bernmart

Anyone have contact info for Chris Munson or Bob Crites? Thanks in advance, Bernie

I've been following this auction (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130117751643&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1) on eBay. The crossovers are spec'd for Forte IIs. Will these work at all on my Fortes? If so will they produce an audible benefit? Thanks in advance for any advice.

Saturday night I was at a party. Some wonderful audio equipment in the house, so I discussed my problem with the host. He suggested that plugging the turntable into the receiver might have completed a "negative ground." I've no idea what this means! Also, I detect better sound coming from my system than before the hum made it unlistenable. Cleaner highs, especially. I'd chalk this up to placebo effect, but it's my wife, who care nothing about equipment, who first pointed out the improvement. Maybe there was a slight hum there all along? Dead silent now.

All of these posts have been enormously helpful. Here's an update. I isolated all the various components, and found that the culprit seems to have been my old B&O Beogram turntable. At first I noticed that the ground wire, which connects to the receiver, was loose. Tightened it, and this reduced the hum to an intermittent state. However, a hum would sometimes begin just by walking in front of the cabinet! The whole area seems "live." I then unplugged the turntable from the wall and plugged it into the "switched" outlet on the receiver itself. For no reason I can come up with, this seems to have worked--no more hum! Remaining questions: WHY would such a change work? Does anything more remain to be done? Should I place a matting of some kind underneath the stack of components to isolate them from the vibes which set off the hum in the first place. All observations and suggestions welcome, and thanks for your help. Bernie

With the help and advice of many here (mostly followed; not always), I built up the following system, with which I'm well-pleased: Klipsch Forte speakers HK 430 dual-powered receiver PS Audio SL3 DAC Rotel CD player About a month ago I started getting a loud hum through the speakers, which would disappear if the receiver was turned off and then turned on again after a minute or two. Now the hum is constant and loud, no matter what components I turn off, whenever the receiver is on. Do I have a defective receiver, or should I be looking at some other culprit? As always, thanks in advance for any and all advice. Bernie

Very helpful indeed, Mark. Thanks again. Bernie

Mark, thanks for the gracious reply, and for the context. I admit to finding this whole topic confusing. Thanks again, Bernie

The tone of this thread has become, to be blunt, annoying as hell. Several of you are congratulating each other back and forth on your common contempt for anyone who hears a significant difference between one pair of cables and another--and especially between a manufactured cable and lamp cord, or HD 12 gauge speaker wire. You may be right in your point of view--I'm still a newbie, after all--but not I think in your attitude toward people who are reporting that they do hear a difference. I've found everyone helpful in response to my own questions, but I'm reluctant to ask about cables/wires, for fear of touching off a lot of bombast. Lighten up, OK? Many of the differences y'all claim to hear between components other than speakers are also subjective (tubes v. ss, for ex.), in that they're difficult to impossible to measure, and can't easily show up in blind A/B tests. Audio is inherently subjective. My budget won't allow me to spend hundreds of $ on high-end cables, but I very much doubt that everyone who does so is a moron who has bought snake oil. Are the audio writers who review cables frauds? Mistaken, maybe, but downright charlatans?

They're now available again via Audiogon.com; just go to cable, speaker and scroll down 'til you find them. Not as good as a website, but just as much hype!

---------------- On 4/7/2005 10:28:29 PM DeanG wrote: If you expect to hear a difference, you'll hear a difference. If not, you won't. ---------------- Dean and y'all, I'm well aware that we tend to hear a difference when we expect to hear a difference. But lots of us "hear" varying levels of quality in aspects of audio that don't seem measurable--like "soundstage", for example--but which matter a lot to us as listeners nevertheless. So I'm stuck between settling for what I have refined to date--which actually sounds pretty darned good--or looking for incremental improvement with small $ commitments, running the risk that the improvement I hear may be self-deception. If any of you have resolved this dilemma, I'd love to know how!

Guys, thanks for all the cautionary advice. Just one person, and he not real specific, claims that there's a difference among cables, and I understand both the scientific basis for this, and share the skepticism about marketing hype. But the truth is that I can hear a difference between the home-made cables I first used, and the the inexpensive cables I bought on eBay a month later--with all other equipment kept the same, the bought cables sound clearer, esp. at the top end. So I'm stuck. Even if I could afford to spend a lot of $ on cables, I wouldn't, given your and my skepticism. But if there IS a difference, measurable or explainable or not. . . . Will any of us step up to the plate and recommend a moderately-priced cable that he's willing to support as better than plain speaker wire, appropriately terminated?

Another naive question from an audiophile on a budget. Anyone have experience with and/or an opinion re Paul Speltz's "Anti-Cables" (see link below). Assuming that is that there are differences among cables, which is itself a hot subject here. Thanks in advance! http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?cablspkr&1117553770

Like many Mac users, I'd love to use Firefox over Safari--it's faster and less buggy--except for three important Safari featuers: first-rate autofill for online forms; really excellent, hassle-free adblocking; and excellent bookmarks management. Somewhere along the line, though, the original Safari lost much of its speed, and must be tweaked and played with in most un-Mac like fashion. Sigh.

Shan, I've tried to find the RG-58 speaker cables on the Radio Shack website, w/o success. Any info you can provide, and/or help locating them, would be much appreciated. Thanks, Bernie

Wow, I didn't even know the group existed. I live in Pasadena, and I'll surely go if I'm not working. So please clue me in--time? Place? Does the group have a website? Bernie

I'm stuck on level 4 of this admittedly basic game. Where can I go to get tips on how to get through the Catacombs? If I'm posting to an inappropriate place, my apologies in advance.

I've owned a pair of the original Fortes for several years now, and love them. But Forte IIs seem to have a big following on the Forum. I understand on a bsic level the spec differences between the two--the IIs have a bigger passive woofer, and a different midrange horn--but in what ways do they sound different? I admit that this is pretty much a matter of curiosity, but I've never run into a Forte II owner so I could listen and judge for myself, so. . . . Thanks in advance, Bernie

Great bunch of responses. Even when forum members disagree with each other, I learn a lot from reading their posts. In this case the consensus seems to be that burn-in is a myth. And since I've listened more than 20 hours since I've gotten these interconnects, I'll just stop worrying about it and play music! Thanks again, y'all!

I got some great advice from several of you a few weeks ago, and I've been improving the sound of my Fortes in increments: first replacing my receiver w/ a vintage Harmon-Kardon; then replacing my CD plaer with a Rotel, both for its own sake and because it has a "digital-out" jack so I can buy and use a DAC if I choose. Both of these upgrades made an immediate, obvious difference. I also bought a pair of silver interconnects. The improvement here is subtle, but I do hear it. I think. My question, though is about burn-in. The manufacturer says there's a 20-50 hour burn-in during which the sound improves. Is this so, or is it another audio myth? How can something which has no moving parts need a break-in period? Or (the skeptic in me says) is the burn-in period a chance for the listener to convince himself that this small upgrade really makes a difference?

Uh. . . I was hoping that my existing CD player--a Denon DCM-260-would be revitalized by one or the other of these DACs. Is that unrealistic? If so, what's my next logical step, now that I have a good receiver matched with my Fortes? LPs are fine, with a vintage but excellent B&O Beogram turntable. Thanks to all, and to you in particular, for all the good advice. Bernie

D-Man and others, what's the best source for silver interconnects? Also, any downside to getting a SACD player and playing my pretty large CD collection through it? Will my "old" CDs sound better? Thanks, Bernie

Here I go again, on my quest to make CDs sound close to as good as LPs on my Fortes. (Interesting how switching to a HK 430 from my cheapo receiver has made me more alert to remaining imperfections. That's what slippery slopes do, eh?) Both of the above DACs are on eBay now, at reasonable prices. Any recommendations of one over the other? Or should/can I go in some other direction without such expense that I have to give my children lumps of coal for Christmas? Thanks again, Bernie

Okay. After substituting a HK 430 for my cheapo SONY receiver, my Fortes sound wonderful, especially with LPs. CDs are also better, but not quite as sweet. My guru Flynn, anticipating this, pointed me to a MSB LINK DAC on eBay, but someone bought it almost immediately. I notice that my CD player--a Denon DCM-260--has only one output; no choice between analog and digital output. Could this be part of the problem? If so, is the only way to fix it to get a new/better CD player, or supplement it with a DAC, or. . . .? If the latter, there are several on eBay; any preferred models? As always, you guys are a terrific resource. Thanks in advance, Bernie

Once again I call upon the kindness of strangers. My Klipsch Fortes' posts accept spade connectors, and I can just wrap speaker wire around them. The connections on my new (to me; thanks again, guys) HK 430 receiver won't accept spade connectors; pressure on a spring-loaded button exposes a hole wide enough for 16 gauge wire, or a pin. Probably not banana plugs. Given these constraints, what's the "best" way to make these connections--bare wire on both ends; spades on the speaker end, bare wire at the receiver; spades on the speaker end, pin connectors at the receiver. Or is there a whole other way to go that I haven't thought of yet? Once again, thanks in advance for your tolerance of my newbiehood. Best wishes, Bernie

Flynn and everyone, thanks so much for your advice on harshness in my Fortes. The HK 430 I bought on eBay arrived today (11/27). I admit to some trepidation as I hooked them up. But the difference was obvious and immediate: no harshness, smoother sound throughout the range, and plenty of reserve power despite the HK's rating of 25 watts per channel. I'm delighted, and relieved. Truly, I wouldn't have know where to turn if this forum didn't exist, and if you weren't so patient with a newbie. Thanks again, Bernie