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Thinking of buying these Klipschorns - do they look okay?


driverdog

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$1850 (they were originally asking 2499). I'm asking them to send a photo of the Klipsch tag with the model info. They said it was missing a little of the veneer, but that's the only thing they said was wrong with it. I'm trying to get more info.

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34 minutes ago, DizRotus said:

IMO, those are NOT Klipschorns.  How much are the asking?

They look like really old Speakerlab K's. The fiberglas mids are the telltale. I built my original "CornScala" center in 1976 with a cast aluminum version of that horn, so it has to be from early 70's, which means almost 50 years old!

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Believe me, if they are not actual Klipchorns, but being sold as them, I have no interest. I was trying to get feedback because yesterday I saw a Klipschorn model I had never seen, where the whole front was one piece of wood (with just a cutting for the horn). I thought at first those were fake, but it turned out to be a real model!

 

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Claude is correct about the timing of the fiberglass squawker horn from Speakerlab.  The Speakerlab SKhorns I purchased in mid-70s had the aluminum squawker horns of which Claude speaks.

 

If those are being represented as genuine Klipsch, at best the sellers are ignorant, at worst, dishonest.  I recommend that you pass on those.

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4 minutes ago, driverdog said:

Believe me, if they are not actual Klipchorns, but being sold as them, I have no interest. I was trying to get feedback because yesterday I saw a Klipschorn model I had never seen, where the whole front was one piece of wood (with just a cutting for the horn). I thought at first those were fake, but it turned out to be a real model!

 

The real deal was a K "D". The prettiest ones with real poplar core lumber veneer with top hat riser were the "B" version. I had K "C" models made of Baltic Birch, 1977, which was the very best constructed of the Khorns because of that Russian BB Plywood adding and extra 20 lbs to the cabinet. I had a second Walnut Lacquered pair in the "B" version when I sold my original KCBR's to a family friend with the thought he would sell them back to me someday. He says I'll have to wait until after his funeral! LOL.

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4 minutes ago, DizRotus said:

Claude is correct about the timing of the fiberglass squawker horn from Speakerlab.  The Speakerlab SKhorns I purchased in mid-70s had the aluminum squawker horns of which Claude speaks.

 

If those are being represented as genuine Klipsch, at best the sellers are ignorant, at worst, dishonest.  I recommend that you pass on those.

Unless you can buy them super cheap! Like for the price of the lumber alone. Speakerlab did a pretty good job of copying the bass section accurately. The one I think are truly worthless are the ones made of particle board. If these are plywood, then they are probably worth $500-600, best case. Hope this helps.

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Thank you all for the great advice! I am so glad I checked here first. I had a Klipschorn and Macintosh amp a few years ago that I said I would never sell, but I lost my job and almost lost my house and was forced to let go of both of them. Things are finally a little better, and I was able to purchase the same old model McIntosh amp, and am now just trying to get a used Klipschorn I can afford. I also had to sell off a Belle and a couple of Cornwalls and a couple of old McIntosh tube amps, too. Don't know if I can get those back, but I'd be thrilled just to have the Klipshorns back, they were the best speakers my ears have heard!

 

I was able to keep an RF-7 home theater setup, so I was happy to have a Klipsch fix during the really bad times. But the Klipschorns will be just for listening to stereo music, and I can't wait. I'll keep looking for those. Hopefully a good local deal comes along soon.

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1 hour ago, driverdog said:

$1850 (they were originally asking 2499).

Since you've had real khorns , I doubt these will please you in any way  ,  since they are DIY Clones ,  but you be the Judge , in any case , their value is nowhere near the ASKING PRICE

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Not trying to beat a dead horse, but I think the most important point is not which generation of Speakerlab K's these are. The most important point is that these were not built by Klipsch and they are NOT Klipschorns. Many of these Speakerlab K's were built with knock-down kits made of particleboard. Those kits were built with widely varying degrees of competence by audio hobbyists, but none will ever be built with the precision or structural integrity of a real Klipschorn, even the Speakerlab K's that were assembled by the Speakerlab factory. Because Speakerlab was a Seattle company, we see many of these in the Pacific Northwest, and about half the time the sellers advertise them as Klipschorns and THAT pisses me off! 

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1 hour ago, triceratops said:

none will ever be built with the precision or structural integrity of a real Klipschorn

 

That is a statement which you can't really say definitively, but I understand your point. There is even the possibility ones were built better, but they still aren't Klipsch, which is why we're all here.  😉

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>triceratops said:none will ever be built with the precision or structural integrity of a real Klipschorn

 

I strongly agree with Marvel,  It's a statement you can't definitively say unless you compare them.  If you are lucky enough to get factory built SpeakerLab's, they've had a great reputation of being very accurate!  If it's someone who built them from the SpeakerLab Kit, then it's only as good as the skills of the builder.  I was on the look out for factory built real wood SpeakerLab's in my area to compare them to my own Klipschorn's, and finally found a pair that came up.  You can imagine how shocked I was with the bass sounding so good on the SpeakerLab's because most I heard was incorrect info given and was warned that they had no bass compared to Klipschorn's but I quickly found that was not true.  If you are lucky and get the W1504S woofers in the SpeakerLabs, these are the same as that Klipsch used at the time, the CTS 4ohm 15" woofers.  They give plenty of bass and have the square magnet.  After comparing them to my Klipschorn's and the SpeakerLab's, these are factory built and use a very high quality built wood and beautiful veneer that surpasses my Klipschorn's and so does the build quality that really surprised me there but I realize these are a very special pair of SpeakerLab's than the norm.  None of the particle board/MDF crap at all in them.  Their weakness is only the crossovers, the mid and high are too subdued compared to Klipsch, they are 3db to 4db lower in mid/'high output but once you change it to TypeA crossover, it brings it to the same 104/105db, and they've become one of my favorite speakers, even when comparing them to my own Klipsch Klipshorn's, although I still think Roy did a great job with the AK4/5 crossovers than Al thinks! The AK4/5 sound great and you quickly realize this when comparing them to higher end crossovers.

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15 hours ago, Marvel said:

 

That is a statement which you can't really say definitively, but I understand your point. There is even the possibility ones were built better, but they still aren't Klipsch, which is why we're all here.  😉

 

You're correct, I overstated my point. I retract "none will ever" and will leave up my original post so I remain responsible for putting that statement out there. My apologies.

 

It is possible for a talented, dedicated woodworker to build a Klipschorn with the same or better precision as someone who has experience building many of them over a period of years at the Klipsch factory. 

 

I do think that is unlikely, but it could happen.

 

15 hours ago, SkyDover said:

>triceratops said:none will ever be built with the precision or structural integrity of a real Klipschorn

 

I strongly agree with Marvel,  It's a statement you can't definitively say unless you compare them.  If you are lucky enough to get factory built SpeakerLab's, they've had a great reputation of being very accurate!  If it's someone who built them from the SpeakerLab Kit, then it's only as good as the skills of the builder.  I was on the look out for factory built real wood SpeakerLab's in my area to compare them to my own Klipschorn's, and finally found a pair that came up.  You can imagine how shocked I was with the bass sounding so good on the SpeakerLab's because most I heard was incorrect info given and was warned that they had no bass compared to Klipschorn's but I quickly found that was not true.  If you are lucky and get the W1504S woofers in the SpeakerLabs, these are the same as that Klipsch used at the time, the CTS 4ohm 15" woofers.  They give plenty of bass and have the square magnet.  After comparing them to my Klipschorn's and the SpeakerLab's, these are factory built and use a very high quality built wood and beautiful veneer that surpasses my Klipschorn's and so does the build quality that really surprised me there but I realize these are a very special pair of SpeakerLab's than the norm.  None of the particle board/MDF crap at all in them.  Their weakness is only the crossovers, the mid and high are too subdued compared to Klipsch, they are 3db to 4db lower in mid/'high output but once you change it to TypeA crossover, it brings it to the same 104/105db, and they've become one of my favorite speakers, even when comparing them to my own Klipsch Klipshorn's, although I still think Roy did a great job with the AK4/5 crossovers than Al thinks! The AK4/5 sound great and you quickly realize this when comparing them to higher end crossovers.

 

You are correct. As I said above, I overstated my point. My apologies.

 

Even though you have a beautifully-built pair of factory Speakerlab-K's, I would still have reservations about encouraging others to try and find a pair like yours. My biggest gripe is with the seller who advertises Speakerlab K's as Klipschorns and says the labels fell off.

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21 hours ago, SkyDover said:

If you are lucky and get the W1504S woofers in the SpeakerLabs, these are the same as that Klipsch used at the time, the CTS 4ohm 15" woofers.  They give plenty of bass and have the square magnet.

I had the speakerlab 1504S in my center "Cornscala in 1976, along with the metal version of their copy K400 horn. You are right about the crossover being the weak point. I had a "pass thru" pair of Speakerlab K's for a few weeks, about 10 years ago, along with another pair of just the bass bins. My conclusion was that the Midrange Driver must have been a rejected Atlas K55 because it was nowhere near the performance of a Klipsch one. But I do recall all 4 bass bins were fine, so if someone bought the one in the OP, then they would have to buy just for the bass and put new tops on them. Like I said, $400-500 would not be out of the question if that's all you wanted out of the purchase. There would be many options for a top end, especially to make a 2 way with many modern drivers in the many good horns available today. But NONE of that would be real Klipschorns!

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Triceratops, No apologies needed, I do agree with you that no SpeakerLab's should be pawned off as Klipschorn's saying name tags fell off, I would hope that people would be honest but you never know these days sometimes. I did look at a SpeakerLab pair about 3 years ago, a lady had listed as Klipschorn's and I knew it was SpeakerLab's and I had to tell her the $2800.00 was alot to ask for them not being Klipsch and she explained that a neighbor told her they were worth alot being Klipschorn's, her uncle had passed and it was up to her to sell them.  She wasn't sure she believed me but she had someone research it and then called me back and said they were SpeakerLab's and she would sell them for $400.00 if I could pick them up that day. She called two days later and said she would sell them for $250.00 but I still didn't buy them because they weren't what I was looking for, they were not factory made, and they were made out of particle board that looked really crappy when looking at the backs of them and they already had some stress cracks in them being set down too hard or such, but in her case... she didn't know what she had and listened to someone that told her they were Klipschorn's. I wouldn't pay more than $400 to $500 for SpeakerLab's but if they were very rare/special SpeakerLab's than maybe $600 to $1000.  If they were built crappy, I wouldn't even take them for free.

 

SpeakerLab's have their place for those who want to get into them cheaper to enjoy the Klipsch sound with only having to change the crossovers to a Klipsch design crossover. Well, they sound fine with the crossovers they came with but I was too used to the Klipsch sound.

 

My SpeakerLab's cost very cheap compared to the cost of my Klipchorn's! Not everyone has the budget for Klipschorn's so the next best thing to afford them are SpeakerLab's so this is exactly the route my son took since he says corner horns are way too expensive for him used and new are unattainable for him at this time in his life. He does have RF-7 he loves that he got for a great price too. His SpeakerLab's are a mix of MDF and Plywood and sound fine, they were supposedly built by a carpenter and if I remember right... I think he paid something like $250 to $300 for them.

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Claude, I remember seeing those 1976 CornScala Center you posted of your speakers/room, nice picture and setup!!  I remember thinking that you were way ahead of your time before it became popular doing CornScalas!!

 

My SpeakerLab's have the metal K400 with the ribs, but I can't say I hear a difference between them and the K-55 or Atlas PD-5VH when I was testing different horns.... or not that my ears could pick up although I wasn't paying that much attention to it but I remember thinking how the 40 year old SpeakerLab driver surprised me how much it sounded just like the new Atlas PD-5VH driver, I thought I would hear some difference from age but I didn't but others have said that they could hear a difference between old and new diaphragms.

 

I wonder if the difference you heard, could this have something to do with the Magnar oil that SpeakerLab put in the voice coil gap in their mid drivers? They said it was supposed to be an improvement but some have claimed that it sounded better when they removed it. Maybe mine have dried up after 40 years?

 

Good point with the bass-bins... sometimes you can get them far cheaper than what just the wood cost to build them, what you save and put the extra $$$ towards custom tops with the drivers you dream about!!  Also, thanks for all your sharing here, I really enjoy reading and seeing your projects here!!!

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On 12/24/2020 at 10:56 PM, SkyDover said:

 

I strongly agree with Marvel,  It's a statement you can't definitively say unless you compare them.  If you are lucky enough to get factory built SpeakerLab's, they've had a great reputation of being very accurate!  If it's someone who built them from the SpeakerLab Kit, then it's only as good as the skills of the builder.  I was on the look out for factory built real wood SpeakerLab's in my area to compare them to my own Klipschorn's, and finally found a pair that came up.  You can imagine how shocked I was with the bass sounding so good on the SpeakerLab's because most I heard was incorrect info given and was warned that they had no bass compared to Klipschorn's but I quickly found that was not true.

 

I agree with Bruce @Marvel  and @SkyDover about the possibility of a Klipsch style folded horn bass bin being made better by someone other than a Klipsch employee.  It is possible, but far from likely.  I know how well made my four plywood SKhorns with the aluminum 350 horns were.  They performed admirably.  I often wondered what happened to them after I sold everything as an ongoing business in ~1976.  

 

I would not take a chance on the skills of a DIY builder—even though they might be superb.  I would take a chance on a plywood factory-built Speakerlab.  I would pass on the earlier Speakerlab MDF Klipschorn knockoff.

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