gigantic

Fwiw, in many ways the LaScala are better speakers. For one, there's very little that beats the mid bass of the LS lower horn. Personally, and this is simply my utterly subjective opinion, but I'm not crazy about the rest of the speaker: I find the mid range to be rather shouty and If I'm dropping $15k on a speaker, I don't want to have do spend another cent for a subwoofer at the very least, while an active crossover & at least 3 amps to make it perfect, is a bridge too far for many. I do expect that Roy's upcoming AL6, should it get released, will be the best sounding LaScala ever built, presumably fixing the phase and time alignment with a DSP and curing the shouty tendencies that are endemic to the overly long and narrow K400 and K401, with much better, if not wholly sufficient low end response. (My opinion is based on my experience building my own LS-inspired 3-way horns, using a 2" driver and horn for the mids, along with a DSP crossover and 6 mono block amps, 1 amp for each driver, to power them. I did some other things to address what I feel were the shortcomings of the originals, but this is not the place to discuss.) Minds will be blown by the AL6, if it makes it to the marketplace.

You're missing the bass response, time and phase coherence that you got with your Fortes. By comparison, the LaScala are going to sound bigger, (because they are) and have better mid bass and midrange, however, as you're described, will have less low end punch than the Forte. Because the Forte has better time and phase alignment, it will also have better psycho-acoustic properties, presenting a better soundstage and imaging than the LaScala. However, very few speakers can beat the mid bass of the Lascala, from 110-400Hz, there's not much that can touch it and the mid range, from 400-5000Hz is pretty compelling, although some find the 1" K401 horn and driver to be on the boxy and shouty side of the spectrum. A subwoofer or two will take care of the bass response, but correcting the phase and time alignment takes more effort than many are willing to endure, as well as additional gear: a pro DSP crossover and multiple amps, (at least three), as well as a calibrated measuring mic, a laptop with Room Eq Wizard, a surplus of patience and time to dial it all in and ideally, someone to advise you on the process. Your best bet is to get a sub and learn to enjoy your LaScala. Eventually, you may convince yourself that they sound great, particularly as the memory of the Fortes fade. This will cost you nothing but time to adjust to them.

I have quite a few of them

Forte III all day. You can give them the Forte IV upgrade, too.

Look into the Wiim Amp. It will work better than Sonos products and handles most streaming platforms, has a good DAC for additional digital sources and even has a Phono pre, iirc.

agreed as well. I don't even care if it sounds all that good, it's visually striking and looks something that evokes past icons from Klipsch, Altec & Jensen and a factory rendered DIY job. as an inveterate DIY-er, it's cool as hell. I'd also like to see more like this.

the obvious answer is that's no longer a Cornwall, but something else entirely.

it's worth noting that Klispch isn't a small company operating out a shed in Hope AR, anymore. They're part of a multinational corporation and have the overhead middle management, marketing and the e-suite to cover, as well as multinational manufacturing operations& distribution that all have to extract as much value from the product line as possible in order to deliver maximum returns to shareholders. This creates significant inflation beyond the Consumer Price Index, so, with profit and overhead, a speaker that costs $1299 to manufacture, has a retail value of $8000 to cover it all. This is the reality of corporate production today.

Titebond III doesn't fully cure to the extent that type 1 or type II adhesives do. It remains somewhat pliable and prone to movement, comparatively. It may or may not be a problem IRL, but I've always avoided it unless I had a specific application that called for it. I've also found that it gums up sanding sheets more than types I or II.

I'm a master carpenter and former cabinetmaker. I use Titebond 1 (red cap) or II, (blue cap) but not Titebond III and never polyurethane or epoxy.

I'd contemplated something similar, but three-way, selecting drivers that better met a lower FS and increased VAS. I would have used an even bigger, 2" mid horn and increased the cabinet volume to meet or beat that of the CW, while maintaining the approximate footprint of the CW with the goal of solid extension to at least 32Hz. That got thrown out the window once I heard a pair of 70's vintage LaScala and decided to implement a few ideas derived from the Chorus thought experiment and ended up with a unit with in-room response that was +/- 3db from 20Hz to 20kHz. If I didn't live in an inner city apartment, I'd probably pursue the Chorus style alignment, too, but my available space in my 1300sf flat is quite tight already.

Both the prices of the Heresy IV and the OJAS speakers are higher than I'm willing to pay, but I'll stop short of calling the price points of either, "gouging." in the case of the OJAS, it's more appropriate to consider them as functional artwork. They're largely hand made, in limited quantities, produced in part by an established artist and priced accordingly. Whereas the Klipsch RP line is comparable to a Volkswagen Jetta, not cheap, but also not priced out of reach of many consumers, Heresy IV is akin to an Audi A3, with styling and performance that puts them in the aspirational luxury category, expensive enough, but reachable with smart budgeting for many. The Ojas, on the other hand, skips a few rungs on the performance ladder, eschewing the modern conveniences of the contemporary Porsche lineup, more like an air-cooled Singer Porsche: it's performance isn't nearly up to par with a current model Porsche and in many ways, isn't even as good as a Jetta, however it's hand built, with unmistakably unique styling and quirky performance that has its own appeal. Its price reflects its limited availability, exclusive styling and hand-made construction, while performance is almost secondary.

Roy definitely closed the performance gap between the Chorus and Cornwall, making the CW-IV the best of both worlds, but I remain convinced that a renewed Chorus could be made even better yet, with deeper bass and even better mids via a 2" waveguide/compression driver. I still prefer the footprint and appearance of the Chorus to the Cornwall and feel that a passive radiator is preferable to the square ports on the CW, but retro is big these days and the CW has retro credibility and appeal for days.

While they're both bass reflex speakers and the Chorus was intended to replace the Cornwall, they're really quite difference in terms of overall performance and execution. In theory, a Chorus coulda, shoulda been better. It was hamstrung in terms of frequency response, although boundary/corner loading can improve that overall compared to the spec sheets. Simply increasing the cabinet volume could lead to a considerable performance increase, given the same components.

It should be a good match!