Jump to content

Khorn Restoration


bcarey13

Recommended Posts

Well, I've been here for about 2 years and figured I should start posting so I can edit my profile, etc.....

 

I'm in the middle of restoring 2 khorns....They are from the pre stereo days.  One is a July 1956 and the other is a January 1957.....I've been repairing, painting, veneering and dyeing(not staining) the veneer..I bought the veneer from Oakwood.

 

I've bought new drivers and crossovers from Bob Crites and hope to have them up and running again in a couple weeks.  I'll post some pics in that time of the progress.  While they are being worked on though I am luckily not Klipsch-less.  As we speak I am listening to an Crites upgrades set of Lascalas from 84' and a set of Heresy II's.  I also have a couple sets of KG 3.5's that we use with the TV's.  I think I would probably going faster on the resto if the Lascalas didn't sound so good.  They are amazing.

 

To be honest a couple of years ago I fought against liking Klipsch.  I had about 20 sets of speakers rotate through my music room and none of them were Klipsch.  The room has always been a challenge.  It's about 26x16 with vaulted 15' ceilings.  Nothing sounded great in there until I put in the 1950's khorns that were honestly pretty tired and not working 100%.  Now, every Klipsch speaker sounds great in there. 

 

I'll update the resto as I go or if anyone has questions about the 60 year old khorns.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, bcarey13 said:

The horns were filthy....I've cleaned one and have one left.  60 years of dirt and dust and grime

That's called patina.

 

So why are you dying the veneer.  Is this easier, better, deeper, etc.

 

In other words pray tell do tell me more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, thebes said:

That's called patina.

 

So why are you dying the veneer.  Is this easier, better, deeper, etc.

 

In other words pray tell do tell me more.

 

 

I've stained a lot of things over the years but the dye will actually sink in on tough to stain or tight grained surfaces really well.  I figured I'd give it a shot.  This is the place I bought it.

 

http://www.kedadyeinc.com/Eco-Friendly-Wood-Stain.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, bcarey13 said:

and luckily these two plexi-badges were both present and in good shape

IMG_5848.jpeg

Lucky You!!  Those are the best badges ever, IMO!  Do you know where they go?  On a B-style, they are centered on the inset collar between the top hat and the bass horn.  On mine, they were held in by brass brads in the little holes in the ends.

 

These beat the pie-shaped wedges and copper plates all to heck, IMHO.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

^^^ Yea, I carefully pulled them both off the speakers.  Since I had a B style and a C style, the B was exactly as you said on the collar of the riser and the C style was centered on the top of the bass bin.  It took me a while to get them off but I was able to save all 4 brass brads as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/23/2017 at 7:24 PM, bcarey13 said:

I've heard that the fiberglass/wood K5j's drop off pretty steeply at 4500hz so I will be using the 4500 crossovers from Bob. 

I just realized you bought new driver to go with the A/4500 XO.   The A/4500 XO with a new tweeter (non-crites) made a huge difference in upgrading the sound in my 1978 Khorns.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, wvu80 said:

I just realized you bought new driver to go with the A/4500 XO.   The A/4500 XO with a new tweeter (non-crites) made a huge difference in upgrading the sound.

 

I bought the Crites CT-120's(I have them in my Lascalas too) and apparently they can handle down in that range without a problem.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I want to tell you B Carey that I love the kind of restoration you are doing, to bring tired speakers back to life.

 

The only downside is that you may never know what those 1950's era Khorns were supposed to sound like, but that is a curiosity thing.  The important thing is that we know with the components you've selected they will sound great.  Speaking for myself I care more about how they sound now, rather than how they sounded way back when.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, wvu80 said:

I want to tell you B Carey that I love the kind of restoration you are doing, to bring tired speakers back to life.

 

The only downside is that you may never know what those 1950's era Khorns were supposed to sound like, but that is a curiosity thing.  The important thing is that we know with the components you've selected they will sound great.  Speaking for myself I care more about how they sound now, rather than how they sounded way back when.

Well, I ran them for a while in my music room.... with the Stephens 103 LX2 woofers, University SAHF mids and EV t35 tweeters, and the original Klipsch 500/5000 Crossovers. Even with one suspect and crackly tweeter and some tired crossovers they sounded great.  Of course everything in the khorn back in the 50's was all 16ohm.  The dilemma was to try and source and refresh all 16ohm parts or move to the 4,16,8ohm standard that is still used today.  Even though I would've loved to keep everything original my most important objective was to get the sound to be the best it could

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...