So, I picked up a pair of these off Craigslist for a good price and they became my next project. They were a 1983 pair, whose cabinets were a bit for wear but not too bad. I sanded them down and stained and varnished them in ebony. that was the best way to hide the vineer chips after the sanding. I left the front trim natural plywood, so as to give it a some contrast. They looked good afterwards.
Electronically I replaced the binding posts, up graded the caps in the crossover; only 3 per speaker, and re-cabled them with some better cable. I've been running them off the Jolida 102b which seems to power them just fine. The overall sound of is a bit bass shy......well maybe more than a little. However, what is there is pleasant. The mid horn gets a bit honky when pushed too hard and the tweeter isn't as refined as the ribbon in my Maggie's......but I didn't expect them to be. In generally they are a nice alternative to my Maggie's. Not that I need an alternative but it is good to have another listening device to check out final mix downs.
Now adding my sub woofer to them makes them a usable speaker for everyday listening......maybe not critical......because they do have a tone to their own but pleasant, regardless.
The kicker here is that I thought I would try running them along with my Maggie's and darn if I really didn't enjoy what they did. They filled in the mids with a nice punch and gave my system a bit more relaxed and non strained dbs. I sort of brought up their volume until I could hear the speakers and then backed them down a notch. So, they are acting like a center channel. They work really well like this.....who would have thought! I would have never thought that combining box speakers with Bi polars would have turned out as well as they did without phase issues but, too my ears, they bring more to the table then they take away.
Anyway, anyone coming across a cheap pair should pick them and have some fun. They are easy to modify and run on spit. Well, maybe a bit more than spit. Tubes seem to work well with them but I also had great success with my wife's 50 watt class d amp used for movie night. The neighbors thought it sounded great as we projected a movie on our garage and had the neighbor kids over for popcorn and a movie.
Be warned though, without a sub these are lean sounding speaker that will not give you full bass impact. The tendency will be to turn them up but that will cause problems with the horns taking on a honking sound......but played with a sub woofer they may give you satisfaction at a really cheap price.
Bottom line is that if you like to tinker you will have enough fun tinkering with them. Afterwards you can use them as av speakers, a second system, give them to your kid or sell them for more than you have in them. Seems like a win....win to me.
Ray
Topic: Klipsch heresy old school (Read 8668 times)