Klipsch Cornwall IV

@wrm57 my space could easily accommodate the CW4s. It's just a matter of finding the circumstances to audition them at my place. 

I found that putting them on Herbie’s Giant Gliders really evens out the frequency response and cleans up any muddiness in the upper bass and lower mids. Tiny changes in positioning--like a centimeter or less--in any direction also change the sound to a remarkable degree.

@simao , I think the upshot is that you need to audition in your space, with enough leeway to determine whether you can get them where you want them. The CW4 is an extremely resolving and well-balanced speaker that requires painstaking set up to reveal its capabilities. Dealer auditions will never do.

@donsachs Your input, experience, and perspective here is very appreciated. As I'm considering Cornwalls, I see you mention that they're "not a perfect speaker." For the sake of comparison, what would you consider to be closer to "perfect?" I understand that most all speakers have a color of some sort. But by "perfect" do you mean those that measure well? BBC type monitors?

Thanks!

Well, the amp isn't bad, but not great, and not a good DAC or vinyl ahead of them....  you didn't really hear them.  Too bad

In this room, the Cornwalls were tightly cornered with little to no space between front and side walls. A McIntosh MA352 was the amplification and some streaming/iPad platform was the source. I have the feeling these speakers weren't presented as well as they could have been. 

Hi
I would say that Cornwalls are anything but muddy or smeary which makes me question the room and most importantly the gear ahead of them.  I have mine maybe a foot from the rear wall, but they are each about 6 ft from the side walls.  Bass is very tight and fast.  As Oz noted, it probably goes down into the mid 30's with authority.  It is not a perfect speaker by any means, but if it sounded muddy, then the system in front of it had issues, the room had issues, or quite possibly, the speakers were relatively new and didn't have at least 100 hours on them and the woofer surrounds were not loosened up yet.  Not to say you wouldn't prefer some other speaker as we all have our taste, but Cornwall bass is quite fast and tight when all is working.. 

I own 3 pairs of Triangle's...which is why I gave the warning. Much like Monitor Audio and Kef speakers they have attributes many dont like. Good that you already know their presentation and what to expect.

I've owned Triangles before. These Cornwalls in this room just seemed too muddy and smeary. YMMV

Cornwall's do just fine in small rooms. ZERO FIDELITY reviewed them on his youtube channel....his room is 9x12.  Mine is 13x15.  They work very well in all size rooms.  Triangle's have Jacked Up Tweeters so be prepared.

Okay, an update. I had the chance to listen to the Cornwalls today at The Sound Room here in st. Louis. It was a Klipsch Heritage event complete with artisan whiskey tastings. 



Impressions: the room was nicely treated acoustically. And Much Too Small for these speakers. The bass boom squelched the imaging I knew these speakers ard capable of. So e recordings I could sense their magic, but most others everything blendef into a haze of projection. 


And I could tellsomething was up when the sound rep kept pushing live Floyd and Eagles recordings as test tracks. Eff that. I had to insist on well-produced Tears for Fears and Dominique Fils-aime in there. 


I'll be demo-ing the Triangle Cellos next week. 

Thanks for sharing Don. That is similar to my take on comparing the X3 with the CW IV. Both great speakers for sure, but the Cornwall just connects me to the music more than the Spatial did.

Oz

Thanks Don. That certainly carries weight. I don’t know them personally but Don and Bob are top cats in the craft:

http://www.dsachsconsulting.com

http://www.tubes4hifi.com

Awesome post Don. Thanks for sharing your experience with those 2. Now you need to check out the VOLTI RAZZ.  Better parts all the way around than the Cornwall's...especially the cabinet itself.

interesting thread...
I have both Spatial X5 and a new pair of Cornwall IV that I have been playing with the past few weeks. Both are the best speakers I have had the pleasure of living with in all these years of audiophilia. I would be hard pressed to part with either of them. The X5 are the most tonally accurate speaker I have heard. For example, pianos sound more convincing than any other speakers. The integrated sub is perfect and very easy to adjust, at least in my large room.

The Cornwalls only have about 100 hours on them. They are slowly coming into their own. I had a pair of original Cornies years ago that I bought used for cheap. I hated the honk of the horn so I put in Dave Harris’ fastrac horn and completely rebuilt the crossovers with much better parts. They were fun and had the horn jump, but ultimately, the so so imaging and slightly boomy bass just didn’t do it for me. I have several customers who raved about the new Cornwall IV and I had a little discretionary funding in the business (I build tube amps, preamps, phonos and integrated amps). So I bought a pair. I could hear the promise after 10-20 hours so I damped the horns and woofer frames with something similar to dynamat, and I am ordering VCap ODAM caps for the key crossover ones that are in series with the mid and high drivers. At 100 hours they are wonderful speakers (crossovers are untouched). Bass is slowly coming around and they are now pretty 3D. They always threw a wide and tall sound stage, but the depth is coming along nicely. I put some small rubberized cork pads under each corner of the footer. They are 2 inch thick, but I sliced them with the band saw down to 1 inch so as not to disturb the listening height. That immediately tightened up the bass response. That cheap experiment has me thinking about threaded inserts so I can use my soundcare super spikes, which are an enclosed floating spike and pad that are perfect for hard wood floors and isolate the speakers wonderfully. Plus you can adjust the height of each foot to level the speaker and slide them easily on the floor. Have had them for years and they are on the X5.

To sum up... The Spatial X5 is a tremendous speaker with incredible tonal accuracy. It completely vanishes in my room. The Cornwall IV is VASTLY improved over any previous version. They maintained the horn jump factor that everyone loved, but fixed the boomy bass and the new mid horn and driver are light years ahead of the previous versions. The tweeter is better as well. They are inanely dynamic in a way that only horn speakers are. You can play them as loud as you want and they are never strained, and they sound great at low levels. That is true with my 32 watt/ch KT66 integrated or the separate preamp and kt88 amp. They have more of a personality than the X5, which simply vanishes. I would never say the Cornwalls are bright, but they do have a bit of a sound. That is not a bad thing. Most of us love the sound. The Spatials really don’t have a sound in my room. They literally just aren’t there. I would not call them polite sounding at all, but everything else sounds a bit polite when you compare it to a good horn speaker. I remember old Altecs years ago with huge horns and 15 inch woofers in refrigerator cabinets. The Cornwall IV is finally a really good horn speaker. It gives you that big horn sound in a smaller box with MUCH more of the hifi attributes of imaging and tonality than previous versions. Plus in my room I can put them 6 inches from the rear wall and they are fine. So they really don’t take a lot of space and they look cool. 10 ft apart and I sit about 10-11 ft away and they are pointed at my shoulders. The scale is immense. They portray everything accurately, but I would have to give the Spatials a wee edge there right now. I will not seriously evaluate the cornwalls until they hit 300+ hours though. I know better. The bass is coming along. It is not boomy, but it also cannot quite match that of the X5 with the integrated subs. As everyone says, the Cornwall bass is tuneful though. If positioned correctly with seriously good tube equipment ahead of them, the Cornwalls image pretty much as well as the X5 and that is steadily improving. They have a way of putting you in the bar or club with the performers. Put on a live recording of a small jazz combo like Bill Evans or the classic Old and in the Way recordings and you can be present in the venue in a way that even the Spatials cannot quite protray. Honestly, I don’t think you can go wrong with either speaker and a good tube setup. All will depend on your tastes, your hearing curve, your gear, and your room. If you demo Cornwalls somewhere they have to be in a good room with a good setup driving them. Some receiver or cheapo integrated amp will never let you hear what they can do. Also, they have to have at least 100 hours or so of run in or you cannot hear what they offer. Love both speakers......The Spatials are eerily accurate at portraying voices and pianos and really everything. They vanish. The Cornies do most of that, but will let you walk around in the club with a drink and stand in front of the band....... and of course if you really want to crank them.....you can be at the live Dead show:) It really depends on what you are after as to which you would prefer.  

I would add that the Cornwalls are an addiction... either you are prey to that or not, but they are most definitely an addiction and whatever they don't quite have you are willing to ignore because they have that "wall of sound" and it fits into a pretty small package given what it is.

My 2 cents... happy listening.

Don Sachs

See my system profile for how I have them placed. I’d say they are pretty solid into the mid 30s but roll off pretty quickly after that.

I am using an Aric Audio Super KT88/120 SE and the 14 watts with KT88s seem to be the perfect match. But it sounds like you get the gist of what these speakers are about.

I had an opportunity to listen to the CW4’s today. The initial amp was the Luxman SQ150 el84 amplifier. I found them to be very dynamic with a great presence. I really like the way they let the music flow. There was no box sound to identify and the coherence was very nice. I noticed the music seemed a bit tightly wrapped at first- not strained but I realized that from experience I liked el84’s most for vocals and strings and simple music, not for a speaker demo. So I asked for another amp and they had a Primaluna el34 handy. I’ve never heard PL do have much opinion but the el34 opened up the reach of the music much more for me. The “tightness” disappeared and presentation warmed up and relaxed more. The flow was better.My impression of the bass great but a little lacking BUT they were inside of a pair of the monster horns and right up against the wall. The room was packed with speakers and boxes. What bass I heard was great but I’m concerned about them not reaching 30hz. Any thoughts about the placement?All in all found them excellent. I listened to Paradigms right after and it was hard not to hear the individual drivers in the boxes. If I want more dimension and tonal warmth than the PL what tubes and amp would you guys recommend? The little 15 watt Luxman seemed to have enough power just didn’t care for the 84’s. 

I have multiple sets of older modified Klipsch Heritage so unable to comment on current Cornwall but I am a fan of older CWs. In my experience, horns are initially kind of shocking, but grow on you. After a bit, other speakers tend to sound flat. I have sold many sets of speakers but my Quartets have always been in use. I assume newer Klipsch models have been improved. I run them with a Vincent hybrid integrated and between the dampening material and preamp tubes they impress anyone who visits. 

The bass is not super deep, but I am satisfied and feel no desire to put my svs sb2000 pro into the system.  I would say it is impactful bass, but not super deep.

So when my wife turns off the small singer songwriter stuff and goes in the treadmill I sometimes cue up the electronica or Floyd. One track that comes to mind is Welcome to the Machine. Do these pressurize the room on that track? Are you guys using subs with them?

I’ll likely be in a position to demo the CW’s this coming week. 

I’ve always been curious about the Kingko amp!  That could be a great combo!

@dbarger Look at the variety of amps people are using on these!

I just ordered a Kingko KA101Pro, 12 bargain watts of EL84 push-pull goodness out of Hong Kong. Should be fun! I guess this means the Cornwalls are staying :).

@simao , yes, as jayrossi said, Moth Audio has been closed for many years. It was a quixotic partnership (literally, out of Hollywood), ultimately unsustainable, that produced great sounding amp-art that looked retro-futuristic and fantastic, like something out of Flash Gordon. Craig has stayed available to service my amp from time to time, and modded it with an outboard power supply that really took it to another level a few years ago.

Congrats @jehowlind.

Color me as another very happy CW IV user. Got mine about 2 months ago from Cory @ paducah home theater, referred to by @ozzy62. Got an incredible price, shipped free to my home in FL in 3 days. Delivery driver brought them right into my garage. I’m running them with my fully restored Marantz 2385. I have a brand new Technics 1200g w/ Ortofon 2M black. I also run a TEAC X-2000r R2R and the sound is just incredible. The sound seems to improve every time I turn my stereo system on. Clear, clean, powerful with a huge soundstage. Very smooth, no fatigue at all. Midrange is beautifully smooth, plenty of bottom end punch and highs are very nice and widely dispersed.

That's a good point about the variety of amps that can drive these things with ease. My LM 518 shouldn't have a problem at all.

@simao  I had a 518i a while back and it is indeed a great amp, it wasn't the best pairing with horns. I used it with Forte IIIs and a pair of Khorns. I loved many things about the sound, but it could be a little "strident" at times. Then again, the cornwall IV has a much smoother sounding horn than either of those, so you might be ok. Good luck, interested to know how this combination works out.

As for power, you will be fine. I am driving mine with 16 watts of Aric power and it is plenty.

Oz

@simao

Moth Audio has been closed for over 15 years. Craig Uthus moved on and started Eddie Current, which makes some very nice headphone amps. I believe certain models can drive speakers as well. 

Another happy CWIV owner here.  The dynamic swings this speaker is capable of reproducing are otherworldly.  I’m running mine with a PrimaLuna EVO 400 integrated and Manley Chinook SE phono stage and couldn’t be happier.

@wrm57 Is Moth out of business?

@dbarger That's a good point about the variety of amps that can drive these things with ease. My LM 518 shouldn't have a problem at all.

So far, it's down to these or Triangle Cellos. Maybe a Rethm model?

Look at the variety of amps people are using on these!  And everyone is pretty happy.  How unusual is that!
For me I love that you can drive them with virtually any amp, 2-500 Wpc.  I have a decware amp on order, 2.3 wpc.  Last night I was watching the meters on my LM210IA 300b amp, and the most I saw was a bit under 2 watts, so the decware should be ok, even with headroom considerations.
Right now they are driven from 150 wpc Luxman power and they sound fantastic.  
Pinpoint imaging, and as with everything I have tried, the speakers completely disappear.

Oh, it's always in use in one of my other systems, continually since 1999! :) Like yours, it is absolute dead quiet, too, even with headphones. Great little amp.

My 2A3 is an early EVO integrated model, which has James and Triode Lab P10 transformers. I have a photo in my virtual system here on Agon.

I’m also running 12AU7 in place of the 12AX7. They sound much better, even though the gain is considerably lower.

Also: I can take care of the Moth 2A3 if you're not using it ;).

Thanks. That's a pretty big space, roughly similar to mine. I found my Moth S2A3 to sound wonderful at low volume--the best of any of my amps--but it started to soften on the bottom and strain on top before I felt the room pressurize. Didn't clip, exactly, just lost a little composure and suppleness.

Is your Triode Labs the 2A3 EVO integrated? If so, perhaps the Hashimoto trannies make the difference. Looks top shelf throughout.

I must say, your report is pushing me to put my 2A3 back in for another session!

My room is reasonably large and not evenly shaped. The largest part of the room is 20' wide x 30' long. I sit about 9' from the speakers. 

I do use a sub, it's a Hsu Research VTF-3--which has a 12" woofer.

I think what makes this work is that my DAC has a 2 volt output. 

Encouraging report. What are your room dimensions? Are you using a subwoofer?

I would look at a speaker built by a manufacturer of tube amps. Raven has 2 models I have heard them both and they are wonderful.

Also Decware build some very nice speakers.

I'll be receiving a Finale Audio 300B integrated soon and will share my experience with that as well. 

Good to hear @jayrossi13 

My experience powering the CW IV with a 2A3 SET amp has been very rewarding, it’s the best sound I’ve had with the Cornwall so far.

The amps I’ve used have been a Naim Uniti Nova and an Audio Note Cobra--each sounded excellent and had unique strengths: the Naim brought prodigious bass to the table whereas the Cobra has a crystal clear midrange that makes voices sounds eerily real.

For me, however, the Triode Lab 2A3 provides the most pleasurable listening experience and plays to levels louder than I typically listen, without clipping.

Interestingly enough, both the Audio Note and the Triode Lab are dead quiet--possibly even more silent than the Naim.

@dbarger , thanks for the details.

@ozzy62: If you come across a Music Reference RM-10 Mk.2, consider snapping it up. That amp was Roger's favorite push-pull amp of his design, and is a little jewel. He made it in a few different incarnations: originally 35/35w in Class A/B, later 25/25w in Class A. I think I have that right, but if not @clio09 will correct me. ;-)

Supposedly you will hear a noticeable change...for the better...using the Line Magnetic 512 Preamp with the 845 Premium. Hope to find out one day for myself.

So far I have used a music reference RM9 II (125 watts), Granite Audio monoblocks (60 watts), NOS valves ST-45 (40 watts), and now an Aric Audio Super KT88/150 SE with the cornwalls.

The 14 watts/channel of the Aric amp have been the star of the show. This combination is pure magic.

Oz

wrm57, exactly the differences you might expect. The 845 is fuller sounding, the luxman a bit more transparent. The luxmans are the first solid state combo that is a keeper for me. I have mostly tried passlabs, first watt, ayre, parasound, etc. usually listed them or returned them within a week or so of receiving them. The lux’s have all the transparency and detail of the best solid stated but a bit of the naturalness of tubes.
Yes I have used preamps into the premium. The lower end amps (518) benefit greatly from that, but not this, IMO. It is all transformer coupled and pretty well voiced as it comes. I will also say that upgrading the 845’s to elrogs has a much greater impact on the 518 than on this. As supplied it sounds great!
Also, to elaborate a bit more on the satisfaction level with the lm210ia, it is equally satisfying, but in different ways.  It has different cards to play, mostly in directness and nuance.  It is a keeper also.  In fact I did order a pair of western electrics for it today.

Thanks, dbarger. Very interesting.You have some nice amps! How would you compare those big Luxman separates to the LM-845 Premium? The latter has been on my radar for a while, though my reduction in racks from 4 to 3 to accommodate the girth of the CWs would make it difficult to find room for two large chassis.

Slightly off topic, do you ever run the LM-845P with an external preamp? If so, what are your thoughts? I've read the preamp circuitry remains involved even when supposedly by-passed, which is off-putting to me, perhaps for no good reason. I'd likely want to run it with my VAC pre, mainly because it has a sweet phono stage.

kren0006, I am using 4 combinations of amplification.  Luxman c900u/m900u, arc ref6se/ref160s, Line Magnetic lm210ia, and Line Magnetic lm845 Premium. 

wrm57, lm210ia sounds great on these.  But so do the other combinations above.  I have owned several set 300b amps over the years, and these are the FIRST speakers which are fully fed by 8 wpc, even the woofers.  That said, the other combinations mentioned are all a bit more satisfying in comparison.  But only if compared directly.  The 300b experience is worth trying with a speaker like this.  Your room and power requirements are unique to you.

What I continue to enjoy about these is that they do sound really good (better now than ever) with any and all these very different combinations, even though they clearly illuminate the difference in amplification.  They are the kid on the playground that can play with everyone.

I still have yet to have the desire to move the Devore o/93’s back into place, although I have no desire to sell them either.  They are keepers for me, great also, and for pretty much the same reasons.

Uh, I do get it. This volume control was an AVC passive. My comment about position on the volume control was figurative, intending simply to illustrate distortion well before max wattage. Apologies for the unclear communication.

when are people going to learn... volume control position has little to do with when signals overload or amps clip

it is about impedance match and relative sensitivities 

SET can use about 20-25% before distortion is a problem

Yes, the 2A3 amp was straining audibly by halfway on the volume control. Pity.