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1971 Klipsch H 700 speakers


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  • 3 weeks later...

What is special about the H-700 Heresy?  I quote from a previous post:

 

 

Quote

 

Origin of the Heresy, by HDBRbuilder: (from Klipsch Forums 06/14/2019)

The story of how the H-700 Got its name

 

The only thing "RARE" about the Heresy H-700 is the label itself designating them as H-700's...and that was just a stop-gap nomenclature anyway!

To fully understand, you have to remember what was going on in the audio world at the time and how it affected Klipsch decisions.

 When PWK introduced the Heresy, it wasn't even called that.  It was the "model H"...which came about from a conversion with a colleague, PWK was talking about the speaker while sketching it out on a napkin, at a restaurant (IIRC!,) and the colleague mentioned that PWK's decision to market a supplementary NON-FULLY-HORN-LOADED speaker to the K-horn seemed to be Klipsch Heresy!  Remember, it was the FIRST speaker to be successfully-marketed by PWK as a supplementary speaker to a K-horn!...to be used in a separate room or in the same room with a K-horn...most people then had monaural systems, anyway!  But PWK loved the three-speaker stereo array and I am sure in the back of his mind he was thinking "not only is it a supplementary speaker, but it also a budget stepping-stone to selling an additional K-horn down the road as more people go to the three-speaker stereo array...using the little speaker as their center-channel".  He was "looking into the future" of audio, and his own business!  Make sense?? 

 All throughout PWK's "audio career" he had to look into the future!...much of that attitude had to do with other technologies catching-up, actually!  His game-plan was to design and market speakers for a living, and to support his other audio research interests!  And he hoped it would all work-out for him that way!  Make a good living, and continue the research he loved, without needing to resort to a different career, which would force his TRUE interests back to "hobby-status"! 

 WE ALL HAVE THAT KIND OF DREAM, don't we??  He wanted to live his dream, just like everybody else!  Pretty simple!

He had all kinds of ideas for speakers, but his MAJOR LIMITING FACTOR was that technology had not yet gotten to the point he could implement some of them!  THAT IS EXACTLY WHY the Jubilee development came so damned late in his life...he was waiting for technology to catch-up and he was part of the great many others who were assisting in nudging it forward!  He wanted a TWO-WAY fully horn loaded speaker which would out-perform the current three-way Klipschorn!...he was waiting on technology to catch-up in the UPPER frequency horns!..so that could FINALLY HAPPEN for him!

OK, back to the Heresy:  The Heresy DID NOT NEED TO BE a full-spectrum speaker...its design parameter was to be SUPPLEMENTARY to a K-horn, therefore it just had to be similarly-voiced, ...and also didn't NEED to have a bass horn...the K-horn provided the bass!...but it at least needed to provide SOME BASS!!...especially if used in a separate room!

 VOILA! The Heresy!

But, PWK soon realized early on after its introduction that non-K-horn owners were buying them as an inexpensive alternate to the cost of owning a K-horn...so improvements began relatively early-on in the life of the Heresy speaker!  Things were upgraded...especially for the woofer and the mid-horn lens...this happened in stages and for the woofer end of things was based on purchase cost, quality, longevity, and performance-matching with other drivers already in the Heresy.  So, with the upgrades in those things, cross-over network changes were required here and there.   One of the things PWK wanted even before the mid-1960's was to improve the mid-horn-lens...better dispersion and such...the K-700 was the answer to that! And it actually REMAINED the answer for the Heresy for around two decades of Heresy production!! 

By the time the K-700 was ready to be used in production, the big move from monaural to stereo systems was in full swing...and had been so for a few years!  PWK was concerned with people buying an additional Heresy to go with their old one when they up-graded to stereo, and how different they may sound from each other...so how do you let people know that they may not sound the same as the one they already have...because you have changed the mid-range horn lens??  Simple: just name it after that horn change!  And how long do you NEED to call it that before you can just call it a Heresy again??  Not very long!...just a few years, MAYBE even LESS, would be enough!  In the audio world, news travels quickly, EVEN IF you don't advertise much!  People will review it due to the "new name", compare it to the previous one, and word will get out about the differences...too easy!

Voila!  The H-700!  Pretty simple!

I really don't consider them "RARE"...simply because so many of them were sold!...in a relatively short-time-span!...using THAT nomenclature! 

Also, there is really very little difference between it, and the Heresy speaker that followed it,  other than the nomenclature of what it was CALLED!...they are both voiced pretty-much identically!..same cabinet, same tweeter, same mid-horn and driver...yadda yadda, yadda...a bit of crossover change came about, but not REALLY much over the next twenty years of the combined H700 and (what is NOW called the) "Heresy 1" version production-time-span. Pretty much the same speaker throughout that time, for all intents and purposes, anyway!

Some really nit-picking people will argue my opinion...talking about HOW VERY MUCH DIFFERENCE THOSE CHANGES MADE, and they actually DID, when every one of them is added together...but I say they still sounded about the same!l ...But,  to each his/her own!

So, truth be known, what ACTUALLY IS RARE, is just what was written on the LABEL-tag of the H-700...and that's about it!  IMHO!! 

+++

 

 

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