Well I've had my cornwalls a couple of days now. I was hesitant to trade my heavily modded forte II's plus cash for them. I read quiet a few people prefer a tricked out forte over a stock cornwall. But these cornwalls are so far beyond stock, and are also a very rare model(vertical horns). So I decided these were too good to pass up. And wow did this turn out to be one of the best decisions I've ever made. I really, really loved my tricked out fortes and would put them up against most speaker costing upwards of 5k. So I thought with all of the upgrades and mods these would be just a step above.
Boy was I wrong. These sound so much better than my fortes, it's shocking. I guess all of the mods really paid off big time. It's been a long time since I've listened to a stock cornwall, but I don't remember them sounding anywhere near this good. These have a much higher level of refinement, bass that extends way down low, and resolution galore. They can play at earth shattering levels without a hint of distortion. The treble is extended, lifelike, and delicate all at the same time. The mids have he-6 level transparency. It's amazing how effortless the bass sounds. It's very punchy, full, deep, and also as tight as the bass from so called bass lite speakers and headphones, with a very naturalness to it. As deep as it is, it never dominates any other part of the freqency range.
The woofers have been upgraded to crites custom made cast frame woofers(basic stamped steel on stock ones). The tweeter have been upgraded to crites as well. But unlike for other klipsch which only the diaphragm is upgraded, the entire driver assemble is replaced. Another rarity about these are the horns. Most of the cornwall uses horns made of plastic, but these have the metal horns(the upgraded crites tweets does as well). Also the crossover have been completely rebuilt into something totally different from the stock ones. Internal bracing has been added with very high quality banana post. I initially though the back of the cabinet had been replaced, but the original is still in place, instead someone added a solid piece of hardwood to reinforce the cabinet structure. All internal wiring has been replaced with most if it being silver plated copper.
These may be the best sounding cornwalls in existence and probably to most rare at that. The cabinets are in excellent shape, but was a little dull. So I have them a good rub down with steel wool and howard's restore followed by howards' feed n wax.
These things are so massive, it's are to get both of them in one shot. Please excuse my speaker cables. I custom made them for my fortes with the terminal being on the bottom. They're on the top with these and are now a couple of feet too short.
