CCNJ

Just received my ebony Forte iiis. Haven’t hooked up yet but the workmanship is outstanding. The ebony finish with silver luster grills look gorgeous. I will post pics and initial listening impressions later. FYI - these are my first Klipsch speakers and I bought them without an audition - excited but a little nervous.

Jomanos - Thanks for the pics. Those Heresy’s look gorgeous and I am sure sound even better. Enjoy!

Thanks Tomy2. It looks good from the website photo. Just hoping it looks good in person.

Thank you for your comments. I really liked the SE grills and also thought the ebony finish looked pretty cool as well. I will post pics when they arrive but it probably will take a while given the special order finish. Cory - thanks for the background info and I wish I heard about you before I placed my Forte iii order. You apparently have a lot of friends and very happy customers on this forum. Chris

There are lots of good choices. A few questions and answers will help narrow down the suggestions you get. What is your budget? Do you want an integrated amp and dac in one unit or can they be separate? How will you stream your music (e.g., via Bluetooth or some other hard wired source like a network music streamer like Cambridge cxn)? I just ordered the forte iii myself and am still trying to figure some things out as well. I will likely hookup sonus to my preamp/dac. A very simple and inexpensive solution would be a Yamaha S801 integrated with built in dac for about $900 and then buy a separate Bluetooth device ( less than a 100) that you can plug into you Yamaha and stream music from your iPhone

I ordered a pair of Special Edition Forte iii in ebony finish with the silver black luster grill. Anybody have a pair that can comment on how they look in person? They look great on the klipsch website (dark brown/blackish finish) but I can’t find any online reviews regarding this finish. I ordered them from Crutchfield and they say it takes 4-6 weeks. Thanks! Chris

The specs on the benchmark AHB2 are crazy good but the parasound A21 is no slouch by any means. Not worth the expense to upgrade imho. I think I will stick with my kit for awhile which was good advice. I haven’t upgraded in awhile so I got the itch and got ahead of myself. I have to wait a bit for the speakers but will post back towards the end of the year with my impressions

Lots of good advice - thanks. I think I will try my current kit with the Fortes first before I make any moves. I was a little worried about feeding too much power to the Fortes as I blew the woofers on my previous speakers (Totem Hawks). They didn’t like to play loud and were pushed too long and hard during a party.

Just ordered my first Klipsch speakers - Forte III. I currently have a benchmark hdr dac1 (preamp) and Parasound A21 amp (250w per channel). I know that Klipsch are super efficient and was thinking of selling the amp and maybe the pre/dac for a good integrated amp. Budget under 2500 new or used ok. My use is 50% music / 50% HT so I would like to stick with SS for the convenience factor. The setup is in my finished basement approx 700sq feet (Open layout). I would love to hear from members that have experimented and have found a good pairing with Forte’s or other heritage speakers.