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Cornwall IV


tipatina

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If one could just think for a second, how the speaker would feel, someone poking and prodding your internals around.

Yes, just paid good money for you and just can't wait to get you in my garage to experiment on you.

Must be the solder...

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When I read of someone doing something like this I'm reminded of my wonderful wife and her habit of tweaking EVERY cooking recipe she's ever followed.  I don't tease her about it but it's clear that it's her way of taking credit for how a dish - that is 99.999% someone else's - turned out.  ..She add's a small dash of this, a sprig of that - two additions that probably aren't noticeable - but she does anyway so that she can tell people, "yes, it's a recipe but I improved it quite a bit.."  

 

 

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  • 5 weeks later...
On 4/6/2021 at 8:45 PM, dls_123 said:

I am certainly going to listen to them.  I have seen photos of the crossovers.  I am not going to change any values at all, but those are run of the mill poly caps and resistors in there.   Putting a very high quality oil damped poly cap like the VCap ODAM is not going to change the way the crossover works.   It will improve the quality of the signal flowing into the drivers though.  They are a more detailed cap and not bright in any way once they run in for 100+ hours.  I am not trying to be confrontational in any way.  Things are built to a price point.  That is all.   I have built literally over a thousand pieces of tube audio equipment between restorations of vintage and my production custom gear.  I have heard tons of different capacitors.   I understand voicing certainly.   But I can see what caps are in there now and I know what I want to use sounds like.  There is no comparison.  I will keep the oem parts and if I don't like it I will put them back.   I am not going to tell other people what to do at all and post that my way is best or anything like that.  I am sure it is a great speaker.  I had original cornwall I years ago and they improved significantly when I replaced the crossover caps and resistors.  Again, it is not my goal to say anything bad about Klispch or tell others what to do.  I am not trying to offend anyone.  I am not trying make a business of Cornwall crossover mods or anything like that.  No commercial intent whatsoever.  I intend to listen to these for a long time.  I have had a couple of customers with my amps say how much they like them with the Cornwall IV.  One of the customers damped the horns with dynamat or some other similar material and told me he could tell the improvement right away.   I trust him.  So I am just going on my journey that is all.

 

cheers....Don

For me it is exactly the opposite case. I have 1977 Lascala, all original drivers. The Aerovox caps of the AA crossover have been leaking since long time and the values were no longer correct. I bought in 2006 an ALK universal network, which I had exactly 4 weeks  in operation, it was not my idea of musicality. Since 2010 I have Crites AA crossovers, but that was with the sonicaps also not really the sound as in my memory with the Aerovox.

Shortly later I had not used the speakers for 10 years because all the time I listened to Jubilees with K402.

Since three months I have reactivated the old LaScala out of curiosity. Everything is ok, only mids and treble are still too loud and a bit sharp. Although the sonicaps have now settled in after a hundred hours the squaker and tweeter does not sound as in my memory with the original PIO caps in the sense of a homogeneous sound.

So I'm glad that there are now the new original Klipsch capacitors, which another member I quote above would like to remove immediately. The caps Klipsch offers for the old AA xover look the same as in the pic of the new CW4 xover which is good news because the reviews about the CW4 a so very positive around the world. It is not about the „best“ cap in an insulated view but what fits best in the network also in terms of ESR value and so on. So to the price of the replacement caps the selecting process of the polyester (I think so) type has to be added as well as the ordering by Klipsch of today exotic values like 2uF and 13 uF. And that makes a point, even if I would use smaller values to reach 13uF in parallel constellation of caps I would alter the ESR to a „better“ smaller value but which would be probably wrong regarding the network requirements.

The only downside is that shipping and tax plus customs to Germany is in addition more than the price of the caps themselves. Alternatively I could try new motor run caps which I can get over here but I am afraid that the newer PP foils do not behave like the old times PIO and I do not want to waste my time with trying out different caps over and over.

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I don't have a link for you but I remember some Russian caps that might be what you are looking for and perhaps they would be cheaper than imports from the USA. The few times I have run across them on EBay for instance they were pretty cheap on shipping. I have no idea on import fees into Europe.

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Dave, thank for the recommendation, do you mean Russian K75-10 and/or KBG-MN types? That ones I could get i.e. from Bulgaria which is part of the EU via ebay and therefore no customs and cheap shipping. TBH I see two potential issues. This caps are also some decades old, how about value shift and/or ESR shift. If they leak I would be not surprised if they are PCB based as the coolant, at least the KBG-MN types. Soundwise one can read good reports. Or do you have experiences with this types?

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It's not a recommendation. I mention them as having seen them for sale and comments at times on various forums where they have met with some favor. I have never used them to be able to speak from personal experience. As far as being old I had the impression there were current production ones out there as well as older ones. They are cheap enough and your import fees evidently reasonable so I would try that route. I have no idea why items from the USA get stuck with such high tariffs and fees in Europe but they sure do. When I was active with Solid Edge, which is my design software, the guys in Europe would have to pay much more than me for the same software.

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On 9/10/2019 at 8:39 AM, moray james said:

Vent termination both inside and out will help air ingress and egress and will help with vent noise. Box resonance is another issue which brace work will solve. Aside from the vent itself the CW has no brace work, it is a big hollow large panel box very much in need of braces and ties to hold it all together. Manufactures tend to spend their money where the customer can see and appreciate it. For example they tell you port termination is important but only on the side of the port that you look at inside it all of a sudden does not matter, funny how that works.

On the CW4 there are cabinet braces front to back in two places and the big box sounding thing is gone. Those new ports are radiused inside and out I believe. Really an entirely different animal than CW 1,2 and 3 except for the basic box size.

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2 hours ago, Dave A said:

On the CW4 there are cabinet braces front to back in two places and the big box sounding thing is gone. Those new ports are radiused inside and out I believe. Really an entirely different animal than CW 1,2 and 3 except for the basic box size.

 

Pretty sure the CW3 had front-to-back bracing in two places as well....

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1 hour ago, ODS123 said:

 

Pretty sure the CW3 had front-to-back bracing in two places as well....

 The screw heads on the outside of the motor board at the 10:00 and 2:00 positions would indicate they are there if they did braces for them like the CW4 has.

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1 hour ago, Dave A said:

 The screw heads on the outside of the motor board at the 10:00 and 2:00 positions would indicate they are there if they did braces for them like the CW4 has.

 

Yep.. they're there.  ..A bit more like 9:30 and 2:30 and a bit closer to the side walls, but they're there.  

 

I also recall seeing them in pictures from the CW iii production line.

 

The bracing in both of these speakers is far from exotic; appears to be just a 2x4".    ...And having rapped on both the CW3 and CW4, neither cabinet sounds particularly inert - indeed, BOTH sound like hollow shoe boxes.  

 

By comparison, the bracing in my previous Paradigm S8v2's was a work of art.  ..And knocking on it sounded like knocking on a cinder block.  Ditto my Vandersteen 3A Sigs..  ..That notwithstanding, I prefer the sound of the Cornwalls to both the Paradigm's and Vandy's, despite the fact that the cabinets sound rather hollow when you knock on them.  It's how they sound when playing music that matters.  Perhaps Klipsch understands that speaker cabinets that are as solid as a vault are not entirely necessary from a music-playback standpoint.

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8 hours ago, ODS123 said:

 

Yep.. they're there.  ..A bit more like 9:30 and 2:30 and a bit closer to the side walls, but they're there.  

 

I also recall seeing them in pictures from the CW iii production line.

 

The bracing in both of these speakers is far from exotic; appears to be just a 2x4".    ...And having rapped on both the CW3 and CW4, neither cabinet sounds particularly inert - indeed, BOTH sound like hollow shoe boxes.  

 

By comparison, the bracing in my previous Paradigm S8v2's was a work of art.  ..And knocking on it sounded like knocking on a cinder block.  Ditto my Vandersteen 3A Sigs..  ..That notwithstanding, I prefer the sound of the Cornwalls to both the Paradigm's and Vandy's, despite the fact that the cabinets sound rather hollow when you knock on them.  It's how they sound when playing music that matters.  Perhaps Klipsch understands that speaker cabinets that are as solid as a vault are not entirely necessary from a music-playback standpoint.

I have to admit they look crude but they work. Klipsch did this much earlier with the pro line on speakers like the KPT-456 and 904.

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On 5/12/2021 at 5:34 AM, Dave A said:

I have to admit they look crude but they work. Klipsch did this much earlier with the pro line on speakers like the KPT-456 and 904.

 

On 5/11/2021 at 4:09 PM, Dave A said:
On 9/10/2019 at 9:39 AM, moray james said:

...Box resonance is another issue which brace work will solve. Aside from the vent itself the CW has no brace work, it is a big hollow large panel box very much in need of braces and ties to hold it all together. Manufactures tend to spend their money where the customer can see and appreciate it.

 

I suppose if one was determined, they could play tones at a very high SPL and find a frequency at which you could get a CW cabinet to buzz.  ..But hear it while playing music?  ..Not a chance.  I have never heard my CW iii's resonate, despite every imaginable style of music, played from whisper quiet to 100db.

 

Because magazine reviewers and audio salespeople serve up the "knuckle rap test" as a meaningful in-showroom quality test, it's predictable some manufactures will over obsess on this aspect of speaker design, then make hay of it in their marketing.  ..But that doesn't mean they've made the speaker SOUND better. ..Or even that resonances would have been audible had they not incorporated all that extra bracing.

 

I trust the engineers at Klipsch took resonances into account while engineering the CW's; after all, they had all the tools to determine where to add add'l bracing during the design phase - but they didn't.  So I feel safe in assuming they felt it wouldn't improve how the speaker SOUNDS while playing music.

 

IMHO, disassembling CW IVs (or III's for that matter) and adding add'l bracing, replacing cross-over components, wiring, etc..   (as some in this thread have suggested) without clear evidence (ie., double blinded!) it would improve sound, strikes me as utterly foolish.  But if destroying your warranty coverage AND resale value is your goal - have at it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My 2 cents is that it's not that easy to tonally fine-tune a speaker cabinet in the service of musicality.
I'm afraid it's far too easy to say, well knock some bracing into the box. Should (unintentionally or uncontrolled) resonances of higher frequency arise which can also be very ugly? The various manufacturers have put a lot of thought into keeping the musicality intact. And so certainly Roy with the CW, also the acoustic fingerprint must be preserved when a model has such a long tradition as the CW. I think the art is something like the "contemporary adaptation". Maybe a Pepsi tasted different 40 years ago than it does today, but it tastes in the world of today in such a way that it is "experienced" as it was poised in the competitive environment 40 years ago.
Maybe a CW should be less "boomy" today than it was 50 years ago, but it shouldn't suddenly sound like an antiseptic sound-dead sterile box that is no longer acoustically sexy in the way a CW should be.


There are so many examples of aggravation. Especially with conventional cabinet shapes like closed or bass reflex. Sandwich filled with sand, slate, concrete, swapping struts etc. etc.
The CW has certainly been adapted very carefully and lovingly. In the photo I have another example of a well done cabinet in my view, my Tannoy Canterbury. The vertical narrow side openings are a sort of bass reflex opening that you can slide open and closed. The horizontal board with the 4 round holes is a brace from front to rear and there is from left to right a vertical mounted board in the middle between the holes.

Whether this is all "scientifically correct" I do not know but the box does not drone and it sounds warm, controlled tuneful and musically alive in the entire bass range.

The BBC boxes I also like very much in the sound behavior of the bass and the upper bass. They use thin birch plywood paired with bitumen panels inside to change the acoustic travel times or sound speed coefficient. The backs are screwed in only very loosely, creating an effect like a church bell that has a crack and no longer sounds or resonates (where to resonate is desired with the bell). The cabinet is therefore virtually interrupted in the formation of the resonance (which is again desired in that case). Many "modern" designs of enclosures try to suppress sound from the inside by using particularly thick and massive enclosure walls. But mostly they achieve a very unattractive effect. They simply increase the time until the sound escapes from the housing. The brain interprets this as an ugly time smear that sounds like annoying discoloration. The BBC design, on the other hand, decreases the time for sound to exit through the walls. The Cornwall is a classic cabinet that similarly prefers to take some resonnances but not kill the sound. That is why it has a lively sound.

Ok this BBC conception is suitable only for smaller volumes but in that region it is very good, some of you will have heard a little BBC LS3/5a or a LS3/6.

Another example is my beloved Fender Bassman guitar amp. Here, of course, the goal is not hi-fi but a deliberate sound. It has four 10 inch drivers on the baffle. The baffle is only screwed with four wood screws in the corners. Thus, the whole baffle vibrates when you turn up the amp to bursting (but also when you play quietly).
In all decades there were wiseacres who wanted to fix the baffle of the Bassman "properly". With that, the sound was dead.

 

To sum it up there are very interesting approaches and also some that I do not accept so much. But it's not as easy as it seems. No bass horns but still a challenge where a layman might think it's just a casing.

I count the traditional Klipsch designs CW and Heresy among the very interesting and authentic speakers. I must admit that I have not heard a Cornwall and Heresy of any generation yet. But I am very interested to hear a CW4 finally and I fell in love with the Heresy4. A speaker I should always find a room for.

 

Heinz, Cologne

 

 

1FA2C9A5-2218-41AF-BBA5-5EC062067971.png

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  • 1 month later...
On 4/7/2021 at 2:02 AM, dls_123 said:

Hi

I am not going to build a new crossover, just change what looks like three capacitors and maybe one or two resistors.  Have to see which crossover is in mine.  Not changing the board out, just a few parts and will use exactly the same values, so not changing the circuit at all and using the same boards.

so how about an update , did you finally modify your CWIV  crossover ,  and if you did , can you post pictures that show us the results - tx

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On 7/2/2021 at 6:20 PM, 001 said:

so how about an update , did you finally modify your CWIV  crossover ,  and if you did , can you post pictures that show us the results - tx


I believe the poster was someone I know, but I won’t call his name. If so, the results of the crossover upgrade were very successful and he has posted about it in a Cornwall thread in the audiogon forum.

 

Shakey

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On 5/20/2021 at 8:07 PM, KT88 said:

My 2 cents is that it's not that easy to tonally fine-tune a speaker cabinet in the service of musicality.
I'm afraid it's far too easy to say, well knock some bracing into the box. Should (unintentionally or uncontrolled) resonances of higher frequency arise which can also be very ugly? The various manufacturers have put a lot of thought into keeping the musicality intact. And so certainly Roy with the CW, also the acoustic fingerprint must be preserved when a model has such a long tradition as the CW. I think the art is something like the "contemporary adaptation". Maybe a Pepsi tasted different 40 years ago than it does today, but it tastes in the world of today in such a way that it is "experienced" as it was poised in the competitive environment 40 years ago.
Maybe a CW should be less "boomy" today than it was 50 years ago, but it shouldn't suddenly sound like an antiseptic sound-dead sterile box that is no longer acoustically sexy in the way a CW should be.


There are so many examples of aggravation. Especially with conventional cabinet shapes like closed or bass reflex. Sandwich filled with sand, slate, concrete, swapping struts etc. etc.
The CW has certainly been adapted very carefully and lovingly. In the photo I have another example of a well done cabinet in my view, my Tannoy Canterbury. The vertical narrow side openings are a sort of bass reflex opening that you can slide open and closed. The horizontal board with the 4 round holes is a brace from front to rear and there is from left to right a vertical mounted board in the middle between the holes.

Whether this is all "scientifically correct" I do not know but the box does not drone and it sounds warm, controlled tuneful and musically alive in the entire bass range.

The BBC boxes I also like very much in the sound behavior of the bass and the upper bass. They use thin birch plywood paired with bitumen panels inside to change the acoustic travel times or sound speed coefficient. The backs are screwed in only very loosely, creating an effect like a church bell that has a crack and no longer sounds or resonates (where to resonate is desired with the bell). The cabinet is therefore virtually interrupted in the formation of the resonance (which is again desired in that case). Many "modern" designs of enclosures try to suppress sound from the inside by using particularly thick and massive enclosure walls. But mostly they achieve a very unattractive effect. They simply increase the time until the sound escapes from the housing. The brain interprets this as an ugly time smear that sounds like annoying discoloration. The BBC design, on the other hand, decreases the time for sound to exit through the walls. The Cornwall is a classic cabinet that similarly prefers to take some resonnances but not kill the sound. That is why it has a lively sound.

Ok this BBC conception is suitable only for smaller volumes but in that region it is very good, some of you will have heard a little BBC LS3/5a or a LS3/6.

Another example is my beloved Fender Bassman guitar amp. Here, of course, the goal is not hi-fi but a deliberate sound. It has four 10 inch drivers on the baffle. The baffle is only screwed with four wood screws in the corners. Thus, the whole baffle vibrates when you turn up the amp to bursting (but also when you play quietly).
In all decades there were wiseacres who wanted to fix the baffle of the Bassman "properly". With that, the sound was dead.

 

To sum it up there are very interesting approaches and also some that I do not accept so much. But it's not as easy as it seems. No bass horns but still a challenge where a layman might think it's just a casing.

I count the traditional Klipsch designs CW and Heresy among the very interesting and authentic speakers. I must admit that I have not heard a Cornwall and Heresy of any generation yet. But I am very interested to hear a CW4 finally and I fell in love with the Heresy4. A speaker I should always find a room for.

 

Heinz, Cologne

 

 

1FA2C9A5-2218-41AF-BBA5-5EC062067971.png

Rear Quad ESL 57 Bronze 😍

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