Klipsch Museum and Factory Pix

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Hi gang, Here's my initial set of photos of the Klipsch Museum and Factory in Hope, Arkansas from the Heritage Gathering Sept 17, 2005.

Kindly send any corrections in the text to me via PM and I will make corrections. I have downsized the photos to 640 pixels or less and about 200kb for easier loading.

Michael

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Our fearless leader and top driver, Trey Cannon, outside the doorway to Klipsch Museum. It's right across the road form the Heritage and Pro sound Factory.

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Here's Woodog and Seadog tinkering away.

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Seadog's Scott preamp with Mahogany case- obtained separately I might add. They are beauties. Underneath is his SACD player. He's got quite a collection. That Scott sounds magnificent!

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Here's Fini and LarryC discussing the evenings listening activities.

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Main event, the troops gravitate toward our Mecca, The Klipsch Museum.

That's Archetype, Trey and Woodog.

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First room has several early playback devices in the way of Edisons and Grammaphone players. Several display cases are filled with early horns and speaker cones. Wall displays exhibit early drawings from PWK, tear sheets from magazines and ads.

On the left is a photo of a cabinet one owner made from a bizarre hunk of walnut for his speaker cabinet.

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The main room of the Museum houses several Khorns of various vintages, Rebels, Shorthorns, Runt LS, and cutaway models. This corner shows a very early Cornwall, a maple Klipschorn with original white grille cloth, and an early Rebel cabinet.

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Okay, I'm partial to the Cornwalls. This early Mahagony unit features the very unique grille cloth that wraps around three sides. The port is a tall vertical slot in the middle of the back, and the face frame is very unique. Note that the box extends all the way to the floor, but the face frame gives the impression of 'legs'. Tres cool!

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Here's a detailed shot of the same CW, showing museum placard, beautiful mahagony top plate, face frame, and grill cloth. I tried to get detailed shots of all early grilles and Klipsch logo plates throughout the series. PM me if you'd like a higher res color corrected image of any of these.

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Same room, here's a straight on view of the LS Runt. Exactly as used on Gov Rockerfeller's campaign train. The W section is about 1/2 the height of normal LS, or about 12". Mid and high are the same, note the vertical orientation of the K77. This unit had external xover on top and two carry handles.

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Here's the much discussed photo of the detail of a 50th Anniversary Khorn. Very retro and unique.

Many of these speakers show lack of maintenance and care. The windows have no UV glass or curtains, so the sun has been blasting down on them. This 10 year old Anniversary of the namesake of the line is already suffering much sun damage. Please write to the museum and ask them to please make efforts to protect these wood cabinets.

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Here are three early Heresies. From L -> R they house 8", 12", and 10" woofers. The center is the basic model H or 700. Very cool grille fabrics on these as well. The tops are in Mahagony again, maybe it was a big favorite back then.

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There's a couple of Klipschorns in a cutaway style, probably used for seminars and as sales aides. Here's kind of an overall view. They even have the drivers and horns cutaway. That had to be one heck of a project.

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Khorn LF section cutaway view.

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K77 with alnico magnet cutaway view. Wonder if Bob Crites has a couple of these lying around?

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Front panel of Khorn with Zebrawood. Excellent example of the bookmatching they did of the veneers in the old days. Trey reiterated the story that the speakers were built in matched pairs by wood grain, not sound quality. If one became damaged or didn't pass inspection, BOTH of the pair were destroyed. Oh, to have dumpster dived in Hope in 1976! Nowadays, anything trashed at the facility is sledgehammered first to discourage this practice.

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Here's an early 400 horn made of wood and masonite.

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same horn, reverse angle