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1983 Cornwall Questions


Tinnitus

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I bought a pair of 1983 Cornwalls (CFB).  The seller had them for many years and said the cabinets were a black finish when he got them used. The seller had previously stripped the black paint and applied a clear finish on the bare Wood. Only one of the  cabinet  backs has a partial label intact.  The cabinets have consecutive serial numbers stamped in the wood. The back with the label matches the serial number stamped on the back of the corresponding cabinet.The cabinets are definitely book matched Walnut, not Fir that I’m quite sure is original to the cabinets from wear and patina and shows no signs of ever being added or replaced.

 My first question is why would a CFB have walnut veneer under the black finish from the factory?

My next question is why would the label have K-43-E hand written on the label? These Cornwalls should have been supplied with K-33-E correct?  The cabinets had no woofers in them when I got them and I have since installed vintage K-33-E. Was an option available to order the standard Cornwall with K-43-E woofers? The balance of components in both cabinets look to be original as far as I can tell; Type B-3 networks, K-77-M tweeters, and K-52-K mids.

Thanks in advance for any help with this mystery.

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It is about a 98% probability that I built these two Cornwalls.  First off, there would be no outer veneer of FIR, on even the CBR or CDBR models at the time these were built.  We had been using custom-laid birch cabinet plywood for a number of years already.  Since these were miter-jointed cabinets, the actual box panels were shipped to us already veneered in fine veneer...with the substrate under that veneer being poplar-lumber-core plywood  BTW..."CFB" stands for Cornwall, Flat-Black.  Which was what these were shipped from the factory as.  The labels were applied after the final assembly was completed, right before testing.  So, when final assembly got the boxes, they were already painted flat black, so that is what they wrote on the labels:  CFB  If they had been CB ones...they would have easily seen that because they would have been built without mitered corner joints, because the birch ones had nailed together butt-joints instead of mitered joints.  If they had been CB (birch) series, the label would have read "CBFB". As for the K43 woofers found in them, some customers wanted the "industrial" K-43 instead of the regular standard K-33...but there is ALSO the possibility that the K-33's had been replaced with K-43's at some point in time after they shipped.

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