My Klipsch Cornwall — three speakers, a basement and why the floor needs marks

Being content would have been an option too

I think everyone knows the feeling: you have something, enjoy it — and eventually want something bigger.

For me, it was the speakers.

By then, I had restored my Heresy, treated them with shellac and experimented with damping the horns. I was still delighted. Really, I could simply have sat down and listened to music.

But eventually the question grew louder again: what else is possible?

Anyone who has read my Heresy story already knows that thought. Apparently, it is not an occasional visitor in my life. It has moved in.

So I looked through the Klipsch range again. My McIntosh combination should be able to cope with bigger speakers too. And before long, I arrived at the Cornwall.

The Heresy had a bigger relative

At first, the Cornwall seemed like a larger relative of my Heresy: three ways again, horns for midrange and treble again, and a direct-radiating woofer. In the Cornwall III, that woofer measures around 38 centimetres across.

Of course, there is more to it than simply making a Heresy bigger. But as a starting point for my thoughts, the family resemblance was quite convincing: I already liked the concept. Now I wanted to know what the larger version could do with it.

I watched countless YouTube videos and listened to the systems featured in them too. How much you can actually judge from recordings like these is a question of its own. In any case, they were more than enough to feed my enthusiasm.

My mind was made up: these were the ones.

Now I just needed to find an affordable pair. That part took a while.

Wanted: two. Found: three.

The used market did not make it particularly easy. After a lengthy search, I eventually came across a gentleman offering Cornwall speakers at a price I could afford.

Three of them, in fact.

Apparently, he had used them for a home cinema. The third Cornwall had probably served as the centre speaker.

Two would have been enough for my needs. But when three are offered and the price works, my brain becomes remarkably quick at seeing that as a sensible solution.

There was one catch, though: collection only.

That probably put off a few prospective buyers. A Cornwall III alone weighs around 44.5 kilograms. Then there is a cabinet roughly 91 centimetres high and 64 centimetres wide. Transporting one is a rather different task from briefly putting a small speaker on the back seat.

So I promptly hired a freight company.

After some correspondence, I paid, the speakers were collected and set off towards me. Even the original boxes were still there.

Up to this point, it all felt exceptionally well organised.

The moment the basement grew smaller

Of course, I knew the Cornwall were bigger than the Heresy. That was, after all, a significant part of the plan.

But I only understood just how big they really were when they arrived.

The freight company came, and the staff wanted to know where the speakers should go. The living room on the ground floor would probably have been a welcome answer.

My listening room is in the basement.

It no longer looks like a typical basement, admittedly. The stairs still lead down, though. And the speakers had to go that way.

Two people carried each speaker inside and down the stairs. I could quite understand why nobody felt like discussing the virtues of large wooden cabinets at that point.

Then there they were.

Three Cornwall.

My listening room is not huge. Suddenly, it felt considerably smaller still. I looked at the speakers and genuinely wondered for a moment whether I might have overdone things a little by now.

That question comes up occasionally in my hobby. Usually only once everything has been delivered, though.

Klipsch Cornwall in the listening room: first came disappointment

I connected the speakers and played some music.

And I was disappointed.

After all the searching, videos and anticipation, I had imagined that first moment differently. With the Heresy, I had sat in front of the system in amazement. Now there were three much larger speakers here, and the excitement I had hoped for initially failed to arrive.

But I did not give up.

I started experimenting with positioning. Different toe-in. Straight ahead. Closer to the wall. Further away again. I changed my seating position too.

Little by little, I realised: they really could do something.

I simply had not brought it out of them properly yet.

A few months later, the chair was in the right place too

It took months to find the combination of speaker placement and listening position that suited me.

I also adjusted my McIntosh C40 to it in small steps. Listen again, change something, listen once more. Told like this, it sounds like a manageable process. In reality, it can occupy a surprising number of evenings.

Eventually, it came together.

And then it sounded enormous.

For me, the music gained a spatial depth and a three-dimensional quality that still thrill me today. I do not simply hear two speakers in front of me. The recording opens out into the room, with layers and a presence that keep astonishing me.

That is my experience with my system, my room and this particular setup. And it is why I now often sit there for hours listening to music.

In my room, the Cornwall clearly needed more than an empty space and two connected cables.

Unfortunately, those painstakingly found positions were not marked at the time.

An overnight stay with acoustic consequences

My partner’s best friend stayed with us one night. We had made up a bed for her in my listening room.

At some point, my partner called me. There had been a mishap with the speakers.

Her friend had found that the large boxes were awkwardly placed and in the way. So she had simply pushed them aside.

From her perspective, that was perfectly understandable. If something is in the way, you move it a little further away. You do not normally need a degree in acoustics for that.

For me, it was a catastrophe.

Months of experimenting, small changes of angle, distances, listening position — and now the Cornwall stood where they were more convenient for an overnight stay.

You could hardly blame anyone for failing to recognise carefully achieved spatial music reproduction in two wooden cabinets. For someone without this hobby, they were first and foremost rather large objects.

But I could see my painstakingly found sound walking away. Along with the speakers.

Today, there are marks on the floor. For my listening chair too, incidentally. I was given it for my birthday a few years ago, and by now it is as much a part of listening to music for me as the system itself.

Its position was also part of that lengthy experimentation. That is why, after the next rearrangement, I want to be able to sit in exactly the place where everything comes together for me.

Other people mark their parking space. I mark my listening spot.

Of course, it did not stop at positioning

Anyone who thinks I kept my hands off further changes after all that effort has probably not read my Heresy story yet.

Of course, I experimented with damping the horns on the Cornwall too.

And yes: with the sticky material again.

My previous experience could have been enough to stop me. Instead, I apparently viewed it as a qualification for the next attempt.

The wiring occupied me again too. The Cornwall’s separate terminal sections allow the bass and midrange/treble sections to be connected separately. So there was experimentation and optimisation there as well.

The cable story deserves a post of its own one day. If only because the topic is a remarkably reliable way of starting conversations that last considerably longer than originally planned.

The third Cornwall is waiting for its turn

Incidentally, I still have the third Cornwall. It stands against the side wall and is not in use.

Selling it would be an option.

But who is looking for exactly one Cornwall? Someone with a home cinema, perhaps. After all, that seems to have been its previous job.

On the other hand: what would I do in the exceedingly unlikely event that one of my other two broke down?

You can see how convincingly I can explain keeping it to myself.

If you ask me, it is a spare. Looking at my collection, you might arrive at a slightly different assessment.

Sometimes I look at the third speaker and have to smile at myself.

Are the others really not playing?

When people visit, we naturally end up in the listening room sooner or later. I enjoy demonstrating why there are such large speakers here and why a chair needs a mark on the floor.

People who have never heard a system like this often sit there in amazement. They wonder where all the music seems to be coming from.

Sometimes they ask whether the Cornwall at the side wall really is disconnected. Or whether the other speakers further back are playing after all.

They are still there too, incidentally. That is another story.

But no: during this demonstration, only the two Cornwall in front of them are playing.

For me, moments like these are especially lovely. They remind me of my own first astonishment in front of the Heresy.

The Cornwall later extended that experience once again. But only after a freight delivery, a few months of patience and an unplanned lesson in the importance of marks on the floor.

What remains with me

Listening contentedly — and thinking ahead

Today I sit there, listen to music and feel very content.

What else is possible?

Let us simply leave that question unanswered for today.