Squishman

Oh, if it matters, it sits betwixt a pair of 1975 La Scalas that have all upgraded components (except original woofer) done by the previous owner.

I have not progressed yet on veneering my CW center in case you remember from a recent thread I posted. All components are original and sound fabulous. No issues whatsoever. I did change out all wiring to 14 ga. oxygen free copper and installed gold plated fork terminals at all eight xover connections. But as far as a titanium tweeter diaphragm or xover upgrades, I have done nothing. Opinions wanted: leave as is or upgrade? I know I did say it sounds fab, but could I improve it over what it is currently since it is a 44 year old speaker?

Great info 001. I will use this! But I imagine divide all of the above by 2 since I have one CW?

edit: seems the photos are not in order. But obviously, the one with my little dog was when I first brought it home. Here is what it looked like when I brought it home and you can see the color of my LS. And then what it looks like with the formica cr-p removed. I was able to salvage the sticker, which for me was very exciting to find under the formica! Yes, they covered the back too!

Staining is out of the question, even if I did get the glue off. It has approximately 9 screw holes in various places. I think that is weird that someone drilled into it for who knows what reason. I got the speaker for a steal though. It was about a 5 hour round trip and $375. So far, I have painted the front and back semi-gloss back. Also, the front of the pedestal was worn on the edges so I attached a 2" x 23 1/2" pine trim to it. I have the grill board. and a new era-correct badge, so hopefully it'll look great eventually.

I have a 1979 CW that I use as a center speaker. It had some heinous fake plastic veneer that I removed with a heat gun. Now I want to find some real veneer, preferably some peel and stick variety. I have never done this before, but I think I can do an ok job. Can anyone tell me how much sq. ft. I need for it? Sides, top and front trim and also the original 2" pedestal. Hoping to find a color that will come close to the stain on my '75 La Scalas which are close to mahogany I think. It has a thin film of glue on it, which was too hard to sand off, so I gave up, hoping it might not be necessary.

I was on the phone with Klipsch this morning. They are sending me a new plate, no charge. I have a 5 year warranty. I thought probably 2 years. It is back ordered. Might be 3-5 weeks. But actually, I didn't think to ask if they are sending the amp or a new subwoofer. Either is fine.

I don't see a fuse on the back. If it was a fuse, I would think the power light would not be lit. I just took the plate off and there is nothing that looks like a fuse to me.

Purchased in 2019. Power light is on, no output. Tried a new cable, etc. Two of these hooked up to an Onkyo AVR. Switched the cables, still nothing. What is usually the cause when this happens? Is there a remedy? Buy a new plate? You don't even get the buzz when you sort of accidentally touch the posi lead on the cable. The other sub, yes.

I installed new 14 ga. OFC wiring and gold fork terminals in the Cornwall. Plus, I cleaned up the xover connections with a wire wheel first. Is it my imagination that it sounds better? My first impression watching the 1993 movie "Gettysburg" was that the cannons, etc sounded punchier and just over-all more clear. Or do you think it is my imagination? It already sounded good before the new wiring. I had to solder the fork terminals and most everything else. The crimps (fork terminals) were not insulated and my crimper wouldn't accommodate that.

The input leads are terminated with tiny ring terminals that attach to those screws inside. On the outside, you see the stud coming through. Good point 001 about PWK designing (or at the very least signing off) the connectors. Anyway, I am slightly giddy about this CW as my center speaker. Ok, more than slightly.

I do not understand how PWK designed or signed off on that connection design. Can someone here who worked there or knew him explain? Or am I wrong that a screw should be a fine conductor? Perhaps it is zinc plated and that is as good as copper.... no clue here. But that could be it. If that were the case, then I would imagine you should clean up 44 y.o. screws or get new ones.

You really want your speaker signal going through 44 year old screws? Ha! It's a terrible design. Maybe it was the cat's *** of it's time, but it isn't now. Someone else pipe in here and give your comment. Did you change your lame screw terminals that use mounting screws (NOT WIRES!) as conductors too?

Not referring to the screw terminals. I am referring to the mounting screws. Those screws are the conductors between the speaker wire and the input leads. Not for me.

44 y.o screws... I can do better.

There is another issue with leaving the birch or staining. This speaker has 9 screw holes in various places in the birch and about 4 in the motor board. I can fill the motor board holes, thats no biggie, but the birch is another issue. So, veneer is likely the way to go. Why screw holes? No idea! On the motorboard, they did it to secure the grill. I will be using velcro.

Are you kidding me? Huge diff. The LS input is on the xover inputs. The CW xover input wires go to mounting screws in the inside of the back board, then on the outside you have two screw terminals. If you look close, you see two studs exposed below the screw terminals. Those are the conductors! Have you ever taken the back off? If you do, you won't like what you see. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is far from optimal.

My LS's are sort of a mahagony stain. They look good. So you suggest sanding the CW and finding a stain that is close? My thought is to find a veneer that is close. I can really get the CW to look fabulous this spring. And up to snuff wiring-wise too. Here are a couple of shots of when I brought it home and then stripped off the fake veneer. When I brought it home, the first thing I did was carefully pop out the pushed-in dust cover with a vacuum cleaner.

I had been using a KP201 for a center between my 1975 La Scalas, but changed to a 1979 Cornwall. It was pretty beat up, but I got it for $375 and a 5 hour round trip to get it. Anyways, it's all original and all drivers work. Sounds great. I played some mono Beatles and mono Otis Redding before I set it up as a center. And I was plenty happy! It had a formica counter-top type fake veneer on it. I have the grill, which is great. Needs new grill cloth. I used a heat gun and a plastic scraper and removed the formica and it came off pretty easily. That revealed the serial number so I could determine the year. Also, VERY pleased to find the sticker stuck on the formica. Yep, they even put that crap on the back! I was hoping like heck it was there. I applied Goo Gone and after about 20 minutes, carefully removed it (intact and very readable) with a razor blade. I will be re-attaching it later on. This spring I will be sanding off the adhesive and painting the front and back black and a friend will be helping me apply real veneer. I'll try to find one that matches my LS' darkened birch (I think it's birch). I have nice 14 g wire and gold fork terminals and also banana jacks to install. I was shocked that Klipsch used actual screws to mount the screw terminals and that those screws are the actual conductors! Dang! Maybe that was ok when new, but those 44 year old screws had to go! Even when new, it can't be a primo connection. But that's just my opinion I suppose. I won't be installing the banana jacks until after I finish the back, so in the meantime, I just crimped the wires to my speaker wire. Now that's a good connection! I am looking forward to getting it all done. I have decided to not touch the xover, other than the new connectors and wiring of course. It sounds pretty darn great as is. And as a center, it blows me away. I had an RC62, the KP201 and an Academy. None of them came close to the clarity of dialog when watching movies as this CW. And also every other sound in the center channel is vastly better. Attached is a picture of me listening to it I have a period correct badge to attach to it too that someone sent me for free. Super nice!. The pedestal or 2" base is structurally sound, but one edge on the front was beat up, so I found 2" trim material and glued and nailed it to just the front and will veneer that later on too. This is dream come true for me. I had Forte II's a couple years ago and thought I'd eventually get LS' or CW's. Ha! I did not envision both!

Not true! If that were true, I'd have it full blast at all times. It's normally at half.

I'll try again to correct my typo! Bedroom HT is 5.2.2 with two 10" 300 watt Klipsch subs. Living room is 5.1.2. There. ha

Yeah man. I am happy again with these speakers. I paid 2K for them. Drove quite a ways though. almost an 11 hour round trip. 2k might have been slightly too much, but it's fine.

No. It is a function on the Onkyo tablet app, where you can set any pair (surrounds, heights) as mains. So doing that, I had much more output when I clicked to set the surrounds as mains (when I brought out my HIII's, I connected them to the surround outs), forgetting that I have them turned up because I like hearing more surround whilst watching movies, etc. For, me, that app function is not something I use commonly. It is just for fun. But using it, I definitely deceived myself.

It was a simple volume situation. In comparing with the Onkyo function where you can set any pair as mains, my surrounds are turned way up. So I deceived myself! I am glad I posted since you guys pretty much confirmed there was nothing obvious about my La Scalas that are problematic and that is also good to know. If I did go with a tube amp or a high-end SS two channel amp for music listening, how would I tie that in with the Onkyo, because I need the whole system functioning for TV purposes. Also definitely need to go 2.1 for music so any amp would have to accommodate that. Seems cumbersome. Is it possible?

It was a fantastic experiment to A/B against the Heresy III's, but with a bad result. I put on some Steely Dan and the HIII's sound perfect with great highs and the squaker has great output. The La Scalas are indeed muddy and missing any high-end. Putting my ears to the squakers, the output is less than 50%, same with the tweeters. Both left and right La Scalas are performing identically. Then I decided to reverse the speaker outs on my AVR. The La Scalas came to life and the HIII's are now the muddy ones. So it is the amp! No I need to determine if it is a setting or if it's defective.