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Speakers that look great, but aren't


MikeFord

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My first Klipsch purchase, which I have never listened to yet, turned out at pick up to have damaged woofers. Before I could find a set of replacement woofers cheap enough to suit me I bought a pair of Forte's, so the Heresy's sit passive on top of the Forte's. Next I found some woofers for sale locally from a set of the Speakerlab version of the Heresy's, which after purchase I found have totally incompatible parameters. Time passes, I'm happy listening to the Forte's, and finally win the bid on ebay for a pair of nice original Heresy woofers.

Seller wraps each driver in shrink wrap and puts them loose in boxes filled with peanuts. During shipping peanuts work there way behind the shrink on one driver creasing and bulging forward several inches on one side of the cone. Looks terrible, much back and forth with the seller who can't believe his shipping was faulty, but eventually we work out a partial refund, but I am still short a woofer.

Months pass with the woofer sitting on a shelf and now I see no sign of damage even looking pretty close, nothing I would notice if I didn't know what to look for.

Don't judge a speaker by how it looks. After messing with speakers for 30 years I am thinking maybe some test gear is in order.

Pict hopefully below of the damaged woofer.

post-49689-0-57540000-1407994910_thumb.j

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This may be risky, but have you though of trying to take the dents out by getting the cone wet? I used plain old Windex the other day on some surrounds and spiders that were collapsed. The Windex didn't seem to damage or bleed the cone or soften the glue. If you got the cone wet, maybe you could reshape it and when dry good as new. Also it is possible it would be terrible, in which case shipping both speakers, the good and bad ones, to a re-cone company would be in order if you cannot find a replacement for the bad one.

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After just sitting and nothing whatsoever done to it the bulged speaker "looks" fine. To see any sign of damage I need to know which speaker it is and use a good flashlight at an angle. No idea yet on the sound, but I do intend to "play" with it. I have some fabric glue I plan to use on a couple speakers with minor damage. Not mentioned on the bulge speaker is that a small area of the surround was lifting, so that will get a dab of fabric glue on a toothpick poked into it.

Overall point is that visual inspections may not reveal serious flaws. When I bought my Forte's they sounded fine to me, but a couple weeks later one voicecoil was rubbing. Old speakers, roll the dice.

Recones in all the sources I've checked are priced between known good used speakers and upgrades from Crites, ie generally a worthless option. If you have a simple issue like the old foam type surrounds going bad, easy DIY, but anything cone or voicecoil and you need jigs, plus I can't say I fully trust a recone to meet original specs.

BTW I would also be game to try using good bits from a bad speaker to make "patches" to glue into another speaker, but again I would want some way to test the end result.

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Forte with the rubbing voice coil happened the same week that a new Linkin Park album came out. Took me three days to realize "some" of the distortion wasn't in the recording. Unless I am confident the speaker is totally fixed I will always wonder if this or that sound is the speaker messing up.

 

Might push me over the edge to finally buy some real speaker measurement stuff, calibrated microphone etc.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Or try an album your totally familiar with.

I don't think this is a good time to use long term audio memory, better to sum the source to mono and a/b between two speakers side by side. Better still, use a calibrated mic and do a distortion test, as it could be the speaker sounds fine except in some narrow resonant bands related to the damaged area.

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www.critesspeakers.com

 

Our CW1228 12 inch Stamped Steel Frame Woofers.  Replacement woofer for the Heresy 1 and Heresy II speakers.  Also works good in the KLF-30 and the KLipsch Jubilee.  This woofer has gaskets on both sides of the mounting flange, so is ready to use in the Heresy 1 mounted from the inside of the cabinet or the Heresy II, KLF-30 and others mounted from the outside of the cabinet.  Shipping is $20.00 by UPS in the US.

Model CW1228 Pair:  $200.00.

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