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That's my plan too. I just removed all the grills. drivers and crossovers and sent my cabinets to a professional woodworker for refinishing. In the meantime, I replaced the binding posts with much better Pomona Electronics 3770 Gold-plated Copper binding posts, and I'm getting some new internal wire sets from Bob Crites. With Bob's crossover upgrades, my Forte IIs sound great.

I bought my pair for $425 after this past Thanksgiving, and went with the Bob Crites tweeter and crossover upgrades for an additional $113. These speakers were great in stock form, but now they are awesome. I can play large orchestral, heavy rock, electronica, jazz and folk music, and it all sounds great. I don't know of many speakers that can play a wide range of music like these except other Klipsch Heritage speakers. If I had a larger room, I'd probably go with the Cornwalls or La Scalas, but these are perfect for my man cave.

I would think that the Cornwalls' bass at lower volumes is stronger than the Forte IIs is due to the larger woofer and cabinet size.

dls123, I replied to your thread on Audio Asylum's High Efficiency Speakers forum, but I'll reply here too. I have performed upgrades on my Forte IIs with Bob Crites' Titanium tweeter diaphragm upgrade and crossover repair kits. It sounds like your pair have some nicer extras than mine. These are some great balanced speakers from 35Hz and up in my modest listening room. If I had a larger room, the Forte IIs could probably go lower. Anyway, I would encourage you to work on optimizing the speaker placement and your room's acoustics. These Forte speakers image extremely well with a huge soundstage, and they have a relatively high efficiency that should easily fill your living room with a Citation II amp driving them. If you want to use spikes, use very short ones to keep the cabinet bases on the floor. I've experimented with elevating the cabinets, and so much bass energy is lost. These speakers are definitely floorstanders.

You might have referred to one of my posts where I spent $113 including shipping for the tweeter diaphragm upgrade and crossover repair kits from Bob Crites. I installed the tweeter diaphragms and the new capacitors in my Forte II crossovers. For me, performing these upgrades was easy. If you don't feel comfortable doing them yourself, then you should seek assistance from someone who is more experienced and capable. For me, both upgrades have been great. The highs are so sweet and detailed now. I never found the stock tweeters to be harsh or sibilant, but the treble has improved definition with the Titanium tweeter diaphragms. I really noticed this most with cymbals brushwork on jazz CDs. I was more concerned about performing that upgrade than soldering in new capacitors in the crossover, because I thought the diaphragms and compression driver might be too delicate to handle. Bob's Web site was so easy to follow, it only took me 10 minutes to swap out the old Phenolic diaphragms and put in the new ones. I decided to purchase Bob's crossover repair kits rather than purchase the capacitors on my own. I have experience with the Sonicap film capacitors, and they're highly regarded for use in crossover networks. I figure any money I would save purchasing the capacitors myself would have been eaten up by additional shipping costs. I recommend Bob's crossover repair kits, because the three stock film capacitors in each crossover network are okay, but not great. I usually see those capacitors in surplus electronics stores selling for $0.10 a piece. Sonicaps are much better, reasonably priced and purpose-made for audio applications. The stock electrolytic non-polar caps definitely need replacement, A typical lifetime for electrolytic capacitors is 10-15 years. After time, the electrolyte fluid in the capacitor dries out and the capacitor is no longer operating at its rated capacitance. In the Forte II speakers, this can compromise the bass performance. Considering that the Forte IIs were last manufactured in 1996, it's probably time for a lot of Forte and Forte II owners to consider replacing those electrolytic capacitors. As I have found in upgrading capacitors in any audio electronics application, the upgrades took some time to burn-in. Some people may challenge me on component burn-in, and that's okay. After some time, I am treated to more articulate and deeper bass. The overall presentation is more coherent and the imaging is even more three dimensional than before. I hear more timbral information and detail, but in a more musical and less analytical sense. If anything, Bob Crites has a winner here, because his kits refine speakers that we already love rather than completely changing them. Performing the crossover repair kit installation takes some planning if one intends to use the stock PCBs. The stock PCB basically has a similar footprint to the binding post connector plate on which it is mounted. The Sonicaps are considerably larger than the stock film caps, so I had to place one of the Sonicaps "piggyback" over another cap. I used 18 AWG Teflon tubing to insulate the extended length of the leads of the capacitor sitting on top. The same applies to placing one of the two electrolytic capacitors "piggyback" on the other. Again, I used Teflon tubing to insulate the exposed leads. I also wrapped each electrolytic capacitor with Teflon plumbers tape to minimize any vibrations between the metal capacitor bodies. These capacitors are axially-leaded rather than radially-leaded like the stock electrolytic capacitors, so you have to work in a tightly confined area to fit these leads into the PCB thru-holes. The PCB doesn't incorporate any thermal pads, so de-soldering the old components can require a lot of work. I recommend using a soldering iron with at least 40 watts and a good solder sucking tool. I am leaving the original wiring and connectors in place for now, unless someone tells me that upgrading the hook-up wire makes a big difference. After going through the upgrade process, I can understand why Bob's crossovers are mounted on more spacious pieces of wood. In addition to the crossover capacitor upgrades, I replaced the stock binding posts with some Pomona Electronics 3770-x Gold-plated Tellurium Copper binding posts. These are much nicer than the stock binding posts and make better contact with the Multi-Contact LS4 banana plugs on my speaker cables. In fact, these are probably better than a lot of the boutique audio binding posts that sell for much more. I also purchased some 16 AWG speaker wire with the slip-on connectors from Bob Crites to replace the stock wire.

I recently installed Bob Crites' Titanium tweeter diaphragms in my Forte IIs and the improvement was immediately noticeable. I haven't heard any changes since.

I purchased Bob Crites' crossover repair kit and Titanium tweeter diaphragms just before Christmas. On Christmas morning, I was able to install the tweeter diaphragms and upgrade the caps on the crossover PCB in about 4 hours. With shipping, the total upgrade cost was $113. Bob was really responsive and pointed me to the step-by-step guide on his Web site: http://www.critesspeakers.com/replace_forte_ii_crossovers.html For me, this made the job much easier. The results are astounding. I thought my Forte IIs sounded great in stock form, but everything improved from the bass up to the highs. The treble is sweeter and more refined. I thought the Forte IIs were transparent before, but the music is even more dynamic and coherent. They just let the music through and fill up my listening room. I highly recommend Bob Crites' upgrades for the Forte IIs.

Wow! Thanks for the thread links. This is great stuff. I had a feeling that I'll need to use veneer to patch a few small spots, but that shouldn't be too bad. I love these speakers and just want to bring their exteriors back to their original glory.

I just picked up a pair of Forte II's locally and connected them to my EL84 P-P tube amp. Wow! I never heard such a huge and rich soundstage like this before. This is my first ever pair of Klipsch speakers, and I'm glad I bought the Forte II's. I'm mad at myself for being so prejudiced toward Klipsch speakers. I attribute that to hearing Klipsch speakers auditioned with horrible amplification by careless audio dealers in the past. The Fortes have a very refined sound that rivals some of the best I've heard. Glad to be a member of Klipsch owners.

RichardP, Thanks for the tips. I think I'll stick with the original black veneer finish. I'll need to know which stain to use and and how to patch those missing chips of veneer. These speakers are really impressive and I'm now kicking myself for being so prejudice toward Klipsch since I got into the audio hobby. The good thing about my pair is that all the drivers are completely intact and the grilles are in excellent condition. I'll research wood repair techniques and materials and go from there. In the meantime, I'll enjoy Forte II's.

I just purchased a used pair of Forte II's with the black finish. I assume it's a black stain finish, because I can clearly see the wood grain. It appears to be a veneer, because it has some chips here and there revealing a veneer layer. I would appreciate any help on what I can do to refinish the cabinets. It has some spots along the edges where the black finish has worn off, and there are chips at corners as I mentioned before. Is it even possible to remove the veneer and put an entirely new finish on the speakers? BTW, these speakers are awesome sounding and worth the work to bring the cabinets back to life.