Audible Nectar

He's a good dude, sold/sent me a Crown K! amp that was just what the doctor ordered for my passive subs in my HT. No surprise he made somebody else's day.......

Teflons are better, LOL 😉 I don't think the conflict is irreconcilable, at least if you consider that one just cannot use it for some certain prior purposes. It would be irreconcilable if it were all about those certain purposes. It's easy to get wrapped up in that, especially one like myself who pretty much arrived where I am today because of those specific purposes. But it is too a fact that nothing stays the same, and he who owns the gold makes the rules, as certain as death and taxes. The said, the place can and still be good for other approved purposes, it might be a bit before a lot of us adjust to those new realities - some of us in fact have been working on things as a result of these new realities for some time now. There is a such thing as cup half full if we wish to drink from that which IS provided.......or not. So I try to not step in it too much, as much as I am attached to those old concepts there's still another aspect to the place that is still useful, just not on those certain subjects. It WILL take some getting used to for a lot of us.

This has become a bit of a running joke on other forums, what to call our modded stuff (Antifawalls, etc). My understanding is "no non-Klipsch updates". No aftermarket that's not Klipsch. If it is we are to yap about that elsewhere.

There have been a number here over 20 years who were very much good with Cornwalls over any of the larger brethren, fully knowing that "by the book I know I should like the bigger that's supposed to be better, but there's something about those that I just like". Read it, heard it hundreds of times. I have oft said here that if a Martian came to Earth and asked me what a loudspeaker looks like I would show a Cornwall. That box is so perfect for the purpose inherently (approximates the golden mean/ratio), and while the IV version is no doubt tweaked and perfected to make it the best Klipsch can make it be today, ANY of the iterations, I-IV inclusive, perform far beyond what technology exists in these boxes. Big enough to have heft, and the 1" midrange throat gets you into the "bigger leagues" in terms of openness vs the smaller stuff - where a Forte just cannot compete. A low order B2 networked Cornwall from the 70's shouldn't sound as good as it does, but it does 🙂 No where else does a whole exceed the sum of its parts like exists in a Cornwall, and almost anyone can find a room that they can work in, and used are the grand champion speaker deal of all time while yet still offered in the most refined version yet brand new. I have an all-Cornwall theater, with three across the front inclusive and it's quite an impressive experience.

Does this mod make this "no longer Klipsch" (non-Klipsch installed modification)?

John Deere x739 owner here, certainly not what one would think of as a "prototype tractor owner" but that setup has allowed me to take care of our property in ways I never expected. Shaft PTO really is another level for an in town property tractor (triple lot plus wooded). Mostly it allows me to do the big jobs such that I have more time to take care of smaller things that really make a difference in how a property builds out or looks. When the work gets heavy I can do it now, be it turf or snow.....that machine plus the COVID shutdown made for one of the most productive periods for property improvements that we've had here, and since I got it before all that stuff broke I got it on terms I couldn't refuse. You haven't lived until you've greased some of these setups lemme tell ya😃 Love that little beast......

Absolutely. I've seen people attempt to install these speakers in some rather inhospitable environments. If I get a "no bass" complaint there's a whole litany of things to look at - phasing (yes, people DO make errors here), gear (YES, there are "better" amps for these Heritage than others and they are NOT all "The Same"), as well as the room which could just be an acoustic nightmare one cannot do anything with. With Cornwalls, though, they have enough flexibility that if you let them have "first pick" - IOW, you put those speakers where they sound best in the room, then build the rest of the room around that in terms of layout - that you should have a good chance of success. I've had these speakers in some less than ideal rooms too, but there ARE things that can be done if the room isn't cooperating. It might not be "ideal" but one can make it "better".

I don't think that most people could measure light in degrees Kelvin nor would they have any real clue years ago about the "temperature of light". Now we expect that spec to be on the box of the bulb being purchased in a lot of cases. I think many of these characteristics are simply things we haven't attempted to measure but not necessarily "unmeasurable". Can you measure the dryness or sweetness of wine? I experience the "warm up" characteristic every time I turn on my systems, neither sound their best for a couple of hours...... .....all that said I find it odd that a Cornwall would lack bass for 500-700 hours, if anything I would expect the top sections to be a bit edgy until the caps complete the break in, not knowing for sure but wouldn't be surprised if it took a couple hundred but that's a high frequency thing (and usually rather subtle) and the bass driver should "be what it's supposed to be" within 20-50 hours at most (as the woofer "flexes" out of new such that it attains its most tuneful performance). I find "The Hue Of Sound" to be a really interesting topic but I would think waiting for a 500 hour change on a set of CW would be akin to waiting for Godot.....

I tell people that it's no different from a boat (a large hole in the water you throw money into). Similar results 🙂 Another way I look at crypto is "an attempt at private (as opposed to government) currency". Trust the "private" part of this at your own risk.

I know it all seems high/crazy, and I'll agree with OP on the Heresy example, but I see it as the market knowing and realizing what they really are and worth to a degree (see Mac stuff 30 years ago). We said for years that these speakers (like Cornwalls, LaScalas, etc) were the greatest speaker deals on the planet with sound quality far exceeding their cost, and that was absolutely correct. Today, people are paying what they think they are worth, and given the performance it's hard to really argue - and I say all this full well knowing "the magic trick" of getting this stuff for pennies on the dollar years ago, while home designers were forcing the expulsion of Heritage to the favor of "sound cubes" and acoustic messes. Remember too that with the increase in price comes the "right buyer" ponying up the coin because they are close, or just the vintage the buyer wants, or whatever, and you then see what used to be outliers becoming the norm. The secret is out now and the market is speaking. So you can blame it on us crowding all up in here yapping for the decade of 2000-2010 about how good of a deal and how awesome these are and how it's crazy these are out of production. Well take a look at things now. Feel free to forward the commission check to this inbox (or said certificate for a free pair of Cornwall IV) for letting the world know what they were all missing, and for increasing the value in these precious assets and getting Klipsch back into the business of building a Heritage LINE. Just the fact they are building Forte IVs tells me they are making a big success of it. We told you so 🙂

Currently, I'm suggesting the new Adam Curtis work "Traumazone" (BBC), a seven hour documentary film on post-Soviet Union Russia from 1985-1999.

I've done this for years (all identically drivered/crossovered Cornwalls). I took a 60's era Cornwall II and laid it on its side for the center channel then just set the flat screen on that (half inch memory foam sheet to cushion it), surrounded with 70's era Cornwall cabs on the other channels. Then I added two of the JBL 4638 low frequency reinforcement cabs as LFE to the system, and let me tell you nine 15" drivers can really pressurize a room, and rather effortlessly at that. A bunch of us on here bought those cabs from a JBL earthquake liquidation some 15ish years ago (they sold them for the tax and shipping - it was nutz) and they've been a match made in heaven. I've updated the system at points (new McIntosh core and other updates) but it's still the "All Cornwall Theater" that it has been for over 15 years and is "end game" sort of stuff.

Here's the thing about waiting for stuff like this (of which I have waited quite a while for some stuff): Once you get it and it meets/exceeds expectations you quit thinking about how long it took to get it, aside from knowing that it was worth it. I effectively toasted a home theater two months into COVID and it took until just recently to finally install and use the finished product but it was completely worth it. Usually stuff that comes easy oft isn't really worth it where the really GOOD stuff takes time to get and is worth the effort to procure. I have a 5.1 theater system with rebuilt Cornwalls and a twin pair of JBL twin 15" LFE cabs in a slightly larger room, and I thought I was running a nuke as a flyswatter, but this is on another level entirely. I set my rear Cornwalls on short end tables to achieve a similar end for the rears with effective results. Fantastic system. Truly "Big Time". Thanks for showing that....

"If the plane crashes, the pilot bears the responsibility" - flight training institutions everywhere Have fun with your new toy, Mr. Musk.....

Right, but even ZBig wrote books telling people what he was thinking and up to and he was pretty forthright in explaining his intentions (in his particularly chosen linguistic way), then he would go on shows explaining his position on occasion. You know, stuff that adults who really want to know what's going on might read or watch. As unpleasant as some of that was at least it was "horses mouth" and you understood his position. But instead you get to listen to some bubblehead tell you to accept whatever it is that is happening under the guise of some WWE style presentation (making the old Saturday Night Live "Point/Counterpoint" look like some version of the proverbial vacuum tube compared to today) where it's endless "SQUIRREL" and innuendo nonstop and nowhere for the "adults" to get real, hard information on anything besides being almost one's own researcher and just watching results after the fact. There's very little "horses mouth" anymore, they are all sitting behind rows of these bubbleheads, playing a game of "access" via screens primarily, and they don't get access unless they sell the power's version of events. No real "facts on the ground" because it's impossible to get "hard reporting" when you are sitting on your a-- in a glass lined studio in New York. News bureaus used to spend some of that money on reporters nationally such that they at least had some "institutional knowledge of the region" and now it's just some "spokesmodel personality" functioning as "infotainment" asking the dumbest questions in the universe while setting a narrative begun before she ever got on the plane to do that job in the first place. There was a time when SOME investigative journalism was done by these orgs, but not much today, in part because it takes real research and legwork to do the stories but also stories tend to end up limited to what does not affect overall corporate profits. Whatever politic the various outlets display really doesn't mean much, it's all attempts to gain slices of the potential audience and make money for the parent corporation. The first and primary ideology and directive of modern news orgs is profit. When the "head" on one side of the screen says "The Sky Is Blue" and the other side says "No, it's made of green cheese" and the moderator allows the viewer to think theres'a 50% chance that one side OR the other is correct, and then calls that "balance", then the only choice I'm left with at that point is to thank whatever dude in the sky runs things that I had a vasectomy and didn't have any kids. I just don't know where to go with suggestions on the news biz after that, let alone any valid opinions about it, and the implications of all this are unnerving to say the least. "We're a wh---house of a network and we have to take anything we can get." - Paul Hackett "You're never gonna get any truth from us - we lie like hell." - Howard Beale

One aspect that's interesting surrounding the news business over time (and part of what makes the film "Network" so prescient) is that it primarily comments from an era when the "news business" was separated from the "entertainment end" of the network such that it could perform its public service function (by at least telling people what actually happened today). Back when we had three national networks, part of the "deal" was that these networks were required to provide a certain amount of time for the public service of news and information as well as room for editorial comment as well as "local issues programming". It was designed to be "not for profit" and in many cases lost money because it cost more to put those reporters on the street and into newsrooms than the shows actually made......and that was quite OK, because the entertainment "end" more than made up for it. Most news was "staid" - read "boring" by today's standards, but watchers knew what was happening and what the "debate angles" were on a broader basis, and people in turn made their choice at the polls. Then a thing came along called "60 Minutes" - that showed that tough investigative journalism could also be VERY profitable, especially if one told stories of interest, and especially when the program could explain to the viewer WHY it was important. And there was a certain amount of "sexy" that was associated with busting corporate or high government chops, or the biggest ideas gaining popularity in the country to which that show would give very interesting and effective journalistic rigor to some of the most important topics at large. Once that can of worms was opened, then pressure starts to build that ALL news product should be profitable and the "public service" idea was not so important. Bear in mind also that these networks were "stand alone" entities who were not owned at the time by other conglomerates. They were broadcast entities independently and exclusively, albeit commercial enterprises by way of accepting and broadcasting advertising within it. So they weren't as attached to other corporate missions or agendas..... Then, as scriptwriter Paddy Chayefsky explained, an attempt was made for a corporate conglomerate to buy ABC - and as part of that buyout offer was a promise to "make news profitable" and that's when the "light" went on, because if news HAD to make a profit, it would end up populated by soothsayers, public opinion polls, and sideshow freaks of all kinds, which would take what good DID exist (by way of an idea called "standards and practices") in the early days of TV news and throw it down the drain. In that respect Paddy really did see the future of where news was about to go, all the way back in 1976, and that became the impetus for the film "Network" - and that film remains as important today (if not moreso) than it was when it was released. Paddy understood the implications in the big picture and it was not very pleasant. A warning packaged as satire - which todays reality has lapped many many times over - making "Network" one of the most hauntingly forward seeking films that Hollywood ever produced, because Paddy really did see where all this was going, some 50 years ago. Not that it was always pure "news" but the people in it were earnest and genuinely believed in and tried to do right by the profession. That struggle between "old news idea and what it should be" and what it became is the crux of the film "Network" and as such - and especially in the rear view mirror is one of the greatest films of all time.

They are ALWAYS selling SOMETHING, and sometimes multiple products at the same time, and then there's the actual commercials. It's not just worthwhile to decipher all of the items, ideas, and concepts actually being "pitched" here but to then assess who is actually buying them.......and then one will learn a whole lot about what it is that makes the world go round 🙂 "The world is a business, Mr. Beale, it has been since man crawled out of the slime....." - Arthur Jensen "Keep your hands off my News Division" - Max Schumacher We all know how that turned out, LOL....

Disagree. Put those up for "market price determination" (read: auction) showing the condition AND the OG boxes and that 400-600 figure will get lapped several times over, especially during Holiday or tax refund seasons, IF this is all in near mint condition. These aren't "normal used Heresys" at least from what we can see, and prices are much much higher than they were years ago. It's probably true that with more "rash" and no boxes (IOW, just an old pair of Heresys) then that sub 1K number would be correct, but these aren't just normal used Heresys they are in too good of shape (at least with what info has been given here). I'd be curious what the boxes and rest of the cabs look like too.... If all those are worth on the open market is $600 I would never let them out of the stable. Too good for that money.....

If they are in good shape they sure do. I think most members of this forum are really not realistic as to the TRUE VALUE on the market today for these speakers, some of us understood full well just how good of a deal we were getting in the oughts for these, and just how undervalued they were, then the market figured out what it was missing (thanks to us for a decade, then Klipsch bringing all of these into new production and thus setting a "price bar" for everything below them) and now the true market is being discovered for these. The other thing driving the used market is that all those GOOD CONDITION Heritage have homes and have found their "place" - and those owners sure know what they are worth given new prices - and are oft restored/reworked such that they are assuredly good for another run of decades. All those Cornwalls being owned by newly married dudes with wives insisting getting rid of those for Bose back in the 90's/00's are loooooooong gone and those speakers are now in homes that want them (like mine). If CIV is worth $6500 at issue than a nice clean set of CI is worth 2K - that's almost no-brainer territory if you ask me. Of course I knew this in the oughts 20 years ago when I bought up three really nice CI pairs and a pair of Belle Klipsch for what those Belle Klipsch would assuredly cost me today. A Cornwall II cost about 2K per pair in 1989, thirty years later (if you figure a doubling every ten years) the $6500 Cornwall IV isn't far off the mark. Might be a little low, even. I used to say in the 00's that the Cornwall I and similar Heritage series from the late 1960s to the early 1980s was the best speaker deal on the planet, getting those out of the used market. Even with prices pretty much tripled, they are STILL the best speaker deal on the planet. They're not, but It's not as shocking/out of line as it may seem, particularly in a situation that if the buyer is local and no long drives or shipping is involved the odds increase that he will get the seller closer to his asking price. As soon as someone starts to figure out what it takes to ship halfway across the country and add those costs in, some buyers might well bite on these if convenient/local. Maybe not at 6K, but at a price that still gives a good return to the seller, because goods like these have real value. These aren't $1000 pairs anymore, either.

There goes the neighborhood......

I do think that there are differences in sonics among different wire and metallurgy formulations.....pretty much anything one passes a signal through will affect the signal on some basis, sometimes very marginal, sometimes more so...... .......but the REAL argument in my mind is that this stuff is WAYYYYY overpriced and shrouded in mystery as to be believable. I don't hear/see any hi-fi shops offering to send you home with five pairs of ICs or speaker cable formulae (and even if hefty margin was involved, like $200/500 per reasonable length) for trial such that you could put those claims to the test, or even if true really know what synergizes best with your system. I am NOT going to shell out those sort of dollars on non-returnable/non-trial basis stuff and be told just to "believe" - that's not going to cut it. And I've put in more than my share of time on cap, tube roll evals and everything else but the wire stuff in it's presentation, claims, and methods of trial and proof make impossible to reasonably "play" in this space absent just silly money to just "blow". I am one of the "convincible/sellable" ones but not at the silly prices these people charge and how today's production methods work. I well know that good iron on a power amplifier costs some $$. But even if that wire is pure gold strand it can't cost what these people are charging. Caps are almost as silly but at least that "field" is still more narrow and something is known at least of their basic characteristics, where the wire thing just got to pure stupid.

Most of these speakers have had the backs off a time or two. If anyone bought Cornwalls used and didn't pull the backs first that's also recommended and another reason they get removed, etc....to make sure what's in there should be 🙂 When the backs are removed, or just simply mounted for 30-50 years without alteration, yet with 100db woofer pounding over it's life there's bound to be a bit of vibration. Without a "cushion" - think "window seal" there's going to be a chance for a smidge of rattle or vibration. The gasket isolates that, the finish washers widen the screw head to make sure the back bonds to the now cushioned fitting such that it seals and does not vibrate. I lay the speaker on it's face, remove the screws, clean the inset where the back resides, apply the gasketing along the bottom inside edges (no gaps), then re-install the newer screws/finish washers. I suggest doing this by hand (don't use power drills, you want to guide the new screws in) and do it in a fashion where you "tension them" in a half turn at a time once you get close, to seat the back evenly/gradually as you fasten it down (think auto lug nuts and "cross tightening). BTW the Hillman screws came from Lowes in the blister packs, the stainless steel types. Take the old screws with you and match them up, even selecting a half inch longer version to assure the threads don't become loose. In extreme, worn out mount hole scenarios I've seen carpenters wood glue mixed with sawdust, then squeeze a bit in the old screw holes to fill the "wear out". Now also in an ideal world you would do this AFTER any and all repairs, crossover work/replace, anything one plans to do inside the cab should be done, then seal them up for the next number of years.

I rebuilt six of my Cornwalls recently (Cornwall Is) using the aforementioned Parts Express gasketing tape and new stainless steel screws with eyelets. The screws are a half inch longer than original, but slightly more "meaty" though the threading yet with identical "pitch" to the thread. These being the "Hillman" brand - seemed to work out really well. Spent considerable time selecting them to make the best of the rebuild. The eyelets help a great deal to "fasten" the board to the mounting space and the gasketing (thicker/more substantive than it would first appear online) served to really seal that off and curtail that "resonance" issue. I was sold a set of otherwise all original Cornwalls on this forum some years ago that had this done, and noted how well that seemed to work, so I duplicated it in essence and got same results. But yes, if unattended that aspect of the speaker is really audible, and once it's "disappeared" you go "oh wow that really was an issue huh????" The eyelets really seemed to be a big part of it too - really "grips/locks down" the board edges and prevents vibration, and the added screw length/slightly more "filled out" thread made for a solid grip. The rear board will actually be offset/"stick out" about 1/8-3/16ish from the gasketing all the way around instead of flush, the gasket has substance and actually creates a bit of resistance....and it seals nice and tight. That gasket material is pretty good stuff.

I have five identical Cornwalls in a 5.1 system. Having the identically capable threesome across the front soundstage (and as well in the back, especially on certain material) is truly a revelation in home theater, this after trying other smaller methods to get something close. This works with Heresys, Cornwalls, Belles, whatever you choose. Once the threesome identical across the front is heard and the "righteousness" understood nothing else will do. It's sooooooo "locked in". The MOST capable speaker in a home theater in terms of "full range" should be the CENTER. In my case I have the center as an old school "Cornwall II" betwixt two Cornwall Is so it's lowboy such that a large flatscreen can rest atop it and really work out perfectleh.....

:: looks around at the internet/soc media/society/this forum since covid in particular :: Sounds about like we are on the right trajectory 🙂