Peter P.

Since you've got your hands on a voltmeter, try this: Play some music or interstation white noise from your FM receiver. Set your voltmeter to AC Volts and connect it to the terminals of the working speaker. You'll see as you raise the volume that the number on the voltmeter goes up. Leave the volume at a reasonable level. Now connect the voltmeter to the suspect speaker and verify voltage is reaching the speaker. Then connect the voltmeter leads directly to each speaker driver, right next to the speaker magnet. While the number may vary for the woofer, mid, and tweeter, you should see something that goes up as you increase the volume. If you do in fact see something AC Volts at the K-53 but hear nothing, the K-53 driver is bad. If you see no voltage, then the crossover's mid-output has a bad component.

If they work and the cabinets are in presentable condition then yes, $500 is a very good price. Your pictures don't show much of the cabinet so its hard to tell how clean they are, which affects price. Prices for used Heresy's of your vintage have been rising which I don't understand because as they get older I would expect prices to DROP. Locally they're selling for $700-$1k, which I think is absurd.

I realize the speakers are painted, but you could try Murphy's Wood Soap. It's mild enough to not harm the cabinets.

Part of the business I work for installs equipment in public safety vehicles; police cars, fire trucks, etc. Our chief installer has the Snap-On truck stop by frequently for tool purchases, and so on. So today, the Snap-On truck stops by and the agent tells Anthony Snap-On is having a raffle which you can enter if you've purchased from them recently. Anthony picks #20, the agent draws the raffle and Anthony wins! It's a Klipsch The Three II ! I've never used such a toy so I asked Anthony if I could try it out. While I'm not savvy with smartphones, I was able to get my work phone to connect via Bluetooth with little problem. I was easily able to play the music files I keep on the phone for equipment testing, and the sound was impressive. I could see where this would make a good kitchen or bedroom system. Congratulations Anthony; you scored!

This was going to be my suggestion. But my first thought was, if the cabinet need reinforcement, the PWK would have put some in there!

That's an oak motor board; nobody uses oak motorboards (assuming it's a solid board). Too expensive. Hope you got a deal on 'em...

I don't care how they sound; they LOOK beautiful!

The on/off switch on my amp broke. I want to replace it myself and can do the work. I can only find the part from China on eBay. What can I expect with regard to customs fees, rip-offs, etc.? Are these kind of vendors legit?

If you can't remove it with a slightly stiff brush, then I'd leave it there. The woofer is never seen, and the mouse droppings don't appear to affect the sound so leave it alone.

TWO POSTS and nobody's recommended replacing the capacitors yet?! 😀

Ah, vintage Heresy's at a reasonable price. I watch craiglist for Klipsch sales, and people are trying to sell Heresy II's for $1k, 1983 Heresy's for $1200, and HBR's with chips of the top layer of birch for $1100. Huh?!

Update: Today I installed my new amp, and replaced the speaker level wiring to the subwoofer with a 25ft. Monoprice cable. Since I listen mostly to FM radio, I turned on the new amp and things quickly went awry. My FM signal went to crap and I was picking up a lot of noise (not 60Hz hum) on the signal. When I would unplug the cable, the noise would go away. Good thing I also bought a higher quality, Monoprice Onix Cable. I replaced the original cable with this one and the noise went away. This cable is double shielded. The original cable must have been transferring something to my FM antenna leads. The only bad thing about the Onix cable is, it's not very flexible. I can't tell any difference regarding the amp's fixed internal low pass subwoofer filter, as well as any level differences.

That's actually a brilliant strategy, and one I never considered. I'll have to chime in again and say I HAVE heard Forte's, and they are insane, and even better at used prices. The $600-$700 for the Heresy pair the OP has found is pretty reasonable if they're in decent shape. And the suggestion to expand the search and include Choruses is an excellent suggestion, even though they're not technically a "Heritage" speaker. The Forte's and Choruses could be had for less than Cornwalls and yet still give that horn loaded, Klipsch sound. Heresies are about as common as Forte's on the used market, and with patience either will surely appear again on craigslist, Offer Up, Facebook Marketplace, eBay (shop by Nearest Distance).

Definitely seek out a B.I.C. FM-10 Beam Box. Always available on eBay. You want the top end model, not the FM-8 or below. Here's a link to my review, if you haven't seen it above.

Thanks for both your replies! I have the new amp sitting on my coffee table, and the single RCA cable has arrived, I just have to get the motivation to unwire/rewire things! I'll report back about the input level results and the crossover effects, if any, after I get motivated! As an aside, the reason I bought the new amp is, every few years I wear out the on/off switch on my 28 year old amp and have to get it replaced. I'll get it replaced again and keep it as a backup. I hate to be without my music!

Idea #2: You can still stick Heresy's on the ends in their normal orientation, with the grills removed. You will create your own grills that will be part of the furniture. The Heresy's will slide in from the rear. Construct the cabinet so the Heresy's are as low to the ground as possible. The center section that houses all the equipment-that will be slightly higher from the ground to accommodate the casters, but the top of the cabinet will be totally flush unlike the red/white thing in the photo, and you'll mount the casters as widely spaced in that center section as possible. Hide the casters with a skirt.

Place the Heresy's horizontally. Forget all the mumbelty crap about dispersion, beam width, whatever. You want good speakers in the cabinet-just do it. Or better yet; strip the drivers out of the Heresy cabinets and mount them directly in the furniture, cabinet volume be damned! If you must, place your existing Heresy's on their sides and give a listen to see if you like it.

I do! While I have CD's, cassettes, and LP's, the overwhelming majority of my home listening is analog FM. I don't own a TV so I don't stream anything nor do I watch programming on my computer, so my FM stereo is running almost constantly. I've never bothered to look up the possibility, and the component requirements to stream internet FM to my system, but I don't want to have to operate two components (PC and stereo) to get my FM. I also don't have a smartphone so I can't run any feeds/apps to my system, and I don't want any expenses that go along with that. I find it quite acceptable for sound quality, and the stations available to me. I live in the center of CT, and it just so happens the local NPR station (WNPR) transmitter is roughly 5 miles away so the signal quality is very good. It doesn't really matter in this case because they're predominantly news and talk radio vs. music. The classical music station (WMNR) I listen to is again, roughly 5 miles away. It's a translator signal with 10W output. The next closest FM station I listen to regularly is a college station (WWUH) whose transmitter is roughly 25 miles away. The last station I listen to regularly is an independent, community radio station (WPKN) roughly 35 miles away. While I can't listen to the above stations with a full-quieting stereo signal, the mono performance is plenty good for me. I live in a condo, so outside antennas can't be used. I was using a cheap, tuneable rabbit ears antenna and it mostly worked, but signal strength seemed to change seasonally in addition to whatever variables affected reception. Roughly a year or so ago, I found a B.I.C. Beam Box. No longer made, I thought it might improve my FM performance. It certainly did. Definitely an elegant, effective solution if you can't mount an outside antenna and you're not too far from transmitters. As a radio technician, I had access to the testing equipment to verify its operation and tune it to perform best with the non-commercial end of the FM band that I listen to exclusively. The condo association is planning to install vinyl siding on our units and I'm tempted to install an omni-directional outside FM antenna in my attic and run the cable down to the first floor prior to the siding install. With radio reception, height is everything. Just getting the antenna outside can be a real help. To really improve FM reception, a directional antenna with a rotor provides real, tangible gains; wish I could have one...I've installed them for friends and seen definitely improvement, cleanly picking up stations 90 miles away. I also was using a low end Yamaha digita tuner, whose model number escapes me. I've always had good luck with them and that included this one. However, I did not like the meager, 3 segment signal strength meter, and always wondered if a higher end tuner would improve my reception. So I found a higher end Yamaha tuner on eBay, a TX 500-U. It's performance advantage is the switchable Wide/Narrow IF filter. In the narrow position, signal strength is improved significantly. I won't buy another tuner if it doesn't have this switchable IF filter. Combined with the B.I.C. Beam Box, I've got all the performance I could ask for, but I have been reading about some of the very high end FM tuners such as Magnum Dynalab and wonder if they could improve not necessarily signal STRENGTH but the FIDELITY of the broadcast. All the complaints I see above about poor FM broadcast radio content seems to be focused on the commercial end of the band, 92-108MHz. I agree it's a wasteland. Side story: When I was in the military, there was crap on the FM dial. I couldn't wait to go home on leave so I could listen to my favorite album rock station (this was the late '70's/early '80's). But every year I would wind up hearing the evolution of the same artists and the same cuts. Consequently, I became disgusted with commercial FM, and found a safe haven at the low end of the FM band. If you're fortunate enough to have stations nearby in the non-commercial end of the FM band, 88-92MHz, take a listen and enjoy the variety.

There is a member of this forum who posted about his hobby of repairing Klipsch subwoofer amps. You could try sending him a PM through the forum. Another option is to try eBay. Type "Klipsch subwoofer amp repair" and there is at least one firm that results. I'd be more inclined to give the forum member a shot because of their effort to create the blog. Lastly, if you want to try to repair it yourself, there are a lot of youtube videos on the subject. Let the forum know what you do, and if you were satisfied with the results.

Yes, the used Forte II's would be a bargain and exceed all your needs, in spades. Get them if you can and you won't regret it. And if you're referring to the Forte's in Dorchester, I would say get 'em. I see some chips in the veneer near the bases, but if you're more interested in the sound you can ignore them, and the veneer can be easily repaired or patched later on if you want.

It's Monoprice for the win! Thanks for the suggestion, and for the other offers. I had been looking around and only saw exotic cables at astronomical prices. I bought the Monoprice premium RG-6 cable, trusting that it will have adequate shielding against hum pick up. I also bought the cheapo version because of the silly, $3 price, and the slender diameter cable will fit better in my cable management strip. For three bucks, I'll try this cable first and if it does the job without hum, I'll be happy. Otherwise, it's only $3 lost.

Before I order a new cable, I thought I'd ask here. I need a 25ft. RCA male-male cable for the amp subwoofer output to subwoofer LFE input. If you have something longer, feel free to let me know. I'll answer all replies. I don't need the high end stuff, but post here or PM me with anything you might want to turn into cash.

I notice NO affect on the performance of my Heresy's, at any volume.

I'm gonna say "yes" to the OP's question, do they have to worry about low freqs below the low freq cutoff of the speaker damaging it. If the amp is delivering a full range signal to the speakers and the speakers have no built-in high pass filter, they WILL try to reproduce the low freqs. At louder volumes, speaker damage will occur. I did just that to a pair of bookshelf speakers with a 50Hz low end limit. I was playing bass-centric music with low frequency sweeps and such. I over-drove the speaker and the glue bond between the spider and the cone failed. Buzzzzt! Parts Express sells pre-fab high pass filters you can put in-line to protect your speakers. I did just that for my Heresy's. I bought the filters closest to the Heresy's low end limit, put them in a small project box with input/output leads and run the low frequencies through a subwoofer.

I personally don't subscribe to the belief that certain amps pair better/worse with certain speakers. If it were so, manufacturers would recommend such pairings in their factory literature as "highly recommended" or imperative. Probably the biggest factors affecting speaker pairing with the music being played through them are the room's acoustics, the volume being listened at, and the frequency content. If your system can't reproduce the volume and low end of rap, electronic dance music, or rock, you may have a problem. You'll need a speaker that plays lower or have to add a subwoofer, for example. Personally, I think the LaScala's can handle anything but the low end just because that's their frequency limit. If your music doesn't frequently reach below them, you won't be missing anything, regardless of what type of amp you pair it with. Now give me a minute to put on my Nomex suit...