Just got some Chorus Is - is this normal?

[callahan1973]

Hi all! I'm new to the Korner as of a couple of weeks ago when I bought some KG4s. I was absolutely blown away by the horn sound and knew I had to have more.

My first upgrade was finding a pair of Chorus Is. All drivers look intact and put out sound and the crossovers LOOK fine. The mids are unbelievable out of these speakers, but on both sides the highs sound like I'm listening to them through water, a muddled sort of sound, especially when compared to the crystal clarity of my KG4s. I'm running them through a recently serviced Marantz 2270 that again sounds gorgeous with the KG4s. I can't imagine that the Chorus' are supposed to sound this muddled in the highs. I can almost correct it if I jack the treble adjustment to the max on the 2270 but that can't be normal, can it? What's likely wrong? Thanks everyone!

EDIT: I feel silly. After some careful, Batman-tier detective work, it seems that the tweeters in both speakers are just not putting out any sound. They've been like that since I hooked them up, and since I unfortunately had them shipped I couldn't test them first. I know, I definitely should have done better. Even without tweeters I can tell I LOVE the mids in these speakers and I really want to do right by them but what do I even do for this? I'm kind of new to the whole speaker tinkering thing and I don't really know where to start. Thanks again.

 

[Rkb1955]

I too just picked up a pair of Chorus. I am interested in what everyone has to say in regards to upgrades, etc. I have only listened to them for a few minutes so far. I hooked them up to my Mac ma6600 and wasn't blown away by sound. They sounded better when I listened to them before buying them. However my intent is to hook them up with a Fisher 500c that I just had redone. I also have a Marantz 2270 and will try it with that too. I understand from what I have read in the forum's that they like some amps better than others. I see a lot of people go with Bob Crite upgrades and am curious about that. Do they just upgrade the tweeters first, then later the crossovers or is it recommended to do all at once. Thanks.

 

[Dukiedook]

In both your cases I would try and upgrade to the titanium tweeter since yours sound like they are probably blown. Before running them you will at minimum want to change the electrolytic capacitors on your crossover and upgrade the other caps to something better than stock like sonic caps. Unhook all your drivers and test them with an ohmmeter first to see what they test out at to see if they have voice coil damage. Moray has some other mods you can do to your I to make it play a little lower and sound better. You can also upgrade your mid squawker to titanium but I would do those other things first since that usually means modifying your crossover to compensate for the better titanium mid driver.

 

[callahan1973]

In both your cases I would try and upgrade to the titanium tweeter since yours sound like they are probably blown. Before running them you will at minimum want to change the electrolytic capacitors on your crossover and upgrade the other caps to something better than stock like sonic caps. Unhook all your drivers and test them with an ohmmeter first to see what they test out at to see if they have voice coil damage. Moray has some other mods you can do to your I to make it play a little lower and sound better. You can also upgrade your mid squawker to titanium but I would do those other things first since that usually means modifying your crossover to compensate for the better titanium mid driver.

Thanks so much for the advice! Interestingly enough, my girlfriend is SUPER into this hobby with me but she doesn't really care much for a lot of bass and my living room is really best suited to not having to compensate for a passive woofer so the Chorus Is were really ideal for me in a lot of ways and like I said, listening to them A/B'd with my KG4s really blew us away in terms of the fullness of the mids and the 2270 does a great job for SS of warming up the horns but we couldn't figure out why vocals sounded so muddy and it's clearly because oops no tweeters at all. When tweeters "blow" usually I know it can be the voice coil or the diaphragm, but if we replace the diaphragm and it doesn't fix them, what's the next step? Am I going to need to take them to an audio place to get the voice coils redone?

 

[njcanuck]

Between the Chorus Is and Chorus IIs that I've purchased, only one out of four tweeters worked! Fortunately, the fix is inexpensive - go with the Crites titanium diaphrams. They are excellent. On the older Chorus Is you should probably install the Crites capacitor replacements, too. It made a big improvement to mine as the old caps were far out of spec.

The voice coils are part of the diaphrams. There's nothing else in those tweeters other than plastic horn and magnet.

 

[DEFTECHY]

congrats on the new chorus... i just got a pair of chorus2's that seem to have a mid/tweet issue as well. however my tweets do work they just seem a littl muddy, so im assuming its the capacitors in the x-over. most say after 15-20 years the original caps can start to go bad & degrade the sound. i plan to do a cap upgrade, but not sure i can justify $80 for 6 sonicap caps & 2 cheap electrolytic caps for the woofer. (thats what the rebuild kit consists of) so i will probably go with a cheaper brand cap (but 10x better than original) like dayton 1% from parts express or solen brand, there are many mid level caps to choose from, its up to you & your budget as to what you spend. all these caps have the same ratings & many say you cant hear much of any differences between $10 a piece caps & $3 caps... & if you can hear a difference its likely very minimal.

i say get the ti tweets from crites to at least get some working tweets in there, then if they sound good enjoy them for awhile & then decide on the x-over upgrade. just remember any new poly type cap is going to be far better than whats in there now. if you can solder you should be able to do the upgrade yourself, if not crites offeres to do the upgrade for you & he may even have some cheaper caps than the expensive sonicaps. shouldnt need to take the speakers to a sudio place to do the x-over upgrades or to replace the tweet diaphram, the tweet is an easy change you can do yourself.

when working properly, these chorus are supposed to be awsome speakers... i also own the forte2 which use the exact same mid & tweet but have a 12" woofer... they are amazing speakers with stock parts & x-overs, so the chorus should be just as impressive. please update this thread with what you decided on the tweets & caps & how they sound afterwards.

 

[Ndirish147]

while you are waiting for the new diaphragms to be delivered you could take the diaphragms out of your kg4 and put it into the chorus tweeter

 

[callahan1973]

while you are waiting for the new diaphragms to be delivered you could take the diaphragms out of your kg4 and put it into the chorus tweeter

Are they the same? Showing my ignorance here haha. Also, are the diaphragms the kind of thing that just "go bad"? Like it isn't a likely electrical issue or anything if I replace them since the crossovers look decent, they might have just been overdriven or gotten too old? I just don't want to stick them back in there and mess the new ones up. You guys are the best!

 

[DEFTECHY]

yes the tweeters are the same, or close enough to test them out. you can just swap the whole tweeter & not mess with seperating diaphrams, if the kg4 tweets work then you identified the problem. these tweeters usually work or they dont, very rare to have a partially blown tweeter. most likely the tweets are blown from overdriving then or feeding them distorted power... just as easy to blow a speaker with low watts being driven to distortion as it is to overdrive them with too much power.

the x-overs should be in working order but again could benefot from changing out the caps as they are very cheap to begin with & are over 20 years old. verify the tweets are bad & go from there with new titanium diaphrams or call klipsch to buy stock replacement diaphrams, but they price is probably real close & the ti tweets are the better tweeter. let us know what you find.

 

[Dukiedook]

Thanks so much for the advice! Interestingly enough, my girlfriend is SUPER into this hobby with me but she doesn't really care much for a lot of bass and my living room is really best suited to not having to compensate for a passive woofer so the Chorus Is were really ideal for me in a lot of ways and like I said, listening to them A/B'd with my KG4s really blew us away in terms of the fullness of the mids and the 2270 does a great job for SS of warming up the horns but we couldn't figure out why vocals sounded so muddy and it's clearly because oops no tweeters at all. When tweeters "blow" usually I know it can be the voice coil or the diaphragm, but if we replace the diaphragm and it doesn't fix them, what's the next step? Am I going to need to take them to an audio place to get the voice coils redone?

Like nj said the voice coil is part of the diaphragm in the tweeter kit you get from Crites. I would recommend changing the caps in your crossover first since that is a bean counter decision on most speakers and they get short shrift usually on parts. I personally don't know if the kg4 uses the same tweeter as the chorus. It might.

 

[DEFTECHY]

sorry, no the kg4 tweet isnt the same as the chorus, different housing. not sure if the diaphram is the same but crites lists the titanium diaphram as the same for the kg series & chorus so maybe its the same.

 

[callahan1973]

Update: got home and swapped the diaphragms in the tweeters and that was it! They sound fantastic now! Girlfriend doesn't even hate the size of them I can't wait to get the titanium diaphragms in. I also have a pair of Fortes coming on Sunday so we are having a battle royale! Thanks again everyone!

 

[DEFTECHY]

cool. so the kg4 diaphrams were the same? thats good to know.

are the fortes the original version or forte 2's? if they are 2's they have the same mid & tweets as the chorus, believe it or not the fortes actually go quite a bit lower in the bass... maybe not as loud as the chorus but lower in the frequency range. so should be a great set up!

 

[callahan1973]

cool. so the kg4 diaphrams were the same? thats good to know.

are the fortes the original version or forte 2's? if they are 2's they have the same mid & tweets as the chorus, believe it or not the fortes actually go quite a bit lower in the bass... maybe not as loud as the chorus but lower in the frequency range. so should be a great set up!

The Fortes are I's but I now have a very, very good problem to have

Onto the next one, which at this point is the condition of the cabinet of one of the Choruses. It's a shame because one of them is in very very good shape but the other appears to have some water damage, with gapping at a couple of the joints in the cabinet between the sides and top of the veneer. Does anyone manufacture cabinets new and if the MDF really is swollen is the cabinet beyond saving?

 

[RuralTom]

I'm not sure that there's a company that specifically makes the Chorus cabinet, but you could likely find the correct dimensions and have a local carpenter make them. If you had some pictures of the condition of your cabs, we might be able to help you 'recondition' them. They may benefit from some rehabbing, then having them re-veneered, possibly at a lower price than having an entire cab built.

 

[DEFTECHY]

the original fortes are excellent speakers, & they do have the same tweet housing & diaphram as the chorus & quartet.

too bad 1 cabinet is good & 1 bad, always makes me wonder why klipsch were so abused in that regard... more often than not they have water rings or water damage... its like they were leaky plant magnets!

no one makes the chorus cabinet, but i have rarely seen used ones pop up on ebay or craigslist but dont count on that. if there is no rattle or vibration on bass heavy loud music the cabinet is probably structurally good, you can use some glue on the inside seams to strengthen them & seal them up, best option for these speakers is titebond's melamite version, it will adhere to the textured black surface most these klipsch used... but its usually not on the inside panels so another good & probably better option is gorilla glue, follow the instructions on the label & be carefull not to use too much as it expands to 2-3x the amount you use. basically you wet or dampen the area to be glued like with a spray mist or trickleing it off your fingers, then apply the glue & let it cure, maybe let gravity assist in the worst areas so it flows down into the seam. then as mentioned above you can probably re-veneer them for much cheaper than building a new cabinet, veneer itself is pretty cheap at online wood supply stores, you just have to know what youre doing to apply it right & if you dont feel comfortable with that a local furniture restoration shop should be able to do it for relatively cheap... however they probably wont match too well so might do both. other option is to post some pics so we can see how bad it is, might be able to save or improve it enough to live with.... or just fill & smooth out the bad areas & paint em black! but the wood veneers are part of the beauty of klipsch speakers so personally i would try & save or re-veneer them.

 

[callahan1973]

I'm not sure that there's a company that specifically makes the Chorus cabinet, but you could likely find the correct dimensions and have a local carpenter make them. If you had some pictures of the condition of your cabs, we might be able to help you 'recondition' them. They may benefit from some rehabbing, then having them re-veneered, possibly at a lower price than having an entire cab built.

You guys really are the best. Have I mentioned this yet?

Here's a couple of rough shots of the cabs. I can get better pictures later this evening but this is what I've got for now. It's hard to see, but there is gapping on both sides of the top between the top and sides maybe 1.5cm wide and it's firm if you try to press it together. Also the veneer at the bottom right corner is loose but could maybe be glued back down.

Here is the link to the imgur album in case they don't embed properly. http://imgur.com/a/aFyCq

 

[DEFTECHY]

tough call on that cabinet. the veneer doesnt look "too" bad, just the few missing spots where is chipped off down to the MDF. youre call on how pretty you want them to be. if the cabinet doesnt vibrate then you can do either way i mentioned, re-veneer or fill & smooth the chips & split seam & paint black. however if these are to be in a man cave or garage etc that doesnt require above average cosmetics, personally i would touch up the chips with some old english or other stain, then clean them real good & hit them with some howards restore a finish or watco rejuvinating oil & see how you like them, real easy to put a towel or something on top with a few decoration pieces... the majority of the veneer surface looks pretty decent, & IMO the oiled walnut klipsch speakers are one of the nicest finishes they offered.