larryk

I have been using the A55G's in my Cornwall 1's for the last few years. I recently changed to the A55G/2's and in my system the result is much improved resolution. Vocals sound clearer and more natural. The music seems to flow better. Of course YMMV and everyone has different things they are looking for. For me though the upgrade is well worth it.

I purchased a pair of the a55g-2's to replace my original a55g's. For me the original a55g's were a significant upgrade to the forty year old k55v's that came with my Cornwalls. In my system the a55g-2's are a big step up in resolution over the first version. At the same time there is an ease to the music which makes everything flow more naturally. IMHO this is a really nice upgrade.

I am selling my A55g drivers. They are in excellent condition and I found a big improvement over my K55v drivers. I am asking $250 for the pair and will include delivery in CONUS.

I modified my Cornwall 1’s and they are far superior to the original speaker. I had the type B crossovers redone using jupiter caps. I am using the A55g mid range driver and the small walnut mahl with de120. Since the cornwall midrange and tweeter are not time aligned i placed the mahl tweeter on top of the speaker physically time aligned with the mid range driver. This made a huge improvement to the sound. I had to make stand for them and put weight on the top but was worth the effort. The original wire is like lamp cord so i rewired with western electric tinned copper wire and installed cardas copper binding posts. i did listen to the cornwall 4’s at RMAF a few years ago. They sound really good. I did not really think that they sounded better than my modified ones. Of course they were in a hotel room with different amp and unfamiliar music so really hard to compare.

I have my Cornwalls in the corners towed in where the speakers cross about 1 1/2 to 2 feet in front of the listening position. This provides a great wall of sound with a solid center image. It also allows for better sound when you are not listening from the sweet spot.

I have found the bass with my Cornwall 1 sounds much better using the 4ohm taps rather than 8ohm. Not sure if you have this option but you may want to try if you do.

I am using Tidal in conjunction with Roon software and it has excellent sound quality. Many of the titles are in 24/96 resolution. If you have MQA decoding it would likely be even better. I am streaming thru an Exasound Playpoint streamer with an Exasound E32 dac.

Thanks everyone for looking but this is now sold

I am selling my small Walnut MAHL V1 tweeter horn I purchased from DaveA. I am selling as I decided to upgrade to the V2 horn. These are in excellent shape. Has been stained with walnut Watco Danish oil. It looks real nice and does sound much better than the K77 driver/horn when using a de120 driver. I am selling for $85 and will include shipping.

Here is how I ended up doing mine. I found a couple of sand filled 2lb wrist weights and placed them on top of the tweeter stand. This was quite noticeable in comparison to having no extra weight.

I have been physically time aligning my Cornwall with Dave’s original walnut tweeter horn and a homemade baffle. I agree with other comments. Once you hear the tweeter physically aligned with the midrange you would not want to go back. The mid point of my tweeter is 5” from the top of the cabinet. It is important to absorb reflections off the top of the cabinet. I bought a 12 x12 absorption panel from guitar center and cut in half to place in front of the tweeter to absorb the reflections. I also needed to add some weight to the baffle to get the best sound. Possibly this new tweeter horn would have enough weight to not have to do this but adding some weight to the top of this would be easy.

Not sure how that would work. If you glue one end of a 2x4 i would think the weight would not support it until you got the rear panel in place to secure with screws. Maybe i am not thinking this right. I have also heard that others have added a 3/4” panel to the back of the existing panel to keep the back panel from flexing. Am curious what results that may bring.

Last weekend I decided to try bracing the motorboard on my Cornwall 1. I had seen an old post regarding this. I put an 18" 3/4 X 1 3/4 piece of oak half way between the mid horn and the woofer and secured with 5 screws. This rather simple bracing made a huge difference eliminating any of the boominess I had as well as improving the midrange clarity. I was concerned about taking up cabinet volume but this takes up very little. Have many others tried this?

I heard the new Cornwall lV’s at RMAF today. I was somewhat skeptical going in but I must say they sound fantastic. Really great midrange resolution and very tight controlled bass. I have modded my Cornwall 1’s and they are sounding really good to me but the new cornwalls are definitely a step up.

Thanks everyone this has been sold

The input tubes are 6J4. I do think this is a variation of his Darling circuit. The 3-4 watts is probably right. I would do ups ground shipping for $25.

Thanks but not interested in a trade. Just need to move out some of my stuff.

I picked this up a few years ago as a backup amp. I have used this amp with my Cornwalls and it really sounds good with surprising control of the bass for such a small amp. This is one of Jeff Larson's earlier builds .The guy I bought it from had for around 15 years. The output tube is a rather uncommon 1626 tube. They are readily available on ebay etc and are not expensive. It will come with a new set I recently installed. I believe that the amp puts out 4-5 watts and is a great fit for Klipsch speakers. It does have a volume control so can be used with one source without a preamp. Price is $275 plus shipping cost.

Dave Brubeck Time Out, Chet Atkins in Hollywood, Dire Straits Brothers in Arms, Kenny Burrell Midnight Blue

I used some 3/8" rubber window seal from Home Depot to seal the backs of my Cornwalls. Only costs and there was a definite improvement in sound after installing.

I use Herbies audio labs big fat dots which I place four under the risers of my Cornwalls. Two in the front and two in the back. They are 1/4” high and isolate the speaker from the floor and they keep the speaker stable. These work really well for me and are not very expensive.

I also use the vinyl stack and a Vibrato ultrasonic cleaner. It does better than the hand cleaning or VPI vacuum machine which I have owned. It is ideal if you have a lot of records to clean. You can clean 3 records at a time in about 6 minutes. If you have 500 or more records this is a big deal. If you have a smaller collection like under a 100 it may not be worth the investment.

I replaced the k55v’s in my Cornwalls with the a55g’s and hear the same things that you are hearing. It’s a major improvement for me. I do not detect any real change in efficiency . I agree this is an easy to justify upgrade.

Schu brought up a good point. I have addressed the bounce off of the top of the speaker but had not compared different heights. I decided to take my current crude stand and insert cd cases underneath to test at various heights. Down from around 4 “ up to 6 “ from top of speaker to middle of tweeter horn. The highest setting thinned out the sound and seemed to call more attention to the tweeter. I tried different heights in 3/8” increments and settled on 5”. To me on my Cornwall that seemed to have the best balanced sound. Of course this is subjective based on listening preferences. Based on my test I would be good at a centered horn height from 4 3/4 to 5”. If one wants to increase height more footers could be placed underneath to increase the height. It would be interesting if someone else may be able to try this and compare results.

If there is nothing to absorb the reflections this is an issue. I originally laid a towel in front and it did help to absorb a lot of this. I ended up going to guitar center and found some 12x12” absorption panels and cut one in half to 6x12 and set them in front of the speakers. That really did a great job absorbing the reflections .