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Restoring Heresey I


pat_in_dfw

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I bought a pair of Heresy I's from an estate sale recently. I already have a pair of Heresy II's and KG4's so my purpose was to restore these and sell them. They weren't taken care of all that well and even had stickers on them it looked like they had been used in a mechanic's shop and the stickers made them look like something from NASCAR.  The grill cloths were ripped in a couple of places and one of the emblems were missing.  I was able to use goo be gone and get the stickers off cleanly, some light sanding and stain cleaned up the wood nicely.  I was able to get new grill cloth from Bob Crite and an emblem from eBay, so cosmetically they are great now.

 

One of the drivers had a small puncture and a rip in the surround.  (pic attached)  My thought was to 1) re-cone, 2) find a user driver on eBay or elsewhere, 3) Use a new Crite woofer or 4) search the internet for a K-22 "clone" that would work in it's place.  Option 1 was seriously considered, used drivers were tough to find and somewhat costly compared to what I had spent already, the Crite woofers were incredibly expensive.  So I ended up searching dozens of sites that sold raw drivers and eventually found one that was virtually an exact match. 

 

I found the T/S parameters for the K-22 as follows:

NomZ=8 Ohm
Re=6.9 Ohm
Le=1 mH
Qms=5.3
Qes=0.446
Qts=0.411
Fres=35 Hz
Cms=359 uM/N
Mms=57.6 Grams
BL= 14 TM
Sd=.053 square meters = 62 Sq Inches
Vas= 143 Liters = 5.05 CuFt
Xmax= 4mm
Pmax= 100Watts
SPL=93 dB @ 2.83V

 

 

The driver I found has T/S as follows:

  • Sensitivity: 96dB (W/M)
  • Impedance: 8ohm
  • Re: 7.2ohm
  • Le: 1.213mH
  • Frequency response:
  • 48Hz~3KHz
  • Fs: 48Hz
  • Qts: 0.39
  • Qes: 0.428
  • Qms: 4.5
  • Vas: 94.5 liters
  • Xmax: 7mm
  • Overall frame diameter: 12.28"
  • Required cutout: 11.06"
  • Mounting depth: 5.00"

This was as close of a match as I could find with any driver and the price was definitely right.  I bought the driver to replace the one that was damaged.  I installed it and the sound was great.  But - here is the point of this post...........since my place is to sell the speakers, how does mis-matched drivers affect the value?  If I were to keep the speakers, I would replace the K-22 with the new driver because personally I thought it sounded better.  But to the person that would buy a vintage Hesesy, would having non-Klipsch drivers severely affect the value?  What should I do to maximize the resale value?

 

I've attached pics.  The black driver is the new one and the grey driver is the original K-22.

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I typically wouldn't buy a pair with mismatched drivers - or if I did, i would expect a significant discount to offset the cost of picking up a proper replacement from Bob. The cabinets still look pretty rough too. I'd do about $100-$150 (I'm just north of DFW, btw. East of McKinney), just so I could strip them down and refinish, replace both woofers ($400), and refresh the crossovers.

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I did strip them down and refinish.  Why do you say the cabinets look rough?  I wouldn't want to sell with mismatched drivers either.  My question was if it would be better to find another K-22 or replace it with the 2nd new driver - thus making replacing them with Crite woofers unnecessary.  I've listened to them for a couple of days and considered refreshing the crossovers, but the highs sound crisp and sharp.  I didn't measure the response with a calibration mic, but from listening I don't think new crossovers would be needed.

 

I've seen Heresys on eBay in the $500-$600 range, so that's what I wanted to get for these.  What would be the best way to get them to  be able to sell in the $500 range?  1) Another K-22 or 2) replace K-22 with new "clone" woofer?

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I bought a pair in oiled oak with the cain grills a few months ago. Made in 1983 so they are the Heresy 1.5 version. They were in excellent condition and I paid 280.00 for them. I rebuilt the crossovers for a cost of 52.00.

Around the Philly area they seem to sell for 3 to 4 hundred on CL if your willing to wait for a deal. No way would I pay 500.00 for an older pair unless they were in pristine condition, recapped and had all the correct drivers.

Maybe in other parts of the country the market is different.

 

BillWojo

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Since the consensus is to get original drivers I found a K-22 driver that I just ordered.  I'm going to put that in and get new caps as well.  I've already bought new grill cloth from Crites so that's pristine. I'm In the in Pro AV industry (not consumer) so I have the tools to create a spectrum analysis.  I'll capture the frequency response of each speaker and have that available when I sell them.  Thanks again for the input.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I wanted to compare the new driver to the original K-22 before I took it out and replaced it with another K-22 that I bought since the consensus was that the value was severely diminished without the original K-22 driver.  I also bought new caps, but as a comparison I wanted to get measurements on how they sounded both before and after replacing the caps.  I took measurements with 2 different RTA applications.  I used an Earthworks calibration mic and a Biamp Nexia to generate the pink noise.  I had the speakers sitting on top of a bookshelf that was around 4' off the floor and about 6" from the back wall.  I put the mic on a stand so it was about 1 meter directly in front of the speakers.

 

In my listening over the past couple of weeks I noticed that the new speakers sounded very similar to the K-22.  I had 4 of 5 people in my office come in and sit in a chair while I turned one speaker off then the other and asked if they heard a difference between the two.  Granted this was an unscientific test, but none of them could tell a difference between the two when seated about 10 feet in front of them.  I have posted the RTA graphs from both software applications and made note of which one was using the K-22 and which was the new woofer.

 

I've had comments about the speaker being work less without the original drivers, but in all honesty, which is going to sound better - a 40 yr old woofer that more than likely doesn't perform like it did when it was new, or a brand new driver with very similar T/S parameters that performs almost identical when measured?  Plus the new woofer has 350w RMS power handling which is significantly higher than the K-22.

 

Take a look at the RTAs and tell me what you think. Ignore the scale on the left.  This wasn't calibrated to 1w/1m.  I turned the volume up loud enough to get a good reading.  The relative SPL is accurate, but not the scale. Is this response curve typical of the Heresy I's?  I notice a large dip around 150 hz and another dip at 4100 hz?  Is this a room response artifact? 

 

What does this say about the state of the capacitors?  In listening to these, they sound bright and crisp, not like how I've read speakers sounding that needs caps replaced.  I have bought new caps and planned on replacing them, but if the existing ones are still working well, is that necessary?

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The cabs did not look that bad but you only had one pic. How bad are they .... That veneer is pretty thick and can stand some sanding. Your not going to get the cost of total restore back out of them. If your going to flip them just get them looking as good as you can.

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My initial cost was very low to get them.  It was from an estate sale and they didn't know what they were.  I already have some KG4s in my bedroom and a pair of KLF-30s in my theater with a vintage Forte II as the center channel.  I don't need them for personal use, so I've been doing what I can to get the most value out of them for resale.  My cost is in replacing one of the woofers, buying new grill cloth from Crite, getting a new gold Klipsch badge from eBay and a few hours of time sanding and refinishing.

 

I'm guessing the 150hz dip is caused from having them sitting on a bookshelf about 4' off the floor.  I'm sure if I put that on the ground it would be smoother.

 

Based on the frequency response, are the caps still good?  I can replace them but would it help?  Does it mean anything to the value to be able to say "with new caps"?

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