Captn Bob

Thanks! I knew I was coming to the right place.

In the lower left corner of the Hickox 533 I'm looking at is a knob marked "line adjust." What's the best way to adjust it? Thanks.

These were the amps of choice at the Music Box, the long time New England Klipsch dealer, for those who couldn't swing a Mac or Marantz. A good amp, but you might want to invest in a small fan to help keep it cool. They seem to be seriously undervalued these days. Maybe it's the cost of the tubes.

The primeval Heresies were designed to be used as center channels and were considerably shallower than today's Heresy. The worst that could happen is you'd lose some low end, which probably would not be a problem in your case.

I believe they used to say it was about 4 feet long before it entered the room.

Agree completely on both counts.

Or for that matter, three Model 5s - the amp PWK took with him to Europe for the World's Fair. He said they had trouble with the Russians trying to sneak into the exhibit and seeing just how loud Klipschorns could go. I assume they were never disappointed. Several of the early Marantz ss preamps had center outs, like the 7-t you mentioned, and the 33 and 3300. Both of the latter were pretty good sounding, and are kind of underpriced nowadays.

Playing a long shot - one of my '74 Cornwalls had the same problem when I first got it. I traced the problem to a cold solder joint inside one of the transformers. I peeled back the wax paper, resoldered it and it's been fine for the last 37 years, I'm not recommending you do this unless you are pretty experienced with such things. The midrange driver on the Cornwall is really hard to damage - PWK used to say they almost never got them back for repair. You've got good advice above. You should be able to figure it out without too much trouble. Remember, you're just trying to isolate the problem one thing at a time. Bob A.

Ideally, you would come out of your center channel output - a lot of amps and preamps of the time, like the McIntosh MX 110 and Scott 299c had one - and connect it to a dedicated mono power or integrated amp In the late fifties, early sixties, there were a lot of those floating around cheap. Failing that, PWK had the circuit described above - you connect the + terminal on the center speaker to the - terminal on the left speaker and the + terminal on the center speaker to the - terminal of the right speaker. The - terminal of the center speaker then returns to the amp. Not all amps like this arrangement. Audio Research and HK Citations come to mind. You will let out copius amounts of smoke. You need an amp with a common ground or neutral.

I replaced the 15wks in my Shorthorns with a pair of Altec 515s. Not a happy combination. First I had to put extra gaskets on the woofers so the cones wouldn't slap against the front of the cabinets. Then I discovered that a 16 ohm Altec may lose a bit of output against a 3.5 ohm EV. If you turned the bass up enough, the Altecs sounded ok, and would go quite deep. It's been a while since I've heard Trusonics in Shorthorns, but as I recall, they were magnificent, in a huge room with a vaulted ceiling. Right now, I've got a pair of 15WKs in my Shorthorns, painted grey crackle, badged Klipsch with "PWK" on the dustcaps and with a phenolic (orange) surround. They sound great and go plenty deep - probably my favorite speakers in these cabinets.

These were real popular in the first days of CDs because they sounded good and they did lend themselves to modifications. I've got one myself. One of their selling points is they have a digital output, so you could start by getting an outboard converter. I'm always a bit leery of getting inside and poking around in these things unless you really have the experience. Otherwise you can have a "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" experience real quick.

Beautiful! Well done.

You'll love it - I was amazed at what a huge difference mine made. I've got an SA-15S1 from Mike at Audio Classics. I was expecting an incremental improvement over the 8250, but this was something else. If you're into classical music at all, start stocking up on the Telarc SACDs while you still can, beginning with the Firebird, the Fennell recording of Holst's Suites for Band (featuring the drum that sold a thousand subwoofers) and Kunzel's readings of Rodeo, Wellington's Victory and the 1812 Overture. The only problem I had with mine was the remote didn't work when I got it. Turns out there's a tiny switch on the back of the player. I'd have found that out sooner, but it would have required reading the directions, and who does that?

Bill Bell, the longtime and much esteemed New England McIntosh and Klipsch dealer, sold his Marantz 9s and bought an Mc-2205 to drive his K-Horns. Since he could presumably could have had anything he wanted, that's quite a recommendation.