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When was the last time you auditioned Klipsch Heritage in a store?


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I have only auditioned Klipsch once in a store, it was back in 1990 at Continental Sound on Queens Boulevard in NYC. I went to check out a pair of Fortes & figured if they sound this good, I'll just order the next speaker up the food chain. Luckily for me those were the Chorus II, & I have been quite happy with them ever since. When I decided to move my Chorus out to my house I bought a pair of new Heresy II's to listen to in my apartment, but there was no audition needed.

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Never. However I bought my Cornwalls from Myer Emco in July 1980, just moments before they were to be set up as demos. They were lifting the first out of its box when I pulled a sweaty wad of cash from my pocket and politely asked them to put it back so they could be loaded into my Dodge Tradesman. They've been with me ever since.

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...........Back in 1980 as well, in Syracuse, NY. The store was Superior Sound and they were the big Klipsch dealer in town selling every Heritage model plus the big cinema MCM stuff, and selling a lot of Klipsch speakers. They had a great demo setup where they could go from Heresys, to Corns, to Lascalas, to Belles, to Khorns........with just a button press. So comparisons were easy and a great selling tool. Most all of the speakers were raw birch as I remember but there were a few exotic veneers in stock.

Back then only the "rich" kids had Klipsch. I had been going to Superior Sound all through high School in teh late seventies.........drooling over the Heritage models, but I couldn't afford them. They were still relatively new in the area and there were never any used ones at the time.

I eventually bought a pair of blonde oak Heresys from Superior Sound when I finally had enough money.........$900 in 1980. I traded them away many years ago but found another pair of the blondes from the same year and still have those. My son uses them in a system in his room.

PWK had made appearances at Superior Sound and a few of my rich buddies who owned the big Heritage models went down and brushed tails with the great one.

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Back in 1971, I heard a pair of Klipschorns in a small stereo shop in Fairview Mall in Toronto. It was in a tiny room and I don't recall how they sounded, but I picked up a brochure and decided I'd like to have a pair of La Scalas or Belles one day, but they were way beyond my budget then.

The next time was in 2006, at Q-Electronic here in Victoria. They sell vintage audio of all sorts and price levels, plus LPs.

http://www.q-electronic.com/

I'd bought a few items there before, but on this day, the first thing I saw near the entrance was a pair of LS-BB La Scalas. I still remember the thoughts I had at that moment. "Wow! Klipsch La Scalas!" Pause. "Klipsch La Scalas in the vintage audio shop? That means I can afford them!"

I had a listen, called an audio buddy in Toronto for advice, then went back the next day and bought them. I've been listening to them ever since.

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Never heard any in a store yet. However, I've been exchanging emails with staff at Southern Cinema in Atlanta (actually north a little in Cumming, GA). Got this email from Cary Richardson:

"We have Heresy III's on display, Cornwalls in stock, and RF-82's on display as well as RF-7 II's. ... for demos we have a nice two-channel room setup with a McIntosh 275. Amps and speakers can be swapped with advanced heads

up for demos."

Bruce

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..Heritage is too big and moves too slowly to be stocked over a long period of time. And no more PWK charismatically flying around the country in a Beechcraft Bonanza and ginning up VW-like magazine ads to keep his products in the public eye.

I agree...What I find incredible is that so many people do their research online and then purchase the same way without ever hearing the speaker...My guess is that most people are ordering their speakers online and in fact for a few years that seemed to be the only way to order the Heritage. Of course there were stores that said the could order them, but it would still be without auditioning. .

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A few years ago, it was a BB and it was only Synergy, it was hard to figure out how to get the 2 mains working at the same time, I don't think the rears and center were even connected. Every setup was like that no matter what brand it was. Except bose, they had there own separate display.

I did steer a few customers away from other overpriced brands when possible but it's tough when it's hard to even listen, I hate to see someone pay twice what they should and hardly get even decent sound.

A couple of years before that is was here, where I bought my first "real" AVR. You could get a good listen here but only a few models.

http://altermanaudio.com/

DTEL, Thanks for trip down memory lane. I had kind of forgot about Alterman. Don't know if Wilson is still in biz in N.O. Alos, of course for the mass market there was Silo in New Orleans East and Campo, which pretty much died when Tony Campo did.

There was an electrical wholesaler (Stuart Irby) on N. Rampart near Basin that had a high-end audio show room for a while. That location closed some time ago.

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Audio King, back in 1979, the store on France Ave in Edina, where I pulled the trigger and bought my Klipschorns. I still remember being queasy about spending all that money, but my roommate said, go for it, you could have them for years. I don't think either him or I thought it would be 30+ years.

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Does anyone know of a store in OKC that has/had the LaScalas set up in the last couple of years? I saw online a guy auditioned them there and didn't think much and I was curious where the place was...I looked on the Klipsch Dealer list and could only find one Heritage Dealer in Ok, it was in Tulsa and they didn't even have Klipsch listed as one of their vendors. [:S]

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[...I keep telling those stores that when Klipsch gets an order, they don't care if they're for a customer or for demo-ing.

Well, the flip-side to that is the limited market for these speakers makes having them on display not cost effective and there is the rub...As Larry mentioned earlier, the only people wanting to audition these great speakers are the ones that have followed the Klipsch story and would more-than-likely buy used after they started doing cost comparisons. Fwiw, I still think there are a number of people on other forums commenting on Klipsch Heritage speakers, who chances are never heard them. I may be wrong but...

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  • 1 year later...

I heard my first pair of Klipsch Khorns at a High end Audio Store in Colorado Springs in 1977... They had the Infiniti Reference Speakers and Cerwin Vega S2 speakers (all of which I demoed). When I was at RAF Lakenheath a couple of years later I demoed a pair of LaScalas and bought the floor models on the spot (they had just gotten a bunch of LaScalas in a couple of days earlier and had sold them all... I convinced the salesman to sell me the floor models... I paid under $1000 for the pair at the time). eventually sold them in the early 1980s (due to space limitations and cash). I just purchased 3 LaScalas a month or so ago and have been building up a full Klipsch 11.0 setup (9.0) so far). My .1 is PSA Triax sub... Other than that all Klipsch Heritage, Pro, and Industrials.

Edited by ellisr63
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