Speaker Asylum General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

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Re: Klipsch Cornwall II not in my tastes.

Posted by mrh (Mark Hardy) (A) on January 23, 2003 at 06:19:20

In Reply to: Klipsch Cornwall II not in my tastes. posted by Rdc on January 22, 2003 at 18:12:29:

They may well not be to your tastes! And that's OK. They're certainly not reticent speakers; they're a bit aggressive, and as other posters have said, ruthless at revealing upstream (especially, IMHO, recording) flaws. Try your favorite-sounding LP or CD on 'em and see if there's a difference compared to, say, a highly-processed pop CD. If you REALLY don't like 'em, you'll have no trouble recouping your investment.

As to the woofers... nope, they're not long excursion but the system is capable of fairly deep bass. They definitely need a big room to breathe. As noted by another post, they're OK in corners or on the wall (that's why they're called Cornwalls!).

As to amplification. I'd bet money that's your trouble. The extreme efficiency of these speakers forces ss amps to operate in their region of poorest performance (look at THD vs. power curves for any ss PP amp with NFB). My Cornwalls sound absolutely terrible with the MC2100 ss amp I got 'em with. They sound great with 2A3 SET monoblocks. They also sound good with EL84 pp amps like the EICO HF81 (there's a cult building around these). I also found them to sound decent with a small IC amp kit Velleman (albeit a little grainier than the Paramours). I wonder if anyone's ever tried Cornwalls or other Klipsch Heritage speakers with a low-power, high-quality ss amp (e.g., 47-Labs Gaincard)?

When you say Cornwall II's, do you mean later models with ceramic magnet HF drivers and tweeter protection in the XO? Klipsch at least twice in the Cornwall's history dubbed a version "Cornwall II." If you have the tweeter protection, it's probably best bypassed (according to the sages on Klipsch's forum, at any rate). What's the serial number? You can tell the year of manufacture from that.

One "tweak" that may be worth your while is to damp the MR horn (which certainly can and does ring) with something... "rope caulk" is the standard treatment, but I've heard of folks wrapping layers of old tee-shirts around the horn and duct=taping them into place! I'd recommend avoiding any "destructive" mods (e.g, different MR horn, front-mounting the horns, extreme cabinet surgery, etc.)

In all honesty.... I'd rather have a pair of Altec VOT's (I think the big throat horns do sound better than the 1" throat horns), but I can't afford 'em!

all the best,
mrh

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