Dilemma: Klipsch Cornwall IV vs Tannoy Kensington SE

[Mike Hanson]

Earlier this year I acquired the Klipsch Cornwall IV, which I think is utterly fantastic. It does virtually everything well, but in particular is astonishingly fast, dynamic and rhythmic--all those PRaT things that make music exciting and engaging. It also sounds great at both low and high volumes, which is critically important to me--Not everyone in my household likes music as much as I do, and I want to be entertained, even when I have to be considerate of others.

I've heard many systems and speakers throughout the years, and there are many test tracks that I've become intimately familiar with. I've developed a strong sense of how they sound on a really good system. Against this internal benchmark, one could say the Cornwall is missing hint of richness, and the tonal balance is slightly off. It never sounds anything other than wonderful, but I occasionally feel like it could sound better.

I just got an opportunity to audition the Tannoy Kensington SE in my home. It retailed for substantially more than the Cornwall, so I was curious to see what it might offer. I'll get to the point and say that the tonal richness that I felt was lacking in the Cornwall was fully present in the Kensington. It's a great sounding speaker!

If the Kensington could also do that the Cornwall manages so well, then I would not be penning this missive. Unfortunately, though it sounds very impressive, it does so only at high volumes. Even then, it's no where near as fast, dynamic, and room-energizing as the Cornwall. And at low volumes, it sounds positively recessed and unengaging, verging on dull and ignorable.

Unfortunately, these shortcomings are a dealbreaker for me. There are things I very much like about the Kensington, but the Cornwall is a better match for my desires, on the whole.

That does make me wonder if there's any possibility of a speaker that would better the Cornwall, given my very specific criteria:

• Fast and dynamic (PRaT)
• Large sense of scale
• Bass extension down to 30Hz (-6dB)
• Tonally balanced and rich, with sufficient high frequency extension for that "sparkle"
• Engaging at low and high volumes
• Works close to the wall (which probably eliminates planar and open baffle options, and anything with a rear port)
• Not larger than the Cornwall (which is already stupidly large)
• Grills to protect the drivers
• Natural wood appearance (no black, nor polished paints)
• Not too expensive (e.g. the MSRP of the current Kensington GR is double what I'm willing to spend.)

Any bright ideas?

 

[Tony L]

First try a good valve amp with the Cornwalls. Classic Klipsch really don’t give their best with solid state. Not even close to it. Just borrow one from someone and try it. Trust me, I’ve heard this so many times. That richness you miss will arrive, they’ll sound much bigger and more natural, and the flat-earth PRAT stuff will only get better. They were designed for valves and even though they have been tweaked with every new version to sound not quite as bad as they used to with solid state, they still come alive with valves. You don’t need a big one either, a pair of EL84s is fine. Borrow a Leben 300, something like that if you can find one. Joe P’s Stingray would be great, and given you are both in Canada that’s just a matter of popping down the road!

 

[Mike Hanson]

First try a good valve amp with the Cornwalls. Classic Klipsch really don’t give their best with solid state. Not even close to it. Just borrow one from someone and try it. Trust me, I’ve heard this so many times.

I realize the Cornwall IV is part of Klipsch's Heritage line, but do you still consider it to be "Classic Klipsch"?

When you say "valve amp", to you mean specifically tubes, or are their solid state varieties? I'm not really keen on tubes, with all of their foibles (big, hot, fragile, perishable, etc.).

I'll admit with the plethora of DIY amps around here (Avondale, Neurochrome, Nelson Pass ACA, et al.), I'm somewhat reticent about bringing in yet another amp.

BTW, I haven't build that ACA yet. Perhaps that would give me a taste of what you're suggesting.

 

[Tony L]

When you say "valve amp", to you mean specifically tubes, or are their solid state varieties? I'm not really keen on tubes, with all of their foibles (big, hot, fragile, perishable, etc.).

Yes, I mean tubes. Don’t assume they are unreliable. Most valves last longer than electrolytic capacitors! Three of the ones in my preamp are older than I am, even power tubes should last years in any decent well designed amp. There are many old Quad IIs or old Fender guitar amps out there from the 1950s with most of their original tubes.

As I say just borrow one if you can. You will instantly see what I mean. Klipsch just love tubes. The Heritage Range remains very close to PWK’s original designs. This is tube-era kit. As I say I’ve heard it so, so many times. I’ve never owned Cornwalls (I suspect I’d love them), but I have owned Heresys and LaScalas and heard many others up to full Klipschorns. Just try it. That thinness and shallowness you get with the solid state will vanish and they’ll start to sound like real music. I’m not knocking solid state, it is fine with the right speakers. The right speakers aren’t classic Klipsch!

 

[daytona600]

Best mate has Cornwalls Touch of richness & £12k Silvercore 833C MKII
1000watt transmitter tube with 20wpc output will last a very , very long time
Great lightshow at night & doubles as a Space heater

 

[Mike Hanson]

Best mate has Cornwalls Touch of richness & £12k Silvercore 833C MKII
1000watt transmitter tube with 20wpc output will last a very , very long time
Great lightshow at night & doubles as a Space heater

There's no way I can plonk two behemoths like that in the middle of the family room.

Are there any tube amps that will nestle themselves nicely into a 2U shelf of a Mana rack?

 

[geetee1972]

Hi Mike - I think Tony's comment is excellent and whilst I have never heard either the Cornwalls or the Tannoys, I can fully understand where he is coming from because I have heard the same thing in my own room with my own (horn loaded, high sensitivity) speakers.

I have a pair of hORNS FP15s which actually do everything you're asking above and at an RRP that is half what a new pair of Tannoy Kensington GRs. But if you can find them second hand, as I did, you might get them for something more like one quarter of that. The FP12s are also seriously worth considering. I did have the FP10s and you can get a pair of those for under £2k but they're not the speaker you're looking for!

hORNS are relatively unknown in the UK, more popular and established in Germany (they're made in Poland so easily exported to Germany) but they are gaining more of a (glowing) reputation. They perform way above their price point, typically competing with speakers twice their price. They're true giant killers. The FP15s are about as large as the Cornwalls but are designed to sit on stands so they do have more of a physical presence. I'm a bit precious about my interior design and at first, when I put them in, I was like 'Just NO!', but actually their presence has grown on me.

However, I would also suggest, along the same lines as Tony, that there may be other ways to solve your problem. If you like the Cornwalls for 90% of what they do and it's just the last 10%, then it's worth experimenting with other factors to fine tune your system. The most obvious way to do that would be if you were running tubes in your pre-amp, to try rolling those. This is exactly what i just did on acquiring the FP15s; the mid treble was just a shade too bright, too forward and not quite 'warm' or rich enough. It was never strident or harsh, but the tonal balance was just a little off for me. I have a tube based pre and power amp set up - the power amps don't allow tube rolling but the pre does. I swapped out the 12au7 tubes that worked in the last system for another pair of NOS (vintage) 12au7s and solved the problem in a stroke. Total cost for that was £700; not cheap but the improvement made it an easy decision.

If you don't have tube pre or power amps and you're not willing to experiment with Tony's suggestion, then consider trying alternative interconnects. I would recommend Z-Axis Audio rerference RCA interconnects, which, while expensive, improve the bass response considerably and add that touch of richness you're looking for. Cost for these is £2250 I think. Paul Stratton is Z-Axis and THE nicest guy in hifi. He will allow you try a pair before you commit to buying them.

After the interconnects you could try speaker cables, but that's getting very hit and miss; system tuning with cables is not that easy to achieve and mostly you tend to amplify what you already have all at the same time. Same with power cables.

Isolation may help however, if for no other reason than it will boost the bass response, subtly changing the tonal balance. And sometimes that all you need - the make the mid treble sound a little richer all you need do is improve the bass replay. It's about balance between the two.

Finally, depending on where you are, you're always welcome to listen to my system and hear the FP15s for yourself. I'm West Sussex.

hORNS FP15s, Silvercore 833MKII by Greg Turner, on Flickr

Home by Greg Turner, on Flickr


hORNS FP15s, Silvercore 833MKII by Greg Turner, on Flickr

 

[geetee1972]

Best mate has Cornwalls Touch of richness & £12k Silvercore 833C MKII
1000watt transmitter tube with 20wpc output will last a very , very long time
Great lightshow at night & doubles as a Space heater

OMG what are the chances of that? Two posts featuring a behomth of an amp that barely anyone in the UK has heard about let alone owns! Who is your mate?

 

[geetee1972]

There's no way I can plonk two behemoths like that in the middle of the family room.

Are there any tube amps that will nestle themselves nicely into a 2U shelf of a Mana rack?

The amps fit in between the legs of the FP15 speaker stands. I just choose not to have them there!

 

[dan m]

I bet those Cornwalls would sound great driven by a pair of Quicksilver amps. Seem extraordinarily good value at $2K/pair from a company that has been around for ever. http://quicksilveraudio.com/products/midi-mono/

 

[Mike Hanson]

Hi Mike - I think Tony's comment is excellent and whilst I have never heard either the Cornwalls or the Tannoys, I can fully understand where he is coming from because I have heard the same thing in my own room with my own (horn loaded, high sensitivity) speakers.

I have a pair of hORNS FP15s which actually do everything you're asking above and at an RRP that is half what a new pair of Tannoy Kensington GRs. But if you can find them second hand, as I did, you might get them for something more like one quarter of that. The FP12s are also seriously worth considering. I did have the FP10s and you can get a pair of those for under £2k but they're not the speaker you're looking for!

hORNS are relatively unknown in the UK, more popular and established in Germany (they're made in Poland so easily exported to Germany) but they are gaining more of a (glowing) reputation. They perform way above their price point, typically competing with speakers twice their price. They're true giant killers. The FP15s are about as large as the Cornwalls but are designed to sit on stands so they do have more of a physical presence. I'm a bit precious about my interior design and at first, when I put them in, I was like 'Just NO!', but actually their presence has grown on me.

However, I would also suggest, along the same lines as Tony, that there may be other ways to solve your problem. If you like the Cornwalls for 90% of what they do and it's just the last 10%, then it's worth experimenting with other factors to fine tune your system. The most obvious way to do that would be if you were running tubes in your pre-amp, to try rolling those. This is exactly what i just did on acquiring the FP15s; the mid treble was just a shade too bright, too forward and not quite 'warm' or rich enough. It was never strident or harsh, but the tonal balance was just a little off for me. I have a tube based pre and power amp set up - the power amps don't allow tube rolling but the pre does. I swapped out the 12au7 tubes that worked in the last system for another pair of NOS (vintage) 12au7s and solved the problem in a stroke. Total cost for that was £700; not cheap but the improvement made it an easy decision.

If you don't have tube pre or power amps and you're not willing to experiment with Tony's suggestion, then consider trying alternative interconnects. I would recommend Z-Axis Audio rerference RCA interconnects, which, while expensive, improve the bass response considerably and add that touch of richness you're looking for. Cost for these is £2250 I think. Paul Stratton is Z-Axis and THE nicest guy in hifi. He will allow you try a pair before you commit to buying them.

After the interconnects you could try speaker cables, but that's getting very hit and miss; system tuning with cables is not that easy to achieve and mostly you tend to amplify what you already have all at the same time. Same with power cables.

Isolation may help however, if for no other reason than it will boost the bass response, subtly changing the tonal balance. And sometimes that all you need - the make the mid treble sound a little richer all you need do is improve the bass replay. It's about balance between the two.

Finally, depending on where you are, you're always welcome to listen to my system and hear the FP15s for yourself. I'm West Sussex.

hORNS FP15s, Silvercore 833MKII by Greg Turner, on Flickr

Home by Greg Turner, on Flickr


hORNS FP15s, Silvercore 833MKII by Greg Turner, on Flickr

Thanks for the suggestion of a tube pre-amp. I'm running the Benchmark HPA4, which is as un-tubey as one could imagine. I'm curious, though, whether tubes in the pre-amp would have a large impact on the speakers, when they're driven by transistor-based power amps.

 

[daytona600]

There's no way I can plonk two behemoths like that in the middle of the family room.

Are there any tube amps that will nestle themselves nicely into a 2U shelf of a Mana rack?6inch

Amps are tucked away almost out of sight also runs a pair of Klipsch RP-1600SW 16inch subs hits 12/14hz

 

[Tony L]

For clarity I’m not suggesting Mike spends a fortune. Any well serviced vintage Leak, Radford, Quad, Dynco, McIntosh or whatever is out there in Canada will slaughter his solid state amps into those speakers and impact exactly the aspects he feels (correctly) are missing. As I say, just try and borrow one. Don’t spend money yet. There with be a lot of nice tube amps knocking around in Canada! Someone must have one you can borrow. Something like a Prima Luna Prologue would more than prove the point.

 

[Rug Doc]

Try some Belden 8402. They are on Amazon I believe, or designacable. These should add a bit of warmth and can be returned if they don’t do the trick.

I think a very British audiophile has done a review - I’ll have a look.

yep -

 

[dan m]

Quicksilver Mid Mono amps

Tube amp hoarder looking to thin the herd.No sonic disappointments with these mono block amplifiers. Quicksilver products are built to last. The Mid Mono amplifier is completely hand-wired and can use many different output tubes The Mid Mono has a low loss output transformer, adjustable bias, and...

www.canuckaudiomart.com

 

[geetee1972]

Thanks for the suggestion of a tube pre-amp. I'm running the Benchmark HPA4, which is as un-tubey as one could imagine. I'm curious, though, whether tubes in the pre-amp would have a large impact on the speakers, when they're driven by transistor-based power amps.

Well this might be playing with semantics, but nothing has an effect on how a speaker sounds so much as the speaker simply plays the signal it's fed, as best it can. The real magic is for the speaker to be as neutral a window as possible to that signal, adding nothing and leaving nothing behind. Horn loaded speakers tend to get a bad rep for colouring the sound but as I always so, compared to what? If you've not got a reference point in your room then no matter how attuned your ears are to some previously established reference point, fairly quickly that colouration will sound entirely normal.

Different components in the signal chain tend to have different impacts on the replay. Power amps tend to determine the dynamics of replay - so how well the system plays large transients, how the speakers pressurise the room, how open they sound (too much power might swamp a high sensitivity speaker and too little power will make an ineffecient one sound congested). The pre-amp has the biggest effect on speed and soundstage and then micro detail and dynamics. But, a good tube pre-amp definitely warms things up considerably, removing the clinical or analytical style that can be the result of an all SS amplification set up. Doesn't always follow that rule of course but the SS amps that do it all tend to be massively expensive.

 

[Chris81]

Well this might be playing with semantics, but nothing has an effect on how a speaker sounds so much as the speaker simply plays the signal it's fed, as best it can. The real magic is for the speaker to be as neutral a window as possible to that signal, adding nothing and leaving nothing behind. Horn loaded speakers tend to get a bad rep for colouring the sound but as I always so, compared to what? If you've not got a reference point in your room then no matter how attuned your ears are to some previously established reference point, fairly quickly that colouration will sound entirely normal.

Not for me, if a speaker sounds colored, I will never get used to it

 

[Tony L]

With vintage high efficiency speakers a lot is about damping factor too. Klipsch etc were designed long before all the modern heavy small long-throw drivers came along, the last thing they want is a muscle amp designed to throw cripplingly inefficient and reactive modern speakers around. That partnership just sounds rigid, thin, tonally stilted and sterile, the speakers just can’t breathe the way they were designed to. I love valve preamps, but they are not the answer here. What Mike is describing is a damping-factor mismatch. He needs to try a nice little valve amp to understand what he is hearing here. It will be transformative.

 

[Mike Hanson]

Not for me, if a speaker sounds colored, I will never get used to it

I'm my case, the Cornwall doesn't sound colored, but it does seem (as Tony articulated) a bit thin. I'm willing to give a tube amp a try to resolve that.

 

[geetee1972]

Not for me, if a speaker sounds colored, I will never get used to it

Fair enough but my point was that I listen to my system and I listen to my friends very high end, non-horn loaded system and whilst i can hear much that is superior in his (because his is three times the cost of mine), colouration, or the lack thereof, isn't one of those things. How you determine what is and what is not coloured depends on your reference point, which is to some extent, arbitary.

Tony - interesting response and not one I would have any knowledge about to be honest except (I will have to read up on 'damping factor' unless you care to enlighten me?) I am using 20w amps on highly effecient speakers and the sound is sublime.