Klipsch KLF 30 advice

asp69

Active Member
Going to look at a pair of these in oak finish tonight. Seller says they are in mint condition and all original. He's asking $500 for the pair. I've been waiting for a pair of these or a pair of CF4 to come up locally. I have no idea what a good price is for these but $500 sounds pretty fair to me. Any of you have opinions, advice, or things I should be looking for when I listen to them this evening? Thanks
 
Price looks good.
Check for rattles on the cabinet.
KLF series is known to have separation at the joins where front and back board is connected to the cabinet.
I have 10's with that issue.
You may have to use some bass heavy notes to find that out.
It's not a deal breaker as it's not hard to fix from what I read but something to check.
 
If all the drivers are functional $500 is a great price. All the different finishes usually go for about the same price except for the Rosewood, which run as much as $100 more.

As is, the KLF horns can be a bit beamy at louder volumes. There are numerous threads on how to rebuild the cabinets, and how to soften the horns with damping compound. When done properly, and in the right space (enough room so you don't have the horns right on top if you) the KLF-30's are beautiful speakers. They are brutally efficient and have pinpoint imaging. They will bring out details you never knew were in the source material or coming from the rest of your system, which can be a good thing or a bad thing.

I made the mistake of selling my KLF's years ago. If a pair showed up locally at $500 I would buy them in a heartbeat. They were a speaker I could listen to and my wife could look at, which is a rare combination.
 
UPDATE. Got there to look at the KLF-30's and noticed the seller also had a pair of absolute mint KLF-20's he was using for rear channel speakers. He had inherited both the 30's and the 20's from his parents. He thought both pairs were the same. The 30's were not in as good of shape as the 20's. The 30's had the backplate rattle issue and were cosmetically 7-8 out of 10. Long story short I picked up the mint 20's for $400 and going back for the 30's for another $400 in a week or two.
 
UPDATE. Got there to look at the KLF-30's and noticed the seller also had a pair of absolute mint KLF-20's he was using for rear channel speakers. He had inherited both the 30's and the 20's from his parents. He thought both pairs were the same. The 30's were not in as good of shape as the 20's. The 30's had the backplate rattle issue and were cosmetically 7-8 out of 10. Long story short I picked up the mint 20's for $400 and going back for the 30's for another $400 in a week or two.

Sounds like you'll have a little work, but will probably get a ton of enjoyment from these speakers.
 
If you could get four you could do something like this, still might work with the 30's and 20's, who knows.


session100.jpg
 
Apparently if you re-build the cabinets, add some actual bracing, make a few mods to the network, re-tune the ports, invert the phase of the midrange driver, and a few other little tweaks they actually become a listenable speaker.

http://www.hostboard.com/forums/f700/264940-i-sure-did-miss-you-guys/index2.html#post1942784

I heard of other mods but why invert midrange phase?
Is it wired wrong from the factory?

Re: I sure did miss you guys



Here is a list of all the Mods I have made to my KLF 30s. Take it for what it is. I will update it if I make any changes but at this point I don't think there is another sound I'd like to hear coming from them.

1. Removed feet and stuck flat onto a piece of carpet. I have hardwood floors.

2. Covered Mid range horns with 2 layers of gutter seal. 1/8th inch by 4" got it at Menards.

3. Stuck 1/4' weather seal foam onto the inside woofer spokes.

4. removed port tubes.

5. Removed all foam from inside of the cabinet, cut a piece of (factory) 1" foam to fit in the top and stapled it in. cut one 3" wide strip and put it down the inside of the cabinet on one side only up against the motor board. Put a piece of 1" foam on the bottom of the cabinet from the bottom of the port holes to halfway to the motorboard.

6. Reversed the wires on the Mid horn.

7. Set speakers off the wall 8.5 inches off the wall and turned inwards and placed so that the distance between the horn centers is twice the distance of the horn center to the side wall.

8. At this time I have a piece of 2" foam spanning from above the port holes to the wall behind the speakers. It's ugly but I think it sounds good. yes I know it sounds odd and I agree that it is. But it is what it is.

9. Removed metal jumpers from terminals and replaced with 12 gauge stranded copper.

The only thing not in this list is the rebuilding of the cabs which basically was remove the motorboard and back board and screw a 3/4 x 3/4 oak ring all the way around both openings so I had a decent amount of wood to screw the panels to. Klipsch had glued them in and they were falling out when I bought them.

This was my post over on the Klipsch audio community so it probably sounds like I'm talking to them. :0

What would one of my posts be without a vid to go with it. theres a couple of more vids of them on my youtube page if your really bored.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K0f1-ljwpA

Oh yeah I got a new projector too. much better color.


Last edited by cradeldorf; 1 Week Ago at 04:33 AM.
 
The KLFs were a wonderful speaker, but there were two problems with Klipsch's implementation of the design.

The problems with inferior bracing, compounded by just gluing (rather than gluing and screwing) the cabinets were legendary, and caused less-adventurous audiophiles to give up on the series when it came out (I originally got my pair for $75 from a disheartened buyer who compared them to white van!).

In addition, some of the KLF speakers had drivers that were wired wrong at the factory. Who knows why, but any time you have an out of phase driver it will mess up the sound.

The nice thing is that both problems have very reasonable fixes. At lower volumes neither problem (even an out-of-phase mid) is prominent. After the fixes the speakers sound so good that you rarely see KLF-20's or KLF 30's for sale. When you do, they are usually the black finish and they are still expensive.
 
In addition, some of the KLF speakers had drivers that were wired wrong at the factory. Who knows why, but any time you have an out of phase driver it will mess up the sound.

Woofers can be tested whether they are in phase or not by battery.
How can the horn diaphragm be tested for phase?
 
My HII diaphragms are the terminals are marked for the positive terminal. Either color coded or the + symbol on the terminal plate.
 
The mid wired out of phase might have been intentional for proper time alignment of the drivers. The same reason why subs have a phase control.
 
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