DRBILL

How silly of me. The METAL BASE! Why didn't I remember that. That makes all the difference in the world. Does it go to ground? Yes? That explains everything. I can sleep easy tonight. DR BILL

It requires a mono amplifier for the center channel. It does not, in any way, intefere with the usual operation of your 2 channel equipment. This is the exact design of PWK using the exact values. "Wall of sound" as PWK called it. I would have never undertaken this project, but some of the brothers are timid about design and soldering and researching the components. And I have a mission. Every night I listen to mine and wish that the whole world could hear it. Send me you address and it goes out tomorrow. "Try it before you buy it!" I'll include a SA envelope. If I can't trust the FORUM, what's left? :-) DR BILL

"Radio Store" now has their own version but they are almost always out of stock. I gave the original version "kit" to my sons in law for Christmas. I guess that's faint praise. DR BILL

Michael Marks has them at $75 each www.vacuumtubes.com. But come on. We are talking rectifiers. There are some excellent nos tubes of other brands at half that price. I would challenge anybody to tell the difference by ear or test equipment. This is just asking for a blast from a flame thrower. Sorry. Just trying to help. Could we abandon voodoo for the scientific method? DR BILL

This is shameless, nevertheless: Of my second run of CENTER CHANNEL "BLACK BOXES" I have three left. It is Figure 2, DOPE FROM HOPE, Vol 14, No 3 7/71. Compact size, neat appearance, unobtrusive, EXACT values. First three to respond - $30, delivered. Send name and address. drsrisinger@prodigy.net DR BILL

It sounds to me like you got advice from a person who makes a good living selling high-end electronics. Would I guess correctly that they also have a high-end repair shop at your complete disposal? Hmm. You never know. DR BILL

I run two MARK III's with KT90's. Can't be beat. DR BILL

Yup, I was the one. I was a voicer and tonal finisher for Casavant Frères Limiteé, Ste. Hyacinthe, PQ, Canada. This was in one of their golden ages (there were several) when I worked for Laurence I. Phelps and with Karl Wilhelm. We were building in the Dutch/German style with low pressures and open-toe voicing and many of our instruments were mechanical (tracker) action. The pendulum has swung back to thick-sounding orchastral romantic organs. I'm glad my life took other directions because I don't know how to do that and was not interested in learning! Thanks for the tip. I'll look it up. DADDY DEE - I've made a short run of center channel "black boxes" (fig. 2, Dope from Hope). E-Mail me if you want one. DR BILL

It was 1955. I was in HS. My boss was on a "fishing expedition" hoping to become a Klipsch Rep in El Dorado, AR. His was a pipe organ business (tuning and maintenance) and he hoped to sell Klipsch speakers to churches and musicians. We went to Hope and heard the full demonstration by PWK himself in the old white frame building across from the plant. As I recall, it was a stereo setup using K's in the corners and an H in the center. Three Mac tube amps and a Berlant(?) 15ips half track tape. Paul had just gotten back from Dallas where he recorded a tape that he called "Flannigan's Shenanigins at the Palace in Dallas" -- a restored WurLitzer theatre pipe organ, quite large and complete. I thought I would go blind. I was never again the same. I was as innocent as an egg and couldn't even think of a sensible question to ask. I had found the answer even if I hadn't formed the question. Dope hadn't been invented and girls were still in beta testing. Life was good --uncomplicated. DR BILL

Back in the early '80's I wanted to run two H's together. I called a tech at Hope and asked which would work best, parallel into 4 ohms or series into 16 ohms. The answer: never run Klipsch speakers in series. It wont hurt the speaker or the amplifier but it will sound awful. It is quite one thing to run single voice coils in series vs. running crossover networks in series. His strong advice was "Don't do it." I never did, but I always wanted to try it just to see what he was talking about. If you give it a try, report back and let us know. THANKS. DR BILL

If you would like to see some really interesting research, check out the work of William E. Haskell at Estey Organ Company c. 1900. He discovered that by inserting a tube, closed at the top and open at the bottom, into an open organ pipe, the fundamental frequency of the pipe was halved. Thus, an 8' pipe could produce the frequency of a 16' pipe. These were frequently used when space was at a premium. Physicists still argue about the explanation. I am surprised that some application of this was never tried in speaker enclosure design. This might have been the "miniature 32 foot wave-length" that PWK so longed for. DR BILL

My Dear Cricket, This is sometimes called the Dark Night of the Soul. How quickly it passes depends on your resolve. Begin with prayer, fasting, and abstinence. The vision is slow to form, but it will be overwhelming. You will enter the bright path to perfection, ±.5db. DR BILL

Thirty one years. Four Heresys. Four Cornwalls. Three Klipschorns. Synopsis: I bought two Heresys, two Cornwalls, two Klipschorns. I inherited two Cornwalls, one Klipschorn. I was given a pair of Heresys by PWK when mine were destroyed in the Wichita Falls Tornado. Disposition: I presently retain two Heresys (from PWK) and Two Klipschorns. I gave three Cornwalls to my son-in-law, one cornwall to my son (to go with his Lascalas) and the odd Klipschorn is on loan for his band practice studio. Thirty-one years. NO trouble. (nameplate fell off of one Heresy!). As an interesting aside: Paul called me after the WF tornado to see how we were. I told him that the H's were mashed flat. He said that his QC people would like to see that if I could send them to Hope. I did. A month later, two new H's arrived by motor freight. There was a hand-written note: "Klipsch speakers unconditionally guaranteed!" Another aside: A friend hooked his Klipschorns up with household extention cords. While moving the vacuum cleaner from room to room his wife accidentally plugged one of the K-Horns into the wall recepticle! He sent the woofer back to Hope with a detached voice coil. A new one arrived in about a week with a note attached: "16 ohms - PLEASE!" (His wife never fully recovered.) DR BILL Those were the days. DR BILL

You would want to keep your signal cables as short as possible. Long runs can cause deterioration of the higher frequencies due to capacitance and are prone to be susceptible to 60Hz induction. Mine are limited to 3'. DR BILL

I've made some big ticket purchases from them recently. They are very decent people with which to do business. I got free shipping and no sales tax. That, plus much lower prices than I could get in the D/FW area became very attractive. DR BILL

Didja ever notice how quickly things deteriorate? DR BILL

Try www.newfoam.com They have some close matches for several of the Klipsch patterns. DR BILL

Pete, What are you looking for in particular, a junker to rebuild or a rebuilt unit ready to play? DR BILL

DR, what was Belle like? We don't get much of a picture of her these days, and the Paul Klipsch bio barely mentions her. Was St. Mark's Episcopal or RC? Thanks, Larry ---------------- They were Episcopalians. Belle "saved the farm" in the early days of Klipsch and associates. She taught school so they would not starve. Self sacrifice out of love for Paul and a love for his (often unrealistic) ideals would be a good characterization of Belle. After the company got on its feet she was office manager (for lack of a better title) and was certainly "hands on" in the daily operations. Late in life she had a chronic illness and disability that was extremely draining on Paul. They lived a very simple and Spartan life together. It is safe to say that there would have been no Klipsch and Associates had it not been for Belle. As a young man, Paul was maintaining GE locomotives in South America. Paul and Belle were "invited to leave" in a time of political turmoil. She and Paul were married shipboard, by the Captain, using the English Book of Common Prayer. Very romantic! That about all I'd care to say. They were wonderful people. I would have liked them even if they had run the corner grocery! Hope this helps. DR BILL

One saving grace about 45's was that most of them were thicker in the label area than the groove area. This cut down on a lot of wear and scrapes. At 45rpm they had about the same groove velosity at 7" as the first fourth of a 12" 33.3rpm recording. (Envision the number of inches of groove that passed under the stylus in a second -- much greater at the beginning of a recording than in the end.) They were quite capable of decent sound which probably explains the better bass. Which opens up another can of worms. In the majority of LP's of classical music (and other genre as well) the the most powerful and dramatic music is at the end (where the fewist number of inches of groove per second are passing under the stylus). Obviously, some kind of compression had to be inserted to keep distortion to a minimum which made the sound suffer. So, my question is, "Why did the industry settle on out-in instead of in-out in the way the spiral was cut?" I wake up at night worrying about this sort of thing. Eventually they'll take me away. DR BILL

Mono? DR BILL

Thebes, I was his priest. Saint Mark's, Hope. Years after we left Hope, he and Belle would fly in to join us for Thanksgiving. All that stopped after the FAA lifted his licence. We still kept in touch. We still think of Paul and Belle as family. They are missed. I presented them for Confirmation. Paul served on the Vestry. It was just a happy coincedence that I had a background in audio and vacuum tube electronics. My home town was El Dorado, Arkansas, about an hour from Hope. I have known Paul since I was in High School. DR BILL

The short answer is "no." Here in the Fort Worth/Dallas area the "public" station, KERA, is all talk, talk, talk. PBS, which they carry, is more talk. Our classical music station, WRR, is owned by the city of Dallas (that's an interesting story*) and has leased so many sub-channels that the main channel is NBFM as far as I can tell. It has limited dynamics and there is always a "whispering" in the background. The local universities have low watt stations with pot luck programming. You never know unless you try the band. Almost every thing else is "boom-thump." *Years ago, the tinkerer son of the Episcopal Bishop of Dallas built an AM transmitter to communicate with the fire and police departments (which explains the "WRR" West of the Mississippi). He played phonograph records between official business. In modern times the AM frequency was traded for an FM slot. There is perinnial talk about selling it or trading it for a less important frequency. Nothing ever happens because the Dallas city council cannot make even simple decisions. Thank God for Fort Worth. DR BILL

Gil, Many thanks for the download of the (pretty much) complete DFH. I have much of the "middle" section which was handed to me by Paul at the back door of the church (some with amusing annotations). Belle was good to mail me later issues after we were transferred to Alexandria, Louisiana. Few will ever know what a heroic part she played in the ultimate success of the firm. "The Book" hardly gave her a nod. I have a folio of correspondence with Paul. You would never guess that he often got bored. He would pour it off in long letters to his friends. I have this attached to my will in the safe to be released after my death. By then, everyone he mentioned will either be dead or simple! "There were Giants on the earth in those days..." Genesis VI:iv. DR BILL

Shawn, I could have stated my case in better terms. The box emphasises material that is common in L&R signals. There will, of course be artifacts of dissimilar L&R material, but they obviously would not be as prominant as common material. This would sound quite a bit different from two center speakers reproducing L & R respectively. There is no voo-doo about the box. You can get everything you need at Radio Store for about $5 including the aluminum box. I turned out five in an afternoon for local friends. Let me know if there is interest out there and I could probably do a quick assembly line. DR BILL