HDBRbuilder

Has anybody tried this yet? https://www.maperformance.com/products/plasti-dip-matte-black-rubber-coating-11203?variant=7525559747&msclkid=079ef8155bc61b6ca9b6a63c0dcdcb84 This seems to be one of the best ways of damping a metal horn lens from its outside....just spray its outside down with solvent grade ether (Birchwood-Casey's "gun scrubber"...can be found in Wally World gun cleaning section) to clean its outside surface and remove anything which may keep this from sticking....then after that dries, use this stuff....too easy! You're welcome!😉

There is ABSOLUTELY NO NEED to remove the grille cloth to determine if these have the "perforated metal grilles" installed. You can see that by opening the driver/network access panel at the speaker rear, instead! These are actually called the "Industrial Heresy Motor-boards". Having grille cloth on these most likely means that it was added after purchase....but the similarity to the way the grille cloth is mounted to what was done to accomplish this at the factory makes me think that this may have been due to a specific customer request for cloth grille cloth installation. Underneath of the grille cloth, you will likely find that these originally had Industrial Heresy motor-boards installed. The Industrial Heresy motor-boards consisted of a piece of approximately 1/2" Baltic birch plywood, with the woofer outline routed out of its center, and with a metal (aluminum) grille stapled to it. The Industrial motor-board also had holes drilled in it to use the wood screws to attach it to the rear of the regular motor-board, with the stapled-on grille to the front of the industrial; motor-board. Additionally, the industrial motor-board has T-nuts installed in order to mount the woofer directly to it using machine screws. In order to ensure that the industrial Heresy motor-board sealed its metal-grille to the regular Heresy motorboard….prior to final assembly (usually the afternoon beforehand), a bead of black silicon caulk was run around the face of the grille, in a radius slightly larger than the radius of the woofer opening in the industrial motorboard and atop the metal grille (which had already been installed and painted black most often). After this bead of caulk set-up over-night, it served as a pliable (as in squashable) gasket to ensure the sealing of the industrial motor-board's face to the cabinet motor-board....basically sealing the cabinet air-tight (more-or-less) at the front. If you ever open up the access panel on these it is readily apparent that the woofer is attached to the industrial motor-board using machine screws, while the industrial motor-board, itself is attached to the cabinet motor-board using wood screws….but to actually see the silicone caulk gasket on the face of the metal grille would most likely require your removal of that industrial motor-board from the cabinet motor-board to understand what I described. I would advise against that because removing it may break the seal from that caulk and cause it to not seal back properly again. Installation of the Industrial Heresy motor-boards actually reduced the interior volume of the cabinet a bit, but not enough, as PWK would say, to "make a dime's worth of difference" in its performance.😉 You might ask "how do I know all of this?" I had Industrial Heresy Motor-boards installed by Gwin Cox in final assembly a few weeks after I first took my "flame twins" HDBL's home...due to an "overly curious" adopted cat I had to deal with at home...its curiosity was about to end up with my woofer cones being mauled by its claws...pretty simple! I had no desire for "curiosity to kill the cat", since it was a great "mouser" in the raggedy house I was residing in at the time!

If you LOOK CLOSELY at this pic, it SEEMS to show the bottom of a label on the rear of the bass horn....just below the top panel of that bass horn., Providing the information or, better yet, a good pic of that label will actually answer your question as to year of production much better than a general time frame for its manufacture date.

I've been out of the loop for about a month….so bringing WHERE and WHEN?

"Inspected by" signature line was actually the person in final assembly who installed the drivers/horn-lenses and networks into the speaker cabinets, then closed up the cabinets prior to them being tested.

Just face the rear of the speaker cabinet, then look at the rear edge of the side panel to your left....up around one inch below the joint with the top panel, there...and there should be one or more initials stamped into the plywood edges there....if the letter "A" is one of those letters, then I built the cabinet. One or moe of those initials will also be stamped in deeper, and those are the initials of the sander of the speaker cabinet. They really AREN'T stamped in "deeper" but were stamped in after the sander finished sanding the speaker...which makes them APPEAR to have been stamped in deeper. The builder code letters were often filled in with wood putty prior to sanding the rear edges, and then sanded down so much that they are difficult to discern....so look hard to find them.

I was highly likely the builder of both of these HBR speakers.

I agree...nice looking cabinet...that gold-toned upper heat vent should be a dead give-away along with its trapezoidal shape...for somebody who is familiar with cabinets that have those features. Marantz used a trapezoidal shape there, on SOME of their stuff...but not gold-toned grille...and most of their vents went all the way to the rear of the case, IIRC!...but were black....again, IIRC! The front inside perimeter dimensions are key to what went into it, for sure!

With rust already eating away at parts of it, why not just get everything prepped by scraping loose the flakes where it is peeling, then sanding it spo that the new primier will stick well...and instead of using regular primer, get some of that stuff (can't remember what it is called!) that bonds with the rust...put on a coat of that, then shoot it whatever color you want afterwards? That way you would be killing two birds with one stone, I would think. Bed liner isn't a bad idea, either....that way when you're climbing around on it, at least your shoes would have a better grip to what they come in contact with!

I don't believe that walnut case is from McIntosh...because, its upper gold-toned ventilation area is a trapezoid-shape instead of a wide rectangle...IIRC, McIntosh always used a wide rectangle for their ventilation area and not a trapezoid. But I MIGHT be wrong...I just have my memory to rely upon on this. I HAVE SEEN this shape on a wood case like this before, just can't recollect what went into it. It is NOT a Harman/Kardon, though...maybe a Marantz?

KCBR...no finish was applied at the factory...they are C-style Klipschorns shipped as "Birch Raw"...meaning the speakers were just sanded and then shipped, with no finish applied. Sometime after they were shipped the "collar" between the upper H/F top section and the bass bin was added...C-style shipped from the plant without any collar.

From just after my family returned from my father's accompanied tour of duty (3 years) in West Germany, when my parents bought a console stereo for the living room, sometime while I was in kindergarten in 1958 or 1959, the radio which HAD BEEN the family music-listening device, ended up on the bedside table in my bedroom. It was a Grundig Majestic tube radio (which I still have, along with its 45 rpm record changer!) . From that point onwards, at least while we lived in Odenton, MD, while my father was finishing up his army career at Fort Meade, MD, that radio was tuned to "60 on the radio" out of Baltimore...a rock-n-roll station, every night...all night long...I slept with the radio on! Every night! All thru school, and high school and my first year of college it remained bedside, although it had been re-set to more local stations for rock-n-roll after we moved from Maryland to Arkansas in January of 1964! Its case was made out of a very dark brown bakelite type of heavy plastic, with gold painted trim. This radio was a multi-band one, so I could change it to short wave and pick up airline pilots chatting on their radios and stuff, too!

I worked at Klipsch from 1976 to 1983...about 7.5 years...in that time maybe 2 or 3 pairs of gloss piano black K-horns were shipped, from what I can remember. So, they are exceedingly rare as a finish on K-horns, but it was DEFINITELY an option for the finish throughout that time and earlier and later than when I was there. THe painters hated doing them, though, because there was way too much possibility of drips/runs happening during the application of those multiple coats of high-gloss black laquer! They would neeed to come in bef9ore work to shoot those layers, too...after scrubbing down the floor to eliminate the possibility of any dust getting into the finish when they shot the speakers, and also prior to the rest of the employees getting to their work stations, stirring up dust in the process! Total PITA for the painters!...seriously! It was also a total PITA for the final assembly and shipping personnel...almost anything might create a scuff mark and the shipping department had to be very careful when packing them...for the same reasons! As for the validity of that gloss piano black being an original factory paint job, only the labels can confirm or deny that for you, just as USNRET stated above! Just looking at your posted pics, my best guess is that the gloss piano black was applied after the speakers left the plant...since it appears that the sharp edges and corners have been sanded over to "round those edges somewhat" prior to the black finish being applied....but I could be wrong!

That is pretty much what happened. "Crown" had already received trademark status thru a completely different manufacturer in Europe and some other locations, as early as 1973...so when Crown began marketing overseas, they had to use a different trademark...so they came up with "Amcron"….short for "American Crown"....and marketed their products using that logo in places which fell under the trademark rules for the European "Crown" products. Identical stuff, just a different logo. In some placesx it it still required for Crown to be sold as Amcron, it seems....I guess that has to do with how long the trademark is granted for in those particular places...and whether it has been renewed by that other "Crown company" or not.

Not a worry for me....LRAFB Class VI store all the way...no liquor tax at all! Now that ya mentioned it though...I haven't had but a couple of beers since the last time I was in Hope over a month ago...for the Roy thing....think I will get another one or two outta the fridge for this evening! Konig Ludwig Heffe-Wiess bier, anybody?

My Senior English teacher is rolling over in her grave...so be it!😂 I'm not, after all, writing a novel here...so who gives a flying XXXX? At my age, worrying about punctuation is the least of MY worries, anyway.

Northwest Arkansas has huge amounts of "rural Arkansas" areas within just a few minutes' drive to the extensive metroplex in that area (which begins with Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, and Bentonville, the third, fourth, eighth, and tenth largest cities in the state....and extends all the way to the Missouri border)...and most of those rural areas also have city water lines already run out to them! The area bounded to the west by the Oklahoma state line and to the east by that metroplex, is ideal for rapid city access while retaining a rural environment. The current tax year (2019) will be the first tax year where I am exempt from paying ANY STATE INCOME TAX AT ALL! The legislature passed a new law about two years or so ago exempting all military pay, including that of active duty and reserve component personnel, AND MILITARY RETIREES from state income tax on those earnings! So I haven't even paid in any money this year for state income taxes because all of my income is NOW tax exempt here! GOTTA LOVE IT! I am also getting VA disability and social security now...both already tax exempt here! GOTTA LOVE IT! Plus, I will now have very little that is taxed under the federal income tax codes....just my military retirement check and a few annuities! The only other income I will end up having to pay any kind of Federal income tax on will be miniscule, to say the least!😉 I went from having basically the same amount of income before I retired on 30 November 2018 ...to having the same "take-home" amount still coming in, but now paying far less in state and federal income taxes on any of it! My wife is considerably younger than I am, so I will be starting up a business for her...but neither of us will actually "DRAW salaries" from it, preferring to "defer receipt of salaries earned", in case we actually need the money "further on down the road". Instead, we will utilize "the advantages of LLC ownership" to cover many of what could have been "individual income out-lays" over time. "Advertising expenses" covers lots of ground, ya' know? And there are other advantageous business expenses, too! My father gave me some very good advice for my college days..."Son, it DOES NOT MATTER WHAT YOU END UP MAJORING IN, just select electives which will do you some good later on in life, such as business law, accounting courses, and things like that...just in case you end up starting your own business sometime in the future! Even if you start up your own business and have an accountant handling those things, you will still need to ensure that accountant is not ripping you off...so take what is necessary elective-course-wise to help keep that from happening!" So that is what I did....my Dad was a smart guy!😉

It all boils down to condition...and affordability...BUT....keep in mind that Stu Hegeman DESIGNED the Citation II amp TO BE PAIRED WITH the Citation I pre-amp! They WERE DESIGNED TO GO TOGETHER! The biggest complaint which most "tube lovers" tend to have with the Citation II is that when they roll tubes, they don't get the desired coloration from the other tubes being changed out! It may not be stated in that manner, but the reality is that is what their complaints boil down to. The facts of the situation is that Stu Hegeman ACTUALLY DESIGNED the amp to ELIMINATE coloration as much as possible from the tubes being used in it. He reached that goal quite well....much to the disdain of those who have come to rely on specific colorations from using different tubes in their amps. So, consider yourself forewarned about this!

Roy ensured that his explanation of things would be readily understood by all of us, even those of us who "are not so much technically-proficient in horn designing methods" could understand what had happened. His goal with the mumps in the Cornwall mid-horn was to improve over-all dispersion, with heavier emphasis on the horizontal dispersion by those mid-horns. He explained how the testing measurements of even the exponential horn designs showed one thing on the plane curves, without telling the whole story about what was going on with the tractrix horns. So this meant that the mumps added to the Cornwall mid-horn were SPECIFIC to that particular speaker and its components in order to produce the desired results of increasing dispersion without adding in any distortion of the waves which would have occurred without the use of those mumps specific to that particular horn lens. Does this cover your question? Roy discovered that the new tractrix mid-horn lens for the Heresy IV, OTOH, actually had no need for mumps in order to achieve a wider horizontally-heavy-weighted dispersion with minimal distortion. This is just one of the reasons why the Heresy IV and the Cornwall IV now have differing mid-horn lenses. This was explained in both the listening room as we were exposed to the identical voicing "show", and again when we went back out into the lab where he went over his decision matrix for cross-over points in both speakers as he compared stored curves on the computer and explained how the desired "best points" for the crossover to happen was reached. As for the decision to port the Heresy IV, he explained that numerous times, PWK had expressed a desire to do that, but never got around to it during his lifetime. So Roy decided to do it for him....simply because its time had FINALLY come...and with the tractrix porting now being possible, it could happen with minimal outside dimensional changes of the cabinet being REQUIRED to make it happen! Numerous people have already expressed a "worry" about how the Heresy IV, with its slant riser and rear-porting, will perform in different applications at different distances away from a wall or corner at its rear. Let me just say this about the demonstration of its performance: The Heresy IV was quite a distance out from its nearest wall or corner (at least a good FOUR to SIX FEET or more!), and it was READILY APPARENT that its performance was much better in its bottom-end than ever before! Hearing is believing! So, IMHO, what will happen with it in its "ideal distance out" from a wall or corner in a home listening environment SHOULD be even MORE AMAZING than what we ACTUALLY heard! I can say the same for the Cornwall IV being out about the same distance from its nearest corner or wall! But due to the Heresy having REAR-PORTING, I just want to emphasize this! We weren't SUPPOSED to take any pics in the lab building, so I don't personally have any showing how far out they were from the nearest corner or wall...sure wish I did! Sorry!

The entire point in us all sitting there and listening to them all, one at a time, being changed from one speaker to another using the same upstream components and source material was to show the identical voicing they now have. Roy explained some of what had to be done to accomplish this feat during that portion of his presentation and afterwards . BUT IT IS FOR REAL IDENTICAL VOICING! Just ask anybody who was there! And the former CW3 and Her3 used identical mid and hi drivers and horns...Now the Heresy IV and Cornwall IV do NOT use the same identical mid horn lenses, anymore. Horizontal Dispersion is increased for both, along with the CW using the "mumps" while the Heresy didn't need the "mumps" to accomplish that feat. The demonstration Roy had set-up with a mono source, and was being emitted by each speaker in an array of them all...one speaker at a time...left to right and back again numerous times...it was amazing! Current LaScala, Cornwall IV, Forte III, and Heresy IV were what was used for demo. Over the weekend, and especially so during the demonstration, Roy reiterated PWK's saying that "no matter how much testing on equipment is done to prove the performance of a speaker, we all live in the Real World and it is our the ears which make our decisions, no matter what the testing equipment proves to us". So Roy put the identical voicing up front where it belongs! Roy explained that over the years as changes in individual models were implemented, it had gotten to the point that the reliance upon testing equipment had left the concept of identical voicing behind, and he wanted to fix that! So he did! That was part of his tribute to PWK!

As for the DIY crowd(and I am one of them!)….but I have never heard of any of them doing the "voicing work" which went into the Heritage line as it currently stands today with the new Heresy IV and Cornwall IV, which are NOW identically voiced to the entire rest of the line...and that was the MAIN reason for that side-by-side comparison of them all in the Lab listening room a few weeks ago!...K-horn, LaScala, Forte, Cornwall, and Heresy are NOW all identically-voiced!! Which really IS A VERY HUGE THING!, considering the differences that each of them has with the other speaker models in the now-current Heritage series! There are so many other options available due JUST TO THIS IDENTICAL VOICING, NOW! Home theater applications, YOU NAME IT! PLUS, it is a GREAT SALES TOOL...and smart salespersons should take SERIOUS note of this! Roy out-did himself on this, for sure!! And just WHO in the DIY crowd has been using TRACTRIX porting??? The Heritage line-up is a WHOLE NEW BALLGAME, NOW!

All I have to say about property taxes is "Move to Arkansas, RURAL Arkansas!" Buy some "undeveloped timberland" (mixed pine and hardwood) and build on it! Don't fence-in the timberland....once you do that, it is considered "developed"...and don't start planting trees in nice neat rows, that is also considered "developed"! Then you can laugh your arse off at all of the craziness of property taxes which people elsewhere complain so much about. Every 15 years or so, do a "light thinning" of your timber....you don't even need to worry about replacing the trees cut, because the squirrels will "re-plant" FOR YOU!....and you will get ALL OF YOUR PROPERTY TAXES BACK INTO YOUR POCKET which you paid during the previous 15 years, plus you will have made a sizable profit from the sale of that timber. If you enjoy hunting, then having your own mixed timberland is an even better deal for you! I'm talking from experience here, folks!😉

ALSO, check the machine screws holding the woofer to its motor-board...tighten as necessary! I tend to get them all snug, then, one at a time remove each machine screw, add a lock washer and a flat washer to it, then replace it. This is why: Over time the plywood of the motor-board will actually shrink some in its THICKNESS...but with the addition of a flat washer up against the woofer frame, and then a standard lock-washer between the flat washer and the machine screw head, you will be good to go for defeating this from happening again in the future. Another thing is to be careful when replacing the woofer access panel....with the speaker upside down on a soft surface, apply pressure with one hand to the CENTER of that door panel, while tightening ALL of the screws to where they are SNUG, FIRST...then one at a time, while still applying pressure to the center of the panel, finish tightening the screws...but be VERY CAREFUL to NOT over-tighten them so that the screw-heads sink DEEPER into the wood panel, and especially not to let the point of those screws go thru the bass bin bottom panel so that their points are sticking up into the bass bin, itself. Also, if you over-tighten those wood screws, they may strip-out enough wood so that you will have to make a "wooden match-stick and glue" repair to the holes the screws were in, so that they can get a "new grip" there. By all means, use a hand-screwdriver for this and NOT A POWERED SCREW-GUN or DRILL! TRUST ME!

You're forgetting that the riser is attached to the H IV, which gives the PERCEPTION that it is three inches taller in those pics, when it is really around an inch taller, instead! Why wait to read reviews...just go and give them a listen, instead! Let your ears be your own personal "review"!

When you get a chance, Look at the rear of both of those Cornwalls. Facing the rear of the speaker, look at the rear edge of the side panel to your left, about an inch down from its top. You should see a few stamped-in initials there. If you see the letter "A", then I built those cabinets. The builder initial(s) may be hard to see, because when the3 cabinets got to the sanding room the sanders slathered thinned-down wood filler along the rear edges of the box panels then sanded them smooth. So the builder initial(s) were most likely filled-in with that wood filler when that happened...AND after the sanders finished sanding the cabinets, they stamped their own initials into that same area...so their initial(s) will actually show up MUCH CLEARER, than those of the builder(s). I generally worked with a helper when yours were built...sol there should be a PAIR of initials for the builder code, MY builder code was the letter "A".