The Japanese Christopher Witmer posted at the Sewers some finny pictures of another Klangfilm “invention”.  It is hardly could be imagined more bogus design for a two way horn systems – no wonder that people hate horns…

I wonder if one of the reasons why people deservingly hate horn is because no one educate them any sound-relevant truth about horns? The moderating dirt at the Sewers has deleted all posts that question the rational of this Klangfilm horn… (As they do for years vandalizing any context more intelligence they can handle or they can not sell).  Perhaps if that self-appointed “moderating dirt” along with a dozen of morons-writers in audios publication would feed people with wrong information then the average audio people would eventually understand something about horn and would realize why this horn sound so poor.

Anyhow, in the vacuum of any civilized intelligence about horns or any creditable framework that would propagate that knowledge let to permit to the “worshipers” to fetish over the bogus designs from 1934….

Romy the Cat wrote:

The Japanese Christopher Witmer posted at the Sewers some finny pictures of another Klangfilm “invention”.  It is hardly could be imagined more bogus design for a two way horn systems – no wonder that people hate horns… I wonder if one of the reasons why people deservingly hate horn is because no one educate them any sound-relevant truth about horns?

guy sergeant wrote:

Which would you rather try to get good sound from Romy? These or Magico Mini's?

I realy do not understated the essence of this comment. If it is a good sound then what the hell different if it came form 73-year old speakers or form Magico Mini? The very same is with the poor sound: if it is sound like shit then what is the difference if it was Klangfilm of Magico?

Any loudspeaker sound bad because the specific mistake. A loudspeaker might sound good without know for a given party reason but it never sound bad without the poor sound to be a direct consequence of the very specific errors that were made. In case of the Magico and case of the given Klangfilm those “errors” exist. Sure, they are different errors. Also, no one said that a loudspeaker must sound good and to be free from “terminal errors” (in context of own topology). However, the point I was trying to make is that those Klangfilms, regardless of the primitive sound and regardless of “unnecessary errors” have a stupid fetish among audio people and I really do not like it. (Magico has own stupid fetish but it comes from other direction that is not the subject of the thead)

BTW, if some one would like to point out where from your point of view ate troubles in THIS Klangfilm system then feel free to share it.

In the linked thread “Munich High End 2010..” while taking with Joe the Archeologist I was mentioning the fundamental flows of open baffles. Still, the presence of disadvantages circumstance is not a red flag for somebody actively or my interest.  Here a case to point.

A friend of mine (in fact two of them) has Klangfilm Bionor. I “mint” and original and he very much worships it’s “originality”. I do not like this speaker become many reasons but they have some “moments” worth to capitalize upon. Her is a guy, presumably a Chinese guy, who make an attempt to take Bionor a bit further then Klangfilm Bionor originally was intended to. Let analyze what he was trying to do.

The speakers I hope use the Bionor’s standard pair of 14-inch woofers, most likely KL L405 - very good woofers. The Klangfilm own MF horn got trashed and the 12 section multi-sell was introduced. It is driven by look like WE or early Altec electromagnet compression driver. The MF horn looks like 150-180Hz exponential. I presume that MF driver runs down to 250-300Hz. This is a huge step over the Klangfilm original design where MF was shooting into a horn with much higher cut off.  The there is some kind of tweeter, I presume the slot type JBL, or the similar.  Due to depression they mount it on the front baffle. Interning that it is not flat with front baffle but a bit indented. I wonder why it would be so.  I presume that since the tweeter is not time not alighted whoever did it were trying to set the tweeter a few periods ahead but still in-phase, at least this would be what I would do. There is a strange looks like another tweeter at the bottom of the bass horn. I do not know what it does and if it is a tweeter then I would not do it.

I kind of like what this Klangfilm was trying to do, if somebody know the speaker owner then invite him to describe what he was doing. What this speaker doe is in my view the sanest approach to the Klangfilm Bionor without drooling the vintage saliva and without diving in idiotic hysteria about the advantage of vintage audio.

Romy the Cat wrote:

I do use some vintage elements in my playback but I use them purposefully.  I recognize their strengths and weaknesses and I capitalize on the strengths only. I think this is the only sane approach I see; when some vintage uniqueness of my choosing serves the purposes that I dedicate it to serve.

I would like to expend a bit on the subject of the above shown Klangfilm. What this Klangfilm owner did was what exactly complies with my vision of a prudent audio. The owner recognized in the Klangfilm sound what he line and do not like and by the virtue of own design he indicated what he was trying to accomplish. What is interesting is that when you see the efforts like this, targeted to the right direction, then to predict the result is very difficult because you know that somebody purposely worked with Sound and did not treated Sound “as is”. In many cases I made judgment about sound with any needs to listed a speakers and the judgment in most case is surprisingly more accurate that an opinion of somebody who own the speaker for years. However, in the case of the efforts like the above shown Klangfilm I would not dare to predict how it might sound. Sure, it will have the dipole lower bass, something the I never liked, but it is about all the I can say.

The “msaudio” above was questioning if the speaker is Klangfilm attempt as the MF driver does not look like Klangfilm. The MF driver is in fact a special homosexual version of Klangfilm, the “msaudio” won’t hear or understand the driver anyhow as it would be too emotional for him. There is however a deeper educational layer in it. The final acoustic system shall not comply with Klangfilm label or with anything else. I can see people like Joe Robbers who would sit behind the panel of the speaker and polish the s bolts that join the baffle, claiming that the bolts were make from melted WE tube sockets. Joe Robbers is very much not alone: there are many people in audio for whom enslavement to “vintage obsession” has became a dominating force of sensibility and judgment. What that Klangfilm owner demonstrated is a radical departure from the Vintagtism ™.

I have to note however that “msaudio” might have a point: the Klangfilm MF driver might be more interesting then the X driver (I do not know what it is) that was used. But again, thanks for Klangfilm “collectors” we do not have knowledge about the quality of Klangfilm MF drivers. I need to point out that this is very seldom moment for me what I use phases “we” instead of the phases “I”. I never do but in this case I find it appropriate. The point that I try to make is that “we” and “I” do not have a lot of knowledge how the Klangfilm MF drivers sound. I did listen the Klangfilm MF drivers, both perm magnet and electromagnet, I even took the perm magnet Klangfilm MF driver apart and was studying how it was made. However, it was all in context of inferior in my view original Klangfilm installations – something that would do audio archeologists Joe Robbers to lose his mind and made me to make ugly faces. The point is that I did not hear and did not even see a lot of custom, tailored efforts (like above) to make interesting sound using the Klangfilm elements. It is very possible that the author of the above speaker went for his alternative to Klangfilm MF driver intentionally and if so then I would not care if the MF driver was there “original”.

So, the speaker above might not be the “Klangfilm”. The baffle itself not the original Klangfilm, which is perfectly fine as it is properly made with perpendicular siding and I hope doe not resonate as much at 60-40Hz as the original Klangfilm baffle.

Romy the Cat wrote:

There is a strange looks like another tweeter at the bottom of the bass horn.

Markus wrote:

I can't really make it out on the photo, but it looks a bit like a Tannoy Supertweeter.

ayebee wrote:

An observation that might only be of superficial interest to the thread: I don't think the speakers use Klangfilm woofers. The pictures are a bit grainy, but the dustcaps look far too big for the original Bionor woofers. I would guess this is a "clone" made from the original drawings, but containing no real Klangfilm-components whatsoever... Just my 2c.

msaudio wrote:

If you look at the picture second from the the top, you will see 2 woofers mounted in front on the baffle, notice a 2 piece horn from the baffle. Klangfilm never had such a horn, they would start at the baffle and curve out. The horn in your picture's starts at the baffle and move's in, the first stage, and move's out the second so to compress the output. This is a bad idea, the better idea would be to mount the drivers on the rear of the baffle with 8 inch opening to get your compresion that way, you would have more space for the right horn curve.

ayebee wrote:

If you look at the original Bionor drawings (you can find them at klangfilm.free.fr) you see that the "bass" horn is actually made out of two sections, the outer is curved, the inner is conical and expand both horizontally and laterally (more in the lateral), as opposed to the outer section. This gives the perceived "negative expansion", which is quite probably just a photographic illusion. Why Klangfilm chose this approach is beyond me...