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Heresy 1 clean but needs refinishing


Fido

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5 hours ago, Forte Too said:

Dang they look good!  I have a set of mid 70's that I want to veneer in Ebony or Rosewood.  I have never veneered anything, so I am a little nervous.  Thanks for the posting and the inspiration!  If I move forward, I'll post some picks.

 

as long as the underlying surface is in perfect condition veneering is actually quite easy

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Ordered the capacitor repair kit from Crites this week and removed the over 40 yo caps and replaced with the new ones this afternoon -- can't say I hear a huge difference but they do sound pretty good. I figured for less than $50 it was worth updating the old caps and it was less than an hour labor to update the crossovers in both speakers.

 

Waiting on the Cane grills - hopefully those will come in within the next two weeks and I will include pictures when they get installed and this project becomes complete. 

 

NEXT!!!!

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19 minutes ago, Fido said:

Ordered the capacitor repair kit from Crites this week and removed the over 40 yo caps and replaced with the new ones this afternoon -- can't say I hear a huge difference but they do sound pretty good. I figured for less than $50 it was worth updating the old caps and it was less than an hour labor to update the crossovers in both speakers.

 

Waiting on the Cane grills - hopefully those will come in within the next two weeks and I will include pictures when they get installed and this project becomes complete. 

 

NEXT!!!!

With some old AA crossovers I heard a huge difference, I guess it comes down to how bad the originals were?

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8 hours ago, dtel said:

With some old AA crossovers I heard a huge difference, I guess it comes down to how bad the originals were?

Its OK - Glad they are up to original spec. This was just a project I thought would be fun and I'm glad I made them look and sound as good as they do now. My wife loves them so thats another positive for both of us. They looked really bad when we picked them up and she had no idea I was thinking of putting them in our living room as possibly our new surrounds. When I started the project she asked me what i was planning on doing with them and I could tell she had no desire to have those delaminating and badly stained speakers with the the ugly worn looking woofers and old grill cloth gracing our beautiful living room.

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7 hours ago, glens said:

Need to change the thread title:

 

"Heresy 1 clean but needs needed refinishing"

Looking back I have no idea what made me think these were EVER clean????? You are right - this needs a new thread title - lol

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18 hours ago, Fido said:

Looking back I have no idea what made me think these were EVER clean????? You are right - this needs a new thread title - lol

Done - thanks for all the help and advice - moving on to my next project

aaIMG_0745.jpg

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  • 2 months later...

Just curious if anybody ever tests their capacitors before they replace them? So many are instantly telling others to change out their stock components with overpriced exact duplicates without ever knowing if the originals are out of value in the first place. Many times the caps are chosen by the manufacturers because they did extensive testing to find which ones perform well with those speakers. Tiny differences in internal resistance will affect the way they work. 

 

When the mention of not hearing any difference was stated, I have to say that I commend you for saying this since most others will never admit that fact and have made up their minds that since they spent a fortune on unneeded parts and spent the time doing it, their ears automatically hear a huge difference. I'm not sure if it's denial and don't want to admit they were taken or jumped on the band wagon just because it's a buzz right now. I have tested all my caps in my old speakers including series 1 & 2 Heresy's, Infinity, Polk, etc even tested a bunch of cheap speakers and have yet to find any that deviated at all from their marked values. 

 

 Looks like your speakers turned out nicely, but is there even any Klipsch parts left? Seems like you could have just started from scratch and made your own cabinets and you would have saved $500 minus the cost of veneered plywood (last time I checked it was $53 a sheet for ¾"x4'x8' 10 ply oak veneer sheets available at Lowe's and home Depot). Plus you would have saved all the time and work prepping the surfaces, time spent looking for veneer, sandpaper and other stuff that went into the veneer job.

 

You certainly have the skills to perform the task and you could have altered the cabinet size and shape to suit the speaker ideally, but most importantly you could say that it's your own design, because it would be. You'll get twice the satisfaction  when you made the entire speaker, (even though you almost did just that) than simply replacing parts (albeit nearly every single part) out from some manufacturers cabinet.

 

Just something to consider next time you want to start a project, even though it seems that you have plenty of cash to spend, that $500 could have gone into even better drivers, wires or a nice table saw, router/bits, sander etc..

Edited by ZINDA89
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2 hours ago, ZINDA89 said:

Just curious if anybody ever tests their capacitors before they replace them? So many are instantly telling others to change out their stock components with overpriced exact duplicates without ever knowing if the originals are out of value in the first place. Many times the caps are chosen by the manufacturers because they did extensive testing to find which ones perform well with those speakers. Tiny differences in internal resistance will affect the way they work.

DING DING DING; we have a winner!

My thoughts exactly;  no reason to change a capacitor that's in spec.

 

A word to the wise about refinishing; if you try to strip the paint off veneer, any liquid stripper has the potential to loosen the veneer adhesive, then you've got a real problem. Try a dry method first such as a palm sander, on the bottom panel, so if it doesn't provide good results, you won't see it.

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I dont like swapping out every component.  I always change caps, maybe add foam, and add binding posts.   

 

I just bought the front Heresy 1 baffle from Bob.  I dont have a CNC.  I like to build new cabs.  Same size, exact internal volume.  I use furniture grade materials.  

 

My fav pair is one I built using parts that were essentially gifted by a forum member.

 

I have all the parts to build another pair.  Locally here, Heresy’s sell for about $300.  It costs more to do this but Im building a couple for family.

 

PWK was a brilliant man.  I cant improve upon what he did.

 

There are some companies that are essentially using his designs.

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3 minutes ago, Peter P. said:

DING DING DING; we have a winner!

My thoughts exactly;  no reason to change a capacitor that's in spec.

 

A word to the wise about refinishing; if you try to strip the paint off veneer, any liquid stripper has the potential to loosen the veneer adhesive, then you've got a real problem. Try a dry method first such as a palm sander, on the bottom panel, so if it doesn't provide good results, you won't see it.

 

 

As a former electronics engineer, old caps will degrade over time-sometimes instantly.  I like to know they have another 30-50 years.  Components (caps, resisters, diodes, transistors, etc) are made better than they were 30-50 years ago.  

 

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, ZINDA89 said:

Just curious if anybody ever tests their capacitors before they replace them? So many are instantly telling others to change out their stock components with overpriced exact duplicates without ever knowing if the originals are out of value in the first place. Many times the caps are chosen by the manufacturers because they did extensive testing to find which ones perform well with those speakers. Tiny differences in internal resistance will affect the way they work. 

 

No but I do test them just for the heck of it when I am done with a recap and have that pile of parts sitting there. I test with a B&K 885 meter and every one of those old caps is high ESR even though most test in specs for capacitance. EVERY one of them with the exception of a couple in a set of MCM 1900 crossovers which tested OK for ESR and capacitance. I do not test old caps on while on the crossovers any more before replacing them since I have confirmed the wisdom of doing so time after time after time. Dayton caps are fine and won't break the bank. The fanciest I ever go is Sonicaps and leave the $$$$$$$$ stuff for others to play with.

 

45 minutes ago, Pats3of4 said:

DING DING DING; we have a winner!

My thoughts exactly;  no reason to change a capacitor that's in spec

OK how do you know they are in spec?

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I really like the cane grills, great job bringing some of PWK’s and all the Klipsch workers’, hard efforts back to life for another 40 years! That’s the part of restoration/ update that I like. To think that you have preserved work that folks in Hope did originally all those years ago and it will be around for a long time to be enjoyed by others now. 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Peter P. said:
5 hours ago, ZINDA89 said:

Just curious if anybody ever tests their capacitors before they replace them? So many are instantly telling others to change out their stock components with overpriced exact duplicates without ever knowing if the originals are out of value in the first place. Many times the caps are chosen by the manufacturers because they did extensive testing to find which ones perform well with those speakers. Tiny differences in internal resistance will affect the way they work.

 

DING DING DING; we have a winner!

My thoughts exactly;  no reason to change a capacitor that's in spec.

 

Wouldn't it be nice to have a specification for design ESR as well as Farad?  A lot of meters get the Farad part close enough, takes something a bit more involved to check the other value.

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6 hours ago, ZINDA89 said:

Just curious if anybody ever tests their capacitors before they replace them? So many are instantly telling others to change out their stock components with overpriced exact duplicates without ever knowing if the originals are out of value in the first place. Many times the caps are chosen by the manufacturers because they did extensive testing to find which ones perform well with those speakers. Tiny differences in internal resistance will affect the way they work. 

 

When the mention of not hearing any difference was stated, I have to say that I commend you for saying this since most others will never admit that fact and have made up their minds that since they spent a fortune on unneeded parts and spent the time doing it, their ears automatically hear a huge difference. I'm not sure if it's denial and don't want to admit they were taken or jumped on the band wagon just because it's a buzz right now. I have tested all my caps in my old speakers including series 1 & 2 Heresy's, Infinity, Polk, etc even tested a bunch of cheap speakers and have yet to find any that deviated at all from their marked values. 

 

 Looks like your speakers turned out nicely, but is there even any Klipsch parts left? Seems like you could have just started from scratch and made your own cabinets and you would have saved $500 minus the cost of veneered plywood (last time I checked it was $53 a sheet for ¾"x4'x8' 10 ply oak veneer sheets available at Lowe's and home Depot). Plus you would have saved all the time and work prepping the surfaces, time spent looking for veneer, sandpaper and other stuff that went into the veneer job.

 

You certainly have the skills to perform the task and you could have altered the cabinet size and shape to suit the speaker ideally, but most importantly you could say that it's your own design, because it would be. You'll get twice the satisfaction  when you made the entire speaker, (even though you almost did just that) than simply replacing parts (albeit nearly every single part) out from some manufacturers cabinet.

 

Just something to consider next time you want to start a project, even though it seems that you have plenty of cash to spend, that $500 could have gone into even better drivers, wires or a nice table saw, router/bits, sander etc..

My favorite thing about online communities is the judgements people make about how people spend their $$$$$ - LMAO - I just wanted a fun project since I am retired and love to try things I have never done before. The project started out as an excuse to learn how to veneer a set of speakers. After people suggested the woofers would look much better if I used shoe polish  on them I had no choice but to replace the woofers as the polish disintegrated the one I tried the polish on. I had no desire to build my own custom designed speakers and I am quite happy with the final results of this project. I do not think I wasted $$$ installing the new crossovers even if it wasn't required because the speakers now look great and sound great. They are still Klipsch Heresy speakers - I have less then $700 into them and they are exactly the way I want them.

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4 hours ago, glens said:

 

Wouldn't it be nice to have a specification for design ESR as well as Farad?  A lot of meters get the Farad part close enough, takes something a bit more involved to check the other value.

Well figuring that any additional resistance changes what you hear and ESR is resistance keep it low if possible. I can't tell you in professional engineer terms why but here is how I have learned to judge things. In welding and machining and CAD design you look for people who get results you can prove to yourself in a couple of areas and then pay attention to the other things they have to say. They are far more often right than wrong and it saves you a boat load of time figuring out everything for yourself. Therefore when people who have lots of experience in crossovers say this matters I accept that.

 

  I have a good Fluke multimeter and on uf it is not as accurate as the B&K 885 and forget about ESR unless you have a meter designed to measure that. Good tools give good results and poor ones give you trouble you probably don't know you have because the poor tool cant solve or assess your problem correctly.

 

  It would be nice to have a spec for ESR with actual values but all I have found says the lower the better and no acceptable tolerance range. Most of the old caps I measure have from .15 to .5+ ESR and the Sonicaps and Daytons are normally no more than .005.

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