It's Heresy! My Take on this Polarizing Speaker.

So the Cornwall IIIs are good, and you can't stand the Heresy IIIs, yet these speakers share the same mid and treble drivers. Interesting.

 

I don't put a lot of faith in measurements after many decades of listening experience. While it matters and should somewhat coincide with sonic results, sometimes, perhaps rather often, the best sounding product from a lot of contenders will not have the absolute best measurements. They don't suck though.

I think that the Klipsch speakers have as low an audible distortion as they do, not in an absolute sense, but in a practical one is that they are extremely efficient. That makes them appear to have lower distortion as it is related to output. So while the distortions are present and can manifest in unusual ways in contrast with other designs, they are lower in level. The same can be said with solid state amplifiers, where they have very low distortion measurement in terms of its level, the trouble is that the type of distortion that they do produce is much more objectionable vs some other amps, such as tube amps, which have a higher measurable distortion level, and yet manage to sound more natural. I don't think it's as much a 3rd harmonic vs 2nd harmonic thing in speakers, rather a frequency and phase deviation thing, but the analogy to how we hear such things seems easy to digest and accurate.
-Bill

 

Bass is much, much better on the Cornwall. In fact, no other speaker in the range can touch it, and even the Cornwall doesn't do bass nearly as well as other types of speakers. It does represent their best effort at Klipsch IMO however. They require a huge room as you need to sit 12' or more from them for best sound, and yeah, they still suffer from the top end of the rest of the range, but the blow is rounded out by the inclusion of some deeper and more well integrated bass in that model.
-Bill

 

I knew what he was referring to, but a lot folks here get bent out of shape over thread titles, so figured I should break it down for him.

 

I know my Cornwall's are not typical but I don't think they sound better from 12' away. I have them in a large room and can do a listening position that far away but I think the sweet spot is much closer.

Also...lets not lose site of the fact that Cornwall's cost about three times as much as Heresy's and take up 1/3 of the space (if that). One would certainly hope Cornwall's to sound better.

 

Yes, definitely. While I don't find them fatiguing 90% of the time, they do require some attention to placement and component matching. They do have a more "live" sound than most.

 

Positioning, including corner proximity, and toe-in play an important role in how they sound from a particular distance. So you need to adjust those parameters for each position. The reason that they sound better from a distance is due to the distance of the drivers and their design. They do not integrate well together and that distance is needed for the sound to integrate more uniformly. Sure, they cost more, but they are the only speaker in the range that I could live with, if I had a room to support them.
-Bill

 

This is just a good time right here. If you are looking to run a SET amp, or really anything under 30 WPC, I don't know how you beat it for the same money. And as mentioned in the first post, it looks enough like furniture that you can get away with it in a living room. That's my kind of lifestyle audio product.

 

I have found that component matching is HUGE and most that have hard feelings about these speakers didn't make the effort. The difference between a Marantz AVR and a Fisher 400 is amazing, it's like two completely different speakers. As you said, it's a very honest speaker. If you have something ugly in the chain, it will be clearly revealed. Those horns do not lie.

 

Yes, I should've emphasized this in the OP. I usually run them off my tube amp as it does balance them out some. I'm surprised at how well they do with the Yamahas.

 

I just measured, exactly 12’.

 

I first heard Heresys back in the 70’s in a club/restaurant that was fairly lengthy but not extremely wide. What grabbed my attention was the realistic musical reproduction with a “you are there” ear grabbing sound. Forget about imaging as such as the sound more resembled a live venue. I was focused on the music that was totally engrossing and then curiosity as to what the heck were these speakers.

About 10 years later I bought my first Klipsch speakers LaScalas and soon after went back to the dealer and swapped them + some $$ for new Klipschorns.

So it was hearing those Heresys that started me down the “Klipsch Road”.

 

It’s a gateway speaker

 

I realize the Heritage series are all PWK designs and sacred(except for the Forte III), but there's so much potential in a Heresy sized box and it's somewhat wasted. Porting the box and sticking a better woofer in it could completely transform these speakers. There's so many nice 12" drivers on the market today and it would be trivial to get 25hz-800hz in room response and much better bass than even the Cornwall.

 

Porting the box would ruin the good aspects of their bass IMO. It would sacrifice speed for output, make placement a greater challenge, and inhibit low-level dynamics. Their sealed box is the reason they work so well against walls. The woofer can't dig deep because it's a low excursion type which also lends to its speed. I have yet to encounter a ported, multi-woofer floor stander that can match them for transient speed. Play a track like Steve Smith's "Khanda West" through a ubiquitous floor stander, then through the Heresys, and the Klipsch strategy will begin to make sense.

 

Nice review. What happens when you give the bass knob a twist on your Yamaha?

 

I haven't tried it with the Heresys but I've used it a couple times with the Spendors and I think it works well.

 

So, I don't have the option of having a 100 watt + SS amp and NOT using all 100 + watts? I doubt if I ever used more than 15-20 watts from any amp (including some with up to 200 watts) driving Klipsch speakers! In fact most of the time I am probably under 5 watts.

 

I've just found that high power amps tend to excite the cabinet. Maybe it has something to do with damping factor, I'm not sure, but it's quite an obvious difference. Of the amps I've owned/own, the Parasound Halo was the worst match but had the highest damping factor.

My dealer believes they work best with moderate tube power, about 15 to 50 watts. I haven't had an opportunity to test any flea watt amps, but so far, they've performed best with my tube amp's 20 watt setting.

 

I’ve had the same same experience, not with heresy’s but with cornwalls. When I connected mine to a 200watt amp it was pretty ugly. The bass was bloated, the highs were schrill and the mids were lost. It would certainly rattle the windows and peel paint off the walls but it wasn’t a good sound. Kind of the same thing with a Sansui 9090 that runs 110 watts.

 

The sound that I get from my Klipsch (klipschorns) now is fantastic IMO. There fireing into about an 1100 cu ft space and the amp has huge power reserves. I’d have to move to a much bigger space before changing it (the amp).

 

It's a polarizing speaker to some extent but really Klipsch is a polarizing brand.

I'm a big fan of the Heritage line but really at the end of the day its great because its loud without giving much power. This philosophy of loudness is what the brand is built on.

I follow of Facebook group of Klipsch owners, it's a wild bunch and a very different philosophy of audio as opposed to what you find on this forum. Everyone is very fond of the marketing tag line "Pissing off the Neighbors for 70 years". Very much a "louder is better" audio philosophy that works with hard rock or heavy metal. Or giant sub woofers that make explosions sound real when watching video.

Compared to Speakers that get audiophile credit, they sound a bit harsh on the high end and unbalanced for the sake of being loud. I am however a fan and I take the opinion that a good pit bull owner does, its not the the dog, it the owner.

 

Interesting. I think most of my amps have had rather high damping factors regardless of the wattage. But then again, I don't play them at levels that would rattle the windows or peel the paint. Between 1979 and about 1984 I had some Cornwall IIs. Then it wasn't until around 2015 that I got back into Klipsch again. First with Heresy II (which I sold) now with a set of Forte I with Crites crossovers and Ti tweeter diaphragms. And for my bedroom I just got Heresy IIIs, which are much improved over the Heresy IIs. I am using NAD C326BEE (50 watts) for the Heresy IIIs, damping factor >100. And everything from Electron Kinetics Eagle 2C prime (120 watts) damping factor >800, Crown PL-3 (90 watts) damping factor >400, Crown PL-4 (180 watts) damping factor >400 for my main system with the Forte Is. And next week I will be getting Thresold SA-300II amp. I have no idea what its damping factor is. I cannot find this spec online.

So would it be that a HIGHER damping factor would excite the cabinets more? I would thing a higher damping factor would do the opposite.

 

Though each dog breed does have inherent traits, including behavioral, because they were BRED to extenuate certain traits!

That being said, I do not play my 98-103 dB sensitivity speakers any louder than I would play any of my 86-88 dB sensitivity speakers. So I keep my pit bulls (Klipsch speakers) in check.

 

I agree with the last sentence, but I think the first depends on numerous factors.

Those are diffrences in the generation of drive units, gear matching, music type, recording quality, and of course, the room.

From everything I've gathered, the gen IIIs sound significantly different from the gen 1s, so one must consider that context. All Klipsch speakers are finicky with amp matching and tend to be ruthless with poor recordings. While they can get loud without burning up, I find the Heresys tend to sound best at moderate volumes, around 70db. One can easily make their highs harsh, but one can make them equally delicate within the right parameters.

I'm no longer of the school of thought that a pair of speakers should be perfect for any and all listening conditions. At some point, one becomes able to pick out the weaknesses and strengths (as they perceive them) of any speaker. Now that I've heard some high-dollar Magicos, Wilsons and the like, I'm even more content with my systems. All speakers have weaknesses in some way or another, subjective as they are.

It seems some folks can only appreciate one or two design principles. I've learned to appreciate many types of speakers, from horns to panels to multi-driver floorstanders, from modern to vintage, even some I used to despise.

I think it's a lot like music appreciation. With an open mind, time and exposure, one learns to appreciate most any type of music. That doesn't mean they'll always be ready to listen to any genre at any time. For me, speakers are like that. If I want to listen to blues at 60db at 1:00 a.m, I'm using Heresys. However, if it's Def Leppard at 95db, it'll also be through the Heresys. If it's Ella Fitzgerald at 80db, I prefer my Spendors.

I suppose that's the luxury of having multiple systems. If one has to live with a single pair of speakers, it's very likely that Klipsch is not the best fit.