Klipsch Cornwall III Review by Boomzilla

[Boomzilla]

Having owned Klipsch Heritage loudspeakers before, including Heresy I and II models, La Scala I and II models, and Cornwall I models, I thought that I knew what I was getting when I bid on some Cornwall III models on eBay. I was (again) wrong.

To "calibrate" this review, let me first describe my impressions of the Cornwall I models. The speakers had clean, though not extended treble, articulate midrange without excessive horn colorations, and extended bass without significant coloration or bloat. The speakers' main shortcoming was their slight softness in the midrange where the 15" woofer strained to articulate before passing off the higher frequencies to the midrange horn. Overall, the speakers' shortcoming was one of omission rather than adding anything significant to the sound.

The Cornwall IIIs are a completely different animal. Klipsch has abandoned their plywood construction and now uses MDF. For their La Scala model, the MDF is significantly thicker and avoids any change to the sound. For the Cornwalls, however, the MDF is the same thickness as the previous models' plywood - 3/4". For this reason (or not?), the cabinet now "sings along" with the driver to a FAR greater extent than with the previous Cornwall model. This results not only in a very muddled bass line, but also in a "sameness" to the bass.

The discontinuity between the woofer and the midrange is still there, but now is more pronounced because of the "faster" titanium driver in the midrange horn. The discontinuity, formerly only occasionally noticeable, is now distressingly audible and for almost all types of music.

Further, the treble is now voiced from a titanium-diaphragm tweeter horn. Although more extended than the old Electro-Voice T-35 tweeter (used in the type I), the treble can now be excessively bright on axis. Position the speaker so that the listening position is not on axis, and the woofer-to-midrange discontinuity becomes more obvious.

There's no way to win! No matter how the speakers are positioned, they never seem to speak with a single voice.

To ensure that I'm getting the best of the speakers, I've used different preamplifiers (Emotiva XSP-1 and Audioquest Dragonfly feeding the amplifiers directly), different amplifiers (Emotiva Mini-X, Crown PS-400, VTL vacuum tube monoblocks, and a Rouge Audio Tempest Magnum tube integrated amplifier), and different speaker wires (yeah, I know that some say they've "proven" that wire differences can't possibly be heard, but whoooo boy - you should hear the differences between Kimber 12TC and Nordost Red Dawn on this setup!).

All in all, the Cornwalls just don't work for me. Their flaws are too apparent and too great in magnitude for me to tolerate. For those who have experience with the Klipsch Cornwall model I versions, I STRONGLY advise keeping what you've got. The Model I versions are a far superior loudspeaker to the model IIIs in my opinion. Why Klipsch didn't double the cabinet thickness on the Cornwalls as they did on the La Scalas is a mystery to me.

It goes without saying that all the above comments are prefaced with:

"In my room..."

"Using my equipment..." and

"To my ears..."

If I'm missing something that will magically transform these speakers from "worse than Bose" into what the Cornwall sound should be, please enlighten me! I'd hoped that these would be keepers, but unless I can change the sound of these radically, it isn't to be.

Thanks - Boomzilla

[moray james]

You forgot to mention that the CW lll has reverted to a K701 from a K601 which is a step backwards. Easy way to fix your problem is to by a set of Cornwall cabinets you like with K601 horn and swap out the new parts to the old cabinet. Or you could brace the new cabinet and do a lot of work to the K701 mid horn. They can be made to sound nice. I use a 40mm dia ping pong ball in the K701 along with a 38 mm diadia ball in a set of K79 tweeters im my H3 you would be shocked at how good they sounf you can dplace them so you are looking doen the throat of the mid horn they stage and image to die for. I am giving you the 2 cent description here these mods took a long time to work out over more than a year of weekly work and I am not goint into the small details here. I use extensive application of Dynamat and SAE rated F-11 acoustical felt. You can take a look at the link below to see how the brace work was done in the H3 sorry I dont have any photos of the damping the cabinets are about 85 % hard packed with high density fiberglass. A lot of time effort and listening went into finding the optimum orientation for installing the damping as it made a significant difference. The H3 are up on 23" high four post stands and I yet achieve astounding solid bass for a Heresy. when I got the H3 I was using two HSU subs with them, the subs are no longer required. I am certain the CW3 could be brought around to your liking but it would be a fair amount of work. I have no idea what you would be willing to do in that regard. If it were me I would swap out parts to a CW ll and do a bunch of brace work and then consider if you wanter to take them any further.I hope that this is of interest and perhaps of some assistance. Wish you were colse enough to come by for a listen. Where are you located? Best regards Moray James.

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=438234

[Schu]

I always found my CW's to be better 3d imaging with them being slightly off axis... it got rid of any harshness also.

[Boomzilla]

Hi Moray -

THANKS for the suggestions - they make lots of sense. Another option that I thought of was to wrap the existing CW3 cabinets with an external layer of 3/4" veneered plywood. That would make for tops, bottoms, sides, and back that were 1.5" thick and made of both MDF and plywood. This might be much simpler than trying to get a second set of cabinets & swap everything. What might you think of this option?

[Boomzilla]

I always found my CW's to be better 3d imaging with them being slightly off axis... it got rid of any harshness also.

I prefer the "off axis" sound too, but then the woofer's directivity at the crossover point seems to make for a suck-out just below 700 Hz. Maybe I could tilt the cabinets back just a hair so that the woofer would be directly "on axis" at the listening position with the midrange & tweeter slightly off axis by pointing above the listening position?

[moray james]

You could do a skin on the outside of the CW3 but you would still be stuck with the K701.As much as I have been able to make them sound good with work they are not as good as the K601 of the better newer and sounding horns You would still need internal bracre work and your cabinet which is large to begin with will get 1.5 inches larger overall and an awful lot heavier. Swapping drivers is easy to do the CW3 tweeter and the K79 are the same size. It's all up to you but I would strongly suggest to lose the K701. Best regards Moray James.

[moray james]

Quote "I prefer the "off axis" sound too, but then the woofer's directivity at
the crossover point seems to make for a suck-out just below 700 Hz.
Maybe I could tilt the cabinets back just a hair so that the woofer
would be directly "on axis" at the listening position with the midrange
& tweeter slightly off axis by pointing above the listening
position?"

Redirectting distortion will help but you still have distortion. Better to eliminate or reduce any distortions as much as possible. Tilting cabinets up or down skews the image. I believe the sonld is much more natural when the cabinets are square to the ground. I also believe that you want to have the height of the speaker adjusted to place the centre of the mid horn at your seated ear level for the very best results. Remember that the woofer in this case is a huge 15 inch unit which is very directional up at the crossover frequency with multiple sources across its surface and that is one of the reasons I prefer the sound of smaller woofers which are kept operating well within their pistonic frequency range. If you look back at my H3 photo you can see that I am using F-11 acoustical felt as an acoustical filter to catch the multiple sources of high frequencies at crossover on the woofer. At crossover and above you want your ear to be listening to the mid horn and only the mid horn elsewise your brain becomes confused with the multiple sources of the same sound which are originating from physically different locations on the woofer cone and whit vector trace back to physically different source locations leaving your brain to have to guess which is in fact the true location and source. This form of acoustic filtering does not impact the low end response only the upper mid and higher. Something else that you should consider is to physically time align the tweter and the mid horn by pushing back the tweeter. I hope that this provides food for thought. Best regards Moray James.

[Daddy Dee]

Boomzilla,

I would advise ALOT of careful thought before cutting up a pair of CWIII's. You could tackle the issues you raise at the cost of potential resale value. These mod options would not be my choice on speakers still being manufactured.

[LarryC]

I thought from the beginning that it was a mistake to design a new Cornwall with a smaller K-701 horn, and then compound it by crossing at 800 Hz. Initially, the CW III's treble sounded like Heresy treble with a little more bass. I thought a listening comparison quickly showed the CW I and II to have a more impressive mid-range sound field. I don't know what measure they used, or what struggles they had, to come up with 800 Hz.

The difference between a 600 and an 800 Hz crossover is the loss of a very important half octave in the middle range to horn reproduction. PWK's original design was right, it seems to me.

Supposedly they couldn't put in a K-600 because the original manufacturing tools had been lost. I was surprised later on to read of a K-601 -- why couldn't that have been used? I think the K-700 has continued to be a problem for the CW III. I wish they would engineer a trial CW IV or CW III-600 with the K-601, crossed over at 600.

Further, the treble is now voiced from a titanium-diaphragm tweeter horn. Although more extended than the old Electro-Voice T-35 tweeter (used in the type I), the treble can now be excessively bright on axis. Position the speaker so that the listening position is not on axis, and the woofer-to-midrange discontinuity becomes more obvious.

There's no way to win! No matter how the speakers are positioned, they never seem to speak with a single voice.

This is why I went back to the K-77, after trying another tweet which otherwise was excellent.

[LarryC]

The discontinuity between the woofer and the midrange is still there, but now is more pronounced because of the "faster" titanium driver in the midrange horn. The discontinuity, formerly only occasionally noticeable, is now distressingly audible and for almost all types of music.

Further, the treble is now voiced from a titanium-diaphragm tweeter horn. Although more extended than the old Electro-Voice T-35 tweeter (used in the type I), the treble can now be excessively bright on axis. Position the speaker so that the listening position is not on axis, and the woofer-to-midrange discontinuity becomes more obvious.

I think there has to be great similarity of the character of the sound, like the apparent transient response, for it to be well integrated between the drivers. JMHO.

[moray james]

I see the CW3 as a backwards step in ways it would appear to be a retro homage to PWK and not a serious attempt to forward anything worrh while. The Chorus was a better by far replacement to the CW than ever the CW3. Klipsch see their future in the reference series not in theHeritage line which they maintain to keep continuity with the past. They did do a good job with the H3 but that too requires work to refine. Best regards Moray James.

[Boomzilla]

Boomzilla, I would advise ALOT of careful thought before cutting up a pair of CWIII's. You could tackle the issues you raise at the cost of potential resale value. These mod options would not be my choice on speakers still being manufactured.

Hi Daddy Dee -

You're right. It makes no sense to mod a brand new speaker set. Therefore, I'm going to sell my CW-3s and shop about for some CW-1s or some Heresy 3s with a small sub. To the Florida gent who offered to swap his CW-1s for my 3s, I say OK if you throw in an additional $1,250 and then only if your speakers are in pristine condition.

For anyone in the Baton Rouge area that wants a BARGAIN on a pair of CW-3s, PM me. I'm thinking half the new price - $2K per pair.

[moray james]

Why don't you look to a pair of custom cabinets cut by Bob Crites for your project that way you get a top quality cabinet better than new and you can brace it and finish it as you like. You can even get it in a vertical configuration. If you decide to go with a CW box go with a later version that is like the CW2 with the K602 and a K79 tweeter. You wiill want to go with Ti diaphragms for the mid and the tweeter. This meand a ceramic K52 motot or preferably the K61 version motor for the mids. Hope this is of interest..

How close are you to Baton Rouge? I have a bud there who is just about to start his CF3 rebuild. This would be my choice over any CW. Best regards Moray James.

[moray james]

I look at this in a slightly different way. you have a pair of speakers that you have but which you are not 100% pleased. So you could modify the new speakers or you could sell them take a loss and then look to buy older ones which you would modify. Do a simple cost and time annalysis and figure out which pair is the least expensive one remembering to factor in physical condition. Seems to me you arwe likely to take a bath selling your CW3 uses so give it some more thought. Best regards Moray James.

PS: I might add that ti diaphragms are very difficult to obtain right now. Both Klipsch and Bob are out of stock and have had problems with the supplier. There is some concern this could be a perminent situation. Since you already have a set of each you might want to think twice about sending them away at a loss to some other buyer.

PPS: you don't modify something wondering about what this will do to your resale you modify something to get what you want. Yo have to accept that you are less than likely to retrieve your modification costs back if you sell them.

[Boomzilla]

I look at this in a slightly different way...you could sell them take a loss...

Actually, no loss is involved. I can sell them for what I paid. That being the case, I'll recoup my purchase price and select speakers more to my liking at the same price.

[moray james]

That is a very good position to be in, good for you. You still might want ot look for a clean set of CW2 with K601 mid horns and then upgrade the diaphragms and or networks. Cabinet brace work will go a long way improving the quality of sound. You might even consider building them into two way Cornscalla with baffle and parts from Bob Crites. Lots of options. Good luck and please keep us posted as tohow things work out. Best regards Moray James.

[Marvel]

I would try to contact DTEL over in Picayune, MS and see if you could pay a visit to listen to his CWIIIs. It is always good to have a comparison in another setup. While there you could listen to his MWMs and K402 horns... [6]

Bruce

[moray james]

oh Bruce that's a very hard thing to put a guy through! Best regards Moray James.

[boom3]

Chiming in a little late (as usual) why not try a pair of Cornwall IIs? They have a superior tweeter to the T-35. I'm not sure about the K52 vs. the K55 driver. I like what I have, and the test reports I've seen on the Corn II confirm my perceptions. I have never noticed any significant cab ringing with my 86 models, which use 3/4 MDF. They also have some interior bracing that I think was absent on the Corn Is. They can be had for $700-800 a pair. Since they are 24-30+ years old now, they need a fresh crossover caps, of course.

The only advantge I can think of for the IIIs is that the woofer has been moved up on the baffle which is alleged to create a smoother transition to the midrange. I have not haerd the IIIs, but wanted to remind all concerned that there was another member of the family tree.

[Boomzilla]

To date, the things I've done that have helped the CW3s are:

1. Change from 12 Ga. Kimber 12TC wires to 16 Ga. (?) Nordost flat wires. This reduced the amount of bass and consequently reduced the cabinet vibration.

2. Tilted the speakers back by putting some sliders under the front of the speakers. This placed the listening position closer to the axis of the woofer.

3. Switched my Rogue Audio Tempest integrated amplifier from pentode to triode mode. This reduced the treble to a listenable level while on-axis of the tweeter.

The one thing I have yet to try is to take all bass below 80 Hz. away from the CW3 and send it to a subwoofer. Of course, doing so leaves me with all the disadvantages of the speakers (large size and 15" woofer crossed over at too high a frequency) with none of the advantages (low bass extension of the speaker itself). Ultimately, if I'm to have a subwoofer, I might as well use Heresy speakers on stands.

Anybody want to buy some Cornwall III speakers at a bargain price?