Number 9

Have you compared these to the Valve Art's?

Tbrennan: There may be some process at work other than the actual directional characteristics of the speaker, a masking caused by the better bass response of the Cornwall? ---------- I think that is exactly it. Who would argue that the Cornwall's bass is well "energized". A good ol' 15" woofer seems to create more energy than the 8" jobs you see these days. Combine that with the fact a small room will have more pronounced resonant nodes, this will muddy up the midrange and impact not just tonality, but also imaging. People hear this effect all the time when they have tried digital room correction such as with a TACT.

In a 12 x 14 room, as AN says, you will get poor imaging. You will have your speakers along one wall, and have to be sitting almost all the way on the opposite wall, which is probably the worst place to be sitting to attempt at some sort of imaging. Ideally, you should be sitting at least 3-4 feet from any back wall, but then, you will likely be too close to the speakers IMO. And I'm not getting into all the issues of the bass nodes becoming overloaded ... the smaller the room, more accentuated peaks and dips in the bass region. Will muddy up not only the bass but also the midrange. Some people I guess will say that the Cornwalls will sound great if you shoved them in a closet I guess. Hey, I'm a Cornwall fan, had them for ten years, but they need room to breathe.

I previously owned Cornwalls, and now own the Forte II, but that is only due to space limitations. The Fortes are great, but the Cornwall is a step up. My current listening room is 19 x 16 which to me seems to be the perfect size for the Forte, and the Cornwalls just would overwhelm the room, not only music wise, but physically. I originally bought my Cornwalls when I had a rec room that was 24 x 18. In a 12 x 14 room, I doubt you will get the best out of Cornwalls ... some will argue with me, but that's my opinion based on my experience with a room that is even larger than yours. Do you live with a significant other, WAF will be low in putting such big speakers in a small room, unless the room is all your own.

I'm in BC. If there are no takers, an alternative is to sell them to a hifi store in AB that carries Klipsch. When I had to sell off my Cornwalls many years ago in a house downsizing, that's what I did (this is prior to eBay). From what I hear, they wound up in Japan somewhere. Hopefully, a new home can be found. I love my Forte IIs, but I also miss my Cornwalls. Unfortuanately, still too big for my living-room.

This is such a surprising result given the good feedback the Va KT66 has been getting elsewhere. That they are Chinese, is irrelevant, and displays a pre-conceived bias. Yes there are some crap Chinese toobs out there, but so are there from NOS too. For those that do not know the history of the Valve Art KT66, they shipped the exact same equipment to China that had been previously used by GEC in manufacturing the KT66 in the UK. So great lenghts were taken to try to replicate the original magic of the tube. Valve Art also does a post test to ensure they meet spec and chrerry picks the best. So there certainly was a serious attempt on the manufacturing side to produce a current-day product befitting the original's reputation. I'm not suggesting anything otherwise to what Audible has heard or experienced, but more than anything, I'm just puzzled at the result. But so it is.

Good point. Investing $$$ in a good tuner is only worth if: 1) You have good programming in your area 2) The audio quality is good (minimal compression) I can access 3 really good NPR stations, 2 Canadian CBC stations and one local college radio station (for some shows) that have programming I like and that sound good. So that is 6 out of some 60 channels, which I guess is better than most people. I feel I'm getting my money's worth from my MR-67, if I lived elsewhere, maybe not.

I would add, that none of the tuners at the VTV shooutout were tweaked. So it is dubious wether they were at maximum performance. As Craig says, at this point with 40 year old tuners, they are likely in need of major overhaul. You may try posting your question on the Yahoo FM tuner forum (www.fmtunerinfo.com) ... though, the bias there is towards '70s vintage Japanese solid-state tuners like Kenwood. As for Eico .. never seen a kind word in regards to an Eico tuner. I use a McIntosh MR-67 myself, which I truly adore.

In the Vacuum Tube Valley tube tuner shootout held a few years ago now, I don't recall the Scott tuners faring well. I've got a copy of the issue down in my garage somewhere, so going from memory. No Eico's were tested. The Fisher 100 and McIntosh MR-67 scored well, with the 10B on top.

Doh!! Yes, Klipsch not McIntosh. I had McIntosh on my brain at the moment. Bob. Perhaps you know. Leok once made a posting here where he thought that the midrange driver on the Chrorus II may have changed at some point. Same model number, but something about it sounding different when he compared two generations of the Chorus II ... he actually preferred the newer version. Do you know if the source or materials used in the diaphram may have changed over the 1989 to 1995 period?

Bob. Are the ones you sell any different to the ones McIntosh sells?

I have an MR67. You know, at one point I had some of the tubes tested (on two different testers) because I was getting some intermittent MPX flickering, even on strong stations. All my tubes tested well. But what actually turned out, was that two of the Telefunken MPX tubes were actually bad, but the Tube Testing machines (and they were good ones) did not catch it. If you want to change some tubes, there are a couple that are probably the most important. There are 3 in the MPX section (first priority possibly), and 2 in the output section. Off the top of my head, I can't remember what they are. It may be wise to replace those in the MPX. Why? If for example, you replace any of the tubes later in the MPX, you will likely need your tuner realigned yet again. So this may save you some $ in having to do a realignment if any of the MPX tubes fail in the not too distant future.

Interesting. Some people refer to these as PIO caps, but I hear what you are saying. There is no paper. I may give them a try in the midranges on my Fortes. Using Auricaps now, and am fairly happy.

Everyone here seems to talk about Jensens. But I'm wondering if anyone has tried Mundorf MCap Supreme silver paper-in-oil caps? Prices seem quite reasonable. http://www.mundorf.com/english/bauteile/kondensatoren/mcap-suprechts.htm http://www.thlaudio.com/McapitmE.htm

I used to own Cornwalls. I've also listened to Belles, though not side-by-side. Currently using Forte's, primarily because my listening room is not huge. To my ears, and confirmed by what I've read here, the Cornwalls go deeper for sure. Some people have mated the Belles with subwoofers succesfully. The Belles will give you a tighter bass however, and a somewhat bigger sound overall than the Cornwalls. I found the Belles sounding a bit more laid back than the Cornwall. Do a search on some of the mods ALK has done here to the midrange Squwacker and tweeter on the Belle. These mods seems to take the Belle up to another level. If you've got room for the Belles, I would go for it.

I have an MR-67 which has a similar tube complement. Most of the tubes on mine are labled either McIntosh or Telefunken.

I don't know about your seller, but the Canuck Audio Mart board has been up for several years now. Its the seller that counts, not the board.

I guess I'm the reverse of some of the people here, I went from Cornwalls to Forte II. Why? Simply room size. The Cornwalls are big. In my previous home, I had room for them in the family room in the basement (26 x 18), and now I don't (19 x 16). If I had the room, I would certainly go for the Cornwalls, but I don't. All the benefits people speak of in regards to the Cornwall should be tempered by the fact that you need a fair sized room to enjoy their strengths. For the size of listening room I currently have, the Fortes are just about perfect (though I agree, they do not provide as "big" of a sound as the Cornie).

If you "search" back through previous posts you will find your question has been answered by some people here who have owned both. I own the Forte II but have not heard the Forte I. In general, the most common comparative observations has been that the Forte II goes noticeably a little deeper because of the passive radiator and sounds a little smoother in the mids because of the Tractrix horn. A tractrix, in theory, provides a more consistent wavefront than an exponential horn. Interestingly enough, there are some who prefer the Forte I's nontheless.

I've even heard some people say caps are subject to the magnetic fields of the woofer, which is not good too. I don't know ...maybe that's BS. Perhaps this explains why some speaker manufacturers have gone to putting even passive xovers external to the speaker monkey coffin. For example, the Living Voice Avatar OBX uses a totally external xover. No need for hot melt then. In fact, I think this is exactly what I may do one day with my Fortes.

Pardon my ignorance Dean, but why so much hot melt glue? Seems to create a lot of unecessary extra work IMO to clean off if you want to change something later on.

McIntosh and Klipsch seem to have a real synergy, that's what I use. Someone on the AudioKharma McIntosh forum couple of months ago commented on how their MC240 was much better the Cary amp they once owned (can't remember which model). I think your mileage may vary, Cary also makes amps to lust for too. Just to add, some people prefer the lower-powered MC225, MC30 and MC240 compared to the MC275, so that is also a bit of a variable. The newer generation MC275 such as the one you are considering are about 10db quieter than the older vintage ones, which should be good mate to the high-effeciency Klipsch.

I once owned a tube-amp with 6Sn7s and indeed, many of the tubes I tried were microphonic. What worked for me, were Herbie's tube dampers. Made a big difference. There are now many knock-offs available that actually cost more, but probably don't do much better. As for tubes, i rolled quite a few, and had a rare Sylvania 1942 one. But you know, the one that sounded "the best" to me was a 1959 Hitachi. Extremly rare and hard to find, but cheap, because no one really thinks much of Japanese tubes. But in my humble experience this one sounded the best: quieter, tightest bass, clear midrange. If you can find one, they typically go for $10. A lot, cheaper than some of the exotics out there.

I owned Cornwall's and now have Forte IIs. For me, the decision came simply down to the size of listening room. When I had a larger room which did justice to the Cornwalls, they were great. When I moved to a new home with a smaller listening room, the Forte IIs are just right wheras the Cornwalls would be over-powering. IMO, mate the speakers to the proper size of the room, and you should be fine. I think the Forte's can do fine in anything up to 21' x 18.

Some impressions of the Cayin vs. the 400X would really be appreciated.