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what are the best year model(s) cornwalls?


avman

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4 hours ago, HDBRbuilder said:

What do you do for a living?  You sound just like the MDF salesman!  Expensive refers to more than just the material itself...labor time to putty up voids and other things requiring a bit more labor time. cutting tools changing, lots of things.  SONICALLY, Baltic birch PW is about equal to MDF!  I've only been a wood-worker for 50 years or so and I've used pretty much everything during that short time...I choose Baltic birch...you get whatever you want!  You haven't convinced me of anything other than you just DO NOT have a clue!

 

What don't I have a clue about?  Please be specific.  Tell me which of the following is incorrect and why:

 

MDF is easier to veneer. (it's surface is more consistent. No knots, etc..);

MDF is easier to make precise cuts, to shape, to route for recessed drivers;

MDF is more consistent from sheet to sheet;

MDF is slightly less expensive, but it's significantly heavier.  MDF speakers are probably more expensive to ship due to heavier weight (which challenges the "Bean counters prefer it 'cause it's cheaper" argument);

Klipsch Pro Series speakers have MDF baffles.  

 

As for my profession?  ..Not that it matters but I've been in Sales/ Marketing for 30+ years.  25 in Automotive, 5+ in Pharma.  And I too have spent plenty of time working with wood.

 

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Be very careful HDBRbuilder. This is the guy who told Roy he did not know what he was doing and if Roy doesn't you surely don't and I know I don't because I have been told so. But since I don't know I will ask for clarification.

 

  " MDF is easier to veneer. (it's surface is more consistent. No knots, etc..); "

  So basically you have never seen Baltic Birch or you would know it has no knots.

" MDF is easier to make precise cuts, to shape, to route for recessed drivers; "

  So basically what I saw on the router table while my own knot free Baltic Birch was being cut was not reality, correct?

  " MDF is more consistent from sheet to sheet; "

  I don't know but you have manufacturing tolerances to quote no doubt so post them.

 " MDF is slightly less expensive, but it's significantly heavier.  MDF speakers are probably more expensive to ship due to heavier weight (which challenges the "Bean counters prefer it 'cause it's cheaper" argument); "

  Boy you are in for it now HDBRbuilder

" Klipsch Pro Series speakers have MDF baffles. "

I don't know about that since the literature you love to quote talks about motorboards not baffles. Baffles are little wood thingies that go inside some of the speaker cabinets.

 

 

686681253_ScreenShot2019-10-15at5_27_16AM.thumb.png.d497afde22268306d0872769301a47e8.png

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44 minutes ago, ODS123 said:

 

What don't I have a clue about?  Please be specific.  Tell me which of the following is incorrect and why:

 

MDF is easier to veneer. (it's surface is more consistent. No knots, etc..);

MDF is easier to make precise cuts, to shape, to route for recessed drivers;

MDF is more consistent from sheet to sheet;

MDF is slightly less expensive, but it's significantly heavier.  MDF speakers are probably more expensive to ship due to heavier weight (which challenges the "Bean counters prefer it 'cause it's cheaper" argument);

Klipsch Pro Series speakers have MDF baffles.  

 

As for my profession?  ..Not that it matters but I've been in Sales/ Marketing for 30+ years.  25 in Automotive, 5+ in Pharma.  And I too have spent plenty of time working with wood.

 

Like I said...you get what you want to get, and I will get what I want to get...some of your points are at least partially valid, while others show a lack of real knowledge or advanced experience in woodworking to include certain tools, techniques, power tools,  necessary jigs and such that most people don't have or have never used to make things easier/quicker to do while woodworking.  IOW, I AM NOT TELLING YOU what YOU SHOULD DO...so do as YOU PLEASE...just don't attempt to enlighten me on what I already have lots of experience in doing unless you really know something I need to know.  Your tirade has NOT shown me that!  All I see is your OPINIONS and an attempt to prove it with salesmanship techniques represented as facts to support your OPINION.

 

You apparently don't even understand much about adhesives in woodworking, to include how they actually bond and what materials they work best with!  MDF sucks bigtime when adhesives enter the picture!  It is the WORST for effective bonding strength of adhesives!  It is adhesives that ARE SUPPOSED TO hold things together well..not fasteners.  Drop tests also show that MDF sucks...especially in corner or edge drop tests!  MDF is almost impossible to repair, too!  If MDF is so good, then why isn't it used much in home construction??  Because it has no STRENGTH on its own!  It cannot bear loads!

 

SO, do as you want to do...and stop with the continual tirade here to ME!  You will never convince me of its "superiority" as a wood-working material!

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30 minutes ago, Dave A said:

Be very careful HDBRbuilder. This is the guy who told Roy he did not know what he was doing and if Roy doesn't you surely don't and I know I don't because I have been told so. But since I don't know I will ask for clarification.

 

  " MDF is easier to veneer. (it's surface is more consistent. No knots, etc..); "

  So basically you have never seen Baltic Birch or you would know it has no knots.

" MDF is easier to make precise cuts, to shape, to route for recessed drivers; "

  So basically what I saw on the router table while my own knot free Baltic Birch was being cut was not reality, correct?

  " MDF is more consistent from sheet to sheet; "

  I don't know but you have manufacturing tolerances to quote no doubt so post them.

 " MDF is slightly less expensive, but it's significantly heavier.  MDF speakers are probably more expensive to ship due to heavier weight (which challenges the "Bean counters prefer it 'cause it's cheaper" argument); "

  Boy you are in for it now HDBRbuilder

" Klipsch Pro Series speakers have MDF baffles. "

I don't know about that since the literature you love to quote talks about motorboards not baffles. Baffles are little wood thingies that go inside some of the speaker cabinets.

 

 

686681253_ScreenShot2019-10-15at5_27_16AM.thumb.png.d497afde22268306d0872769301a47e8.png

Don't worry  about me, I can spot a "know it all" troll a mile away!  He's just another one of them!....wandering around trying to spout off all of his "knowledge" about things!..and trying to pick a fight over dissenting opinions!  They are like bulldogs...once they get your leg in their jaw-grip they just WILL NOT let go!  And must follow you around holding onto you and fighting you the entire time, because they NEVER LEARNED HOW and WHY and WHEN to JUST LET IT GO!  I tend to hope that they eventually learn,  and put a lot of the blame on piss-poor parenting and lack of discipline in their lives while growing up! Just gotta talk back...don't they?😉  Just gotta have the LAST WORD, every time!

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19 minutes ago, HDBRbuilder said:

Don't worry  about me, I can spot a "know it all" troll a mile away!  He's just another one of them!....wandering around trying to spout off all of his "knowledge" about things!..and trying to pick a fight over dissenting opinions!  They are like bulldogs...once they get your leg in their jaw-grip they just WILL NOT let go!  And must follow you around holding onto you and fighting you the entire time, because they NEVER LEARNED HOW and WHY and WHEN to JUST LET IT GO!  I tend to hope that they eventually learn,  and put a lot of the blame on piss-poor parenting and lack of discipline in their lives while growing up! Just gotta talk back...don't they?😉  Just gotta have the LAST WORD, every time!

I like this one though and think he is quite entertaining. He has an autoreact button that won't quit.

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1 minute ago, Dave A said:

I like this one though and think he is quite entertaining. He has an autoreact button that won't quit.

Too bad he doesn't have a pause or stop button!  My father sure knew how to pause and stop things!...He would just look over his glasses at you, act like he was getting out of his chair, as his right hand headed for his belt buckle...at that point you had better have already paused/stopped or the rest of the routine would not have been a pleasant experience for you!!!  Trust me!🤣

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On 9/30/2003 at 12:28 PM, avman said:

i'm going to look at a pair of cornwalls saturday, and was wondering what year/model(s) have the best sounding crossovers and design?

if i get them, i'll move my heresey 2's to surround duty9.gif

avman.

Whichever pair you happen to own are the best year.

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19 hours ago, HDBRbuilder said:

Actually, the current Cornwalls very much out-perform the earlier versions!, IMO!  And I've heard them all!  I still wish they were veneered plywood though!  I would just be afraid to see a kitchen leak or other event, which could happen and that would turn MDF substrate into oatmeal consistency...along with the additional hassle of having to have new boxes built at my own expense!. Certain materials can be relatively easily repaired, others NOT!  Y'all keep in mind that this entire thread was very old and just brought back to life the other day...I still don't know why, though!

 

I'm guilty of bumping the thread and bringing it back to life. I ended up here after going down a google rabbit hole after recently acquiring my Cornwalls and saw that you may have built mine so I quoted you. Didn't know it was going to start a wood vs MDF fight 😆🤷‍♂️. And I'm just going to assume you built mine since it seems most likely and it can't be proven otherwise, due to Frances' excellent sanding haha.

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8 minutes ago, salbake said:

 

I'm guilty of bumping the thread and bringing it back to life. I ended up here after going down a google rabbit hole after recently acquiring my Cornwalls and saw that you may have built mine so I quoted you. Didn't know it was going to start a wood vs MDF fight 😆🤷‍♂️. And I'm just going to assume you built mine since it seems most likely and it can't be proven otherwise, due to Frances' excellent sanding haha.

No worries, I was just thinking that others had not noticed the original thread was from 2003...and were posting to that section...maybe expecting replies from some people who haven't been on the forum in many years and may not even be alive anymore.

 

As for "an MDF fight"...again, no worries...some people like to troll others, but they end up becoming ignored sooner or later, get frustrated, and eventually look for somewhere else to play their games.  Otherwise they get banned and are forced to leave!  It is what it is.

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33 minutes ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

Whichever pair you happen to own are the best year.

 

Claude, 

Way to go Mr buss kill... this was getting good.🍺🍕.

And you know as well as I do, the best Cornwall is just south of Montreal but I am not sure what year it was built.

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2 hours ago, Dave A said:

" Klipsch Pro Series speakers have MDF baffles. "

I don't know about that since the literature you love to quote talks about motorboards not baffles. Baffles are little wood thingies that go inside some of the speaker cabinets.

 

https://www.svsound.com/blogs/glossary/speaker-baffle

 

"A speaker baffle is the front face of the a speaker...and is often an under-rated aspect of speaker engineering."

 

FWIW, I've only seen the term "motorboard" used by Klipsch.  ..Nonetheless, they are the same.  And the fact that Klipsch choses MDF for this "under-rated aspect of speaker engineering" for nearly ALL of their currently available speakers is interesting to me.

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2 hours ago, HDBRbuilder said:

 IOW, I AM NOT TELLING YOU what YOU SHOULD DO...so do as YOU PLEASE...just don't attempt to enlighten me on what I already have lots of experience in doing unless you really know something I need to know.  Your tirade has NOT shown me that!  All I see is your OPINIONS and an attempt to prove it with salesmanship techniques represented as facts to support your OPINION.

 

..Drop tests also show that MDF sucks...especially in corner or edge drop tests!  MDF is almost impossible to repair, too!  If MDF is so good, then why isn't it used much in home construction??  Because it has no STRENGTH on its own!  It cannot bear loads!

 

SO, do as you want to do...and stop with the continual tirade here to ME!  You will never convince me of its "superiority" as a wood-working material!

 

HDR, I'm not trying to convince you what to do.   And It's not for your benefit that I persist in my defense of MDF as at least an equal and perhaps a BETTER material for speakers.  

 

As for drop tests...  For goodness sake, I don't make my component choices based on what will best endure abuse or accidents.  ..As I've pointed out time and again, over the past 30 years I've had speakers from Boston Acoustics, Polk, Spica, KEF, PSB, Vandersteen, Paradigm, and now Klipsch and precisely NONE OF THEM has ever been dropped, or the unfortunate victim of an in-house water catastrophe. And every one was made from MDF - just like pretty much EVERY wood speaker these days.    Speakers are not houses.  

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28 minutes ago, HPower said:

 

Claude, 

Way to go Mr buss kill... this was getting good.🍺🍕.

And you know as well as I do, the best Cornwall is just south of Montreal but I am not sure what year it was built.

Then you will never know if I was the builder, will you?  I built the vast majority of all the Cornwalls from 1977 until fall of 1983....FWIW!

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21 minutes ago, HDBRbuilder said:

Then you will never know if I was the builder, will you?

Hey Andy,

I know your sub line says, "Forum Ultra Veteran", but 1784 would really date you. 😉

 

Of the 2 pairs of Cornwalls that I have owned, I liked my first pair that I purchase for member tuned4life (Doug) back in 2007.

They where 1984 vintage, and yes they were made of BB, and smothered in oiled Walnut. 😎

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Lesson 1: DROP TESTS on box-type loudspeaker cabinets are conducted for a number of reasons, ONE of the MOST IMPORTANT REASONS is to test the bonding of the adhesives used in the construction of them and to determine if it is truly bonding well at points of panel joints.  It can also be used to determine the superiority of different joinery types in order to make final production changes.  The entire concept is to have the box joints come apart, for one reason or another, and to note at what height of drop it finally did so. At this point the strength of the box-build can be used for comparison purposes.  As for bonding strength of the adhesives used at the now-broken joints, the breaks are analyzed to determine how well one panel bonded with its adhesive to another.  If the break is a clean break, then the bonding was not very good.  OTOH, if part of one panel is still stuck to the other panel, then the adhesive was able to make it into the fibers of both panels, prior to the adhesive completely curing....and a much better adhesive bond had been achieved with that particular adhesive and panel material type.  SInce the adhesive bonding ability is the goal, it can be compared to other adhesives and or other panel materials and the results of their drop tests.  This allows for the ideal material to adhesive combinations to be determined.  But, it also allows for determinations of which combinations still bonds well at a lower production cost for adhesives and/or panel materials.  Many other things can be determined, but these are considered two of the most important things gleaned from drop tests.

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36 minutes ago, HPower said:

Hey Andy,

I know your sub line says, "Forum Ultra Veteran", but 1784 would really date you. 😉

 

Of the 2 pairs of Cornwalls that I have owned, I liked my first pair that I purchase for member tuned4life (Doug) back in 2007.

They where 1984 vintage, and yes they were made of BB, and smothered in oiled Walnut. 😎

My sublines have been reset a number of times back to zero since I joined  the forum in the late 1990's.  It has  something to do with their making changes to the software on the form on an occasional basis, from what I have read.  My post count is fairly accurate, I think...but I have never tracked that stuff closely because it is no big deal to me. 

 

I presume your1984  "baltic birch" Cornwalls were not factory built.  That wasn't the standard material used for Cornwalls.  if they were factory-built and they came from the factory with black walnut veneers finished in oil in 1984, then the substrate would have been poplar lumber-core plywood...and NOT baltic birtch...until they started using MDF, years later.  I left Klipsch in October 1983. it was a few years after I left before they went to MDF in the panels.  The MITERED CABINETS were still being assembled using chain corner clamps to secure the glued panels tightly while being constructed. The Cornwall side panels were too long in length to use pneumatic-box-clamping methods to build them successfully on a regular basis.  They would bow inward too much and a good tight miter-joint  would not be achieved.  It was a number of years after I left before they went to that kind of clamping for the construction...although they had already moved to using that system for the building of mitered Heresy speakers well-before I departed. 

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19 hours ago, ODS123 said:

 

i’ve asked this before, and I will ask this again:  why should speakers be any more water resistant than any other component in our HIFI systems?
 

Last I checked, no amplifiers, R2R tape decks, cd players, turntables, tuners, flat-screen TVs, etc... were engineered with water resistance in mind. Why on earth do speakers need to be?  i’ve had all of these for many many years and none of them have ever fallen victim to water damage.  I find this obsession to be quite hilarious.   It's like you're offering a solution that is in search of a problem.  I've had probably 20+ pairs of hifi speakers over my lifetime and NONE has ever been water damaged.  ..So for me to ever factor that into my selection criteria would seem patently redic.

 

I’ve  Notice that some of you have your system set up in your garages.  Well,  maybe that’s the problem.  Set your Wi-Fi systems up in your house and maybe you won’t need to worry about water resisitance.  

 

Our place in Arizona was flooded from the unit above it last year. We were not there at the time but were planning on driving down a week after this happened. Everything in the condo was destroyed by water and/or mold... except for my speakers, TV and stereo which was in the living room and it took months to repair and renovate. We were lucky that our place is watched and checked regularly when we are not there so the water leak was found fairly quickly and stopped at the source. Still, I spent weeks and weeks living in hotels while part of the reconstruction work was done.

 

It was so hot there last summer that even my iPhone would shut down from being over heated. Scottsdale in June and July is not for me. Given the choice between Hell and Arizona I'm thinking Hell is likely colder in the summer months.:)

 

Wb

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8 minutes ago, Wolfbane said:

 

Our place in Arizona was flooded from the unit above it last year. We were not there at the time but were planning on driving down a week after this happened. Everything in the condo was destroyed by water and/or mold... except for my speakers, TV and stereo which was in the living room and it took months to repair and renovate. We were lucky that our place is watched and checked regularly when we are not there so the water leak was found fairly quickly and stopped at the source. Still, I spent weeks and weeks living in hotels while part of the reconstruction work was done.

 

It was so hot there last summer that even my iPhone would shut down from being over heated. Scottsdale in June and July is not for me. Given the choice between Hell and Arizona I'm thinking Hell is likely colder in the summer months.:)

 

Wb

HOT, huh?  Try Kuwait summers...120 degrees F to 140 degees F for around 8-9 months of the year, MEASURED IN THE SHADE!  I was there for 2.5 years straight, too!😉

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