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  1. #1
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    secret of a really bad speaker?

    I was at the mall the other day and wandered into Radio Shack or whatever it's called now in Canada. They had these KLH tower speakers playing and I really couldn't believe how bad they sounded. They weren't mediocre or uninvolving, but rather screechy bright with tons of midrange and absolutely no bass. We are talking clock radio quality here. That got me thinking about WHY a speaker could sound so objectionable. It's like it was deliberately designed to sound this way. Without getting too technical, can you speaker experts tell me why a speaker could sound this bad? Mediocre I can understand, but this was completely unlistenable -- six inch-plus woofers with the bass of a $20 blaster. What is it with the drivers that could create this sort of sonic mess?

  2. #2
    Loving This kexodusc's Avatar
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    Don't be surprised if these are just using $0.50 drivers at all. I've seen a lot of $200-$400 bookshelfs (a few that are/were very popular here) use $5-$13 drivers...that's street price, wholesale would be cheaper I'm sure.
    Combined with poor box quality and a very bad, generic crossover, this speaker is meant to play music and look good, regardless of accuracy or fidelity.

    I know that back in the day a lot of hte Optimus brand of Radio Shack speakers were very modifiable to actually make half-decent speakers on the cheap. Don't know abou these KLH's though.

    BTW: what the hell happened to Radio Shack? The Source? doh...does that mean I can't get another SPL meter?

  3. #3
    asdf bjornb17's Avatar
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    when i first got into home audio, the first thing i did was pick up a cheap 100 watt KLH 10" subwoofer from best buy becuase it was cheap. well, i hooked it up, and it was awful. the only sound it made was an awful "thud." kickdrums in music = thud. stuff blowing up in movie = thud. just about anything = thud. On top of that, when i went to turn the power switch, the light stayed green and it still played sound.

    lets evaluate this my experience with KLH:

    strike 1: awful sound quality
    strike 2: power switch that didnt do anything (that really demonstrates poor workmanship, and possibly a safety hazard)

    okay, so then i decide to call KLH. the only customer support guy there was out of the office. several calls over the course of the week resulted in no answer at the phone. So i leave my information on the answering machine and never hear back from him. Then i decide to send them an email using the email address listed on the site. The first email i sent came back since that email address no longer existed. I guess their site is out of date. I find another email address, and 1 year later, they still havent gotten back to me about the issue.

    so strike 3: no help whatsoever from KLH.

    i wont be doing business with them again.

    i'll stick with my velodyne cht-12 thank-you-very-much! (atleast until i finish college and save up for a velodyne dd-18 )

  4. #4
    nightflier
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    Klh

    Quote Originally Posted by kexodusc
    Don't be surprised if these are just using $0.50 drivers at all. I've seen a lot of $200-$400 bookshelfs (a few that are/were very popular here) use $5-$13 drivers...that's street price, wholesale would be cheaper I'm sure.
    Combined with poor box quality and a very bad, generic crossover, this speaker is meant to play music and look good, regardless of accuracy or fidelity.

    I know that back in the day a lot of hte Optimus brand of Radio Shack speakers were very modifiable to actually make half-decent speakers on the cheap. Don't know abou these KLH's though.

    BTW: what the hell happened to Radio Shack? The Source? doh...does that mean I can't get another SPL meter?
    Modifiable? Hardly. I have a pair of KLH bookshelves collecting dust in the garage. Since they came free with a DVD player I had bought, I played with them a bit. Hooked them up to a 120 watt amp to see if I could blow them. The system clipped, but the speakers survived (at least they sounded no different). I cracked them open to see what was inside, too. They had no bracing, no insulation, and the wires were ultra thin. I don't know much about brands, so I can't tell you anything about the drivers. But I can say that the cabinet was very cheap thinnner-than-expected plywood. So I don't know what would be modifiable about these....

  5. #5
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    Whats the secret?

    Peizo tweeters, no crossovers and it has to be connected to some gaudy, gimmicky P.O.S. with "Super Bass", "X-Bass", "T-Bass" or some other variety of complete B.S. Oh and lately, adding automotive style VU meters that look like speedometers seems to help. You know, so you can see exactly how many of the Alkaid 100watts your using at any given moment. And lots of blinking lites to make it look like Space Invaders.

  6. #6
    Silence of the spam Site Moderator Geoffcin's Avatar
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    Wink You get what you pay for

    Many people don't want to spend a lot on speakers. The "new" KLH is for them. At least they didn't spend 2 grand and got an underperforming system with tiny sattilites, and an awful "one note" bandpass sub.
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  7. #7
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    I'd choose a KLH speaker over a Bose anyday. At least they use a soft dome tweeter. Bose still uses paper tweeters, the same as those you'll find in cheap rack systems from manufacturers who don't usually engineer speakers (Sound Design, Samsung, etc).

  8. #8
    My custom user title This Guy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by nightflier
    Modifiable? Hardly. I have a pair of KLH bookshelves collecting dust in the garage. Since they came free with a DVD player I had bought, I played with them a bit. Hooked them up to a 120 watt amp to see if I could blow them. The system clipped, but the speakers survived (at least they sounded no different). I cracked them open to see what was inside, too. They had no bracing, no insulation, and the wires were ultra thin. I don't know much about brands, so I can't tell you anything about the drivers. But I can say that the cabinet was very cheap thinnner-than-expected plywood. So I don't know what would be modifiable about these....
    he was talking about the old radio shack Optimus's not the KLH

  9. #9
    Forum Regular Florian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kfalls
    I'd choose a KLH speaker over a Bose anyday. At least they use a soft dome tweeter. Bose still uses paper tweeters, the same as those you'll find in cheap rack systems from manufacturers who don't usually engineer speakers (Sound Design, Samsung, etc).
    You know paper drivers aint all that bad. The Wiener Lautsprecher Manufaktur as some incredible sounding drivers. Ok, they are no ribbons but pretty darn good and they can play in the realm of high end. Of course you can get 90% **** sound, but there are some good ones :-)
    Lots of music but not enough time for it all

  10. #10
    Listener MikeyBC's Avatar
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    Another possiblity is that the person who hooked it up had the speakers wired out of phase, I've heard this quite often at stores such as radio shack, walmart and other "box stores". Not that i'm trying to defend KLH which I agree are mediocre at best.
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