KLH Model Six Speakers

[Danelectro]

I have a pair of KLH Model Six speakers that belonged to my uncle who passed away 25 years ago.  I recall listening to these when I would visit as a kid back in the 1960's.

The speakers have different style control plates, so I assume that they must have been purchased at different times.  Maybe he started out with a mono system and then he later upgraded to stereo, who knows.  The serial numbers are 36615 and 169989.  I assume that the higher number is the newer speaker? 

169989 works great.  The grill panel on this speaker is removeable (attached with Velcro) and its apparent that the drivers are original. 

The woofer 36615 works fine but the tweeter is not making any sound at all.  I tried to open the speaker so that I could determine if the problem is with the tweeter or possibly just a loose wire, however the grill does not come off of this cabinet.  I have tried using various tools to pull it out but it appears to be glued in place because it won't budge, and I don't want to damage the cabinet by prying too hard.   I  first assumed that my uncle had glued the grill panel in place to prevent it from becoming loose, however this seems unlikely since he was a mechanical engineer so I would expect that he would have come up with a proper solution to keep it in place. 

In reading through the forum here, I saw a reference to the grill cloth being wrapped around the baffle itself on some versions of the KLH speakers.  If that's the case, is the baffle then glued into place in the cabinets?  If so, then how can the drivers be serviced?  The back of the cabinet is not removeable.  Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks,

Dan

 

 

    

[jessiAV]

Your research is correct, you have one late and one early Model Six, and yes, the front baffle w/grill on the early one will be quite(!) difficult to remove intact. This can sometimes be pushed out by removing the metal plate on the rear (with it's epoxied-in crossover capacitors) and pushing the front off from behind using this opening. To avoid causing any additional damage on my early Six, I choose to simply cut away the KLH cloth grill and then renew it over a new fiberboard grill frame . The failed capacitor that silenced my tweeter was mounted inside the front panel below and to the right of the tweeter. It was possible for me to reach this cap (barely) through the tweeter hole.

     The Six is a truly wonderful speaker, as you will discover after repairing it.

[Danelectro]

17 hours ago, jessiAV said:

Your research is correct, you have one late and one early Model Six, and yes, the front baffle w/grill on the early one will be quite(!) difficult to remove intact. This can sometimes be pushed out by removing the metal plate on the rear (with it's epoxied-in crossover capacitors) and pushing the front off from behind using this opening. To avoid causing any additional damage on my early Six, I choose to simply cut away the KLH cloth grill and then renew it over a new fiberboard grill frame . The failed capacitor that silenced my tweeter was mounted inside the front panel below and to the right of the tweeter. It was possible for me to reach this cap (barely) through the tweeter hole.

     The Six is a truly wonderful speaker, as you will discover after repairing it.

Thank you for the reply and information.  I never would have guessed that the box was factory-glued shut with no easy way to service the speakers.  I guess that's one way to prevent any buzzing-type vibrations.  Its good to hear that the problem may simply be due to a bad cap in the crossover rather than the tweeter itself. 

I'm impressed with the sound quality of the speakers even though the high-frequency driver out on the older cabinet.    I'm not an audiophile by any means, but I do appreciate high-fidelity audio.  I've been listening through both JBL L100 and 4311 monitors for the past 40 years, so I have an idea of what good speakers sound like.     

I'm not a collector and I don't need another set of speakers, so I'll probably end up parting ways with this set.  Rather than risk damaging this speaker trying to disassemble it, I'll leave it up to its next caretaker to decide how best to approach the repair.