Heresy I technical performance

[jmmoore51]

I have read a number of comments on other sites referring to degradation of tweeter and squawker performance in the Heresy. Other than having them tested, is there someway to determine if mine have problems. My Heresy's are 1976 vintage, have never been opened, and seem to sound just find with my Jazz (stereo) and Theater (5.1) sources. Comments please.

[Dflip]

The usual suggestion is to replace the capacitors in the crossover networks. It is fairly easy to do if you can solder at all. If not there are people on this forum who can do it for you, of course, it will cost you a few dollars. The caps degrade over time and yours are probably working at less than desired efficiency.

What they will need to know is what crossover network is in the speakers, E-1, E-3, etc... and then they can tell you which caps to buy.

The new caps will open up the tweeter and squawker to their original levels.

[WMcD]

Welcome to the forum. You'll find a a lot of good information and fine people here.

No one here has reported that the drivers and horns go bad, save for obvious failures due to overdriving.

The same, or similar drivers are used in K-Horns, Cornwalls, Belles, and LaScalas. I'd estimate there are about 50,000 of them total out there in use. (I seem to recall at least 10,000 K-horns being made and that about 5 times as many Heresy. So these are very round numbers, some must have been unappreciated and junked, unfortunately.)

There are different variations of the K-55 mid and the K-77 tweeter. People have favorites but none are going soft from what I've read.

There is the theory that the caps in the crossovers go off spec. Bob Crites (supplier of replacement crossovers and parts) has measured some old ones as going off spec. and I take him at his word. People who have replaced them have reported good results.

Can you tell without sophisicated equipment? No.

I'd say, if you are happy, no need to fix them. OTOH, you never know what could be accomplished.

Others will respond and you'll get some good input.

One thing I'll mention as ask comment. The P-Trap is a simple mod for the K-Horn. This goes to the high end of the midrange. Yet I've not seen it mentioned as being used for the other speakers. I would think there are similar problems and this is the solution. Comments?

Gil

[whamo]

Hello and welcome to our forum. Well your post had one key note in it where you said "they sound fine". Now we can leave it there or we can open up a whole can of worms on this. For starters you need to update the old capacitors on your crossovers. You can add acoustafoam to the interior. You can change update tweeters squawkers etc. anyways it's a neverending list of options. Kinda like that movie "Forest Gump" where that Bubba character goes into his speel about all the ways you can prepare shrimp.. if you're familiar with that movie. Anyways I believe that you'd be satisfied with the crossover upgrade. Other's will chime in surely. Good luck, Mark

[Daddy Dee]

John,

Welcome to the forum. You have gotten some good advice in the posts above. Luckily, if the drivers are working they are fine. The advice on the crossovers has also been good. In 31 years there is a high probability that the crossover caps have drifted off spec. Good news, it costs very little to replace them. Bob Crites, BEC on this forum is an excellent source for the caps for DIY or turn key work. If you do it yourself, I think you'd find it most interesting to restore on crossover first and compare the sound. If the caps have gotten resistive, you will notice a distinct improvement.

[jmmoore51]

These speakers have never been overdriven, I mean come on it doesn't take a bunch of watts to get hugh sound out of these guys. The only thing I know of that concerns me is recent lightning strike about 1 1/2 years ago that fried all my phones and my modem and affected the FM performance of my Yamaha but when the Yamaha went into protective mode it emitted an extremely high frequency signal but when reset everything except the fact that I can only hear NPR in mono (or Manual on a Yamaha) seems fine.

[jmmoore51]

Thanks Gil,

I appreciate your comments. I am the original owner of the units and live only 1.5 hours from the original plant. Could you provide an E-mail address or link to find replacement caps. I think I can handle a soldering iron since I used to build Knight kits when I was a kid. I would appeciate cautions or advice regarding the opening of the boxes. As far as I can tell all drivers are perfect, at least I can guarantee the woofers and squawkers are, my concern about tweeter performance triggered this inquiry.

Klipsch eats Bose for breakfast, Polk for lunch and B&W for dinner!

Thanks,

JM

[DrWho]

Well if they sound fine, then I wouldn't go worrying about anything. Now if something sounds amiss, then I might suggest tearing into them. Generally speaking, when a driver goes out, it's going to completely malfunction - especially when lightning is involved. It's hard to get drivers to partially break. That said, as long as you can verify that the tweeters are working, then there's prob not much to worry about. At least that's been my own experiences.

Or this a case of the upgrade bug and feeling the need to tinker with something? [] Nothing wrong with that I suppose, it'll just lead you down a different path.

Welcome to the forum

[Groomlakearea51]

Welcome to the Forum!!

Having had a bazillion H-I's over the years (yes, I know, it's an obsession, but the medicine from Sam Adams seems to help alot now...), everyone is pretty much right about the capacitators. Unfortunately, they just "dry out" and since they do it over time, you really never know because it's so gradual.

One of the other interesting things about the H-I's is that you can also "cure" another problem that is common: weak low end bass response. When they were made, they are relatively well "sealed" Being an acoustic suspension design, the enclosure needs to be sealed. Over time, and for a variety of other reasons, the wood dries out, glue dries and flakes, and the braces inside tend to "shrink" (not much, but enough).

The result is they become "leaky", and they lose the internal back pressure for the woofer to operate correctly during it's "in-out" movement. The effect is that bass below about 70-80~ Hz (or more in some cases) gets killed off.

The solution (or one of them...) is easy, requires no special tools, takes about 1/2 hour, costs less than $10, and you get to see inside..... Since you will likely remove the crossovers for "recap" this would be a good time to do this.

Remove the back panel with a phillips head screwdriver, and lift it out of the way about 4-5 inches and disconnect the leads to the crossovers with a short flat head screwdriver. take the panel and lay it down out of the way. Examine the braces; most of the time, there will be small "gaps" between them. Take some woodworkers glue (a $2.99 bottle at Walmart...) and some sawdust and mix up a paste - fill the gaps, front and rear braces. Next, take your woodworkers glue and lay a "bead" on every internal seam between the braces, the panels, and the driver board. Next, take some black GE silicone (about $2.99 at Walmart), and put a 1 inch long "bead" on the edge of the woofer, next to the four screws; reason, there's a gap that leaks out to the cone. Take your finger and smooth it in flush (clean your finger afterwards...). Next, take a roll of 3/4" wide closed cell weather strip foam tape ($2.99 at Walmart...), and put a strip on the bracing pieces where they are against the rear panel. Let everything dry, Usually the best thing to do is let it dry overnight and check the beads, the gaps, etc the following day. Reinstall the leads to the crossover, reinstall the board. Cross-tighten the screws to make sure it's flush and does not "warp".

Plug them in with something that you know well with decent bass on the material. You should notice an improvement; should sound "tighter".

Hope that helps you in the Heresy "home improvement" arena.

[thebes]

One thing I'll mention as ask comment. The P-Trap is a simple mod for the K-Horn. This goes to the high end of the midrange. Yet I've not seen it mentioned as being used for the other speakers. I would think there are similar problems and this is the solution. Comments?

Gil

The p-traps have been used in both in the Heresy's and Cornwalls. I think for the Heresy's it depends on weather you have the spring loaded (Atlas) or soldered terminal K55V squaker. I do know 3dZapper uses one in his Cornwalls but not sure if that is driver dependent or what

[jmmoore51]

Great feed back Guy's I appreciate it. Being a major Klipsch apostle it's suddenly nice to know there are other guys out there that care about preserving the best speaker systems ever made! I particularly enjoyed the response regarding sealing of the cabinets for tighter bass response but I run my SW10 in stereo as well as theater I probably wouldn't hear the difference. Thanks to Gil for his quick and helpful advice. Sounds like I need to pop these guys open and determine which crossover I have (fortunately I have consecutive serial numbers) buy the caps, install and put back together. A couple more ???'s. Anybody see a "kit" to change the H1 from the screw strip to binding post/banana plug? Ala the H2. Remodeling the house, sure would make moving these guys around easier plus save the wear and tear on the old Phoenix Gold speaker cables. One more and I'm done. Does any one have a Heresy 1 owner's manual they could E-mail me. Mine are vintage 1976, the manuals and original cartons were lost when I moved back to Shreveport from Atlanta. My brother decided to liberate my Heresy's from storage for his own use and 86'd the cartons and stuff. johnmmoore44@hotmail.com is my address.

Thanks again guys, I am glad I discovered this forum, I had given up on getting any help with some of this stuff.

John

[jmmoore51]

Thanks,

Fortunately they were built about 75 miles north of here. Our average humidity is 80% and mine started life as Birch plywood and have been polyurethaned since day 3. Opposite problem for JBL fans, the humidity kills those ridiculously weak woofer surrounds.

I met Paul in 1991 when I almost went to work for the sales dept.

[Hardhead]

John--

I'm not sure you're going to get much information from a Heresy owner's manual, even if you can find one. There just isn't much information in the Klipsch owner's manuals, as I recall.

If your Heresys haven't been messed with since 1976, they should have the Type "E" crossovers, but do open the back to make absolutely sure. You can find a schematic of the Type "E" crossover in the archives of this forum by using the search function. If that doesn't work any better than it did the last three times I tried to use it, ask someone here to post a copy. You'll be able to see the capacitor values that you need to order.

I do suggest that you change out the capacitors. The deterioration in sound from old capacitors is so very gradual over the years that it's impossible to notice. Your speakers still sound good, but I guarantee they'll suddenly sound MUCH better with updated/upgraded capacitors. I suggest metalized polypropylene film or polypropylene film and foil types. You can see from the schematic where each capacitor should be soldered in--don't be afraid of doing it yourself. If you have trouble or questions, get back with us.

If you're looking for binding posts, you can look at these http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=091-1245&CFID=10645242&CFTOKEN=68485385 , for example. Parts Express has several different types. I'm sure you can find one you like. Parts Express has some very good capacitors, too.

Good luck.

[Groomlakearea51]

Opposite problem for JBL fans, the humidity kills those ridiculously weak woofer surrounds.

Hear! Hear! as the Brits will say when asking for applause.[]

When I arrived in Florida after active duty, I had Klipschorns, LaScalas and one pair of H-I's that I obtained in the military (cheap!!), and a ton of 4311's, 4312's, 4313's, and L166's (Like Klipsch, they were sold in the Audio Clubs in Europe for about half of what they cost in the US). I used them as "surrounds", bookshelves, connected to the TV/VCR, etc. After about 10 years, the humidity had wrecked the woofer surrounds on just about all of the JBL's. Even with the A/C set correctly, it was just a matter of time. After replacing all of the woofers, by 2001, I had had enough of it and started trading them all off for Heresy's. About a year ago, the woofers in the last pair of 4311's died, and when I called JBL parts, they looked on their database and told me "sorry", I had bought the last pair of woofers in stock the year before. Oh well, somebody wanted them, and they were great, I really liked the ability to adjust the crossover for room acoustics, but I've never looked back.

Florida humidity.... My first Klipsch "failure" was a an original K-33 on my original Klipschorns last year. I pulled them both and found that the inner chrome/nickel core "plating" had corroded from humidity, peeled, "locking up" the driver. The plating had badly corroded at the edges, and there was evidence that this had happened some time way in the past. Other one had the discoloration so it was scrapped and both replaced with B&K's CT-1526's. The seals on the bass bins were shot, thus humidity probably got in over time. Checked the other K'horns, LaScalas, Heresy's, etc., seals were still good and bins smelled "dry". Maintenance time... All new seals on everything with panels, access panels, etc. My house is "'stick" built, and is "up off the ground" on beams (old Florida style), rather than on a slab (modern and cheaper method). Humidity is usually around 50-55%. Slab houses can average 60-70% and more on the floor. When we first moved down here, we lived in an old ranch house with no A/C for a couple years, then slab houses for over 10 years (and so did these K'horns). The K'horns that failed were never used on a constant basis down in Florida until we moved into this house and finally had enough corners (They are BB's and the WAF factor applied to them not being allowed in the living room...), but the caps were really dried out by the time they went back into service.

So, here's a couple interesting thoughts to throw around.... On my original HWO's, I tested the crossover units about a year ago and they are still in "spec". Caps are still ok. Now, that being said, am I just lucky? or... is it because I use them every day in the kids HT setup and they get warm? Is some humidity "good" for caps? Any ideas on those "theories"?