have heard very moderate cost Klipsch speakers deliver what counts - purely because of circumstances of the moment; it could easily have been the other way around ...

"Aliveness" is one of the signatures of competent playback - how to achieve the latter is a choice for the individual; an approach that blends with one's belief structures is probably a good move, .

 

[hvbias]

Use logarithmic instead of linear display and the 65536 window instead of 1024.

View attachment 5559

I've tried log view, IMHO it doesn't sound like the frequency response I hear. I usually use headphones as a baseline when checking to hear frequency response.

Again, this is an overall system thing - for me, it has turned out that I've never heard a JBL setup in the flesh that that has done anything for me, but I have heard very moderate cost Klipsch speakers deliver what counts - purely because of circumstances of the moment; it could easily have been the other way around ...

"Aliveness" is one of the signatures of competent playback - how to achieve the latter is a choice for the individual; an approach that blends with one's belief structures is probably a good move, .

The owner has invited me back, should I do a cell phone recording at the next visit

 

[fas42]

The owner has invited me back, should I do a cell phone recording at the next visit

The rules are:

* A cell phone recording, played back over YouTube, listed to via laptop speakers will tell one if there is something very wrong with the sound - a major hiccup in the quality. Listen to the same music, from a source file, over the same playback route - the experience should be comparable; if there is a huge gap, then there is something amiss. So, this is the "first interview" round.

* If it passes the first test, go and listen in person. At normal volumes, on a 'good' recording does it all hang together, present well?

* Third round, hit it with volume extremes - can it go loud without falling to pieces, will it go soft and still retain a sense of life and vitality in the music?

* Fourth, feed it 'difficult' recordings - really dense, "poorly recorded", old, crackly tracks - is it still keeping up?

At this point, one has a pretty decent sense of where the system is at ...

 

[hvbias]

I saw Bjorn posting in the Let's discuss room correction thread, so I thought I'd give this a bump.

 

[Ro808]

Maybe a tardy or difficult-to-get-going bass response (bass reflex?) that doesn't match the timing of the mid and treble drivers could let down an otherwise capable speaker in terms of its dynamics..?

Bass Reflex, or any vented system done right, doesn't need to suffer from the usual preconceptions.
The key is to use big cones, with low Xmax in large cabs and foam damped ports (semi-aperiodic vents).
Even with a FB around 45 Hz (box Q = 0.796) you'll get enough boundary reinforcement to have usable output below 40Hz in an average room.
Such woofers (hard to find these days) also tend to produce a stellar midrange, unrivalled by many modern lossy hifi woofers.
The added bonus is efficiency, η₀ = 6% in this case.

Troels Gravesen posted a plot to illustrate room-gain. The cabs are still rather small though.

Many MOR high-end tower speakers sound "bass heavy", once these are placed in a room. Even if it's a demo-room at a dealer or show.
The (anechoic) -3dB target @ 20Hz may turn into a thunderous nightmare at home. Yes, there's EQ, but don't tell the average audiophool.