JRH

Both shipped on 11 Oct. 1961. There is no indication of destination, but the grill cloth is referred to as "Chicopee 5247". Good thing you didn't get the next two. They were "B" versions, meaning no squawker or tweeter. Just a 12" with whizzer cone, and meant for upgrading when customer funds became available.

The original driver in the MSSM was a Cetec 10". This was soon replaced with an Eminence K-41-E.

This occurred in 1977, a year or so before I showed up. In speaking with Gary, he said he did attend the show in Fox, AR, and left early. His recollection was that the show was horrible, lots of crazies, paramedics treating OD's, and no other Klipsch employees to be seen. The MCM's were a Bob Moers effort. When returned to Hope, there were no signs of "flames". Just open voice coils. At the time the MCM's were essentially in prototype form. They were 3-ways with the Cetec HF4000 midranges and K-33-E woofers. Don Keele did the inspection of the returned speakers. His piezo tweeter arrays were the only survivors. This experience was likely to be the impetus to develop the K-43-E woofer, the MSSM "sub-squawker", and the 4-barrel manifold for K-55's. There have definitely been speakers returned with "flame damage", but according to Gary, not these. I suspect there may be "burnt pics" in the Archives that I have yet to run into, but Gary says he did not take any of this particular event.

I don't know about "quiet", but he was patently underwhelmed in general. No doubt about it.

I started in 1978, and most, if not all, amps were solid state. Crown, Mark Levinson, BGW, Revox, etc. I suspect the changeover could be determined, but it would take a heck of lot of research that I am not currently in the position of executing. I doubt it was a step function.

There have been many "old computer systems" failures to be backed up! Through 1983 (the end of the paper logbooks) the total Klipschorns exceeded 20,000. Over the same period the total Heresy's exceeded 173,000. At the time of the Heresy's introduction (1957) there had been a little over 1100 K-horns shipped. Therefore, roughly 18,900 K-horns were shipped vs. 173,000 Heresy's. To "engineering accuracy", the correct multiplier would be approximately 10 rather than 20. Obviously that multiplier could vary year-to-year.

These two left the factory on July 4, 1974 and July 8, 1974. Yes, several speakers were shipped that holiday. They included the AA network originally. Leading with a zero is odd, but Belle's started out this way with 0J004 Jan. 5, 1971. Not sure what happened with 001 thru 003. They may have been recorded in a 1970 book that I have yet to locate. Note: The signature (G. Wheelington) is the guy flipping the bird in the group photo attached.

I can't help you on resale value. My guess is "not much", in that it has no "glitz" or sex appeal like an EV 15K or the Stephens units.

EV paid PWK royalties on the Aristocrat, Georgian, Patrician designs, and possibly other models. EV was one of the relatively few audio companies that Paul had a decades-long positive relationship.

Damn. Now I gotta agree with HDBRbuilder!

Keele was responsible for the MTM piezo tweeter array. I suspect he had a hand in the HIP. His AES paper, What's so Sacred About Exponential Horns, caused a little "friction".

Would have to agree with wuzzzer.

Keele worked for about a year at K&A in 1977. Don is now an advisor to KHMA. I have yet to see direct evidence that Paul corresponded with Ray Newman, but I'm virtually certain that he did. There was a long-standing positive relationship between EV and K&A.

The mouth height is 12 3/4". They used a K-22 of various suffixes. The earliest one used was an EV K-22. The whole point was to be as small as possible, therefore a 12" woofer. I suspect there are curves, but that would be an Easter egg hunt at this point.

The one here is 21 3/4 H x 23 3/4 W x 24 1/2 D. They all use a 12" woofer.

I estimate 28 between 1966 and 1971. Note that the records are hand-written, and that the runt was occasionally interspersed with the regular LaScala's. I think I saw all of the references.

These were shipped to Blackstone Audio on 4/14/83. Pro serial numbers (except for some very early "Little Bastards") did not use the letter coding. Just 4 digits.

Paul licensed EV to make designs based on the K-horn and some Rebels. Two of them would be the Georgian and Aristocrat respectively. Without a deep dive in Archives, I believe this relationship started in the early 50's. Howard Souther of EV was a good friend of Paul's. EV actually PAID royalties, as opposed to other less respectable manufacturers. We have many of the those royalty payment records. Paul first licensed the K-horn design to Vitavox in England in the late 40's. Even old Radio Shack catalogs feature licensed K-horn copies.

The K-33-M was a Jensen driver with a 54 ounce ceramic magnet and a paper edge. It replaced their earlier version that used a ring Alnico magnet. In 1974 when I started at Rola, a large part of my job was converting Alnico structures to ceramic. This was due to Cobalt becoming a strategic resource, with Uncle Sam getting first dibbs.

During the latter 70's Klipsch speakers were used in many discos. For the most part they utilized MCM systems in various configurations, along with LaScala's. In one disco, the dance floor was actually built on top of at least 8 MWM's. The MWM would be the only contender for your situation that I can think of. I am not aware of Klipsch doing any custom work in this area, but I have seen the Klipsch logo attached to homebrew speakers.

Hi Bruce, These are relatively "new". In the early to mid-80's the serial numbers were computer-generated by constantly changing platforms, starting with Tandy! Those records are unknown to me, and almost certainly lost to history. It marked the end of hand-written shipping logbooks (to the historian's dismay).

That is not Lloyd. I think his name is Tony, but specifics are not coming to the surface right now. I believe #24 is Lloyd. Overall he seems to have been pretty camera-shy! If anyone has corrections to the other assignments, I'm all ears!

That early it would probably be Lloyd S. McClellan, Paul's first employee.

Worst corrosion I've seen. We just emptied our truck trailer of artifacts for a long-overdue inventory. This stuff has been in there 20+ years in the Arkansas heat (and a little cold). Definitely high humidity! Bottom center in the first pic is the worst. The second pic shows the zinc & yellow chromate plating on the front plate going south. It is actually turning to powder. But yours takes the cake. It's likely due to poor surface prep prior to painting. Your pic of the non-corroded driver looks like a back plate/magnet shift (no longer concentric). Amazing that it has not locked the voice coil!

The Belle ceased production in 2005, 3 years after PWK's passing. It was a business decision resulting from a near-zero demand. I believe the previous year's Belle production was less than 10. Possibly much less than 10.