Klipsch Jubilee & Klipschorn Experience

My speakers are hybrid (CD) horns with two 15'' woofers and a horn above said woofers. That said, the speakers are very coherent and offer a high degree of placement flexibility, and the listening positing can be quite close with no loss of stereo imaging. I.e. You can sit three feet or twenty three feet, from the speakers both standing and seated listeners, with no loss of stereo image. In my opinion a high powered amplifier will never be a proxy for a speakers lack of true efficiency. See below time domain response: 😎

Mike

http://proaudioencyclopedia.com/time-domain-response-in-monitor-loudspeakers/

i havent used horns in a while, but i bet horns sound better comin out of horns. i bet u get closer to the sound of horns via horn speakers. in both cases, you got a horn blowin air into the room. thought about this when wondering why the elctric guitar seems the easiest to capture. well, in a room or on a record, for an electric guitar its speaker cones pushin air. 

I had made some altec horn diy speakers back in the late 70s.....sounded horny as hell......and harsh.  I then discovered a local high end dealer who had K-horns and Quad electrostats.......I asked him to A/B the speakers......and they sounded very close in quality.  HOWEVER.....this was a nude unfinished K-horn.  You could see the xover right on top and the tweeter was mounted all the way in the back....right over the midrange driver......no other mods.  He told me that if he put the tweeter back on the front panel I would run screaming out the door.  YOU MUST TIME ALIGN......why the heck would you want the tweeter info to arrive a decade before the midrange.....and same with the bass.  The Jubilee is time aligned in the electronic xover......so this is the only Klipsch done correctly......no wonder the designer says he thinks the Jubilee is way, way better than anything before.....and you have the tweeter and mids coming from one place....so the only time alignment needed is to the bass bins.....which they did.....good on them.

@ricevs " tweeter and mids ".....high frequencies and midrange. The Jubilee is a two way design, which I believe you understand. Paul always wanted a TOTL 2 way, and Roy took it to market🙂. My best, MrD.

@ricevs wrote:

The Jubilee is time aligned in the electronic xover......so this is the only Klipsch done correctly

It is any horn speaker done correctly, and configured actively it is the way to go - fortunately an approach not exclusive to a Klipsch speaker.

no wonder the designer says he thinks the Jubilee is way, way better than anything before.....and you have the tweeter and mids coming from one place

Maintaining a point source from the lower mids on up is indeed the main takeaway. The Jubilee’s does so with the (re-branded?) Celestion Axi2050 without a crossover point in its region all the way up into the upper octave, though it does seem to need some attenuation up there. A coaxial, dual concentric diaphragm approach on the other hand from the likes of BMS (and, I guess, more a less copied by JBL for their version of it) would likely have a more (without needing attenuation) extended upper range with a smaller, dedicated diaphragm here, however necessitate a crossover point somewhere in the upper mids - while still being a point source. Then again the Axi2050 has the more extended, and less distorted lower range via its larger diaphragm meeting the bass horn, arguably the more important parameter in conjunction with the big K-402 horn, which is also more appropriately sized compared to its smaller Klipsch brethren.

Active config. for proper delay adjustment and better amp-driver control, larger horn size for more proper horn loading and directivity control, and maintaining a single point source in a vital frequency spectrum - that’s certainly Klipsch doing right by following physics and common sense here, kudos. While I haven’t yet heard the Jubilee’s and can’t comment on their sound, I do find their solution with a ported/horn-loaded combo approach in the bass horn (in want for more extension) somewhat conspicuous. Ideally I’d have gone with a classic front-loaded horn design (with the woofer mounted in a sealed chamber) and firing into as few, preferably only 90 degree bends as possible, while leaving the two lower octaves down to 20Hz to a dedicated pair of (tapped) horn subs. But then again that makes for more complexity and a less saleable package - decisions, and compromises.