New (to me) KLH Model 5 Pair

rmoreau61

Well-Known Member
I got a call from the local record shop I frequent the about a week ago. They'd gotten a batch of about a thousand records and wanted to let me know so I could get an early shot at what they had. I went down after work to look through them (and would up buying a handful of titles). Funny side story, the owner pointed to a guy across the store and told me he owns a record shop a few towns over - he gets his stock from this place!

Anyway, they also repair electronics here and get vintage equipment that they fix and resell. I was just about at the door and I saw some speakers stacked by the door. I saw some nice looking cabinets and took a quick peek - KLH Model 5's! A potential upgrade to my OLA's I've enjoyed thoroughly for a few years with the intent of upgrading from the vinyl cabinets. A quick once over told me they looked pretty good. Drivers intact and cabinets not heavily worn (a water stain on the top of one and some light scratches on the bottoms). No chips, dents or dings. I asked if they were for sale. Of course I had to get the pitch - how clean they are, working order, yada yada. Not to diminish this gentleman's sales pitch. He has excellent stories to tell (like having been a field repair service for the Advent big screen setup back in the day - a fan of Henry Kloss). I bought them, brought them home and before anything else, decide to try some Howard Feed n' Wax. I planned to sand and refinish, but I figured what could it hurt to try this - the cabinets didn't look too bad. Man, that stuff worked a miracle. Water stain gone. Scratches virtually invisible (bottom surface only, anyway). The cloth surrounds look like cloth surrounds - as if never coated - fully aged. Woofers rebound instantly. So, I ordered the magic fluid from Vintage-AR - one coat on this afternoon. Definitely will need another coat in a day or two. Excited to work my way through these and get them hooked up for real (I did give them a quick listen - worked fine but sounded a bit lifeless).
 

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Congrats! Great find. Certainly a upgrade from Advents. They will need new capacitors. Two types of of crossovers in these, point to point or PCB. Keep us posted.
 
Thanks! I'm taking this one step at a time and I've seen on other posts about the crossover refurbish. The Advents look like they were a good deal simpler (stands to reason, I suppose for a two way setup). I'll plan on cleaning the switches as well. At least I have my lifetime supply of rope caulk available to re-seal the speakers when I reinstall them.:) This is sort of a before and after of one coat of butyl. It's really one speaker not yet treated and one with one coat just applied. I'm going to wait 48 hours before applying the second coat on the assumption a longer cure is better between coats. Vintage-AR included very specific instructions and a small acid brush. Fortunately, I have plenty of acid brushes to handle multiple applications. I'll probably go ahead and treat my couple of pairs of smaller KLH speakers I've collected over the years. They've never been for serious listening, so I never bothered fully refurbishing them - just cleanup to be presentable enough to allow in the house....
 

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Congrats, you should love those once brought up to par. Looks like you will want to dig up some badges too.
 
nice find! not so sure about the need for a second coat of surround sealant, possibly the frame gasket is not a tight seal? I seem to recall mine had the foam gasket rings which were compressed and no longer sealing properly, I ended up using mortite for all driver re-seats.
as said earlier there are two possible xover configs and can be a bit confusing so seek guidance once exposed. resistors being replaced is a good idea as KLH used cheapos for these.
more pics as you progress please.
 
Mortite is the stuff I have a lifetime supply of (one box) from doing my OLA's. I expect to reseal them as you recommend but from everything I've read it's typical to have to re-goop (very thinly) the surrounds. These looked very dry with a couple of islands of blacker spots so I just dove into it. There was zero resistance when testing the woofer bounce. I'll check them tonight to see if there's a marginal improvement.

nice find! not so sure about the need for a second coat of surround sealant, possibly the frame gasket is not a tight seal? I seem to recall mine had the foam gasket rings which were compressed and no longer sealing properly, I ended up using mortite for all driver re-seats.
as said earlier there are two possible xover configs and can be a bit confusing so seek guidance once exposed. resistors being replaced is a good idea as KLH used cheapos for these.
more pics as you progress please.
 
Nice catch. I just found a pair of the six's at a local thrift this past Friday. Mine have the vinyl cabs, but everything works. I also ordered the surround dope and hope to get them going soon!
 
These are excellent speakers! Designed to compete with the AR-3a.
The sealer should also be applied to the dust caps as well as the mids surrounds & dust caps. If you look closely, you'll see it was once there.
A recap will bring these back to life from the "lifeless" sound you heard.

They look great after the Howard's treatment!

Glenn
 
Nice catch. I just found a pair of the six's at a local thrift this past Friday. Mine have the vinyl cabs, but everything works. I also ordered the surround dope and hope to get them going soon!
These too should be recapped. Vinyl clad cabs were the last year or so of production in 1972.
I just restored a pair from the original owner circa 1971 with walnut veneer. Great speakers as well!
 
These are excellent speakers! Designed to compete with the AR-3a.
The sealer should also be applied to the dust caps as well as the mids surrounds & dust caps. If you look closely, you'll see it was once there.
A recap will bring these back to life from the "lifeless" sound you heard.

They look great after the Howard's treatment!

Glenn

Thanks, I would have forgotten to do the dust caps! I did get the mid surrounds. That's what I get for relying on a swiss cheese memory to do a job. I'll definitely be doing the crossover discretes (and, of course rope caulk to reseal when putting the speakers back in). I gave the woofers a tentative push this evening. Definitely a slower rebound after a coat of Vintage-AR's elixir. Staying shiny, but I expect even better results with a second coat and the dustcaps. A new Mortite seal and I expect factory fresh performance. Looking forward to it - but not rushing. Truly lucky with the cabinet condition - almost no effort to get them glowing. Believe it or not, the attached is definitely more "shiny" than pre-seal.
 

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Thanks, I would have forgotten to do the dust caps! I did get the mid surrounds. That's what I get for relying on a swiss cheese memory to do a job. I'll definitely be doing the crossover discretes (and, of course rope caulk to reseal when putting the speakers back in). I gave the woofers a tentative push this evening. Definitely a slower rebound after a coat of Vintage-AR's elixir. Staying shiny, but I expect even better results with a second coat and the dustcaps. A new Mortite seal and I expect factory fresh performance. Looking forward to it - but not rushing. Truly lucky with the cabinet condition - almost no effort to get them glowing. Believe it or not, the attached is definitely more "shiny" than pre-seal.
I looked at your pics and at my Fives, only seal the mids surrounds, not the dust caps.
 
I took a look at the dust caps and it was crystal clear that the woofers had originally been coated but not the mids. It only really showed around the dust caps of the woofers. The caps themselves were pretty light colored. They got a first coat. I'll get a picture later to compare to the before images. Nice and shiny now!
 
FWIW, for me, I only apply one coat, and listen to speakers for week or so to evaluate if a second coat is needed. Only one time was a second coat applied to any of my KLH's. I would rather be light on the sealant rather than apply to much and reduce optimal compliance.. Just my 2c.
 
I know that in life shiny doesn't equal good, but those dust caps just look good after a coating of the butyl. Is there any way to estimate the age of the speakers by the serial numbers? These are marked AS0516400 and AS0516394.
 

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