Klipsch Cornwall IV

So...... It sounds like people are saying I should hear them before I buy them?

simao
I understand you tastes. I have to say I can not recommend a speaker in the price range you are looking . You have the incredible 845 tube amp so make sure you don't miss the opportunity to bask in the glory of the midrange. You have a large room and i would advise against getting some horn speaker that might fill the space. Simply bring you listening sets close to your speakers and then close you eyes and enjoy. 

@sounds_real_audio Thanks for the jolt of reality - truly. You're right in that I should enjoy what I have and stop trying to reside in Xanadu.


Although I do wish a bit more bass than the Spatials can deliver.

So...... It sounds like people are saying I should hear them before I buy them?

said that in the 2nd reply to your post... page 1 🤔

but hey... it’s only money... and it’s a journey... something to be said for living dangerously 😷

@jjss49 fair enough. True but verify. I'll probably try out Triangles before Cornwalls unless I get a good deal on the latter. 

I have no idea where some of these bits of "common knowledge we all know this to be true" ideas come from. So here we go. Millercarbon can add to this I am sure.

 Too big for a small room. Nonsense as I know people with MCM-1900's in their living rooms and they sound stellar at any level. I have sold perhaps 15 sets of KPT-456's and KPT-904's that went to  peoples houses where they will stay until they die and they love them.

  Too revealing whatever that means. My interpretation of this is guess what, when the goal is accurate sound reproduction, the closer you get to good reproduction the more you are going to find many of your audio files are poor in quality.

 And my favorite AG bit of nonsense is "too lifelike". Exactly what I want and seek.
  Check my personal system out. These are maybe 16' center to center in a space roughly 22' x 14' front to back. It is a space in my shop as I have no speakers in the house. Sadly my wife likes Facebook and not fine audio so the gear stays out there where I wont be interfered with when I listen. You just simply can't substitute smaller speakers that may go down as low and expect the same result. Yes lets say the small box goes down to 35hz. The bigger one that goes that low, assuming we are talking about a well designed speaker like the CW4, will make you sit up and pay attention. The depth of sound quality, call it headroom if you may, is a key part of excellent sound. I have full output down to 27hz on a big single fold horn and it is fun to watch people when they hear them for the first time.

  When Roy did his demo of last years models and the new ones he played the Heresy 4, Forte 3, La Scala latest and greatest, and Cornwall 4.
  The real deal is all I can say about the CW4 and this is from a guy who despised them for being big boomy sounding boxes until now. The Heresy 4 is perhaps a bit better than the Super Heresy build many Klipsch head tinkerers have built and is another surprising box.

 He also had the latest Jubilee there but that is in another whole league over all the Klipsch Heritage stuff. But you know if you really like big rich sound go big.
 I want to hear the rasp of fingers and string noise just like I was there with Cellos. I want to sit down next to the 32' organ pipes. I want to sit in the middle of the band as they play. This was the goal when I built my system.
 I say that to say this. There are speakers I could live with if I had to give the Super MWM's up and the CW4 is one of them.
  By the way on all this fancy stuff people seem to think they need. Roy Delgado uses a QSC 4 channel Theater amp and an older DX38 EV for DSP if needed and zip cord speaker wires in his sound room at Klipsch. I figure he knows what he is doing and that's just about all I do to. Crown XLI800 amps work just fine for me and don't break the bank.

  OP there is one comment you made that kind of surprised me. I guess I need to go hear a set before buying, or words to that effect. NEVER buy until you hear and find someone who owns a set and go to their house to listen.  Now there is a word of waning here. I knew a guy who loved Macintosh and spent a small fortune on them. KHorn corners and CW centers and it was just awful. So I ask him what is his music source as he fiddles with that stupid iPad. Sure enough it was that iPad and some streaming thing. Make sure the person you pick to visit for speaker auditions knows what they are doing. Many have way more money then sense and if you want really good sound find the guys with common sense buying and playing practices.

For those of you asking about the Fru Fru high end joint in Huntsville. AVIQ is the name and they list Klipsch Heritage in their product list along with many others.

I have owned Klipsch Heresy 1's (which I updated with Crites crossovers) and then B&W CM9s and now Heresy 4's. I have demoed Fortes also. All Klipsch, I believe need a subwoofer (I use REL) because their horns take over but I even found that with my B&W's the Sub help the staging immensely 

mahlman,
I share your affinity for Klipsch speakers, but it's a bit contradictory to hear you say that cheap amps and zipcord are fine, but that streaming through an ipad isn't. 

Although I do wish a bit more bass than the Spatials can deliver.

@simao Do you have a standing wave in your room? If you listen to your system at placed other than the listening chair does the bass get better? If yes, look into a Distributed Bass Array. If bass is your only complaint of the Spatials, consider that if you are dealing with a standing wave it may not get any better with a different speaker. A DBA will solve that.

i cannot speak for older/smaller/lesser models in the line, but in my experience, the spatial m3 sapphires deliver absolutely world class, full, powerful, tuneful, deep, airy bass -- it is the towering strength of the speaker -- if someone has these spatials and lacks bass, there is a serious problem with room/placement or some other significant implementation issue

@atmasphere Not that I can tell - unless I stand against the back wall, of course. But it's something I can look into more. @jjss49 How much more of an improvement on this is the Sapphire over the Turbo?

Not that I can tell - unless I stand against the back wall, of course.

OK- then the correct answer is 'yes'.

I know someone who had the M3 and the Sapphire and the latter was a very big improvement. But ultimately he kept blowing tweeters in the Sapphire so he sent it back for a refund. He now owns Forte IIIs.

Oz

" I share your affinity for Klipsch speakers, but it's a bit contradictory to hear you say that cheap amps and zipcord are fine, but that streaming through an ipad isn't. "
  I have a very good reason for my sentiment. I have bought fixed and sold hundreds of sets of Klipsch speakers over the last seven years or so. I insist buyers come here in person and listen to what they are interested in. I also advise them to bring a flash drive with their favorite music so they have a real reference point to go by. At times I can see disappointment on their face and the problem has centered around music file quality. Every iPad that has shown up here with their stored music has been bad. Most flash drive files are also not the best either.
  So I let them flounder for a bit and then I play the same songs, most of the time I have them in my library, on the same speakers and the only difference is the source file. The PC that is used as storage for my files goes to an amp and then to speakers if simple 2 channel or to my Xilica then the amps and then speakers for more complicated sets requiring DSP to sound really good. I plug their file into my PC and so the sound delivery is the same , except for the music file.
  I admonish the iPad users who are the only ones who call after getting their new speakers home and say they don't sound as good as they did at my place. OK, I say, are you using that iPad again just like I told you not too? You know what the answer is. They end up being happy when they break that bad habit. It may not be the inherent capability of the iPad in question perhaps but the files these guys come up with through them sound bad.

  Regarding cheap amps. Darned right, if I can buy 200 watts per channel of good clean high quality sound why in the world would I spend ten times as much for a name tag that is no better? I think wasting my money is silly. It's a funny world when live venues concert halls and recording studios use professional amps, Like Crowns just like I do, to produce sound for people. I want that sound so I use that type of equipment. I have yet to see racks of fancy homeowner gear at any of these places. How is it that only expensive amps can accurately reproduce what was  authored on cheapo pro gear hmmm? 

  My goal in audio is to get the best possible sound in an economical fashion and you are invited to stop in and see if my efforts are worthwhile over those who spend tons of money for far less. Southern Middle Tennessee is the locale.

@ozzy62 second the good description you gave.

As I see it (or hear as it may be), there is so much great gear out there. All these manufacturers have smart people designing amazing stuff. The difference is in the flavor not the label. That said, someone starts a thread about Cornwall IV’s and people are surprised that others who own and like them are responding with positive feedback?

As always, if possible try before you buy, especially if you can home demo. Opinions and taste can only tell you so much.

mahlman,
We will have to agree to disagree. I believe that amplifiers and sources make a huge difference in sound quality, and about 5 years ago, I actually bought one of the newer Crown amplifiers and it sounded very poor. I returned it quickly. 
We all see and hear things differently.

i am with roxy on this

the better your source and your speakers, the more you hear the difference an amp makes

not subtle... leave aside good tube amps, even in the solid state world, guys like nelson pass john curl and bent holter have not been stealing deaf people’s money all these years with thousands of units sold

there may be some marketing going on, but that does not mean there is not real substance and quality differences underneath it

I'm sure they are out there, but I don't know anyone who is using an iPad straight into an audio system.

But one thing's fer sure. You won't find a Crown amp of any flavor in my listening room. Nor will you find zip cord and throw away interconnects.

To each his own...........

The Cornwall IV’s are tremendous speakers which can give you a palpable, organic 3 Dimensional representation of your music.  I’ve owned a ton of speakers and gear...see My Final Pair! post:)

For those with CW IV, how far from the speakers are you sitting? 

 My speakers are 9'8" from my ears. 

I don’t think music is authored on inexpensive amps and gear. In fact, the studios I’ve been to all had hundreds of thousands of dollars of gear. Not a cheap amp to be found. 
Certainly live venues might be using Crown and inexpensive amps for playback. 

Assuming something is only as good as the weakest link in the chain, if the pro gear used to make recordings is in fact inherently inferior, then it follows that we are all screwed. Any attempt to make things better during playback is pure folly. At best, you can’t make it any better during playback than it is when recorded. So we all might as well just buy all pro gear and put lipstick on it to make it look nice at home.

So a lot of what audiophiles fret about is in fact pure nonsense. It’s all in the mind and each will dress up the pig as they see fit.

Cheers!

PS I would love to have a pair of Cornwalls in case anyone wants to just throw in the towel and give their’s away. 😉

@jbhiller Yes, live venues use Crown because they're powerful and bombproof. They will work amidst cigarette smoke and spilled beer and whatnot.

How far do CW4 need to be from front wall?

I happen to agree with the guy who designed these CW4's as to what is important. He does not use that fancy stuff to develop gear for a major speaker maker known as Klipsch.  We will have to agree to disagree on the validity of dropping gobs of cash on amps and cords.

 

@jbhiller

I don’t think music is authored on inexpensive amps and gear. In fact, the studios I’ve been to all had hundreds of thousands of dollars of gear. Not a cheap amp to be found.
Certainly live venues might be using Crown and inexpensive amps for playback.

you are absolutely correct in my experience

people conflate equipment used in recording and mastering (absolutely excellent gear) with gear used in conventional playback (heavy duty industrial stuff like crown amps giant p-a horns etc etc) in mass audience venues

an example is in 2006 i bought an audio research v70 tube amp, with high grade foil capacitors and rca/mullard old stock tubes handwound output transformers etc etc - this was the amp that for years powered the recording/playback monitors in david chesky’s nyc (formerly rca radio city) recording studio from when he launched the grammy winning boutique label... all those lovely recordings on lp and cd we bought by sara k, paquito d-rivera, ana caram, and remasterings of phil woods clark terry badi assad etc etc... this amp was used to for mixing and final voicing!!!... it is lovely amp, utterly pure and grainless, full of air and timbral accuracy - if anything it is too accurate, midrange sounds maybe just a touch lean for my tastes - but i still have that amp as a keepsake

i would be very appreciative if a reader here can describe to me their opinion of the stereophonic imaging/depth qualities of the latest cornwall IV speakers, how they compare to something like a thiel tower, for example. 

Well that name was assigned 50 years and 4 models ago. Doesn’t mean it still applies. Look at Khorn - latest model doesn’t need to be in corner. 
Just wondering how far from wall owners have seen best results?

Nobody said they HAD to be placed near a corner/wall. It does apply just like AUDIO NOTE speakers will always work near a Corner/Wall. They are designed to do so. Go to the Klipsch site and see where they are placed OR look at any of their advertisements/brochures. ALSO watch ZERO FIDELITY’s review on Youtube. His Room is only 9 x 12 so guess what....they arent very far from the wall at all.

I think placing them too close to a wall or a corner diminishes their potential. NEAR a wall or corner is good. I have mine approx. 3 ft from the corner and this works very well.

As for the question on soundstage and imaging, they are very good at this, better than you would think a horn would be. They don't image like a monitor or some big name tower speakers, but they have a very 3 dimensional quality, not flat at all.

Oz

in general, speaker placement (and subwoofer placement, as appropriate) relative to room boundaries and the listening area is a key variable that each owner can play with ad infinitum... different positionings are one of the best offers in our pursuit -- cost free endless trials in the sanctuary of your own home  :)

some speakers need room to breathe, others can use some boundary reinforcement for bass frequencies, some are best heard near field, others need some distance for driver integration... and so on

it just takes commitment, effort, fortitude, patience (and is some cases, a strong back and a willing accomplice!)... but getting it right is its own, substantial reward -- you finally get what you paid for when you shelled out the long green to buy all the gear !!!

Of course. Most understand all of that. So far we have one response of someone placing them 3 ft from corners. Just wondering what others are doing. I don’t have the speakers so I can’t experiment with them. I have a friend who may be interested in the speakers and would benefit in advance from knowing how others place theirs so that he can decide whether his room/placement constraints might work or whether there is little chance.  Interested in feedback from actual owners, not marketing spiel from mfg

just saw these pop up on usam

not 4's but maybe at a friendlier cost of entry...

https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649730309-klipsch-cornwall/

VIBER JR.

LOL, you must be really having a bad day, riaa.  Cheer up, dude.  It's Friday, life's good!

@jjss49 

Too much..........

Not me. Every day is Friday when your retired...13 years running.

haha, ok, thanks for sharing....cheers!

I have my Cornwall IV’s about 3 1/2 feet from front wall, toed in aiming just passed my ears 👂. I sit approximately 10ft 8” away.  Soundstage is huge and immersive on well recorded material!

My CW IV are 4’ from the sidewalls, the tweeter is 32" from the back wall and my ears are 9’8’ from the tweeters. I have a slight toe-in as well.

I’ve also done a couple tweaks:

1) I’ve placed dynamat on the horns and woofer cage.
2) I placed the speakers on Townshend seismic bars.

Finally, I use a subwoofer.

@jayrossi13

What changes did you hear with the seismic bars?

@ozzy62

After installing the speaker bars, I immediately noticed the midrange was clearer, voices more 3D. One thing I noticed, however, was that bass seemed like it had diminished significantly--that was until I turned on my subwoofer. I’m not sure why, but cleaning up the bass distortion on my main speakers made the subwoofer’s contribution sound so much better than before. The bass is tighter, cleaner and plentiful.

I have the Size 1 seismic bars and have them run from front to back. You can see them in my virtual system here on Agon.

Prior to the seismic bars, I had the following isolation pads that I got on Amazon. I liked the sound one these pads better than on the floor. I learned of these through a review for the Volti Razz. 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075MMT68C/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Thanks. Sounds interesting, but that price is a tough pill to swallow....lol

Fun fact...dug out some old cables I have on hand just to check my ears.  They all sound different...sorry Audioholics 😔  Reminded me why I love MIT products...just so much more realistic sounding on every level!  My REV MIT loom delivers better tone, articulation, clarity, dynamics, bass definition and extended airy highs.  Everything sounds muffled and constricted comparatively!  The MIT cables delivered most of the improvements sought by other audiophiles via extensive and costly tweaks.  Get the room and cables right first...then tweak 👂

@jayrossi13 Are you on a suspended floor with joists, etc? The reason I ask is, I've had my new CW for a few days, situated on a concrete slab (covered by wood flooring glued down), and I have not been experiencing the bass boom and distortion you've mentioned. Perhaps the woofers' cajones haven't dropped yet, though. lol.

Just because Klipsch speakers are voiced with low-fi cables doesn't mean that everyone should follow suit and use the same thing, or that expensive cables are BS. Klipsch is not marketing exclusively to a high end niche. The designer needs to make sure that the speakers sound good for a wide range of users and not just for tweaky audiophiles who treat cables as if they're another component. So whatever Roy Delgado uses in the factory doesn't really have any bearing on what listeners prefer at home. 

Placement of the Cornwall was, for me, surprisingly more difficult than I expected.  At first, the sound was so big and beautiful that I thought they were easily positioned.  I was wrong.  

I literally had to get out the tape measure to ensure they were equidistant.  That resulted in a big improvement--like a new, better component.  

I find them more sensitive to equal/precise placement than a specific distance from the side/front wall or toe in.  Those things still matter though.  

At some point I'll re-evaluate my positioning to ensure I'm right on and to satisfy curiosity.  For now, I hate to change them because things sound so comprehensive, large, and dialed in. 

My room is about 15.5' wide.  I have them about 20" from the side walls. 

I only have them 8-18" from the front wall.  They are towed in so that's why one corner is 8" from the wall and the other longer. 

I am guessing, I might be the oldest Klipsch Heritage ( both in age and product familiarity ) follower, guru, user / owner, modifier, tweaker, out of all who is posting here ( even Mahlman ). I do believe to a large extent, the speaker needs to be matched to the room. I do not like the impression that I am " inside the horn ", as Mahlman and many of his devotees, taut highly. I am not suggesting that he and his clan are wrong, or that I am right, but it is an individual " taste ", or " flavor ", preferred. If I had a large enough room ( where I can be at a greater distance from the speakers ), I would own a pair of 3 way KPT Jubilee, and this is my personal take on it. I know of many on the Klipsch Forum who have these, and if they are happy with them in their smallish rooms.....well....that is fine........ The CW ( all of the 4 iterations ) can be easily used in a smaller room ( ex : 9 X 12 ), and can be listened to in the nearfield ( all ime ). Like anything, the room must be tuned / dealt with, when dealing with unwanted reflections and such. Cables and equipment....the higher the quality, the more they will give you. An older NAD 3020 amp ( recapped and gone over ), with 18 gauge zip cord will sound amazingly good. However, driven with a nice tube amp ( for specific reasons, I do not prefer tubes, or a Pass XA25 ( just as an easy example ), using the same wire, there will be an upgrade in overall SQ. Now, add better cables, and you just get.....MORE. Unless someone has had experience with better cables, and gear ( and I am referring to certain people here ), they will not know how much more they can get. Keep in mind....room acoustics, and speaker / listener orientation, has a huge impact on noticing and hearing these " more " sound qualities I, and many of us, speak of. Another thing.....I am the biggest advocate of eliminating ringing ( metal horns ) and resonance ( polymer horns ), and yes woofer frames and such, and the poster who did his CW IVs, knows the improvements he has received. They all have the imperfections ( at this and most price points ) and should be dealt with. We all are very specific, individual listeners, and the truth, after all...is enjoyment........This is all, for now. Be well !