KLH Twenty - first impressions

A record player, stereo, or combination that can set on a table or stand on the floor we will call a consolette for purposes of these discussions.
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Motorola minion
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KLH Twenty - first impressions

Post: # 16279Post Motorola minion »

Two months ago, two KLH cuties were found on FB marketplace. I got them complete with manuals for $40. No speakers of course, he had sold them years ago. Seller had said both did work somewhat, which is true.

Best of all, these two helped me fix the KLH-20 plus AM that a patient customer brought over for repair six weeks ago, getting my name from the owner of a long-time record shop in town. The owner of the 20 had parents who were opera singers and a tag on the bottom showed it had been two shops before: 1984 in Phila and more recently from a boutique stereo guy nearby whose youthful tech condemns old stuff like this as a business plan for his boss. This character, whom I have never met, needs my sincere thanks for sending folks away, who find their way to me :lol: LOFL. Record shop guy has never sent me a flake in 10 years :P

The model 19 (original) and 20 are several years apart, introduced as a sophisticated yet minimalist and compact unit with incredible performance when compared with most other compact stereo systems. One most desirable model is the one with "tulip" stands under both speakers and the unit itself. This customer's model had AM, dated 11-25-70 inside, it was a much improved version adding AM. The Garrard 60 series changer was pretty smeared up with red grease, missing its stylus and Pickering cartridge dirty. This was used heavily judging by this TT and the speakers, equally worn looking but working fine. The speakers need the butyl rubber treatment of surrounds but I will not get myself in any deeper, not even doing the crossover caps, that I need to remove woofers to access :roll: .

Long story short, I recapped and coaxed the amp into working without overheating outputs after a quest for knowledge and trial and error, not to mention disassembly and reassembly, not easy. KLH marched to beat of their own drummer. I saw brilliant design features considering the state of SS units made domestically. I will credit a thread on AudioKarma for giving teh procedure to properly adjust bias and balance pots, one of which was bad, the original problem. No tuner work per owner who plays LPs only. The transistor designs were all different between all three sets in my shop, I needed parts from the 19 to fix this one, including the entire record changer, also Garrard.

No manual or clear/accurate schematic was found. Just this one attached, least i can do if you ever encounter one.
KLH 20 Schematic.jpg
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William
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Re: KLH Twenty - first impressions

Post: # 16282Post William »

I have always admired KLH, I have their Model 18 tuner which has served me well over the years and it still works great. I have never had any KLH apart, but I guessed with everything that is in their things would be very hard to get at and a rebuilt would not be fun.

Bill
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Motorola minion
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Re: KLH Twenty - first impressions

Post: # 16292Post Motorola minion »

I was always familiar with the 21 table FM and others but never inside one. I was expecting this would also be like an HH Scott , intelligent design and just a bit of work to repair but with unexpected surprises when disassembling.

These tabletop KLH systems I'm working on really were meant to be mobile. I have my own complete 20 and 19, cannibalized slightly. Im in no hurry to work on them at this point :(

Target market of urban professionals and college students, albeit rich ones, with limited space and high-brow taste.

I got the Garrard cleaned up and working fairly well. The tracking was heavy and set down adjustment was off, ;) so easy to adjust a Garrard.
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Re: KLH Twenty - first impressions

Post: # 16361Post hermitcrab »

I picked up a KLH-52 from the local goodwill for 5 bucks ... the "A" speaker switch was broken and a coupling cap was dead on the phono preamp circuit... other than those fixes the receiver has been flawless and rated at 30 watts per channel , she really gets the speakers booming ...
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Motorola minion
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Re: KLH Twenty - first impressions

Post: # 16369Post Motorola minion »

hermitcrab wrote: Sun Aug 06, 2023 5:41 pm I picked up a KLH-52 from the local goodwill for 5 bucks ... the "A" speaker switch was broken and a coupling cap was dead on the phono preamp circuit... other than those fixes the receiver has been flawless and rated at 30 watts per channel , she really gets the speakers booming ...
I looked up the KLH 52 and I would rather work on one of those ;) , spread out and serviceable like my Sherwoods and Scotts.
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