Klipsch Resource Center | Dope from Hope, 1960's

"Music relates to emotion, but its reproduction (including the emotion impact) is as coldly scientific as any other physical science."
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"Our measurements are no better than those of some other speaker builders, but our measurements plus our objectives are unique. Dedication to quality is more than merely running curves; it means rejecting some beautiful old-world craftsmanship along with some plain junk; accepting items less than glamorous; often disagreeing with consumer's magazines -- best and best-for-the-money are not synonomous."
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"This paper does not agree with some of the material that has been printed lately. Why should it, being factual, agree with the opinions of those trying to sell package stereo?"
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"One can tell if a room is good or bad by listening to someone talk in it. If natural voice sounds bad, its reproduction will be bad, too."
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"The MODEL H offers a welcome relief from the distorted performance of sound movie speakers used for club and public relations work."
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"Those opposed to corner speakers, or those proposing toe-out and other bizarre speaker geometrics, should be subject to scrutiny for motive, for certainly their views are the opposite of the scientists who have been mainly responsible for the creation of the art and of evaluation and advancing its features."
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"Many perfectionists in the art of sound reproduction feel that tape is a superior recording medium. The faults which exist remain small ones compared to other recording media. The remaining faults are subject to further minimisation."
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"There is no hope of altering the semantics of the lay public, but it may be that the more receptive ones will find the term 'Polarity' more acceptable than the mis-used 'phase,' and you shouldn't feel reluctant to parade your superior knowledge."
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"The CORNWALL is the finest speaker system of its type I have ever tested. Its reproduction of human voice is second only to the KLIPSCHORN; its bass range is down 10 db at 30 cycles (relative to 200 cycles)."
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"The H in 'MODEL H' is short for 'Heresy,' it being the first non-corner speaker we made. We'd welcome suggestions for a new name."
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"In 1931 E.W. Kellogg proposed 1/16 inch diaphragm excursion as a limit for good quality. This seems prophetic in view of the fact that frequency modulation distortion did not become a subject in Audio literature until 1943."
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"Part of the theory is selling the woman on her home grounds. She usually has better ears than the breadwinner and finds it pretty hard to part with the KLIPSCHORNS to return to the boom boxes. The Dealer also realizes that its pretty nice to be able to listen without the salesman extolling virtues in the other ear. Shoes off, feet up, and glass in hand, the customer sells himself."
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"The new name for the MODEL H has not been forthcoming. The best suggestion came from Bill Bell with 'Hafiz,' a title of respect, specifically applied to a Mohammedan who knows the Koran by heart, and we are sending him a MODEL H, his choice of finish."
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"Our speakers not only afford superior transient output, but also superior response at all levels beacuse of the more nearly flat response and less loss due to the Fletcher-Munson effect."
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"These changes are all to your advantage: the pricing to allow for freight is simplified; the price is simpler without the extra price for veneer; the addition of the new wood should help you close the sale to the growing group of people who favor Early American furniture."
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"Bob Rorer of High Fidelity Unlimited, Portland, Oregon, must be given the credit for discovery of a response dip in the region of 250-500 cycles per second in the KLIPSCHORN woofer."
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"All Klipsch speakers are nominally 16 ohms. Three such speakers present a load on each of 2 amplifiers of eleven ohms. It is good practice to choose the next lower transformer tap, such as 8 ohms. It is usually permissible to mismatch a higher impedance load to a lower amplifier tap, but usaully not good practice to mismatch a lower impedance load to a higher output impedance tap."
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"Tape stands as the potentially best medium for sound reproduction. As the prime recording medium from which other media are derived, it is less removed from the original source. Tape life far exceeds that of other media."
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"It is not known whether acceptance by the Professional Group on Audio was by way of silencing the author, or an unawareness of the 'controversial' aspects, or a genuinely professional attitude of letting the facts be known. I'd like to fee it is the latter, and if so, that elevates the PGA of the IEEE to just a little higher stature than the other 2 Societies."
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"The Dope From Hope is published occasionally, when something new comes from our Lab or when for other reasons something needs saying. In 1961 there wre 13 releases, in 1962 only one."
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"So if the customer likes some particular faulty sound better than 'the real thing,' point out to him that a good speaker can be made to imitate this fault, but if he ever develops to the point of liking the real thing, an inferior speaker of his choice will not upgrade to his future taste. For any state of development of the listener's taste and capability of discernment, the cheapest speaker in teh long run will be the one that is most nearly perfect."
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"In practice it is well to start a system with everything as near 'flat' as possible and use this quality as a reference or a point of departure if tone compensation is to be the subject of experiement. Thus the 'Loudness Control' should be disable and a simple "Volume Control" used for at least preliminary installation adjustment and intial evaluation of system components."
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"The CORNWALL was a superior loudspeaker in its class. Adoption of the K-600 midrange horn was more than a marginal improvement."
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"It should be pointed out that the KLIPSCHORN has afforded suprior performance characterists since about 1948. 'The Hard Way' may have been the way it was done; 'The Hard Way' is not necessarily 'The Right Way', but where the question arose, 'The Right Way' was the choice. Perhaps the new horn will offer an easier means to maintain 'The Right Way'."
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"Since the room is perhaps the second most important or critical entity in achieving good audio, music listeners would do well to expend as much effort on the room as on the slection of the dynamic acoustic elements like loudspeakers."
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"The ideas herein are directed to to the Dealer who would like to render a reel service, achieve the status and respect of a true expert, and build sales on referrals of previous sales. Such a Dealer would scorn the 'easy' way; rather they would point out that a speaker which is merely "pleasing" may be far from an accurate reproduction of sound. A good speaker can be made to imitate a 'pleasing one' by twirling a few 'tone control knobs' but a poor speaker can never be made to imitate a good one."
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"Among papers of landmark significance, that of William B. Snow 'basic Principles of stereophonic Sound,' Jour. Soc. Mot. Picture and Television Engineers, Vol. 61, pp 567-589, is of primary importance. without any intended sacrilege, this would be the 'new testament' of audio, since the 'Symposium on Auditory Perspective' has become regarded as the 'old testament'."
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"As an Engineer I like efficiency, and adhere to the principle that an engineer can do for $2 what anybody could for for $200."
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"I learned my 'Transmission Lines and Wave Filters' from Dr. F.E. Terman at Stanford back in 1933 but graduation was commencement, not the end."
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"We sell quality. Even if a person bought our drives he would not get our quality: quality control of the box (either horn or enclosure) is necessary before, during and after manufacture."
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"This Doppler's Effect is present in loudspeakers. If the diaphragm is vibrating through a large bass amplitude while radiating a higher frequency, the pitch of the higher frequency is alternately raised and lowered so that a flutter results."
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"So be not surprised if you see 2 things that look like transformers in some future crossover networks. And don't complain; the improvement is real but it would take about 3 more improvements of like magnitude to achieve a liminal gain."
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"This is the day of 100 watt amplifiers. The popular low-priced loudspeakers are of low efficiency, but most of thse I have tested go from fine to gross distortion at about 25 watts amplifier power. The lowest efficiency speaker I have tested is about 0.1%."
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"Back in the Good Old Days of 10 and 20 watt amplifiers it was uncommon to experience loudspeaker failures. When 75 watts became common, occasional tweeter failures began to occur. Then with the advent of large solid-state amplifiers with their 240 instantaneous power peaks, tweeter failures became epidemic and woofers began to come apart at the compliance rings and voice coils began to tear loose from cones."
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"My personal feeling is that if a person is building a home and expects music to be a part of his joy of living, he could do well to get his architect to study Bolt's paper."
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