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Cornwall II vs. Chorus II--shootout in CT


jhawk92

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Since Leok has recently climbed on the Chorus II bandwagon, Reg (Sprocket) and I decided that in our next audio get-together wed do a totally unscientific comparison of the Chorus II and Cornwall II. So, I lugged my OO 1990 Chorus II from their position as HT mains, and loaded them up in my Explorer for the 45 min drive to Regs place and see how they would hold up against his 1984 (I think) lacquered birch Cornwall II with cane grills.

I must admit, it was SOOO much easier loading these into the Explorer in comparison to the K-horns. In fact, both speakers fit in the back so that I didnt have to fold down the seats. As mentioned before, Reg was up at my place for a demo with my K-horns and his Moondogs/Paramours about 6 weeks ago, and since I had a great demo with Treys Cornwalls in Indy, I figured some good 2-ch listening was in order.

We got the speakers unloaded and set them aside to first do some listening with the Cornwalls. Reg has a nice system set up in his living room with the Cornwalls being driven by the Moondogs or his Paramours on any given day. They were running through his Acurus RL-11 preamp, so we had the same basic system as he had brought for our K-horn audition. I dont remember the model of the Sony CD player, and the Acurus SS amp drives the B&W speakers when hes in a digital mood, but heres the equipment rack.

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As Reg so adeptly put it in that post, where I have a carpeted airplane hanger of a room for the K-horns, he has a much cozier setting with nice hardwood floors and area rugs. Distance from the speakers to the listening position was about 8.5ft, which is slightly less than the 13ft to the Chorus IIs in my HT and much less than the 21 feet from the K-horns when we did that audition.

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His room is certainly more lively than my room, but Im sure that has lots to do with the hardwood floors he has and normal ceiling height, where I have pretty deep carpet and vaulted ceilings in the 16x24 great room. Here is the pic from the listening position.

<ahttp://home.earthlink.net/~jhawk92/images/Soundstage1.jpg>

We started out with his Cornwall/Moondog combo with some of the same tunes we listened to at my place, so I could compare the two speakers; Patricia Barber, Janis Ian, Holly Cole, Diana Krall, etc. I popped a few of my discs in too, and things sounded quite good on the Cornwalls. Bass was nice and tight, and there was the familiar Klipsch midrange horn and tweeter. I thought the midrange on the Cornwall was a bit more forward, but we held off on judgment until we tried out the Chorus IIs. Last up was the London cast recording of Phantom of the Opera. After that, we decided to swap out to my OO beauties and try them with the Moondogs. This would be my first time with tubes on these, as the last time we stayed strictly with the K-horns. It was fun to stand them up next to each other. Chorus is about an inch taller, both are 15.5 deep, but where the Chorus is 18.5 wide, the Cornwall is about 25.5 wide. The smaller footprint of the Chorus is pretty nice in my situation.

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Im kicking myself that I didnt bring an extra set of cables, as that would have made things much easier to go between speakers, but it wasnt too difficult, though I must admit I do prefer my 5-way binding posts to the original screw terminals on the Cornwalls; so much easier to use bananas to go back and forth. At any rate, we slid the Chorus into position and put on Phantom of the Opera. Yep, there was the great sound I had grown to love at my place. Solid bass with the 15 driver and 15 passive, and the great midrange, slightly softer than the Forte, and yes, not as bright, forward, or whatever term you want to use, as the Cornwall. I dont know if it has something to do with the crossovers, the exponential horn of the Cornwall vs. the Tractrix of the Chorus II, or the drivers, or maybe even the material that the horns are made of. Any technical input here from the board would be great.

At any rate, both of us noticed that in general, the Chorus played with the same clarity as the Cornwall, but with a slightly more reserved midrange. Reg said the Cornwall seemed brighter than the Chorus and he doesnt use bright as a good description. Diana Krall was the most noticeable; in several of her songs, she hits certain notes at a certain volume and they start to sound almost harsh on the Cornwall, but not as much on the Chorus.

Bass on the Chorus was just as good as the Cornwall. The Chorus II is rated at 39Hz (not sure of the Cornwall) and it was fun to hear how well the speaker does without a sub. Certainly I could hear in various music selections bass that I knew was there and that played through with my SVS, but for overall 2-ch listening, the Chorus II performed admirably. Ill have to try them at home without the sub and see how the carpet makes a difference on things.

We ran through several of the same selections on the Chorus IIs that we started with on the Cornwalls, as noted above. The Moondogs were configured to run at 4.5W for these tests and the 100dB efficiency of the Cornwall and 101dB for the Chorus II certainly made for some great tunes. About halfway through, we pulled out the Paramours and gave them a try. They are stock and set to output 3.5W with a single 2A3 tube. We could hear a bit more noise with them, as compared to the Moondogs, but were still pretty quiet.

Reg took over the CD duties for a while, trying out a number of his favorite selections from different realms; The Doors, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Larry Carlton, Boonet James, Miles Davis, etc, to see how the Chorus IIs sounded. Overall, I think he was quite pleased with them and Ill let him chime in with his thoughts.

We finished up back with the Cornwall/Moondog combo, where I broke out some of the Styx, Boston, Enya, Def Leppard, and Metallica that I brought. All sounded very good with the combo, and while we didnt push things too hard, there were a few times where the 2A3 seemed to struggle a bit. Reg said that I should do quite well with my Scott 299B once it gets back from Craig, but that if I ever looked at separates, the 300B tube puts out closer to 8 watts, which certainly gives some more headroom.

Overall, Id say that the Chorus II is a very worthy replacement for the venerable Cornwall. The smaller footprint makes it very attractive in locations that are tight on space and the passive radiator helps it reach a bit lower than the original Chorus. Between our two specimens, I think I could pick them out in a blind test because of the brighter midrange on the Cornwall, but maybe a bit of rope caulk would help that situation. I think the Chorus displays the Heritage sound that we all know and love, though if I were matching speakers for a Big Heritage HT, Id want to see if there was enough of a timbre difference between Chorus and, say, K-horn, to stick with the older models.

I can definitely see where Mike Lindsey ended up going with the LaScala for his situation; the Cornwall and Chorus II are nearly identical, so Im glad he decided to part with his Chorus IIs, as they make a great addition to my system. In summary, I dont think you can go wrong with either speaker. It would mainly depend on space available in a given room and if you are trying to match with other Big Heritage or searching for that elusive pair of vertical Cornwalls or Alnico magnets.

As we were loading things back into the Explorer, Reg and I figured wed have to do another audition at my place with once the Scott arrives and gets broken in. It would be fun to put the vintage 299B up against the Moondogs. He got me thinking pretty seriously about working up a pair of false corners to set the K-horns in so we could tune the sweet spot to be a bit closer to the listening position. Time to check out my Dope from Hope pages and see what sort of material list Ill need. My wife already rolled her eyes about that subject, but she humors me, so Ill keep her around. 9.gif

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Great post!

I have been really curious about how Chorus would do head to head with Cornwall and not surprised at the results.

Now, because of the interesting threads back in the history of the forum... on the preferences for La Scala or Cornwall.... now we need a LS CW shootout.

Regards,

Dee

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Rob,

Keep that audition in your memory banks at least until Wednesday. My 299b and cornwalls are next on the list for you I guess (and maybe some pizza). You seem to be taking in a lot of combinations lately! Sausage or pepperoni?9.gif Also, bring some CDs. While your at it, will your choruses fit in the overhead compartment?9.gif

I wish my macs were ready. That'll be this weekend.

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Excellent review, and great pictures to boot. Your review answers many questions to the ol' Chorus/Cornwall debate, and like you said, you won't go wrong with either loudspeaker! I never saw the Chorus side by side with a Cornwall (I didn't realize they were that big)! A wonderful write up that will make any Chorus/Cornwall owner happy they chose how they did!

PS - Gotta ask...what's up with that huge mockup of a wall outlet behind the left side of the audio rack?4.gif

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Rob

Well spoken as usual man. Thanks for hauling those delightful speakers to the house Sat. I realy enjoyed that day. I think we listened for 5 hours before I fatigued.

You covered thing well, however I'll add a little. Diana Krall when powering up her very sexy voice to reach the back rows just gets this kinda thin delivery thats upsets my Corns. We both could hear it over and over again. We talked about a recent and frequent topic "rope caulk". I think Colin has a good article on it. Leok, ever mindful of the details, remindes us to get it on the right side of the horn.

This area, although a very small area is where the Corns and Chorus showed a little difference. The more forward signature of the Corns in the frequency where Diana's voice gets a bit naughty is unique to the lovely Diana and the unroped horns of my Cornwalls. We tried the Chorus II and even the B&W speakers with some solid state power and couldn't reproduce that condition with the same degree of shrillness. I may seem that I'm being extra hard on my beloved Cornwalls but we'er speaking of tiny areas there the speakers show there slightly different character.

Prerhaps I protest too much !!

At first I rated the Cornwalls a bit more dynamic than the Chorus II and thought this contributed to their failure in the D. Krall middle frequency reach for the back row thing. But later I backed away from that too. The speakers are just more similar than dissimilar to my ears.

Reg

post-7094-13819248494404_thumb.jpg

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Great post Jhawk92. I don't mean to be a wisea$$ but the Cornwalls

are not II's. The horn drivers are mounted from the inside of the front baffle. All Cornwall II's have the drivers mounted on the front of the baffle & don't have the removable rear back panel. I think Klipsch also started using MDF with a veneer on the Cornwall II's. Cornwall I's were birch plywood or lumber core with veneer. Klipsch started making the Cornwall II in either 1985 or 1986, I don't remember. I own 1977 birch plywood Cornwalls with risers stained in a light cherry finish. And 1983 Cornwalls in walnut veneer without risers. Both

Cornwalls & Chorus are excellent speakers.

Regards, Mike

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I really enjoy reading your posts -- post more often.

I think much of what you had here was a nice shootoff between exponential horns and a tractrix horns. I think maybe the wider flare of the tractrix lens accounts for the differences in the midrange you heard compared to the Cornwalls. Very interesting indeed. Looks like I might not be done dragging along on Leo's coat-tails after all.2.gif

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I have a dedicated outlet that was installed as our house was being built. The one problem with this, is that house grounds are pig-tailed together, so we don't in fact have a truly 'isolated' AC supply. The original ground rod to the house was galvanized. I removed that, and have two copper clad rods in its place, with those being daisy-chained together.

Sometime in the future, I plan to put in a dedicated audio earth ground. This will be just outside the window nearest the system.

Nah, doesn't make that much difference. This is one of those tweaky sorts of things that can end up driving one crazy before it improves the system -- like fancy power cords that do nothing but cost way too much. An easier way to do this would be to use an isolation transformer or a good line conditioner. There are also other ways to passively isolate a component from such things as line transients and spikes. Something I've seen used to great extent in radio applications, is the use of two high voltage, low value ceramic capacitors -- these are installed within the component. They are connected on the hot and neutral AC inputs, with the other leg of each capacitor to ground. Or a resistor of a few ohms can be installed in series between either the power ground and chassis, or main circuit ground and chassis. In either case, the effort is to obtain isolation.

In short, unless you also install a dedicated and isolated earth ground for an audio outlet, I can't suggest the trouble and cost of having an outlet put on its own breaker for audio. And by all means, don't simply lift the ground connection off the equipment as a way of achieving this -- a system should be grounded at at least one point for safety.

Even a completely isolated and grounded AC supply is not immune to the same grunge that feeds the rest of the house. The only way to improve that situation is to have a room full of car batteries connected in series to supply the DC requirements of all one's equipment. Don't laugh!1.gif This is what my father does for his transmitters and receivers. The batteries are charged by way of solar panels harvesting the bright sun of Arizona.

Erik

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jhawk92,

Very interesting and useful for many of us. You guys did a lot of very effective work. Thanks for the excellent report.

I've been very distracted for the past week or so. After replacing the Chorus-II midrange cap I've found that the parafeed-Moondog seems to be having resonance problems with the setup, although the mid distortion is definately reduced. The P6D is unbelieveably good .. almost perfect.

Anyway .. your info is very helpful. In general I've found the Chorus-II to sound better than anything I've heard. Now you've helped put it in perspective with the Cornwall.

Chris is going to give them a listen next week and maybe we get to try his Horus 2A3s on them.

Meanwhile I'll be trying to figure out just what's making the 'dogs so unhappy.

Thanks for a great post.

leok

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Excellent post and review Rob and Reg! It has to be a lot of fun, as well as informative, to be able to audition/compare so much high-quality gear under the same listening conditions.

----------------

On 7/21/2003 9:02:59 PM jhawk92 wrote:

At any rate, both of us noticed that in general, the Chorus played with the same clarity as the Cornwall, but with a slightly more reserved midrange. Reg said the Cornwall seemed brighter than the Chorus and he doesnt use bright as a good description. Diana Krall was the most noticeable; in several of her songs, she hits certain notes at a certain volume and they start to sound almost harsh on the Cornwall, but not as much on the Chorus.

----------------

Were you using an SPL meter at all? I was just wondering what kind of volume you were at when you noticed the "harshness"?

I'm looking forward to your next session-Cornwalls at Rob's place??

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And Yes....sorry you all, I got caught up in the dedicated AC outlet thing.

This was an interesting post, and reflected a lot of work in putting it all together! Those speakers aren't easy to lug around!

Leo: What ails your Moondogs? Did you have the same problem with the RF-7s?

Edster: My roll of film is almost finished; I've saved just a few shots for the finished amplifiers, which should be done tomorrow.

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Eric

I did not expect such a full and complete answer to the AC line question. Erik, you always answer with a slam-dunk. Big thanks. This question always surfaces for me when I listen very late at night. The system has that little extra in the wee hours of the AM. I do n't even have a word to discribe it. It just delivers greater pleasure when listening at that early time.

The item pictured (Jhon Risch power filter) is a kit from DIY Cable. I can't say it changed much but was fun to build. It entered my system a year ago in an attemp to duplicate that little extra, no word to describe it, performance that the early hours delivers.

Leok, I may have credited you for the caulk rope intervention a thread ago. I try to read everything you write and like Eric, it holds great significance. It was Lynn who's humoresque writing identified the correct surface of the horn to caulk. Thanks you and Leok look like brothers.

Rob does have a spl meter. Neither of us thought of including it for our audition. We'er so amateurish.

Reg

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Wow, guess this was going to be a hotter topic than I thought it would be. Glad everyone has enjoyed reading about it. It's been a blast getting to audition all sorts of great gear.

Dee-

While I didn't get a side-by-side comparison of LaScala and Cornwall there in Indy, I think I'd go for the Cornwall. The LaScala in the Heritage room seemed kinda dark, but then we played it right after the K-horn, so that may have "colored" my feelings. But I think it would be a great comparison between the two. Reg has been known to travel with Cornwalls! 9.gif

Gary-

Sounds like a plan for Wednesday. It will be great to hear a preview of the 299B, as it sounds like mine will be done this week and shipping early next week. I'll bring the rock CDs then. As far as pizza, pepperoni or sausage, or both. I'm just not big on mushrooms. And yeah, it would be great to bring the Chorus IIs with me, but that would put me over my weight limit on the Delta Shuttle. Even my wife asked if I was taking any speakers with me. Yikes, I must be getting predictable.

jt-

Yeah, it was a blast. I'm definitely happy with the ones I bought. I got a kick out of Reg's dedicated outlet too.

Reg-

Yep, happy to do it. I didn't realize how fast time went by either. It was quite fun getting to compare the two. Gary and I will try and recreate the Diana Krall edginess on Wednesday. I have the album name, but don't remember the specific song, so if you can chime in, we'll look for that.

Lonestar-

My humble apologies, on the I vs. II misnaming. 1.gif Guess I didn't look close enough on the back labels. Reg and I were wondering if any of the brightness could be caused by the sound waves reflecting off the motorboard since the horns are mounted from the back and the motorboard doesn't have the same contour as the horn itself. Just a thought, and it could be wrong.

Dean-

Happy to make a positive contribution to the board. It's nice to give back a little. Besides, I gotta get someone else to try and spend some money like this board has made me done over the past several years. 9.gif

dubai-

Will do. Reg and I were definitely interested in a rematch with the 'dogs vs. Scott. I don't know that I'll have the K-horns in false corners yet, but we'll see. I'd need to get them built before the baby arrives in December.

Marksdad-

Actually, I forget how big the Cornwalls are. The Chorus footprint seems to be a bit more wife-friendly with the difference in width. But both are great speakers.

leok-

Happy to help. Personally, I prefer the Chorus II as well in the "compact" Klipsch line. Still think you can't beat the K-horn though, so I'm really looking forward to trying them with the Scott.

Ed-

Yeah, I should have brought the SPL meter. Guess that was two things I forgot. Oh well, next time. It has been fun wandering all around the country, getting to listen to great gear. It all started in Hope last year with Tony Reed's system(s) and then your's last fall. Now just gotta get my false corners done. Not sure if the Cornwalls will make the trip, but that would be fun; K-horn vs. Cornwall vs. Chorus II. And what the heck, throw in the Forte II as well. Hmm, Reg may have to sleep over to get all that done!

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Nice info posted by all, especially to jhawk for a great review.

I was recently at an outdoor concert (local rock/blues/pop type stuff) and I noticed that the vocals and guitars at times seemed shrill when I stood near the mixing board guys. However, where we we sat on the ground, off center relative to the stage, the sound was really bass heavy (good sounding bass, not muddy) but the vocals and guitars were really relatively soft.

My point is, shrill and harsh are really quite dependent on many things, including the source material and room and such. And, live music, real live music can oftentimes be shrill and harsh when at loud volumes (>90 dB). Even acoustic stuff like large symphonies with horns and such. It would be interesting for you guys to do a similar Chorus and Cornwall bake-off in a different room and different speaker to sweet spot distances. I'd love to do a Chorus, Cornwall and KLF-30 and RF-7 bake-off. I owned both Cornwalls and KLF-30's and the harshness/brightness of the KLF's eventually led me to sell them (I could only keep one pair of speakers). I have often wondered if the drivers in my Cornwalls are OK when I read posts about how the Corns sound harsh compared with other speakers, or when people say that the Corns sound bad with hard rock/metal.

What crossovers were in the Cornwalls and Chorus which you guys tested? Conventional Wisdom seems to say that the AB's from 1970's used in the Corns are less harsh than the one's used in the 1980's.

Thanks for taking the time to write up what you guys heard!

Mace

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Great point Dean. JHawk, get Craig to toss a couple Telefunken 12AX7 smooth plates in the box with the Scott. He has plenty of them. 1.gif Sounds like the smooth upper end of the Chorus' just cries for the improved detail of the Tele's. Enjoyed the shootout review.

Keith

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