I did it for my wife, got klh's for the bedroom

faster100 · January 2003

Ok last weekend best buy had a crazy deal on cheap'O speakers.. The klh bookshelf with 8" woofer, midrange and a tweeter.. for $20.00 bucks, we have an old magnavox all in one unit in the room with no speaks so we picked up the Klh's they are really big for the price, and we don't spend much listening time besides after a shower or at bedtime in the room so we thought they would work fine... I hate to say it but they sound OK, not polks, not great but pretty ok and they have alot of bass... I put no value in the room setup.. but for those who might have needed an extra set for some project or rec room maybe, 20 bucks at best buy

p.s. I think these are what Russman bought for the cabinets and gave the drivers away... Nice project for 9.99 each.... anyways next

RuSsMaN · January 2003

Those are the same KLH I bagged, you are correct. For $20, I said why not, and I agree, they don't sound *horrible* do they.

I didn't think they would still be on sale, hmmm, do I have another spare 20 laying around?

Cheers,
Russ

faster100 · January 2003

I mean it, i'f nobody is listening" LO L they sound not to bad considering my source, Magnazox receiver,tape deck all in one unit, I even considered getting a set for my computer/florida room for zone 2's...

burdette · January 2003

Yes, it is what he bought.. and I have the drivers. I'm bumping the cabinets up about 30%, which puts it closer to what it "should" be based on the T-S numbers, plus gives me a better cabinet size for potential future use on another project. Once to that stage, I'll play around with fill levels (system Q) to optimize bass performance. All in all, I'll pay more than you did for my speakers .. I paid to ship the drivers ($10), paid for crossover components ($12, but the chokes are better), and paid for materials ($10 so far). But the investment is a hobby.

Glad to hear you're reasonably pleased with the performance. I look forward to getting these done *almost* as much as I look forward to doing the project.

MxStYlEpOlKmAn · January 2003

i got the later model.....they do sound OK! not compared to a polk...but their OK!

faster100 · January 2003

projects are cool to do, I like working with wood alot and do little projects for my wife from time to time, good stuff

RuSsMaN · January 2003

Are you going to try incorporating the passive radiators I sent also? I figured they would work well with those woofs, however you might need to add a little mass to them.

Regardless, can't wait to see the project done!

Cheers,
Russ

burdette · January 2003

Don't think so, Russ. The T-S parameters show this woofer to be wholly unsuitable for bass reflex design.. it is HEAVILY on the acoustic suspension side of the spectrum. But.. I'm still at the design stage, setting up Excel speaksheet, found some great sites on the internet, have Dickason's book, etc.

If I don't use them, I will let you know and either ship them back to you, or, if you choose, either keep them myself or put them up as freebies here.

I was pretty excited when you said you were including them (thank you again) because from the beginning what I wanted to do was make a BR design... and I might've gone down that road had KLH not come through with complete LEAP parameters for the woofer (they even sent me their engineering drawings for the crossover - glue designed to withstand 10gs sheer force, FYI).

One little thing ... I went to Lowe's to pick up some decent black screws for mounting the drivers... no black, but OK silver for 90 cents for 18 screws (I'd paint them).... Parts Express had *very* nice black screws ... 100 for $1.50... added it to my back-ordered capacitors (which were about 1/3 the price of Radio Shack's). Parts Express has great prices, but you want to order as much as possible at once or the shipping will kill the value.

I will post pics once I really get started. I've got the cabinet MDF purchased but not cut to size yet.

To MxStYlEpOlKmAn... not sure what you mean.. the BB KLHs are the L853B, which is the current model... you may have a *different* model, but based on my discussions with KLH, I don't think you have a newer model. BB is using these as a loss leader.. get people in the door, hopeful that they'll buy other things or move up to a better, more expensive speaker. They are, in my opinion, definitely losing money at ten bucks a pop, unless they got one hell of a volume discount.

RuSsMaN · January 2003

I don't need the pr's back, I got em for about $5 shipped. Do with them what you will, seriously. They sat in the closet for almost 2 yrs, so I threw em in your box.

Cheers,
Russ

Ron-P · January 2003

Got the same one's for my garage rig, not bad at all....for the coin.

Peace Out~:D

RuSsMaN · January 2003

Hey Burd,

I can't remember if that mid was a sealed-back design or not. Have you considered placing the mid or tweet or both 'free air' on top of the cab? Kinda like the DQ10, RTA12 etc.

Just popped into my head, I've been wanting to do a 2-way design with a ribbon, and considered it myself.

Cheers,
Russ

MxStYlEpOlKmAn · January 2003

Originally posted by burdette
Don't think so, Russ. The T-S parameters show this woofer to be wholly unsuitable for bass reflex design.. it is HEAVILY on the acoustic suspension side of the spectrum. But.. I'm still at the design stage, setting up Excel speaksheet, found some great sites on the internet, have Dickason's book, etc.

If I don't use them, I will let you know and either ship them back to you, or, if you choose, either keep them myself or put them up as freebies here.

I was pretty excited when you said you were including them (thank you again) because from the beginning what I wanted to do was make a BR design... and I might've gone down that road had KLH not come through with complete LEAP parameters for the woofer (they even sent me their engineering drawings for the crossover - glue designed to withstand 10gs sheer force, FYI).

One little thing ... I went to Lowe's to pick up some decent black screws for mounting the drivers... no black, but OK silver for 90 cents for 18 screws (I'd paint them).... Parts Express had *very* nice black screws ... 100 for $1.50... added it to my back-ordered capacitors (which were about 1/3 the price of Radio Shack's). Parts Express has great prices, but you want to order as much as possible at once or the shipping will kill the value.

I will post pics once I really get started. I've got the cabinet MDF purchased but not cut to size yet.

To MxStYlEpOlKmAn... not sure what you mean.. the BB KLHs are the L853B, which is the current model... you may have a *different* model, but based on my discussions with KLH, I don't think you have a newer model. BB is using these as a loss leader.. get people in the door, hopeful that they'll buy other things or move up to a better, more expensive speaker. They are, in my opinion, definitely losing money at ten bucks a pop, unless they got one hell of a volume discount.

misworded, i have the OLDER model....it just sucks

burdette · January 2003

Funny you should ask, Russ... the mid is sealed, and I have thought about some sort of outboard upper frequency.. platform... perhaps tiltable, rotatable, etc. Especially considering.. if I use these speakers as I plan, they will be in our upstairs family room about 6 feet off the floor on a long wall of a room that is only 10 feet wide (only real choice, given the room doubles as the play room for my two young'ins.) The reason I'm still pondering is that the crossover to the woofer is around 800-1000 Hz, from what I can tell from the crossovers. I'm curious as to what is going to happen to the overall sound on-axis of the upper drivers if the woof is pointing 30-45 degrees off axis. Woofer off-axis response is not usually that great when you're up that high in Hz. But.. it is easy enough to try.. I can mount the woofer in the box and leave the mid/tweeter out and temporarily mount them on another board. As you mentioned before, that mid is so ... tight and delicate, the cone is not made to move THAT much.. it isn't going to shake the baffle in the least.

My other thought as of now is to use these as my HT surrounds and move the 5jr+ back upstairs for stereo listening. Given that we can't jack the volume up TOO high for movies (due to sleeping kids), and that we always have a kid monitor buzzing in the background when we do watch movies, I'm not sure the timbre matching will be that large of an issue right now. They are, however, quite a bit less efficient than my Polks. But the trusty set-up CD would solve that.

What I *really* wanted to do (and use the PRs you sent) was to cross the woofer over much lower and use it almost as a bass box.. off-axis response wouldn't be such an issue then.. but I just don't think this midrange is up to the job of heading below 800 Hz.

It'll be fun to think about and play around with.. and opinions are welcome.

RuSsMaN · January 2003

Thats interesting, I thought from looking at the xover that they let the woof run full-range, and wired the coil and resistor for the mid, in series off the postive post.

Then the tweet was hooked up through that small cap on the pos, and direct to the negative post.

Just thinking if that woof was running full range, I'd expect it to hit 2 or 3K before dropping off like Niagra Falls. Did KLH give you any useable measurements on the drivers?

Cheers,
Russ

burdette · January 2003

The choke is in series with the woofer and parallel across the mid/resistor combination... and the parallel combo of choke and resis/mid is in series with the woofer. The capacitor is in series with the tweeter, and the cap/tweeter combo is parallel to the entire mid/woof arrangement - connected straight to +/- inputs.

I need to pull out my old "Basic Circuit Analysis" to confirm my thinking on this arrangement.. but the set-up is as I desribe above.

Edit: KLH gave me a LEAP printout on the woofer.. only information on the mid and tweeter is the "8 ohm" stamped on the back.

I did it for my wife, got klh's for the bedroom

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