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[Antone Atmarama Bajor]

     Does the Karlson design actually help improve sound quality.  It looks like it was able to improve impedance a little.  I noticed Ivan Beaver Had a few of those in his sound system back a few year ago.  Anyone take any sweeps of those things???

Antone-

[Gareth James]

I'm not sure about the karlson coupler, my thought was that it was somehow integrated into the throat of the horn...

Phil, I'm pretty certain the shape of the throat is the key to this riddle. I was looking at some simulations on a webpage about horn theory and thought a particular sim showing a narrowing and widening of a section causing a ripple in impedance might be along the right lines.

Maybe its like a tuned vent except the varying cross-sectional area loads a wider bandwidth. Maybe I'm completely off-track, i'm not sure!

Anton, i've not been able to find much on the karlson coupler and a lot of comments have been negative to its sound quality although given the time period in which it originally emerged i don't think its reliable evidence. Still seems like an interesting idea though, i'd love to see a more in depth description of how it actually works and what is loading what!!

[Craig Leerman]

Quote:

Does the Karlson design actually help improve sound quality. It looks like it was able to improve impedance a little. I noticed Ivan Beaver Had a few of those in his sound system back a few year ago. Anyone take any sweeps of those things???

karlson cabs were designed as FULL RANGE home stereo cabinets, not really as sub or bass boxes. They originally had 12" CoAx or Full range speakers in them. Many folks started to use them as bass speakers because they had a pretty smooth response in the low end.  


If memory serves me correctly, Ivan had Maryland Sound "Clams" in his rig.  These were a slightly changed version of a Karlson cab, used as subwoofers. The Clams used a 15" speaker instead of the original Karlson 12, and were designed to be used as Bass or Sub cabs, not as full range cabs. A single was basically a 15" version of a karlson (but some of the dimensions were changed slightly). A Double Clam was basically 2 karlsons in a single box. A QUAD CLAM was 4 Karlson in a single box.

I had 2 doubles and 2 Quads for a while, but never liked moving them around. They were very heavy, especially since mine were  fiberglassed, and loaded with Gauss speakers! Back then, my version of "SWEEPING a cabinet"  was dusting them off with a broom before a gig! I'm not sure what they would look like on a scope, but they do sound pretty good.

Dave Smith of MSI was the guy who really liked the Karlsons. He had a pair of 12" on his home stereo, and 15" versions on his own PA. I liked the sound of his home stereo with 12" coaxials loaded in them. I've also heard a pair of 15" karlsons loaded with Tannoy coaxials. They sounded great!.  My buddy Sheldon still uses a single MSI Karlson in his livingroom corner as a subwoofer under his Tannoys.

Craig

[Antone Atmarama Bajor]

     Yeah its interesting looking,  It looks like the cross section of a exponential horn stuck in front of a speaker.  I just wonder how effectively it actually loads the driver.

    My father was telling me about another company that was making compression driver lenses with a similar slot expansion in it.

    Hmmm I wonder if his concept was actually as valid as he thought.

Antone-  

[Ivan Beaver]

Antone Atmarama Bajor wrote on Fri, 18 November 2005 14:18

My father was telling me about another company that was making compression driver lenses with a similar slot expansion in it.     Antone-

It was called "The tube" and came out in the late 70's.  It was a horn driver with "the Tube" attached to it and it faced straight up.  The tube was like a plane wave tube with a slot "looked like the carlson" cut into it.  I think they didn't take off because of the lack of sensitivity.  I only heard them once in a very small room with a lunatic guitar player.  I don't remember how they sounded-the show caught my attention.

[Too Tall (Curtis H. List)]

Ivan Beaver wrote on Fri, 18 November 2005 19:52

Antone Atmarama Bajor wrote on Fri, 18 November 2005 14:18         My father was telling me about another company that was making compression driver lenses with a similar slot expansion in it.     Antone-   It was called "The tube" and came out in the late 70's.  It was a horn driver with "the Tube" attached to it and it faced straight up.  The tube was like a plane wave tube with a slot "looked like the carlson" cut into it.  I think they didn't take off because of the lack of sensitivity.  I only heard them once in a very small room with a lunatic guitar player.  I don't remember how they sounded-the show caught my attention.

The Tube.
Wow, it’s been a while since I thought of them. I’m surprised Al Limberg didn’t post because he had a set. I heard them used outdoor.

They were mounted on a set of Gauss HF-4000 2” I believe, but I could be wrong.

They were used in a 2-way system with a set of Community Leviathans (dual 15” on a straight horn). So you had these big fiberglass horn loaded dual 15” enclosures with a compression driver laying on its back on top and a short tube attached pointing straight up.

As I recall there was a cut on top at an angle.

The most memorable characteristic was they had almost no vertical dispersion.

[Al Limberg]

Sometimes things are just better forgotten lol.  Actually, they only offered a 1" version at the time we had ours so they were mounted to a pair of Emilar EA-175 drivers. That was the driver they allegedly used to test and develop the 'tube' so the facceplate of the tube was such that when mounted to the 175 it sat at the proper angle.  It sounded pretty good (keeping in mind TT's reference to very narrow vertical dispersion).  There was certainly no characteristic 'honk'  but there was definitely a drop off in efficiency.  Outdoors the wind just carried it away, more so than a more typical horn flare. The part that turned us off to them the most was the fact that they claimed to have used Emilar's test facilities as well as their drivers in the development stage and pretty much claimed endorsements from some of the Emilar folks - IIRC - Elgis Renkus included.   Since we were an Emilar dealer at the time, we called them to discuss their views.  At that point, no one there would admit to any knowledge of the product or any such testing.  .....things that make you go hmmmmm....


Al

[Iain_Macdonald]

Hi all.

Now I feeling really old. My late friend Bill Kelsey used the Tube in his C System design for TFA ElectroSound here in the UK in the late 70's/early 80's. It was a 2 box system, bass and mid + Tubes. The bass had 4 x 15 reflex loaded. The top box (same size as bass) had 4x12ins and 4 Karlson Tubes with 1 inch compression drivers. The tubes were arranged alongside the 12's, vertically in two pairs with the tube ends in each pair touching at something like a 45 deg angle. The idea was to have a vertical line of bass and a vertical line of mid/hi. Yes, a line array in 1980! To me, when set up properly, it was the most hi-fi system that I have ever heard until my experience with planar/ribbon hf systems. Of course TFA had people like Ted Nugent as customers, so volume not Hi Fi was the order of the day. The only problem as I recall, was that it used EV drivers, which at the time were not the power monsters we have today. Also people would insist on stacking mid/hf cabs side by side. The dispersion of the tubes was about 100 degrees, so you can imagine what the comb filtering was like. Had to be heard to believed. Just ask Mick Whelan (EV). In the mid 80's I worked with Bill on developing a 2inch tube, but we had insufficient funds to go anywhere. Just like the compressed air powered bass cab and our early line array. A familiar tale to many, I guess.

Iain.

[RobertOziemkowski]

Iain Macdonald wrote on Sun, 20 November 2005 00:42

Hi all. Now I feeling really old. My late friend Bill Kelsey used the Tube in his C System design for TFA ElectroSound here in the UK in the late 70's/early 80's. It was a 2 box system, bass and mid + Tubes. The bass had 4 x 15 reflex loaded. The top box (same size as bass) had 4x12ins and 4 Karlson Tubes with 1 inch compression drivers. The tubes were arranged alongside the 12's, vertically in two pairs with the tube ends in each pair touching at something like a 45 deg angle. The idea was to have a vertical line of bass and a vertical line of mid/hi. Yes, a line array in 1980! To me, when set up properly, it was the most hi-fi system that I have ever heard until my experience with planar/ribbon hf systems. Of course TFA had people like Ted Nugent as customers, so volume not Hi Fi was the order of the day. The only problem as I recall, was that it used EV drivers, which at the time were not the power monsters we have today. Also people would insist on stacking mid/hf cabs side by side. The dispersion of the tubes was about 100 degrees, so you can imagine what the comb filtering was like. Had to be heard to believed. Just ask Mick Whelan (EV). In the mid 80's I worked with Bill on developing a 2inch tube, but we had insufficient funds to go anywhere. Just like the compressed air powered bass cab and our early line array. A familiar tale to many, I guess. Iain.

Still have my pair which I used with Altec 808Bs. As I recall, they sound fine when I'd use them with a sm/med club system above 2482s. Better than the (stolen) slots others used.

[TrevorMilburn]

Iain, you think you're feeling old. I knew I had seen and also read about the TFA Electrosound system in the late 80s/early 90s, but have not heard hide nor hair about it since and thought it was my imagination playing tricks. If I remember correctly, the system was also used by Elvis Costello at the Royal Albert Hall and was given (absolutely correctly in my opinion) rave reviews for the sound quality. The whole system was, if I remember correctly, driven by BGW amps for low and mid, and I have a feeling that Quad 405s may have been used for high end. Didn't have the chance to move around the RHA but from my ground floor seat, it sounded great - certainly not like any of the then prevalent systems (Martin etc).

Regards,

Trevor
(ex Big Trev - frequent poster to the board in the late 90s)