Those old Heritage speakers

[Deang]

Mike, within 5 years the Heritage Series speakers will incorporate Tractrix horns and new tweeters -- at which point they will revert back to simpler network topologies. When this happens, I will print off this thread -- and staple it to your forehead. You can then ask them what is so different about what they have done -- as opposed to what some of us are doing now.

[Duke Spinner]

There are hobbies for which restoration is desireable - say cars, or pinball machines - but this is not one of those hobbies....I am being nice here, please don't misconstrue my meaning.

Chris

OOOHHHH...

there are Collector's ....

'

that would love to burn you ......

As soon as 1957 Chevies that are 100% original, from rusty floors, to fan belts, to cracked windshields, to bald tires, to pitted chrome, to faded paint jobs begin to win first prize trophies at car shows, I'll turn my thoughts away from restoration. Until then, please introduce me to the collectors who proudly own and display these faulted gems....

Chris

it's not the Car collectors ...

it's the Guitar/ Guitar Amp collectors

that won't touch Nothin'

especially bad caps....let 'er hum, Fred, she sounds original that way ....

[popbumper]

Gotcha - now that's a group of folks I have never nor ever will "hang" with...so I would not have known that!

Chris

[DrWho]

Aye, but tractrix is way better than exponential and there are plenty of measurements to go around to support it []

The point isn't that things can't be improved - it's the verification process (or rather lack thereof). Theory and paper only go so far.

[soundbound]

The original design is not being changed at all. New drivers are replacing old. The diaphragm and woofer replacements are just like the originals. Not different drivers. My speakers sounded OK with the old drivers. Being around electronics for many years, I've seen the effects of age. When I saw the working but terrible aged condition of the diaphragms I was not surprised. Ask others who have done 20+ year old diaphragm replacements what condition they have seen diaphragms in. My old working OK sounding diaphragms looked like someone baked them in an oven. Dark brown, dried out, and the voice coils were a green blackish color. The woofers looked OK. When I replaced them the sound improvement was very apparent! Highs and mids so much smoother and cleaner. The bass was so much better it was unbelievable! My old woofers were really worn out, but I had no way of knowing because of no reference. New woofers are $100, squawker diaphragms $50 and tweeter diaphragms $30 each. I found that to be a very low cost for the improvement I received. I completely understand those who say why fix it if it's not broken. For me it just made since to replace my 28 year old crossovers, wire, diaphragms and woofers. As I stated, I did not change the design at all. That's why I went with Bob's A/AA crossovers. They are like my originals, but new as are the woofers and diaphragms. If you heard the before and after, you would know why I posted. All 20+ year old electronics degrade and that is a fact.

[johnyholiday]

"JRFE"- Johny's Reality Formula Equation = "Perspective is everything."

{located in Chart Room}"stock market" annotations, an "magnetized voice

coils" interchangable, both exhibit chaotic behavior

[soundbound]

I'll try to post a photo.

[Deang]

I read that last post of mine this morning and realized I must have had a screw loose last night. Five years would be nice, but it will probably be much longer. Wishful thinking I guess. The point is, changes will come, and when they do -- everyone will fall over themselves and wax poetic over what Klipsch has done, but it won't be much different than what the DIY community has been doing for decades. There's only so much you can do with these horns and drivers, and when you mate them together you get what you get. People around here measure continually, and though it is true that not everything that can be measured is measured -- the most critical parameters are covered. I have much more to say about this, but I will stop and simply say that I can't help but feel they are blowing smoke up your butt. I feel terrible saying that.

I agree that an out of the box new driver can be further out of tolerance than an old one that's working correctly. However, people don't fix things are working right, they fix things that are broken. Things that are no longer working right no longer sound right -- and you don't need a freaking anechoic chamber and a room full hardware and software to confirm it. Some of the stuff you are saying about this simply defies common sense.

It seems the message at the Pilgrimage this year was, "Leave them there Klipsch speakers alone, they're probably O.K. even if the plywood is coming apart." I mean, it's all we've heard around since everyone has come back -- and it's getting ridiculous. I will tell you that a freshened up set of Heritage speakers will flat out crush a 30 year old pair that have had nothing done to them.

Fine, don't trust your ears - measure everything. However, at the end of the day it's about listening -- and it's the ears that will ultimately decide the validity of the measurements. Fact is, things that measure good often sound bad. Good measurements aren't as important as good sound.

[colterphoto1]

"JRFE"- Johny's Reality Formula Equation = "Perspective is everything."

{located in Chart Room}"stock market" annotations, an "magnetized voice

coils" interchangable, both exhibit chaotic behavior

Uh, is that Percy?

[soundbound]

Good, my photo shows on post above. You can see new diaphragms left and old right. You can clearly see what age does. Check out those old voice coils. I understand that most old Heritage speakers can sound like new ones. As I stated, mine sounded OK when I got them, but now they sound better than OK. Others may not get the same results as I did. I'm not recommending that old Heritage speaker owners need to do this. I think it's great that there are those so passionate about their older Heritage speakers that they do not want to change anything about them to influence their vintage sound in any way. I consider replacing the diaphragms as an update and not an upgrade.

[DrWho]

For not being there you're really taking a lot of liberty to make character judgements.

Nobody ever said that more in spec components wouldn't sound better (hello, that's why the spec exists in the first place). What I saw in Hope has just encouraged me to be a bigger skeptic considering the huge boasts being made around here with no actual verification. I totally agree that there is always an audible difference, it's the claimed magnitude of difference that is blown outta proportion.

Everybody knows that something can measure well and sound bad. But something that sounds good always measures well and something that measures poorly always sounds bad.

[DrWho]

I read that last post of mine this morning and realized I must have had a screw loose last night. Five years would be nice, but it will probably be much longer. Wishful thinking I guess.

Well they're already using tractrix tweeters in the new cornwall and heresy...I don't remember if they put it in the lascala and khorn though

[DrWho]

Good, my photo shows on post above. You can see new diaphragms left and old right. You can clearly see what age does. Check out those old voice coils.

I wasn't around back in the 70's, but I'm pretty sure that's closer to the original color of the voice coils / diaphragms when they were made...

Glad to hear your music is sounding better.

[BEC]

Doc,

How about this one. I just weighed 4 new and 4 old (and discolored) K-55 diaphragms. All the new ones weighed 8.5 grams each. All the old ones weighed 9 grams each. The part number is exactly the same and construction seems to be exactly the same. I would think the extra 0.5 gram weight of the old ones would be from absorbed material from the air. Now, I don't know the moving mass of this diaphragm, but I think that most of the extra 0.5 grams would be added to that.

Bob Crites

[DrWho]

Were they not originally that color? It seems evey driver I see from that era is the same shade???

And how accurate is your scale? Could that be a .1 gram difference causing rounding errors? And though the part number / construction is identical, if nothing else the raw stock of materials has probably changed a bit over the years (and probably some of the machinery too)?

Half a gram seems like a lot for an airborn issue...shouldn't you be able to wipe it all off? or at least feel the grime?

[BEC]

Doc,

Accuracy problems would be why I did four new and four old. Each old one weighed 0.5 grams more than each new one. Never tried to clean up an old one.

Bob

[bodcaw boy]

i will double check but i think that the spec for that phenolic diap is +/- 1 gram. phenolic diaps are still made pretty much the same crude way.

i really debated on whether or not i would reply to this thread. there seems to be alot of emotion and not much fact. all i will say is this: if you have a chance to measure your system before and after, do it. i love to use my ears as my last measurement tool but it doesn't hurt to educate them.

[bodcaw boy]

i will double check but i think that the spec for that phenolic diap is +/- 1 gram. phenolic diaps are still made pretty much made the same crude way.

i really debated on whether or not i would reply to this thread. there seems to be alot of emotion and not much fact. all i will say is this: if you have a chance to measure your system before and after, do it. i love to use my ears as my last measurement tool but it doesn't hurt to educate them.

[BEC]

Roy,

I have run FR curves on lots of old K-55Vs and only found two working that I could see a problem in FR. In both of those cases, the low end was the problem with a steep roll-off below 1 khz. Diaphragm replacement fixed both of those. That sort of surprised me, since I would have thought the problem would be on the top end if there was a problem at all with the old diaphragms.

By the way, I could see nothing unusual about the looks of the diaphragms that rolled off below 1 khz compared to others that did not. Could not see it in DCR either.

Bob Crites

[Deang]

For not being there you're really taking a lot of liberty to make character judgements.

Well, I wasn't really trying to assassinate anyone's character, though I thought it might be taken that way -- and why I said I felt bad for saying it. What I'm saying is that how it looks is that things are being presented in such a way that somewhat defy logic, and appear more or less designed to protect Klipsch interests -- and not so much the interests of those who are buying 25 year old or older Klipsch speakers off of eBay. Then of course there is the inference in all of this that we are ripping people off, and twice in the last week we have been indirectly referred to as "hucksters", and "charlatans" -- so apparently no one is worried about assassinating our characters.

Why is the burden always on us to prove everything? This forum rarely, if ever, sees any input from the Klipsch technical people on anything. If someone is doing something stupid, or just plain wrong -- where is the input from Klipsch, and where are their measurements? Really, both are completely non-existent. In fact, some of the best tech support Klipsch has is provided by those in this very community!

What I saw in Hope has just encouraged me to be a bigger skeptic...

So, what did you "see", be specific. My work wasn't represented, so I don't even know if it applies to me.

...considering the huge boasts being made around here with no actual verification.

Must be specific Mike. I might want to take discussion about this offline.

I totally agree that there is always an audible difference, it's the claimed magnitude of difference that is blown outta proportion.

Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

Everybody knows that something can measure well and sound bad.

True.

But something that sounds good always measures well...

Not true.

...and something that measures poorly always sounds bad.

Not true. Actually, it depends on what is being measured -- and how bad it measures.

Mr. Delgado -- yeah, you bet it's emotional. I spend long hours in my workroom, and try to glorify both God and Klipsch through my work -- so sure, some of the things being implied just hurt.