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Moving Klipschorns


dbomberger

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Great, that was a question.  Going to move them 15 miles mostly highway.  If I put a futon in the back of my Explorer, would it be safe to lay them down on the front, or what would be preferable.   Probably take two trips in that scenario.  I could rent a van if necessary.  Thanks again.

 

 

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I have moved mine twice. Other than the obvious, removing lugs from Network, remove top hats via small outside nuts on sides of top hat, also go ahead and take off side panel vents. The vents can snag on the floor and its not worth roughing some cloth up.  Put painters tape on the front bottom toe plate of the bass cab  just for an oops. Once that veneer is chipped there is really no bringing it back. Take your time and use use 4 hands removing and reinstalling top hats. They should fit pretty snug, also mark them to identify which hat goes on what speaker.

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Adding to @USNRET's suggestion, they top hat can be removed by unscrewing 4 wingnuts, no tools required except a screwdriver to take off the wire.

 

When I bought and picked up my Khorns for a four hour round trip I rented a 4x8' enclosed Uhaul for about $20.  I got plenty of blankets, used some tie-downs and it took two of us to move them.  A 4-wheeled dolly $15 from Harbor Freight can be helpful as well.

+++

 

Edit:  I just saw you are going to move them 15 miles.  I agree with you, make a couple of trips and you should be OK.

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Once you slide them out of the corners it is pretty obvious how to take them apart. As others have said wing nuts and a screw driver should get you to having HF sections apart from bass bins and some light weight side grills that can go just about anywhere.

 

If you have the space I'd advocate padding between the fronts of the bass bins and ratchet strap them together. Then secure them as one unit in the truck/trailer. Wrap the HF sections all around in blankets. With the bass bins face to face and the grills off there is very little chance that any bumps or bruises in transit would ever show once back in a proper corner.

 

Good luck!

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Just a heads up, depending on the age is the khorn cabinets, the top hats don't always come apart easily. My 1967 cabinets do not. After about 15 screws being removed and the top hats all weren't loose, we came up with plan b.

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17 hours ago, Max2 said:

Face down on moving blankets or something pretty dense, but wouldn't rough up the cabinets.  Harbor Freight has giant moving blankets for like $7 each. They work awesome

 

Agree on HFreight blankets I've got a few....but they do rip very easily if you pull on them. Wrap and tuck don't pull too much.

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I drove from Pittsburgh to just outside of Detroit for mine.  Had a ranger and stood them up int he bed, facing each other with padding between and the tops in the cab, it was an extended cab.  I would say the best thing to do would bring a person to help.  If it weren't for Neal, DIzrotus on here, and his son, I wouldn't have been able to manage.  They are very heavy.  Good luck.

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I would cover the front of the grille on the top hat with something very clean and dust free to keep contaminants out of the tweeter and midrange.  Don't let the wind blow into the top hat grille.  I don't know whether these drivers have much of a stray magnetic field, but I have seen many other speakers with the outline of the speakers on the grille cloth, because of the magnetic field gathering iron containing dust.

 

The top hats can be delicate.  Don't turn the whole Khorn upside down. 

 

4 hands or 6

 

Don't let anyone wear a toolbelt, or carry tools, or have exposed belt buckles to scratch the veneer or rip the grille cloth.

 

Clean freight blankets, for sure!

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Khorns aren't too bad to move around if you have the right equipment.  I can't count how many times I have moved mine.  I'd recommend getting a hand truck like the one below, preferably with pneumatic tires (rolls easier and absorbs some of the bumps).  As has been mentioned, take off the top hat and remove the side grills.  You'll find that the bass bin is just a triangular cabinet.  Wrap the bass  bin with moving blankets and put something on the bottom steel "shelf" of the hand truck to prevent scratches.  Then, secure the bass bin to the hand truck with ratchet straps.  Once secure,  you're all set and you can move that thing anywhere.  Using this method, I've been able to move my Khorns (and Belle's, La Scalas, etc.) without any help and have even moved them up and down stairs on several occasions.  They are big and heavy speakers, but with the right equipment they are very manageable.  I usually don't even remove the top hats unless I'm moving them up or down stairs. 

 

https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200596447_200596447?cm_mmc=Google-pla&utm_source=Google_PLA&utm_medium=Material Handling > Hand %2B Utility Trucks > Standard Hand Trucks&utm_campaign=Ironton&utm_content=31623&cm_mmc=Google-pla&utm_source=google_PLA&utm_campaign=&mkwid=sdfxljI2A&pcrid=200681799728&devicetype=c&gclid=Cj0KCQjw5LbWBRDCARIsALAbcOcSUfZyqT0lhPwRpM_shWrsbNVrF3nU6l5OLi2eC1ysfyaRhpFcV9EaAt_cEALw_wcB

 

31623_700x700.jpg

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On 4/9/2018 at 11:32 PM, wvu80 said:

Adding to @USNRET's suggestion, they top hat can be removed by unscrewing 4 wingnuts, no tools required except a screwdriver to take off the wire.

 

When I bought and picked up my Khorns for a four hour round trip I rented a 4x8' enclosed Uhaul for about $20.  I got plenty of blankets, used some tie-downs and it took two of us to move them.  A 4-wheeled dolly $15 from Harbor Freight can be helpful as well.

+++

 

Edit:  I just saw you are going to move them 15 miles.  I agree with you, make a couple of trips and you should be OK.

 

The older K-horns use phillips screws to hold the top hat down.

JJK

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Wrap the top and bottom in movers plastic to avoid catching any of the veneer on anything and then place them face down in the back of your vehicle on top of a foam mattress topper. Pack around them with blankets and pillows so they don't move around. Move 1 at a time. Don't try and move both together. You are only asking for damage. 

 

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Different generations of K-horns have different arrangements of the crossovers and wiring.  No matter what you do, you'll have to figure out where to undo connections between the top hat/treble section and the bass horn, presumably at one of the crossovers.  Some have the crossover mounted on the top section, some on the bottom and some have part or all of the crossovers on the inside of the bass bin (mounted on the back of the bass bin door) and some have part or all on the inside, where you can't get to them without removing the door. Maybe take a pic first if you think confusion is possible.  Most of the time, it's straightforward.

 

I myself don't recommend strapping the top and bottom together, but it sure would solve the disconnection-connection issues. 

 

BE SURE you can recreate the original polarity!!  -- getting even just one driver out of phase might be a mess to undo.  Put red dots on all the positive terminals and wires on both the drivers and the crossover terminals!  Do this first!

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This was both khorns complete (minus side grills) in the back of my tundra with bed cap. Like I said, these 1967 cabinets didn't make it easy to remove the top hats. This was plan b. Lots of moving blankets, flattened cardboard boxes and a ratchet strap.fa4a64696ce0157cf7170bdf225c2117.jpg

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

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I have never seen or heard of K-horns whose top and bottom sections were screwed together as you describe.  As produced by the factory, the tops always had single bolts on each side penetrating down through a single L-shaped hanger attached on each side of the bass horn.  The bass horn makes up the entire bottom section.  Somebody seems to have done something on their own, which was NOT the way Klipsch took them apart and reassembled them.

 

One possible area of confusion is where the top joins the bottom -- where the exact plane of division occurs between the top and bottom sections.  The bottom layer of the top section looks like it belongs to the top of the bass section, whereas it does not.  So, maybe someone got confused and tried to separate or reunite them in the wrong plane.

 

The "C" style uses many, many screws to hold the "wrong" layers together, though I can't imagine someone making that mistake when the correct assembly is so obvious.  The "B" style uses only 5 screws to do the same thing in about the same place, where more layers abut.  It almost sounds like yours was a "C" whose disassembly got on the wrong track.

 

A recent thread with great pics of this discussed how the two parts are joined.

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