The Cornscala Project (or how I became a Klipschomaniac)

[hklinker]

Hello, my name is Herb, and I am an audioholic.

I start this thread to chronicle my re-entry in to the world of the unhearable. I first entered this world over forty years ago as a teenager in Central Florida. This was indeed a primitive world. No CD's or iPods. Hell, even cassettes were in their infancy, pushing out the venerable 8-track player.

By the time I entered graduate school, my system included a Dual 1219, McIntosh C28 and MC 2105 and a pair of Advents. I spent my free time building Dynaco kits (solid state of course...tubes were so passe!). Then it happened. I met the girl of my dreams, got married, had a kid, got promoted, moved, had another kid, got promoted again, moved again...you get the picture. Traded the Mac gear for a Yamaha receiver and a CD player, turned my JBL L65 's into endtables with table skirts, and the once impressive system became totally invisible.

Until this spring. My wife has complained for the past ten years how my records were crowding her closet. We live in a 1920's Spanish Colonial and if you have ever lived in an old house you know...there is no closet space! I was rebuilding my home theater room and had a set of custom built cabinets to go into the Florida room. My wife agreed that a vintage turntable would look good sitting on the heart pine countertop. I saw my opening and like a puma I pounced. I went on eBay and typed in "Vintage turntable". I knew of Garrard, Dual, AR, and Thorens as well as Technics. Then it appeared, the most beuatiful thing I ever saw. Some guy in Sweden had a Thorens TD-124 with an SME 3012 and an Ortofon SPU cartiridge and original plinth. It was like love at first sight! It had just a few hours left and it was up to $1,800. I told my wife, "This is not just a turntable, it is a work of art!" I told her that I could probably get it for $2,400, and she said go for it. I did my usual... wait to the last minute and go in strong at $2,400.

Boy, was I embarrassed! In less than a minute it sold for $4,700. But now I had my taste and I was hooked. My desire became insatiable. I watched more that 50 items, and logged in morning noon and night. Within weeks I had bought two Thorens TD-124's, a McIntosh MX110, and a McIntosh MC 275. It got so bad that my wife finally did an eBay intervention. I was spinning out of control....I needed rehab!

(next up) I got friends in low frequency places.

[Guest David H]

Great story, cant wait to see your progress on the Corn's.

Dave.

[kg4guy]

Yes photos please [Y] []

[hklinker]

It is amazing how these forums bring people from all over the world together. Starting with the Thorens projects I made friends in Italy, Switzerland, and even Pennsylvania! I ended up with two Thorens TD-124's. It took three weeks of cleaning, disassembling, cleaning more, then reassembling every moving part to restore the first one. The second took only three days!

I then bought the Mac MX-110 and MC-275. I began surfing Audiokarma and AudioAficionado forums for ideas to build out the amplification for what now was becoming my 1960's Vintage Hi-Fi system. It was there that I met Frank Gow (Gordon's son) and Terry Dewick. Terry did the upgrades on the MX-110 and the first time I listened to them together I was back in audiophile nirvana! It was on those forums that I came across Bob Crites.

I knew I wanted to go completely bonzo and finish the system with a pair of Heritage Klipsch speakers. I started researching the LaScala and the Cornwall, and quickly learned the deficiencies of each. Then I came across the Cornscala. It seemed like the perfect combination! I am so impressed by the overwhelming responses I received from many of you. The success of this project is due to the generosity of your time, expertise, and even supplying some the components needed to finish it!

What follows is a pictorial of the project.

[hklinker]

I knew that Paul Klipsch was a revolutionary in a very exciting period of audio history, the post-war era. Just as the space program drove the current digital revolution, World War II created the foundation of high fidelity sound. I have to admit though, I knew very little of the designs of PWK. I thought I wanted to build cabinets from scratch as part of a built in cabinet to display my other gear. I consulted BEC who gave me the criteria for the bass bin. I quickly decided that it would be much easier to find some cabinets to modify.

My ignorance led to a few missteps along the way.

I learned from BEC that I needed to replace the squawkers. Since the LaScala used the K-400's I thought it would work...WRONG. I found a pair on eBay while on vacation and had them shipped to me. When I got home I unpacked them to find they were huge, over 22 inches in length. No wonder they were put into the corners! Misstep #1. This is where you guys really helped. I learned from JWC about the Fastrac that GotHover was producing. I picked up a pair of K-55's from him, When they arrived I took the wires off the midrange on my L65's and connected it to the K-55's attached to the K-400's. As Keith Jackson would say, "Whoa Nellie!! This jerry-rigged setup blew my mind. It sounded like Tony Bennett was standing in my living room.

Next I came across a pair of K-77's on eBay for Buy it Now. They were gone before I could bid but I found that the guy had the cabinets and woofers and that he lived about 5 miles from where my brother worked. We negotiated a packaged deal for both and the next day my brother delivered them to me.

Paying $50 for the cabinets was a sweet deal but they had to be refinished. I decided to stain them a red mahogany to match the other woodwork in my living room. They had some gouges and burn marks, as well as white paint on them. I am a big believer in minimalist refinishing and I wanted to preserve the patina of the finish. I used a 50/50 mixture of lacquer thinner and denatured alcohol with OO steel wool to break down the existing finish. While this takes longer (it hardly will touch polyeurathane) It does allow you leave as much or little of the old finish as you like.

Attached are some before pics.

[Wrinkles]

Great Story. Keep adding chapters and pictures.

Wrinkles

[hklinker]

Next I had to decide on the finish. The October issue of Woodworkers Journal has a great article on "green" refinishing, and using shellac and beeswax as a finish. I'd used oil and polyeurathane before but never attempted shellac (so 18th century). I stained and sanded the cabinets and began putting on the shellac with a natural bristled brush.

Misstep#2: Should have read the article more closely! Shellac is alcohol-based which means that it dries fast, very fast, like it tacks up in about a minute or two. I saw a spot that I missed and went back over it, Much to my chagrin, the finish globbed up as I dragged the brush across the top. Had I read the article carefully, I would have known that the preferred way to apply shellac to a large area is to use a rag, flood the surface, and use the rag to wipe off the excess. Using that method has yet another advantage, when your done you allow the rag to dry and throw it away. No brush to clean out! Very Green don't you think?

Shellac has one other advantage. If you screw up like I did you can take a rag soaked in denatured alcohol and gently wipe the surface. Immediately you will feel the finish melt. The more you rub or the harder you rub, the more finish you remove. If you really screw up you can take it completely off and start over. I opted for the repair route. Although the finish still isn't perfect, a little hand sanding with #600 grit wet/dry an several coats of beeswax will take care of the irregularities.

Here is a picture of the top before application of stain and shellac

[hklinker]

and the same after staining and applying one coat of shellac

[Tarheel]

Interesting story and nice work hk....keep the pics coming.

[hklinker]

Cabinets are almost ready for the components. The original K-33 woofers are a slam dunk. The tweeters became the next issue. Misstep #3: For some reason I thought that the original K-77's could be retro-fitted to accept the Eminence APT-50 supertweeter so I began watching eBay for a pair. Only after talking with GotHover did I realize that it would require a special adaptor.

He referred me to kg4guy who told me how to build a pair from cheap parts. He turned me on to Orange County Speaker who supplied the driver and adaptor, and he supplied me with the horn lenses modified to mount into the K-77 holes. Finished epoxying them yesterday and they came out great! I also decided to pick up a pair of vintage K-77's from Groomlakearea51 as he and I live fairly close to each other. This way I can compare the two to see which sounds better in my listening room. Hopefully we can get together this week.

Grill cloth and wire just arrived from BEC. Wow Bob, that was fast! Thanks.

Now all that remains are the Fastrac horns and X-overs, which are coming from GotHover in smokin' SoCal next week and then it will be showtime!

[bliss53]

Very cool project. Nice finish work. Welcome to the journey. You will not believe how good they will sound when you get them dialed in. Listening to van morrison moondance on a td 124 with an spu right now. Truly impressive.

[hklinker]

Pete-

Thanks, your project is what inspired me to start mine. Those are just beautiful. I wanted to do mine with veneer but they will be going into a built in set of cabinets so I thought that would be a waste of time, effort, and most of all, beauty.

Thanks for the kind words!

Herb

p.s. Picked up an SPE/T with my second TD124. No needle. Will get re-tipped once I stop bleeding $$ with this project. Which SPU are you running?

[hklinker]

I am still learning the nuances of finishing with shellac and wax but I came across this article written in 1998 by the same guy who wrote the article in this months Woodworkers Journal! Great reference piece.

http://books.google.com/books?id=nPYDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA60&dq=pure+bleached+granulated+beeswax#v=onepage&q=pure%20bleached%20granulated%20beeswax&f=false

[kg4guy]

Cabinets are almost ready for the components. The original K-33 woofers are a slam dunk. The tweeters became the next issue. Misstep #3: For some reason I thought that the original K-77's could be retro-fitted to accept the Eminence APT-50 supertweeter so I began watching eBay for a pair. Only after talking with GotHover did I realize that it would require a special adaptor.

He referred me to kg4guy who told me how to build a pair from cheap parts. He turned me on to Orange County Speaker who supplied the driver and adaptor, and he supplied me with the horn lenses modified to mount into the K-77 holes. Finished epoxying them yesterday and they came out great! I also decided to pick up a pair of vintage K-77's from Groomlakearea51 as he and I live fairly close to each other. This way I can compare the two to see which sounds better in my listening room. Hopefully we can get together this week.

Grill cloth and wire just arrived from BEC. Wow Bob, that was fast! Thanks.

Now all that remains are the Fastrac horns and X-overs, which are coming from GotHover in smokin' SoCal next week and then it will be showtime!

Very nice finishing work on the cabinets as other members have said you will be amazed at how nice these sound once you get them together,The horn lens I made is mighty ugly from the back but they sound nice.[:$]

[hklinker]

I sanded the little lip off the adaptor as I thought that might supply a little more direct surface contact with the lens. Here is a close-up.

I think they look, well...priceless!

Herb

[bliss53]

Herb,

I have the spu classic from the late 90s. I can't imaging what some of the better spu's sound like. I think I have found a group of components that just go together. The mid range quality of the spu seems to match up well with the horn. Bass seems more controlled with turntable/spu source.

I should be working on the la scalas and other speaker projects but the new beatles remasters sound to good. Hope they come out on vinyl and are mastered from the analogue tapes.

[hklinker]

Testing 123...The Cornjubalscala, the Cornscalajubal, The ...Whatever?

Raining all day in the sunshine state. Went all over Lake (Lack) County looking for beeswax, to no avail. Going on line to see if I can get some from Rockler Hardware.

Took the woofer out of my JBL L65 Jubals to re-foam it and discovered that the foam surround is too big. Now waiting for the replacement. Decided to rig up a substitute. Installed the K-33 woofer in the cabinet and ran a wire down through the port and connected it to the Jubal. Then took a K-55 and put it on the monsterous K-400 horn and set it on top of the cabinet. Then I took out the Jubal's midrange and connected the K-55 to the leads. I left the JBL tweeter connected. It's a 2405 and sounds very nice. Fired up the system and put on some Michael Buble.

The difference in efficiency was the first thing that jumped out. Had to rebalance toward the other Jubal to compensate. But two significant sonic qualities were also noticable. First, the horn made vocals much more pronounced and realistic. Bobby Darin's voice at the end of Moon River goes noticably off-key, but I never noticed it before. The second big improvement is in the soundstage. I thought I was listening to Phil Spector and his wall of sound. The soundstage on the Cornscalajubal was twice as big as the Jubal side. Imaging also seemed much more defined.

My first run was good but using the JBL crossover & tweeter was less than ideal. The K-33 was very alive in the 500-1000Hz range which tells me I need the right X-overs to get an accurate read of the woofers. The cast metal K-400's seemed very hot but replacing them with the wooden Fastrac should tone that down.

Now back to my quest for beeswax!

[Guest David H]

You are definately in for a treat when they're done. BTW, the box repairs look exceptional. Nice work restoring the original finish.

Dave

[Marvel]

Now back to my quest for beeswax!

Our cabinet maker/carpenter at the school where I work uses a beeswax finish on some of his projects. I'll ask him on Monday. It may be Skidmore's, but I don't remember for sure off the top of my head...[*-)]

Bruce

[hklinker]

Now back to my quest for beeswax!

Our cabinet maker/carpenter at the school where I work uses a beeswax finish on some of his projects. I'll ask him on Monday. It may be Skidmore's, but I don't remember for sure off the top of my head...

Bruce

Thanks for the info!

I found some small pucks of beeswax at Ace Hardware. Not exactly what I wanted, but spent the fourth quarter of the OSU/USC game shaving the puck into small slices. Added turpentine and went to bed. I must have added too much turp because it is supposed to have the consistency of soft butter and it is more like blue cheese dressing. I will try leaving the top off so that some of the turpentine evaporates.

Now I just have to be patient, not something I'm good at.