Newest score - KLH 20s and Realistic Optimus 2Bs

How do you like those 23s I thought the 6s were the best KLHs but then read someone saying the 23s are even better, just not as well known.

I've never had sixes but I love my Twenty Threes.

A couple comments:

1) the sweet spot with them is much narrower than with an EPI or Genesis speaker with the inverted dome tweeter.

2) The bass isn't QUITE as deep as I get from my Rectilinear III lowboys.

However, if you had to live with the Twenty Threes as your only pair of speakers for the rest of your life, you'd still be doing reasonably OK.
 
I don't have any sanding experience, but at this point I should look into doing my Dynacos too. Does any particular type work best for speakers?


I don't have a nice DMM yet but plan on getting one. I've done the battery test to check phasing with my makeshift RCA speaker wire adapters, but always through full speakers. Doing this with a AA battery won't hurt them? I thought doing that, but wasn't sure if it would potentially damage the tweeters. If that's safe to do, then I'll check em out today and start putting my capacitor list together! I also have some Old Large Advents, two sets of Heathkit AS-105s, those Realistics and some RS Nova 6s ( I believe are essentially the same speaker) which I may or may not do, and some other speakers I'm looking to restore which aren't as old but I might do anyway while I'm at it. Not sure if I'll end up keeping the KLHs, from what I've been reading the Dynacos are very comparable but a little better in the low frequencies.
Sanding the cabs is easy. Start with 220 grit and a wood block. Cut a piece of sand paper the size of the block plus some extra to wrap the block. Slowly and evenly sand with the grain, not across it. Then apply the oil with an old sock or cut up pieces from a cotton t-shirt and wipe it on again going with the grain. The cabs will probably need a couple oil applications. Wait 24 hours between applications, sanding with 600 grit between applications.
Glenn
 
It looks like his store is closed till the end of the month, so you remember what it cost? I'm just trying to plan for everything. Thanks for the link :thumbsup:

It was $14 from that site. Also see Glenn's message above -- I wrongly assumed that was RoyC's site.
 
Did these originally have badges? The grill cloth is in fantastic shape but there's no badges

FWIW, my 20s never had badges. The best way to tell is to pull the speaker grille and look for a screw hole in the lower left corner of the front baffle. The badges on 17s (and most other KLHs of the era) screw directly into the baffle through a small hole in the grille board. My 20s don't have a screw hole in the front baffle and I seem to recall reading that at least some 20s never came with badges.
 
Last edited:
How do you like those 23s I thought the 6s were the best KLHs but then read someone saying the 23s are even better, just not as well known.

It looks like his store is closed till the end of the month, so you remember what it cost? I'm just trying to plan for everything. Thanks for the link :thumbsup:

From the big auction site the dope runs somewhere between $12 to $15. Go ahead and PM RoyC. I'm pretty sure you can get it straight from him. Not sure what he would charge, but I'm sure he's a fair guy. The little jars are enough to cover maybe two sets if you only use what you need. Be sure to use it sparingly. You don't need it to be completely sealed - just substantially sealed. If you use too much it will affect the compliance of the surround.
 
Regarding the KLH badges, check wth JKent at the CSP website. He usually has some excellent reproductions on hand.
 
I've never had sixes but I love my Twenty Threes.

A couple comments:

1) the sweet spot with them is much narrower than with an EPI or Genesis speaker with the inverted dome tweeter.

2) The bass isn't QUITE as deep as I get from my Rectilinear III lowboys.

However, if you had to live with the Twenty Threes as your only pair of speakers for the rest of your life, you'd still be doing reasonably OK.
Well I have some really nice Tannoys that I scored at another estate sale that is my main set that I'm building my "budget HiFi" system around, but I do like having a set or two of nice vintage speakers around. I'm just wondering if I should be more in the looking for the 23s over the 6s, because I know a lot of people love the 6s. I know I can't keep em all, but I like the idea of giving old speakers new life so other people can still enjoy them.
Sanding the cabs is easy. Start with 220 grit and a wood block. Cut a piece of sand paper the size of the block plus some extra to wrap the block. Slowly and evenly sand with the grain, not across it. Then apply the oil with an old sock or cut up pieces from a cotton t-shirt and wipe it on again going with the grain. The cabs will probably need a couple oil applications. Wait 24 hours between applications, sanding with 600 grit between applications.
Glenn
Ok I wasn't sure if you used an electric sander, but that's definitely a cheap way to do it! I've done a bit of hand sanding, just not with an electric one. Thanks for the tip about Roy, I'll just pm him :thumbsup:
 
Well I have some really nice Tannoys that I scored at another estate sale that is my main set that I'm building my "budget HiFi" system around, but I do like having a set or two of nice vintage speakers around. I'm just wondering if I should be more in the looking for the 23s over the 6s, because I know a lot of people love the 6s. I know I can't keep em all, but I like the idea of giving old speakers new life so other people can still enjoy them.

I can't say, again, I've never had a pair of Sixes. I can say that if you see a pair of Twenty Threes for cheap you should get them. They look like very similar designs, and I'm not sure which is actually preferable to the other. I've just happened on Twenty Threes but no Sixes.
 
Well I have some really nice Tannoys that I scored at another estate sale that is my main set that I'm building my "budget HiFi" system around, but I do like having a set or two of nice vintage speakers around. I'm just wondering if I should be more in the looking for the 23s over the 6s, because I know a lot of people love the 6s. I know I can't keep em all, but I like the idea of giving old speakers new life so other people can still enjoy them.

Ok I wasn't sure if you used an electric sander, but that's definitely a cheap way to do it! I've done a bit of hand sanding, just not with an electric one. Thanks for the tip about Roy, I'll just pm him :thumbsup:
I only use the hand power sander to completely remove the finish when I'm doing a lot of veneer repairs, otherwise, a light sanding will be fine, even the overall tone of the veneer.
 
I have a pair of 2B's that I use in my garage connected to the gold faced RS SA-1000A integrated amp and matching TM -1000 tuner. If you replace the old electrolytic capacitor in them with a film cap they will sound better and less layed back sounding. I'm still looking for a set of 1B's locally.
 
KLH 20s are very nice speakers. I recently restored a pair with the vintageAR sealant and new caps. By the way, since the 20s only have RCA inputs I decided to get adapters like these:

index.php

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LYV4AWL/

Definitely easier than installing new binding posts. I've also soldered RCAs onto bare speaker wire, which works very well. Just remember that if you switch to binding posts and leave the RCA jacks in place, you still need to plug the RCA or the speaker will see it as an air leak.

And how do you like the Optimus-2Bs? I have 1Bs and Nova-8Bs and think they sound great. The 2Bs look to be a bit smaller.

Cool little adapters are they decent quality?.......After seen this thread a few days ago it got me the urge to pull my old set of Nova 7s out of the closet. Since I am running them off of a Realistic STA 95 that has the RCA outputs I decided to order a KabelDirect RCA 20ft set of jacks and see if it makes any difference in sound (I doubt it) over the 16awg cables I am using now.
 
Cool little adapters are they decent quality?

Those adaptors are of reasonably good quality and they hold 16ga cable just fine. I *think* I've used them with 14ga too. To be honest, I'm surprised that RCA-style speaker hookups didn't gain more traction in the market. They're extremely easy to use and very difficult to make a mistake with, such as an accidental short or mismatched polarity. In terms of sound quality, I haven't noticed a difference between using RCAs vs bare wire or spades into screw terminals. The only issue I can think of is someone accidentally running an amp or receiver with RCA speaker outputs (like your STA-95) into some stereo component besides a speaker.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom