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My Klipsch-tory and New to me pristine Cornwalls


Dudeisms

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INTRODUCTION:

 

Here is My Klipsch-tory. 

 

Well, sharing was suggested by another member in regard to a recent purchase of Cornwalls and I guess I am bored or perhaps have too much time on my hands so I thought why not just make some feeble attempt at sharing my whole Klipsch-tory.  Sure I may bore some of you and that’s ok, just hit the back button or finish reading this when you are having trouble falling asleep.  This tale is going to go much farther back than these Cornwalls though, because it was another Klipsch speaker that caused my particular version of audiophilia.  And yeah I’ll share pictures and essentially do a long term review as things evolve on these Cornwalls.  I’ll also do the same for KG4’s.  Because that’s were this story really begins.

 

INTRODUCTION:

THE LATE 80'S

THE 90's

Furlough – And Oh that BASS!!!

Cornwall pre-initial impressions INTERMISSION – the buying experience.  The KG portion will resume after these messages

College

Post College – and the beginning of better equipment

THE RETURN OF THE KG4’S 

CORNWALLS – FIRST IMPRESSIONS – Part 1 B.C. (Before Crites) 

INTERMISSION #2 SPEAKERS AND WOMEN, BUT REALLY JUST WIFE.. AND MOTHER 

FIRST IMPRESSIONS – AFTER CRITES – BURN IN PERIOD  NEW

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THE LATE 80'S

 

So I’ve always liked electronics and music and to some regard stereos ever since I can remember.  But circa 1987 my Dad wanted a set of good speakers.  He demo’d several different speakers at the local Hifi shop and eventually came home with a pair of KG4’s.  They were placed in a big vaulted room than I now know would be really tough room.  Corner placement?  Uh sorta, but yeah not really.  They were both in the same corner divided by a tv in a cabinet in the actual corner.  To put things in perspective I was in my mid teens and my idea of hifi was my boombox, my sony cassette Walkman, and eventually my Sony CD Player Walkman… ohhh, stop the presses!  Lets not leave out those questionable headphones that came with these two Walkmen which at them time I was perfectly fine with.  Moving of course from those fuzzy foam pads to just the hard plastic headphones with the tiny metal headband that poked directly into your ears.  Not even young hipsters of today would rock these. 

 

Back to dad’s KG4’s.  So he’s just purchased these new KG’s and the salesman as a take home demo cd to use suggested Lionel Richie’s Dancing on the ceiling.  The speakers were powered by a decent JVC receiver and I believe the source if memory serves my right was either a Sony or JVC CD player.  Oh you thought this was going to be some sexy perhaps mythic portion of the story that involved McIntosh equipment, or some old dynaco tube amp, well it is not.  It just involves decent off the shelf equipment and Klipsch KG4’s with odd placement in an awkward room.  But here’s the thing… it all sounded amazing.  That Lionel Richie Dancing on the Ceiling album… amazing.  And that bass.  This was the very inception of me becoming an audiophile.  Oh and also I started buying my first cd’s because everything sounded great on his system.  I also was mowing lawns at the time and would convert my cd's to cassete when needed and made mixes etc because this new system also had a JVC cassette player and a JVC VCR with tracking settings so complicated if repurposed it could probably power the early NASA flights.  And some of you may consider this my dark ages of my musical tastes because gangster rap was just becoming a widespread thing and oh that Aerosmith Pump album caused a while Aerosmith craze for me as well.

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THE 90's

 

So up to this point , I enthusiastically used Dad’s KG4’s whenever I could.  But never really tested the throttle too much, it was all still within reason.  Then my dad got another job we moved to this gorgeous house that from an audiophile’s standpoint that had so many great rooms with great stereo potential.  I know you know what I am talking about here.  You go look at a house, condo, apartment… whatever suits your needs for shelter… but nothing is ok till you have pre-determined that you have rooms you can work with for your two channel room or where ever you are going to place your home theater.  Maybe you make up excuses to your wife about some problem with this house you two are considering buying.  But the real story is there wasn’t a good room for your gear.  Well this house had great rooms.  But,… something truly sad happened in this new gorgeous house that Mom toiled over her decorating.  She decided that the “big speakers” were too big.  Its kinda funny typing the words “big speakers” and “too big” as the whole impetus of this thread is because of, and will involve more of soon, don’t worry… but yeah CORNWALLS. 

 

Don’t get me wrong these aren’t Klipschorns but references using the phrase “gorilla in the room” should duly be changed to gorrillas plural for many models of Klipsch speakers.  But, back to the sad moment in time for the “too big” KG4’s.  They sadly went to live in solitary in the climate controlled exercise room in the corner covered up.  Yep, you read that right, no need to check… they were not even allowed to be hooked up in the exercise room.  They just got to stand in the corner with a dunce cap on that ok was just a sheet or something, but they got sentenced to 20 years to life… with potential for furlough and or release… but more on that later.  Ok ladies and gentlemen lets have a moment of silence for my Dad’s KG4’s and their banishment of solitude (Yeah so we didn’t use the exercise room too much ok, back off)…  Ok silence over because this whole time period for me musically is one of rapid change and decades later I am happy to say its never slowed down.  So there was a whole deep Pink Floyd time period that I forgot to mention in junior high.  Thank god for cassettes and generosity and trading music.  Younins.. think Napster… real younins think torrents, youtube etc.  I got really into the beatles, classic rock, Hendrix, radio stations weren’t lame.  This all kept happening quickly and evolved into Nirvana, Alternative, NIN, yes rap is still going on here deal with it, beastie boys, NWA, Led Zeppelin.

 

Here are the KG4's by the way

 

IMG_5727.JPG

IMG_5730.JPG

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Don't leave us hanging...

and by the way I appreciate the fact that "normal" affordable components were used. Very easy to pontificate about exotic tubes this and that, but most of us never had them and still don't.

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Furlough – And Oh that BASS!!!

 

So those banished KG4’s sitting in the exercise room.  Well lets say theoretically of course when I was a lil younger than 16, well hypothetically my parents went on some vacations.  In the younger years of these parental vacations they would hire someone to watch me and the later high school years I don’t recall but maybe there was zero to lil supervision at times, lil foggy here.  There were the times before I was 16 that theoretically Mom’s grey market, used, older, but you couldn’t tell Mercedes would get lil workouts but just in the neighborhood.  Don’t get me wrong I was a pretty good kid within reason at least up to a certain age, but kids... pay lots of attention to details and how things are left so you can put them back with no one ever noticing… ie. Don’t get caught.   

 

Those KG4's needed a workout as well and the hall pass is here.  I knew where those lonely kg4’s were, and just where that JVC receiver was.  CD player,... check.  And let me say it wasn’t until years later that I realized just how respectable that JVC receiver was but more on that later.  I know the KG4’s are high efficiency, no, not Klipschorn or Cornwall or La Scala or or or or…  but this JVC just made them sing and oh that BASS!!!  So the first time I remember setting everything up and throwing full throttle at these KG4’s it was in the great room/ family room what ever you wanna call it.  I knew nothing at the time about placement in any regard but I just got lucky.  So lets put some things into perspective about this bass.  This decent sized home in a part of the country where things are affordable was on a five acre lot.  This was in a out in the country but its still a subdivision neighborhood.  Weird right?  Now you’re thinking why the hell is he now rambling on about this property and how is this relevant to BASS.  Well its relevant, so stop letting your mind wander.  So yeah did I jam out some Led Zeppelin, some Orb, lil Hotel California,… I sure did.  At this point I'm sure I threw my entire cd collection at these experiments.  But this was late afternoon, after school, still daylight and very low likelihood of pissing off your neighbors time of day.  So back to the rap music. 

 

Now it really kills me that I can’t remember what albums I played.  But one of the NWA albums I remember.  Nice production and killer bass.   I was so impressed and blown away, and even more mad a Mom for banishing these speakers, that I decided to see how this bass was doing outside but with all the doors and windows shut, totally sealed home.  Because inside the house the whole space time continuum was rippling with bass, or at least thats how I remember it.  See I told you the property was relevant.  So the house was set back, hard to see from the street with woods and trees hiding it except for two spots where a half moon driveway connected and more driveway connected to that and wrapped around and went to the house.  I went out my front door and walked a lil… BASS.  This is a BIG driveway folks, I cant stress that.  I made it to the street, holy crap maybe I will piss off the neighbors because that bass.  My inner smart *** told me to walk further down the street, I listened and yep the BASS came along following for a while before eventually puttering out.  Now the me of today is more the purist don’t touch tone controls kinda guy, but not the high school me.  He would turn up the treble and the bass.  Fortunately high school me did know when enough was enough both in regard to volume and shaping tone.  But as I am walking back to the house, vein of the plot in an 80’s movie when the kid finds out mom and dad are Russian spies…. Well yeah I’m totally wondering if Dad knew about all this bass or not?  Had he been hiding this fact just how much these babies can rock or thump?  Years later I did tell dad this story, the Mercedes story, and about most of the times I broke the KG4’s outta jail.  He smiled and laughed, and frankly he enjoyed hearing the stories.  And no, he knew they thumped, but had no clue about thumping all the way down the street.  Thanks Dr Dre.

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2 minutes ago, juniper said:

You lost me at DR......? Dre.................

That Bass that was thumping, that was NWA playing, the original beats by Dre, sorry bad joke I couldn't resist.  But that was playing while I first realized how much bass could come for those speakers.

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Cornwall pre-initial impressions INTERMISSION – the buying experience.  The KG portion will resume after these messages

 

Lately I’ve been trolling around this forum and local shops used inventory posted on the web, and craigslist ads etc.  Due to some recent events involving the KG4’s (Don’t worry all good things) I started wondering what if?  You see there was some moment in say high school or college where Dad was cleaning out some files and found his original bill of sale, Klipsch catalog/manual/spec sheet for the whole line booklet (He had 2, and yes I have both and everything else mentioned).  I’m looking through the Klipsch booklet and this is the first time I ever saw a pic of a Klipschorn.  I don’t even think I realized before that the KG4’s were hornloaded.  Baby steps here folks I was still just a whee lad in High School.  But those Klipschorns I saw in the picture mesmerized me and they were huge.  Yep sorry kids no google yet to go find speaker porn to go look at.  Those specs, that width, the size, that weight, those sharp angles… and frankly I just thought they looked fricken (Not my first choice of adjective but I am trying to keep it cleen-ish) cool!  So right there in the garage looking at this Klipsch catalog my fascination and love of horn loaded speakers was just starting to become realized.  And at some point I knew I eventually was going to find some big <Insert Adjective> horn loaded goodness to take home.  Don't me wrong I think some of those crazy artistic huge exotic horns I have seen in magazines and the internet and at audio shows like Axpona are super sexy, and me likey, me likey a lot.  But I don't drive a ferrari as a daily driver, or when I am bored with my three Aston martins because I can't afford any of that.  

 

I am more of the philosophy of do your research and work with less.  Dont get me wrong my stuff is nicer than most regular non-audiophile folks, but I am a firm believer of audiophile on a budget.  So I went over Saturday morning and bought these Cornwalls under duress , ok not really, really sorta.  So the guy I bought them from had purchased them from a lady who happened to see him moving some other speakers (I saw Chorus II’s in there).  So here’s me armed with my laptop and a dac and wires and my normal setup/calibration/demo tracks to play.  I did ask if they were set up etc.   And they were set up lying sideways and stacked in this tiny entry way hallway of an apartment.  Hmm now when I said setup, this is not what I was thinking.  This was a Cornwall sideways sandwich in close quarters in a small apartment of a guy who flips lots of different stuff so it was congested.  And good for him and his entrepreneurial ways.  Thankfully since I found out about these cornwalls on here in the alert section, all the positive comments about price and condition helped motivate me.  Likewise even though I had to wing this demo quite a bit sticking my head in each sideways driver to make sure everything was working because this was as good as it gets and there were two other guys coming to check out the Cornwalls, I was just the lucky 1st guy. 

 

So the older lady that blindly approached him selling the CW’s, it was her late husband who special ordered the Cornwalls COO oiled oak, but requested no finish so he could do it himself to his liking.  So it’s a gloss finish but when the light hits it you can still see the grain of the wood.  The finish is pretty good, I mean myself I’m quite anal retentive and ok maybe I’m the bad guy but I’ll say it… I could have done better… and you know perhaps I will, time will tell.  So back to this hallway buying experience..  So the guy did have a set of Chorus II’s in there but with his equipment and the size of the room there was no way he could swap those for Cornwalls.   They just simply wouldn’t fit.  He did play with the Cornwalls on a lil bit he told me.  But here I am with a dac, a computer, and my Demo flac files testing away as best I can jammed in this hallway trying to decide if I should take these home.  I’m sure there are reasons that hifi shops don’t demo speakers stacked on their side in a tight hallway.  But uh oh I see the guy looking at his chorus’s then looking back at these playing my files and oh crap he’s having a I think I might wanna keep them moment.  I quickly distract him and decided now is a good time to tell the guy that I want to take the back cover off of one of them and have him A;) Not freak out that I want to disassemble the back of his speaker even though he is not the kind of guy who knows this isn’t a big deal.  B;) Stop thinking about keeping these and shoehorning these into your place.  Two birds…One stone. 

 

So on Friday I called Bob Crites since I didn’t have the time to wade through internet posts and needed some solid quick advice.  I had recently bought a bunch of fabulous stuff from him and he was kind enough to provide some guidance.  More on that later.  After our talk I personally was hoping to find the B-2 crossover inside of the Cornwall.  Oh crap the guy selling the CW’s is getting all excited again snapping photos of the insides of the speaker.  Nope I’m buying them.  We haggled a smidge, came to a mutual price and the nice gentleman sold me my first pair of Cornwalls.  Oh did I mention I noticed how much the he kept wanting the door locked and shut.  I enquired about this (I got a positive vibe from him, he was alright so I knew it was something else) and find out that his neighbors were allegedly involved in an incident that involved firearms and kidnapping… just trying to give the full flavor of this buying experience.  But fortunately he was super cool.  So he kindly helped me load up the Cornwalls into their original boxes with all the original labels and matching serial numbers even on the boxes which explained the whole situation with the finish (Yeah Baby!  The original boxes were the icing on the cake.  Loaded them up in the car with millimeters to spare and that’s being generous, and I hope my wife doesn't see that lil scuff mark that I think I cleaned, and the Cornwalls were off to their 2nd home and technically 3rd owner.

 

To be continued…

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College

 

So its time to go off to college, we’re not far enough in time for Dad to know yet about my experimenting with his KG4s when my parents were away, and you know they’re still just sitting in that exercise room.  But I saw my way off to college as a clever way, in the way we think we are super clever and subtle in dealing with our parents as an 18yo, to ask Dad if, perhaps, since the KG4’s were just sitting there in the exercise room and all un-used, if I could maybe take them with me to college.  Nice try folks but no cigar.  Dad smiled and laughed and kindly provided me with a “No way”.  But he did provide me with a very efficient set of realistic speakers that all considering were sorta low budget sleepers that were pretty good for what they were.  He also gave me a pair of old KLH (OLD) speakers and some silverface receiver that did the job.  Oh, and he also gave me this old Akai tape deck that I still have that at the time (cassettes still very much in use) had a frequency range wider than probably 99% of the tape decks available at the time.  Maybe I should sell that to some hipster that is into tapes for a premium, lol.  So that combined with a cinder block lined dorm room freshman year did the trick.  Lets just say that in the entire dorm me and the kid in the other wing with giant cerwin vegas put the LOUD in the allowed loud hours. 

 

Lets put things in perspective here:  I remember sitting in my dorm room watching tv when I heard that Kurt Cobain died.  I had a hand me down 20 in tube tv (This was considered very nice compared to the tiny tv's most had in the dorm, that is if they even had a tv), and the previously mentioned system… this was considered pretty nice stuff for a college kid at the time.  We didn’t have AC, fancy gyms, flat screen tvs.  A huge tv in college was a 32 in tube.  Maybe like just a few had a hand me down giant crt projection tv but that was rare.  A few well to do stragglers would have some B&W, NAD, Carver, etc equipment.  But nothing too exotic.  This setup then moved to my fraternity house sophomore year where I had a what my house considered a 4 man room all to myself due to luck, circumstance, and being maybe a lil clever.  You see freshman year once I was a brother we had a room lottery for picking rooms, I won.  Now this room only had to have two people in it since the room was never going to have 4 people living there anyway and I chose a soon to be 5th year senior as my roommate.  Now he is a nice great guy, but to be honest I knew his mom would never let him live in the house.  And what do you know, I arrive sophomore year and voila the room is all mine. 

 

Now we did have rules and bylaws and such that came up every semester that dictated that I must agree to taking a roommate.  If I refuse I have to take a single room.  All I have to do to say I agree to a roommate and the room stays mine.  So I am not being mean here, it is what it is, but the thing is most folks aren’t smart.  So about two weeks prior to this meeting where I say I will take a roommate.  I just stop.  Stop what you ask?  I stop cleaning anything in my room for two weeks straight.  Scrounge some money together and go for a fast food run… yep that stays out for two weeks.  Meeting comes, I agree to roommate, huh you’re a slob no one asks to room with me.  Meeting over, room cleaned immediately.  Next semester, repeat these shenanigans room mine, all mine, no one is the wiser.  Musically there is a lot of grunge going on, Smashing Pumpkins were a big fav, Stone Temple, Pearl Jam, Nitzer Ebb, Pink Floyd, Soundgarden, Metalica, basically a lot of hard dark stuff that I just loved and loud.  I also scooped some primitive box that did surround sound.  The vhs tape Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii was in heavy rotation. 

 

My junior year I went to Pompeii while studying abroad in another country and made sure to eat my lunch in the very stadium/coliseum that is in the movie that I had enjoyed so many times.  I came back from my time abroad armed with cd's I couldn't buy in the states and lots of techno/dj stuff that was ahead of its time in the states.  Back to the fraternity room...  This room consisted of two rooms; the first desks and beds, the 2nd or back room was larger with a big couch and entertainment center and bar.  The listening ambiance of said fraternity room consisted of the sun from the Aoxomoxa album cover painted on the ceiling with a sky and fluffy clouds all painted as a mural.  But I made heavy and selective use of red in this painted mural.  Color theory here but red is an un-stable wavelength of light...  Think Rothko chapel usage of red.  Ok so you don't have to google this because even still its obscure knowledge, but if you stared at the ceiling at the center of the sun for a few moments, to your eyes it would look like its moving... sober.  There were two seven foot wide inflatable pterodactyls hanging from the ceiling.  Christmas lights with changing patterns everywhere.  On a Friday or Saturday night right in the middle of the parties going on in the house it wouldn’t be out of the norm to find me and a select few blasting Tool Opiate at face melting levels while a series of empty absolute bottles were illuminated by strobe lights hiding behind them.  Or perhaps some Phish and Fantasia.... You do the math.

 

In the second half of college (think more along the lines of Van Wilder in regard to time here) my system changed again and so did my lodging and my first lesson in how physics can influence sound.  See me and my roommate had an entire second floor of a 100 year old plus house with a deck on the roof.  Music could get really loud in the apartment and surprisingly out in the open on the roof deck.  Because of sections of flat roof and steeply vaulted sections, all the sound would reflect up and out.  You could literally stand in the front yard and not hear a peep while we were bumping music.  I also scored a deal on a $2K receiver from my roommates parents for $300.  And dear old dad gave me a set of bose acoustimass speakers that he no longer wanted.  Remember at the time for most, as laughable as it is, these were considered nice in most circles.  Yeah I am man enough to admit that for a time I owned Bose speakers… those lil tiny satellite guys.  I added a Boston Acoustics micro center which sounded close enough.  So you’re asking where has the Klipsch gone in my life at this point.  Well at the time Klipsch was just a mere aspiration.  I also started getting into techno and electronica as well which at the time was still pretty obscure.  Discovered 2Pac and had yet another rap resurgence for a while.  Bass box in the back of my car, etc.  At the time a more refined track for me was something like Van Morrison's Days like this…  But at the time I would have never played anything like that in front of others.  One favorite collegiate stereo related moment to note… At this point we were all 21, and some buddies who had a place down the road made a big point to have a party one night that was strictly 21, because they had a surprise in mind.  So this college town I was in, cops pretty much ignored your rights if you were a college kid.  Think town vs gown.  Anyway the whole point was to be loud that night.  He had these huge Infinity speakers.  They wanted the cops to come for a noise complaint.  Why you ask?  Because there was someone on point watching every moment to tip them off when the cops finally arrived so they could promptly cue up that “Bad boys, bad boys” theme song from cops for the actual cops arrival.  Cop #1 trying to be all hard, Cops #2, #3, and #4 were either dying laughing or poorly trying to cover up their huge smiles.  Music was turned down, 3 of 4 cops very entertained and the world moved on.

 

So as you may have noticed this is all one big tangent getting up to more on the KG4's and more importantly my audiophile journey.  We're in the bumpy, non-Klipsch section, dont worry we'll get there. 

 

Coming up – Post College – and the beginning of better equipment

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Post College – and the beginning of better equipment

 

So I’m going to kinda blaze through about 10-15 years here or so.  But as a working man just starting out, yeah I still had the Bose Boston combo at this point in history and I went through a slew of receivers.  More focus through these years was on home theater setup vs 2 channel.  Don’t get me wrong I still played lots of music though.  These were all decent receivers, perhaps better than most would purchase but yet nothing to get too detailed about in this crowd.  Nothing that has any mystic or folklore.  Each time an upgrade was made I either got a new technology like a particular dsp or eventually like everyone else I needed HDMI.  The price of projection flat screens around say the year 2003 or so made a quantum drop in price to the magnitude of say from $9K to just under $3k, and they would continue to fall after that.  I scored a 50 in Sony projection tv that I was fairly enamored with. 

 

That is right until one Super Bowl Sunday say 2.5-3 years into my ownership of said tv.  I was having a Super Bowl party and the TV wouldn’t turn on.  Heart rate was going up, frustration was mounting, and darn it, people were on their way.  After about 30 tries with all sorts of clicking sounds with each try, she fired up.  Well no cliffhanger here, things were about to get way worse.  Fast forward to a 32in Visio was now sitting in front of my 50in Sony that wouldn’t turn over, but it did make a great series of clicking sounds.  Sony was no help, I had a Best Buy extended warranty and all they did was sent out a tech who would come out and endlessly drop $500 bulbs in it to no avail.  It was always the same tech, it’s a projection light bulb he is replacing that is on the front of the tv behind a plastic door, but for some reason he always made a million trips back to his truck.  So maybe a bit over 6 months or more into this Sony Visio setup I had been going to grad school at the time. 

 

You know what, that Legal Environment of Business course sure paid off.   Now it didn’t pay off the first round, essentially Sony made me a discounted offer on a TV.  This didn’t sit well for me, and to boot I was working for a tech company that used all sorts of lines of distribution and lets just say I could have scored a replacement for less than this discounted offer.  Now at some point Sony extended their warranty to cover a little plastic door that covered the bulb because it would melt a little plastic nipple that made contact with a pressure switch.  So I am not a lawyer but I play one on tv.  Ok maybe not, but I can write good legalese and I scared them and leveraged this warranty for a plastic door into a new TV. 

 

At this time I got a new customer at work who coincidently lived in the town I used to live in.  Small world theory holding true, I don’t know how we never met before as we had some overlapping social circles.  We wil call him Yoda for the purpose of this story, because he is my HT and Hifi Yoda.  Super smart guy who is a great resource but he can be snarkier than the comic book store guy in the Simpsons sometimes.  So its always entertaining.  Lets put it this way, the wedding gift from him to us… It was an iron in a box in another box.  The packing material for the iron box, yeah it was $300 in semi-dirty $1 bills that were painstakingly individually crumpled.  Generous.. Yes, and we faired better than another couple who received the same amount pressed into a ball and then wrapped in 3-4 inches of duct tape creating a bigger ball.  Gotta be careful unwrapping that.  Told you he is a character.  When I first met him his setup was the same Miller and Kreisel’s (Spelling??) speaker setup that Lucas Film used for editing and sound editing.  At the time its hard to get a better endorsement than that.  I almost bought that set since I knew he paid half price new… but that discount didn’t trickle down to me so I passed.  I get it and don’t blame him, why not get more $$ for his stuff because he had Legacy Audio Whispers on the way powered by Parasound JC-1 monoblocks.  There were Parasound monos everywhere.  He kept the 2 M&K subs in the system. 

 

So this folks was essentially my reference system for years.  Not mine as in mine ownership, but my reference system as I could go over there hear it and reference it as best my memory can sustain.  So the first time I went over there for a demo, he popped on some Nirvana tracks.  (And yes a lot of other stuff too).  Now I know some folks think hey this isn’t a female vocal or live jazz so therefore it can’t be audiophile.  Many Nirvana tracks might have quite a bit of distortion in the music but they were recorded very very well.  Well news flash to some audiophiles… audiophilia exists outside of female vocals and live jazz.  There are even some tracks that are what we now call today EDM, that do things that can really send your loudspeakers through their paces that don’t exist outside that genre.  I know say on a later in the day on a Saturday or Sunday of most hifi audio shows say Metallica or the like is often used to get folks to shew out of the room so they can pack up earlier, but Audiophiles should be a lil more open minded.  So knowing what my buddy just paid for all this gear, like any buddy I am ready and waiting to make fun of anything that might go wrong in this high dollar system of his. 

 

So in one of these Nirvana tracks while I am sitting in the sweet spot of these six feet tall 250lbs Legacy Audio Whisper speakers I hear a buzzing sound.  Oh yeah I am going to seize on this one and make fun of my buddy…. And then it hit me, my hair on the back of my neck actually stood on end and I got goosebumps.  So here’s the thing, considering my age, etc, I have heard this Nirvana track at this point at least a 1000 times.  I’ve heard it on crap speakers, crap headphones, crap car systems,… all the way to great speakers, great headphones, great car systems.  See I dabble in guitar and this buzz I heard, I suddenly realized it was a fret buzz of the guitar string and I have never before heard this buzz ever before… or ever since.  Granted I haven’t been looking as of late, but perhaps I can see if the Cornwalls will reproduce it.  This is an audiophile moment that I will never forget.  So over the years my Yoda took me under his wing and I have learned quite a bit.  Granted he takes a no compromise approach to audio that lets just say my bank account couldn’t bear, unless I gave up everything else, maybe even eating.  But I had enough ramen noodles in college, so I was in search of a deal.  I was just waiting for that magic set of circumstances kind of deal to score some speakers.  Its weird when people would see the bose speakers in my place and be all “nice speakers”, and in your head while you appreciate the compliment on some level, you feel like a jerk but you have very opposite thoughts regarding these Bose.  Bose gotta go! 

 

Finally one day in my random hifi shop quests I walked into a hifi shop that was on its last legs (multiple stores, big vendor.. but not a big box shop, still hifi).  And they had a you’d be out of your mind, steal of a deal, wasn’t planning on it deal on some Polks.  First I found the fronts, time when on, the center, then more time, the rears.  I’m not a go out and buy an entire system in one swoop kinda guy.  I like to lurk around the deals, years may pass by.  Eventually this gear was paired with some Emotiva equipment right before my wife and I were going to move into a house, our first house!  I originally bought the amp, XPA 5 G2, and their lower tier pre.  So I never really understood the whole dynamic headroom thing before the day that amp arrived at my condo.  I mentioned condo because the rooms weren’t huge so this burgeoned on almost a near field experience but not quite.  So in there, everything was hyper detailed.  And those polks aren’t the most efficient speakers, not horrible, but not great.  But that amp was making all sorts of details that had never been there before suddenly and very vibrantly appear.  Of course I call my Yoda in excitement.  He’s all like yeah man dynamic headroom.  That amp can turn on a dime compared to your last stuff.  Its like a Ferrari (Emotiva this may be the one and only time you’re compared to a Ferrari) and a ’87 Ford Fiesta negotiating the same traffic.  Sure the Fiesta is going to get there with a lil planning, weaving in and out of lanes getting through the traffic.  But it takes work, planning, and it’s not perfect.  Now that Ferrari, by no means is it going to use much of its power potential weaving through lanes to get past the traffic.  But its going to just zip, zip, zip effortlessly and quickly, and gracefully in doing so.  And darn it you’re going to look good doing it.  That’s the analogy for dynamic headroom, hope you enjoyed it.  That day the amp came my wife sat down with me while I was demo’ing to myself playing all sorts of blurays, asked me to put on Moulin Rouge (I had never seen it, nor do I ever want to in its entirety, too much singing por moi).  So she has me go to some scene where some dude is walking down a hallway singing… and then after a few moments my wife goes, “Holy Cow!”.  I’m all like what?  No frame of reference here since I had never seen the movie.  And she tells me that she has heard the singing before and its sounded nice and what not, but she’s like, “I’ve never heard the guys footsteps and the hallway echoing and all the subtle details while he is singing and walking down the hallway before.”  There you have it ladies and gentlemen… dynamic headroom. 

 

So we move into the new house and the room that the home theater setup is in, is actually in a large open format setup with lots of glass and reflective stuff, and weird ceiling angles… and well lets just say lots of audiophile rules have to be broken at hello.  No way around this, it is what it is.  Fireplace, kitchen, windows, hard floors..  So I figure this is a perfect excuse to use my discount and get a Emo XMC-1 with dirac room correction. I tirelessly and continually repositioned my speakers over and over till I got things to my liking  well before I ordered that pre.  But it made a huge difference.  When I run two channel in that room, I just run reference mode with no bells and whistles, no room correction, etc.  It sounds great, airy, fairly neutral, fairly accurate, even with all the room problems.  That I can’t quite explain.  For HT I do have dirac running and 5.1 sounds amazing.  Have a SVS sub and the Polks actually work really well on their own for bass in that room, but with the SVS sub and an action movie… the room can ripple with sound.  I love it.  I’m super happy and I know it would take quite a financial leap to top it.  And here is part of my Audiophile philosophy and its parallel to wine. 

 

So while I admire my Yoda’s system which now has Legacy Audio V’s in it, which sound crazy amazing, you’re also talking about a crazy amount of coin for diminishing returns here.  So while I have no problem with people either making sacrifices or perhaps effortlessly buying such expensive high end gear, we all know the brands and some are so expensive and obscure, and good for you, you got the bug bad.  But me, I like to dip my toe in the audiophile pool and technically just be there in the shallow cheaper end, just not in the deep end.  Those diminishing returns are a killer.  So here is my wine parallel for audio gear… Sure there are those cheap $10 bottles of wine that are amazing and total finds.  Then you have say a nice $20-30 bottle of wine (retail folks) and its definitely, unquestionably better.  Then you splurge on a $60 bottle of wine and its darn good!  But somehow its less of a leap “better” than the leap between $10 and $20 was.  Now your wife talks you into going on a trip to Napa.  And at a tasting you find this wine that is just utterly amazing to you for $250 a bottle.  Once again its not that crazy leap of “better”.  This goes on and on with smaller leaps of “better”… just like our equipment does.  Now my Yoda?  Mr. No Compromise half approves of my choices… and is in that audiophile camp of “you’re doing it wrong”.  I digress, oh well… I’m quite happy with that room.  So with this new house there is this other room that I am convinced that I am the luckiest guy on earth because anything sounds amazing in there.  But there was nothing in that room… equipment wise that is.

 

So once again… It’s Dad to the rescue.  So remember those Klipsh KG4’s that I always loved of Dad’s that were you know, just sitting there unused.  Well this time Dad brought the subject matter up.   Writing this now just makes me smile.  Well he mentions how those KG4’s of his and me being well… me, that they would get some great use in that room of mine and I should take them off his hands.

 

Coming Soon… THE RETURN OF THE KG4’S

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THE RETURN OF THE KG4’S

 

So maybe I forgot to mention to my wife that dad was brining me his KG4’s.  Maybe I mentioned speakers.  Maybe my super cool wife had to adjust to the idea for a minute or two in having these “larger” (She hadn’t met the Cornwalls yet) KG4’s now located in the living room.  Keep in mind the Polk’s in the living room are quite tall, very deep, but not super wide, ergo much bigger than the KG4’s and she was cool with those, but these were about to take over the living room (Which previously to becoming a listening room was largely unused.  But thankfully she gets it when it comes to stereos and home theater.  She can hear the difference and likes hearing all the little details.  No, not as much as me.  She’s not an audiophile, but she gets it, and that makes my life easier.  When I say I bought “x” piece of equipment, her ability to hear the difference and know its better without me saying much.. well lets just say unlike many of my friends… I barely have any grey hairs, you gotta search for them.  So Dad brings the KG4’s and the saga begins.  I get them all set up with my Onkyo amp that used to power my HT before the XPA5, which I got a sweet deal on thanks to a questionable individual. 

 

You see I found the Onkyo at a store as an open box buy, but you could tell by the plastic protective coating, certain labels.. and the missing cord, that some idiot either ruined or lost their power cord.  So they bought this unit, took the cord, returned the unit.  Sadly yes this is just a standard IEC power cord that is on computer monitors, computers, stereo equipment, etc, that you can buy anywhere, you may even have tons of them left over from stuff.  But that scored me a mint unit for less than the store paid for it thanks to my salesguy.  Now this Onkyo likes to visit the repair shop.. for free at least.  Darn thing gets so hot it un-seats the solder points of the dsp chips on the hdmi board… but that’s another story.  Things were going good with the KG4 setup, but they could be better.  So I took 3 different integrated amps home to demo over the next few weeks,  always arriving to grab a demo right before the shops are closed for a few days to get a longer demo.  Once again you are not going to see McIntosh or mythical tube amps here.  Now if any of you are getting the impression that I am against exotic hardware or expensive hardware, I am not.  You wanna throw 300-500 watts at a speaker that is maybe going to use 3-6 watts, more power to you (tap, tap, Is this thing on).  I’m sure there is an amp change in the distant forecast, but I am quite happy for now.  These integrateds that I was demoing are just regular stuff, but pretty great regular stuff. 

 

So I took home an NAD C356BEE because I read that Klipsch and warm tubes go nicely together… but tubes weren’t happening here.  The extra cost, the extra cost in maintenance, the extra cost, did I mention the extra cost of tubes being prohibitive in my eyes.  (Ok maybe I’m a softie, but I will admit I will not use the word “never” and tubes in the same sentence.)  The 356bee is known to be slightly warm for solid state and it was really nice, no listening fatigue, just enjoyable, and potentially even under rated.  I gave that demo back and store gave me a demo of an Arcam FMJ A19.  I set that up and fired up my speaker setup/ demo tracks that I always use to audition stuff.  In these tracks I look for certain qualities or things to happen or not happen, it’s just me reading my tea leaves. 

 

Typical Demo Tracks – Flac Format:

Depeche Mode – Dream On (Single Version)(Here the timing of everything should sound right, aka positioning.  It sounds right all the time, but should sound great when everything is in place)

Belle And Sebastian – The State I Am In (Here there should be a particular nasal quality to his voice if all things are right)

Jheena Lodwick – A time for Love (Should get a breathiness to her voice, you should clearly almost hear her wet lips open with a feint smack)

Duke Ellinton – Live at Newport – Jeep’s Blues (the extended track digital version that ain’t available on vinyl)(Great for huge soundstage.  The whole plane between the speakers should light up, and the horn blasts shouldn’t make you wince, and most importantly if you have your stuff set up right you should clearly hear the horns IN FRONT of the drums, sounds easy but go listen to the track, its not)

Plastikman – Kriket (Another timing thing, and you should be getting some really crazy holographic stuff going on, if you don’t go play with your speaker placement again)

Massive Attack – Teardrop (Just play it, read the rest, you’ll get it)

Neil Young – Live at Massey Hall – Old Man (Has to be this particular version, if within 30 seconds or so of this track Neil doesn’t sound like he is sitting on a wooden stool right there in your listening room… go back to the drawing board and tweek positioning again)

And now the really funny one that happened by accident and I’m almost embarrassed to share.. but whatever.  So the wife kinda likes Iggy Azalea (Ok, continue reading after you’re done laughing,… you done?  Ok, you need another minute I get it).  It’s the whole “The New Classic” Album.  Yep its rap, and a female rapper that other rappers make fun of.  You don’t have to listen to the whole thing just most of the intro’s of each song.  There is all kinds of very subtle effects that normally you just don’t hear unless the speakers are decent, and if they’re setup properly you should get all kinds of holographic 3D type effects.

Nicolai Dunger – This Cloud is Learning – If I Were a Little Star (Umm yeah you should be getting a crazy unusually wide soundstage with this one)

 

Yes I play more demo tracks and can list if requested.  But all of them should do certain special things if everything is set up right, some of them will sound like crap to less overtly let you know you need to do some work.

 

So the Arcam was razor sharp and detailed with the KG4’s.  You could hear weird freaky details, but, and this was a big but, I couldn’t handle being in there for more than an hour.  Oh is this what they mean by listener fatigue, YES, yes it is.  And I LOVE hearing little details so much that sometimes the hair stands on the back of my neck or I get goose bumps.  So the details were great, but it had to go back.  Now I went to yet another store and had to buy and return a demo of Primare I22.  So yes this was expensive and yes it was pretty, and well reviewed, and blah blah blah.  But the digital or class D or “our acclaimed proprietary UFPD power technology” just wasn’t for me.  It was supposed to be warm.  I didn’t think it was.  I found it sorta clinical and lackluster.  I literally while I was in the store see a guy trade in his McIntosh tube amps for a higher end version of this Primare stuff.  Yes its ok… you can say it, you can think it, you know it… that guy is flipping nuts!!  So the Primare was not for me.  Both my wife and me loved the sound of the C356BEE with the KG4’s and it was the least expensive option which was a bonus.  So a new one with a built in modular dac came home with me.  Time goes on and I am thoroughly enjoying this setup, which also had a Squeezebox 3 or classic or whatever you wanna call it.  And yes there is an EQ in there with LEDs and a spectrum analyzer in the setup that I had laying around the house.  So earlier I mentioned that I’m a tone defeat kinda guy, I don’t mess with tone controls… so an EQ?? 

 

Yeah its just eye candy, its hooked up to one end of the tape loop and it does nothing to my signal.  But that spectrum analyzer is pretty to watch bounce to the music and I also loved the digital VU meter screensaver on the front of the squeezebox.  Oh how I do wish I had VU meters… I am secure enough to admit that I merely think they look cool… and that’s it.  So at this point in all these years I had amassed a huge amount of cds and files.  One of my best friends was an on air radio disc jockey so I got lots of free stuff and bought lots of music as well.  Its all converted flac, and I was openly embracing not just the cool stuff that I could play around friends… but yes that audiophile stuff that is amazing to listen to, but your friends don’t get it and think you’re crazy… or soft.  Somewhere in there time wise Dear old Dad was helping me renovate our master bathroom and we took a break one day and went down the street to check out an estate sale.  At the sale was some vinyl records for $1 each.  Now I didn’t have a turntable, but at a $1 each I bought the whole lot.  Now at this point my digital collection was pretty massive and mostly flac, so I always avoided vinyl because why do I need what mostly with be duplicates but in vinyl?  But now I have vinyl so in turn I bought a Pro-ject RPM1 carbon and a very very cheap phono pre.  And at this past AXPONA I got a deal on a Bluesound Node 2 to replace the Squeezebox.  I was really torn between getting that or the Auralic Aeries Mini.  But the Bluesound Node 2 won.  And that cheap phono pre got replace by a Vincent model with a separate box for the power supply, ie. A 2 piece. 

 

Enter the Klipsch Forum once again in my internet searches because I was curious to read reviews and such about the KG4’s.  And then I start coming across all this stuff on here and elsewhere, about Bob Crites.  Pretty much just saw nothing but positivity so I had to bite.  He was super helpful and I got some new titanium tweeters and the crossover repair kits.  So to be clear before I did this I was SUPER happy with my setup.  Things were detailed, there was sound stage, etc.  There was a musicality of coloration that was just super enjoyable.  Even at this point before Crites, I’ve had people over that have $20K systems, who ended up annoyed because my setup sounded better to both them and me.  I can’t stress this enough.. that word setup.. and yes lets not forget this magical room itself can do wonders.  Its almost a crime to have gear that good and not toil over or pay someone to toil over the setup.  Little tiny movements of the speakers in relation to everything in the room can do wonders and produce massive changes.  And yeah somewhere in there time wise the last tweek before crites was to use cheap lil isolators on everything, and I mean everything.  So yeah some people buy those isolator snake oil thingys that run $600 each… think that times three for just one piece of equipment.  I think my wallet just ran away in fear while I wrote that.  So if you saw these little rubber puck thingys, yes it all looks legit, not cheap… but yeah they come in 4 packs from Home Depot for say $3.50 per 4.  Nothing but class ladies and gentleman.  You’re wondering if the little pucks did anything?  Oh yeah, I know some wouldn’t agree with this but they even went under the KG4’s.  Results noticeable clarity improvement, a bass improvement, and almost an airiness all just from these lil pucks. 

 

So I want to stress I am SUPER happy with the KG4 setup, but yeah I still ordered the Crites tweeters and crossover upgrade.  And this all was finished recently, like maybe, maybe, a month of listening after burn in before I got these Cornwalls the other day.  So burn in.. Yeah I get all the stories about some scientific type guy who used to be in the aerospace and electrical engineering field who sees no difference in measurement so therefore burn in is just made up fools errand.  But you can’t measure subjective, and quite a few times I have heard the difference.  And the wifey not knowing that something has changed in the system and she says oh this is nice, did you do something different?  If you can hear it you can hear it, if you can’t you cant, do whatever you like and just be accepting of both camps.  So Crites upgrades.. remember that whole thing earlier when I was in high school and I could hear bass down the street.  Well that wasn’t occurring here, until the upgrades happened and my bass was back, the mids were sweet, and that detail on the tweeters … wow.  I feel like the KG4’s got five times better, or new again, or who cares I was so happy.  But darn it, it got me thinking again about that whole “what if”… and I started trolling this site looking at the garage sale section, the alerts (kudos btw to the guy that puts those lists together and the people that share these adverts… Because I found those Cornwalls.

 

UP NEXT – CORNWALLS – FIRST IMPRESSIONS

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Welcome to the forum...:),

Thanks, and will enjoy your history. Have had 1 pair of KG-4. The exponential horn will follow you around a corner and the bass. It is almost unimaginable that there is all that going on.in a package abit bigger than the Heresy. No wonder then, the Cornwall is so popular. Cool

as you are saying:

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  • 2 weeks later...

CORNWALLS – FIRST IMPRESSIONS – Part 1 B.C. (Before Crites)

 

I wanted to maybe take a week or so and gather my first impressions, but I have wrote, and re-wrote this so many times.   So basically if this reads choppy, it is only because it is.  I debated should I clean this up?  I’m certainly capable of it (shhh), but this choppy read is the embodiment of my experience of what is now about a week and a half with the Cornwalls.  Its been a fun and crazy ride, which isn’t remotely over.  It’s going to read scattered, as things have changed quite a bit during this time.  Just think of this section as a Jackson Pollack painting of text entries from different times, just flung up randomly here to read, and an attempt to make some linear sense, except without the talent. 

 

Originally the play was to get some La Scalas, but these Cornwalls came up, actually I saw them first here.  Plus the whole 60Hz with the La Scalas.  (But I haven’t even ever heard them, so this just spec mumbo jumbo thoughts here).  Yes I know one could get a nice set of subs, and yes I know they are La Scala’s, but the extra cost and that extra real estate in the listening room resulted in my mind being very open to Cornwalls.  And no the door is never shut in regard to La Scala’s.  I’ve actually never heard La Scala’s, at this point they just look cool.  Is that enough, absolutely.  Lust, hate,… Contradictions… rationalizations, ergo all big speakers hath spoken. 

 

So here are my initial impressions of the Cornwalls (1982) after about a week of playing around with them.  Maybe I’m nuts, but I kinda just like looking at them.  I don’t know, it’s like speaker porn or something.  I’ve seen and been around much crazier speakers in: price; perceived performance; price; cabinet, oh my god you must be an amish craftsman, quality; price.  I’ve even been in a room with a million dollars of gear (German Physiks) in a single room.  And yes that room sounded like crap, but that was just a bad room setup, I hope.  This was at AXPONA.  Just because you can afford to grab the giant room at a show doesn’t mean that’s always a good thing.  I notice when walking by my Cornwalls just how the light coming in the window highlights the wood grain just under the original buyer’s custom (definitely DIY, before DIY was a thing) polyurethane, or shellac, or whatever it is finish,… you know you’ve got it bad.  And I do.  They have a slightly glossy finish, but the texture of the wood grain finish is still present, instead of being completely glazed over.  They were ordered COO for oiled oak, but the instructions on the boxes were marked for “no finish” (yep he had original boxes, and they are carefully stored in my basement now, the boxes not the speakers, get your head in the game).  So they came home to the original owner naked.  They are of the age where the back panel comes off nicely when you remove the screws.  And unlike the new ones there is padding or deadening or damping material inside.  I played with the wall placement and toe in till I got it to my own personal liking…. Or so I thought. 

 

Tentatively I don’t toe them in as much as a did the KG4’s.  I say tentatively because if I know me, and I feel like I do, I will make tons of micro adjustments for months.  Searching for the most magical placement sweet spot that I can find.  And usually I do.  I feel like mostly depending on the mix of manufacture suggested placement, and people’s own preferences that people usually fall into 1. Wide sweet spot camp, or 2. The narrow sweet spot, but its still a sweet spot and I sit in a particular way, and line my body up accordingly, but when everything is just right, there is more of a laser focus thing going on camp.  (Oh umm, grammar Police, if you’ve made it this far into my story, you know by now that this is no place for you.)  I fall into number 2 camp myself.  Now compared to the KG4’s, these at least, at this point or possibly ever, don’t quite do the laser focus thing in the same way.  So no I don’t have these way off into corners. 

 

The room is about 16 x 26, and I use the room in a fat, wide orientation utilizing the back wall.  The speakers are about 9-10 feet apart in their front center points.  They are toe’d in but not so as the horns are firing directly at me.  They are backed off just a little bit from directly firing at me, so as when I am looking at them I can see, just a little bit, like an inch or so of their inner sides between them.  At their closest point they are maybe 5 inches from the wall.  And I personally like to form an isosceles triangle between the front center points of the two speakers and my head in my sitting position.  Yes I am aware that there are variations on this, this is just what I like.     

What equipment am I using?  I’m going to list it, but remember this is baller on a budget.  No American Express black card in this household.  I’m all about doing more for less.

 

NAD C356BEE integrated, Vincent Pho 8 Phono Pre, Pro-ject RPM 1 Carbon, Bluesound Node 2, and an old EQ that only reads the signal for eye candy on the spectrum analyzer.. it is not hooked up to alter the sound.  Some of you will think this is crap, some will think its nice, me I’m claiming apathy, but I’m satisfied to a point.  Have I looked around on the web at cheap SET tube amps? … Maybe, ok don’t be silly, you know I have at least looked.  Sidebar: the web and stores are filled with easy to find/read about/look at.. McIntosh dreams, and Audio Research, etc.  But resources on the entry level stuff… not an abundance of info on the Chinese stuff per se.  I take that back there is a ton of opinions, but this is like getting restaurant opinions from someone who you haven’t gotten an opinion from before… Sometimes people have no taste, sometimes people have amazing taste, but you don’t know until you taste the food how good their pallet is.   I’d be open to a SET amp or better yet Monoblocks tube style… I just don’t want the room to get warmer than two rats humping in a wool sweater under a heat lamp.

 

 

Right off the bat there is a crazy sensitivity to volume on every thing that I play.  It is so vastly different than I have experienced with the KG4’s.  Definitely a 3D, spatial, very much so “Live” in the room effect going on.  On some tracks its like “you are there” vs “they are there” kinda thing going on, actually no, “They are HERE, with me in my living room”.   The bass is quite full and nice, not too boomy, but much more tactile bass that touches you than the KG4’s could ever do.  On one hand everything is great on certain tracks.  On the other hand, some things are a miss.  Over a few days in short term the sound pressures in the room appeared to be too much.  This Klipsch harshness people speak of, but I haven’t really experienced that with Kilpsch berore.  On particular tracks I barely ticked the volume knob a few notches and the VOLUME.  “WHAT, WHO IS THIS, OH BOB FROM ARTILLERY, WHAT”… (Note: In case you aren’t following, I’m saying its LOUD).

 

Initially I experienced a mixed bag when it came to listening.  As I previously mentioned some tracks were live and 3d and special, and others something is missing, not right, and not special.  And there is no rhyme or reason to it.  Now Dudeisms you say, what is special to you?  Well, to me yes I expect all the normal things my ears, and most people’s ears want to hear, but what I love are the little details, spatial effects occurring in nature or through technology during recording or editing.  Sometimes its an album that pulls every studio trick in the book that can only be achieved through technology, and sometimes its just an amazing recording that is totally analog including the instruments.. like Muddy Waters Folk Singer for example.  Which is usually a magical album… but with the Cornwalls it was not.

 

TheBeatles Love album on vinyl no longer is special, I repeat the Beatles Love Album is not special…  I tried listening to it 3 times and no cigar.

On the other hand I can hear these types of things or details in Pink Floyd’s Soundtrack to “More” so go figure?  The KG’s (Before and After Crites) do both albums very well and they sound special …. Actually on the PF album the Corwalls are doing everything I want them to.   So there have been these moments of saving grace.

 

So enough with the negative examples, here is some positivity…

 

Darkside – Psychic (Vinyl)  So this album,… So you wanna buy something off the radar that’s I guess electronica sorta, and it is like super audiophile (and 45rpm 2 vinyl album) crazy good, and it makes your speakers do things that analog instruments just cant, but really shows off the crazy things your speakers can do while sounding incredible.  But Dudeisms, “I hate electronica, edm, techno, experiment stuff”, … yeah ok, maybe, but there is no way you won’t appreciate this one on some level.  These two composers, or one of them paid lots of attention to details and effects that wouldn’t show up on ninety some percent of speakers out in the wild.  The Cornwalls are doing crazy things with this album, it sounds like the 26ft long wall is the sound stage, but my speakers aren’t anywhere near the corners.

 

Sam Cooke – Night Beat (Vinyl) So there is something just barely muted or smeared or something, but its so subtle, BUT it sounds LIVE in my living room in a magical way.  My results are somewhat all over the place

 

U.F.Orb – The orb Flac 44.1kH 16 bit Range per Roon 15

On one hand its otherworldly and that bass which is nice but tight and quite enjoyable, on the other..  that muted thing is going on.  But I went back and cranked the volume (Sorry not sorry neighbors) and its magical, but I gotta get loud to do it.   Phone says 81db ish… yeah I know the phone isn’t accurate, its sounds louder than that actually

 

So what is a guy to do here?  My results are all over the place.  Well the capacitors are like what, 37ish years old or so.  Replace them for starters as caps top out at 20 years.  Crites crossover repair kit was on its way.  A post will immediately follow this with nothing but pictures of the speakers, gear, and listening room.

 

 

COMING SOON – CORNWALLS – FIRST IMPRESSIONS – Part 1 A.C. (AFTER Crites)

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