geoff.

These "Chor-walls" are sitting in front of my 2-way Cornscala's. For now I am using the square magnet K-77's and B-3 crossover this pair of 84 Cornwall's came with. I have a pair of K-79's, a pair K-107-Ti tweeters and a pair of Cornwall 2 crossovers I MAY play with later. But for now, THEY ROCK! Classic Klipsch sound, loud and clear. Correction - even CLEARER!

The K-61 is marginally narrower (1/4") than the K-601 it is replacing but it is also almost 2" wider. That means two straight cuts down and one across to accomadate it. This time around I used the shortest drywall screws I could find simply because they are black. I dabbed the heads with some moly-slip grease to keep them from rusting.

This is the stuff dreams are made of! Any idea what it would cost to have these cabinets made by a cabinet maker? Ballpark?

Good morning Peter! That pair on ebay is WAY overpriced. I had both Heresy ii's and Tangent 500's at the same time at one point. I had picked up the Tangent 500's first thinking the bass would be "adequate", it didn't quite cut it, but not having to put my Heresy ii's on stands was a bonus. Heresy ii's have to be the best "small" Klipsch speaker I have heard. ESPECIALLY when elevated to ear level. I regret letting my Heresy ii's go, not so much the Tangent 500's... The original Heresy is what hooked me on Klipsch decades ago. The thin cabinets of the Tangent 500's do not do them any favours and mine needed to be glued and clamped. Simply put, good parts in cheap package. I had very much toyed with the idea of building better cabinets and making them a double woofer design, but that much effort and money is better spent on going UP the Klipsch ladder to Cornwall's, Epic CF-3 or 4's, or Chorus ii's.

I heard Belles, ONCE. The fellow I bought my second pair of Forte ii's from had Belles playing when I came down the stairs to his listeneing room. The sound was the fullest, most open music I have heard to date. When he hooked up the Forte ii's, right beside the Belle's, my heart sank... the difference was THAT noticeable! But I had come for the Forte ii's and when I got them into my living room I was not disappointed. Until I heard Cornwall's! Simply put - there is no replacement for displacement. Big woofer, good. Big horn, better. Big woofer and big horn, best! LaScala's WILL be my next purchase, unless God drops a pair of K-horns into my life first!

Would it be as simple as swapping out the squakers? Cut-out notwithstanding... The horns are the same length so it would be as sweet as it gets. Is there a difference in the efficiency of the k-61 vs the k-57? I got 11.2 ohms on the k-61's and 11.5 on the k-57's. And thanks for your reply!

Maybe I should re-phrase this as an ethical question... Is it right to use a k-61-k in place of the k601/k-57 in a Cornwall?

Chris! I JUST stumbled upon your post here. It was you that suggested active digital crossovers for a 2-way Cornscala project I had just begun to entertain. The seed was planted and NOW I find your post. Very comprehensive, even for a relative newby, with excellent references to illustrate the points. Anyone reading this should be clear of one caveat in life: "PAY FOR QUALITY ONCE, OR PAY FOR CHEAP FOREVER" There is nothing "wrong" with passive crossovers, "IF" you can't afford active crossovers. They are a less complex, instant gratification answer with given results. Fast food drive through comes to mind... Mmmmm.... cheeseburger please, drag it through the garden! I have just arrived at the point where I cannot afford NOT to set aside the resources to pursue an ACTIVE DIGITAL CROSSOVER for my system. The passives will no doubt find their way into another pair of 2-way Cornscala's down the road, nothing else I have can compare to them, YET! Thanks for your efforts here Chris, any suggestions on an exact model or short list I should concentrate on finding?

Can a K-61-K horn and driver be used interchangeably with the K-57-K/K601 in the Cornwall, in this case an '84 Cornwall 1? I see that the K-61 had varying crossover points depending on the speaker it was used in. I have both a type B-3 and CW2 crossover collecting dust. I also have a pair of both K-77 and K-79 tweeters keeping the crossovers company. I just "fell" (I jumped - lol) into another pair of '84 Cornwall 1's in fine working condition, but rough shape, so any combination in the Cornwall 1 cabinet using the K-33-E woofer is an option. I will worry about cosmetics later... The reason I am asking is I "HAD" Forte ii's. I loved the midrange but missed the impact that the 15" K-33-E woofers in my '86 Cornwall 2's have. Forte ii's go lower on paper, but I couldn't "feel" it. I had Quartets too, in really fine shape. An excellent sounding "small" speaker. Almost cannibalised them for the drivers (sacrilege)... but wound up selling them, knowing full well that if I was patient the horns would surface somewhere. They did, a year later and I got 'em. I have looked, TRUST ME, for a pair of Chorus ii's for the last couple years with no luck. I snapped up a pair of CF-3's I would have never even known about were it not for this forum. And I just passed on a pair of KLF-30's needing at least one woofer, once again due to the information shared on this forum. Which brings me to this latest diversion. Will any combination of the parts I have yield acceptable results, or will I NEED the crossover from a Chorus ii, or some other design? Once again, thanks for your help. I truly appreciate all the input the members here share.

An applied guess would be that each set of binding posts goes in order to the drivers. From bottom to top: woofer, squaker, tweeter. Your speakers are easily tri-ampable, bi-ampable if you chose not to use a jumper through all of the posts. When you get it figured out please tell us your impressions of them!

I have had four pairs of Cornwall's. Three pairs of Cornwall 1's (two '84's and a '79) and a pair of Cornwall 2's ('86's). I didn't start out to acquire so many. They are rare and as they came up I grabbed them before they were gone. Knowing full well I could get my money back when I figured out which one(s) I wanted to keep. The first pair of Cornwall's that went were '79's with the B crossover. Compared to my '84's with the B-3 crossover I couldn't justify keeping them. There was that much of a difference. Of the two pairs of 84's, one became 2-way Cornscala's and the other will likely wind up at a buddy's place. I am keeping the Cornwall 2's. Next pair of LaScala's that comes up will be on my short list. The B crossover doesn't do Cornwall's any favours.

Ha! You're the one who got 'em! 1000 bucks (CDN) on Canuckaudiomart? Nice score man! Bob Crites could tell you for sure if you don't want to pop out the woofer.

Thanks Tube Fanatic!

Hello Steve! Chris A mentioned your project, one of the reasons I was comfortable trying a passive! So at 110 dB you experience the same thing? That is about 9 o'clock on the volume dial on a NAD C162 preamp feeding two bridged C272 amps at 300 watts RMS a side. I can enjoy 10, up to 11 o'clock with my Cornwall 2's - BRIEFLY! But even that is rare now. Chalk it up to age. I have owned speakers that never got there with anything near the lack of compression or distortion ALL of my Klipsch's have. In fact once I got my first pair of Cornwall's I couldn't "enjoy" my CerwinVega CLSC 215's anymore. Sold 'em for a hundred bucks less than the Cornwall's cost. Muddy, but LOW (!) bass and terrible midrange. One other thing about these "JubWalls" (lol), as they stand now, is some vocals sound breathtaking, yet others are "hot." But the bass is impressive. Has me wondering about a dual 15" version of these... I may try Mark1101's suggestion and feed them through a "smiling" equalizer. But I fear bi-amping and an active crossover is on the horizon. So much for a bigger motor on my fishing boat!

I have a 2220 as well. Found it several years ago on kijiji. I believe they call them flea amps. I think the full bandwidth amp and no compromise components make all the difference in sound quality. I was so impressed with it that I just spent the money to get it re-capped when one of the channels developed a hiss.

You could always "commit to buy" and then hit ebay with it as a reason to cancel the transaction. Bam!

Tube amps eh? I am surprised Klipsch or Bob Crites or Al K. haven't knocked out a decent entry level tube amp suited for our beloved horns yet. Something us fortuitous afficianados could wade into... Now I am going to have to build my own amp too? Where is my notepad and pencil...?

I live in Cooks Bay on Lake Simcoe, Ontario Canada. Think snow... They just plain STOPPED scheduling big ice-fishing tournaments here because the ice is so inconsistent now. Sportsmen would come up from Michigan in droves years ago. Now we just get the locals falling through the ice. I havent even been out yet this year. That's a fact.

I have reported sellers to ebay for fraudulent advertising. MANY times. Purposeful misrepresntation is reprehensible. It usually starts with a Q and A that establishes the seller is not "innocent." Other potential buyers will see it too. I find when I give someone the benefit of the doubt, there are two less assholes in the world... And still I struggle... In this case the price is so far out of whack that if it should be a caveat emptor for ANY prospective buyer. But I get it!

I have a pair of Cornwall 2's that have K-107-Ti tweeters, new midrange phenolic diaphrams (in the larger K601 horn...), bandpass filters, and the upgraded Crites crossovers. I also have a pair of Cornwall 1's that I converted to 2-way Cornscala's. I kept the Cornwall cabinets and the K-33-E woofers. The HF section consists of a K510 horn mated to a Faital Pro HF200. The crossover is currently a passive CS500 from Crites. Make no mistake about it, I really LOVE my Cornwall 2's. But the seamless response from 500Hz to the limit of my hearing coupled with the definition and sound stage the larger horn provides is a game changer. I never fully appreciated that "we live in the midrange" until I brought a pair of Forte ii's home. The 2-way Cornscala takes it to the next level.

I took a couple hours during the week to SURFACE mount (flush mounting is beyond my wood-working prowess at this point) the K510's on my "JubWalls". Chris, expect a royalty cheque in the mail for the use of your coinage, and thank you for all of your input here! It probably comes as no surprise to anyone that the improvement in sound quality could be summed up as exponential. Putting the grilles back on as they currently exist is not in the foreseeable future. I will find a better solution later. I have been running these every waking moment since the re-configuration. This weekend I exchanged first my Cornwall 2's and then my CF-3's for the "JubWall's" and played the same CD to compare the sound reproduction. The Cornwall 2's sound great! These love to be cranked and have the punch at the lower volumes most every other speaker I have owned (including my Forte ii's) lacked. They do not need to be coaxed but beg to be pushed. The CF-3's sound great! These have a large sweet spot that grabs you by the boo-boo when you are in it and sound fantastic at at ALL volumes. The definition and punch provided by these speakers cannot be touched by lesser drivers PERIOD(.) The JubWall's sound great! These project the widest soundstage of the lot, with a larger sweet spot. The detail emanating from a horn this big is humbling. What the hell was I listening to all these years?! There is a point, however, with these speakers at which any further increase in the volume dial detracts from the experience. It is roughly the same spot my Cornwall 2's go from making me smile to scaring me, club levels... ANYTHING up to that point is sweet as pie and smooth as silk.

What an interesting assessment! I have come and gone to that point and am back again. I thought my Forte ii's with the titanium tweeter diaphragms were the be-all to end-all. At first. Some of my CD's sounded like new material, in a very good way. Some sounded like new material, in a very bad way. All of them needing a little push in the volume department to bring them alive I referred to them in my ad as "floor standing headphones" once I brought my FIRST pair of Cornwall's home. Balance IS something Klipsch does well. The trick is finding which one(s) of their line up has the "balance" YOU prefer. The fellow I bought my Forte ii's from also had a pair of Belle's for sale. When I descended the stairs into his basement the music playing grabbed me in way I haven't heard since. Then he switched over to my Forte ii's. It was as if the life was gone. Believe it or not, the bass seemed louder from the Belle's. And the presence was un-surpassed. But I had come for the Forte ii's and when I got them home I was not disappointed. I later found a pair of Quartet's and a KLF C7 I mused about making HT set-up with. But I am partial to 2 channel kit. Sold 'em all. Cornwall's have a full balanced sound at quiet levels and beg to be turned up. That hooked me. Fast forward a year and now a pair of Cornwall 2's, Cornwall 1's and Epic CF-3's take turns alternating "on stage." I just built my first pair of Cornscala's which are somewhere between the Cornwall's and the CF-3's sound-wise. They are getting a run at present. But the quest continues... And the same gentleman I bought the Forte ii's from has his Belle's up for sale again!

A lot of what I would have called "noise floor" or background hiss disappeared after replacing the crossovers in my '86 Cornwall 2's with the Crites full boards. Many of the same CD's in my collection played through the same speakers in the same spot sounded as if the equivalent of a cassette players' Dolby NR button had been engaged, but the high end was still there in spades. Imaging improved as well. Especially compared to my as yet un-recapped '84 Cornwall 1's, once again with the same equipment, in the same spot. I waited far too long to accept that capacitors need replacing after a generation.

I had TWO pairs of Cornwall 1's that I paid between $800 and a grand for when a walnut pair of Cornwall 2's in fine shape came up for 600 bucks - CDN! I had no reservations about adding a third pair of Cornwall's to the herd for that price. It took me exactly one day to sell a pair of the Cornwall 1's for what they cost me... I then had no intention of buying another pair of speakers when a pair of CF-3's came up for $500. I have no regrets about sealing the deal for $600. Next pair of LaScala's I see for a weeks take home pay will probably cause some grief on the homefront! Inexpensive is a relative term, I would say Klipsch speakers hold their value well.

I think the K510's NEED to be flush mounted AND if covered by grilles, the grilles can only be cloth, no boards anywhere near the horn. I imagine the motorboard should be flush with the cabinet walls too. No boundaries or impediments. The cutout I made in the existing grille likely reflects a ton of acoustic energy back into the horn. That can't be good... In the five days these babies have been in existence, this was the FIRST time I listened to them without grilles. Kids and cats share the same space and nobody wants to see a grown man cry. I was starting to find this experiment moot when compared to my CF-3's or Cornwall 2's. I think the fun has just begun!