KLH Twelve's $99.99

[dynaco_dan]

Hi there;

A pair of KLH Twelve's just went for $99.99, for pickup only.

That is a fine complete pair at an excellent price, in my opinion.

They are huge and very heavy, close to 100 pounds each, but if one has the size of room needed and great WAF, then, what a way to go.

I have seen this same model being sold, less controls, which is really low-ball and dangerous for the purchaser.

Without the controllers, the mids and tweeters can definitely be blown, very easily and quickly.

Nice to see another great classic speaker sold, rather than parted out.

Two woofers, 4 mids, 2 tweeters, 2 crossover's and two cabinets.

Parts alone, assuming everything works correctly, are worth well over $100.00.

[JKent]

>A pair of KLH Twelve's just went for $99.99, for pickup only.

>

>That is a fine complete pair at an excellent price, in my

>opinion.

Hi Vern

Hope you're right. I pick them up tomorrow! Not only the Twelves, there's a KLH Eighteen tuner thrown in for good measure. That alone could be worth the hundred bux. Now I just have to figure out how to explain this to my wife.......... ;-)

cheers

Kent

[dynaco_dan]

Hi Kent;

Congratulations on such a good buy, Kent.

At the very least you can invite your wife out for a nice dinner.

Look dear, "see what a deal I got".

You can always sleep in the doghouse, like the rest of us at times. LOL LOL

[Dave S.]

My wife liked the Twelves I once owned. Furniture grade walnut cabinets, low boy styling. Very nice and they sound great too! Make sure the crossovers are attached so you don't risk damaging the speaker.

[JKent]

Well, not quite the great deal it looked like at first....

The speakers sounded terrible when I hooked them up to a working amp/cd player. Very "tubby." Turns out one speaker has NO sound thru the tweeter or 2 mids and the other has VERY little sound from the tweet & mids.

My first thought was maybe someone hooked up the wires from the amp directly to the speakers, frying the mids and tweets. Seems unlikely though. The guy I bought from said he got them from an audiophile as a package deal with a stack of classical records. I thought he then played the spkrs, because he told me they worked, but there are big red warning labels on the back of both spkrs, and the xovers had the 18" 4-conductor color-coded cables attached when I picked them up. Besides, each speaker cabinet has 4 posts on the back, so even if one DID try to connect the amp directly it would not be too easy. AND--I emailed him and he wrote right back, saying "when i went to his apartment,he had everything hooked up,sounded great ,and working,he disconnected everything,and and had it ready for pick-up"

So it seems the ebay seller did NOT hook them up--just listened to them in the original owner's apt. And he said they "sounded great." I doubt he would have overlooked the crummy sound. OTOH, seems odd that all the mids/tweets in both speakers are shot. Sounds like some kind of abuse. I doubt the classical music collector blasted these.

Any ideas about what's wrong or how to troubleshoot these? Won't be able to get to them for a while, but wondering where to start. I had originally planned to re-cap the crossovers (looks like 11 caps each) but I'd better figure out where the problem is first.

Thanks for any help

Kent

[mrdb]

With four connections on the cabinet, I would guess that three are for the woofer, mids and tweeter and the fourth is a common return. If you have access to an ohmmeter you can check for continuity. The DC resistance will be in the range of a few ohms for each, with the mids probably being the highest (in the model Five the mids are hooked in series and I'm guessing the Twelves are, too). If you read close to zero, that voice coil is shorted/burned. I'm guessing that the capacitors in the crossover box are bad. My Fives both had no tweeter output due to caps. Another possibility is dirty/intermittent switches in the crossover.

Bob

[dynaco_dan]

Hi Kent;

The Twelves have a real advantage of having an external crossover network.

Not using the crossover at all, disconnect it in fact from the speakers, run the typical 1 1/2 (NO MORE) volt battery test.

One side to common on the rear terminal of the speaker cabinet terminal strip and the other to each seperate driver.

You will be able to test each driver, woofer, both mids and tweeter separately.

With a quick contact only, you will hear a bleep.

[JKent]

Here's how I checked: On the back of the speaker there are 4 terminals: Black, red, white and yellow. Black is common. I took my KLH Model 21 radio, connected a cable to the "remote speaker only" jack, then touched the other end to black+red, black+white, etc. for both speakers. Got sound in all cases. This gives me an excuse to replace all the caps and resistors in the xovers. Hope that solves it!

thanks for the comments

Kent

[JKent]

Just got a box of caps and resistors from Parts Express, but I don't know when I'll have time to tear into these things. Retirement can be exhausting! ;-)

Thanks to Roy C for your help and advice on this.

Since 3 of the 8 original knobs were missing, I decided to replace all 8 (at least until I find some originals). The local Rat Shack had some that look pretty retro, and a 4-pack was under 4 bucks. Here's a pic: RS on top, originals on the bottom.

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