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New to me KLF30's - advice?


jfjacques

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Hi Folks - 

 

Went to a moving sale today and picked up a pair of KLF30s, they are medium oak and cabs are probably 5/10 they have a few water stains/marks on top some chips but I think some of it will clean up OK. The grilles are bad - the frames are OK but in my opinion not worth saving, just re-do. The guy let me test them all of teh drivers seemed to work fine, he did confirm that he had some cabinet rattle issues and he had put in corner blocks but in rookie fashion as he pointed out the screws are exposed from outside of the cabinet. 

 

I am debating what to do wtih these - my intention was to fix them and sell towards something in the heritage line, I really would like Cornwalls some day. Do I leave as is and use or sell as beaters, do i invest in a better less visible cabinet fix/glue and new grill cloth, etc? what do these realistically go for? I know parting them out would be an option too but I don't know I could stomach doing that knowing they have potential. 

 

Thanks for any info you can provide. 

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I would remove the screws and fix the front and rear panels with liquid nail.   Let me know if you need instructions on how to do this. I wrote up a brief detailed post on how to do this without pictures. I don't know how to really fix the cabinet condition. If it's a real wood veneer, it can be fixed, but I think they were all vinyl wrapped. The grills don't take much to fix, you can buy grill cloth material on eBay for fairly cheap. Just use super glue or something to glue the cloth to the frame. I recommend several people helping you keep the cloth tight. I think you can still buy new-old stock klf30 grills from klipsch for around $75 per grill.

Medium oak is fairly desirable on these speakers. I would think you could get $500-1000 depending on your final product.

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Those are a large step up from the KG5.5. If they are working right, they will out do the Cornwall. Depending on what you have room and desire for. After the glue issue is behind you, they can make great garage speakers. Totally fixed, they look and sound great in the living room.  Glad to hear that it would pain you to part them out. It sounds like they're no where near that condition. 

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thanks for the replies I took a better look at them today, hooked up in the garage with a basic Onkyo 50x2 receiver these things screamed - AMAZING. All of the drivers seem to work perfectly and appear in good physical condition - I pushed them for a bit and no issues. The cabinets do need some TLC for sure I am going to start on the glue process this coming weekend and remove the screws that were added. I'll keep you all posted. Yes I would only part these out as a last resort.... they are WAY too much for my living room, and I recently replaced my KG5.5's and KV3 with a nice find - Oiled Walnut Forte and Academy Center, upgraded all 3 with crites tweeters and my brother is now using the KG5.5 and KV3 which was a significant upgrade from his Paradigms. I bought the KLF30 wiht the intention of repair and sell - could use the cash but also wouldn't mind trying some of the other heritage lines. 

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The 30's are great speakers and would be a nice replacement for the forte's, although I do love the look of the forte and especially the walnut veneer. The 30's have a few things going for them that the forte do not like optimal size / height and dual 12" woofers per cabinet. Those woofers spec about the same as the forte woofer so you really do have twice the woof with the 30's. Also, assuming you have the original forte's the 30's have the larger Tractrix mid horn in its favor. The tweeter on the 30's is filled with ferro-fluid and speaker inputs have been upgraded to dual input for easy bi-wiring / bi-amping, so yeah, they stepped up a few things when they moved to the KLF line, just too bad they cheaped out on the cabinets.

 

All that being said the forte's are a wonderful speaker and in beautiful walnut it would be hard for me to move away from a set especially for a raggedy pair of oak speakers. Depending on how much you paid it may be easier to just flip them with minimal effort and pocket the extra cash and move on. Anyway, good luck and have fun!  

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Send a pm to Morry James on the Forum and ask for suggestions. He has quite a bit of experience with fixing up and repairing the 30's, including the rattle some them get. The 30 is/was a great speaker and you won't be disappointed. I bought mine new way back when and now use them in a dedicated all-KLF home theater.

 

Best of luck.

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