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Is there any chance Cornwall III's can be better than my RF7II's?


zebra03

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1 hour ago, avguytx said:

The "rumor" is the mold for the K600/601 was lost somehow. So, the Heresy III horn was apparently used because it was in the barn. Or so I've read. 

I've read that here as well, but I must say that this is so incredibly hard to believe.  ..Making a mold is not some elite rarefied skill.  If the K600/601 was the holy grail of horns, then making a new mold from a sample horn would have been well within the capabilities of any competent mechanical/ industrial engineer.

 

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17 hours ago, willland said:

zebra03,

 

Welcome to the forum.

 

Very nice speakers in the RF-7II.

 

What do you mean by "better"?

 

I love my RF-63s that I have owned since May 08 and have never had a reason to "upgrade" to anything else.

 

Bill

Thank you

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11 hours ago, ODS123 said:

I've read that here as well, but I must say that this is so incredibly hard to believe.  ..Making a mold is not some elite rarefied skill.  If the K600/601 was the holy grail of horns, then making a new mold from a sample horn would have been well within the capabilities of any competent mechanical/ industrial engineer.

 

Certainly not the "holy grail of horns", but was the original horn for the Cornwall, and yes, it was misplaced and they can't/couldn't find it. I'm only guessing here, but Heritage is a niche market, and since they don't sell them by the thousands, may have just decided the investment wasn't worth it.

 

They are all very nice sounding loudspeakers. My preference would be for a different pair in each room.

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I was told it would cost $30,000 to remanufacture the mold for the cornwall mid horn.  At the time, Klipsch wasn't near the size it is now.  Plus - the Heritage line of speakers is a very small piece of their revenue pie.  At the time it wasn't worth it to spend the money, perhaps if they ever do a Cornwall IV - they will.  

 

Given that, I own the CWIII's - and I think they absolutely sound fantastics.  If you look at their cinema line of speakers that use 2 or 3 way direct radiating 15" driver(s), they all cross at 800hz or higher.

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I don't have a ton of experience with Cornwall 3's but I did spend a few hours in the Klipsch suite in Vegas for CES and they had them set up with a halfway nice turntable and probably a tube amp but I forget which one, I heard Little Wing multiple times and I forget what else, I thought they sounded great.  I'd have a real hard time saying RF-7II's could do better.  

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19 minutes ago, Ouachita said:

I was told it would cost $30,000 to remanufacture the mold for the cornwall mid horn.

 

 I’m so sorry to be so stubborn on this point, but I simply cannot believe that to be true. I’m not doubting someone told you that, but I just can’t believe it.  Even taking into account the relatively small  production volume there’s no way it should cost that much. It’s a mold for injected plastic for gosh sake.   My sons robotics team in high school make parts using CNC machines that are every bit as precise as that horn mold would be. And do so for tens of dollars not tens of thousands.   I believe that if Klipsc felt another horn would sound better in that speaker they would’ve gone to the trouble of making it. A new horn is way less expensive than disappointed devotees of the brand 

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All i am doing is parotting what a Klipsch Engineer told me (that I met in person).

 

A quick google search shows an average injection mold costs $12,000 to make ( and remember - this was 2005 we are talking about)

 

https://rexplastics.com/plastic-injection-molds/how-much-do-plastic-injection-molds-cost

 

That same engineer said he'd never mess with Paul's designs - so it must have killed his soul to have not used the same horn that Paul designed to be used in the Cornwall.  

 

Even with that being said, the CWIII sounds fantastic.

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1 hour ago, Max2 said:

The Cornwall deserved a larger mid many moons ago.  Problem is, each model has to fit in its given hole, don't want a non horn loaded speaker knocking the shine off of another model above it. 

 

 So you’re suggesting that using a larger horn would make it sound too good and therefore would cannibalize on their pricier speakers?  That does not make sense to me. 

 

 Even if true that making their own large (like the lost mold) horn in house was prohibitively expensive,  they could have simply procured  something similarly sized elsewhere as evidenced by all of the horns seen on parts-express.  I can’t believe they would instead decide to use an off-the-shelf horn that is woefully undersized and put at risk disappointing fans of this speaker and brand. 

 

suspect there was a legitimate engineering reason to go with the horn they went with. The fact that the speakers sound as good as it does tells me they made the right choice. 

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I have listened to the Cornwall IIIs and the RF-7IIs, but not side by side, so it is hard to pick a favorite. One might be better in some environments than the other, so the way it looks and fits into your room is an important part of selecting between two great choices. As someone said earlier, the ideal situation would be to have a pair of each, in two different rooms of your house.

 

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1 hour ago, ODS123 said:

 

 So you’re suggesting that using a larger horn would make it sound too good and therefore would cannibalize on their pricier speakers?  That does not make sense to me. 

 

 Even if true that making their own large (like the lost mold) horn in house was prohibitively expensive,  they could have simply procured  something similarly sized elsewhere as evidenced by all of the horns seen on parts-express.  I can’t believe they would instead decide to use an off-the-shelf horn that is woefully undersized and put at risk disappointing fans of this speaker and brand. 

 

suspect there was a legitimate engineering reason to go with the horn they went with. The fact that the speakers sound as good as it does tells me they made the right choice. 

 

That and its one of PWK's original designs.   Its had a tweak here and there, but for the most part remains originally intact.  Who has the right to radically re-design one of the Heritage line? No one. Its a conundrum

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22 hours ago, ODS123 said:

 

 I’m so sorry to be so stubborn on this point, but I simply cannot believe that to be true. I’m not doubting someone told you that, but I just can’t believe it.  Even taking into account the relatively small  production volume there’s no way it should cost that much. It’s a mold for injected plastic for gosh sake.   My sons robotics team in high school make parts using CNC machines that are every bit as precise as that horn mold would be. And do so for tens of dollars not tens of thousands.   I believe that if Klipsc felt another horn would sound better in that speaker they would’ve gone to the trouble of making it. A new horn is way less expensive than disappointed devotees of the brand 

 

$30,000 for a mold is not uncommon. In fact, we have many molded items in our equipment (medical laboratory test equipment) with molds that cost into the $40K+ range. I believe cost is partly based on the required precision of the molded part.

 

CNC is a completely different process, and can be a more cost effective solution, if only producing smaller volumes of parts. Once you hit a certain threshold, though, it's cheaper  to get the part molded, if possible.

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