Your anecdote makes me smile, back in 1976 my parents moved back east from Carlsbad, CA to Newton, MA, it was also the year I started college, I was wrestling for an east coast college in NY state. My folks settled into Newton comfortably, bringing their Klipschorns with them. As a bonus, they bought me a pair of Heresy's to take to school, all the east coast people were amazed, me, growing up among Klipsch and Altec powered homes, I thought it was normal. That year was also my introduction to Bose 901, as a good So.Cal boy I knew about Klipsch, Altec and JBL, all the others were, well, random.
Kids used to come into my dorm room and were amazed, they had never experienced a really good loudspeaker. Me, I was astounded by some of the stuff I heard, I thought the 901's were broken until my roomate, a Long Island native explained that they were supposed to sound that way. The only Klipsch Heritage dealer back in the day was a store in Wellesley(figures), Tweeter was still pushing ADS or some other nonsense.
Ok, enough, I have Forte II's, they have had some parts upgraded, and they are great, every once in a while I get the itch for some Altec VOTT stuff, but it passes, the Forte II's are my keepers, a logical progression from my first Heresy's, my HII's and my folks old Khorns, in storage for now. I still live back east, near what is apparently our common home area, some habits just die hard I guess. Once I move out of the city, the Khorns come out of storage, but I have no complaints.
When I was a kid, I went out to Rte. 1 to test drive a Jetta, I never had the guts or looks to snag a test drive in a BMW.