Klipsch Cornwall IV

I'm near Raleigh, and have been graciously offered the opportunity to hear Ozzy62's CW4's.  I'll be taking him up on it this weekend.  Can't wait!

I'm in Chicagoland and happy to host anyone that wants to hear them. Mine are, however, sporting upgrading caps and resistors in the crossovers and upgraded binding posts--if that matters. 

Wanted to thank @donsachs and @jbhiller for the guidance and encouragement on the crossover upgrade. While not my first time soldering I would still consider myself a "beginner" with circuit board work. Honestly the project is not difficult and really only requires patience and methodical work. It took me about 4.5 hours to complete. I've been hesitant to do the upgrade but Don Sachs kept nudging me saying I haven't heard what the speaker is capable of. I'm glad he did and he gave me the confidence I would succeed. If you are planning on making the Cornwalls your long term reference, no need to be intimidated by the upgrade. If I can do it, so can you.

Way to go @schw06 !  Give us your thoughts when you can.  

So for anyone doing a demo on the Cornwall IV vs. Forte IV !   Let me suggest you play the opening of  SRV 's "Crossfire"   on both.  not many speakers can reproduce that like the Cornwall or K Horn.   The Forte does a pretty good job, but that track clearly demonstrates the Cornwall's sense of scale.   Play it on both , if your room and wallet allow you will be sold on the Cornwall

or play most any Bill Evans live recording, or Oscar Peterson live, or .... well you get it..... Scale, power, and if you improve the crossover parts, the micro detail is amazing and no trace of brightness

There are a lot of great speakers in the world, and this is certainly one of them.

It's been a week since upgrading the crossovers. I wanted everything to settle and get enough run in to put my thoughts in print. Let me get this out of the way first: I'm actually disappointed in Klipsch. If they would offer a Cornwall with Dynamat damped drivers and speaker floor, decent feet,  and a quality crossover people would pay good money for that. I am glad they were easy to modify but it was really time consuming and looking inside the Cornwalls you see they cheaped out every chance they could. The good part is they are truly all easy to fix(relatively).
  A pet peeve of mine is when people use percentages to describe improvement...Saying an upgrade was a 20% improvement is really meaningless to me so I will avoid using that description. What I can say with confidence is that if you are making the Cornwalls your long term reference, it's time to get to work. Leaving them stock really gives you a fun and engaging speaker that has brightness you will always fight to tame, watercolor imaging, and tone/timbre that is decent but not truly convincing. I don't mean to disparage the stock Cornwall as I truly enjoyed it but I found listening fatigue would creep in after about an hour and I would find myself walking away to do other things.
   With the crossover upgrade that nagging background brightness is absolutely gone. The speaker now has a relaxed and muscular confidence that is absolutely enthralling. High efficiency speakers can have a tendency to trade relaxation and tonal saturation for speed/dynamics. Now you get them both which almost seems like an oxymoron. Instrument tone/timbre is so much more convincing it's hard to believe and voices are scary real. The ultimate compliment I can give the Cornwalls is that over the last 20 years I tend to listen with my eyes closed...I think I now know why. For various reasons there were things missing in the music that my mind was unconsciously rectifying to make it sound convincing. Since the upgrade I listen with my eyes open. My mind does not have to "connect the dots" of the sins of omission and commission. It is so much more relaxing and I can just sit back for hours with jaws unclenched and shoulders loose rifling through any and all genres of music.
   I would consider the crossover mod an absolute necessity as an upgraded, burned in Cornwall is night and day different to a stock pair. Do not leave that much improvement untapped. If you don't feel comfortable doing the upgrade, pay someone to do it for you. That is money well spent.
   

Great report and update schw06. Thanks!

My thoughts exactly schw06.   The speaker is an entirely different animal and I could never bear to hear the stock one again:)

Can anyone summarise the thread and pin it... like to get a clear story of what was upgraded and some pics/pricing tips ... good work guys but if I want to do the same kinda upgrade i think more details would be great...

ps I see a guy on eBay selling a CWIV pair ready made with Nedlab capacitors, Erse coils. any thoughts? 

ramble: when I got my CWIVs I tried to tighten the terminals onto my Nordost cables and they snapped used very little force! Luckily the dealer swapped out the speakers... the are very soft metal... which would be ok if the were pure copper... but just cheap I guess ... Graham in UK

I had Manaplanar 2.5 so getting a bit more 3D image from upgrade would be great... Roon with a DSP curve to tame the top and boost the bottom is great... but still a bit edgy for me on some tracks... even tho I am 300b tubes. Great speakers and worry I may become deaf! 

Uh, it's all in there. Why not sort through it yourself? You'll learn something.

Can anyone verify what the crossover frequency is for the mid range driver for the Cornwall IV.

Thanks

One of the most interesting mysteries in audiophilia is why 

so many people like the Klipsch sound. I like horns in the midrange

but would rather listen to about any vintage Altec speaker or a newer

JBL than any Klipsch I have heard. Have owned them all.

I can say the same thing about any speaker out there. Some people buy what they think makes them look impressive to others, what makes them look impressive to themselves, or what actually sounds good to themselves. Buy and enjoy what sounds good to you. 

would rather listen to about any vintage Altec speaker or a newer

JBL than any Klipsch I have heard. Have owned them all.

You've owned all varieties of Kipsch speaker?  Why would you keep purchasing every variety of a speaker you didn't enjoy?

Is the Harley and brick wall condo included?

@djspinner, I love your response.  That made my day! 😂

Agreed smatsui. Pretty ignorant post from chorus.

Not to put words in someone's mouth, but I'm guessing that @chorus was saying that he had owned all of those brands, not all of the Klipsch speakers ever made. 

Some of you keyboard warriors need to stop and think before you type.

Big greg, would you like a glass of the proprietary Cool Aid?

  @signalwaves,

Can anyone verify what the crossover frequency is for the mid range driver for the Cornwall IV.

    MF 700Hz HF 5000Hz

No apologies big_greg. To say that you can't understand why people would like the sound of everything by Klipsch is, to me, ignorant.

@roxy54 Your inability to comprehend the written word speaks volumes. 

Nobody asked for an apology and I didn't say what you said I said. It's hard to escape the irony that ignorance is your go to word.

big_greg,

I was referring to what chorus said, not you. I addressed my response to you because you referred to keyboard warriors which I thought was referencing me. Sorry for the misunderstanding. 

 

Let's all enjoy the holidays and try to be kind to each other.

Hello,

I just bought a pair of Cornwall IVs. I read the previous posts and discovered the possible optimizations for these speakers. I'm going to start installing dynamax on the tweeter and midrange as well as on the structural steel sheets of the woofers. I will also put dy dynamax on the lower walls of the speakers (on the floor). Regarding the crossover could you give me the list of components to buy cgez Hificollective aix UK? Can you also specify the components to be changed on the crossover (on the image of the crossover) (I am not an electronics engineer but I know how to solder). Some have also changed the speaker terminals? thank you for your help (I live in France)

If I dropped over $6k on speakers, they had better sound pretty damn good stock.  Why anyone would spend all that money and then plan all those mods? Seems like you might be happier with a different speaker to begin with...maybe $6,000 isn't a lot of money to some people.  :-)

$6K is enough money to that I would be suddenly single if I actually spent it. And yes, @chuke076 , if I did ever drop this much on speakers, I would expect to fart around with toe-in and sucb but not actually modify any hardware. Then again, for some that's part of the fun. I get it. I'm slowly rebuilding an ancient set of Coral speakers just for fun. But those are free.

I wanted Cornwalls for my living/HT room, but I had to settle for Heresy IV's.  First world problems.  Alas, the Revel F35s sounded better for HT, so the Heresy IV's went to my office and I'm really liking them in that small (12x10) space.  I looked for used Fortes or Cornwalls for a few months before pulling the trigger on the IVs. I've also got a Mac MA5200 driving older Totem Rainmakers in my office, so something's got to go.

@larbredor , 

Sorry for the slow response.  I don't get updates properly on forum threads anymore.  

If you want to upgrade the crossovers on the Cornwall IV, here's your parts list: 

All of the below *2 (2 speakers): 

 

2.7uF

2.2uF

6.8uF

1.5uF

4uF

8ohm/8R resistor (to replace that sand cast guy)

I used VCap ODAM caps and Path Audio resistors. Don Sachs and I both used the same parts I think and we both landed on 10w Path Audio resistors. 

I also changed the binding posts on the rear as I found the previous ones fickle. 

Let me know if you have questions, etc. 

PS @larbredor , I didn't swap out that massive 60uF poly cap linked to the woofer.  That would be (a) insanely pricey; and (b) very tricky to enigineer for me. I would have to fasten it off the PCB as it would be too big. 

Don Sachs was of the opinion that this cap would make less difference. I'd agree but qualified on the fact that I'm not an engineer.  I was also more after cleaning up the mids and highs on this loudspeaker.

I have been tempted to figure out the values of the inductors and swap those out for better quality too. However, I keep thinking that the speakers were voiced with those inductors and I don't have the know how or patience to learn how to measure and deal with what inductors do in crossover networks.  I understand it theoretically and that's all. 

Best of luck. I've never questioned my modification to this loudspeaker. I would do it again in a heartbeat. 

Anyone using the Cornwall IV's as true LCR home theater speakers? Behind screen or in front. Interested in determining if these would be a good alternative to some other floor standing loudspeakers for home theater. 

They would be kick ass for LRC HT

Any speaker brand made, relative of selling price, can be modified and improved ( in most cases ) with better parts, specifically in the cross over.