The above pictured advertisement on Facebook Marketplace was the spark that ignited this speaker project.
A fellow audiophile, Sean, who had purchased one of my amplifiers years ago, has EV HR6040 horns mounted to EV DH1012A drivers. He uses EV XEQ808 crossovers. He raves about the sound of the somewhat rare driver/horn combination.
When I saw what appeared to be EV DH style horns listed on Facebook marketplace, I nabbed them. After obtaining and measuring the horns, I identified them as EV HR9040A models.
In search of DH1012A drivers, I posted a wanted ad on the Klipsch forum. A fellow Klipsch aficionado and another audiophile who had purchased one of my early amplifiers, saved the day and had two DH1012's. Thanks Michael!
When I built my Frazier Super Texan project, I built several different crossovers. I learned quite a lot about crossover design, but I also learned parts are expensive and rarely can one re-sell the parts once placed into a custom crossover. This time around, I purchased pre-built ALK Engineering Universal III crossovers from www.critesspeakers.com. There are countless praises regarding the Universal III crossovers and are a popular upgrade for Klipsch Khorn & Lascala speakers.
I love supporting the cottage audio industry and I've bought numerous products from Crites over the years. Their products and customer service are top notch!
For bass cabinets, I found a pair of fairly rough Peavey FH-1 cabinets. There is a lot of information about these folded horns on the Klipsch forum. More than a few users, who have compared them directly to the Lascala folded horn, believed the sound of the FH-1 to have the edge. Researching drivers for the Lascala or FH-1, the number one choice of those that have done lots of experimenting, put the Eminence Kappa 15c at the top of the podium. I removed the old, non-working Peavey Black Widows and installed a pair of Kappa 15c's. The cabinets were painted and traditional binding posts were installed.
Finally, to round out the system, I needed to select a tweeter and horn. My preferences lean toward warm and smooth over being overly detailed. There are many choices, but the B&C DE250 with a ME20 horn seems to dovetail with my desire to find a smooth tweeter.
How do they sound? Dynamic, smooth, revealing with a huge soundstage. They don't image as precisely as my Klipsch CF-3's. As with Klipsch Lascala, the folded bass horns only reach down to approximately 45hz. However, the bass that is there has slam and speed that folded horns are known for. It can be a challenge to find a commercial subwoofer that can match the speed and efficiency of a folded horn bass bin. For the money invested, I'm quite pleased with the flavor of sound these produce. Big band and jazz are among my favorite genres of music and these excel with that material. Finding a way to mount the tweeter above and behind (to be time aligned) the large EV horns is still a work in progress.
Note: Vintage two-way EV XEQ808 crossovers were purchased on Fleabay, but I preferred the sound of the Crites built three-way Universal III crossovers.
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