HDBRbuilder
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Posts posted by HDBRbuilder
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Pie slice Klipsch logo is correct for 1975...also for 1976 speaker production...basically from 76 backwards the pie slice logo is correct, except for early 1960's and before.
Also there were times when the "engraved-plexiglass" model name logos were at the bottom of a speaker and the pie-slice log was the upper corner of the speaker, but it was just for a very short time. The pie-slice logo was replaced in around October time-frame of 1977...with the metallic so-called "laser" badging. There was a reason this was done, (the pie-slice PWK log, along with his "PWK" initials rendering...both trade-marks were owned by PWK, himself, NOT by the company!). And there is ALSO a reason why the boxed "PWK" with "Klipsch" logo replaced the so-called "laser logo"....which did not have "PWK" on it. The reasons are who had "controlling stock" of the company...during these time frames.
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In your pics you posted of the drivers...both of the mid-range drivers are K55V with the AlNiCo magnets. One of the tweeters is K77 (round AlNiCo magnet), the other is a K77-M (square ferrite mud slurry magnet).
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Oiled Oak veneered Chorus models. As for value it depends on if all original, all components functioning correctly and any damage done to the cabinets, grille-cloth panels, etc. Have you even LISTENED to these? If not...maybe you SHOULD...because these are very nice speakers!
Even location of the seller is a factor in the "Value" of them...along with distance the buyer would need to go to pick them up or the cost of shipping them involved!
Me? If I got a pair of great condition Chorus speakers...for FREE!...I would keep them and enjoy them! Once again...give them a listen!
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I was primary lead builder of ALL the Cornwalls when these were manufactured. I did not build any like these, myself...with the walnut-veneered motor-boards. So tese were either built when I was on vacation or taking a day off, OR standard birch veneer plywood used for the standard motor-board asbeen replaced of re-hveneered or whatever. I figure this was done AFTER it left the factory. Here is why: The black paint you see on the inside edges of the top, sides, and bottom panels around the motor-board was shot AFTER the installation of the motor-board. So there are two possibilities here...either replacement walnut-veneered motor-boards were installed sometime after the speakers were purchased, OR a pair of slightly damaged K-horn walnut-veneered front panels were trimmed to fit and used for an in-house "employee special" build for an employee...but I didn't do it! If these are "employee specials", then check the serial umbers stamped into the panel rear edge...if they are consecutive numbers, one ending in 99 with the other ending in 00...or one in 00 and the other in 01....then start looking at the rear edge of the panels again and see if a First and Last name were also stamped in one of these rear edges. This was a courtesy thing for employees, but it was not a guaranteed thing, because many employees who bought speakers, optioned not to have this done, because they intended to sell them after keeping them for one year.
Foot-note: If I had been the one who built these, then there would be no noticeable sign in the front panels of the staples used to secure the front...why? Because I would have stapled them thru the glue blocks behind the motor-board, instead. And I would have added horizontal glue block to the top of the port shelf so that the motor-board COULD be secured by staples from the rear along there, so it is what it is...some people pay more attention to detail when building "employee specials" than others do!
I always bjuilt "employee specials" during lunch break...just because it takes more time to do a "special" job for the employees...and due to that, it would eat into regular production time daily totals if I built them during regular production time!
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On 9/11/2021 at 8:37 AM, dtr20 said:
Also, does it make sense that the some of the speakers have different midrange and tweeter drivers? Was thus a transition year for Klipsch with drivers?
Pics of the drivers will help with your question. But 79-80 time frame is when nud-magnet drivers began replacing the former AlNiCo magneted drivers, Mostly due to the severe drop in availability of cobalt, which was primarily due to apartheid sanctions going into effect against imports from South Africa! So as the availibilty of cobalt diminished, iron slurry "mud" magnets began to replace AlNiCo magnets on drivers. K-77 M replaced former K77, K55M replaced K55V.
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On 9/2/2021 at 9:40 PM, RandyH said:
-the older Jubilee is BIG , the new Jubilee is HUGE
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In order to get into the "mid teens" down low, you gotta have a bigger horn lens to get there. They are called "big old horns" for a REASON!
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There is ALWAYS the option of using an ACTIVE crossover for your K-horns...like the one used on the Jubilees....but the K-horn bass horn is limited to bottom-end performance at around 32 hZ, simply because of its horn lens design, coupled with a requirement to be CORRECTLY loaded into a room corner. So getting any kind of bottom end below 32 hZ out of its bass horn is highly unlikely to happen to any extent. Movie explosions and such do not fall into the true musical instrument spectrum, which is what the K-horn was designed to achieve.
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Dtel hit the nail on the head for ME...because in order for the NEW Jubilees to get down into the tens with bottom-end frequency response...there HAD TO BE a serious modification or MODIFICATIONS, involved in the bass bin horn design compared to that of the original Jubilee speaker bass bin.
If you HAD PAID CLOSE ATTENTION to the original Jubilee design as a "home speaker", then you would have easily seen that the bass bin of the Pro-version had been modified from the original "home version" in its bass bin section...maybe even more than once, over time. And now we have the "demise" of the pro-version with this NEW home version taking its place...which, with its bass bin having been MAYBE just more than become a vented horn in the manner the sub-woofers for the pro-line have been done,
So, for ME, at least, I am more curious about the changes made to the recent Pro Jube bass bin design to get it to go down so low in its bottom end that it meets true subwoofer status now. This is a SIGNIFICANT change to the performance IMHO!
Also, I believe that Chief Bonehead made these changes knowing full well that they would have been totally approved of by PWK, were he still with us! After all, PWK's desire was to produce a TWO-WAY fully horn-loaded design which could out-perform his original K-horn design by extending its performance to a much lower bottom-end and keeping its upper frequency performance at or above that capable by the original K-horn 3-way design. That was the original goal to begin with! So, I'm quite sure PWK would be happy with the bottom-end performance extending even lower than that of the original Jubilee bass bin!
I would just love to see exactly what kind of bass bin changes have occurred to achieve this, myself! PLUS, I would ALSO be curious as to the possibility of a "decorator" version of the new Jubilee which could be "dolled-up" by the buyer...as a viable slightly lower cost option for the new Jubilee speakers...just saying...especially since I can envision a pro-version of this new Jubilee happening sooner or later!
After all, PWK himself offered decorator versions of his speakers for decades in order to let the purchaser do the "dolling-up" at a decent savings over "factory-dolled-up" models...as in the Heresy, Cornwall, and K-horn decorator versions. For those of u complaining about the appearance of the new Jubes, then you can doll them up however you want to if this ends up being an option...doncha think??
So...instead of complaining about appearance...why not just jump on the "Decorator Jube" bandwagon, instead!
No matter WHAT happens, I trust that Roy has continued steering right on a straight course with the ORIGINAL INTENT of PWK in this new version of PWK's final design!
After all, it was advances in horn technology which allowed PWK to come up with a two-way design to eclipse his original three-way design of the K-horn...and since that initial last effort by PWK, things have advanced further in horn technology at the bottom end performance of the spectrum!
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BTW folks, using the official government inflation data is way off base from reality...that is why the annual COLA is such a pitiful excuse tor keeping up with ACTUAL inflation!
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When inflation runs rampant, like it is doing RIGHT NOW...for various reasons, and it is topped-off by huge increases in lumber/wood-product materials, the prices will rise...back in the Jimmy Carter-era, when I worked there at Klipsch, it was not uncommon at all for the company to have two or more 10% price increases in one calendar year. And that had absolutely NOTHING to do with employee wage increases at all...since we were lucky to get a nickel a year back then!
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2 hours ago, AndreG. said:
Thank You, a lot of additional information to use when i start in earnest. Can Yo say something about the type of American Walnut verneer that was used? These are 1977 make. I want to re-verneer a sw bass extension and i want to match the verneer as close as possible. I know it won´t be a perfect match because of age and wear, thanks.
Why wait at all to do this?...it is like maybe a 1-2 hour job...and you will IMMEDIATELY hear the difference without changing a single thing on those speakers! All you need is a screw-driver or two, and a bit of di-electric grease! and some contact cleaner and paper towels!...so just DO IT...do it NOW!
It is "American Black Walnut"...coloring can range from dark brown with a hit of red, all the way to almost jet black with hints of purple. European walnut is kin to it...because they are from the same "family" of trees, but so are the hickory tree varieties, and pecan varieties. So-called "European walnut" didn't even originate in Europe, it was imported there from Persia a few hundred years ago, primarily for use in furniture lumbers...and it doesn't approach the darkness of coloration that American Black walnut has. BUT, that being said ,you can use black walnut stain on European walnut to darken it. European walnut leans heavily towards the "blonde" side of natural wood coloration. See what happens when you ask these questions from a mixed timberland owner? Long line of timber people in my ancestry!
So, Berlin, Germany huh? Been there, done that, way back when it was a divided city. I was a young Fallschirmjäger assigned at Mainz many moons ago!
BTW, American Black Walnut is the number "1" on the wood density scale...all other woods of the world are either higher than "1" or lower than it. The wood density scale was created to provide close approximation of other woods to American Black Walnut, in order to find suitable other woods from other trees to use in creating military rifle stocks. American Black Walmut was the preferred wood for those.
ME? What would I use to re-veneer a single SW for use with Heresys? Pecan crotch-wood would be a nice alternative, but still could provide a close match to American Black Walnut in most any instances! Be creative, not boring, in your wood choices, I always say!
Just remember THIS, though...having beautifully veneered speakers can become a very expensive investment when the "significant other" of the household decides to get new furniture to match the speakers in the room! You have been warned!🤣
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11 hours ago, dwilawyer said:
That should be American Walnut. That's not going to help a lot as there are hundreds of variations of that.
@HDBRbuilder would be able to tell you much more as he had hands on experience in that time frame.
How many times do I need to say this...and I am definitely not gonna write the whole damned thing out again...so do a search of my posts about cleaning up electrical contacts from the rear panel to everywhere else and applying a liberal coat of di-electric grease to all of the connections before reconnecting them...and you will HIGHLY LIKELY see that the performance of them is BEST improved with a bit of your time and effort and absolutely nothing else SHOULD be required! for Heresy I models....PERIOD! Stop planning on changing things and just get what you already have working at its peak performance FIRST! Of all the heritage models, the Heresy networks and innards get the very least of damage done to them over time from outside influences simply BECAUSE they are a relatively air-tight cabinet to begin with! Lemme see if I can find the most recent post I made about all of this...and it will walk you through he process in absolute detail. ONCE AGAIN, bare wire connections are the best because they have the least electrical resistance involved! PERIOD!
OK found it..@AndreG Just read and do the following!
you're welcome, AndreG!...AND it only took me just ONE bottle of Kostritzer Schwarzbier Lager to find that old post of mine, too!...Now I get to relax while drinking my second one!😄
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On 5/21/2021 at 3:24 PM, RandyH said:
PWK was in a Fantastic shape for an 80 + year old Man who did so much in a very short lapse of time , 45 years in business at the time of this interview -
He was a SWIMMER...The very first time he chatted with me in his office...one of the first things he noted after a few minutes was that I was a smoker. He basically said: I see that you are a smoker, I was a smoker myself for the early part of my adulthood life...but after I found out what kind of damage it had been doing to me, I gave it up!" He then suggested to me to consider doing the same. He never mentioned smoking to me again. I later found out that he had been diagnosed with "emphysema" in the late 1950's or early-mid 1960's...and he quit smoking, and started a rigorous program of swimming to build his lung capacity back. He also walked very quickly wherever he went...all for aerobic exercise...he was a very physically flexible man!
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10 minutes ago, RandyH said:
Andy @Daddy Dee passed these Lascala to a Family Member , and you know how Kind of a Person he was , so Family First - He , and his Wife would have never sold these Special Speakers outside of the Family -
Yeah, I really liked Dee...one of the epitomes of "good people"!
The next ones I build I will have full photo documentation of how they go together, including the finer building details involved....likely a short video series on building them NO MDF at all in them, either! One pair will be my outside party ones, the other pair will be for inside the house use!
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On 8/12/2021 at 2:31 PM, RandyH said:
Andy , all I can say , is this pair of Lascala is flawless -
So...it was YOU who ended up with these cabs from Daddy Dee? Actually, I never did get to hear them, I'm sad to say....Dee got them as empty replacement cabs, pre-drilled for mounting everything into them, but I never actually HEARD them playing...when I visited him, they weren't hooked up to anything. The next time I visited him, they were gone! I was HOPING to hear them, because part of the reason I went to all the effort to change up the joinery was to provide for a stiffer bass bin build, without needing to resort to thicker side panels OR installation of bracing at the forward portion of the bass bin in order to eliminate the flexing of the side panels towards the front of the bass bin. Everybody who ever heard them told me they really sounded great, but I never got to confirm whether or not what I tried to accomplish ever did actually work or not! If it DID work, then there SHOULD BE a bit more noticeable bottom-end to them prior to roll-off than on a standard build, when listening to them at moderate-to-higher volumes! PLUS, the clarity of what is coming outta the bass bin should be MUCH-imp[roved to some extent..when compared to the standard factory build.
Trust me, the next two pairs I build, I will DEFINITELY be able to "give 'em a listen"!!!
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On 7/14/2021 at 10:00 PM, RandyH said:
1/4 inch or even 1/2 inch veneered panels would really make these speakers stand out , but they would also help in reducing the vibrations of the side walls , finally a grille looks very good on the Lascala for the top portion of the cab-
I built that one, too!...One of a totally book-matched pair...about 25 years after I worked at Klipsch....the pair was built using joinery differering from the factory build in 1977...IIRC, I built this pair in 1997-98 time-frame. .The only place you will notice any hint of fasteners is by looking at tte bottom of the speakers and the rear of tte speakers. I have since made another re-design of assembly...which I will someday, sooner than later, give a try. My most recent re-design will have the APPEARANCE of the current LaScala build, except that inside the bass bin, it will have a "shadow-box" look to it with ONLY the Doghouse assembly being in fine-veneer...with the rest of the inside of he bass bin being in flat black laminate. Outta look VERY COOL!
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To find the serial numbers for your LaScalas....first, face the rear of the speaker; then look in the plywood edge grain at the top of the bass bin rear panel...it should be stamped-in there on each one of those era LaScalas.
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Finely-veneered cabinets with the mitered corners were assembled, FOR THE BASIC BOX using urea-formaldehyde glue, spmetimes called "brown glue"to secure the miter-joints It is a water-soluble powder that has to be mixed together carefully so that it is not too thin or too thick....since the finely-veneered miter joint cabinets used panels made of poplar lumber-core plywood, that meant you were bonding the end-grain of the poplar lumber core together at those miter-joints, and the "brown glue" was best for that. All other parts of the construction glues used were the "white glues, which was pretty-much the equivalent to tight-bond.. The K-horn bass bins had parts of it assembled using the brown glue, while other parts were assembled using the white glue.
If there was ever any hide glue used, I am not aware of it...because from the very beginning of the company, urea-formaldehyde "brown-glue" was a furniture industry standard....especially in assembiy of poplar-lumber-core-plywood panels.
EPA pretty much killed off the use of urea-formaldehyde glues for the most part, about the same time as Klipsch went over to using finely-veneered MDF panels for pretty much everything, except the basic K-horn Bass bin structure.
One of the problems in furniture mass-production is dealing with glue squeeze-outs...especially when it involves the possibility of those squeeze-outs getting into the grain of the fine veneers at miter joints. Because then you have created yet ANOTHER problem AT those miter joints...how to get rid of any squeeze-out which occurred during the assembly of those miter joints, so that there is no "adhesive shadow" remining in the deeper part of the fine veneer grain right at those joints. Using Urea-formaldehyde glue for those miter joints severely reduces the possibility of stains and final finishes displayng an adhesive shadow at those joints. This is one of the reasons that hte "white glues" were not used for assembly at the miter-joints themselves, although the "white glues" WERE used for the reinforcing glue blocks on the inside of those joints...because the inside edges of the front of the boxes were shot with flat black paint, which kept any "white glue" shadow from being noticeable.
There was a specific technique used for the application of the "brown glue" to the miters of the panels to minimize the squeeze-out to a bare minimum at the "toe" of the joint, so that there was no possibility of the brown glue getting into the fine veneer deep grain when assembling the cabinet. We used flattened-out soup spoons that had been carefully ground down at the edges to apply that brown glue...to the panels at the miter cuts....with the "toe" edge facing down flat, slightly over the edge of the work bench, then we skimmed off the glue from the sharp edge of the toe, about 1/16th of an inch along that edge...if done correctly. That way there was enough squeeze-out to re-surface that with the glue from above that point, but WITHOUT having any squeeze-out at all at the miter-toe, itself! Sometimes visitors would stand and watch us do that, and I would just say to them..."if you think THIS IS COOL, then you outta see me ice a cake!"😁
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On 4/21/2021 at 4:32 PM, mark1101 said:
I have two 1977 Lascalas that I bought separately years apart as singles. The serial numbers are far far apart. The cabinets are somewhat different from one another. They must have made some changes in the cabinet build in 1977. The badges are on the speakers so I know they are real.
Pics can help me tell you what is different about them, if anything at all.
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21 hours ago, RandyH000 said:
do you remember how these Badges were made ----and what was the process -------- embossed-debossed etc -----
NOPE...they just showed-up one day and final assembly was ORDERED to begin using them THAT DAY...sometime in fall of 1977, IIRC! Bob Moers (company President at the time) gave the "order". A year or two later He was gone!
Lots of things happened during that "year or two"! Huge employee turnover! Union came in! Many foremen were replaced, lots of new employees... A number of Honchos gone, employee quarterly bonus plan disappeared (replaceed by very tiny hourly pay increase!), insurance benefits changed (for the worse!)...lots of changes! It was the negativity of those changes that caused the company to lose lots of fairly long-term very experienced employees. Everything was supposed to get better, but nothing really did! I stayed on...but finally left in fall of '83! Cabinet shop foreman who got that job during that time just pizzed me off one too many times! I would not sacrifice quality for volume...if the sawyers send me pallets of outta square panels I culled them...He wanted me to build them anyway! So...I finally had enough of it! One Monday morning I walked in, he got between me and time clock...told me I was late...time clock still had three minutes til start time...I was one-minte walk from my work-table...I reached over his shoulder and clocked-in, then clocked out...told him..."Good luck with Heresy production this week!"...walked over to my worktable, grabbed anything that was mine, and out I went!...straight to the unemployment office, which, BTW wouldn't even be open until over a hour later! Three weeks later I was working in a local custom cabinet and glass-work company!
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7 hours ago, Howard Emerson said:
Hello,
Although it's way too late now, in preparing the cabinets for veneering I actually used a cabinet scraper on the front and back 3/4" edges to be more precise in the the removal of the paint. Believe me, there was NOTHING there, and I've since seen several black Heresy originals where the serial # or initials are clear as day.
The MI on the back side edge was the only vestige of anything, and it now resides under veneer.
Regards,
Howard Emerson
If I was the one who built them there would definitely be an "A" there...and additional letter if I had a helper that day.. So they were either built after I left in October of '83 OR I had taken a day off and somebody else was at my work table building them.
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On 5/16/2020 at 11:36 PM, wuzzzer said:
Typical LaScala range of that vintage is $750-1500 depending on condition.
So, tens of thousands...of pesos.
PHILIPPINE Pesos!...maybe.
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On 3/25/2020 at 6:01 PM, dwilawyer said:
Good lord, I was only off by four years, seemed like 6 months ago, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
Have ya ever experienced a tiny Chihuahua biting thru yer socks at yer ankles with them tiny sharp teeth, and ya just can't let yerself just kick it away?🤣
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One of the reasons those so-called "laser" logos are so hard to find is that they were originally installed on the grille-cloth using double-sided sticky tape, and it was very easy for them to get lost in the shuffle once a piece of clothing got snagged on the corner of the badge...that glue residue remaining on originals can be quickly removed with goo-b-gone.
PWK himself had the copyright to the PWK logo, NOT the company! So, the so-called laser badge came about as a result of company internal hierarchy strife, during which the copyright for the PWK logo was temporarily pulled back from use by the company. The replacement logo for the so-called laser badge had the re-instated PWK copyright emblem returned to occupy a box to one side of that badge. The "internal hierarchy strife" didn't last for very long, but it took awhile to get the new badges designed and to the company in enough numbers to begin using them on production speakers.
The PWK "pie-slice" loges used prior to the so-called laser badges, were still out in the plant stored at individual final assembly work-tables for a few years "in-hiding" because most of the plant employees wanted them installed on their "employee specials" when they got to final assembly. Eventually, they were all gone...I'm sure that many of the employees hoarded back a few of them before they were ALL gone...I certainly grabbed a few! One of which has been on the dust cover of my TEAC A2340-R tape deck since 1977!
One of the craziest thing I see, as one of the plant employees who had (and still HAS) the utmost respect for PWK and his accomplishments, in all of this "reverence" towards the short-lived time of the so-called "laser badge" is how badly people WANT them, since they are actually representative of a short time in the company's history in which an attempted internal hostile take-over from the company's FOUNDER was in the works! I guess...it is what it is!😵
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I have a pair of BK WO 0N885/895 , built 1975, black fabric but no badges. question what is correct style of badge?
in Ask the Historian
Posted
They have not been available for decades, now...good luck! The last ones the plant had were scarfed-up by the employees when they were told they would no longer be used. Basically, the two versions of the originals are unobtainium nowadays. But Klipsch COULD have another run of them made, it they desired to do it...it is what it is.