HDBRbuilder

I've found myself anxiously anticipating each new addition to the Ms. Belle biography of PWK thread myself! I never got to meet her, she passed away not very long (a year or so, maybe?) before I got back from Italy and started working at Klipsch in July 1976. PWK had already re-married to Miss Valerie by that time. But everybody in the plant who DID know Belle was very glad to have known her! Some were still a bit wary of Ms. Valerie, though! The PWK biography that Ms.Valerie commissioned makes it look almost like Belle never even existed...and tends to leave out any impact Belle ever really had upon PWK's life and the success of his company, IMO! What I gleaned from other employees (some of them working there from almost the very beginning) who had known Belle for a number of years, was a MUCH DIFFERENT story than what the book seemed to tell! What I tend to see in my mind is a very loyal wife who watched her husband start-up a business based upon a hobby, with only a part-time Army Reserve salary coming in from his side of the household and very little to nothing coming in from the company itself for many of the early years. Whereas her entire salary as a school teacher was committed to the support of the household. A spouse like that is a major important part of a man's life story! PWK was doing very well financially by the time I started working there. BUT, it had NOT always been that way for the company! There were times when the company was not even able to pay the employees...that is a fact...and PWK offered them shares in the company instead! Most took him up on that offer, too! They had faith in him and the products he designed and they made! SO there is VERY MUCH missing in the "OFFICIAL" biography, IMHO! Being a history nut, I desire to know what is missing!...within reason, that is!

ME?? I kinda wanna know what the speed limit sign on Warp Drive looks like! I would also like to know whether, if you get off at Warp Drive, how you ever get back home, since the exit sign CLEARLY STATES "EXIT ONLY"😉

If I am deciphering what the current owner said...it looks like BOTH woofers may have been replaced at one time or another...I bet the skating rink guy was rolling up the bass control to try to get out of that bass horn what it just could not do, huh? Nothing new about that happening a lot to those who really don't know the horn design limits, is it??

It happened...actually the initials/codes were for quality control purposes...if an issue was found, it was sent back to whom-ever built/sanded it. Since the sanders already knew who built it once they got it, it wasn't really any big deal, since they first inspected it before working on it. If there was an issue with "BUILD QUALITY", then they took it back to whomever built it! "Can you please fix this?" I never had that happen, though! On occasion the sander might have a "This tiny chip in the rosewood veneer came loose while I was working on it...please fix it if you can...it goes right here" issue...which I gladly repaired for them! Rosewood and ebony are dense and brittle veneers...all it takes is a very minor clothing snag or whatever for an unrealized chip in the edge of the veneer miter cut or elsewhere to come loose...easy repair, ESPECIALLY if the chip is found and brought back to me! It would never be noticed as a repair, either! Foreman: "What the hell are you doing?" Me: " Whittling on the underside of this damned rosewood chip so I can glue it back where it goes and it will lay flat!" Foreman: "Oh OK, just wondered!" If the repair is done correctly, nobody else will ever know there ever was a repair! My Exacto knife was a great friend to me! The sanders liked me! Frances ("F")and Ola Mae ("OD") were best friends...both worked side-by-side in sanding....jabbering away at each other while working! Watching them harass each other all day was like watching a Laurel and Hardy routine!...Ola Mae was extremely thin and wiry, and Frances wasn't! When I was getting ready to build my first pair of speakers for myself, I had already picked them to do the sanding...one for each of them They, along with Judy("J"...or "JC) were, IMO!, the three-best sanders in the department! One day at morning break-time, I caught Judy as she headed for the break-room and let her in on my plan...she grinned real big and said "OK!" Later, that day, just as the lunch buzzer went off...I walked back and told them I was gonna be building my birch Heresy speakers soon...Frances and Ola Mae immediately started mutually-harassing each other about which one of THEM was the best sander....while Judy hung around, digging around in her purse! I told them to quit fighting or I would let Judy (who already knew what I planned to do!) sand my speakers....and I began to turn away towards Judy...They stopped harassing each other and started their pouting routines...so I turned back towards them and said "Each of you two nut-case women gets one of them, OK?"...then Judy popped-up said "What about ME??" I said "I am only getting a PAIR, not THREE! I'll let you sand the next pair I get...BOTH OF THEM, OK?" Everybody was happy!...especially JUDY!...who started into her "I get to SAND BOTH of his next pair of speakers, when it happens!", as she twirled around in her party dance routine! Then I went to the break room to eat my lunch! I knew EXACTLY what would happen even BEFORE I walked back there! It was hilarious! Judy already knew that my next pair would be kept for a year and sold! I still have that first pair of Birch Heresys...never gonna let THEM go! One is stamped "F", the other "OD"!😀 BTW, afterwards, Judy came into the break-room laughing her butt off and high-fived me!🤣

1981-82 timeframe is when they were built...cabs could have actually been BUILT in late 81 and hit final assembly in early 82. Things sometimes happened that way, back then, especially during rush periods like around the Christmas/New Years holidays...before and for a few weeks afterwards...labels were completed and installed at the final assembly area...where drivers, horn lenses and crossovers were installed...right before testing and packing, which was also done in the same general area. All of us ended up over in that area at one time or another assisting getting speakers completed, and boxed up for shipping and stacked ...especially during rush periods when there was no more room to put new-builds from the cabinet dept... waiting for sanding. Sanding Dep't, finish Dep't, and shipping Dep't were all "choke points" for products...waiting to go to the next dep't or out the doors...Everybody ended up becoming a "jack of all trades" within the plant, in those days sooner or later! I sincerely doubt that the becoming a "jack of all trades" thing has ever really ended at the Hope plant, myself...especially so for the builders in the cabinet shop! AVAILABLE FLOOR-SPACE was ALWAYS the biggest issue during rush periods!

Never knew boudain had any balls...what about FEMALE boudains? Don't make me raise the sex-discrimination flag in here!

That's what I really SHOULD have said! Thanks! I think it is a 43, too! And it is DEFINITELY what was sent for the replacement woofer! The original would not have had that particular "later logo sticker" on it! Those were built while I still worked there...that logo sticker was not yet in use at the time!

Actually, if you want the BEST performance from those LaScalas, and DO NOT intend to drive them with unGawdly amounts of power, you are better-off having K-33's in both of them! The trade-off for higher-power-handling capabilities for the K43 is not really worth its slight drop in performance if you don't really need that higher-power-handling capability! Besides, it takes very little power to push LaScalas quite well!...they come into their own threshold-wise at well-under 50 WPC with K-33's in them! To me, just having 200 wpc available is already over-kill...100 QUALITY wpc is more than enough! IMHO! I mean there are lots of folks out there using H/K 430's for LaScalas and loving it...and they are only rated (conservatively!) at 25 wpc! If you don't need a car with 500 hp, then why not buy one with less available hp?...and save some money? I have run LaScalas regularly with just 32 wpc available and they performed great! Hell, I have run them at the river for parties and get togethers with just a 5 wpc under-dash cassette deck and they did great! LOL! LaScalas are probably the best patio-party speakers Klipsch has ever made!

OK...look CLOSER..."F" is Frances...she sanded your speaker(s)...the builder initial(s) may be filled with wood putty and very hard to see. When the sanding room got the Corns, just like on Heresys...the first thing they did was slather thinned-down "plastic wood" putty in the plywood edges...to fill-in small voids in the plies (but that also filled the builder code letter(s) with the wood putty!)...then they put them aside to "cure"...then they sanded those edges...SOMETIMES to the point of sanding the builder initial(s) completely off....once the sander was completely finished with the speaker, they stamped their own initial into that edge..that is WHY the sander initial code is almost always deeper than the builder code!...mine should be JUST BELOW that "F" a bit.... The labels on your Corns have a "W" in the serial number, which is for 80 or 81....can't remember which....getting late here for me...LOL! Terry Willis (who tested your Corns) is still working at Klipsch, btw! I trained him on building Heresys and Cornwalls way back when... just a couple of years or so before yours were built! He was only in the cabinet shop for a couple of years or so, before he went elsewhere in the plant.

You sure drug out an old forum thread, didn't you?? You sure drug out an old forum thread, didn't ya? Face the rear of these Corns....then look at the rear edge of the side panel to your left...about an inch or so DOWN from its top, you should find one or more letters stamped into that rear edge. If the letter "A" is one of those letters, then I built these. It is WAY MORE likely than NOT, that you WILL FIND the letter "A" for 1980 CBR Cornwalls!...unless I had taken a day of vacation-time off when they were built.

From what I can tell...they APPEAR to be identical...and both are Klipsch parts, except one has no VISIBLE sign of its model designation...and based upon the Klipsch logos applied to each of them, the "un-marked one is obviously the NEWER of the two, from what I can tell, but just never had its model number stamped on it....maybe that is because it is a replacement that was shipped out with not ever having been stamped. It happens...front views would confirm/deny my suspicion, though.

These APPEAR to have begun life as CBR models...eventually having the motor-board touched up with gloss black instead of sheen black...and then stain on the birch plywood of the boxes and some kind of clear gloss goat put over the stain. A "reasonable/fair price" for "used" is actually whatever ONE IS WILLING TO pay...Me?? I'm a "cheap arse" so I think the seller wants too much for them...but keep in mind, I'm easily able to build my own, and already have the correct guts I can install....so....

^^^^^ What he said!

Three-speed on the column...as my Father's 1964 Chevy step-side aged, whenever I WAS FORCED TO RESORT TO USING IT, I spent more and more time coasting to a stop on the side of road, and then getting the hood up and trying to get those DAMNED SHIFTER PLATES up on the driver side firewall back to where they were correctly aligned just to get anywhere while driving it! MY GAWD they were a ROYAL PITA! Those plates were SO well-worn, to the point where even the application of a gallon-sized can of grease would do ABSOLUTELY no good at all!😂 Even though my father had relatively-recently gotten an engine re-build, he finally gave up the ghost on that truck, due to having to deal with those plates himself and traded it in on a new 1972 Chevy C-10 Custom long bed...with, of course, an automatic tranny! When we went to pick it up at the dealership, he matter-of-factly told me, that this would be the last truck he would ever need. Although the truck came "fully-loaded", he had declined my wise advice to get it with the option of the Turbo 400 HD tranny instead of the turbo 350 tranny...and his REAL woes began in 1973 with the advent of the "Arab Oil Embargo"....his tranny choice for that 4-bolt-main 350 V-8 truck engine, with 4-bbl-carburetor cost him dearly at the pump! Even on a good day for that truck, it only got around 8-10 MPG! On the other hand...my 73 Poncho GP "J" model, with big block 400, 4-bbl, and Hedman headers into twin turbo exhausts and turbo 400 tranny would get 16-18 MPG on the interstate at 85mph! BTW, I think the best Poncho engine ever made is the Big Block 400, myself! ...for a variety of reasons. My father kept that truck until he died in 1988...he had sworn that it would last him the rest of his life! But the last three or four years of his life he seldom drove it! I think he was worried about KARMA and his "the rest of my life" statement! It had well over 150,000 miles on it, engine needed a top-end rebuild (minimum)...it was burning up too much engine oil!, he was using tranny leak fix in it, radiator stop-leak, and the rear-end was leaking a bit...the paint was all but gone on the top of the cab and the hood(he never garaged it!)...lots of surface rust there...but it DID "last him the rest of his life"! Just a few hours before he passed away, he called me into his bedroom...one of the things he told me was "I told you that damned truck would last me the rest of my life, and I was right!"...then we both laughed about it, even though he was dealing with serious pain ...and then we talked together about other things....for the last time....

No issue for me because that car is "COST PROHIBITIVE" to my "realm of financial feasibility"!😥 Even if I COULD afford the CAR, I would be bankrupted by the insurance for it! Besides, I am at the age where one of my main goals is extension of my life-span instead of shortening it!🤣

I heard a song on the radio while driving the other day which reminded me of my first REALLY SERIOUS " Garbage-in/Garbage-out" eye-opening experience with my Heresys! Towards the end of 1990, not too long after I had moved into my house in the Fort Smith, AR area, I was unpacking more of my stuff. I had been listening to a "party tape" I had recorded years before on my my Teac A2340-R reel deck while unpacking stuff, but I needed a break. I had just unpacked a box full of 45 RPM records , and thought to myself..."sit down, take a break, and play some old 45's for a bit!". So I put the box on the couch and started going through what I had. As I was looking thru them all to pick out some selections to get me up and going again, I ran across Irene Cara's "What a Feeling" which was the title song for the movie Flashdance! I probably hadn't played it since many years before, but I liked that recording...or THOUGHT that I did, anyway! I thought to myself..."this outta get you up and moving around and back to the task at hand!" so I put it on the turntable, reached down and cranked the receiver volume up to about "nine o'clock" (which is "MORE THAN ENOUGH VOLUME" with the Heresys, but nowhere near any problem for the amp section of the H/K 900+), pressed auto start on my Technics SL-1300, and went to the couch again! Yes, it certainly got me back up off the couch and moving! But at one PARTICULAR point of the record, something happened which I never remembered happening before with that record! What I heard through the Heresys REALLY FREAKED ME OUT! For the first time EVER, I noticed the Heresy tweeters (for lack of a better word) were "WARBLING"! That's a sure sign of the amp being pushed into clipping, so, I immediately ran over to the turn the volume down, then glanced at the tome controls which were set "flat" as usual! That amp section had NEVER even APPROACHED even barely running into clipping at anywhere NEAR such a low volume setting before...so just WHAT was causing it? So, I re-played the record at the even-more reduced volume, and deduced that it was JUST that particular point in the song where it had happened! Since the Teac deck was still on, I just used its VU meters to see what the issue was with that recording...and played the record again...with my headphones on and the speakers off...and when it got to that particular point, the VU meters on the tape deck went all the way into the red and pegged at the extreme right for about two seconds! I was really PIZZED OFF! because I could have ended up with speaker damage and/or amp section damage to my stuff due to some SOB in the recording booth who decided to "improve" the song while most likely in the act of mixing it down!! NO, I was not angry at the speakers or the amp...but I WAS ANGRY with the IDIOT STICK who recorded that track! Now a song I really liked before Klipsch, I was AFRAID to play AFTER Klipsch! I had probably not even ever played it WITH Klipsch before, otherwise I would have already had this harrowing experience. What did I have BEFORE the Klipsch Heresys? JBL L36 Decades with all of the same upstream components! Go figure! This situation is good example of exactly WHY some people say they hate horn-loading...they never realized before hearing a favorite song/music track through horn-loaded speakers that the track was so poorly-recorded! Garbage-in/Garbage-out! What is YOUR eye-opening experience with this?

Not necessarily a CAR, but in my case a Pick-up truck! Things have completely turned around on the transmission option for new vehicles! It really ticks me off! In order to get a 2WD pick-up with a MANUAL tranny, it costs more, instead of less than it used to cost! This is TOTALLY ridiculous. The maintenance needs of automatic transmissions has traditionally been far more costly than it is for standard tranny needs. Not only that, but the standard tranny innards tend to last almost forever, with just minor maintenance as scheduled such as replacing the gear oil when required in the maintenance schedule....which just generally leaves minor repair issues for the owner over long periods of time! The cost of damage in automatic trannies is much higher in comparison! The advantages of the automatic transmission consists of two major points: 1. With the advent of automatics with many more "speeds" built-in the past few years, they are much more fuel-saving than most standards could be during NORMAL highway usage....and... 2. Driver convenience...and that is basically IT! But, with a standard tranny the owner has savings advantages, and the ability of easily "rocking the vehicle out of being stuck", etc., by quickly going from reverse to a forward low gear and vice/versa...negating the need for 4WD in many instances, especially so if the vehicle comes equipped with a winch or the driver carries a "come-along" just in case of this thing happening. The ability of push/roll-starting a vehicle with a standard is also much better than with an automatic transmission. Granted, I tend to drive a vehicle until it totally falls apart and/or its maintenance/repair costs begin to exceed the cost of making monthly payments on a new vehicle. And I would love to have a new truck now that I can afford it...BUT I have major problems with the sticker prices of them and finding one which I REALLY WANT! There are now "conveniences" in vehicles which used to cost more, but are standard with every vehicle, but I honeslty don't need most of them...so why do I HAVE TO PAY MORE just because they are automatically included with the basic model?? Things have gotten RIDICULOUS, IMHO!...when a new vehicle to meet your needs includes so much stuff you don't need but still have to pay for...and it costs as much as your home does! What ever happened to being able to buy a small-to-medium-size truck with a dependable 4-cylinder engine and standard 5 or 6 gear-tranny? And why do they cost so much? And why is almost everything on the body that is susceptible to damage made of plastic which will damage more easily than steel would? To be honest, things like electrical adjustable mirrors are handy to have...along with things like power windows and aircon...but from MY point of view, we are all paying for too many things we really don't need just because they come standard with the base vehicle price which has ridiculously sky-rocketed because of it, nowadays! GAWD, I miss having my '88 Mitsubishi SPX macro-cab pick-up with that 2.6 liter 4-cylinder engine and chain-driven overhead cam! It got great gas mileage, handled like a sports car, was low to the ground so it was easy to get in and out of and I got an ungawdly amount of miles out of it with putting little into it maintenance/repair-wise. Its predecessor, a 1980 Dodge D-50 Sport (same drivetrain!) was just as good! Both of these were able to do whatever was asked of them! And trust me, I asked a lot from them! I currently own a 2008 Kia Sportage with 4-banger and auto- tranny...but am waiting for a pick-up that I really WANT to own to rear its head, and so far, that hasn't happened! My experience with this Kia (my first one!)...makes me wish they made a simple pick-up truck with a 3/4 ton suspension rating, RWD, and a reliable standard tranny!!...the HELLo with all the un-needed bells and whistles! End of rant!

inside inside to In the late 1970's we sent MCM 1900 systems up to the organizers of the "Arkansas Jam" just a few days before the event was supposed to begin. We had told them to set them up, but NOT TO RUN THEM until the guys at Klipsch got there to assist in hooking them up to the equipment. So, they completely ignored waiting for our people to get there...and blew them up with something like five thousand watts per channel at full blast! They requested replacement systems to arrive by the time of the event, but that was impossible, because there was not enough time to build them and ship them before even the end of the event! So they carried the event on anyway without them instead of cancelling it for a later time. They cut their own throats "sound system-wise" and there was never an attempt for an "Arkansas Jam" again! Many of the Klipsch employees had planned to attend the event, but decided not to go since the MCM systems had been destroyed by their people just a few days prior to the event-start. We all knew that the event would not turn out well...and should at least be postponed to a later date, but that didn't happen! IIRC, It was a week or so after the "event" was over that we received the systems "for repair" and they were TOTALLY FRIED, to include cabinet sections which had burned to charcoal for a few layers of plys in places inside of them and K43's which looked like they had been exploded by a land-mine! Huge amounts of damage in EVERYTHING we sent to them! @JRH: I'm pretty sure you were on-board with Klipsch when this happened and I'm also sure that there were pics taken of the results to the speakers...because Gary Gillum was taking a bunch, some of the rest were taking pics, too!...when they arrived back to the plant "for repair". Are there any of those pics in the archives? Something like that is just too sad and ridiculous to ever forget!

I certainly hope he is! I've seen the results of too much power...to the point of serious fires and extremely loud "explosion-type" sound effects...as drivers disintegrated in the cabinets! 🤣

Just because speakers are designed to HANDLE more power doesn't mean they NEED that much power. Power-handling CAPABILITY specs are basically a CAVEAT!Sometimes, though, people just IGNORE the Caveat with dire results, like It seems there is a learning curve in this which has not been learned, yet. The entire concept of efficient speakers is that they DO MORE with LESS POWER. "Ask the historian" sometime about the time we sent the MCM 1900 systems up-state in Arkansas for the "Arkansas Jam", with the WARNING for them to wait until our people got there before hooking anything up! Did they follow the instructions?? OF COURSE NOT! They just thought..."Look at the SIZE of this stuff!!...some of y'all run way out in front of these about 300 yards and let's see how they sound from out there...we don't need for them Klipsch guys to show us how to hook them up!" Can you imagine what FIVE THOUSAND WPC can do to those at FULL BLAST?? Better yet, I'll ask him, myself...this should be GOOD! Needless to say, the "Arkansas Jam" event was NOT able to use its MCM systems for that event! And there wasn't enough time to build more before the event was scheduled to begin! When those poor things arrived at the plant for repair you would NOT BELIEVE what they looked like! But pics WERE TAKEN of them and the damage...HOPEFULLY Jim has some of those pics in the archives!

Hawkwind...as long as they play all of the DOREMI FASOL LATIDO album tracks!😉

Having been an Air Defense Battalion Tactical Operations officer for a number of years...them folks ain't got me fooled...even with wearing trifocals I can see how they tried to get away with sneaking in an F22 with them F18's!😮 Great pics!

I had no idea that the Navy ever had the old F86 Sabre jet in its inventory...cool!

If you weren't one before, it is now official...you're a certified space case, now!

Your case is VERY different....I was PRIMARILY referring to when the online dating prospect IS NOT from overseas. For YOUR situation, like mine, it tends to be different.