Bananas and Blow

What amps have you heard the EL84 in? Are you able to compare the sound to the EL34 power tube? I'm quite fond of my EL34s.

Well most of these aren't re-mixes but are remasters. And yes a majority of popular music that was remastered from 1995 on sound worse. Exceptions abound however. Recently for Rock I've found the hi-rez streams of Rush (2015 Sean McGee remasters), The Who 2014 and the 2015 Van Halen remasters are all excellent quality. At least on par with the original CD releases, and some of them are superior.

Nice clean room that is perfect for Fortes. I think they like room to breath. One benefit of Fortes is they don't have to be close to the wall so you can get a little more 3D depth to the sound by pulling them out into the room a bit.

It's a very good cart. I had it re-tipped with a Microline nude boron stylus by the needle doctor. It was the single biggest upgrade I've ever done to my system other than buying Fortes. It's the same needle on the $5400 Rega Apehlion. The internals on the Ania and Aphelion are identical, says so right on the Rega website. After the new needle I could not believe the improvement in resolution and impact. Stunning. When chatting with him he said it would turn my Ania into the Aphelion. I was skeptical to say the least. After listening a few hours I could not believe how good it sounds. Still blows me away to this day. I've had him re-tip it twice more and am still thrilled to this day. Best $450 I've ever spend on my system. The needle also drastically reduces surface noise. Somehow it gets deeper into the grooves and avoids some surface noise. There are records I can barely listen to on my Thorens table with an Ortofon bronze that I barely notice the surface noise on my Rega. I actually buy records that are visually lesser quality now and most of the time I'm not disappointed.

Yup that's a crappy *** remaster. Either get the original CD or vinyl. Those sound wonderful. All the original 7 Iron Maiden CD's except Piece of Mind sound very good. Original vinyl is excellent but the cds will do for less price. Get the CD's before they shoot up in price. The 1995 Castle 2 cd versions contain the original excellent masterings. All other cd masterings of Maiden are pretty bad. This is mostly true of all classic metal, Judas Priest and Metallica for example.

Mac is the perfect amp for the Cornwalls. How many hours do you have on the CWs? What source are you feeding the amp? If you have good sources and you don't like the sound with your wonderful mac amp the reality is you may just not like the Cornwalls. As the hours passed with my Fortes I just grew to love them more and more. To the point they are my favorite all time speaker I've owned. I only listen to well mastered music though. Horribly compressed music is unlistenable so I'm curious about what music sources you are feeding them. You say they sound wonderful on some recordings and lousy on others. That could be the music source you are feeding them. A revealing system won't sound great on a shitty source. It will sound shitty.

Great post. If you haven't found a way to make digital sound good then you are most likely listening to the wrong mastering.

I prefer my Forte IV ever so slightly tilted up in the front. I think it raises the overall height of the soundstage and I really like a massive soundstage. Raising them off the ground is likely to ruin the bass tuning. But tilting them up helps. I just put a sock under the front of my Fortes. They are on carpet. As others have said, just move them around. Horn speakers can sound so different depending on where you put/aim them.

Nailed it

Are you still running a crap amp? no offense. But don't judge the speakers until you attach them to a halfway decent amp. Heresy do not lack treble.

The drivers need 100 hours to fully break in. The tweeters on both my Heresy IV and Forte IV sounded grainy when new. The last thing to really open up on mine were the midrange. It really blossomed and became more open and transparent. It was a gradual change but then one day it was like "wow holy schiit that sound is so alive". Everyone who's a break in skeptic never broke in a pair of Klipsch IV speakers. Both pairs I broke in changed dramatically. I didn't really like the Heresy prior to break in. I didn't notice any change after 100 hours or so (I did not time this).

FWIW I love tube amps and prefer their sound. If you are new to the hobby don't go down the tube rabbit hole to start off. It can get expensive quickly and if you don't upgrade the preamp tubes in an integrated tube amp you won't get very good sound anyways. At least not near the potential for sound quality that some good NOS tubes can provide. Get a solid state quality 2 channel dedicated integrated amp. Congrats on your Heresy. They are much more than the entry level of the Heritage line of speakers. They provide truly great audiophile sound. Never under-estimate them based on their smaller stature.

Don't get a piece of crap AVR for your wonderful Heresy. Get a dedicated 2 channel amp. What's your budget? If you want to stay in this price range the Yamaha A-S501 is a good option but you can certainly get much better sound from your Heresy than that. But at least it won't be crappy avr sound. A used Marantz Pm8006 will sound great if you like the Marantz sound. I happen to love the Marantz sound. It's warmer and easier to listen to than the more neutral sounding Yamaha.

My experience has been very much the opposite of this post and I consider this terrible advice. Pairing the right amp to your speakers is the most important pairing you can make in an audiophile setup. I've heard the same amp I'm listening to right now that sounds great with my Fortes sound dreadful with another pair of speakers that I have sitting in the same room. My ears have heard many times what you "don't believe".

I've owned 2 integrated tube amps so my experience is limited. I had a Raven Osprey MK3.1 with 7581a tubes and those were incredibly dynamic. Terrific with rolled off sounding speakers like my Dynaudios. It was too Dynamic with Fortes and Heresy and I didn't like the combination at all. It sounded harsh and too forward. My main experience with power tube rolling comes via my Cary Audio SLi-80 signature (ca 2005, tube rectified). Started with the KT88's and I liked the sound with the Forte IV. Tried the Tung-sol KT120 and liked the sound less. Just sounded less interesting and more solid state sounding. I don't think my amp really takes advantage of the extra power of the KT120 as there is no adjustment when changing from 88s to 120s. Next I tried the Gold Lion KT77s and they are truly excellent modern tubes. Had a little more harmonics and more "in the room" presence to the sound. For an EL34 family tube it did a great job of still producing a full frequency range. It had less bass than the 88's. Next up I tried some NOS 1960's RFT power tubes siemens. These are probably the best I've had in the amp. Terrific detail, magic midrange. That 2nd harmonic distortion that places the artist in between your speakers is just incredible. Draws me in. Ironically these tubes are not my daily drivers and that's because when I purchased these used RFTs, they threw in a set of barely used modern Tung-Sol EL34's. I plugged in the TS EL34s and liked the sound so much I didn't even bother trying the RFT's for a couple of weeks. They are a bit rolled off on the highs and the bass. But I think a big of tube softening of the sound does well with Klipsch Heritage speakers. And with the Forte you can tube the bass wonderfully with speaker placement. So moving the Forte back an inch filled in the bass nicely. I get wonderful detail. Incredible dynamics. Great clarity from the EL34. It softens some of the edges of the music without losing the dynamics, which is the perfect combination with the Fortes. I've had many amps and even more speakers and nothing has approached the quality of sound of this combination. The SLI80 was used to demo the Heritage line for a reason. I could happily live with any of the 3 EL34 family of power tubes I've found. I found an even bigger improvement in sound from using NOS 60's small signal tubes in the preamp. But you didn't ask about preamp tubes. Due to a temporary move I've been powering my Fortes with a Yamaha A-s1200 and it's a nice amp. Does some things well. It does not have the same magic of the Cary.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Pretty sure this isn't supposed to be another CW vs Forte thread. I'm surprised the bass is that different. Would have imagined the differences being on the other 2 drivers moreso. The new cross-over making the difference perhaps. I'm thrilled with the bass on my Forte IVs.

Make fun of their age all you want. They have given us so much wonderful music over the years. If seeing them still rocking doesn't inspire you, I don't know what will.

I've been saying that for 20 years. I saw them 2 years ago in LA and it was a great show. Mick ran around the stage like he was 68 again. He gave it his all. The greatest rock and roll band indeed.

Get a quality 2 channel integrated amp. It will sound much much better.

Think they both excel at a big sound and impact. The drum kit sounds phenomenal on the fortes. In particular the Toms just thunder. Well the kick drum too. All of it. Think it just comes down to room size. Cw is much bigger so bigger sound. Deeper bass. But the fortes just pinch you in the gut with bass. In the best possible way. Op you buy the fortes yet or what?

Well isn't that just the bee's knees. Thanks for sharing

The Forte IV is the best rock and roll speaker ever made. It is my favorite speaker of all time. To be fair, I haven't heard every speaker. It would be a galactic improvement. You'll end up upgrading the rest of your system but it won't matter because you will be having so much fun.

Man those are some beautiful khorns. Someone is going to be very happy with them.

There really isn't a wrong answer to this thread, including adding the Forte III or IV to the discussion. All wonderful speakers.