Kirk's Khanspire build

[kirknelson]

I'm building the Khanspires for use as mains in a system with the WTMW Center and NataliePs as surrounds. I've already finished the NatPs and am building the WTMW Center at the same time.

Boards ready for building:



Gluing on the top and bottom panels:



Gluing on the top and bottom for the second cabinet as well as for the mid chamber:



Gluing together the braces:



Attaching the rear braces to the mid enclosures:



Gluing the braces onto the cabinet side panels:





Attaching the opposing side panel:



Gluing together the baffle pieces:



Current state of the enclosures:



They look a little crooked in the photo but I think that is just an optical effect. The measure square.

Up next will be attaching the rear panel and working on the cross overs. A couple of inductors are on back order at PE until July so it will be a bit of a wait.

[PoorboyMike]

Looks good so far.

Did you check Madisound for the inductors? I have a few spares laying around too. What values are you missing?

[---k---]

Progress is looking good. :T

That stinks about the inductors, but it always seems to happen. Madisound is probably a good source for the big inductors. Miniscus might be a good source for the smaller ones. http://meniscusaudio.com/inductors-c-81.html

Hopefully you don't find any more mistakes in my info.

[kirknelson]

Thanks for the link K, and I wasn't trying to find fault, just help out future builders. You've designed a great speaker and as you said the small difference in volume isn't going to make much of a difference in the sound, if it is noticeable at all.

Thank you for the offer to help Mike but besides the parts being back ordered, I'm going to be taking a little cruise courtesy of the US Navy. Either way I won't be able to work on my projects much until July.

[kirknelson]

Back and time for an update. Unfortunately I haven't accomplished much yet as I've been doing more work on my WTMW, but I have been working on them.

Gluing on the rear panels:



All of the panels have also been flush trimed and I've cut all the veneer pieces to size though I didn't take pictures of that.

Next up: Baffle routing.

Unfortunately it will be delayed again due to my getting lasik surgery (can't explose my eyes to MDF dust for about a month while they heal) and more underway periodes for my ship. I'm hopeing to get them done before the holidays.

[kirknelson]

It's been a highly productive weekend.

The baffles have been routed including the chamfer for the mids and woofers (kinda hard to see in the photo). It seems I drilled the holes a little off for the mids and tweeter as the span of MDF between two of them cut out during routing. Thankfully I wasn't so far off as to need to file down the flanges at all. That is some tight spacing Ryan! Oh well, once it is painted and the drivers are installed I don't think anyone will notice.



I finished veneering the cabinets.





I also finished all of the crossovers!

Tweeter:



Mid:



Woofer:



Next up: Rounding over the baffle and finishing the cabinets!

[---k---]

It seems I drilled the holes a little off for the mids and tweeter as the span of MDF between two of them cut out during routing. Thankfully I wasn't so far off as to need to file down the flanges at all. That is some tight spacing Ryan! Oh well, once it is painted and the drivers are installed I don't think anyone will notice.

Nope. You didn't cut off. That is exactly how mine are.

Like you said, no one will notice. Maybe I should give a little bit more warning about my dimensions for those that are a bit more of a perfectionist than I am.

Looking good. Looks like you went with some fancy caps. What gauge are those woofer inductors?

[kirknelson]

I just went with the Jantzen Crosscaps except for the woofer which uses the basic Daytons. Not too fancy but good caps.

The 2.75mH coil is 15 AWG and the 400uH coil is 14 AWG. A DCR wasn't included on the crossover schematic so I figured the lower the better. :P

It's good to know that my MTM spacing is "as designed."

[---k---]

Yeah, Jim Holtz really likes the Jantzen. The difference in price is not much. I've been tempted to pick up some for the tweeter to see if I can hear a difference. maybe one of these days.

Sorry I didn't put the DCR of each coil. I guess that makes sourcing from different people difficult. Chris designed using the 14 awg perfect lay. The DCR is .39 vs. .59 for the 15 awg. Not a huge difference. Probably be ok. Just will lower the bass a tiny tiny bit. Push them closer to the wall.

[john trials]

Those cabinets look great! What kind of wood did you use for the veneer? I still haven't made a decsion about what kind of wood to use to veneer my Statements.

[kirknelson]

I don't think less than a 1/4 ohm will lower the bass too much. Probably won't even be noticeable. Especially in the lower octaves where room/placement issues will create a bigger variance as you indicated.

I used a paper-backed Cherry veneer and will be staining them with Walnut to match my NatPs.

[---k---]

That is what I was trying to say by "tiny tiny bit".

Those NatP's look great. Very nice finish. Do you have any plans for feet or stands for the Khans?

[kirknelson]

I picked up these to hold them off the ground.

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=240-717

[kirknelson]

It's been a long couple of weeks as I worked on the finish of the speakers but I am very pleased to finnally be able to say my Khans are done!

Left Speaker



Right Speaker



...and of course the obligatory Mission Accomplished snap.



They are still breaking in and I'll wait to comment on their sound until they do, but I can already tell they will be fantastic.

[---k---]

Very nice. Enjoy. :T

[kirknelson]

I've been enjoying the Khan's for some time now and they are excellent speakers. It took me awhile to find the proper position for them in my room and they ended up closer to the walls and farther apart than they are in the previous picture.

Now that they've been broken in and positioned properly I am extremely impressed by their sound. They are extremely clean, especially across the mid-range, imaging is spot on and very focused. Dynamics are astounding, with out a hint of strain or distortion. The tone is also quite neutral with perhaps a slight tilt to the upper mid-range. The entire range is uncolored to my ears as well, and did I mention clean? Ryan and the others who worked on designing these really out did themselves. Thanks to everyone involved. :T

If there was one area I think could be improved, it would be the spaciousness of the soundstage, but I think that is more an issue of my room being a bit smaller than the Khan's would like. Some room treatments will help but those may have to wait until after I finish a desk and table that I've been meaning to get to. Then again those would be a quick weekend project. :T

For those looking to mate these with a larger center channel, Chris's crossover for the WTMW works great with the Khan's. The timbre is close enough that my ears can't tell the difference as sounds pan across the front. Actually it's closer than my old Paradigms were, and they were supposedly designed to be used together.

Here's my BOM:

Parts Express
----------------------------------------
(2)20 Ohm Resistor		$2.50
(2)0.4mH Inductor		$21.96
(2)1.5mH Inductor		$36.78
(2)10.0mH Inductor		$54.90
(2)0.18mH Inductor		$7.76
(2)0.55mH Inductor		$19.36
(2)2.7mH Inductor		$53.12
(4)90uF Capacitor		$81.16
(10)15uF Capacitor		$62.60
(4)1.0uF Capacitor		$5.52
(2)2.2uF Capacitor		$4.08
(2)1.8uF Capacitor		$3.38
(2)4.7uF Capacitor		$6.44
(2)2.7uF Capacitor		$5.12
(2)Dayton RS28AS-4 Tweeter	$111.74
(4)Dayton RS150S-8 Midrange	$140.76
(4)Dayton RS225S-8 Woofer	$209.92
(2)Speaker Spikes		$50.90
(2)Dayton Binding Post		$15.78

Parts Express Total		$893.78
----------------------------------------

Big Box
----------------------------------------
MDF				$55.48
Polyfill			$9.88
Veneer				$164.97
OC703 ($8.18 per panel)		$20.45
Misc. Consumables (Approx.)	$15.00

Big Box Total			$265.78
----------------------------------------

----------------------------------------
Project Total			$1159.56
----------------------------------------

While not cheap these are still and outstanding value. I'd compare them to comercial designs in the $3500-$6000 range. With those on the lower end of the range being high-value models like Vandersteen's 2ce.

[---k---]

:T

Thanks for the kind words. All the credit really goes to CJD. He built his big monsters which were the inspiration for these, then did all the real work for these. I just did the grunt work of building the boxes.

Your BOM is scary - the amount prices have gone up. When I built these originally -now like 2 years ago :E - I paid ~$620 for the drivers and crossovers.

[hoxuanduc]

Very nice!!!

One quick question, actually for the designer. I noticed in the BOM you used the shielded tweeter rather than the unshielded version. I wonder if it would make an audible difference?

Thanks,


Duc

[---k---]

Good question. I'm hoping that was just a typo by Kirk.

Mine DEFINITELY use the NON-shielded version. I believe that the tweeters are different enough that they aren't interchangeable. CJD has a warning on his RS150MTM page that you can't switch them.

CJD will hopefully add more detail soon.

[hoxuanduc]

Yup, I found the link for the rs150 MTM designs where there are separate crossovers for the shielded and non-shielded versions. So that answers the question - the change would be audible.

Thanks,

Duc

[kirknelson]

Very nice!!!

One quick question, actually for the designer. I noticed in the BOM you used the shielded tweeter rather than the unshielded version. I wonder if it would make an audible difference?

Thanks,


Duc

Oh, my...wonder how I missed that. I guess I was a little too hasty in adding things to my cart. ops:

Well the correct tweeters are now on order and looking at the Parts Express FR plots I think you may have located the source of that upper mid-range tilt I was hearing.

Shielded version:



Unshielded version:



Thanks for catching that for me. Unfortunately that was a pretty expensive mistake since I ordered the drivers more than 45 days ago. :cry:

[cjd]

Don't forget to compare impedance, which compounds the issue.

There may be a bit of extra energy in the mids as well, with a fairly simple resistor-tweak to work it out.

C