RedMoss

Hi Bill. Philadelphia, here.

Many thanks for the advice here. Loads to work with and consider. Will update with a before/after on these -- veneer needs some work, too, so more than just the guts that need some TLC.

Thanks for this. I'm pretty sure it's not the amp nor the wires as other speakers sound fine using both. I'll certainly run through your other suggestions. If I were to have the existing boards rebuilt, would this be a simple matter of removing/reattaching spades or is there some soldering involved? Sorry, I'm totally ignorant when it comes to this stuff. Thanks again.

I purchased a pair of Forte IIs last year for a very reasonable amount. I was unable to test these at the point of purchase as the owner was moving and just looking to get rid of them (they were quite apologetic, actually: "are you sure you want these? They're huge!") I was overjoyed when I hooked them up. The experience was everything I had been looking for in a speaker: the sound seemed to pour out effortlessly and had an almost "buoyant" quality to my ears (if that makes any sense). Unfortunately, the amount of space in our living room available at the time would not accommodate them, and so they went into the basement and were brought up for special occasions. With the additional time I have had available over the past couple of months, I've been listening to these more often. As I've been listening more attentively, I've noticed that the sound in one speaker is a bit recessed. Vocals have a distant, echo-y quality to them, and lacks the oomph of its sister. I'm sure it's time to open these up, but I have zero confidence in knowing what I'm looking at or doing the repair myself properly. (I can upload a video of both speakers isolated if it would help a diagnosis). Any tips on how to get these back to stock sound? I've been reading about the Crites crossovers -- my dilemma would be in finding a speaker repair place locally that know the speaker well and could do the repairs appropriately. (I'm in the Philadelphia-area, if that helps). Is there a ballpark figure on how much this would cost? If the cost is overly excessive, I'm wondering if it might be better to sell these and purchase a pair of the new Heresys. Would the presentation between these two speakers be drastically different? +1 for the Heresy IV would be that it's visually more appealing and intrudes less. Regardless, I do plan on moving the furniture around to accommodate either option, so it's certainly not a deciding factor. Thanks for any guidance on this.