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Odd Heresy's on the bay....


jimjimbo

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I posted this in the lounge because it's a crazy price, but also because it's a rather odd posting.  The title says HBR, there is a label on the back of one that says HBR, but they definitely don't look HBR, they look oak.  Non sequential serials.  Even more strange is that they are being sold by The Music Room in Colorado, whom I have seen normally has some pretty decent stuff.  I think this might be a cautionary tale in the making....

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Klipsch-Heresy-Speakers-Birch-Raw-Pair-/322301763266?hash=item4b0aae9ec2:g:iJ4AAOSwcLxYCklC

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7 hours ago, HDBRbuilder said:

They are actually HBR speakers which have been veneered with oak.  Look at the rear pics...they have butt-joint construction, NOT mitered joints.  Somebody veneered them and even the front edges were veneered with miters at the corners.

 

I agree that they were veneered in Oak. The wood grain looks like someone knew to select matching veneer. 

What joints are used at the Klipsch factory, if not mitered?

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#1 - what Andy is talking about is when Birch Raw cabs are built the cabs are butt jointed

#2 - when cabs are built and they will receive veneer the top and sides of the cabs are mitered and not butt jointed. so the edges of the back of a veneered cab is mitered without veneer on it.

#3 - all veneer is mitered. i'm guessing they don't put veneer on but jointed cabs

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5 hours ago, Weber said:

Were all Heresy 1s' cabinets made using plywood?

I worked there from 1976-1983.  At that time, only the birch ones were made using 7-ply plywood (5 thicker plys with a thinner birch ply on each side=7 plys).

 

The factory-mitered fine veneer was also technically a plywood, but it was 2  outer plys (one side had its fine veneer as one of the plys) added each side of a much thicker lumber-core inner strata...normally the lumber-core strata was edge glued poplar lumber-core.  The fine veneered panels arrived at the factory with the matched veneers already on them, in panels which were also already edge-veneered.along both edges.  Each of those pre-veneered panels for Heresys and Cornwalls would need to be ripped on the table saw to produce two separate identical panels, for pairs use.  There would be two identical panels for the sides and two identical panels for the tops/bottoms, yielding four tops/bottoms and fours sides for a book-matched pair.

 

For K-horns, the top-hat panels came in four panels for a pair and the bass bin panels came in in just a pair...yielding two top panels and one front panel per speaker.

 

Belles were a totally different animal, but those panels also came in pre-veneered shipped as book-matched pairs.

 

All of the mitering of the joints was done on tables-saws, using sleds with intricate clamping adjustments to eliminate scrap.

 

Once the Altendorfer panel saw was purchased things changed somewhat, but the panels still arrived at the plant as they had been arriving.

 

It was never that uncommon for customers to buy birch-raw decorator/birch Heresys or Cornwalls and veneer the cabinets themselves after purchase, but far more customers either just stained them and applied a finish or painted them.

 

A number of years before I started working there the plywood used  was marine-grade fir plywood for the decorator series.  Marine grade fir plywood was still being used for a number of the K-horn bass-bin parts when I got there, but we changed most of that over to Baltic birch while I was there...especially for the panels that were screwed together, since the density and hardness of the Baltic birch created problems for stapled assemblies (staples just do NOT want to go through that stuff!).

 

Somebody who was NOT a builder got the "bright idea" to use 17-ply Baltic birch for Heresy motorboards for the drop-in versions of the Heresys.  So, we diligently sawed up a number of pallet-loads of that, and routed out the holes, and pre-drilled the screw pilot-holes for mounting the horns and woofers, then we could NOT get the panels stapled into the speaker glue blocks and it was a huge waste of time.  It was also a waste of a number of expensive cabinets!  That idea got scrapped pretty quickly, but we had a few pallets of waste over that deal, and about 20 totally destroyed 3/8" router bits, too!  Routing that Baltic birch would make those industrial bits so hot that the edges would just explode into fragments which would fly out and bury up in anything they hit...to include safety glasses and body parts (after going through clothing, first!).  The sawyers weren't too happy about all those rapidly dulled saw blades, either!  Since I was one of the builders and also the one who had to rout all of those motorboards, I was one of the unhappiest about that bright idea!  The very few cabinets that made it all the way to final assembly were a fiasco, too!  When they tried to install the horn lenses and woofers, using the pre-drilled pilot holes, the screw-heads would snap off the screws before they could even get them all the way in.  And the few screws which actually didn't break, had to be hand-tightened to get them all the way in because the pneumatic screw guns didn't have enough torque to get the job done!   Lots of sore forearms over that fiasco over in final assembly!  LOL!

 

The company had gotten a really great price on a few truck-loads of Baltic birch in various odd sizes, so they wanted to capitalize on that.  Any builder could have told them the results, but as usual....LOL!

 

For those who came up with that idea...all I can say is...pay attention to what the assembly folks say before making any decision next time.

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