Today: part two of our series on the higher-end of widely available vintage hifi speakers: KLH. Despite their very generic, un-hip look, these KLH units really surprise me with their sound. IMHO they sound a lot better and a lot more modern than the JBLs of the same period. Plus they have woven clothe surrounds so they are a lot less likely to need any servicing. I have personally encountered some units that had bad crossover caps, so if you get a pair and there’s no tweeter action… it might be the cap. I recommend this brand of cap for replacement. Good price/performance value. Some of these KLH models were also available (with a different numerical designation) as part of a 3-peice-set including an amp/tuner/phono combo unit.
Above: KLH Model Five, Six, Twenty-Three, Twenty-Eight, Twenty-One, Seventeen, Thirty-Two, and Thirty-One.
4 replies on “Yard-Sale Speaker Spotter’s Guide: 2: KLH”
I have spent a lot of time and energy jacking with garage sale speakers and have come to the conclusion that you can do better most of the time with a Madisound kit. Occasionally a plum comes around, but eBay has made worthwhile garage sale finds scarce.
KLH was designed by Henry Kloss, who was considered “The Founder of Boston Bland”, a reference to the smooth but undynamic sound of many of his designs and others from the Massachusetts area. I have always preferred a good horn speaker such as Klipsch, or Altec or JBL systems, because of the superb dynamics, which you just don’t get out of acoustic suspension systems.
You can’t build the box cheap enough to make Madisound kits competitive with new pre-built speakers, unless you have a full wood shop, use salvage or stolen materials, and value your time at zero.
You can get good deals on small box speakers at places like Audio Advisor if you wait, the whole speaker is cheaper than a woofer and tweeter at Madisound. These little guys outperform much bigger older speakers. If you want bass, add a subwoofer.
Garage sale seventies and eighties speakers can definitely be a good deal if they haven’t been blown up, but when they have, you can never get the original part.
Rural estate sales are always the best places to find this stuff because most of the customers are looking for tools and farm equipment, and a lot of farmers had fairly decent household goods. I bought a whole system with Advent speakers, a Sansui tuner and integrated amp, and a Thorens TD-150 turntable for $50 about four years ago.
Most garage sale speakers are an example of something I call “Critical Part Theory”. Always there is one thing bad and you can not get that one thing, not an exact replacement anyway.
You can use them for the cabinets and refit different drivers and crossovers, but as the poster above notes, it’s often cheaper to buy a whole new speaker.
I bought a pair of 28s for twenty bucks because one was “dead”. The input had become unsoldered: hooked it up and they worked great. Great system for the garage.