elviszappa

I have a pair Epic CF-3 ver.2 that I'm reluctantly selling. They are in excellent condition but I just don't use them anymore and they are taking up way to much room. I have added port extensions to match the ver. 1 port length, I have dampened the horns and added new gasket material around all the drivers. I live in central NY right off interstate 81. I would like to get $850 for them but will consider offers. This is a stock photo, I'll post some picture shortly. Thanks for looking.

These are located in Cortland NY http://ithaca.craigslist.org/ele/5704346276.html

Thank you sir .... or madam !

I use mine with the grills off. I would like to see a front that looked more like these, hiding all the screws. (sorry I can't get it posted straight)

I saw this add will looking on Craigslist/Syracuse. http://syracuse.craigslist.org/ele/5667806503.html

Foam ... sorry these have gotten turned around, I can't get them to post right side up. pic 1 is the foam pic 2 is showing the top with side piece removed pic 3 is looking at the middle, down from the top pic 4 is the bottom of one speaker pic 5 is the bottom of the second

Woofer vents

Top woofer's only label

Horns after and gaskets before and after

Horns before

I have done a little upgrading on my CF-3s and I though I would pass on what I have discovered. First I pulled my ports an added port tube extensions to make the 5 1/2 inches long. Next I pulled the horns and dampened the back with a dynamat like sound deadener. Well I had them out I also replaced the paper thin gasket with some 1/8 thick gasket that I got from parts express. I ended up doing this to all the drivers. These made a huge improvement in the "ringing" (sort of) that you could here when you tapped on the horn. At this point I though I should take pictures to document what the inside of a stock pair looks like. I found many curios things. Check the pictures below. The first speaker I opened had colored wiring so along with the short ports, I guessed I must have Ver. 3...maybe Ver. 2. I should remind everyone that my speaker are the CF-3 with no serial numbers that are mentioned in another post with that title. They do actually have serial numbers but they are so faded that they can't be read. Anyway when I opened the second speaker ... monster cable wiring! I read a blog (https://silverfacestereo.com/2015/05/13/epic-klipsch-cf-4/), where the writer had found the same thing in his CF-4's. Mine must be a mismatched pair, serial number wise or they were made right near when they were switching types of wire (!). Who knows. So I dug deeper. I looked at both crossovers (without removing them) and they matched. My pair match the CF-3 (not the CF-3 schematic. I fairly confident that they are Ver. 2's. An other things I found is none of my drivers are labeled. I have seen some pictures that show stickers with part numbers. Mine have none. Now the top drivers only in each speaker have a faint stamp on the back of the cone that reads " DU 56 ( 4 ) or maybe OO 56 ( 4 ) or even DU 56 147 ... but this is only on the top woofers, the bottom one have nothing. I also looked closely at the foam damping and how it was arranged. It is made up of pieces that are 27" long, 12" wide and 1" thick. Both speakers were arranged in a specific pattern. Starting at the top front one piece form front to back and then down the back to about even with the first brace. Then another wrapped around in the other direction covering both sides and making the back double thick. Behind the horn and also the bottom there were 2 pieces that started from each side and over lapped in the back make the back double thick as well. The bottom "floor' was bare. It is obvious that the foam was not just jammed in there randomly, but instead was placed it a thought out pattern, all side covered with a 1" layer and the back with a 2' layer and the floor nothing. The last thing I found was the back of the woofers are vented with a small screen covering the hole. On one of my woofers the screen was loose so I took it off to re-glue it. The inside is interesting and hard to describe. There is a hole that goes down 3/4" and then there are 2 holes, opposite each other that go into what you would think was the magnet. I assume this is to vent the voice coil for cooling.

** SOLD ***

I was following you yeliab1 ... and it all help's. Comparing the CF-4 ver.3 to the CF-3 ver.3 it looks like the HF is pretty close but the LF has larger differences in values. I'm sure do to the 12" vs 10" drivers. I my my mind using the CF-4 ver.1 values above will not help me in reconstructing a schematic for the CF-3 ver.1. Back to were I started I guess.

I'm trying to work this into schematic using the CF-3 (pn) as a starting point. I sure wish I knew were 5uf is located in HF section. Either before the .650mh (FC) or between the 1.0mh an the 2ohm resistor. Any thoughts anyone? Then again these parts are from a CF-4 ver. 1 ... they may not be the same in a CF-3 ver. 1

pic's of the amps and racks.

Just an update. I have been playing these for about a month now and these amps sound wonderful. I have a CD player plugged directly into them (no preamp) and they're powering my Klipsch Heresy II's. The sound is "jaw dropping". It's really unbelievable considering they are 58 years old. They have very clean sound with a wide sound stage and dead quiet when nothing is playing. . . even at full volume. Because of their rack mount design I have constructed a rack to hold them and it is included with the amps. The rack is made of 99% vintage Bell System parts to match the amps and kept everything "period correct". The amps weight 40 pounds each and in the rack the whole thing weights 99 pounds! I have dropped the price to $8500.00 but I will consider reasonable offers as these really need to go! I have them listed on usaudiomart.com under; "FOR SALE: Attention McIntosh/Western Electric Collectors - 1 Pair of Tube Amps from 1958"

Has any CF-3 version 1 owner compared their crossovers to the schematic's CF-3 (pn) and CF-3 B and confirmed which is truly version 1 (if either is!) What bothers me is that in schematic CF-3 (pn) there appears to be a revision(?) in the upper right corner " F: Changed for smoother response". Also, like schematic CF-3 B, at the bottom it list the wire colors. I can't help but wonder if these are schematic's of version 2 and 3 ... and not the original version 1. From what I have read there were crossover changes made with each version so it seems there should be 3 schematic's not 2. I would love to have this cleared up before I start my crossover upgrade. Also ... what is the exact length of the ports on version 1's? I have seen them listed from 5 1/2 to 6 inches. CF-3 (pn).pdf CF-3 B.pdf

Thanks for the thumbs up wvu80. I felt like it was a fair price but it's always good to hear that a fellow forum member agrees! Do you know if all the versions had poly-cone woofers?

Thanks avguytx ... those links were just what I was looking. Sounds like you were happy with the results changing your crossover from a Ver. 3 to a Ver. 1. I thinking I am going to do the same. A few questions if you don't mind. Where did you the longer port tubes? How would you describe the change to the low end with the different port tubes? Did you leave all the driver the same?

I live in Central NY so I took a drive to Albany yesterday (6 hour round trip) and ended up buying then. I gave him the asking price of $450. I normally never pay full price but they are in near new condition and they came with a KV series center channel and a pair of matching KV surrounds. I have no use for them so I'll sell them and that will be my discount. The grill are also in good condition but very dusty near the bottom. I'll wait for a warm, sunny day a give them a good hosing off. I have always liked the look of grills off so they can wait. Thanks for the heads up Lost240 ! When I got them home I hooked them up and they sound overly bass heavy. So I cranked up a variety mix of music and let them play for about 5 hour straight at a fairly loud volume. This morning when I played they seemed to have "balanced" out and sounded much better. The owner told me he had not played them in many years so maybe that accounted for the sound change or it could be I had to get accustom to there sound. As for the label, at first look it does look like there is no serial numbers but when I look with a magnifying glass I can see they were there but are now almost completely faded. I'm not really sure if I will ever be able to read them. I plan on recapping the crossovers. So wondering if anybody has tried "downgrading" version 2/3's to version 1's by changing the crossovers values and replacing the short bass ports with version 1 ports? Could anyone (Moray James?) post the crossover schematics for all 3 versions? I know I saw the posted already but now I can't find them now. TIA

It's been a number of years since Klipsch released the Heresy III ... has anybody gotten a schematic of its crossover? I have seen a few pictures and it looks very different from H II's. I would like to see what they have improved.

Sold locally via craigslist

I should have posted a close up. Also, I forgot to mention these weigh about 40LB each. They are heavy industrial duty inside and out.

Duh ... how did I miss that !

** UPDATE SOLD ** For Sale - Western Electric KS-16575 (made by McIntosh) Mono Tube Amps - serial numbers 107-108 I bought these from a retired New York Telephone central office technician of 39 years. He got this pair in the early 1970’s as they were being taken out of service and being scraped! He put them in a box and they sat in his attic till this earlier this year. First off, a little history about these amps. These amps these were made for one year in 1957-58. There is a description on Roger Russell’s McIntosh history web site under, KS 16575-L1 (A-125) http://www.roger-russell.com/amplif2.htm. These (and later versions) were used to power intercom systems in Bell System central offices. The gentleman I bought them from confirmed this. They were rack mounted in large “relay racks”. That’s why all the input and output wiring is internal within the amps case, no wiring is sticking out that could be snagged. I have found 4 different sets of these (2 in the U.S. and 2 in Asia) that sold over the last few years and I noticed on all of them the serial numbers were included in “product info label” printed by McIntosh on the amps. They were all in serial number 800 and up range. On mine the serial number is left out of the standard product info label and is instead printed off to left side of it. Mine are number 107 and 108. I have been told that some of the early McIntosh amps started their labeling at 101 instead of 01 but I can find no one at McIntosh that can confirm this is the case with mine. I though it odd but I did not really give it more though until I got a reprinted copy of the original McIntosh “instruction manual” from Audio Classics. Printed on the front it says for “Serial Number 301 and UP”. This is my theory on why mine is labeled differently, and have talked to some McIntosh gurus and they think it sounds plausible. My amps came from a large central office in downtown Syracuse NY. There used to be a huge Western Electric manufacturing and warehouse facility on Thompson Rd. in East Syracuse. McIntosh is about 70 miles south of Syracuse in Binghamton NY. Western Electric needed a large quantity of amps (a couple thousand?). They contract McIntosh to make them, either to their own Western Electric design or a McIntosh design (they are similar to the McIntosh MI 10 of that era). They at least specified the input/output requirements and rack mount size that they needed. So McIntosh starts making them and when they a quantity (100-200-300?) they start sending them to Western Electric in Syracuse to make sure everything is correct. Maybe changes were made along the way or maybe not. Once Western Electric is happy McIntosh cranks out the rest of the order and starting at 301, standardize and finalize the info printed on the amps and print up the final instruction manual. The first batches Western gets they started putting in “local” offices in the Syracuse/upstate NY area either to test them out or just to start using them. On the inside of my set there is a date, Feb. 02 1958 printed. It maybe the Bell System “in-service date” that they were installed but I think it was the date they were made. I have not seen this on the pictures of the other KS-16575 amps, though there are very few pictures of these available. Along with the McIntosh instruction manual (dated 11-23-57) have a copy of the much more detailed, 11 page Bell System Practices (B.S.P.’s) manuals (dated 03-01-58). These include installation instruction, full specs (with charts), parts list and schematic diagram. These amps are all original and untouched. I have a mix of NOS and new tubes that will be included. They had no tubes when I got them. These amps will be a "once in a lifetime" find for a die hard McIntosh or Western Electric collector. Do to their rarity I'm asking $10000 now $8500.00 for the pair. I am willing to consider reasonable offers.