CaptnBob

I'm not sure if this has been settled yet, as I haven't gotten around to reading all seven pages, but it looks like a Patrician IV to me. The IVs were a couple inches taller (62" vs. 60") than the IIIs and a bit narrower. Also the side panels on the IV were at 90 degrees from the front, while the III had the same panels at a bit more of an oblique angle. The Pat III had a 12" mid-bass woofer mounted in a wooden exponential horn on the top of the cabinet. The IV carried some oddball twin horn compression drivers. The IIIs had the early, narrow T-35 tweeter. The IVs could have the early or later T-35, the T-350, which looks like a T-35 time forgot, or even, on occasion an Ionovac tweeter. (I'll have to look that last up, as I am mining dusty corners of my memory here.) Fortunately, all the Electro-Voice T-35 and 350 variants used the same voice coil and diaphragm assembly, and repairs can still be made. The III I had was a job to get into, as you had to remove the mahogany shroud to get at the smaller drivers. The 18" was accessed through a hatch in the back, just like the Klipschorn. The IV was much simpler - there were tiny brass Philips screws in several of the brass rosettes. Once you got those out, and start from the bottom or the top may swing out prematurely and bop you in the head, the front panel could be lifted up and out of a slot. The woofer was behind a sheet of plywood, and everything else was readily open.

This comes up every couple of years. Mr. Klipsch's original thought was to have a center speaker which could be placed on its side under a window without blocking the view or stood on end and still have the tweeter as close to ear level as possible. That dictated putting the T-35 in the upper corner. As has been noted, early Cornwalls had red arrows on the backs of the cabinets indicating which side went up. When people like me started buying them in pairs for stereo, Klipsch had to go to the effort of keeping the speakers together in mirrored pairs from the wood shop to the living room. After about 15 years, Mr. Klipsch realized under window placement was no longer that big a selling point, especially since the instructions recommended against it, and it would be a lot less hassle to go with the format you see on the later CWs. Urban legend holds the verticals image better. Never been able to prove that one way or the other. As for the dispersion, Mr. Klipsch said the orientation of the smaller horns "didn't make a dime's worth of difference." It did and does on the K-400s, but not the Cornwalls' or Heresies.

I don't know how strong your antipathy towards firebottles is, but Quicksilver used to make a moderately priced tube amp for efficient speakers, called, appropriately enough, the "Horn Mono." Cute little things, and really quiet. Stay away from the solid state H-K Citations. Good sounding, but, even when they were new had a reputation for being a bit noisy. I know mine were. The Dynaco thing might be a tube giving up the ghost.

I was bumming around the used record store and audio junktique when I saw them. About two feet tall, with what appeared to be Philips soft dome tweeters and eight inch Frazier woofers. I could tell they were Fraziers because of the labels on the magnets. I could see the magnets because the cabinets were tinted plexiglas. Very striking. I thought I'd found some rare display item or something, However, on closer inspection, the level of workmanship was closer to "high school shop class" than "speaker factory." Still, they were fun to look at, and the sort of thing a Frazier person might be interested in.

Let me clarify myself. Sitting on the table, the 103LX, and the EV 15WK, for that matter, should read in the 3-4 ohm range. The horn loading increases the impedance when the speaker is in use. I tried putting 16 ohm Altec 515s in my Shorthorns once. You could barely hear them.

Make sure you get one that's 4 (actually more like 3.2) ohms. I think it's the 103LX version.

I have a pair of these jewels, in attractive blonde formica. OK, a really dated looking blonde formica. The good news is, the finish appears to be about indestructable. I've had them for a number of years, and, I'm ashamed and embarrassed to admit, I've never fully unpacked the second one. The one I have opened had Jensen drivers. The guy I got it from had sold it once, but the buyer only wanted the tweeter (201? Whatever the Jensen tweeter is which brings insanely high prices) so it came HF free. (Lucky for me I was able to find an Atlas tweeter which appears to be a drop in replacement.) Under the circumstances I was able to get it pretty reasonably. Of course, there were still several hundred dollars involved to pack and ship it. After all, it is big, heavy and funny shaped. When I opened it, the capacitors - the brick like looking things in the pictures above - had leaked a nasty green fluid onto the woofer. After I donned a hazmat suit, I was able to clean it off pretty readily. I'd like to replace them, but I have no idea what the values would be - they are unmarked. My impressions of the LEE are - workmanship ok, although the border around the grill looks a little cheesy. Sound quality, not bad, probably somewhere in the EV Aristocrat, small JBL, early Heresy line. Big mistake, at least on mine, is ignoring one of Mr. Klipsch's dicta: music lives in the midrange. That Jensen speaker cost around $5.00 in the mid fifties, which was probably a false economy in a unit of this class. I'm sure the JBL specified above would sound better. Contrary to what you might think, this doesn't appear to be a Klipsch design. The LEE people made a big deal out of the catenoid flare rate, although in practice, it doesn't seem to make that much of a difference. All in all, an interesting period piece. I suppose I should mention where I got the second one. A couple of weeks after the first one was delivered, I got an email from the man I'd bought it from. Seems he was going to work one day and saw a LEE Catenoid just like the one he'd shipped out sitting on the curb by the trash. He said I could have it if I wanted to pay the packing and shipping. Some questions are easier to answer than others. It came so well packed I just haven't had the motivation to open it all the way up - I've gotten about half way and it still looks like a four foot diameter ball of bubble wrap.

Actually, he did, going so far as designing a scarce variant of the Shorthorn to hold a TV. You can see it in some of the old ads with a 1950s style TV sitting on it. As someone who used to move LaScalas around on a regular basis, I was also glad he designed the horns so they would easily fit through a standard doorway - something that didn't seem to occur to JBL so much.

Mr. Klipsch said he wanted to be able to place a Cornwall underneath a window sill and keep the tweeter as high and close to ear level as possible. Putting it in the corner of the cabinet let the owner accomplish that whether the speaker was sideways or upright. He found out eventually not that many people wanted to put their speakers under windowsills, so he went to the current arrangement. It ended the headache of having to keep mirrored pairs together from construction to delivery. The "urban legend" holds the vertical Cornwalls image better, but I've never heard it demonstrated. He also said the dimensions of the Heresy were chosen so one could fit sideways over a typical doorway.

I'm talking tube amp, can't hold your hand on it for more than a few seconds hot. It seems to sound ok, both channels heat equally, and it doesn't get hot enought to shut down, even after a few hours. This is the larger receiver, not the 300. Heavy, about 60 watts per side.

Just throwing this out there for discussion - a lot of the songs on the list, if you get past the title, have lyrics that aren't particularly patriotic. Maybe that's the idea. My own favorites: American Salute - Richard Rogers Stars & Stripes Forever - John Phillip Sousa The Generals' March - Jerry Goldsmith Victory at Sea - Richard Rogers

Back when I was at Classic 99, KFUO-FM in St. Louis, I would play a lot of Anderson's music, especially around Christmas. He did some really nice arrangements of holiday songs - much more than "Sleigh Ride" and "Christmas Festival." Every year in late November, his widow, Mrs. Anderson, would send me a very nice letter, offering me a record or two, mentioning "Sleigh Ride" was always playing somewhere in the world at any given time, and reminding me that his first name was pronounced "Luh-ROY'" and not "LEE-roy." She was very insistent about it. He was one of those rare composers whose music has gotten woven into the public subconsious. Get one of his albums - I recommend the ones by Leonard Slatkin and the SLSO, Frederick Fennell and Eastman Winds, or, of course Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops. Listen to it and you'll be saying "Oh yeah, that's one of his?" a lot.

What's happening is the glass in one of the tubes is heating up and expanding. Sometimes it means nothing. Sometimes it is a harbinger of doom - the tube is getting more current than it's supposed to. You might want to get it checked out. Still, pinging just once is probably nothing too abnormal. I had an Audio Research amp which would periodically start pinging. It would then be a race to the power strip to get it turned off before the high-rise flames developed. Turned out it had a bad diode which would go off spec when it reached a certain temperature. When it was in the shop, on its side with the grillwork off, it never got hot enough to run away. It took a long time to convince the tech guys that the problem was not related to adult beverages. A tube being microphonic is another way of saying "Replace me now."

I used to have a Mac 60. A great amp, with enormous headroom. Not quite as detailed or punchy as a 275, maybe a little darker. A little noiser, too, but that could have just been mine. Some early versions had a variable damping control, which you'll probably never need. Figure on getting them refitted, as they will be over half a century old now. More dynamic than an MC 30, and to me, better sounding, although the bass did tend to be a bit tubby. In short, one of the reasons golden age tube amps have the reputation they do. The only flaw is a tendency to instability with odd loads. I once hooked mine up to a LsScala that was about 300 feet away. The 60 didn't like it - the 6550s turned red and everything. The Altec 128a I "threw into the breach" had no problems at all. One other odd thing - I guess it's the weight of the transformers, but a lot of the Mc 60s I've seen seem to be sagging in the middle just a little bit. All in all, a fine amp. You'll be happy with its "classic" sound, especially with Klipschorns. One last thing - ventilate! They run hotter than most Macs.

I'm not sure, but if memory serves me, EV used the same diaphragms on most of their tweeters, from the earliest t-35 to the ST-350. If this is the case, Great Plains Audio out of Oklahoma lists a 16 Ohm diaphragm on their website for an ST-350. Good hunting.

Quoth PWK: "The smaller horns, like the K-77 and K-600, have essentially the same dispersion vertically or horizontally. It becomes an issue with the bigger horns like the K-400." (more or less...)

Theoretically, the switch on a C-28 can handle the power needs of a 2105. However, since you do have a power switch on the amp, I'd plug it straight into the wall. Three reasons. One, the switch on the C-28 is expensive and hard to find should it go bad. Second, your amp will have an easier time getting the power it needs. and finally, it will let you turn the amp on last and off first, to minimize "thumping." Back when the C-28 was new, it was considered hip to have the output of the power amp go back into the preamp, usually through a set of screw connections. Doing this let you connect your amp to several different sets of speakers and switch them easily. In some cases - the Harman Kardon Citation 11 and Marantz 3300 come to mind, if memory serves, it also let the power amp drive the headphone jack.

Actually, the very first ones - pre about 1974 - were made out of fir plywood. They have a much rougher look than the birch ones do, especially on the edges.

The very first LaScalas were built for Winthrop Rockefeller's campaign against Orville Faubus (look him up - you'll appreciate PWK even more.) They had a 12" woofer and were much shorter than the LaScala we know and love. They look like they're sitting in a hole. The 15" version had the doghouse horizontially with the woofer hatch on one side. Soon, the doghouse was rotated 90 degrees and the hatch was put on the top. This made getting to the woofer - a concern with the advent of disco - a real chore. You had to take the top off, 16 screws as I recall, then remove the squawker horn, another 7 screws, and then go after the woofer door. Fortunately, the design lent itself to putting the hatch on the bottom. The LaScala has, until recently, been considered a P. A. speaker. It did come with a choice of woofers as described above, and could be ordered with a variety of handles (PWK used to say, "Peavey stole our horn, so we stole their handles.) coverings and edge treatments. At least it never had the indignity of the Altec VOTT, which, for a VERY brief period, was available in a "groovy" paisley paint scheme. The horror, the horror...

The 15TRX won't have any caps under the bell cover - it, and the 12TRX, had an outboard crossover, and separate terminals on the frame for the tweeter and woofer. The 15TRXb and 12TRXb, which had smaller magnets and T-35b tweeters, did have a cap mounted on the frame somewhere to keep the low frequencies out of the tweeters. Electro Voice, amazingly enough, still has spec sheets for the 15TRX and their other older speakers on their website, free for the downloading. You'll probably find two crossovers in each cabinet, an X-36 (3600 hz) between the tweeter and midrange and X-8 (800 hz) between the midrange, (actually the X-36) and woofer. Bob Crites wants around $314 for a pair of three way crossovers that would work well for you. Be gentle when you pull the TRXs. Sometimes the gasket will bond to the wood on the front of the cabinet and split and tear when you try to pull them. The 15TRX is quite heavy and easy to lose control of. You might want to work on them face down on a carpeted floor. Good luck - it'll be fun to see these giants when you get them.

I guess so. I guy I worked with gave it to me with a handful of Groove Tubes and JJs. He's quite a good guitarist.

Any idea who made this thing? It's not labeled, even to country of origin.

I forgot - check out the Electro Voice website. I think you can download spec sheets for the drivers there.

Sounds neat. Electro Voice made a lot of drivers for Klipsch in the "golden age" including the 15WK and K-77. PWK was never happy with their midrange drivers for some reason. The 15TRX got some bad rap back in the day for being kind of bright (I think it was J. Gordon Holt's take, but I can't put my hands on the review at the moment.) They are essentially an SP-15 with a T-35 tweeter, complete with magnet and voice coil, mounted in the middle, and what was called a "whizzer" cone to help propagate the mids. The midrange horn would be added to bring a bit of definition to the sound. The biggest drawback, and may be what Holt didn't like, was that they needed mammoth, refrigerator size cabinets to work their best - what you have is actually close to the small end of the scale. I talked to a retired EV engineer once, and after a ten minute rant about new management discontinuing the Patrician, told me the 15TRX was happiest in a 20 cu. ft. cabinet, and would reach subsonic frequencies when properly tuned. Too small a box, and they start getting honky. Hope you don't have to do repairs on the speakers. The tweeter kit can still be found, though installing it is not a job for the faint of heart. The woofer, well the expression SOL applies here, unless Great Plains Audio or somebody has made a few again. I got lucky when I needed to fix one of my 12TRXs, and found what may have been the last NOS cone in Missouri. Fortunately, unlike JBLs of the same period, Electro Voice surrounds do not seem to dissolve, and the drivers will last decades if not abused. I'm listening to a pair that are 53 years old as I type this. The only thing to watch for is if a careless installer's screwdriver slipped and punched a hole in the cone. The crossovers may be a problem - they were generally "potted" (filled with tar or something) and can't be fixed. Lucky for us, Bob Crites is making drop in replacements. Check out his website for more details. The attenuators are there to let you reduce the levels of the midrange and tweeter drivers. They are probably dirty, which will express itself as scratchy, intermittent operation. Shoot a good quality zero residue contact cleaner into them and work them back and forth rapidly until they feel smooth and don't sound funny. As far as sound quality goes, these are probably pretty close to early Cornwall, with a bit deeper (and perhaps chestier) bass and not as romantic a midrange. You will be happy with them. The Scott is an excellent choice to use with them. Although they are large (and loud!) they will not be happy about high power - they can be blown. Well, I know you asked what time it was and I told you how to cast the gears for the clockwork. To sum up - go for them. If you like Klipsch, you'll like these.

I should add, this sounds like something, if you decide to follow through on, you should bring a couple of friends - big friends, friends with baseball bats. Be careful.