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Klipsch Cornwall IV, a look inside


Dawson's Ridge

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54 minutes ago, Edgar said:

 

There's an old saying, something to the effect of: "If you really like sausage, don't ever watch it being made." I don't mind people taking things apart, but their reaction to what they find inside should be tempered with appropriate expectations.

A saying is that making sausage like policy, is abit of an ugly process but, the final product is worth it.

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It would be nice to see a REW measurement from 10 Hz to 20 kHz at ~90 to 100 dB (i.e., an *.mdat file) of the Cornwall IV with the calibrated microphone on-axis with the midrange horn mouth, and spaced about 1m from the front baffle (with suitable acoustic absorption on the floor between the two to absorb the early floor reflections to show better phase and spectrogram plots).  Then the subjective listening assessments would be guided by the measurements to find the little issues that would take quite a long time to hear using many different recordings.  If you wanted to throw stones at something, that would certainly be a much more legitimate way to do it. A better case would be to have a series of measurements taken at 10 degree offsets in the horizontal and vertical directions--out to about 90 degrees.

 

I see these "piece part" tear-downs of products nowadays, and I wonder just how much the consumers actually know about the products that they think that they've investigated.  In the end, they haven't learned much that's useful at all. 

 

Chris

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18 minutes ago, Chris A said:

  In the end, they haven't learned much that's useful at all. 

It's only useful to those who have older Cornwalls to actually see what is under the hood. Other than the Corns being "3 way bass reflex," there's nothing in common with the IV vs. the 40-50 year old versions except the box size. New tweeters, new Midranges, newer spec K-33s?, port tweaks, anti resonance lumber, MDF instead of Birch Plywood, different absorbing materials, and the greatest change of all, the Balancing NETWORK!! Heck even the grilles and logos are different.

 

What car enthusiast doesn't want to look at the engine compartment on any car before they even drive it? Speakers are the same way. Although,  I'm not about to take apart my compression drivers any time soon, or my amplifiers for that matter..............unless they need repair, but that's not likely since I don't abuse my gear and modern capacitors do last way longer than the ones from 50 years ago.

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6 minutes ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

What car enthusiast doesn't want to look at the engine compartment on any car before they even drive it?

That's because automobile dynamometers aren't exactly cheap and available.  Doing a chemical analysis of the oil and transmission fluids/filters also isn't inexpensive.

 

The audio measurement gear costs $94 for the microphone, with freeware running on a personal computer.  The microphone will last a lifetime. 

 

Chris

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1 minute ago, Chris A said:

That because automobile dynamometers aren't exactly cheap and available.  Doing a chemical analysis of the oil and transmission fluids/filters also isn't inexpensive.

 

The audio measurement gear costs $94 for the microphone, with freeware running on a personal computer.  The microphone- will last a lifetime. 

 

Chris

Excellent analogy of why Audio is a far less expensive hobby than Automotive tweaking!! As a fellow "measurement guy" of many years as well, I'd like to see some Cornwall IV curves too!

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58 minutes ago, Chris A said:

The only thing that I'd do is to replace the passive crossover with a three-way Hypex FusionAmp to eliminate the time misalignments and EQ the resulting SPL and phase response flat.

 

JMTC.

 

Chris

-Cris do you have a model in specific , and would the plate amp feed both speakers or you would need 2 ,  for a pair of CW - TX

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I’ve owned many models of Klipsch speakers
And from what I see in the video. I’m happy with what they have done. Could it be better?
Yes. But it’s still above par then most other
Brands out there at that price point.
Klipsch spend 10’s of thousands of dollars to make this model of Cornwall’s. And yes they could have used higher end parts and pass the cost to the customer


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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30 minutes ago, RandyH000 said:

 a  raw BB option on top of MDF would be awesome   ,even ,   at an extra cost ,it would sell ,  the rest is perfect to me  @Chief bonehead  has a winner here in the CWIV

The MDF is the mains reason why they have to use T-nuts instead of wood screw from the inside like the old Cornwalls, But then again, from a "systems" point of view in assembly they save a lot of screws and lumber strips by not having a large removable back piece like the old Cornwalls.

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3 hours ago, Tony Whitlow said:


I don’t get it. Why would anybody spend 6K on a pair of speakers and take one apart? If I like a speaker I buy it because I like the sound it reproduces. I have no desire to dissect it.


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I agree. Not to mention it violates the warranty.

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1 hour ago, RandyH000 said:

- Chris do you have a model in specific , and would the plate amp feed both speakers or you would need 2 ,  for a pair of CW - TX

The Hypex model I'd use for any of the Heritage series of loudspeakers (all of them three-way loudspeakers) would be the FA123, which is a "one-in, three-out" DSP/amplifier plate amplifier module with three Hypex NCore amplifiers onboard.  The three onboard NCore amplifiers include two 125 w/channel outputs for the bass bin and midrange, and one 100 w/channel output for the tweeter.  You need one of these per loudspeaker if converting a three-way loudspeaker.

 

One of these per loudspeaker could conceivably replace your DAC, your preamp, a separate DSP crossover, and your power amplifiers, leaving you with only a digital file server for your entire electronics (if the digital input of the FusionAmp is used instead of analog input).  Each FusionAmp would be located at the loudspeaker, either embedded into the box or located in a separate DIY box that would be very close to or attached to the loudspeaker, with separate amplifier channel wires going to the bass bin, midrange, and tweeter inputs. 

 

hypex-fa123.jpg  hypex-fa123-1.jpg

 

I plan to use the two FA122 amplifiers (one-in, two out) that I just ordered to bi-amp my Jubilees/TADs as soon as they arrive.  They will replace my two of my Xilica DSP crossover input channels and four output channels, a First Watt F3 amplifier and a Crown D-75A amplifier, and eliminate the four wires going to the loudspeakers, in favor of a single digital signal S/PDIF (optical or electrical) or AES3 connection from my AVP.  I will provide an electrical power cable to each FA122.

 

Chris

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14 minutes ago, Chris A said:

One of these per loudspeaker could conceivably replace your DAC, your preamp, a separate DSP crossover, and your power amplifiers, leaving you with only a digital file server for your entire electronics (if the digital input of the FusionAmp is used instead of analog input). 

 

Chris, how are you controlling volume?

 

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I was going to experiment with the inexpensive Hypex IR controller (which has a volume control) that you can also buy with the FA series modules.  Everything I said above about the FA122s on the Jubs is supposition.  I will experiment to find the best configuration for my needs. 

 

The real goal, of course, is dramatic simplification of the system so my significant other can use the system for years to come if I'm not around to troubleshoot, etc. (heaven forbid).  I'm on my way to get to that type of system.

 

Chris

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1 minute ago, Chris A said:

I was going to experiment with the inexpensive Hypex IR controller (which has a volume control) that you can also buy with the FA series modules. 

 

A valid answer, but not quite to the question that I intended to ask! I think what you're saying is that you will control volume in the digital domain by scaling values. That's an acceptable way to do it, but it does inherently reduce precision and requires redithering to be done right. It used to be a problem back when we only had 16-bit DACS with 14-bit performance; nowadays DAC performance is so good that the problem is far less significant.

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32 minutes ago, jimjimbo said:

Where are the outputs to the speakers?

Reminds me of the Patent file in St.John in Newfoundland, and Warsaw, Poland (Newfies are the Canadian Humor version of Polocks in the USA)..........called the WOM..............Write Only Memory! LOL.

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2 hours ago, jimjimbo said:

Where are the outputs to the speakers?

The connectors are found here:

 

141573732_HypexFusionAmpexternaldriverconnections.GIF.300b2ffb92533468e812ef828f69450b.GIF

 

and the wire harnesses are here:

 

609162402_HypexFusionAmpexternalwireharnesses.GIF.e9f57edd3b705c05beaaa0893eb474ce.GIF

 

Here is a FusionAmp FA123 that's embedded in the back of another loudspeaker, to give you an idea of what it looks like:

 

p1FuAfK.jpg

 

Chris

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