RichardP

"show us your FORTES" Reminds me of a video I saw..."Grills Gone Wild."

As the OP stated about his wife, I too am a casual birdwatcher, doing so mainly as a side interest out of my nature photography hobby. I bought these Nikons last year (or rather the minimally-different earlier model these replaced) and have been greatly impressed with them. I think they show great quality for their price ($237). They are way better than your run of the mill $40 Bushnells or other cheap models. If you can't go to that price level, just shop Amazon and read their user reviews for the best models in your price range. http://www.amazon.com/Nikon-7294-Monarch-8x42-Binocular/dp/B0033PRQB0/ref=dp_ob_title_ce

All the speakers you have now will make a fantastic 5.x set up. I helped a friend buy a set up (incl. some of my old gear) just like yours, although the KG 2.2 series, and it is quite capable of filling a normal sized room. A decent subwoofer will complete the low end. When you have a sub, set all the 2.5s & 1.2s to "small" in your receiver set up. Get those 1.2s up closer to ear level somehow, even if they are "rear/sides" rather than behind your sofa. Despite their age, those are very good speakers, and may be all you need for a long time.

I just bought that CD a few months ago from Amazon. If you are wanting the vinyl lp, I don't know.

Bob Crites (BEC here; or www.critessspeakers.com) sells replacement crossovers and titanium tweeter diaphragms for many Klipsch models. From my informal observations of postings of Forte mods, people seem to get the most change from the new tweeter diaphragms. They are do it yourself, with pictorial instructions on his website, or you can send your tweeters to him for installation. It's something I will do eventually, whenever...

I like the comment left by someone below the YT screen: "The clearest 9 minutes of my life." Ha-ha!

There is such as thing as ribbon cable, flat enough (1/10") to put under a carpet without needing channels. Check out Parts Express, and probably other sources.

Another Okie here. I assume you look at CL and Ebay for Dallas and Wichita as well. Also, with (some) Klipsch being in Arkansas, it seems like a disproportionate number of sales there. In the past 10 years, have traveled to Conway and Little Rock in AR, to Jackson Tennessee (overnight), to Dallas, Temple, and Austin (overnight) in TX, to pick up various speakers, most of which I still have. Also, this forum being like a "family" (most of the time), it is not unheard of for a local member to inspect, pick up, and temporarily store speakers (usually Ebay sales) for another member, who then travels to get them when convenient.

Maybe we just need to use the emoticons more often to convey the tone. []

"Music is my dope" but, music + dope = now you're talking! (maybe the expression should read 'music X dope = nirvana")

H E R E S Y

I agree. I just saw it a couple of days ago. It's the "Independence Day" of this decade: incredible visuals, fairly lame story.

"...no more beating my beet! Donger need food!"

Get 3 more KG 4s, 2 for surrounds and 1 for center. If a KG4 won't fit as a center, then find a KG 2, KG 3, KG 2.2, or another smaller speaker from the KG line. KG4s are fairly common on ebay, and usually sell in good condition for $300/pr or even less.

People here put a lot of emphasis on timbre matching in an HT situation, meaning that the front 3 speakers should be matched on the specific sound quality, sometimes termed "voice," or timbre. This is a function of the specific drivers, primarily the tweeter and midrange. The Academy was designed as the timbre-matched center for the Q/F/C line. The Q/F/C were sold for many years before the Academy was added to the line, then Klipsch discontinued that line. That makes the Academy hard to find for the many buyers who initially had Q/F/C in a stereo set up, but then wanted to make a 5.1 or bigger HT system. For many of us, the sound of those models is so good that we don't care about changing to any newer model lines, and are fully satisfied. It is possible that a company makes an incredible sounding model, but decides to replace it with something newer, although "newer" might just mean cosmetics or more marketable because of something other than sound quality. New models are clearly great sounding, but the Academy will not closely match their timbre. You have the much sought after Academy center, and Q/F/Cs are relatively easy to find, as they were quite popular while in production. You can exploit the used market niche comprised of those poor souls who think they can now get a great HT system with tiny cubes, and sell off their giant "intrusive" wife-unfriendly [6] speakers. You can fill a normal listening room with any of the Q/F/C line. There are second versions, Forte II and Chorus II, which use a different midrange, although many of us do not hear a critical difference compared to the older version I's. You should be happy with any of them. . I got the chance to buy my Ultra 2 subs 2nd hand at around 50% of retail. I almost had a major problem a year later when the amp had no output. Fortunately, the problem resolved itself, but learned in the meantime that Klipsch offered no support of any kind on used equipment. I think they are overpriced new, and you always take a risk buying used. If I had not bought them, I know I would be very happy with any of several subs, especially the SVS line.

The Academy is the matching center for Fortes, Choruses, and Quartets. Some others on this forum say it sounds good with other models, but they are often settling for the Academy because their existing mains do not have a matching center. Surrounds are less important, as long as they are somewhat similar in design to the fronts and center. A good small speaker for surround duty, with the mentioned fronts, is most models from the KG series, such as the KG 1.2/1.5, or 2.2/2.5. These were generally contemporaneous with production of the F/C/Q line. The 1.2 is a substantial but small bookshelf speaker.There is a KG .5, but it is very small (5" woofer) and may not be able to handles loud passages. Given your set up, your KG 4s would be great as surrounds, but as you mention, space is an issue. Others here may know of other matching surrounds.

I don't know if actual psychoacoustic research is available on this, but general agreement seems to be that a center above the TV sounds more natural then a center below the TV, maybe because the center carries most of the dialog, and we find voices below the image stranger then voice above. A shelf above the TV, with the speaker angles down slightly, should sound just fine.

Is that a new release, or an old one? I have three of their CDs, but I don't know how many they have released. The earliest one I have is from 1994 entitled only "Sister Hazel," and sounds similar to what you describe. It has mainly acoustic tracks, including an acoustic version of their later hit "All For You," and an a capella version of Sam Cooke's "Bring It On Home." If you are describing a new CD, I will look for it.

I have used Scotch double sided tape, thin, like regular Scotch tape but...uhh, well...double sided. [:S] You can also put two or three layers together, but it won't be thick like the other type mentioned above. This was when I have a Quartet as center, and needed to relocate the name badge. It stayed on quite a while.

As others state, the Academy was designed as the timbre-matched center for the Quartet/Forte/Chorus line. Unfortunately, it was only made for 3 years, which makes it hard to find and relatively in demand and expensive, as many of the Q/F/C mains were sold and for much longer. You can occasionally find them on craigslist or Ebay for as little as $200 from sellers who don't know what they have, and $300-$500 from sellers who do. Many, including myself, have for a while used a KG 2.2V or 2.5V as center, which works as well or better than any speaker besides the Academy, and is fairly easy to find. Others have liked the KF-C7, but it is large and also hard to find. Forum member Calblacksmith recently posted about three weeks ago that he found a center from the Synergy line to be a good match for Q/F/Cs, so look for that thread.

While sometimes the swashbuckling high-action space adventure genre can work (e.g., Star Wars, etc.), the sci-fi genre that I like is when the author projects what would logically happen, for example, if aliens came to earth (as in D9), or we discovered them somewhere, meaning how society would react or change. A good example is Contact. A bad example is Independence Day. Also, a good story will logically project what society, technology, etc. would look like x number of years in the future, based on current patterns. Minority Report is a good example (despite the presence of nutjob Cruise). A clever scene is when he enters the Gap; lasers scan everyone's retinas, then highly localized, individualized audio greetings are piped in: "Welcome back Mr. Cruise. Are you satisfied with the sweater you purchased on March 22? Also clever are the "sick sticks," or nonlethal police weapons which render perps helpless because they are vomiting. Another good one like that is the Fifth Element. Just because it is in the future does not mean we will be wearing silver jumpsuits and flying on jetpacks.

Related info here: http://www.filmsite.org/sexinfilms.html

I have powered one KW-120 before with a separate sub amp, specifically the Dayton dedicated sub amp from Parts Express. It's around $400, but they put them on sale from time to time. They also sell plate amps for DIY sub builders. It is likely you can use other full-frequency-range amps as well, but make sure that there aren't any impedance mismatches. I don't know if there are other compatibility issues or not. Check out the sub forums on Audioholics as well as AVS Forum; those guys seem to try a lot of sub speaker-amp configurations.

Well, we aren't now.In response to the other posts, it is as I suspected. Like most of us, I am well equipped in the HT department, so no major purchases planned. My RPTV can only handle 1080i, so I probably won't get a Blue Ray player until I get a new TV. I can see it now: in a year, my town will be rife with $50 Monster HDMI cables and other such nonsense. Thanks for the posts.

Not a cynical question: In my medium-sized town (50K), we are getting a Best Buy, which is still under construction, having taken over space of now-defunct Linens and Things. . What do forum members get there, and are they useful for anything over other stores? Just thinking in advance of actually going there.[]