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I have a CEC TL5 and a MHDT Havana tube DAC. Sounds smooth yet detailed with my Cornwall IIIs. You can try to find a used CD player or transport made by CEC.

I'm using the point-to-point 6 wpc Reisong EL-34 A10 SET amp with my Cornwall IIIs. Costs only $US 300 but sounds surprisingly good with great detail. Not harsh at all. I think any good tube amp up to 25 watts is sufficient for Cornwalls but SET amps undoubtedly have a special synergy with Klipsch Heritage that is hard to describe. I have never experienced this before.

Only recently going through Stereophile reviews after a very long time. I have yet to read a review in Stereophile where it concludes that the component under review is better than the one the reviewer owns. LOL.

From my iMac, streaming via Audirvana through an MHDT Havana to a SET amp and Cornwall IIIs. Sounds very good.

If you are able to keep the speakers at least 7-8 feet apart, definitely get Cornwalls. Cornwall is a nice middle ground between the smaller and larger Klipsch Heritage speakers. The sound is large and rich particularly with tube amps.

I've seen a Lava lamp only once in my life. I think it should be safe but put it on a coaster. The salt lamp will cause untold grief. :-)

I had that on a veneered chest of drawers. It destroyed the top.

I don't even want to know how good the Cornwall IVs are since I have tweaked the positioning of my Cornwall IIIs to my satisfaction. They are very sensitive to placement. I'm in a 14x19 listening area within an open concept floor plan. Have them quite close to the wall. I find this works for my 6 watt SET amp and gives me good bass.

Hope you can try the point-to-point A10. After two weeks of listening to it with Cornwall IIIs, I'm very impressed. Sometimes the sounds in the recordings startle me with the detail and realism. Cheaper to run than exotic tubes too.

In the early 90s, my friend and roommate went to the local Klipsch dealer and came back with a brochure of the Klipsch Heritage models. He raved about it. A year or two later, I went to a store and heard Klipschorns. Unfortunately, they had it hooked up to some dreadful solid state amp. It sounded really bad. Many years later, I was reading a book on guitar tube amps and it mentioned Klipsch speakers with tube amps sounding wonderful. Finally, this year I got Cornwall IIIs and a SET amp.

Maybe focus on room treatment and speaker isolation first rather than potentially damaging the speakers.

Try with a tube amp particularly SET and when positioned correctly in a good room, you will be impressed.

You are very fortunate! I just bought B stock Cornwall III. I have them on wooden dollies and 8 feet apart and very close to the walls at a slight angle. Dollies make it easy for me to make small adjustments. In a review of Klipsch Forte, Stereophile used 2" thick rubber cork pads that were 6"x6" for isolation. Gramma pads might be another thing to try. I haven't tried this yet. The speakers do not make contact with my dollies since there are small metal studs at the bottom. I'm listening from around 15-20 feet away. With an inexpensive PTP EL34 SET amp, they sound fantastic. Not boomy at all and the human voice, guitar, and saxophone sound rather remarkable. I will experiment with room treatment in the near future.

I buy tubes for my guitar amps from the tubestore.com. I never had a problem with the tubes that I bought from there. I'm very impressed by the A10. I was able to confirm the established fact that the combination of Klipsch and SET is quite magical. It's very silent and has more than sufficient power and bass with my Cornwalls.

That's true. I tried Audio Mart and E-bay. Not much luck. Plus people are not too keen on shipping. Then I saw the B-stock sales from Sound Seller on E-bay. Very reputable dealer and I was able to ship to Canada using a freight forwarding service. I'm totally starting from scratch. I'm on Day 3 of breaking in. I always wanted a system with Klipsch Heritage speakers with a SET amplifier forever. I am pretty happy. Some people claimed Cornwalls are boomy, shrill, and whatever. Not what I'm hearing when I feed TIDAL via Audirvana through an MHT tube DAC to the SET amp. I have a fairly large room. I will also be doing some room treatment if needed after the break-in period. Next is to get a CEC TL5 CD transport and perhaps vinyl (not so sure about this since it seems like an endless money pit). :-)

This is the reason I did not buy Cornwall IVs even though reviews claim they are much better. Hardly any used ones around. At 6K, I would be entering a price bracket where there were more options to consider esp. used. So I got B stock Cornwall IIIs for 3K. One of the speakers had a barely noticeable blemish. Otherwise perfect. I plan on keeping these for a long time.

I finally hooked up the Reisong A10 to the Cornwall IIIs that I bought recently. The construction quality is excellent and it is shockingly heavy for a tiny amp. Out-of-the-box, it sounds very good and very silent in operation. What you put in, you get out. Good recordings sound good and bad recordings not so great. Smooth and no harshness on the best recordings.

I recently ordered the handwired version of the A10 from china-hifi and it's on its way. The construction quality looks very good from the photos. With the exception of a small board, everything is true point-to-point wiring. With an amp this simple, very little can go wrong that cannot be fixed by a good amp tech locally.