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Andy

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  1. Hi Kent, Thanks for the link and photos. I was going to replace the drivers on my Baruch-Lang speaker since the wiring is fouled up on mine, but have not done this yet.....maybe I should leave the drivers and just re-wire them. It looks like yours have been re-wired ? Mine has uncoated wire (bare). Originally I thought the later KLH 4 inch drivers would be a good way to restore the Baruch-Lang, but I think leaving the originals may be the smartest thing to do. Also, my speaker has the plywood back/sides as yours does, but mine does not have the 4/16 ohm terminal like yours...my wires just exit the back of the cabinet. These are neat speakers from the earliest days of Henry Kloss speaker building. An interesting aside - My father inlaw was at MIT in the early 1950's when Kloss was there, but did not know him. He tells me that a few people were building speaker cabinets, putting small factory drivers in them just to have a loudspeaker which had good sound. In fact, he still has a cabinet he bought from some guy - plywood, hole for a 6 inch driver, has an internal baffle and is vented with small holes just like the Baruch-Lang is maybe it's from the loft of Henry KLoss ? Next time we visit him, I think I'll rescue this cabinet from his basement and compare construction details ! As I've mentioned on this forum before, Kloss was a skilled woodworker and made his own furniture for his loft while at MIT. What a great way to make a little money - build speakers ! Little did he know that within five years he'd be on his way towards audio fame....AR, KLH, Avdent and so on.. Early New England loudspeaker history at it's best - Andy
  2. A note about woofer sizes. It might seem a bit confusing when looking at the woofer sizes I submitted to the KLH Model History page. The sizes listed were taken directly from KLH brochures. It gets confusing when folks today are mix and matching woofers on varies models; Models 6,20,5,23,17, etc. and assigning sizes to them...10", 11" & 12", then some take out the tape measure and see 10.5" or 10.75"...... In the end, you can be more confused then when you started. My point; If your refering to the Model History page to find out what size woofer to replace in your KLH loudspeaker - best to ask the forum or someone familiar with vintage KLH. Also, many people selling KLH woofers may have incorrect info, and you'll get the wrong woofer. Research pays off and Classic Speaker Pages members are happy to guide folks in the right direction. Andy
  3. Andy

    KLH serial number decode?

    The Model Twenty Two was made from 1968 to maybe '72 and was a pretty popular model with maybe 75,000 tro 100,000 units made ? ? #'s in he 14,000 range are early so yours would likely be a 1968 pair. Andy
  4. Andy

    KLH serial number decode?

    It was 1964 when Singer bought KLH, and the quality stayed in the companies products, Kloss stayed in charge of developement until leaving in 1967. Singer did what big companies do, infused plenty of money to expand. Much went into the Modular systems 11,15,19, 20,24 & 26. no one else had phono/radio systems with matched speakers as nice as these. I recently talked with a guy who worked at KLH in 1966 and he says they had about 900 employees at the time, having more than doubled since the early 1960s. As mentioned above, the model number incuded in the serial number come in sometime in the late 60's ....68, 69 or maybe 1970. All the 23's Ive seen had the number included. 1968 was the first year of the model 23. The story goes that in late 1967 Kloss wanted a speaker between the price point of the model 6 at $134. ea. and the model 5 at $179. ea. So what they ended up with basically is a model 5 without midranges and this was called the model 23 with it's own cabinet style. This time period, 1968-70 was really the peak of KLH. They had at least 7 or 8 different speaker models in production - the phono's (all models) were up to near 500,000 units sold (half a million) and a great table radio (Model 21) which was somewhere near 150,000 sold by 1970. Those were pretty big numbers back then, something like what RCA or Zenith would have seen in a product. KLH had gone from start-up to a major company in a decade. Unfortunately the down hill slide was to follow....the glory years were over. NOTE; You can see I wrote the model numbers numerically not in word form like KLH did when describing a model. Some folks frown on this, but i'm tired tonight. Andy
  5. Andy

    KLH serial number decode?

    It would have been in the late 60s when KLH started adding the Model number as a prefix to the serial number (appearing as part of the number). Almost every speaker I've seen from the 1968-72 era has this prefix. The Model 23 production ended in 1972, making way for models 31,32,33. I'm a big fan of the Model 23, it was KLH's best two-way loudspeaker having the big woofer seen in the model 5 and the cabinet is the same size as the model 5's. It's the sleeper in the line-up, often selling for a song these days..... going fore $10. - $30. a pair on ebay ! A couple of years ago I found Four models 23's out on the curb two blocks from my house !! I made a swift u-turn and rescued them - all were in great shape and fully funtional. They now are hooked up to a Dynaco four dimensional amp - the sound is great. I don't know anything about the A331, but early 80's sounds right. Andy
  6. Andy

    KLH serial number decode?

    Well the Model Twenty with a serial number of 173,000 is going to be late in the production - like 1970-71. A Model Twenty Three with a number of 20,000 is about half way through it's production (1968-72) so it would also be about 1970. Andy
  7. I just lost the text I wrote ?? Anyway one more try - A concise paragragh might read; In early 1957, Henry Kloss, Malcolm Low and Tony Hofmann left Acoustic Research and formed KLH Research and Developement with the intention of building high quality loudspeakers. By 1959 the audio press had taken notice and was very impressed by the company's products. Between 1960 and 1965 they expanded their product line to include high fidelity radios and modular phonograghs. With the purchase of KLH by Singer in 1964 came increased sales. Kloss stayed in charge of product developement until 1967 when he left to form Advent. Through the early 1970s KLH enjoyed a fine reputation for quality speakers and electonics which could be compared to products costing twice as much. A brochure from 1970 reads; "Dedicated to the consumer....for he likes to get value for his money." With increased competition and the the diluted loudspeaker market of the 1970's - KLH was in decline and was sold to overseas interests in the late 1970s. The glory days were gone but not forgotten, for KLH products are being sought out and restored by dedicated collectors. The company had filled an important chapter in the heyday of high fidelity audio. Just a draft of something which covers the basic KLH history. Andy
  8. Andy

    KLH Model Four

    Tom, Check with Roger, the October 1958 issue of High Fidelity is listed as having reviews of KLH models One, Two, Three, Four and Five. That sounds like one to get a copy of, you don't hear much about the scarce Model Five high frequency unit. Andy
  9. Andy

    KLH Model Four

    Tom, All I know besides missing a pair by 5 minutes at a local flea market recently, selling price $10. ! Henry Kloss mentions it in a 1996 interview, saying "CBS records adopted it as their monitor speaker. The high frequency speaker was not one that we made. It was a unit made by GE, of all places. It might have come from a high fidelity speaker maker, the best tweeter I could find. So there's the first full range KLH speaker, more exspensive than the AR-1 and widely competitive with it, I think it was $224." My other observations are (the example I missed buying) slightly larger then the Model Six, a three-way design, rather heavy at 45 lbs. plus, The few I've seen through the years had low serial numbers of 4,000 or lower, leading me to believe production was low. On the market from 1958-61 ? It was the Model Six that became the winner for KLH. I think AR won out in the higher end market with the AR-3 which was in full production in 1959, despite Kloss mentioning it going against the AR-1. I'll bet they put out nice sound, like anything from Henry's heyday !
  10. As far as I know the tweeters for the model 6 and 17 (mid to late 60s version of the model 6)are the same. The model 6 woofer had a bigger magnet, a longer voice coil winding.....this, along with bigger cabinet volume gave them deeper bass then the model 17, but not by much if you listen to them side by side. The 17 came out in 1965 for $69. each and it was a great buy at that price, especially considering the model 6 cost twice as much at about $135 each.! I think KLH sold 2:1 more units of the 17 then 6 during this time. It must ghave been a bit of a thorn in the side of Kloss' old company Acoustic research since it's price was about the same as the AR-4x, many folks thought the 17 put out nicer sound then the 4x, plus it had a 10" woofer compared to the 4x having a 8" woofer.
  11. Through the years, various forum posts have mentioned the year of the model six's introduction as 1958, 1959 and 1960. I've just found a review of the six in 'Audio Magazine' from May, 1958 and they state the speaker was introduced in March of '58. In the review they go on to say "It is capable of performance which we have come to think of as unbelievable for such a small cabinet", then going on to say that it sounds almost as good as the KLH model one which costs four times as much. Also of interest, the staff went to the KLH factory, saying "We have seen evidents of much experimentation in the "junk box"where several hundred tried-and-discarded cone types have accumulated. Finally noting that as far as they know, KLH and Bozak are the only U.S. manufactures to make their own cones. Henry Kloss himself stated in 1996 that the model six was his most important product. I myself am lucky to have found a very early pair of model six's with serial numbers in the 00600's making them early (maybe in the first few weeks of production). What I find most amazing about them besides the exellent sound.....is the cabinet construction, 12-ply 3/4" plywood! I can't think of any other loudspeaker from this era that used 12-ply, it really makes for a beautiful cabinet.
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