The first speakers better than my all-in-one TT/Speaker combo I ever heard were KHorns owned by a neighbor down the street when I was 14. My buddies and I used to drool over them when we got a chance to listen to them. Fast forward 35 years and I finally got a chance to start playing around with vintage speakers on a very limited budget. I jumped at the chance to grab a pair of KG4’s but realized I had no place to use them with our four boys still living at home. Regrettably I sold them.
Several years later the local internet classifieds had a pair of poorly painted black Heresy 1’s that I picked up. I absolutely loved the detail of the horns and the intensity of the bass. They started out as HWO’s so I started to strip them. I soon realized the cabinets had been heavily damaged and repaired with bondo. They were so bad I parted them out and added a few more $’s to my speaker account.
Fast forward a few more years to two years ago and I had commandeered a basement bedroom for my stereo gear after our four boys had all moved out of the house. So I started watching for a pair of Forte’s. Northern Utah is the polar opposite of the Klipsch hotbeds in other areas of the country where vintage Klipsch Heritage stuff seems to show up regularly on Craigslist and at the local thrift stores for throw away prices. After months of watching for Forte’s with no luck a pair of the ugliest La Scala’s imaginable showed up on the local internet classifieds. I never dreamed a pair of La Scala’s would be within reach but they were so ugly the seller had them listed lower than I ever thought I’d see them for. But they were still more than I was willing to pay. Undaunted I went to check them out.
They started life with a birch raw finish. The seller had quite the story to tell. He’d got them from a buddy, the original owner, who used to listen to them on the outdoor deck of his house. At some point, likely after way too many drinks, he painted them (very poorly) flat black with flat red on the dog houses. Some time later one of them was painted (slightly less ugly) semi-gloss black. So that’s how I saw them. The asking price was $600, not a bad price by Utah standards even considering the ugly appearance. After lots of talk about vintage gear and Klipsch in particular I loaded my 1976 La Scala’s into the SUV, feeling elated to get them for $400.
Mechanically they are solid. The corners and edges of the repainted black speaker are sharp and straight. The black and red one needs more work, the top layer of original veneer having been peeled off the top, and the lower front corners showing a little road rash. I’m considering adding a layer of 1/4” plywood to the top and sides then painting them black. I’d love to get the original birch finish back but I’ll decide what to do after I start sanding them. But for now I’m pretty much the only one that sees them so the appearance isn’t critical. And that obviously doesn’t affect the sound, which gives me goosebumps every time I listen to them. I’ll recap the second AA crossover next week. One notch up on the bass control of my Marantz 2265 gives me all the intense, hard-hitting bass I need. And the mids add a realism and live concert sound that’s almost unbelievable. Ugly or not they’re not going anywhere.
I finally found the Forte’s I’d been looking for about 18 months ago but sold them just last week to a good buddy of mine. And instead I’ll keep the Chorus II’s I found just a couple months after getting the Forte’s. Ok, so occasional Heritage deals do show up here. The oak clear Chorus’s are about an 8-9/10 on appearance and cost me $150. I don’t think they’ll be going anywhere either.