Suggestions for 8000 cu ft room; K horn main speakers

[bigeasy]

Hello from a New Orleans Newbie:

My space:
I have a 2 room apt in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Main room approx 15 x 40 ft with sloping ceiling, ave 12-13 ft ht, hence about 8000 cu ft main room (includes den, study area, kitchen). Stone floor is uneven, 3 walls are brick, ceiling has large protruding wooden beams and painted wood and painted plaster. Lots of bookcases up to 6 ft high along most walls. Most walls are also not straight - protruding brick fireplace, closets, etc. Fourth wall is a combo of french doors (1 still not repaired post Katrina) and wood.
Only the front third to half is used as a den.
Accoustically, this must be a weird space - stone, brick, wood, bookcases, etc. Probably pretty harsh.

FYI:
Trumpeter Al Hirt lived here around 1970.

My rig (no sub as yet):
Outlaw 990 Pre/Pro (used, to arrive this week)
Outlaw 750 Amp (used, to arrive this week too)
McIntosh 240 tube amp (to drive main speakers only)
Klipsch Klipschorn mains (built around 1983?, so with old xover network). These should be superb down to the 30s Hz range, but mod soft when driven by the tube amp.
Klipsch Academy center (around 1993)
Klipsch LaScala's or Heresy's as surrounds (5.1 set up) (the latter are not horn loaded speakers, from the mid 80s)

HT (sorry, but you gotta be kidding, I have a 20 yr old 26 inch Sony - good enough for now, may go 60 inch for X mas. Will work on the new DVD player to follow. Might buy an Oppo).


I have read about the need for a big sub or mult subs - incl paired subs, 1 main and another smaller by the couch, etc, due to my large space.

Single or dual or quad sub speakers........., I assume open/ported opposed to sealed.

But with the 40 ft long floor, could I truly get down to a true 16HZ (requires 33 ft length for the sound wave), which I think would be awesome. I did not ask anyone about this. I do not know any sound engineers.

I called Klipsch and Outlaw - but forgot to mention large room size. Their subs do not appear to do great in reviews. I called HSU and SVS. They recc single subs, but 1 or 2 steps below most expensive (about $800 range). Most all HSU reviews are great. ACI recc Maestros mot Titans. I have seen the parts express dayton sub site and even Danley; I called neither one (yet).

I am soooo confused.
The idea of DIY appeals to me, esp as I live in a sort of DIY city. I want a quality sub or subs, that match what I have. I guess even on DIY, the cost would be around $600-1000 for something great.

Also, do I want floor or wall firing speaker(s) and exactly how do you "attach" a sub to an undulating stone floor (prefer not to spike the floor if possible).

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to include details that might be asked for.

[BHTX]

If the deal with the Outlaw 990 doesn't work out, let me know..mine's for sale...never used it.
I haven't gotten around to posting it yet.

::edit:: Oh, and for a sub in your room, I'd suggest looking into a tapped horn project, or, if you want something fairly simple to build, something like the El-Pipe-O comes to mind. But before getting too far into all of that, I'd suggest taking whatever you already have and setting it up to do some in-room measurements. There's free software out there that can do this easily, and there's a few omnidirectional mics out there that aren't very expensive. The information you can obtain from a little bit of experimentation and measurments might help you out a lot in the long run. Afterwards, take that info and make the room work better with your audio system.

~ Brandin

[AndrewT]

Hi,
with all that space you can operate well away from the walls thus avoiding short distance reflections.
The floor is still an efficient reflector but fairly easily sorted with a thick wooly rug.

Your Klipsch are capable of playing loud, but not in the low bass, The horn is simply too small.

If you want to match those levels I think you'll need serious sub-bass drivers and probably quite a few of them due to the relative lack of room loading to assist. Think before you start buying.

[jbush]

Originally posted by AndrewT
Your Klipsch are capable of playing loud, but not in the low bass, The horn is simply too small.

If you want to match those levels I think you'll need serious sub-bass drivers and probably quite a few of them due to the relative lack of room loading to assist. Think before you start buying.

Listen to AndrewT. If you are going to have both Khorns and LaScalas in your system, you will needs lots of subwoofage to keep up. I'm thinking something along the line of dual SVS PB12-NSD/2. If you can do an IB, you might want to look into that.

FWIW, room size doesn't dictate how low of frequencies can be reproduced in the room. 16 hz could be played in a room 10x10x10ft. You don't need to "fit" a whole wavelength into the dimensions of the room. You could definitely get to 16hz, but it will probably take multiple drivers to get that low with any authority (SPL).

[Brett]

Tapped horn, LABhorns, or a couple of sealed EQ'd subs in the nearfield.
I ran KHorns with these for a while, mounted on the sidewalls, but it wasn't optimum positioning for wither. When I built my fronthorn system with the LABs in the corners, it was much better.

[kevinh]

The old Jensen Imperials can keep up with the K horns quite easily. Two versions woofer and sub.

http://www.decware.com/imperial.htm

[Brett]

Originally posted by kevinh
The old Jensen Imperials can keep up with the K horns quite easily. Two versions woofer and sub.

http://www.decware.com/imperial.htm

I bought the Decware plans about the time I got my LAB drivers. They're huge.

I've just finished reading the Tapped Horn thread and may build some to use my LAB12 drivers now the LABhorns don't exist. Hell of a lot easier build too.