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Where should I put my new Cornwalls?


Goathorn

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Just bought a pair of '79 Cornwalls off Craigslist. They were owned by a hobbies with lots of high end stuff. I paid too much for them, but they look great, they haven't been messed with, and sound fantastic. 

 

We're building a new home and the plan is to use them for a 2 channel set-up (vinyl/CD) in a 30X45 great room. The problem is the room has concrete floors and there are 2 walls of 10" high glass doors. The room opens to other rooms with similar features. Obviously there will be some furniture and a couple rugs, but it's a fairly open contemporary design. Is there any hope of making these speakers work well in this room, or should we look for other options. What type of room would be ideal?

 

Second question is how to best upgrade the rest of my 2 channel system. I have the following pieces in storage. Denon POA 2200, Luxman turntable with Ortofon OM10 cartridge, inexpensive Samsung blue-ray player. I don't think I have a preamp anymore, but I could use the front end of a spare AV receiver (Yamaha RX V1400). Assume I have a budget of $2000, how can I maximize the return sound wise? I'm looking for specific suggestions. 

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These things are hard to predict in advance. The closer the CWs are to a rear wall the stronger the bass (in general). Arrange them to try an reduce side reflections (first reflections) and spend several afternoons experimenting with horizontal separation and toe-in. Keep the rear reflection (behind you) as far away as possible. Listen to quality recordings and repeat, repeat, repeat, with different locations.

I think it will work out nicely. I wish I had a room that large. 

Good luck,

-Tom

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My room is 6 meters wide and 6 meters long with high ceilings and where I sit is a Bass dead point!

When I walk out of the room the base actually hits me.

Never mind that the windows and actually the whole house have the deep bass vibrations!

The klipsch are played with a pair of Mission 770S in series.

The missions are now laying sideways flat on top of the Klipsch.

Somehow they work out fantastic!

Now , somehow to move the bass dead point. 

Music TV room.jpg

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Framing of the house will commence next week, and I'm wondering if I should make any changes to accommodate placement of these speakers. The plan is to place them on both sides of a 7' wide fireplace, but I haven't decided how much of the wall to box in and whether to frame in risers on which to place the speaker so that they are not on the floor. So, on one extreme I could make the wall completely flat with the face of the fireplace and place the speakers on the floor in front of the wall, or on the other extreme, I could frame the wall around the fireplace so that the speakers could be placed in niches on or off the floor. At this point I have complete flexibility and it will cost me almost nothing to have it built the way I want it. Ideas?    

 

 

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  • 5 months later...

Lots of progress since my last post. Here's a photo of the room where my Cornwalls will go. I plan to place them in the niches next to the concrete columns, angled in.  There's a large closet behind the wall on the right hand side of the fireplace that will be dedicated to home's AV equipment and structured wiring. I plan to have the turntable and CD player on wall mounted shelves next to the fireplace. I'd also like to build some shelving for LPs and CDs. Have to get with the trim carpenter to plan this out. My Luxman with the Ortofon OM10 has always sounded a bit thin and sterile to me, and I think this impression would be especially apparent in that room. So instead I'll be using a Thorens TD166 MKII with an older Grads cartridge--not sure of the model, it's kind of a light baby blue color. The Thorens/Grado set-up seems a little less detailed in the higher frequencies as compared to the Luxman/OM10, but it also sounds much warmer/analog/easier-to-listen-to, and to my ears, is a much better match to the Cornwalls.        

 

 

IMG_3427.jpg  

 

Edited by Goathorn
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Beautiful room. Is it a stone floor? If you go with a raised platform I'd be sure to make it solid and place the speakers in such a way that there is no interaction between the speakers and a wooden platform or shelving. Spikes or something to decouple them from the platform. Raising them is a nice option as they are somewhat lower than ear level. Keep us updated.

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On 8/6/2016 at 4:02 PM, Ducatist said:

My room is 6 meters wide and 6 meters long with high ceilings and where I sit is a Bass dead point!

When I walk out of the room the base actually hits me.

Never mind that the windows and actually the whole house have the deep bass vibrations!

The klipsch are played with a pair of Mission 770S in series.

The missions are now laying sideways flat on top of the Klipsch.

Somehow they work out fantastic!

Now , somehow to move the bass dead point. 

Music TV room.jpg

 

Bass dead point may be tough to deal with as moving your speakers doesn't seem to be a WAF option. Have you tried different positioning within your confines? Toe in or out can have a noticeable effect on bass in some rooms. Also pulling/pushing them in our out may have an effect. Do I detect a Dutchman with those Delft Blue houses and porcelain? Hard to see in the pic.

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That's going to be one great looking house. Acoustic panels could go on the ceiling in front of the speakers.  Also you could mount bass traps at the rear wall ceilings if the reflections are too great. 

 

Also if our Cornwalls don't have factory risers you could build a set and raise the hearing level of the mids closer to your ears.  I believe they are about 3/12 inches. Another tweak would be to angle them like Heresies risers.  You can do that simply by stacking some books under the front as an experiment.

 

Finally since the place is empty and Cornwalls weigh hardly anything, just haul them in, hook them up and get a feel for the place before the buildout is finalized.

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Almost forgot. The crossover capacitors are dried out after  forty years.  if you can solder at all replace them.  I like Russian  PIO's (paper-in-oil) which are reasonable and you can get them off of ebay.  If not so inclined contact Bob Crites, a member here, send him the crossover boards and have him do the recap for you using whatever caps he's currently using in those xovers.  The difference is subtle, but real, it will remove some flatness in the sound.  We are talking four caps total, so not too onerous an expense versus the benefit.

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On Saturday, August 06, 2016 at 4:02 AM, Ducatist said:

My room is 6 meters wide and 6 meters long with high ceilings and where I sit is a Bass dead point!

When I walk out of the room the base actually hits me.

Never mind that the windows and actually the whole house have the deep bass vibrations!

The klipsch are played with a pair of Mission 770S in series.

The missions are now laying sideways flat on top of the Klipsch.

Somehow they work out fantastic!

Now , somehow to move the bass dead point. 

Music TV room.jpg

 

Not to sound insulting, but are you sure the polarity is the same on these?

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I have been playing with speaker placement in my room for quite some time.

Out of many diffrent theories, this one worked best in my room (http://www.laventure.net/tourist/speaker_placement.htm).

It is easy to implement.

 

In your case it may have one drawback - you will have to pull the speakers out of tose niches. But it is worth a try.

 

As regard Luxman+Ortofon, I have been listening the OM10 cart in a R-15PM turntable pack and it is not bad at all. But one step up the range - Ortofon2M red would be an improvement here in my opinion. Do you have the phono pre-amp, this can be other way of experimenting in that respect.

 

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