So then I decided to get hold of some Cornwalls. This is after getting my RF-63's 45 days ago. The 63's were satisfactory, I really started wondering how much better Cornwalls would be.
My brother had a set from '88-'94 or so, Cornwall II's oiled oak. I'd forgotten how they sounded other than loud&clear. After 12 years away from Klipsch, I got the '63s at thanksgiving. Nice, actually I was very amazed at the bass they put out standalone. Then I received and connected the DD-12. Nice integration and sounded great. The 63's decomposed just a bit a high volume, and I kept thinking about Cornwalls.
Had my brother down to hear the 63's, he mentioned that they were clear, but didn't have the realistic midrange like the Cornwalls did. I couldn't remember, but believed it.
I was psyching myself up to lay out 3 large for Cornwall IIIs, weighing the pros and cons of new III's against a nice set of used II's. I figured a deal would come along on a set in good enough shape that I couldn't refuse. Noted Doug's post here regarding his set for sale one morning before work. Decided in about 40 seconds that it was time to do it, based on the track record Doug has for working with mint or near mint Klipsch gear.
I think that was a friday morning. We worked the details over the phone and I planned to arrive mid day sunday. Saturday I had to setup and watch the gear of an informal band I'm, then play a private party 6 PM to 11 PM. My second time playing drums in a performance for a crowd. My wife and I got on the road directly from the party in our '05 Tacoma truck. It was funny telling people that we were driving 800 miles to new york after the party. They'd say, "oh, how long are you staying out there?" and my wife would say, "about an hour" and people would make the oddest faces.
It was just beginning to snow near cedar rapids IA when we were leaving at 11 PM saturday night. we drove the 13 hours to Doug's place. Long trips are long trips. You get restless, excited, bored, 2nd wind, hungry, tired as hell etc. We pulled into Doug's property, driving back through those tall trees, it was just like going back into the trees to Neil Young's Ranch, Broken Arrow. A place where you know something special could happen because it feels different than everywhere else.
We visit, look at the speakers, listen to the speakers, look at his speakers, talk about all kinds of stuff while I'm wrapping the speakers in blankets, tarp with duct taped seams and another layer of tarp with duct taped seams. I had a wonderful time visiting with Doug, we have so much in common that we really understood each others stories. The speakers ended up getting loaded and it was time for a picture and to get back on the horse.
We drove back, encountering mild snow all the way down I 90 to Cleveland. 13 hours back. Things got different before Chicago and downright bizarre about 1/2 way across Illinois. In our heads I mean. Didn't seem real, we were really shot from all the driving, but we managed to stay awake and finish the trip. We got home about 4:15 AM Monday morning. About 5 new inches of snow had fallen at home while we were gone. We unloaded the speakers from the pickup into the house. My wife was so tired she went directly to bed. I would have taken the time to unwrap the speakers and have a listen, but I didn't want to bother her with the sound, plus I could use the extra hour sleep cuz I wanted to get to work at the normal time, 3 hours later. So I went to bed.
3 hours later I got up and went to sleep. The wife spent the day in the living room with the speakers not connected, one wrapped in blue tarp, probably wondering what we'd gotten ourselves into. They were taking up alot of space out in the middle of the floor. Sleeping Giants, wanting so to sing us a song or a million.
I got home from work, ate supper while finalizing in my head where I was going to setup everything, then it was time to set em up. Our living room is about 13x13 or so. I moved the RF-63's as far apart as possible along the wall, with a small amount of toe in. I then placed the Cornwalls next to them, toed in slightly less. That left about 5 foot between the cornwalls for the TV and stand. Speaker cables ran, time to setup the Denon AVR-4806 to allocate the surround back channels to be Zone 2 for the Cornwalls to pull stereo mode duty. The RF-63s would be used in the 5.1 setup. I couldn't get the Denon receiver to process a digital input signal (either Coax or Denon Link 3rd) for output on the Zone 2 speaker channels. Running analog interconnects worked though, so I listened that way, comparing the Cornwalls to the RF-63's. The RF-63's had the Velodyne DD-12 setup, so I disregarded the full bottom end when listening to the RF-63's. I immediately noticed the primary difference was this, the Cornwalls had a very crisp, full midrange, and a minor, almost under represented high end. The RF-63s by comparison, had a much more pronounced high end, louder but not any clearer. The midrange of the RF-63 was quite a bit more reserved than the Cornwall's, all the information was there, it was just not nearly as full and lifelike as the cornwall. The Cornwall had a very, very respectable bottom end (the DD-12 only played with the RF-63s).
Switching back and forth from the Cornwall to the RF-63s, I found that each time I'd notice the characteristics I'd listed above for the speaker I'd just switched to, ie, when going to the cornwall, I'd notice the more pronounced midrange and recessed treble. Going from cornwall to 63, I'd notice the accentuated treble and recessed midrange. After about 10-15 seconds I'd get accustomed to the speaker I was listening to, but I reliably found that the RF-63 felt like it had a hole in the midrange, under the full treble message. When switching to the cornwall, I found it very easy and fast to fall into enjoyment of the complete midrange message, while coming to the conclusion that the reserved treble message was sufficient and felt right, if not just a bit, a tiny bit underrepresented. In other words it was far easier to be comfortable with the minor lack of treble on the cornwall than to be comfortable with the more serious lack of midrange in the RF-63. When I say lack of, here, I don't want it to sound like a huge gaping hole in the frequency response, both speakers by them selves would sound wonderful, but when you compare them, the differences become evident and your mind scales the differences along a full scale, as in, this midrange difference is the largest difference between these speakers, so lets call that a full scale delta. everything else that's different is smaller and more minor. It is by this means that my descriptions above might sound substantial, but the actual differences are not obnoxious, only clearly noticeable.
I have found a way to configure the Denon AVR-4806 to treat the cornwalls as a secondary set of stereo front speakers. I can have the RF-63s play in stereo mode, 5.1 surround mode or any of the effects modes. Or when I'm in stereo mode, I can choose to run the cornwalls instead of the RF-63s. that's exactly what I was hoping to accomplish here and solves the issue of not being able to run digital sources through the cornwalls. Now I can play the DVD-Audio and SACD Denon Link signals in all their glory to the cornwalls in stereo mode, or to the RF-63s in stereo or surround. The DD-12 plays in both configurations.
I opened the left cornwall tonight, removing the tweeter, squawker and woofer, photographing everything and getting an idea of what the crossover mount scheme was. I'm considering a crossover upgrade in the future, be it a fully new board, or finding out from the resident experts what components to buy and either swapping them out myself or doing a fully new crossover on a new board. Not at this time though, they're doing 95% of what I could ever hope they'd do.
I always dreamed of getting a set of Klipsch Pro Media 2.1 computer speakers to have in my cubicle at work. I thought that would put me as having the cat by the tail. Now I'm dreaming of having a pair of cornwalls in there. Could never happen. What would be the point? Headroom? Completely unrealistic, destroying boundaries in ones mind, Klipsch makes me dream of crazy wonderful things. That kicks my ass and makes my heart pound, That's what I'm here for. Many of you too I'm sure. Lets do this more.
Any questions about the trip or otherwise?
Kimball, Loud&Clear