what year are my heresy 155y428 and 155y526

[rob99]

what year are my speakers

155y428 and 155y526

are they alnico?

is this a good year?

[HDBRbuilder]

year of manufacture, 1982, tweeters are NOT ALNICO...most likely the mid-range driver also IS NOT ALNICO...but MIGHT BE...depending on when in that year yours were made. Woofers had NOT been ALNICO for some time by then.

[JohnA]

The secret decoder ring shows Y = 1983.

Remove the backs and look at the drivers. You'll have K-77-M tweeters, but MAY still have the K-55-V AlNiCo squawker. It will be rounded and gray. The K-77-M is a better tweeter than the AlNiCo K-77. They are a direct swap if you want to change them and I have a pair of K-77s for trade.

[HDBRbuilder]

John,

They deleted eiher the letter "U" or "V" from the alphabetical year designation...matter of fact, there actually WERE a few sent out with the deleted letter early in that year, until the decision was made to delete the letter...reason being the confusion between HANDWRITTEN letters "U" and "V" appearing so similar when put on the speaker labels. Matter of fact, there was a pretty big hoopla raised over this change...since some had already been shipped out with the deleted letter in the serial number...but the decision still stood. "S" was DEFINITELY the letter for 1978, so that makes "Y" the letter for 1982...."Z" was the letter for 1983....and in 1984 they used "84". Wherever you got your decoder ring, it wasn't from the official PWK Wheaties box! LOL!

Admittedly there is SOME confusion, since a few of the speakers with the deleted letter were sent out with it on them, before the change was made...so that makes the ones actually produced within that year have TWO letter designations...just another point of confusion for those trying to get the historical production info they need for particular speakers!! Add to that the "seemingly" haphazard manner in which driver changes were made just about any time along the way...and it gets REAL confusing! LOL!

The same thing happened with the letters "O" and "Q" a few years prior, though, and it should have been planned for!

Another note about just WHY the company waited so long before stopping the practice of hand-writing the serial numbers on the labels. Even tho it was a time consuming process, PWK fealt it gave a "personal touch" to the product. Another reason was his disdain for computers...it was a LONG time after most companies had computers before Klipsch had any in it. Once the computers and printers were brought in, the numbers were printed on them by printers...but this led to another problem..."What happens if a label gets misplaced or damaged before it is put on?"...easy solution, hold the pair back until the one without a label can get another one printed for it. They printed up spare replacement-numbered labels once every week or so for this.

[Malcolm]

Any year Heresy is a good year.

You may have to take the back off to tell for sure whether you have the alnico K-55-V squawker driver. The last couple years of production used K-52-H and K-53-K ceramic drivers. The K-53-K was on a K-701 plastic horn. If you have a plastic horn, you don't have a K-55-V. Don't recall what horn was used with the K-52-H. The only downside of these is that they don't sound exactly the same as the K-55-V. So, if you add more for a HT system, you might want to consider getting more of the same vintage.

If you take the back off, please let us know which squawker driver and horn you have.

[JohnA]

Andy,

Check your math. The decoder I use was prepared by Trey at Klipsch for his reference and released into the wild a year, or so ago.

[j-malotky]

Rob

I will also tell you that any year heresy is a good one.

I still own my first set of Klipsch speakers. 1981 Heresys. Sound as good today as the day I bought them.

JM

[HDBRbuilder]

John...

Maybe I am wrong...on the alphabetical years...what do the numbers preceding the LETTER in the serial number represent...the week of the year?

Here is why I asked...Gwin Cox KNEW a month or so ahead of time that I planned to build a pair of Heresys for myself, and she set aside two serial numbers like the employees normally used for their own speakers...something 99, and something 00...in my case 699 and 700...of course these serial numbers had to be REAL serial numbers within a USED sequence, too...which means they had to be preceded by a year letter and the numbers that precede that year letter....while still falling within the limits of the serial numbers actually being used...IOW, if the number of Heresys did not exceed 700, then you couldn't just arbitrarily set aside 799 and 800 just to have "employee designated" serial numbers....because there would be NO speakers with numbers BETWEEN 700 and 799.

I am thinking that MAYBE she set aside this pair of numbers for me in December of 1977...even though I never even BUILT the speakers til the end of January in 1978. I built up most all of the remaining matched-up parts I had left for the old flush-front style birch Heresy cabinet design in December of 1977...(EXCEPT THE PARTS FOR MINE)...for employees who had requested them, and had written their names on masking tape atop each matched set...and who intended to buy them either in December OR at the end of January the following year...when we got our quarterly bonus checks. So MAYBE the numbers she set aside for MY speakers were ACTUALLY 1977 numbers!! Because the rest of the employees' Heresys I had built were completed and boxed by end of December...even though NOT picked up til end of January!!...except for mine!!

BTW, I never built up a pair of Heresys for employees on company time...I used my lunch breaks, instead...I could complete three pairs of "employee special builds" in 30 minutes of lunchtime(ten minutes a pair), whereas in normal production, I easily completed about EIGHT or so PAIRS of cabinets in the same time period...LOL!...WORKING SOLO!! I would tell the employee...that one of the 3 ten-minute time periods of my lunch break was for his/her speakers if he/she wanted to watch me build them! And normally the person DID want to watch...to see what all an "employee special build" from me consisted of.

I can't remember for sure, but if the numbers preceding the letter are for the week of the year, then mine are for the 52nd week!...which means they were numbers for the last week of 1977, instead of for January of 1978, when I actually built them!! It is all making sense to me now! My serial numbers are 52S699 & 52S700.

Hell, it never really made any difference to me about my serial number year letter designation, until I got on this forum, where it is a really big deal to so many! We always paid more attention to match of the wood, the drivers we had in ours, and who actually built them throughout each phase of the process...when I worked there! Employees would go to another employees house and ask about the speakers, the response would cover anything not obvious to the eye...and the quality of the wood match was quite obvious...so it ended up something like this: "My birch Heresys are ones built by Andy from parts I picked out from his stack of matched parts, then Ola Mae sanded them for me, then Mike shot em with 3 light coats of sealer, with a sanding between each coat, then 6 coats of clear gloss laquer with a leveling spray of thinner between each coat...then Gwin did my final assembly using drivers and networks that Mr. Bradford hand-selected and tested for a perfect match, before they were installed" Now, THAT is an example of how employees in the plant would brag about THEIR speakers!

[JohnA]

Well, Andy, I do look for speakers tested by Mr. Bradford (I think all of mine have his name on them), but for us outsiders the serial number pretty well tells what drivers and components are inside. It's all we have to go on.

Generally, I look for 1980 (after March) to 1982 (early) because I like the K-55-V and the solder terminal -Vs went into production after 3/24/1980. I really can't hear any difference between the 2 types of -Vs, at least on the music I listen to, but I know one is a little better than the other. The same applies to the tweeters. Sometime around 1977 the K-77-M went into production. I try to buy them, but the AlNiCo K-77 is not a bad tweeter. I'm still fuzzy on the dates, but aparently about 1990 the K-400 became a K-401. Using the serial number and date, we can tell what components a speaker should have and whether it's been modified.

I've found an ad for a pair of unfinished birch Heresies with a "Y" serial number that is listed with K-77 tweeters and 1.5" K-55-V squawkers. That's 2 or 3 errors. The '83 La Scala/K-horn/Belle had K-55-Ms and K-77-Ms. I always thought the Heresy changed to a K-52-K in 1982 like the other big Klipsch. The cabinets are supposed to be pristine and would be perfect to stain to match my La Scalas for a center channel. Now, if the drivers match, I'm gonna pop for them.

I've attached a Word file with the serial number in it. I believe this is the one made by Trey. Save it and delete the ".jpg" off of the end to view it.

[HDBRbuilder]

John,

Keep this in mind...there were a large number of alnico-magneted tweeters and mid-drivers held back for a number of years...after the changes "officially" went into effect. These were scattered throughout the plant where they had been "stashed away" previously by employees for the speakers they intended to buy in the future...and I am NOT talking about an employee just stashing away a pair of tweeters and mid drivers, either...some had a dozen or so of each! Whenever an employee left the company, for whatever reason, that "stash" kinda passed on to his/her replacement at that particular work-station. Before I left in 1983, there were at least two attempts to get employees to "give-up" these stashes...with no results...and around the time I left, most of these stashes were just taken...and then utilized in production....and even then...some escaped being found!

I have tried to make these points before on this forum...you can't DEPEND on a serial number telling you ANYTHING about what is ACTUALLY inside the speaker...especially from around 1973 thru 1984!...you can only make a close GUESS based upon what SHOULD be inside it!

Remember this too...many employees had their speakers specially built, but sold them at the end of a year for a tidy profit and bought another pair...the general planning mode for an employee as to buy a pair of Heresys as soon as working their long enough...at the end of the year of owning the Heresys, which were bought at 40% MSRP, the employee could easily sell em for the MSRP itself, or more(easy to do since employee speakers were "special builds" and highly desired)...then the employees would buy a pair of LaScalas or Cornwalls with the money from the Heresys sale...the next year sell those, take the money and get some Belles, the next year sell those, take the money and get some K-horns...etc...etc...etc...and all of these had those drivers that had been stashed back inside of them too!

I don't see that file attachment.