Klipsch Cornwall III

My M125's and SP-14 are now set up with my Klipsch Quartets. I've had some time to listen to everything, and am very pleased with what I am hearing.  The Quartet speakers are performing very well, but I've hit a point where I'm ready to make a long term speaker purchase again. Pending credit union approval which I should know today, I'm planning on ordering Klipsch Cornwall III's through Crutchfield. I've done business with them in the past, and it was a very good experience. After my recent experience trying to get hold of someone at Klipsch, which I never did, I think purchasing through Crutchfield will be a benefit going forward should something need attention. Also free shipping. There are no discounts with Klipsch Heritage speakers anywhere, as far as I can determine.

I'm trying to decide upon what finish to get. They offer Cherry, Walnut and black. All are nice, and I'm sort of in between Cherry and black. The Cherry has a nice contrast to it, but black looks 'serious'.

I know there are more 'advanced' speakers available, but they all get superseded by the next best thing.  One year it's the latest and greatest and the next, they end up on ebay so the next great thing can be bought. The Cornwalls are not like that. They generally remain constant for decades with relatively minor changes. The Cornwall III's have a new design motor board to relocate the 15 inch woofer more centrally. They are now MDF and not plywood. But they are impressive and just look like quality through and through.

I think this will be a great performing system.  And at some point I will have to relocate it to a larger area. Anyway, by next week I should have the order in if all goes according to plan.

Pics?

Here's a link to Klipsch site. It should show the Cornwall in cherry.

Haven't been able to post any pics of my amps yet. One of these days I'll get to figuring that out.....

http://images.klipsch.com/Cornwall-Right_Grille-Cherry_635646098380012000.jpg

Nice. You must have a large listening area. M125 & 102dB.

Thank God for volume controls!  One thing I really noticed is the reserve dynamic range. This system really delivers on that. When you go from a quiet passage right to a burst of music, you really get the message!

Seriously, why stop with just the Cornwall. For the price of those speakers you could have something engineered recently from a company that still, respectfully of course, cares.  This is coming from someone who has had several sets of Klipsch speakers over the year, all due to getting a VTA St-70.  My current Forte IIs are completely redone including aftermarket crossovers which your speakers will not have and much, much improve the performance of a speaker designed years ago. The Cornwall is in the same boat.  Seriously, look around.  Madisound kits or Bob's favorite speakers from Kentucky, Tyler acoustics. There are many more as well, Tekton designs, Zu come to mind for efficiency.

I gave some thought to doing my own using Bob Crites plans and parts. But when you're all done, the cost is a significant part of a new pair of Cornwalls.  My first experience started with Forte's then up to the Chorus. By then I upgraded amplifiers and purchased Mirage M-1, which I still have with the same system I upgraded to. I bought the Quartets after that and they got set up with a Solid State Harmon-Kardon amp. I hardly used that system, and put everything in storage for years. The speakers came out now for the M125's.

At this point, I'm sure that the Cornwalls will be more than enough for me, considering how good the Quartets are doing now. There are other factors like the design and size of the cabinet which I really like. There will probably be support for these for years even if Klipsch were to go away. Hopefully it won't. I'm still on the fence about which finish to get. Got the Credit Union loan set up last Friday, and I'm ready to go once I can decide about the finish.

OK, made a decision to go with lacquered walnut for the finish. Placed the order through Crutchfield. The shipping is free and their customer service is much more accessible than Vox international (owns Klipsch). The build time is between 4 and 8 weeks. They are still made in Hope, Arkansas.

i was looking to buy a pair of Klipsch Heresy's but before handing over any money I joined the Klipsch forum and posted a few questions and another member contacted me and showed me his designs using Klipsch components as a base. For $800 I got a pair of speakers that used Klipsch drivers that were salvaged from a few different speakers of the Heritage series (12 inch Heresy woofers, midranges and tweeters from Chorus speakers) were rebuilt and look new, upgraded crossovers, larger waveguides that were assembled into cabinets that are closer to Chorus speakers in size. They are setup so I can optionally bi-wire them. I was somewhat skeptical but other Klipsch Forum members assured me they were really good sounding speakers. So I invested my money. Shipping with FedEx was another $130.

When I first got them I thought they sounded tinny and shallow but about 20 hours into driving them they mellowed out and became 3-dimensional. They sound really nice now.

The only problem is they were damaged during shipping. Though these were insured FedEx denied the claim because they didn't pack the speakers. The corners were crushed in. Other than that they were still in one piece. Once I get settled into my new home I'm going to build new cabinets based on this design and swap out the hardware.

Right this minute I'm driving them with my Sovtek tubed VTA ST-120 without a problem for 4 hours now.

I have to believe yours are going to fantastic with your amps.

Dogstar how about pictures or a link. I'm interested. Currently running a pair of KG 5.5's with Bob Crites crossovers and tweeters. Ready for an upgrade, but keep the 5.5's out in the shop.....

After you have had your Cornwalls for awhile and get upgrade-itis, have a look at the Al Klappenberger's site: http://www.alkeng.com. I did my Forte IIs up with his crossovers and it made a not so subtle difference in the performance of the speaker. Also, read some of the technical info on Al's site regarding what stock Klipsch crossovers are prone to do. Interesting stuff.

That sure is an interesting site. Kind of got a kick out of all the rules & regs, but it sounds like he knows his stuff.

I'm not going to ever mod the Cornwalls. Since I'm buying them new, I want to keep them stock and as pristine as possible.  But there are lots of Klipsch speakers on Craigslist in case I ever get the urge to play around.  

Spent some listening time over the weekend, and really just enjoyed the music. Nice to find time to just do that!

Something the ALK site mentions is:

"All the capacitors are paper in oil which were high loss even when new. Now they are old and dried out causing even more loss...Modern polypropylene caps have 1/10 the loss!"

So while we're changing out polyproplylenes in our amplifiers for PIOs...

Took delivery on my new Klipsch Cornwall III's yesterday. They were shipped on a pallet, and arrived without any damage to the boxes. The UPS freight guys got them into my house, and from there, I managed to maneuver them to their location. I spent a few hours packing away the Quartets and unpacking the Cornwalls. They are very large and weigh about 100 pounds each, so it took a while to get things set up.  They are impressive looking and very well built. Mine are walnut finish, and the workmanship is second to none. They have the look of a quality product that I expect from something costing this much. The sound is classic Klipsch. Big soundstage, dynamic and detailed. I'm really happy with this decision, and I'm done with any speaker upgrades. They seem to work very well with the M125's. It's very satisfying to listen to a system that sounds this good and know that I had a lot of input in creating it (building the amps and preamp).

Frank111 wrote:Took delivery on my new Klipsch Cornwall III's yesterday. They were shipped on a pallet, and arrived without any damage to the boxes. The UPS freight guys got them into my house, and from there, I managed to maneuver them to their location. I spent a few hours packing away the Quartets and unpacking the Cornwalls. They are very large and weigh about 100 pounds each, so it took a while to get things set up.  They are impressive looking and very well built. Mine are walnut finish, and the workmanship is second to none. They have the look of a quality product that I expect from something costing this much. The sound is classic Klipsch. Big soundstage, dynamic and detailed. I'm really happy with this decision, and I'm done with any speaker upgrades. They seem to work very well with the M125's. It's very satisfying to listen to a system that sounds this good and know that I had a lot of input in creating it (building the amps and preamp).

Frank, You got the freight guys to actually get them into your house? I'd like their names and addresses. The freight people here just toss it on the sidewalk in the middle of a blizzard and say, Good luck.
Nice to hear about your new Cornwalls. Enjoy the tubular sound.

That's one of the questions I asked to the Crutchfield rep. He said that they were supposed to get them to the front door.  Then UPS called to set up the delivery and I went over things with them. My front door requires going up somewhat of an incline on my front yard which, with a 100 pound item, probably took some work. The UPS rep on the phone wanted to then get them to the garage, but that makes it harder for me to get them in the house and further yet from their destination. Somehow I lucked out with two really nice guys who never flinched when they got to the house, and took them up the incline up onto the front door area and into my foyer. It all depends upon the guys you get I guess. If I had to get these from the road to the inside of my house, I would have needed a hand truck which I don't have, and possibly help to get them up there. When you deal with stuff of this size, the logistics can be a deal breaker if you don't get that set up first.

And can you believe this....they asked me what was in the boxes and I said Klipsch speakers made in the USA. One of the guys the said that his roommate in college owned a pair of Hersey's and began to tell me some stories. What are the odds that that could happen!

Small world, ain't it.