AZSteve

Ah, yeah, West Virginia is probably too far. Thanks for the offer, though. If you're interested in looking, though, I have some pictures up at tucson.craigslist.org. If you search for Forte you'll find it pretty easily.

Those look really, really nice! Is the grill cloth original, or did you redo them with cane? In either case they go really well with the rest of the room.

Hmmm, I'd consider that. I'm in Tucson, where are you located? The Fortes actually are in great shape, there are no chips or scratches in the veneer. They were recently recapped using a Bob Crites crossover repair, but I have the original caps too.

That's a very good point about the overall dimensions being the same except for the height. My thought was that the decreased height would allow me to place one or both of the speakers on the media center, or another piece of furniture in the room, which would give me more placement options. The lack of a passive radiator on the Heresy might also make effective placement a bit easier. I also think the Heresy is generally a bit more attractive than the Forte, and so the WAF might be a bit higher. I hesitate to suggest this on a Klipsch forum, but if you're right about the dimensions, maybe I'd be better off looking for another vintage speaker with similar mid / top characteristics, but in a smaller cabinet and (i guess) lower efficiency. Before the Fortes, I'd run some homebuilt Dayton III MTM's with 89 dB sensitivity, and the volume level was acceptable. I dunno, though, I like the history of Klipsch and the coolness factor of the horns. I don't know how much luck I'd have with matching the characteristics, either. Perhaps a Klipsch is a Klipsch and that's it.

Ah yes, the other reason I'm not just considering adding a sub to the Fortes: my wife doesn't like the big cabinets. I was hoping that the Heresy would have a higher WAF, and give me a little more flexibilty on the placement. Unfortunately, I really am limited in that regard. It's a bit hard to explain completely, but the rooms in that part of the house (living room, bar / library, kitchen) are all kind of oriented around a central fireplace. Consequently, in the living room there is open space to either side of the fireplace, and my wife wants (and I tend to agree) that the couch works best facing the fireplace. This creates two problems: 1) unless I put the speakers directly behind the couch, or have them firing across the front, there's no wall I can put them up against. 2) The cabinets really do seem quite large in the space because they're just sort of out there on their own without a lot around them. Thanks though, for the responses so far. This is very helpful.

Thanks Dennie. Someone in another forum suggested that the Heresy II top end was similar to the Forte, but I'll see what others say here.

I was wondering how the midrange and treble compare between the Heresy I and the Forte I. I have a pair of Forte I's and I'm not all that happy with the bass output. I think a lot of it is that I have very limited placement options in my room, and they're necessarily quite far from any back wall. I do, however, love the midrange and treble. I was thinking of replacing them with a set of Heresy I's and a subwoofer. I'm hoping that will get me the top end that I like with the Fortes, but with the bass that my current setup lacks. Any thoughts? I was also wondering if anyone has an opinion on the Klipsch RW-12d sub vs. the Parts Express Titanic 12.