This looks like.a good place to insert my "Frog to Prince" Cornwall story:
In 1982, I owned an audio store and had a new out-of-the-area manager infatuated with Klipsch. speakers. The Consumer Electronics Show came around (Chicago) and I agreed to give them a listen. Upon entering the room, I took about 8 steps into the demo space, saw a set of Cornwalls on display, and heard a sound so objectionable I did an about face and abruptly exited the room. I just wanted to get the heck out of there.
The following weeks passed with (almost) daily nagging by my store manager to bring them in. As much as I disliked the Cornwall sound, I disliked the squawking of my manager even worse, finally gave in to his pleas and placed the order. Just when you thought the Cornwalls could not have made a more negative impression on me, they did. When the truck arrived, my guys were busy with customers (a good thing) so I found myself unloading the shipment by myself. There I was standing face to face with these big, honking speaekers (physically AND sonically) sitting on the back of the truck. I was a pretty fit 32-year-old at the time that still enjoyed putting myself up against a wall and knocking out handstand pushups. My level of confidence was pretty high on getting these monster cartons off the truck. So, here I was, Cornwalls suspended in air a few inches from the truck when I felt a sharp pain in my back. By first response was to just let them go and let them crash to the pavement. Then, I thought about the value of what I had in my hands (at the time $700 if I recall correctly) and gingerly (and quite painfully) eased them to the ground.
This was the first time I’ve ever experienced a real back injury and found myseflf hobbling around for weeks afterwards. Wasn’t loving the decision to bring in Klipsch. My manager set up the Corrwalls in our "high end" demo room and invited me to give them a listen. You can understand at this point how low the bar was for me. I was expecting something like a sonic mixture of Altec Voice of the Theaters and Clarion coaxial car speaekers. I seated myself in the comfortable listening chair (I needed it). Well, I didn’t HATE them. But, I didn’t like them. I did determine, however, that the demo at CES had a lot to do with bad room acoustics.
We got a fair amount of momemtum with Klipsch (mainly Hereseys) and each generaition took sonic leaps forward and aligned more with my musical tastes. Yes, we did bring in K’Horns on our second order.
Fast forward to the late 80’s when the speaeker nurd in me couldn’t hold off the temptation any longer to design and build my own speakers. It was at this time that I developed an appreciation for the art of crossover design including component quality, cabling, connection methods, etc. Soon after being awarded a patent, I got a bit curious about what I could do with factory-stock speakers. So, I began messing with various types of speakers including, yes, Klipsch.
Every speaker has errors of omission (things covered up/left out) and commissions (sounds they make that they shouldn’t) and early Klipsch designs had plenty of both. I found thaty addressing both ends of this issue -- better parts, cleaner signal path AND reducing cabinet and horn body vibrations -- got me from 0-60 very quickly (and inexpensively) with Klipsch speakers. They are quite analytical (VERY unforgiving of Mid-Fi) and respond quite well to "tweaks."
So, as luck would have it, I was presented with a pair of early Cornwalls for a possible "upgrade." I enthusisaticallly accepted the challenge. I also spent some quality time with the customer doing "before" demos so that both of us would understand where we started, sonically. I tore into them with crossover parts, cabling, silver solder and Dynamat slinging everywhere. Then it was time for the "after" evaulation. I put on my first "reference" demo cut, and liked what I heard. Then, I found myself going to the next. Then, the next. Then, the next. I was REALLY enjoying myself -- and the Cornwalls. There was a lot of music coming from those boxes. I had truly come full circle with my former nemesis.
The newer big Klipsch’s are sonically superior to early models in every way. Polite British loudspeakers? "No!" But, pretty darned listenable, right out of the box. My recent mods included Forte IVs, and I (and, the customer) were happy with the result. I’m sure there are sonic gains to be made with Cornwall IVs as well.
I was a supportive Klipsch dealer up until the day I retired in 2016. The new owners still have them on display, so some of the momentum that began (painfully) in 1982 must still there today.
