MikeFord

After three or so decades in audio, presently I am not a believer in amp sound, just build quality, efficiency, and reliability. Pick a good brand and model, and if doing so, why not buy one used cheap?

My first Klipsch purchase, which I have never listened to yet, turned out at pick up to have damaged woofers. Before I could find a set of replacement woofers cheap enough to suit me I bought a pair of Forte's, so the Heresy's sit passive on top of the Forte's. Next I found some woofers for sale locally from a set of the Speakerlab version of the Heresy's, which after purchase I found have totally incompatible parameters. Time passes, I'm happy listening to the Forte's, and finally win the bid on ebay for a pair of nice original Heresy woofers. Seller wraps each driver in shrink wrap and puts them loose in boxes filled with peanuts. During shipping peanuts work there way behind the shrink on one driver creasing and bulging forward several inches on one side of the cone. Looks terrible, much back and forth with the seller who can't believe his shipping was faulty, but eventually we work out a partial refund, but I am still short a woofer. Months pass with the woofer sitting on a shelf and now I see no sign of damage even looking pretty close, nothing I would notice if I didn't know what to look for. Don't judge a speaker by how it looks. After messing with speakers for 30 years I am thinking maybe some test gear is in order. Pict hopefully below of the damaged woofer.

Googled with no luck, appears its called Wet Look.

How would you remove the old dust cap? Seems "risky" to me.

Power to the speakers depends on how loud you play your music, not how loud an amp is capable of. Any amp with more than as little as 35 watts has a "chance" it might damage a speaker if the volume was set too high and allowed to play for any length of time, poof goes a tweeter. Even if the old receiver really put out the power level claimed, too much power is rarely what kills a speaker. Music has two qualities that reduce the risk to speakers, average power is lower than short term peaks, and power drops off as frequencies go up. Clipping kills speakers, that and really high level bass below the speaker tuning. Clipping is when you turn up the music so loud that the peak in level exceed the output ability of the amp. This does two things, raises the average power level, creates high power harmonics which raise the power level seen by tweeters.

With a solid plastic type dust cap, would you try to remove the old one, or put the new one over the old one?

I've thought about using an active crossover and EQ combined with a passive Zoebel network to cancel out the reactive portion of the impedance for each driver section.

Its a favorite if not the favorite for DJ work. I had one for years, and nice sticky mat helped a lot, but ultimately its a B SQ table vs any of the low torque belt drives. The generally sell instantly at a fair price on CL.

Forte's too close to the back wall can sound far from optimal.

I have Forte's, not II's, and just bought a pair of CF-4, I don't expect them to sound very similar, or for any group of mixed owners to have any consensus, love or hate, its your choice.

Two nice camera's, several laptops and desktops, PITA to go from A to B, so photo transfers happen in batches. Nothing special to see except for small areas of damage on what I would call average plus condition speakers. S/N 234493492 on the one that is handy to read, finish is listed as black satin, I think that decodes to 1994 234th day, Aug 22nd. Wow, these are not easy to move around or carry up stairs. Today's limit reached, none left in car, one in garage, one a few feet inside the house until better space arrangements are complete. First listen, "maybe this weekend", thinking some now about what I will play first on them.

Deal is done, speakers home, albeit one still in the car. One in the back seat, smooth as silk, no issues, one in trunk, not going to happen by an inch or more in all conceivable configurations so packed towels around it hanging out the back and drove home on surface streets carefully. No chance to bring them in the house for a day or so, thinking about a stack with Epic CF-4 on the bottom, Forte, then Heresy on top, but not too seriously, but I just might until I have more space to put the somethings that won't be staying in the livingroom. Short ports, so not the earliest version, black oak scuffed some on the bottom and couple spots. Threaded holes on the bottom I assume for spikes not included and one is boogered pretty bad, but nothing too serious at first inspection. One woofer looks like the dust cap was pushed in and then pulled out with pins or something as it has some crinkle and three small holes with silicone seal in them.

If they are the normal home versions the chances of them being damaged from moving or use are high. Room, music, and type of event will be big factors.

I've lived with Quads longer than any speaker, and as is well known they don't play loud or low. The premise of the Enigma dipole panel sub I use with them is that it extends to a true 20 hz, and by high passing the Quads 2 or 3 db more output may be possible. As it turned out, the bass from the Enigma sounds exactly like the bass from the Quads, I didn't notice them playing any louder (maybe a limit of the Quad 606 amp), and I didn't really notice the extension of the bass except on the odd organ bit. I kept the expensive does nothing for the low end subwoofer because it worked wonders on the sound of the Quads playing them 100Hz and up instead of full range. I hate to use the terms open and three D, but that was it, flip a switch to full range and a huge deep soundstage folded to flat. I still have no place to put them, but plan to pick them up tomorrow, even if it means a couple days in the car before sneaking them in the house.

I am hoping its a delay, not a pass, the seller has limited availability, so I plan to try and jump when the next window opens. My living room is close to tolerance max already. I have Quad ESL63 in Arcici stands, a yard square dipole sub, Forte's, Heresy's, two sets of small two ways, Signets and Clements, and two large center channels, RC7 and I think its a clements. and much misc. The CF-4 would get squeezed in for a comparison, then some stuff would have to be sold or put in storage.

I'm not going to do anything that doesn't improve the sound, but I've never heard a speaker where it wasn't possible to improve the overall sound by routing the bass to a dedicated subwoofer. The physics are simple, if the woofer has appreciable cone movement that will distort the higher frequencies it reproduces at the same time. Half the power is below 100hz, take that out and you remove a major source of voicecoil heating and dynamic compression. The "trick" is that you need a subwoofer that works BETTER than the mains over the desired frequency range, and still meshes well with them. Ultimately, I'll be real surprised if I don't end up with something custom, with this more of an education on the sound of some horns other than my Forte or Heresy speakers. Not giving up on getting these CF-4's, but flaky buyer and flaky seller make a delicate transaction. I would have pushed harder if I thought the deal might poof, which I don't, or hope not, plus I have no place to put them right now and filling the back seat and the trunk and leaving them in the car a week has such a low WAF its scary.

Cars have a 6db or so rising response curve starting about 50 hz, rooms in houses are I believe MUCH lower before room response kicks in. That said a driver is a driver, measure the parameters and build a box to suit and it should do more or less as predicted, which is for car drivers in houses, not so good.

Since Moray James first planted the seed in my head I've been looking for a pair of CF-3 or CF-4, main issue being the larger horn. Since I haven't until now found any practical to buy I haven't thought much about one vs the other used high passed with a sub as I plan to use them. Yesterday I found a pair of CF-4, and was one lazy son away from taking a longish drive and buying them, but 44x19x17 108 lbs made a solo pickup by me a non starter. This has me wondering, should I be going for the CF-4 or its smaller sibling instead, or just looking for horn and driver and building a smaller non ported box from scratch with all the bracing etc. just how I want it? When I say high passed, most likely that will be around 80 hz with all the bass bass going to the sub.

Ad is down to $1000, still seems high to me for type and condition.

Most mods are a push, adds value for some, others want original only, no real net gain in market price. I watched a pair of Chorus II local to me on craigslist with full Crites upgrades, including crossovers, for $750 for months. No idea if they sold or for how much, but that is a long time to mess with selling something. OTOH they sell immediately around $400, you just need to decide how much your time is worth. I'm on the fence over which Klipsch I want to try next, Chorus II, Quartets, or one of the Epic CF2 or CF3. GLWS, if you travel much you might mention that, kinda messy, but might allow meeting somebody halfway etc.

Looks like it ended below $600 and reserve not met, kind of an average price.

Soldered or crimped?

Pricing is a touchy issue in all fan forums. What I try to do is give as accurate an answer as I can from the point of view of a buyer without pretense of balance. OTOH on rare occasions I sometimes know when to keep my mouth shut.

Everyone else has said most of what there is to say, but I will still add a couple points. What is a SPL meter? Its a microphone, usually of some level of precision for flat frequency response, a again precision level attenuator, an amplifier with eq and some features, with the output driving the meter. The Radio Shack model was likely intended for safety personal to monitor hazardous sound levels and comply with regulations on exposure. It was identify areas where hearing protection would be required etc. Meters for audio use were much more expensive and usually included peak levels, frequency displays, etc. Take the results of the Radio Shack meter with a grain of salt, its not bad, but its not renowned for accuracy even with using the correction table. Band limited pink noise is my favored source, not too loud as tweeters don't like continuous higher levels, but loud enough that your test signal is well above ambient noise in the room. The calibrated mics I've been looking at are USB, no preamp. I figure I will get one eventually, but have a RS and much higher quality Technics for simple level stuff.

Good tool for understanding that techy stuff, but you also have the option of not understanding and plugging the numbers from the tester into a box designer and run with it.