Cornwall 1 vs Cornwall 2

[mikry]

I have a pair of Cornwalls with Type B crossover.

 

The warranty card says they are Cornwall II circa 1979. The decal on the back only say Cornwall.

 

Knowing both used type b, how do I know if I have 1 or 2?

Edited July 2, 2017 by mikry

[jimjimbo]

Cornwall I drivers/horns mounted from the rear of the motorboard, Cornwall II mounted from the front.

[mikry]

Hi

There is no visible hardware or flanges from the front of the motorboard.

 

So the dealer made a mistake 38 years ago by writing Cornwall 2 on the warranty card when in fact they delivered Cornwall 1.

 

It has a T in the serial number so at least they got the year right... 1979.

 

 

[pzannucci]

10 hours ago, mikry said:

Hi

There is no visible hardware or flanges from the front of the motorboard.

 

So the dealer made a mistake 38 years ago by writing Cornwall 2 on the warranty card when in fact they delivered Cornwall 1.

 

It has a T in the serial number so at least they got the year right... 1979.

 

 

Yes the dealer made a mistake.  There were modifications being made in that time frame so perhaps the dealer thought Klipsch was going to name them Cornwall II.

[filmofreddy]

This gets screwy but, here goes. The Cornwall (1) of 59 vintage had a K-1000 (1000 cycle) midrange horn & the reflex port was on the rear of the enclosure. In the 60's it was redesigned with the K-600 mid horn & the reflex port on the front of the box. This was billed as the Cornwall "II". I have a pair in storage & the shipping box is printed "Cornwall II". By rights the New Cornwall should be a "IV".

[jimjimbo]

8 minutes ago, filmofreddy said:

This gets screwy but, here goes. The Cornwall (1) of 59 vintage had a K-1000 (1000 cycle) midrange horn & the reflex port was on the rear of the enclosure. In the 60's it was redesigned with the K-600 mid horn & the reflex port on the front of the box. This was billed as the Cornwall "II". I have a pair in storage & the shipping box is printed "Cornwall II". By rights the New Cornwall should be a "IV".

Well, that's just not true.  Regardless of what your cardboard box says, if you have a pair from the 60's, it's a Cornwall I.  Here's the real history of the Cornwall.

 

• Oct 1959: The Cornwall is introduced as the world's second commercially produced center speaker. A speaker with higher output capability than the Heresy was needed when used in three speaker arrays between Klipschorn’s. Component designations: Woofer EV 15WK, Midrange K-1000 Horn and University SAHF Driver, Tweeter K-77
• Late 1959: Transition to the K-33-J Woofer (Jensen)
• 1959 - 1961: Sporadic transition to the K-55-V mid-range driver (Atlas)
• Jan 1963: The K-1000 diffraction type midrange horn was replaced with the exponential K-600 horn with a lower (600 Hz) cutoff.
• Sept 1967: Transition to the K-33-M. The records are not clear as to the origin of this driver but it is believed to be an Eminence driver with an Alnico magnet.
• Jan 1968: Transition to The K-33-P Woofer (CTS Paducah KY)
• 1974: The horizontal version of the Cornwall is discontinued
• 1974: K-56 mid-range driver (Electrovoice 1828) is used for a short period as a temporary replacement as the supply of K-55-V drivers was interrupted.
• 1975: Transition to The K-33-B Woofer (CTS Brownsville TX)
• 1975-1979: K-33-E and the K-33-B were used interchangeably.
• 1979: The Eminence K-33-E woofer is used exclusively
• June 1981: The updated B2 network, with steeper crossover slopes is phased in with no changes to the K-33-E, K-55-V and K-77-M drivers.
• Oct 1981 - March 1983: The transition between four different iterations of the midrange driver from revolving sources occurs during this period. The original K-55-V was changed to a K-51-V (10/19/81) This marked the first time in the Cornwall's history that it used a driver set that differed from that of the Klipschorn. The K-51-V was then changed to the K-55-G (essentially a ceramic magnet version of the Atlas Alnico K-55-V). The K-55-G was then changed to the Hepner built K-52-H and finally the Klipsch built K-52-K.
• Mar 1983: The B-3 network and the K-52 midrange driver starts to be used in this model.  Component designations were: Woofer Eminence K-33-E, Midrange K-57-K (K-600 Aluminum horn and K-52-K driver with the threaded snout), Tweeter K-77-M and B-3 network.
• Jan 1986: The Cornwall II is introduced featuring front mounted drivers to reduce baffle induced diffraction effects. Component designations were: Woofer Eminence K-34-E (K-33-E with a dressy pad ring), Midrange K-57-K (K-601 plastic horn and K-52-K driver), Tweeter K-79-K (K-75-K horn and K-79 driver) and CW II network.
• 1990: The Cornwall II is discontinued
• Mar 2006: The Cornwall III is introduced marking the end of the Cornwall's 15 year absence from the market. This version utilizes the Klipschorn woofer, the horn and driver set from the Heresy III (featuring Titanium diaphragms and a Tractrix® tweeter horn) and bi-wire inputs. Component designations are: Woofer K-33-E, Midrange K-53-Ti (K-701 horn and K-53-Ti driver), Tweeter K-107-Ti (K-79-T horn and K-100-Ti driver).
• 2008+: There have been a number of newer models produced, and Klipsch has transitioned the crossovers to a more modern design. For information on the recent changes, please go to the website (Klipsch.com) for product information.

[HDBRbuilder]

The so-called "vertical" Cornwall was ORIGINALLY called the Cornwall II, when, for a time, it was the only one in production.  After they brought back out "horizontal" version for standard production, and relegated the "vertical" version to special-order-only, the "II" was dropped from the Cornwall moniker. The original Cornwalls carrying the "II" designation were called that for marketing purposes during the short time the "verticals" were the standard production item.  Early "verticals" had the arrows stenciled onto the back panel of the speaker, whereas, once the "vertical" became the standard production item for a short time, they actually had a stapled-on placard with the arrows on it. That was in the late 1960's for two or three years or so into the early 1970's.  Then back to the "Horizontals" for standard production.

 

All of this was driven by following the sales of Cornwalls...IOW, as the Cornwall speaker began to be sold in PAIRS more than as singles, things changed.  From the inception of the Cornwall speaker until the late 1960's the vast majority of Cornwalls were sold as singles...either to supplement a SINGLE K-horn, OR to be used as a center-channel speaker between a pair of K-horns.  As time went on, it became obvious that people were more often buying them in pairs as main speakers...so things changed.

 

The same kind of thing happened for the Heresy, but it began MUCH earlier...which cause the Heresy to undergo numerous changes to make it a better MAIN speaker and led to it being marketed as an entry-level Klipsch main speaker item.   The Heresy H700 model was the earliest long-term culmination of this process, and had continued to evolve a bit more into just the "Heresy" by the time I had arrived at K&A.

 

As for the Cornwall....you simply CANNOT empirically state EXACT years of manufacture for SPECIFIC types of Cornwalls, since I actually built about 6 or 7 different types while working there (with three of them being the Standard Production ones over that time period), even though some of them had been out of STANDARD production for a number of years.  If a customer ordered a match to a previously-built Cornwall back when I was there (76-83), they got it.  We would just go over to the EXTREMELY DUSTY stack of router templates leaning against the wall, pull the correct one out, tighten it up and rout out a motor-board to match what the customer already had previously bought...even if they had bought it YEARS before.  Most of the time, we were able to match components to the previously-purchased Cornwall, too...but those remaining NOS components pretty-much got used up while I was there and it became increasingly difficult to do it anymore....so most orders like that actually started to end up with the customer sending the old one in for an "upgrade" while the new one was being built with the "upgrade components" already in it by the time I left K&A in 1983.  It was really the only viable solution by that time.

 

As for what was written in the literature and/or on the Warranty Card(s) which were shipped with the speaker (normally stapled to the rear of the speaker, then later put into the "baggie" when each speaker was packed for shipping):  Final Assembly was most likely told to exhaust the supplies of the previous items before using the new current items, generally for one of two reasons:  the new items had not yet arrived, and/or the "powers that were" wanted use up what was already there in order to cut costs.  This doesn't help out with the confusion over the Cornwall changes over the years and tends to add to it.  

[Dan Hebert]

My Cornwall serial number dates to the last month in 1985 and inside are K-33-E drivers with a K-57-R midrange and a K-77 tweeter with a B3 crossover network. They were painted professional black (that crappy nighclub black) but labelled CBB which is Cornwall Black Birch but upon sanding off the crappy black finish I found book matched Walnut wood veneers! The speakers are now my cherished speakers and are finished in beautiful Teak oiled walnut with a custom made black bamboo base/riser.

[HDBRbuilder]

On Wednesday, July 12, 2017 at 3:30 PM, Dan Hebert said:

My Cornwall serial number dates to the last month in 1985 and inside are K-33-E drivers with a K-57-R midrange and a K-77 tweeter with a B3 crossover network. They were painted professional black (that crappy nighclub black) but labelled CBB which is Cornwall Black Birch but upon sanding off the crappy black finish I found book matched Walnut wood veneers! The speakers are now my cherished speakers and are finished in beautiful Teak oiled walnut with a custom made black bamboo base/riser.

If there was an issue with a mitered Cornwall or Heresy, they were usually painted black and shipped. as black finished speakers.  Some of the issues for walnut-veneered speakers were:

1. Seam where two walnut veneer strips met could be off a bit or the "points" of the book-match of the strips were not "meeting" at that seam.

2. There could be a tiny "gap" between two veneer strips somewhere along the seam line.

3. Walnut "live wood" (which is very blonde!) was part of one or more veneer strips.  (you coud never get that "live wood" to stain properly...too "pithy".  Live wood is also commonly called sapwood, because it is the nutrient layer between the bark and the heartwood...carried nutrients and water back and forth from leaves to roots.  On Black Walnut, it is very light colored about the color of fresh-from-the-cow cream.

4. Dents in the veneer which could not be brought up with water and an iron (putty them sand them and shoot it black!).

5. Singles...meaning something happened to one cabinet of a designated pair.

6. Lost "chips" from the mitered edges which would have needed to be puttied instead of replacing the missing chip.

7. Poorly aligned mitered edges...which caused part or all of one panel's miter to be too "proud" instead of coming to a perfect toe...and the sanders could not "make it right" without ending up with underlayment showing.  This was MOST OFTEN caused by either new inexperienced builders or even more-so by severely bowed panels that actually ended up with "bowed" mitered edges due to the difficulty of getting them clamped flat when running them through the table saw for mitering the edges.  So, you did NOT want bowed miter edges...and you built it up knowing that it would need to "go black" and put a piece of tape on it to let the sanders know about it.

 

There are lots more reasons mitered boxes "went black"...but you can get an idea of why from the above.

 

Also, we would get speakers back from dealers with damaged corners..."from shipping"...and take some cardboard, tape up a form for the corner, get rid of the damaged corner wood, drill into what was left of it so that the resin had something to "anchor to", attach the cardboard form, and pour up some fiberglass resin or other stuff ...sand it all flush...shoot it black...and DONATE it to a local church or tax-exempt organization.  The company could write it off the books at full retail price as a charitable donation.  There was a time when almost every little church in a 50+ mile radius had Klipsch speakers in it...eventually many of the small middle-of-nowhere country churches started getting broken-into when nobody was around and most of the time the only thing missing were the speakers!  Go figure!  Apparently, even crooks love Klipsch speakers!