I'm very excited about this one because it's a little different than any other restoration I've done.   My customer sent me his speakers all the way from Spain.  They are 2006 60th anniversary Klipschorns.  Very special speakers commemorating the 60th anniversary of the start of the Klipsch company back in 1946.  These are #42 of 200 pairs built by Klipsch.  

It's really cool that I get a chance to work on these.  I'm going to do my best to honor the original design, while improving the build quality, refreshing the aesthetics as my customer wishes, and also bring them up to 'Volti' standards in terms of sound quality.

Unpacking

They came very nicely crated up with a heavy wood sheathing all around and plenty of foam inside.  The speakers were in their original boxes as well.

We put all the packing materials and original boxes back into the crates and I brought them down to the barn.  We will be reusing the crates for the return to Spain.

Here's what they looked like out of the crates and setup.

Very pretty speakers.  The veneer is lacewood with a bold stain color, and it works really well.  The veneer is offset by the gloss piano black finish on the tophat panels.  This is the nicest finish work I've seen from the Klipsch factory.

They are in remarkably good condition aren't they?  I don't usually get Khorns for restoration that look this nice.  I almost feel bad about taking them apart and sanding them down!  But when you look closer, that's when you see the nicks and scratches that have happened to these speakers over the last 19 years.  My customer wants a new look and a refresh on the condition and so we shall oblige.

So now the work begins

Pulling all the compononents and taking all the panels apart.

Klipsch does know how to disappoint .  .  .  .  .

As I got into these I noticed some shoddy work and poor choice of materials.  Like the very cheap plywood used for the narrow cleats that hold the outer panel screws.  Look at the inner plies of this plywood.  I don't even know where to find plywood that poorly manufactured.  Klipsch has wood screws going into these thin cleats and the plywood is splitting in several places.

Remember the greenish colored wood that the shipping crates were built with?  Yeah, about ten times the quality of the plywood Klipsch used for the cleats, and two times better than the press-board they used for all the tophat panels.  Man, they use some poor quality materials sometimes.

Klipsch used wood screws for almost all of the screws of the tophat panels, instead of using inserts with machine screws.  Wood screws are ok, inserts with machine screws are much better.

Klipsch didn't use any gasketing materials between any of the panels of the tophat, which is likely causing some rattles to occur from time to time.   Not very good quality Klipsch.  I also found four screws on the back panel where the midrange horn sticks through that simply were not needed.  They didn't screw anything together.  All they did was fill holes and had nuts and washers on the backside of the back panel.  The worst thing was that all of them were loose  -  another source of noise from vibrations.

Cheap crossover components with sand-cast resistors, iron-core inductors and cheap capacitors on a printed circuit board is not good enough for me or my customers.  You can get an ok sound with that stuff, but it's never going to be up to the quality level of a Volti speaker.  This is for all you 'Klipsch Defenders' out there who think Klipsch builds the best speakers in the world.  You're in dreamland!  Lol

Ok, I've crapped on Klipsch enough, that's not the purpose of this webpage.  But these deficiencies are worth noting, especially with a product that is supposed to be a celebration of 60 years of Klipsch speakers.  I would be a bit embarrased if I worked for Klipsch.

I wanted to make sure that the Volti Audio V-Trac horns would fit in the tophat of these unique Khorns, and they do.

Components

Ok I know I said I would stop crapping on Klipsch.  I can't help it, they make it very easy to do.

So let's talk about a couple of Khorn bass horn related things.  I have seen in writing where Klipsch says that the 60th anniversary Khorns, with their enclosed backs, do not need to be placed in corners.  Technically that is true, you can put any Khorn anywhere you want!  But if you want the full performance of the Khorn bass horns as Mr. Klipsch designed them, they need to be tucked in the corners of your listening room.  That is simply how they work to their full potential.  Mr. Klipsch made it clear that the Khorn bass horn design was "complete" at 48" out from the corner on each side of the Khorn.  It is common practice for people to build false corners to place their Khorns in, with 48" or longer walls on each side of the bass horn.  If I'm not mistaken, I believe Mr. Klipsch had just such a false corner in his living room for one of his Khorns.  Also, for a short while, Klipsch was producing a commercial version of the Khorn with long 'wings' out from the sides that completed the horn.  I believe the reason that Klipsch is now saying that with enclosed backs, these Khorns don't need to be put in corners, is purely marketing.  It is really difficult for people to find just the right room to put Khorns in, with two solid corners not too far apart and not too close together.  The Khorn is the most room-dependent speaker ever designed and built.  That fact limits sales.  Klipsch wishes the Khorn performance was just as good out of the corners and with the little pieces they have stuck on the backs of these Khorns.  It's not.

The other thing about the bass horns on these 60th anniversary models is that the back piece that is enclosing the last section of the bass horn is located in the wrong place.  Klipsch has installed that 3/4" piece of wood INSIDE the bass horn section, when it should be outside.  There is a width and a height of that section of the bass horn that Mr. Klipsch designed a long time ago.  Making that section smaller in size by placing a piece of wood within the section changes the design of the bass horn.  That's a fact.  It would be correct, or at least a lot better to have the piece of wood enclosing the horn on the outside of the bass horn section.  This is the way I have always done it when I'm enclosing the backs of Khorns.  Think of where the plane of the wall is when the bass horn is up against that wall.  Yeah, it's outside of the bass horn section.  So why didn't Klipsch do that?  Cost savings.  Or cheaping out, depending on your point of view I guess.

If you are following along at this early stage, just hold on to your bippy!  We've got some really cool stuff coming.