Polk to Klipsch?

[elitensupreme]

Hello, I have a pair of Polk R30 floor standing speakers. They look great and sound terrible. Rather then replace the drivers with more Polk drivers I would like to replace them with Klipsch drivers. I am being told I must use a box calculator to see which drivers I need to use. I CANT understand how to use the box calc. I am hoping I will be able to use the drivers from the RF 62 2 floor standing speakers. Can anyone PLEASE help me out here?

[moray james]

measure the internal box volume of the Klipsch speaker and measure the internal volume of your polk cabinet. if they are the same just swap drivers networks and vents. If they are within 20 % don't worry about making any other changes as it won't make a big enough difference to bother. If the polk cabinet is larger reduce the internal with a sand bag or styrofoam anything to take up the unwanted volume. If the polk cabinet is smaller then stuff with some Dacron fiber fill which can give you as much as a 20 % increase in volume. That should do you. You don't need to learn to use a box calculator just balance things up and keep the ports the same. If thepolk cabinet is a lot larger you might try installing the Klipsch woofer and run it closed box as you might like it better and it will save you a lot of work. If that is the case just try it out you have nothing to lose as many folks prefer sealed cabinets over reflex as a sealed box rolls off more slowly and keeps better control over the driver. Make sure the cabinet is air tight what ever you do. Hope that helps. Get going your time is running out. Best regards Moray James.

[WithTarragon]

We need more information.

Are both cabinets vented or sealed? A driver that is good for a vented cabinet may nor be suited for a sealed cabinet and vice versa.

Are you hoping a Klipsch driver will sound better than a Polk driver? Or are you just scrounging parts?

[RockLeeEV]

Without modifying the whole crossover, you can't just drop in drivers from one speaker into another...

The matter of box tuning and bass damping is not even the first issue (though of course it's still a big one)

I highly recommend building a speaker from scratch.

Perhaps this one:

Zaph|Audio

[elitensupreme]

Hey everyone,

Moray, How did you know my time is running out? It is indeed because I go back to work at the end of this month. Just curious why you made that statement?

The Polk cabinet is considerably smaller. It is rouchly 34 Inches tall, 9 Inches deep and 8 inches wide. I believe that gives it a volume of 2448 Cubic Units.

The Klipsch cabinet is 40 Inches tall, 15 Inches deep and 8.5 Inches wide. Which is 5100 Cubic Units.

The other difference is that there are two woofers in the Klipsch speaker as well as two ports. There is only 1 woofer in the polk Cabinet and one woofer. There are also no dividers in the polk cabinet and I am not certain if there are in the Klipsch or not.

R30 Specs Page : Two-way floor-standing loudspeaker : Polk Audio

RF-62 II Floorstanding Speaker - Specifications

[elitensupreme]

With Tarragon, Is the info I provided previously enough or am I leaving something out? Yes I am hoping the Klipsch drivers will sound substantially better then the Polks. I am a huge Klipsch fan but I like the look of these cabinets and thought this might be a cool project.

RockLeeEV, Couldn't I just use the same cross over from the Klipsch drivers in the Polk cabinet or does it not work that way? The Klipsch had 2 woofers so If I were to use that crossover would I have to add another woofer in this cabinet? If so wouldn't I have to do it in a sealed area in the bottom of the cabinet? Perhaps a down firing woofer? Just throwing an idea out there...

[WithTarragon]

Originally Posted by elitensupreme

With Tarragon, Is the info I provided previously enough or am I leaving something out? Yes I am hoping the Klipsch drivers will sound substantially better then the Polks. I am a huge Klipsch fan but I like the look of these cabinets and thought this might be a cool project.

...

I'be honest, I am not optimistic about the success of this project. I agree that Klipsch can sound good, but their designs are such that they can get by with inexpensive drivers (in many cases).

I would try and get the T/S parameters for these drivers and then pick up a copy of a speaker building book (eg, Weems or whatever). Read the book, search the threads and then start asking questions.

[RockLeeEV]

Originally Posted by elitensupreme

RockLeeEV, Couldn't I just use the same cross over from the Klipsch drivers in the Polk cabinet or does it not work that way? The Klipsch had 2 woofers so If I were to use that crossover would I have to add another woofer in this cabinet? If so wouldn't I have to do it in a sealed area in the bottom of the cabinet? Perhaps a down firing woofer? Just throwing an idea out there...

Er, sorry, i'm not quite following. You either

a) want to use the klipsch crossover in the polk cabinet with the klipsch drivers
b) want to use the polk crossover in the polk cabinet with the klipsch drivers


I don't see either working to be honest. Here's some links you may wish to read FWIW

crossovers
Aperion University - Crossover Design & Theory - Aperion Audio

[moray james]

Originally Posted by elitensupreme

Hey everyone,

Moray, How did you know my time is running out? It is indeed because I go back to work at the end of this month. Just curious why you made that statement?

The Polk cabinet is considerably smaller. It is rouchly 34 Inches tall, 9 Inches deep and 8 inches wide. I believe that gives it a volume of 2448 Cubic Units.

The Klipsch cabinet is 40 Inches tall, 15 Inches deep and 8.5 Inches wide. Which is 5100 Cubic Units.

The other difference is that there are two woofers in the Klipsch speaker as well as two ports. There is only 1 woofer in the polk Cabinet and one woofer. There are also no dividers in the polk cabinet and I am not certain if there are in the Klipsch or not.

R30 Specs Page : Two-way floor-standing loudspeaker : Polk Audio

RF-62 II Floorstanding Speaker - Specifications

About the time well you have not been keeping it a secret. Do you have a set of RF62 to take parts from or are you buying the drivers used? If you already have the Klipsch RB62 cabinets then remove one of the woofers and block it with a solid blank. Fill the cabinet volume by 50% with what ever you can, sand in a bag is really easy. Block off both vents and listen. Your polk cabinet is half the size of your klipsch so only big enough to run one woofer so try one and see what it sounds like. The Polk cabinet with one RF62 woofer will not tune as low as the vented Klipsch but it will roll off more slowly so you may find the results good enough to live with. At least this way you know what the results will be before you do any major work. Best regards Moray James.

[elitensupreme]

Well, What I have is 2 Klipsch Tweeter/Tractrix horns. They came from an other speaker entirely but I put them in the Polk cabinets and they sound MUCH better then the Polks ever did. Even on the same crossover. I have 3 Klipsch RF62 Woofers but no cabinet for them. If this set up sounds good then I will try and find something to do with the third woofer.

Can someone explain something to me? What is a Midbass? I would assume it is exactly what it sounds like but I have heard the Klipsch RF62 drivers called woofers & Mid basses.