I have concluded an hour long phone call withg Stephen Evans, my bud in Phoenix and said owner of 3 pairs of K's.
Some quick answers.....the woofs do sound better as time goes on......that time varies according to the quantity and rate of elkectrons fed to said woofs....
The room......Kev, Google the "golden ratio" it was a pet peeve of PWK for speaker placement. The K's are not perfect , because they are a compromise like any speaker system...BUT.....if you like horns they are the closest answer to perfect as I've heard and Stephen also when certain condfitions are met. Having 2 corners for the cabs at the long side of a rectangular room is preferable. Having walls made of very stiff material is essential to transmitting the bass energy out of the cabs, around the corner and into the room. Having no discontinuities (doorways, windows, etc) HELPS , but does not kill the bass response.
My room is 12'6" X 25' 3" with 8 ft ceilings. I have one door opening opposite the speaker wall. The wall opposite the speaker wall and one short wall are 2 X 4 stick with 5/8 sheetrock. The other 3 are cement firred out and sheetrocked. The K's bass response , Stephen says are down 3db at 30 hz, I would love to measure mine cause my ears dispute that....anyway......the bass from a K is tight and fast, as it is in a live performanmce. Every sub I've heard is flabby , mushy, whatever term you want to use. Run your sub the same time you run our K's then flip the sub switch off and tell me what you notice...
On Tim's Soni's during track 4 on Moby's "Play" album the bass is almost too much for the Soni's, those deep , distinctive bass notes almost smear, or BLEND together, The K's are a long ways from it, and a sub will do it,(the ones I've heard do)..that is what sets the K's apart. It's not that they'll GO LOW, but that they go low and still retain their RESOLUTION....that was the genius of Paul's design. Some of what you think you are missing MAY be that lack of smearing....some may be your room.
Electrons as the beloved Larrt puts it are PFM, (pure fucking magic) ya can't see em, but ya know they're there, and they are unpredictable little bastards....gotta love em.
You say the highs and mids are missing nothing......well they are they're missing some bass to go along with them and that my friend was the last thing I thought I would hear from you when you described em...
I will make you a proposal Kev....if you get them in a rectangular room , and you can put them on the long wall, and you still are not flabbergasted, I will buy them back AND PAY shipping cause I don't want you to be less than thrilled with them. Now don't get all defensive and prattle about this or that, this is from one friend to another, if you are not TOTALLY happy with em no problem I'll take em back.....I mean that. And it won't be a hardship on me. I would keep them only long enough to see if there was something amiss and they would be going back out as soon as I knew there wasn't or fixed the problem. BUT...before that happens we have some patience and some placement to try. I still believe in my heart you'll get em right and love em like I do, I saw your face when mine hit their stride when you were in THE CHAIR.....
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