jjptkd

Ah yes, another DB freak heard from. Actually no, 95% of my listening enjoyment is at very low volume, easily able to talk over. The other 5% of the time usually involves a few friends and a whole lot alcohol and yes, I like to pound it out, shake things up a bit. With the Chorus II's I don't have to worry about blowing anything up as they are loud enough that I don't have to turn them up to max volume even when drinking as I've blown many lesser speakers that way.

You have to hear them directly. There's no way to "record" them and compare them without sacrificing the essential differences in sound. A tube or a transistor is an ingredient in an amplifier. More than being marked by a specific sound, those individual ingredients have certain characteristics when used in a design. The ingredient doesn't guarantee any certain outcome in sound. "Audio amplifier" is one a many kinds of circuits that use tubes/transistors. Transmitters, receivers, and power supplies are other kinds. It turns out that tubes are the almost perfect device for audio amplifiers when compared to transistors. This would not be true for video amplifier inside a TV, or a power supply inside a computer, two circuits where transistors would be superior. The success of an audio amplifier (at the high end) is all about the character of distortion it produces. The ear is very, very particular about what kind of distortion is tolerable. This is why tubes shine for audio amplifiers. A vacuum tube triode is a naturally perfect amplifier where a transistor is not. A transistor is more of a natural switch. You have to force it to perform well as an amplifier, by adding a lot of correction circuitry. A simple triode needs none of that correction circuitry to perform nearly flawlessly as an audio amplifier. That's the easy objective part of the comparison. Because transistors are far cheaper devices today than tubes, there is a tremendous incentive to try to force these transistors to perform like triodes (just like there is a huge incentive to use artificial flavor in packaged food instead of natural flavor). And engineers have gotten very, very good at doing just that. So, a handful of transistors + a lot of cleverness = a good sounding SS amplifier. But it doesn't really change the nature of the device. You would think then, that there would be some kind of universal agreement that for audio amplifiers, tubes sound better - - but, of course that would be too simple! The problem is complicated by three things: 1. Desires and goals of the user 2. Desires and goals of the designer 3. Difficulty to categorize subjective ideals Users all talk (especially among audio enthusiasts) as though they have a common goal for the sound they like. Believe me, that is not true. Forget the words they use, they all have different ideas about the meaning of "good sound." It's like asking "what is good food?" And, on the other side, every designer has a different set of goals they are working to. In a big company, like Sony, or HarmonKardon, designers are driven heavily by cost. The company wants a series of amps selling for $399, $599, $899. The engineer must first and foremost meet these goals or face the boss. In a smaller company, where maybe the engineer is also the owner, he might be willing to have the cost be the lowest goal, and make the sound quality be the highest goal. But is he using the same sonic reference points as his customers? His competitors? Anyone? Or, is he off on his own journey looking for the sound he has come to love? For example, ask 10 artists to paint a picture of the Grand Canyon, or ask 10 poets for a poem about love. That's exactly the kind of latitude that exists for any engineer designing an audio amplifier. One painter may make an almost photo-realistic painting of the canyon, while another uses a huge brush with intense swatches of brilliant color which conveys the emotion of the canyon more than any specific geographic detail. Which one conveys "Grand Canyon" the best? Depends on who is viewing it, right? Making really musical sounds from records, tapes and CDs is really just like painting and poetry. Choices have to be made by the "painter" about what is important to convey to the listener. Those choices have undeniable consequences. For instance, if you choose to reduce the measured distortion (THD) to the smallest possible number (0.001%) you will need a lot of corrective circuitry. Using that circuitry has the good effect of lowering measured distortion, but the bad effect of making the sound seem smeared and lifeless. Think about medicine: there is ALWAYS a long list of "side effects." On many modern medicines, one of the most common side effects is "death." Amplifier design works exactly like medicine design. You must accept all the long list of side effects along with the benefits. For all these reasons, an enthusiast who wants the best possible amplifier, must experiment with lots of amplifiers, and learn about these good and bad effects, and find out what tradeoff satisfies their ear (doctors often have to prescribe several different blood pressure medications for a patient until they find one that has the least objectionable "side effects.") All amplifiers are a set of compromises between the good and bad effects. All of them. There is no perfect amplifier. All listeners have different tolerance for side effects. At the very top end of the audio mountain, where people have had years to experience all the different options, and come to their conclusions, you will find both tube amplifiers and SS amplifiers! My god... I can not make heads or tails out of this. "Listening" is subjective and good / bad "sound" is different for everybody and at the end of the day many people are perfectly happy with either tube or solid state power. This is one of those questions that can only truly be answered by the person asking the question.

I absolutely love the Chorus speakers. I've powered them with as little as 20 watts via tube gear and all the way up to 625 watts via Solid State Sunfire power and they sound great. A good solid 300 watts will drive them just fine though to their full potential.

I say give it a whirl if its something you've wanted to do anyway. I will say that having a base line or something tried and true to start with may not be a bad idea though, (as already suggested) even if only for comparative purposes. Another consideration may be stepping up to a Forte or Forte II, they've been quoted as being a "Heresy on steroids" and have the same basic footprint, just a bit taller. Also remember that even if you demo a set of speakers at a store or someone else's home they will likely not sound exactly the same in your home. So much so that I gave up demoing gear at any place but my room except to make sure it works of course if buying local. This is a hobby and if part of the fun for you is building your speakers then go for it, good luck!

Louder, tighter bass (although not quite as low) and fuller, more pronounced midrange, that's my take anyway.

You really shouldn't be able to tell its vinyl wrap unless you're up close and as long as they're in good shape they should still look great.

Chorus would be my first pick, then Forte and Quartet last. Good thing is he has all three so you can check each one out for yourself. Good luck!

Love the double stack of Chorus!! The Forte's in the second link look like the woofers have been replaced..?

I don't know how you powered them or what type of environment you had yours in but mine sound pretty damn good after getting the right amp on them. When I first brought these home I tried hooking up the rear channels from my 225x5 Sunfire amp to drive them and they barely turned on. I immediately pulled out a set of Carver A-400x amplifiers to run as mono-blocks to drive them at 500 watts a side. They sounded better and went louder but were still "slow" and not up to flush. I found a nice Samson SX2400 on eBay for a good price and ordered it up. Let me tell you the bass went from OK to very dynamic. Tight and snappy with enough power to blur your vision. The Samson amp thoroughly drives these subs and keeps them in control. Not only are they louder than with the Carver's, they seem to hit lower and even the upper bass seems more defined. So, long story short, these subs rock pretty good but they are power hungry. At least that's my experience with them.

This is a very cool thread! I was planning on building something like this with the K-42's in an original Heresy cabinet and Chorus II crossovers but ended up stuffing those parts into a pair of Forte II's. I still have an extra set of K-42's, K-79 tweeters, Chorus II crossovers and empty Heresy I cabinets, maybe I'll try building something similar to what you have with the parts I already have? Where did you get those tweeters? Are they 8ohm? How much were they? Thanks.

Those are great little amps! I bought and used 2 of them (a little over 2 years ago now) and they are still running strong. One went into a Klipsch SW-12 and the other a Velodyne FSR-15. In both cases the BASH 300 seemed to outperform the original plates.

If you were closer I'd cut you one hell of a deal on a pair of KP-480's. These really fill in the bottom end on the KP-250's quite nice, sure they would do a great job with the 301's.

I've never heard the Cornwall II's but I did own a pair of the originals for a short time. In my honest opinion my Chorus II's blew the doors off the Cornwalls hand down. The Chorus II's were smoother sounding by far-- those metal horns in the Cornwall's went plenty loud but cover your ears and run at anything over mid volume. Also, the bass absolutely SUCKED with the Cornwall's unless they were pressed tight to the inside corners of the room, away from the wall at all and the bass just disappeared. So I would say go for the II's but I'm sure others will offer different advice as the Cornwall's seem to have a massive following for some unknown (to me) reason. Good luck with whatever you choose!

Damn good price, I'm sure glad they're not close to me or I'd have to drag 'em home!!

I've owned the original RC-64 and personally was very unimpressed with it. To me, the RC-7 was the best I've owned with the KV-4 coming in at a close second.

I've been slowly figuring out the way they configured this line of speakers, the Quartet, Forte II & Chorus II. I'm not really tech savvy and it some what confused me as to how the Chorus and Forte sound quite different to me and the Chorus is easily twice as loud and sensitive as the Forte although they share the same mid-horn and driver. I was actually really surprised when I pulled the tweeters on the Forte II's to install the K-79's I have only to find out they are virtually identical? I read somewhere here that some believe them to be the same tweeters just different part numbers due to different application but this does not follow suit with anything else I've seen. If this were true then the mid-horn should have a different part number? I think the difference is actually Ferrofluid used in the K-79 to help with higher power handling as almost every pair I've taken apart had some in it. So the main difference between the Forte II and the Chorus II seems to be in the crossover? A couple reasons for using the K-42, power handling and increased sensitivity. I have never personally blown a Forte woofer but everyone else I know has at least once. The problem is they just sound so good and crystal clear al the way up until they pop.

Thanks man! Right now I have all the speakers in the picture plus a pair of Forte II's I've modified, (separate thread about those) and a pair of RB-5 ii's. I've had several pairs of the Forte's and Chorus models, which really are my favorite. I have friends that own the Klipschorn, Belle's, KLF-30's & 20's. I've actually owned a pair of the KLF-30's but I blew them to pieces on a drunken night rocking out. Apparently 675 watts a side and about 20 beers don't mix! I replaced all the blown drivers and gave them to my brother who still has them.

The Jolida 102b? (older non remote model) was my first venture into tubes. I found it local on Craigslist for $300 and I had to pick my jaw up off the floor as it sounded so freakin' sweet! I was running Chorus II's with Crites crossovers and titanium tweeters and the sound was just perfect. My only complaint was it just wasn't loud enough for me when I really wanted to shake things up. For normal listening (about 90% of the time) it played plenty loud, just not wake the dead loud like when I have friends over and the beer is flowing.

Yep, same jjptkd as on eBay. I'm just north of Seattle WA, in a little town called Snohomish. I fell in love with Klipsch back in the late '80's listening to my late uncle Bob's system he bought at Magnolia Hi-Fi. A full Carver rack system and a pair of Klipsch Forte's. I'll never forget watching his huge picture window in the living room flex to the kick drum from Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good."

Hello, my name is Jesse and I'm fairly new to this forum. Over the years I've learned a lot about various Klipsch speakers / drivers etc through Google search which usually brings me to this site. Some of you may recognize my username from eBay as I've been buying and selling audio gear in my spare time for about 10 years now. Anyway, did a quick look around the forum and didn't see a welcome mat or place to introduce oneself so I figured I'd start here with a fairly recent pic of my system, though some things have changed.

I've been collecting extra Klipsch speaker parts for some time now planning on building my own custom boxes (eventually) using Chorus II crossovers & horns with 12" drivers from the KP-250's to make kind of a "mini" Chorus II. I recently picked up a pretty rough pair of Forte II's and decided to try them out with the K-42's and Chorus II crossovers and I'll tell you what, THEY ROCK!!! Bass is still very similar to the Forte II but the horns are just a singin' away like with the Chorus II's. I'm just curious if anyone else has tried this??

I'd just like to add that not all tube types sound the same and many solid state amplifiers have different sound signatures or "voices" to them. I personally like the EL-84 based tube products like the Jolida 102CRC or the Carver VTA-20 with my Klipsch speakers. Both EL-34 integrated amps I had were very loose in the bottom end and the midrange was way over-stated for my taste.

I know all the "true" horn fans love the two-way design. To be honest (and fair) I've never heard any of the larger two way designs but all the ones I have heard (KG line, CF-4's and tons of the bookshelves including RB-75's & 5's) could not hold a candle to the inner detail and clarity of the three way speakers such as my Chorus II's. On their own (two-ways) they sound great and I could easily live with any of them but do a side by side with a three way and you realize just how much you are missing. This of course is just my own personal experience.

The Tangent's are a bit cheaper construction, thinner MDF was used (like the KLF line) and if I remember correctly the finish was of a vinyl wrap than an actual wood veneer. If you look at the specs though the mid horn and tweeter are the exact same as used in the Forte. The woofer looks to be from a Heresy II? Either way a very nice sounding set of three way speakers which I have always preferred over any 2 way set I've heard. Spec's: Frequency Response: 35Hz-20kHz(+-)3dB SENSITIVITY: 99dB @ 1watt/1meter POWER HANDLING: 150 watts maximum continuous (750 watts peak) NOMINAL IMPEDANCE: 8 ohms TWEETER: K-75-K 1" (2.54cm) Phenolic diaphragm compression driver HIGH FREQUENCY HORN: 90(o)x40(o) Exponential Horn MIDRANGE: K-53-K 1.5" (3.81cm) Phenolic diaphragm compression driver MID FREQUENCY HORN: 90(o)x40(o) Exponential Horn WOOFER: K-28-K 12" (30.48cm) Fiber-composite cone active / K-120 12" (30.48cm) Fiber-composite cone passive ENCLOSURE MATERIAL: Medium density fiberboard construction (MDF) ENCLOSURE TYPE: Bass reflex via passive radiator DIMENSIONS: 40.75" (103.5cm) x 15.5" (39.4cm) x 14.7" (37.3cm) WEIGHT: 65 lbs. (29.5kg) FINISHES: Matte-finish Black vinyl Built From: 1993 BUILT UNTIL: 1994

Hello, I've owned both pairs you're considering and I would say without hesitation the T-5000 are the way to go. They're basically an original Forte but with a forward facing passive.