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Neumann KH120 Disassembly Pictures

Zvu

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Problem with passive is the crossover. not sure the purifi crossover can be used with other tweeter for integration. Is it a case of trial and error, or can it be narrowed down with a given enclosure.
If only there was a mass market purifi active speaker maker. It would clean up the market.

I wouldn't bet on it. There are new kids on the block.

https://www.kartesian-acoustic.com/products
 
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Zvu

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You can find Klippel measurements on their website.
 

Haflermichi

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Magnetic shielding is likely not the primary aim here. The bucking magnets also focus more energy into the gap. The BOM likely wouldn’t cover neo.

I agree. Several old VIFA tweeters use additional magnets in the more expensive models to shape response, reduce distortion etc.
 

Xyrium

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Imagine all of the sound shaping Scanspeak was doing with this bad boy:

1605237800567.png
 
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hyperplanar

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Hello. I am the original poster in the Chinese forum and I'm happy that you enjoy my post.
As is obvious, I'm very impressed with the engineering of KH120 and its attention to detail is even better than the Genelec 8040b I also disassembled(not posted)



Don't worry about the woofer. it's clearly very customized and you don't usually find similar performance in high-end audio for 2 reasons:
1: very low inductance. Clearly there's copper cap in the motor, results in motor distortion at similar level of peerless' own high-end NE149, without the fancy aluminum basket.
2: very high rubber surround edge resonance frequency, at about 2khz. Normally woofer of similar size will have edge resonance at 1.3~1.5khz resulting a 2nd distortion peak. by pushing this resonance higher up to crossover frequency, the distortion peak is absent from kh120's system distortion graph.
Hey racingpht, very nice to see you here, and thank you for being brave enough to take your KH120 apart! :)
I found a lot of your posts on the other forum invaluable, I think people here would appreciate your other teardowns/impressions as well, so I hope you stick around!
 

racingpht

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Scanspeak is cool, same with Seas hex. but seems the same philosophy for the tweeter design for KH120, focus on performance and put material where it improves performance without doing anything exotic.

Resonance is just low enough, at about 1k, the waveguide helps a lot lifting performance at low end. They don't need a tweeter with resonance around 450hz like those exotic tweeters, without sacrificing performance.

Also, not 100% sure but judging from the shape of the impedance, the tweeter also seem to have a copper cap because the HF part is almost a straight line. That certainly helps IMD distortion.

The result it a device capable of output 110db in it's entire operating range(>2k), with low distortion.
 

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racingpht

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Hey racingpht, very nice to see you here, and thank you for being brave enough to take your KH120 apart! :)
I found a lot of your posts on the other forum invaluable, I think people here would appreciate your other teardowns/impressions as well, so I hope you stick around!

Thanks for your kind comments:)
 

texbychoice

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Amazon description claims non resonant Aluminum enclosure. That is a blanket statement not backed by fact. Can't tell for sure from the pictures here, but the enclosure does no have the look of Aluminum. Push on connectors soldered soldered in place is not good engineering or attention to detail. Pretty nice looking PC, but numerous components and locations for failures. All that complexity just to produce a good looking graph, therefore the sound must be great? Spend the same, or less, on quality (more reliable) passive speakers and you won't hear any difference.
 

Frank Dernie

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Amazon description claims non resonant Aluminum enclosure. That is a blanket statement not backed by fact. Can't tell for sure from the pictures here, but the enclosure does no have the look of Aluminum. Push on connectors soldered soldered in place is not good engineering or attention to detail. Pretty nice looking PC, but numerous components and locations for failures. All that complexity just to produce a good looking graph, therefore the sound must be great? Spend the same, or less, on quality (more reliable) passive speakers and you won't hear any difference.
If the manufacturer claims it is made of aluminium are you saying that you are sufficient an expert to say they are lying, just from photographs?
I very much doubt it.
 

texbychoice

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If the manufacturer claims it is made of aluminium are you saying that you are sufficient an expert to say they are lying, just from photographs?
I very much doubt it.

You might want to slow down a bit. Nowhere is any accusation of the manufacturer lying. An Amazon description is not equivalent to manufacturer claims. Merely making an observation that Amazon material description did not appear to jive with the pictures.

As far as expertise, several decades of engineering design, test, failure analysis, and failure prediction is a sufficient foundation for comment. The units sold on Amazon might have an Aluminum enclosure (doubtful due to cost). The unit in the pictures is without doubt plastic.
 

LTig

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Neumann specs an aluminium enclosure.

Edit: I do think however that the visible front baffle is made of a kind of molded plastic. For my O300D it's called LRIM which stands for Low Resonance Integral Moulding. This plastic baffle may be mounted on top of an aluminium baffle.
 
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q3cpma

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Neumann specs an aluminium enclosure.

Edit: I do think however that the visible front baffle is made of a kind of molded plastic. For my O300D it's called LRIM which stands for Low Resonance Integral Moulding. This plastic baffle may be mounted on top of an aluminium baffle.
The behind of the front baffle clearly is metal, from the pictures. It'd cost more for no reason to affix a polymer front than just use the mold to shape the Al as you like.
 

Bamboszek

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I can confirm that both front and whole enclosure of KH120 is cast aluminium. It took ages to get them to room temperature when they arrived to me. KH80 and KH310 are made from polycarbonate however.
 

Frank Dernie

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You might want to slow down a bit. Nowhere is any accusation of the manufacturer lying. An Amazon description is not equivalent to manufacturer claims. Merely making an observation that Amazon material description did not appear to jive with the pictures.

As far as expertise, several decades of engineering design, test, failure analysis, and failure prediction is a sufficient foundation for comment. The units sold on Amazon might have an Aluminum enclosure (doubtful due to cost). The unit in the pictures is without doubt plastic.
I am an engineer too, first noise and vibration research but over 30 years designing racing cars.
The enclosure in the pictures in the original post of this thread look like die cast metal to me (easiest to see in the last of the pictures, but evident in the others too IMO) and I see no reason for the manufacturer (who specifies that the enclosures are aluminium) would need to lie about it. I presume any Amazon description would be something they get from the manufacturer, wouldn't you think?
 
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