The Gearhead: Vintage Klipsch All Day

Calling all vintage Klipsch lovers! Sometimes at The Music Room, when it rains, it pours minty vintage audio.

It started one recent bright fall Colorado day with a delivery from our local pickup man, Allen. A while back, we purchased a large Mercedes Sprinter van with the intention of being able to pick up large speakers from local customers if need be.

Allen has picked up some large speakers in that van, but a pair of perfect condition, all-original vintage Klipschorns is something else entirely. Fortunately, both the Sprinter van and Alan were up to the task.

As I tested these beautiful, un-modified old timers, I started to realize what gems they are. To the vintage Klipsch enthusiast, they represent a fresh canvas on which to make specific modifications like Bob Crites crossovers or updated Tractrix midrange horns. To others, they are simply an original pair of legendary speakers in amazing cosmetic and functional condition.

Later in the day, two more pairs of vintage Klipsch speakers came through the gear pipeline: a flawless pair of unmodified (except for the updated binding posts) original Heresy speakers from 1984, and a pair of original Cornwalls from four years prior. The Cornwall speakers, originally in raw birch finish like the Heresys, were professionally stained to be a little bit darker at some point, but otherwise they have remained untouched and carefully stored for a number of years. Both sets of speakers had all of their original packaging and documents in great shape and in order. Single owner, meticulous care is about all one can ask for when it comes to vintage speakers like these.

To anyone thinking about touching a piece of audio history like vintage Klipsch speakers, it's been a veritable rainstorm of choices lately at The Music Room. We never know what interesting gear a new day will bring here in the testing department, but we’re always ready to test, research and list the finer, rarer audio equipment from the industry’s past when we come across it.

Did we play some classic rock on these time pieces? You bet we did!