Dave A

I sold a pair not to long ago to a guy in Alabama who did pro sound rental. They are one of his favorites and he says there are compliments on the sound and he considers them as close to bullet proof as you can get. Got to trade with him for two KP-450 horns now all I need are bass bins.

Moray, I have wondered this and have never tinkered with any of these except a pair of KP-250's by adding tubes to them. At the time I had no way to measure anything and didn't hear a difference and no way to scientifically approach this so I quit. Do you have any recommendations for the KP-301's or indeed any other front ported Klipsch?

I have a pair of 301 II's in the shop right now and they are nice. Pro gear sounds good at any db level as far as I am concerned. I have had all the vintage gear except KHorns and Belles and I keep only pro gear for myself. If you ever get a chance to get or hear a set of KP-450's or 456's do so. If you get lucky you can buy them for the same price as Chorus or KP 301's and they are enormously better. People I know that have owned both the 450 and 456's and have had KHorns (supposed to be the best vintage I guess) prefer the 450-456. By the way hearing is believing and sound is subjective so go hear those 301 II's. Remember also that whatever you hear that old needs to have the crossovers re-capped and check your drivers for problems since lots of pro gear was pushed pretty hard. By the way I don't know what a "decent" price is for you. My current pair ($600.00) was bought with a pair of subs of some sort. The guy claimed they were klipsch but they are no name as far as any identification. They do have 18" good quality Eminence woofers in them though so they are not junk and go much lower than the 301's by themselves.

Bob, What causes solder joints to go bad? I have seen plenty that were not good but they had continuity.

The tweeters are back in hand for anyone who wants to hear them. I also have an update regarding these. Adding to the drivers that will fit these lenses are the Faital HF100 and HF102.

OK just got in some Faital drivers which I have not had curves run on but thought to mention them as added to the list of drivers that fit here. The Faital HF102 will fit the large and small clamp plates. The Faital HF100 will only fit the larger clamp plates due to the 4" diameter. On some of these drivers you will have to assemble the driver to the clamp plate and then reach inside the cabinet and assemble the plate to the body of the horn. Many drivers will fit the cabinet space but not go through the factory cut out on the motor board. At PE the Faital HF102 is $77.00 and the HF100 is $59.00. All horns going out from now on will have the capability of mounting these drivers.

OK folks adding to the versatility of the large and small clamp plates. The specs are attached and with a diameter of 2.6" vs the 2.8 for the DE120 it will fit with no problems on any of the K-77 cut outs. Faital HF 102 drivers are priced within two dollars of the DE120's at PE. While I have not heard all of them the count is now up to five drivers that will fit here from Beyma and Faital and JBL and B&C. I am not counting the Eminence APT50 which no one seems to like which would make six.

So lets see things that irritate, hhmmm, well ah , oh I have it!!! Threads that start off with things like "Things About These Forums That Irritate"

The MCM 1900 recap I did this week was with Solen and Audyn caps because they had values close to what I needed. In one case I needed 80uf caps and Audyn was the only one I found even close in poly. Very clear is exactly what these did for me and on one channel due to bad caps the tweeters opened right up. It kind of shocked me and now they are crystal clear and unflavored with any nuances which I would rather do with EQ anyway. Wish I had done this sooner.

My wife says I can't hear any more so does that count😀?

Yes and back to capacitors which bored people forgot was the reason for this thread. I dug into my MCM set and recapped just for the heck of it. The first crossover I had measured was in decent shape and so I never looked at the second one. The second one when I checked yesterday had problems and one of the 13uf mylars measured 7.45uf and .45 ESR. All of the caps in the second crossover had higher ESR then the first one did and I am not sure why but one thing I am sure of. This makes ALL the old crossovers sets I have measured now needing re-capping. I have to believe the manufacturing tolerances of today beat past ones and wonder if the higher ESR in general on older mylars was due to this.

Ahhhh, hmmm, no I think is the rational answer.

I think heart transplants will be in order. Deciding what type of body I want to put them in. Something I have been considering for a while is buying busted speakers with good drivers and then making cabinets the right way with 1" Baltic and seeing if there is a market for all Klipsch components in a better same design box. Wont cost much to find out with the pile-o-parts here.

Hey Jimbo, Went and looked just now and mine are FAR worse than yours were.

I took a serious look today and two may be salvageable and two not. Severely beat in on the corners and wood pulled apart in places. A real testament to the enduring quality of Baltic Birch over that worthless alternative MDF. These all actually sounded decent even though they were used as soccer balls. I have pondered the idea of building La Scalas out of 1" Baltic Birch and this might be the time to do it. If I do I will probably extend the sides to give better protection to the dog house point and make the top section taller so I can flush mount the mid and have space to perhaps use the larger MAHL tweeter since there are so many more options there. The bases on these have been slid across floors and whatever so much they have been abraded to just over half the original thickness in places. I will try the structural epoxy fix on one and see how it does. Even though they have some historical value they are mostly a fine example of why you don't hire gorillas for stage hands. I will check your post out tonight Jimbo. Thanks for the generous offer Cincy but parts I have plenty of. On the other hand I continued on to Bowling Green where I picked up a set of KP-301'II's and while dirty and screws rusty these things were hardly ever used. The last version of 301's had exponential tweeters with Ti diaphragms, the Eminence 2002 Ti diaphragm mid and they sound really nice.

I bought four consecutive numbered LSI's yesterday. These are beat up and need some repair which includes restoring smashed in corners and beat up dog house points. Is a structural filler two part epoxy the best way to fill in chunks missing? What ever I do I want these repairs to be permanent and not subject to falling off under shock and to be as durable as the original baltic birch was. The other consideration was fiberglass and resin. I am thinking of sanding these down and painting them black. Spent some time looking for aluminum trim pieces like the Klipsch LSI's came with and no luck. Leaning towards preserving the original finish though with no trim and painted black. Pictures sometime later today.

MCM 1900. Two channel run off my workstation with Realtec HI DEF audio upgrade and fed to my Crown xli800. Part of the secret sauce is using Audacity to improve the music I get my hands on. No DAC except whatever is in the audio card on the PC and no preamp. It is about as simple as you can get and the MCM's work off the original Klipsch crossover. The MCM's seem to have the ability to respond to Audacity imrovements better than any other set I have had here.

I know this is not a capacitor suggestion but I find something interesting with people who stop in to buy speakers from me. They can be obsessed with upgrades to this and that. They listen to my system and are in awe of it and I have to point out that the physical side of the equation is just part of it. We play a song which I then bring into Audacity and up the bit rate to 192k and normalize. The resulting definition most of the time is a big improvement and it's funny to see the look on their faces. Reasonably priced capacitors and since I can precisely measure them I know exactly what I am getting are all I will consider. Beyond that you flavor your music with electronics. I can buy an active crossover which works on anything cheaper than I can get a lot of fancy caps since they can easily go past $400 each for 4uf. Then flavor to taste with EQ.

I don't know about all that I am just hoping for working drivers. Those crossovers have to be pretty bad by now so fixing them is a given. I will get pictures although after may take a while. I have a backlog of an old KP201, Heresy I, three Altec A-7's, one set of KP-456 and a set of KP-450 horns both needing cabinets if I can't find them I have to build some, a Forte that needs minor re-veneering and finally the LSI's I am getting today. Oh and I need to do a set of Super MWM's and they may be at the top of the list because inquiring minds want to know how they do. Outside of making MAHL horn lenses I think my speaker time is spoken for until next year.

Yes I am but your post was right after Chorus comments so I thought you were talking Chorus.

Hey Emile I am the one selling the Chorus set not buying.

Those are mine. Best set I have ever heard and one of my nearby customers said they reminded him of the MCM's sound.

LSI's are my favorite La Scalas. With some elbow grease, Duratex, a few K-55-V soldered lugs and MAHL tweets thrown in there these will be some bad boys. They even wrote a song about this years ago. "The Shrill is Gone" ;D

Precisely what I am doing tomorrow since they are local. Thanks for the tip S2Wheels.

Just sayin