Are Klipsch speakers really that bright?

The Tannoy DC has changed slightly over 60 years. The "horn" is very small and is refered to as a "wave guide". It's function is to guide the HF wave through the voice coil gap of the woofer and to integrate it's output with the woofer cone. So it is a type of a very small horn but it terminates at the throat of the woofer. The idea is that it should allow the woofer cone to be just outside of its radiation pattern, not to be a horn to reinforce it. That's why the wave guide has the same shape at the mouth to keep it from bouncing off the woofer cone. I suppose it is impossible to keep it entirely off of it but 99% or thereabouts of its radiation is direct from the wave guide. It's just an ingenious way to place a dome tweeter at the center of the main driver to create a two-way system. The Tannoy arrangement allows an in-phase response with a very simple x-over by initially setting up the drivers to be 180 degrees out of phase and then wiring them 180 degrees out of phase to result in a mean zero phase shift. The dispersion is 90 degrees conical, which results in a spherical wave front. No rectangular or cellular horn can do that AFAIK. I'd not confuse the design of a Tannoy DC with that of any other "look alike".

Many companies have copied the idea of a Dual Concentric but have not done exactly that as the design has been patented. Most place a tweeter at the center of another driver and then manipulate it with a more complex x-over. It can work out quite nicely as Kef, Thiel and others have found. It's never quite a Tannoy DC however, be that good or bad. There are also "full-range" examples that use integral "whizzer cones" of sort to extend the frequency response of the main driver but of course they are not true two way systems.

Tannoy still produces a few speaker systems in their Prestige Range that use a bass horn cabinet designed to reinforce the rear wave. The benefit in the Tannoy design over the Klipsch is that the listener still has the unobstructed, in-phase sound of the direct radiating drivers. It's only the bottom octaves that are reinforced by the horn. Further, the HF output is adjustable to allow for very flexible room placement, no corners needed, yet they can also be addressed if necessary.
-Bill

 

What did you say? I couldn't hear that. Could you please crank that through a humongous horn loaded PA speaker system please?
...ah, that's much better.
-Bill

 

Klipsch Fortes +Marantz 2230 amp + Decware CSP2 tube pre=

 

Those are not too bad, IMO. Placed against a wall they have a lot of bass output and they are not as efficient as the others. They have a balance which is more like that of the Cornwall than of the Heresy or La Scala, which is a good thing, IMO. We have had a couple of pairs of those come in on trade also. One of the guys that traded-in a pair is a good customer who uses a few different tube amps and is an Lp fan and collector. He has a big pair of Tannoys now.
-Bill

 

I have a big pair of Tannoys too (15" Monitor Golds)... and I also like my Heresys!

Tony.

 

Wiring affects polarity, not phase.

 

As stated above, I've been using a nice pair of Quad monitors augmented with an SVS sub which is a combo that really sounds extraordinary.

Just for kicks I bought a pair of Klipsch KG 4.2s to play with. The OP asked if Klipsch are bright... All I can say is that the KG 4.2s have more energy from about 1 to 4K than the Quads, which by comparison makes them sound more forward, but I wouldn't characterize the sound as bright. Someone else might though.

I really like the KG4.2 and can tame their forward nature with a bit of downward EQ in the presence band. Nice form factor and they are a steal at their used prices. I'm really glad I picked these up!

 

Those look pretty good...

https://www.klipsch.com/na-en/products/kg-4-2-overview/

 

I see. Thank you.

 

Just check your craigslist everyday until you see a pair of Cornwall or Cornwall II come up for $300-$500.

 

Klipsch speakers generally use horns, and rectangular horns at that. Let me grossly generalize: rectangular horns cannot generate a "smooth" waveform, and suffer from reflections within the horn. This causes sharp peaks/dips in the frequency response, and problems in the time response.
--> Even if a speaker with a rectangular horn had a frequency response without big peaks, the above noted characteristics could cause a "bright" sound.

My experience with Klipschorns some time back was not what I would have called excessively bright-but they definitely did not sound "dark" or "laid back."

A lot depends on your own individual listening tastes and prejudices.

 

But in general, if youre not using a tube amp, you dont want Klipschs. Thats where the excessively bright tag came from in the first place....the klipschs with solid state amps.

 

Any patents covering the classic DC would have expired years ago.

Someone SHOULD clone them, although they'd probably be more expensive than the new 604s even so. Tannoy refuses, AFAIK to sell their drivers as drivers any more (which is how most were sold in the old days) and their big systems with classic DC drivers are insanely priced.

 

There are several reasons for this. One is the damping factor. PWK iteratively did the crossovers with small tube amplifiers, in particular he preferred a little known brand called Brook. Brook was designed by Lincoln Walsh and they were very innovative, and they also wound their own magnetics in house. They were neither high powered nor physically attractive (they resembled console or organ pulls) and Brook ceased operation in the mid to late 50s. They designed a "Sliding Class A" bias circuit which the PrimaLuna 'adaptive auto bias' is a crude copy of. Several versions were made and one had an available modification, a sort of variable damping factor, specifically for Klipsch.

All the old speakers had crossovers that were iteratively, or empirically designed. They did not have the technology to do otherwise. It wasn't until the era of computer filter design and well characterized speaker test suites they got away from this, and when they did it took another twenty years to get back to where they were for most companies.

The old Altec movie house speakers were designed to be driven from constant voltage lines via a transformer and the Klipsches from small tube amps. When in 1973 John Bongiorno's Ampzilla kicked off the 300 wpc era (I remember the article) the world turned upside down for Klipsch. A small number of hardcore fans stayed loyal but the salad days of Klipsch and in particular the Klassic Klipsch line were over. The reintroduction of tube gear in the mid-80s did little for increased sales, nor did the sudden craze for Japanese style single ended low power in the 90s.

 

There's plenty of solid state amplifiers, vintage or otherwise that will pair fine with Klipsch.

 

That's an odd assessment, considering the number of times the factory expanded in the 1970s. The 1970s in general were very good for Klipsch, financially, rockers loved the speakers because they'd go loud. This was the period when Klipsch went from an obscure small company to a household name.

 

I concur, and Klipsch is bigger than ever nowadays.

McIntosh solid state is supposed to be a good match for Klipsch.

 

That's what I would have thought too but I have yet to see any "true clones" or even a good knock-off. They continually develop the product and so the design has evolved and perhaps somehow managed to keep a fresh patent or an extension. I'm sure that the Chinese would have gleefully made them years ago if they could have gotten away with it.
-Bill

 

I doubt anyone could make them cheaply enough to compete with the real thing second hand. Given that you can still find a nice pair of 15" Monitor Golds for about 1000 UK pounds would someone really pay more for a no-name knock-off? There's a hell of a lot of metal in a pair of Tannoys, I was shocked when I first took the back off mine. Just huge!

Tony.

 

Yes, in the arena rock era Klipsch sold a fair amount of domestic product and their pro lines did even better, tons of churches and discos and whatnot (remember the "fern bar"?) bought them because a receiver with modest output would drive them LOUD. But the hard core audiophile market drifted away from Klipsch in that era. It wasn't really until fairly recently there has been a lot of interest in them amongst hard core audiophiles again.

A lot of the pro products were simply the domestic product with plain finishes. If you don't need K-horns, and are looking for a bargain find a pair of La Scalas in pro finish. They can be veneered or painted with modern base/clear coat auto finishes and be very attractive.

 

I don't think "hard core audiophiles" are that interested.

 

I would kindly disagree.

 

I've been in this hobby 40 years and horn speakers of any type; JBL, Altec, EV, Klipsch, have been rather unfashionable among "high end" type audiophiles the entire time (of course the term "high end" wasn't around when I started, we we content with "high fi" but that's another story).

Not that there weren't many horn systems used by audiophiles (Altec sold a ton of Valencias and 19s in the 70s and JBL was making the L-200s and L-300s and there was the excellent EV Sentry III as well) but they weren't the same guys that were following Absolute Sound and Stereophile. Lots of these hornys were using Mac and Crown SS amps which are now VERY unfashionable though they sure sounded good to me back then especially with the big JBLs which could sound rather "dark" and congested in the lower midrange and upper bass.

Horns have always been popular with the DIY audiophiles, one reason being that Altec, JBL, EV, University and Jensen made raw drivers available when other driver makers didn't. And they made horns. My first DIY speaker book was "How to Build Speaker Enclosures" by two Altec engineers, Davis and Badmaieff. It was full of plans for Altec, Jensen and Klipsch cabinets. The book came out in the late 60s and was the first book that many DIY speaker builders owned. I used the plans in it a few years ago to have a pair of Altec 825 cabinets built; I used them with Altec 515B woofers--A5.




Speaking of Tannoys; a pal of mine came across a pair of the drivers used in the Churchills and used them in these retuned JBL Pro cabinets. Very nice sound.



Another friend, a long time audio DIYer (whose father was an audiophile back in the 50s) built this all horn, all dipole system using EV drivers, DIY tractrix horns and series crossovers. That's right, it's a dipole. Imagine an electrostat with big dynamics. This system is possibly the finest I've heard; effortless sound with excellent tone and clarity and imaging that's precise and "big" at the same time. It's ugly but it sure can cook.

 

I like mine. They rock!