Cornwall IV V-Cap ODAM and Path Audio resistor modification

For me, the mods took everything good about the stock CW4 and made it better. More refined, less strident, better tonality, greater palpability, just about everything I wanted with no downside. But that’s me. I also swapped in WBT NextGen binding posts and damped the horns, woofer baskets, and ports with Dynamat Xtreme, so there’s that, too; and I put each speaker on Herbie’s Giant Gliders, which tightened up the bottom and made them easy to slide into the closet.  I’ll add that had I not done the mods, I likely would not have kept them. I found them OK stock but a bit aggressive and ragged to my ears, not quite high-end enough relative to my other speaker/amp combos. Now I’m happily pairing them with a Luxman MQ-300 and a couple turntables. But again, my ears, my taste.

@ephan , I see you’re new here. Welcome. FYI. If you type @ followed by the userid of a member, as I did just now for you, it alerts that user. I just saw that you asked me this question in an old CW4 threat, but I was not aware.

While I've not used those caps or resistors in any of my mods, both are reportedly very nice. I've used various VH Audio products over many years, I can assure you all very nice quality. As for those mods with the CW, I have extremely diy modified Khorns, while I used different caps, Jupiter and Audyn for my mods, these and the numerous other mods made all the difference.

Based on info you've provided I wouldn't expect the general character of the CW's to be changed by this relatively simple mod. Generally you're going to make the greatest change with Heritage models with changing from shallow slope to steeper slopes, horns can make a great deal of difference as well. For instance I could have gone to the ALK steep slope crossovers in the Khorns but wanted to retain the original Khorn sound so used a Crites Type A crossover which I modified with the film caps noted above, Jantzen inductors, Duelund point to point wiring. I also changed out all three drivers, added Volti horns for mids, tweeter driver on custom baffle. So even with these extensive mods, modded Khorns simply improved upon the original, didn't change the character wholesale. I'd go for those CW's over any stock CW's, you can expect more natural timbre, likely a bit more resolution/transparency with those mods vs stock.

@wrm57 

Thanks for the tip and your response.  Fair enough, hearing perception and taste are subjective.  What I’m looking for in the CW IV is primarily (1) midrange presence and some warmth, (2) natural tone from the instruments with all the harmonics present, (3) appropriate relative volume of the various instruments and vocals, (4) ability to listen at low volumes without the music sounding lifeless, and (5) ability to listen to music that was not recorded as well but still enjoy it.

I went down the B&W path a couple of years ago and have never been happy, especially with the sound of recordings of the 1970s pop/rock of my youth, but even with some classical, which is the majority of my listening.  I found that it’s relatively easy these days to get amazing detail (the sound of the bassoon player accidentally kicking the music stand, etc.) but that I was quickly bored with the extra detail if the tone of the music was unnatural.  No emotional connection.  For a while I thought that perhaps my hearing had deteriorated more than I was aware of, or there was something else wrong with my system.  Chased it for quite a while.  Then, on a whim, I bought a set of not-so-pretty Heresy IIs for $600 in the local neighborhood from FB Marketplace.  And immediately found what I had been missing in terms of natural-sounding music, even from some 40-year old Heresies.  Proved to me that I wasn’t crazy, too.

That’s what brought me back to Klipsch.  I read wonderful things about the IV series of all the Heritage speakers, just trying to verify that I won’t be disappointed by modified CW IVs.  Thanks for your help.

The Klipsch Cornwall IV is their best sounding generation of the Cornwall line.   I listened to them extensively at Audio Classics. If I am ever able to sell my JBL L100 Classics speakers, they will be my next purchase.  I would listen to them in their stock form, as I found them just right as is. 

Save a few more pennies and get the new La Scala AL6 instead.

Try it passive. You could also try out the active crossover/DSP unit Roy Delgado sells for it, the latter could make you happier.

Cornwall doesn’t sound very good.

I can’t speak to how the modified IVs sound, but I did own a pair of CW IIs from 1987 and I can say the Cornwall IV is a completely different animal. More refined and resolving with very little horn “honk”. Still has that horn magic, but better in just about every meaningful way over earlier versions.

@ephan , If you like the sound of stock CW4, I don’t think you’d be disappointed. I can’t really imagine why anyone would prefer the stock to ones with the Sachs mods. I went a bit beyond those but the meat of the upgrade is in the superb caps and resistors. Still, it is unnerving to open a new speaker and wreck its warranty, I get it. And while it’s not very hard to do, you still have to trust yourself to do it right. But for me it proved to be well worth the risk.