2360 or 511B over Klipschorn bass bin

[Ben Clarke]

Well, I know the horns will get there ok. I'm also concerned that the horns will faithfully reproduce the difficulties the comp driver might be having at 350-400Hz. Besides the expense of a mistake with things crossed that low. If something goes wrong anywhere upstream it could easily cost several hundred dollars in diaphragms. These are different waters compared to $20 K77 diaphragms. But I guess that's the point, right?

The horns might not be perfect down that low, but they'll surely be different than what I'm doing now.

[Mr. Widget]

The horns might not be perfect down that low, but they'll surely be different than what I'm doing now.

If the goal is different, you can't go wrong... and you might decide it is a bona fide improvement over stock.

If you want the very best attainable, I'd second the recommendation to use a large midbass horn and a cone driver... there are many choices... you'd of course end up with a three or four way though...


Widget

[Zilch]

http://www.jblpro.com/ae/pdf/CMCD%20TechNote.pdf

[Steve Schell]

Ben, a frequent criticism of the Klipschorn is that the bass bin doesn't quite make it up to the 400Hz. crossover point and a hole in the vital lower midrange results. I had Klipschorns decades ago, before I had the ability to measure anything. I would agree that the Klipsch small mouth mid horn and paging driver has got to go and you certainly can do better.

I have always liked a 300Hz. crossover point and a large, truly capable midrange horn and driver. As Paul Klipsch used to say, "The midrange is where we live." The Altec 300Hz. multicellulars combined with 290 drivers do a wonderful job from 300Hz. to about 5kHz, a convenient crossover point to a good horn tweeter. The 203B horns are my favorite Altecs, but the 803B is a close second. Both provide what I call "big goose bumps" vocal reproduction. I wish you were closer, as I have spares of these sitting around. These components are in another league entirely from the Klipsch midrange parts IME. The RCA 9448, 9458 and 9548 drivers also provide great mids on the 9594, 9595 radial and 12 and 15 cell multicellular horns; these show up on ebay fairly often.

I'm not a fan of the big JBL biradials, based on brief ownership years ago. My listening was done with the nasty sounding 2445J drivers, though; perhaps it would be a different story if the 2360s were used with large format phenolic JBL drivers like 2482s. In general though, horns with drastic changes in cross sectional shape or flare rate are to be avoided.

I do appreciate your desire to really get the mids right; they are the heart of a great system. The "high end" audio world has yet to discover such lifelike sound. Big industrial gear looks strange to the uninitiated in a living room, setting but it gets the job done.

[Hoerninger]

... The cone/horn idea is valid, but not one I'm ready to explore right now.

When time goes by, may be you want some ideas. Volvotreters site is a fund of informations.
http://volvotreter.de/new_system.htm
He uses the Klipschorn only as a sub. Btw. interesting remarks on the K33E.
__________
Peter

[Ben Clarke]

Thanks so much for all the continuing information, guys. Lots of stuff here of which I was only peripherally aware.

If I can source these JBL and 511 for what I'd like to pay for them I'll ne trying those to get a feeling for what they bring to the table - good, bad or just different.

Steve, thanks for the info on those units. Too bad indeed we are so far away - they look pretty big & heavy to risk shipping. Interesting, nonetheless...

[grumpy]

might also have a look here, if you haven't already:

http://www.alkeng.com/

-grumpy