Toz

My experience is that when first coming over to Klipsch Heritage from the "normal hifi world" any of the Cornwall variants will be your best bet. I have found the Cornwall to be an excellent gateway. The other heritage speakers, some people find to be so different from what they're used to and consequently don't always hear what makes them special. My Klipsch journey started with Chorus II, then Forte's, then Klipschorns, Heresy's and Cornwalls. I sold off everything except the corner horns and Cornwalls. Your going to need a good source and amp, more so than with your direct radiators.

I never met a Cornwall I didn't like.

The model 19 is the only speaker I've heard that made me think it could be compared to my Klipschorns.

It's my understanding that what will cause the magnets to lose gauss is a sharp impact such as would happen if dropped or smacked. I've also read that the natural decay is insignificantly small. I have plenty of old alnico that still performs as I would expect it to. Just be careful not to knock the old drivers around. If they've lived in their original cabinets, and output sound, they are probably fine.

It looks beautiful!

I have Klipschorns with AK-2 crossovers. I've had them for nearly thirty years. I use all kinds of amps to drive them and they always sound good. Many here will tell you to upgrade to AK-3 crossover. I did that with factory parts over twenty years ago. I have gone back to AK-2 because it is my preference. The only real difference is the AK-2 has a slightly lower mid horn level, -2db relative to that of the AK-3.

What you propose is simply bridging each D75 to mono for increased power and headroom. There is no mystery or trouble. It's a good idea to eliminate the chance of clipping for your outdoor gig.

I've got the early correct PS1, and for the $25 it cost me used, it does sound less clinical than most CD players I've used.

For anyone not familiar with the ACA mini, I can vouch for it's sound quality. I just finished one and am using it with a passive pre and it has plenty of power to drive my AK-2 Klipschorns. And it has a sweet sound from top to bottom with lots of dimension.

Cornwall's of any vintage do most things right. They have a very balanced sound that appeals to a wider audience. In other words I think they are less polarizing than some of the other heritage speakers.

It would boil down to whether the ribbon would have a high enough efficiency to play as loud as the rest of the speaker. That's doubtful.

I bet they would be fun. There was definitely some Altec inspiration in the design.

I think what you have there is fantastic! Nice work on the risers too. Those are all great components, I wouldn't consider changing them at all. The lack of bass output could come down to damping. That driver looks to have pretty good mechanical damping, it's how things were in the era of amps with low damping factor. You could try to lower the damping, which will give a fuller bass note. Either a different amp, a tube amp, or insertion of a small resistance in series with the speaker wires can accomplish this. Modern speakers with very compliant suspensions need a high damping factor or they sound round and boomy. It's not hard to experiment and see if this is the case.

Make sure the throat of the metal horn is free of casting irregularities such as mismatches or lumpy restrictions. Mine were pretty bad and required a little handwork to smooth out the transition between driver and horn. Also, new gaskets wouldn't hurt. And tighten horn to baffle interface evenly and snuggly. If you have K55m drivers, you probably don't, reglue the back cap, they can buzz after years in service.

JBL SM50's with S4 load for the classic JBL horn studio sound, pre L100. Bozak B302a in large Eakin & Associates solid oak enclosures. These are very different than my beloved Klipsch and JBL and really serve well for background music, they have very natural timbre.

ODS, I respect your opinion, it's clear that for you this subject is settled science. But for others, it's helpful to read up a bit about the Richard Clark Challenge before forming an opinion. First off, the guy is a car audio dealer and not specifically a high end audio person. Second, the test parameters are such that it has little bearing on how you would use two different amps in your own set up. How an amplifier drives a reactive load, one where the impedance curve moves around a lot, will vary from one amp to the next. The frequency response of the amp/speaker combination will be different with different amps. He adjusts for this variation! You don't adjust for this at home, which is why many of us can easily hear differences when we try different amplifiers with our Klipsch gear. It's pretty simple, he's adding EQ to compensate impedance curve induced frequency response nonlinearities. Yeah, that's gonna make it darn hard to tell a difference 24 out of 24 times to win the prize.

When you read entire test details you will find the clincher. That is that EQ is added to one amp to bring it's frequency response into a close match to the other. In my mind this only tells us that if you adjust two amps to sounds the same, they will indeed sound the same.

That's a fun score there. My wife is the thrift queen so I find myself thrifing with her a couple times a week. You never know what will turn up. Great fun!

That problem sounds like the classic dirty or arced speaker protection switches in the amplifier or receiver. When you turn the volume up high that sends some voltage through the dirty switch and it jumps the carbon buildup and makes contact, until next time you use the amp. I have cleaned and replaced these switches on several units over the years. I think the high efficiency of the K horn means you don't put much voltage across the switch and it makes the problem more noticeable. People with 82db/W/M speakers are always cranking it up and may never notice your dirty switches. Turning the amps on and off while a source is playing music with the volume above zero will cause the switches to arc and lead to carbon and pitting over time.

Seattle was a beautiful town once. I live in Eastern Washington and dread traveling to Seattle. It's gotten so bad that people are finally just barely starting to wake up to what's going on there. Portland, same story.

It was already mentioned, but I'll restate, those are not Klipschorns, they are Belle Klipsch. They will have nice articulate bass response, but it will not dig down very low. They are considered the prettiest Klipsch speakers by many people. They are fine speakers.

Common internet advice is to convert AK-2 to AK-3. I did that on Klipsch's advice back in the mid '90's. I have since gone back somewhat to what I call the AK-2.5. What the 2 does is knock down the mid horn by 2db relative to the bass and tweeter horns. The 3 corrects this. Both crossovers use the same caps for mid and tweeter so replace those in any case. Where the networks differ is in the shunt cap, caps on the woofer and the auto former and inductor on the mid. I like the mid 2db down. I padded down the tweeters 1.5 db for a better match to the mid and I like it. I think old capacitors would be the number one thing. My K55m black plastic rear covers did start to buzz a few years ago, I reglued them. I also found chunks of sand cast crud in the K400 horn throats! Rat tail file and repaint. I did poly caps and hated them, it was too clinical and thin sounding and eventually I went with Russian MBGO and K75. That is my stream of consciousness concerning my 30 year run with your same speakers. When all is right, they make a reference system you'll be proud of. They also show every upstream change easily, and are just plain fun to own. My 21yo musician son comes over once a week to school me in alternative styles of rock and jazz, he loves the Klipschorns.

A word to the wise concerning Bozak, they are wonderful drivers but delicate. Be careful not to send them a clipped signal or try to play them too loud. I have come across many many Bozak drivers with melted voice coils. They're getting harder to source nowadays too.

It is good to note that if you substitute a higher Capacitance value, the driver will see more low frequencies. Conversely, a lower value will pass less of the low frequencies. So if you substitute in a 12uF where the 13uF goes, there will be less overall energy at the 400hz crossover point.