RIP Bob Crites

[Squishman]

Bob Crites died yesterday or at least it was announced yesterday. He made crossovers and sold other upgrades for old (and really old!) Klipsch speakers keeping them sounding amazing. My Forte II's and my Academy center speaker benefited from his services.

 

[Kvn_Walker]

Aww that's really sad! He was a dedicated improver of their designs.

 

[shadyJ]

My question is why was Klipsch designing such subpar crossovers that Crites becomes a known figure just for offering better crossovers? Why couldn't Klipsch just design good crossovers to begin with? With their Heritage line, I don't think they stand a chance of producing acceptable sound performance by modern standards without using an active crossover anyway, not that Heritage aficionados care about modern standards.

 

[highfigh]

They designed those "subpar" crossovers because those components worked and they could buy them at a price that Paul Klipsch would pay. The technology had changed a lot between the time Klipsch started and when Bob started doing his work- what's to wonder about? Ever seen the electrolytics in Hersey speakers from the '70s? Big and rectangular. They used terminal strips for the connections and nothing fancy.

What was available from other manufacturers, at the time (of Klipsch origin, not 20-30 years later)?

I called Bob once, for Heresy tweeter questions- he wasn't impresses by the 'tweaky' modifications and cable marketing, either. We had a few good chuckles- nice guy.

 

[cabill]

I REPLACED MY LASCALA CROSS OVERS 20 YEAR AGO 1200 DOLLARS.THEY ARE VERY NICE AS IS OR WAS MR.CRITES.AT THE TIME THEIR WAS ALOT OF WERE THEY WORTH THE COST..MADE THEM VERY ADJUSTABLE. THANK YOU MR CRITES.

 

[Sadie42]

Not only was Bob a competitor but a good friend too. We spent endless hours on the phone over the 20 years I knew him. One of the most selfless people I have ever known.

Always some confusion as to what Bob and Michael do over there. 90% of the audio related stuff was repair and /or replace. Almost all of the networks are basically clones.

Later he found a better tweeter, and had a K-77 type horn mold made so he could adopt the replacement tweeter. It worked well. Later he stumbled across the B&C DE-120, which is what pretty much everyone has moved to.

And the CornScala of course, which has become a platform for more mods than I can count.

Klipsch builds a good box. They deserve to have their lifetimes extended - which is good - especially when one considers the prices of the new stuff.

I have a lost a good friend. I will miss him.

 

[Kingnoob]

My question is why was Klipsch designing such subpar crossovers that Crites becomes a known figure just for offering better crossovers? Why couldn't Klipsch just design good crossovers to begin with? With their Heritage line, I don't think they stand a chance of producing acceptable sound performance by modern standards without using an active crossover anyway, not that Heritage aficionados care about modern standards.

Those are an super expensive line fo speakers, I’m curious why there x overs would be so horrible . Is this true of there reference lines ??
Rip poor guy , bigger question is there an afterlife or just eternal oblivion?
Another audio hero ‍ gone

 

[Verdinut]

Subpar passive crossovers on expensive lines of speakers are common. You just have to look at the impedance and phase response curves of some popular brands such as B & W, Martin Logan and several others. They just don't have the know how to design good passive crossovers, or they don't care. Improvement could be made on the drivers as well, that would help improving the results.

 

[Sadie42]

Well, there's old Klipsch, and there's new Klipsch (starting at around 2004) -- and with new Klipsch, there is Reference and Heritage. The lower end Reference stuff is definitely value engineered. It has to be, or else people in that particular market wouldn't be able to afford them. The filters are perfectly fine for what they are. The RF-III is built here in United States, and is a considerable jump in performance. With that said, I've heard the $500 a pair RP-600M, and well, what a nice surprise.

The Heritage stuff has been revamped and people seem to like them. I know what's in them and I'm not real thrilled with the drivers they are using for the money they are charging. The networks however, are steep slope.

Most of the old Heritage stuff is still hanging in there, but is often in need of some kind of service. This is where Bob came in. There is nothing "wrong" with the old network designs. They are low order types and used autotransformers instead of l-pads for attenuation - you won't find much in the way of resistors in most of them. PK did not like them. The problem is simply that some of the parts, especially the caps, are aging out. Some of that stuff is over 40 years old now. ESR on the old caps is terrible, beginning to go largely resistive - often in neighborhood of running several ohms of resistance in series with HF drivers.