DIY pair of K12 "Karlsonette"

[IG81]

Here's a small resume of my post over at the gainclone Karlson forum.

I had a pair of Philips AD9710 and of Richard Allan CG10T doing nothing, so I figured I'd give in to my interest for Karlson couplers and build a K12 into which both drivers could be used. Here's some picture:









They are each loaded with a different driver to start, as to perform initial tests. Did not listen yet, but I have hopes for them, at least that they will have a fun sound to them.

IG

[eeehaah]

Nice work!

[freddi]

the fullranger community's excitement must be building for a sudden burst of joy !

[bentoronto]

Does it sound like a viola?

With all the chit-chat about directivity, I wouldn't be surprised if the Karlson did quite well in controlling it by frequency. Any data?

[IG81]

Originally Posted by bentoronto

Does it sound like a viola?

With all the chit-chat about directivity, I wouldn't be surprised if the Karlson did quite well in controlling it by frequency. Any data?

Not set-up to measure SPL response unfortunately. Something I should arrange for myself, would be quite fun and useful. All I can do atm is Z_in:



IG

[IG81]

*Post mirrored from the Gainclone-Karlson discussion forum*

Here is my setup as I listenend to it for a week or so:



I had my Yamaha C-85's parametric EQ notch the ~195Hz peak and augment the HF a few dB's centered around 13-14kHz. The graphic EQ tames the 500Hz peak and a few other areas while giving a small boost on the 32Hz slider. While I am not yet done fiddling with the correction yet, I can say that things much improved and overall sound is pretty good. Music like Classical, Jazz, Movie Soundtracks (Braveheart, Blade Runner) sound AMAZING! Rock is another beast to tame and always a challenge for fullrange speakers, but so far it does it better than any other scheme for fullrange I've tried. I also had some people over during the weekend and for a bit of fun I played Yello's track "Oh Yeah" from their album Stella, which I have on vinyl record. Everyone enjoyed that very much.

The ammount of bass is surprising at times; a slight boost at 32Hz helps out producing useful low-bass, while anything from ~50Hz to ~100Hz (or wherever "bass ends") is thunderous. I also believe it useful to mention once again that this is done with such a minimal cone movement, resulting in a very clean sound. The "coupler" aspect of it thus truly works; minimal driver work produces massive SPL.

Before I swap to the Philips AD9710, I will coat their surrounds, as I feel they look a bit "tired", although there are no tears or rips. I will probably experiment with diluted book binding glue, which was recommended to me. Will try on some paper first of course.

IG

[bentoronto]

You can dilute silicone glue too, if I recall correctly. Quite permanent - but that isn't necessarily a good thing.

[IG81]

Originally Posted by bentoronto

You can dilute silicone glue too, if I recall correctly. Quite permanent - but that isn't necessarily a good thing.

Permanent is what I'm looking for, as in "permanently pliable".

IG

[moray james]

You can coat your old foam suspensions with 2 -3 coats of water diluted Siliconized acrylic latex caulking you can find at most any hardware store as tub & tile caulking. Thin it down to the desired consistency and don't forget to coat both sides. I usually make the first coat thin to act as a good sealer and to make sure that it wets into the foam suspension.

A note to Freddy: there is an old single Karlson kabinet which is said to have been built/owned by Paul Wilber Klipsch free to a good home. That's a bit of history, have a look.
<meta name="description" content="Klipsch audio systems provide the true audio/video lover a wide variety of high performance loudspeakers and loudspeaker systems for music and home theater entertainment centers, including iPod speakers, multimedia s

[bentoronto]

Originally Posted by moray james

A note to Freddy: there is an old single Karlson kabinet which is said to have been built/owned by Paul Wilber Klipsch free to a good home. That's a bit of history, have a look.

Klipsch sent me a frequency plot he made from that unit. He was not favourable. He labeled the chart derisively, "multi-resonant" box.