klipsch cornwall iv upgraded crossovers

No, just no. I’m not wrapping my horns or doing any other ridiculous tweaks. I think the 4th gen Heritage lineup sounds great from the factory, the last thing I’m doing is trusting some diy audio fanboys over the engineers at Klipsch that have been refining these designs since the 50’s. If the horns needed dampening they would have addressed it by now.

@atlvalet id be less skeptical if one of these charlatans had the conviction to post before and after videos so we could A/B the difference. And not a bunch of useless graphs like Danny. Actually A/B the before and after with various songs in a controlled test. I also have no idea what obvious horn resonance you are referring to. If it’s so obvious please try and isolate the sound and share with the group. Im sure the guys at Klipsch would also appreciate this discovery.

As for things like “cheap Chinese” caps and crossover components, it’s the same rationale as generic cable vs pricey esoteric stuff, if the cheaper components do the job there isn’t much need to pay up, aside from placating a small, fickle group of audiophiles.
Sorry if I come across harsh but I’m just so sick of people pushing snake oil without proper blind testing. So many of the ideas revolve around cognitive dissonance and reviewer bias and lack actual merit. Klipsch has literally been making Cornwalls since 1959 and horn speakers since the 40’s, and not a single model uses sound deadening material on the horns. Yet Im supposed to take your word for it, because some other guy said it was a good idea? Hard pass, I’d rather listen to them as they were engineered to sound.

@wrm57 so prove it.  If it’s not subtle then it should be easy to demonstrate in a video comparison.  Please note, I’m not expecting you to actually tear apart one of your speakers just to prove a point, but I think your claim is absolutely worthless without some type of demonstration. There are thousands of audio videos on YouTube, some of them with terrific A/B comparisons. But it’s almost always different speakers or different amps which show audible differences. I’ve never seen any audio tweak or cable videos with actual sound demos. I wonder why 🤔

Yep blame YouTube. Blame the recording equipment. Typical excuses. And some of those reviewers use very high end equipment and even include links to non compressed audio. What nobody seems to be willing to acknowledge is that these changes typically produce differences that are so subtle that it’s hard to even notice a change let alone conclude that they’ve made an improvement.

While I’d love to be able to home demo everything that’s just not realistic. YouTube isn’t ideal but at least it’s something. My findings from dac comparisons conducted at home were very much in line with what I heard in YouTube videos. I’ve also found YouTube useful for most speakers and amps, but I still demo in person before purchasing whenever possible.
I think some of you guys really need to be honest with yourselves before posting on here and making claims you know are unlikely to be challenged. You also need to educate yourself on cognitive dissonance and other forms of bias that influence how you feel about subjective tiny differences. I get you might be feeling distressed because you spent a ton of time & money on something that nobody else seemed to notice, but don’t make it worse by influencing others to do the same.

@wrm57 start with this Click here. You are fooling yourself if you think I’m the one being closed minded.  Ive done a ton of blind testing. I make a conscious effort to be as objective as possible when it comes to evaluating gear.  I don’t dismiss something as junk because it’s made in China or is less expensive or because some “expert” said so. I also consider behavioral explanations behind opinions. Do you?  

@rajugsw please tell me you have some before and after audio you can share. 

Actually never mind, I just found this guys video comparison Dynamat mod on Klipsch. Personally I think it sounded better before, less muffled.  Yes, different speaker but I think I’ve gotten my answer on that particular mod, the difference was actually more pronounced than I was expecting.  

@larryi well said. Changes are not guaranteed to be improvements and there certainly seems to be a tendency towards more is better. That’s kind of where I was going with bringing cognitive dissonance into the conversation, it provides a behavioral explanation as to why a rational person might go down that path and then vehemently justify their choices.
@rajugsw’s video is a perfect illustration. He took a wonderful sounding speaker, dampened it every way imaginable, and then rebuilt the crossovers that were recently updated for that generation. Fortunately the dampening is reversible, and if the upgraded crossover parts are the same spec as the oem design I don’t think there’s any harm done. If anything the durability should be improved. Would still love to hear a demo since the dampening effects should be apparent on YT audio.

Personally I tend to “trust the chef” but I get why people like to tinker and modify, it’s a fun part of the hobby. Every room is different so it’s not like you can expect everything to be optimized straight from the factory. My mods tend to come through positioning and amplification. I don’t even like to use tone controls, but I see value in them along w advanced room correcting software.  Mostly though I get annoyed when industry people overstate the value of these mods and the assumption that they will result in a noticeable improvement.  

If you found the CW IVs to be bright, hard to listen to, and basically fatiguing after 20 minutes why did you buy them in the first place?