Vintage Hi Fi and my little CF amp

I wonder what Fortes sound like with a couple of Lightstar watts behind 'em? No bass my ass :-0

A word of caution: Those 12" woofers are only rated 100 watts RMS. The problem is they sound so good and distortion free no matter how loud you play them until POP! That's one of the main reasons I originally stepped up to the Chorus II's, they have a 1000 watt peak commercial grade 15.

...just put a fuse on them!

Found an original brochure today featuring the Klipshorn, Chorus II, Forte II and the Quartet, all excellent speakers in my opinion.

I wonder what Fortes sound like with a couple of Lightstar watts behind 'em? No bass my ass :-0

A word of caution: Those 12" woofers are only rated 100 watts RMS. The problem is they sound so good and distortion free no matter how loud you play them until POP! That's one of the main reasons I originally stepped up to the Chorus II's, they have a 1000 watt peak commercial grade 15.

jjpktd....thanks. I don't need to play them so loud I'd destroy them.-- I get all the volume I need from my CF amplifiers...gotta love those little buggers.

ray

I just wanted to throw caution into the wind because the very first pair I ever purchased years ago I got cheap because one had a blown woofer. Since then, I've got a friend who has blown 2 pairs of woofers on his Forte II's (over the course of a few years) with his Carver TFM-45 and has finally fused them at the request of the speaker repair guy who was starting to recognize him as a "regular" customer. Another friend of mine has the Forte I and blew one woofer right away and a few months later blew the other one.

Tonight Sherry and I sat down and gave a listen to some vintage vinyl on an old Technics SL-B92 TT. I had a problem earlier in the week with one of my CF amps being terribly microphonic. I found that all of my RCAs had worked their way loose. Tightened them up...no more problems. Cool. Let's do some listening.

We dug through a pile of LPs she bought me for my birthday several years ago. I found a copy of Neil Young and Crazy Horse's 'Rust Never Sleeps', Van Halen's '5150' and 'Balance', Pink Floyd's 'Final Cut' and the Eagle's first album, Journey's 'Departure' and 'Raised on Radio' and a nice copy of Elton's 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road'.

Several things became readily apparent, QC in the last days of analogue was worse than poor. As Radio Engineer 2(Mark) was expounding upon at CF12, not all recordings are created equal. Whereas the Eagles had great imaging and soundfield, this record was recorded very well. Raised on Radio was flat and compressed. The Van Halen was actually pretty good...much better than I expected. Rust Never Sleeps was pretty typical fair from 'live' albums of the day. I rediscovered my copy of Grand Funk Railroad's 'Phoenix' and 'On Time' and fondly remembered why these guys were my favorite band growing up.

I have something called a 'Direct Metal Master' of the Crue's 'Girls, Girls, Girls. This is a really good record...even if you don't like Motley Crue. The soundstage is broad and deep and the imaging is very good. Not what you expect from Heavy Metal. Vince isn't surrounded with that usual halo, he's in your face. Tommy's kit is really well recorded, you can feel the kick drums in your chest and this is probably the best rock recording of snare hits I've heard in a while.On 'Wildside' Nikki Sixx is plainly off to Vince's right and Mick Mars. Tommy's drumming is back a ways behind Vince, and that drum kit sounds huge.

I wonder what this rig will sound like with a decent TT?

ray

Ray - It's about time you got a system that you could actually HEAR THE DIFFERENCE!!!

Ray - It's about time you got a system that you could actually HEAR THE DIFFERENCE!!!

Chauss, it's not my rig I can't hear. I can't get my ears to work.

ray

Just razzin ya Ray!

I dig it Chauss, too many loud stereos, cars and wives. Can't hear anything anymore. I just turn it up

ray

Just picked up a near mint pair of Forte II's last night, I always forget how small they are, guess I'm just use to lugging around those Chorus II's. My Chorus II's are as heavily modded as they get with new crossovers, mid, tweets etc and I was surprised at how close the Forte II sound in their place.

Damn, they sound good don't they. Tom made me one hell of a deal. I couldn't be happier. Vosh wants a system to go with her Dahlquist DQ-8s. Guess a trip to Pittsburgh is in order....whooofreekinhooo!!!! I'm planning on installing Al Klappenbergers' crossovers in my Fortes, but I think I'll leave the drivers alone. Bob Crites' replacement drivers are titanium and I think the speakers might become harsh sounding. The folks on the Klipsch forum say no....but I'm out to make my ears happy, so until I 'hear' differently I'll stay with the phenolic diaphragms even though the tweet tends to roll off early. I wish I could find somewhere to listen to both examples to A/B the differences. The Klipsch folk get together in Indianapolis so Ii might have to make the trek over there, since I'm a convert and all.

Right now I'm listening to a pristine copy of Van Halen's 5150. Damn there is a huge difference between a clean low mileage record and one that isn't, even on a POS TT. I'm having a great time listening to all of these old LPs. I need a good TT!! I heard Brian Ts at CF12. I wonder if a REALLY good cartridge will make good sound on a middle of the road($1000 range) TT? Mod the tonearm with silver cables, get a good base to set it on. What do you think? Input anyone?

ray

Right now I'm listening to a pristine copy of Van Halen's 5150. Damn there is a huge difference between a clean low mileage record and one that isn't, even on a POS TT. I'm having a great time listening to all of these old LPs. I need a good TT!! I heard Brian Ts at CF12. I wonder if a REALLY good cartridge will make good sound on a middle of the road($1000 range) TT? Mod the tonearm with silver cables, get a good base to set it on. What do you think? Input anyone?
ray

Ray

The rule of thumb is 1/3 turntable 1/3 Arm 1/3 Cartridge. Thats the way I originally went $2600.00 Turntable and Arm and $1700.00 for a Shelter 901 Cartridge
all sounded real fine.
I was taking to a buddy of mine about the 1/3 rule, and he said fuck that put the best Cartridge on you can afford and you will hear a difference.
he has a 4000.00 Turntable/Arm combo and runs a Benz LP $5000.00 Cartridge on it.
So I had a chance to pick up a Transfiguration Phoenix Cartridge $3200.00 for a good price, YES the Cartridge does make the difference.
So I would look at spending as much on the Cartridge (if not a little more) as the Turntable/Arm combo cost.

I ended up putting the Shelter 901 on on a $500.00 Technics SL-1200 mk5, and yes the over all sound was way better than using the SL-1200 with
a Denon 103R

I would not put a better Cartridge on the Turntable you have, look for a used Technics SL-1200 or purchase the new copy of it Stanton ST150
and change the Cartridge and feet.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Stanton-ST-150-S ... 682wt_1398

Brian

Thanks Brian I appreciate your input. I'd heard of the TT 1/3 rule before but thanks for reminding me about it. Good suggestion about the TT cart combo, I wasn't going to put an expensive cart on my cheapo TT, just wondering which moderately priced TT might be a best buy.

ray

I've been reading up on my newish speaker acquisition and stumbled across this over on the Klipsch forum. Mr. Hirsch had some really good things to say about them. One area of particular interest was the Forte's extremely LOW(measured) distortion in the lower registers. I was surprised to see a speaker distortion spec as low as a good amplifier, IIRC that's pretty much unheard of.

for those so inclined there are more details here :
http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/storag ... SR86p2.jpg
or
http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/p/6203 ... spx#606908

Lately, l've been researching Klipsch speakers and the proven mods and their outcomes when properly implemented. I sought out several forum members who have modded their speakers and listened to their guidance. Like all things on the web there are people out there who have no business touching their gear(sounds like my motorcycle lists) and can't figure out how bad things happened to them and their stuff. Right now I'm waiting for x-over parts I've bought from Parts Connexion to arrive. These guys were really fast before Christmas, I can't figure out WTF is going on now. Probably just me jonesing to mod something:-) Could be worse, EDCOR has me waiting 6-8 weeks for my preamp transformer....can you imagine??? Don't get me started on Digi-Key(I hear they're called the home of the backorder). I'm going to mod the factory x-over with some really nice Obbligato Gold Series caps and Mills resistors. I really wanted to use Mundorf Silver/Gold/Oil caps, but damn that's alot of $$ to spend without really knowing if I'll be able to hear the difference. Now I know there will be a difference but it's whether I'll be able to hear it. What I have been hearing is really good and I'm hoping these simple mods will made the soundscape more involving. What I hear about the Mundorf is the big$$ SGO caps make the image really deep. Like bowling alley deep!!

The Julian Hirsch article did dwell on a few things Al Klappenberger discovered during his testing of the Forte speaker and the ALK 'balancing network' addresses those issues, including the impedance peaks. The Forte's drivers are very good, the ALK network 'just'(insert a shitload of math here) lets them show an easier load for the amplifier to manage. Shouldn't the speaker perform better if it's working properly?

I really like these speakers driven with my little 20s. Anyone re-cap their CF amps? What power tubes do y'all prefer? Anyone rolling the 6AX7s?

ray