soundbound

Way to go. Good job. I saw these and thought there was a good chance of them being restored. Good for you guys. Look forward to the up coming restoration pictures. Have fun at it and enjoy. It will be a good father and son project.

What other forums or sites besides here on Klipsch do you spend time to share and learn on audio?

Acoustics of the wood horn cabinet itself.

You may want to look at these. http://cgi.ebay.com/Altec-Lansing-JBL-Hartsfield-speaker-cabinet-clones_W0QQitemZ250004785198QQihZ015QQcategoryZ50597QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

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I feel you got a great deal and now he's even bringing them your way too. You must be living right. Congratulations! I've never heard a pair myself, but I've read that others say they sound real nice. I'm betting they will sound real good and you'll be happy with them. Let us know how it goes and how they sound.

Where does one go and hear a set of Heritage speakers? How does Klipsch sell speakers that no one can audition?

A great job, pictures, and write up! Thank you.

Good, my photo shows on post above. You can see new diaphragms left and old right. You can clearly see what age does. Check out those old voice coils. I understand that most old Heritage speakers can sound like new ones. As I stated, mine sounded OK when I got them, but now they sound better than OK. Others may not get the same results as I did. I'm not recommending that old Heritage speaker owners need to do this. I think it's great that there are those so passionate about their older Heritage speakers that they do not want to change anything about them to influence their vintage sound in any way. I consider replacing the diaphragms as an update and not an upgrade.

I'll try to post a photo.

Thank you for the photos. Great job! I enjoyed them. The 60th anniversary Klipschorns and their crossovers are beautiful! You all had a lot of fun. I'm going next year. How tall was Paul?

The original design is not being changed at all. New drivers are replacing old. The diaphragm and woofer replacements are just like the originals. Not different drivers. My speakers sounded OK with the old drivers. Being around electronics for many years, I've seen the effects of age. When I saw the working but terrible aged condition of the diaphragms I was not surprised. Ask others who have done 20+ year old diaphragm replacements what condition they have seen diaphragms in. My old working OK sounding diaphragms looked like someone baked them in an oven. Dark brown, dried out, and the voice coils were a green blackish color. The woofers looked OK. When I replaced them the sound improvement was very apparent! Highs and mids so much smoother and cleaner. The bass was so much better it was unbelievable! My old woofers were really worn out, but I had no way of knowing because of no reference. New woofers are $100, squawker diaphragms $50 and tweeter diaphragms $30 each. I found that to be a very low cost for the improvement I received. I completely understand those who say why fix it if it's not broken. For me it just made since to replace my 28 year old crossovers, wire, diaphragms and woofers. As I stated, I did not change the design at all. That's why I went with Bob's A/AA crossovers. They are like my originals, but new as are the woofers and diaphragms. If you heard the before and after, you would know why I posted. All 20+ year old electronics degrade and that is a fact.

IndyKlipschFan, No disrespect taken. I appreciate your input. I waited two years before updating. I thought my speakers sounded OK. I didn't have new ones to reference them, because I don't know of a store here to go hear a new set of Klipschorns. Let me just say, they sound so much better now!

I read here the first thing an owner of old Heritage speakers should do is replace the caps or even the crossovers. I agree with this completely as long as you listen to them for a period before this upgrade for reference. I say why not replace all that old wire with new wire while at it. What about the old aged K-33 woofers and diaphragms? I realize that the K-33 can last a very long time and still operate well, but doesn't its suspension system of spider, paper cone, and even cloth surround degrade some with those many years of hard stretching use and aged being exposed to those ever changing natural elements? I opened my diaphragms which operated OK and did they ever look their old age! The woofers and diaphragms do not cost all that much. Bob Crites sells them all at a very low cost. For not all that much money and one can even spread these updates out over time for budget reasons, one can have updated crossovers and all new drivers too making your old Heritage speakers as new. It is great that we can get these woofers and diaphragms at such a low cost. I've seen much higher cost for drivers of other speaker systems. We get off very cheap. My opinion is that new woofers and diaphragms will make the speakers sound better. Opinions?

Belleman, Do I see some musical instruments in the background of one of your speaker photos? I'm betting you play some of them. After you get your tweeter fixed record some of your live music and play it back through your Belles. You'll know exactly what it's suppose to sound like. You'll find out just how good they are! I have a good friend down my street who can play just about any instrument very well and owns many. He's very gifted in all areas of music. I go down to his house, he jams and records it unto CD. He usually lays down the bass track, drums, then guitar. He basically has a recording studio. I could not even begin to guess how much his equipment and instruments are valued at. We'll bring the CD to my house and listen to his just live performance still fresh in our minds and play it through my Klipschorns. It's like being back down at his house again with the live dynamics! It's a lot of fun. Main point being, is it live or Klipsch? Also, I bet a little oil will make those Beautiful Belles of yours shine up even sweeter. They look real nice! You did good and will get a lot of enjoyment out of them for years to come. Bob Crites is the man to deal with. I have dealt with him and found him to be first class in all areas. He really knows Klipsch speakers, his prices are very low and his stuff top notch! Welcome to the forum.

Nicely done!

I say why not go ahead and replace that old wire. Done right, it shouldn't have any negative effects. It's really not that much work. Get everything you will need and do it someday when you're looking around for something to do. Any decent lamp cord size or larger wire if you're feeling it should be fine. Crimp on some new shinny connectors. Clean up those old screws the best you can. Make sure all your new connections are nice and tight! Put on some tunes and enjoy the good job you've done. You'll have piece of mind, the pure enjoyment of doing it yourself, and bragging rights to why they sound so good now. I enjoyed doing mine. They look nicer and did I tell you how good they sound now. It's a fun hobby and the DIY part of it makes it that much more so. Enjoy...

These are some things I did with my low down firing sub on thick carpet. I made a board to place under sub on top of carpet to better reflect the bass. I removed the original sub feet. Placed small 3/4" pieces of boards at sub corners until I reached a bottom height that seemed to give me the best output. I placed new coned style feet from Parts Express on sub and adjusted them to new found desired height. You can make new higher feet out of wood easy enough if you do not want to buy new ones. Move sub in and out from wall to find best sounding output from wall reflection. An inch or less at a time can make a difference. My sub is in corner for corner loading also. Have fun.

I had the regular original release and it sounded fine. Bought the re-release 20-BIT remastered and noticed the higher hiss level right away. As mentioned, this is one of those cases where high efficient speakers and a closer copy of the original recording brings out the recording flaws. Most times I can deal with low level tape hiss of the original recording knowing I'm hearing something that close to the original with tape hiss included, but the high hiss level on this re-released the Definitive Version of Kind Of Blue is just too loud. A copy of the vinyl on CD would be fun.

Another method is take some sticky tape, press in onto the dust cap just enough to get it to stick, and then pull gentle on the tape piece pulling the dust cap back out. Sometimes you may have to do it more than once to get it all out. I've done this for friend's speakers with kids and had it work very well.

Wow.... He did a great job on that sub. A nice job on the photos of construction to. It was a lot of work building that monster sub horn! I bet it sounds great. I wonder how long it took him from start to finish? You know your sub is big when you need a huge handle and wheels. I like the Pi speakes. I bet they all sound nice. Thank you for the link.

You are so very right about Speaking in Tongues! It is a great CD to turn up your Klipsch and show what they can do. It is such a smooth and clean recorded CD. Good solid bass with never allowing it to go out of control. Highs and mids the same way. Very high volumes can be reached with no worry about your speakers doing something odd. No distortion and so very well recorded. One of those old recordings that they just got it all right in the studio. I really enjoy turning this CD up to rock the house or should I say Burning Down The House. A fun CD. Go get one and turn it up!

The seller is selling the bass horns too on his other items. They're huge! He must have a very understanding wife! Look here for more photos of them: http://cgi.ebay.com/Bass-Horn-Speaker-Ale-Compression-Driver_W0QQitemZ9739435080QQcategoryZ3276QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Klipschorn speakers.