carbon summit Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 I wasn't thinking about replacing the Forte IIs, just curious about the Reference line. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wuzzzer Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 I do believe that if I had hung on to the RF-7s long enough to hear them with my Emotiva amp and upgraded the crossover networks I might have kept them. At the time I stumbled across the Forte IIs they were a deal too good to pass up. I would still like to hear a properly set up and modified RF-7 system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Chi-town Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 I have owned a pair of Forte II's since early 1992. They truly are a "Lifetime" speaker. I will never part with mine. I am new to this forum, and have a couple of questions regarding upgrading the crossovers and midrange/tweeter. Some may consider the question crazy, but is there a bennefit of upgrading if the speakers are still in top working order and never abused, as I am the original owner? What can I expect as far as overall sonic improvement? Ballpark figure on costs and who to work with would be helpful as well. Thanks in advance. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
popbumper Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 John: I sent you a PM. If you have any questions, please ask. Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merkin Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 I must like them, I have 6 forte II's and two quartets. I was using 5 of them in my 7.1 HT until recently. I then got the bells and a lascala for center. Now I have one pair of forte II's for surrounds and the quartets for rears. I'm keeping all of them, someday I may let my son have them when and if he ever moves out and gets an apartment. I replaced the crossovers with popbumpers K-tacks in 5 of them and the quartets. They made a hell of a HT system. Never tried a/b against the belles but they will be back in service while I refinish my belles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldtimer Posted January 20, 2010 Share Posted January 20, 2010 As an owner of 3 pairs, I can also say there is truly no good reason not to hang on to them and pass them on to your heirs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhing Posted January 20, 2010 Share Posted January 20, 2010 That's my plan too. I just removed all the grills. drivers and crossovers and sent my cabinets to a professional woodworker for refinishing. In the meantime, I replaced the binding posts with much better Pomona Electronics 3770 Gold-plated Copper binding posts, and I'm getting some new internal wire sets from Bob Crites. With Bob's crossover upgrades, my Forte IIs sound great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Chi-town Posted January 22, 2010 Share Posted January 22, 2010 Attached below is an article on the limited 1996 re-release of the original Forte II, does anyone have any experience with the "2nd" generation of Forte II? Considering a second pair on used market and am wondering if they are the same as the original? Thanks! John -Greg Smith October 1996 If you've been reading my Entry Level columns, you've noticedthat I frequently talk about my speakers. Klipsch introduced a collectionof designs they called the Heritage series back around the beginning ofthe decade, and the jewel in that collection is a model called the ForteII. Being from Klipsch, they use horns, but these speakers are the bestdesigned horns I've ever heard for any reasonable sum of money. They'vebeen out of production for many years now, so I haven't been pushing themtoo much. Imagine my surprise when I found out that Klipsch is making themagain, and they're even cheaper than before! With the current craze, centeredaround things like single ended tubes, toward higher efficiency speakers,it's particularly appropriate to talk now about what these speakers dowell and to mention some of the things I've learned in five years of systemmatching. The Return of the Forte IIKlipsch Forte II $1000/pair. Horn Tweeter, Tractrix Horn Midrange, 12 inch woofer,15 inch passive radiator, crossover points at 650hz and 7Khz. 99dB sensitivity,8 ohm nominal impedance, 4 ohm minimum. -3dB@32hz, 20Khz. There are speakers that you just buy, plug in, and play. Sure, maybeyou move them around a bit, but most speakers aren’t all that difficultto get working well. These are not speakers like that. The Forte II issomething you need to plan your whole system and room around to make itperform well. You don’t just pick a random set of components, positionthem like regular cone speakers, and expect them to perform. The resultwill probably sound horrible. I will fully agree that most horn designsound horrible in any case, including many from Klipsch. The Forte II canbe made to sound very good, but it takes quite a bit of sweat. Just becauseyou’ve heard horns before and thought they sounded bad, don’t dismiss these. Here’s one thing I’ve noticed about horn speakers. Because the efficiencyis so high, it’s much easier to use the drivers out of their normal operatingrange without causing over-excursion problems. This is why you’ll findso many two-way horn designs. You can push most tweeter horns so that theywork down to around 2Khz, and keep the frequency response fairly flat.Unfortunately, this results in a less than pleasant off-axis response athigher frequencies. The horn problem most people refer to as "honking"is most obvious with two-way horn designs, and I’ve never liked them becauseof it. When the engineers at Klipsch were designing the Tractrix midrange hornthat is used in the Forte II, they found it could be used up to 20Khz ifthey played with the EQ on the driver. They didn’t do so; instead, thereis a separate tweeter horn for the very high frequencies. Limiting thebandwidth used for the midrange horn lets it cover a horizontal area of60 degrees smoothly while controlling the vertical coverage for betterintegration with the other drivers (see Tractrix Horns in the March1991 issue of Audio for information how the Forte II was created). Thefact that the midrange is so well designed is the primary reason this particularmodel sounds so much better than the other speakers I’ve heard from Klipsch,or from any other horn manufacturer for that matter. The midrange is really what makes this speaker sound great. There’sa totally effortless feeling to vocals that comes from a driver operatingnowhere near its limits in either frequency response or output level. Andthe foundation that midrange is working on is very solid. The bass is tightdown to 30hz if the associated electronics keep up. You’ll feel littleneed for a subwoofer. And if you want peak output, you’ve got it. I’ve measured my speakersclearing 115dB in my room before (with my ears covered, thank you). Theysounded about as distorted as your average cone speakers do with 10dB lessoutput (which is what you’d expect with a typical 10dB sensitivity difference).While I certainly don’t recommend listening to anything that loud, it’snice to know you can use your speakers for low-grade sound reinforcementwithout constantly fearing damage. The low distortion makes the volumelevel deceptive; I can listen to these speakers at a considerably highervolume than more traditional designs without ear fatigue. Distortion makesspeaker sound loud regardless of the volume, and it’s surprising how muchquieter the same volume levels sounds without it present (this is a centralconcept to Paul Klipsch’s philosophy for the company). Amplifier matching With that 99dB sensitivity, you’d think you could use any old amplifierand have plenty of power. This is not at all the case. In order to matchthe output levels of the drivers (those horns are even louder than thatwithout some padding), Klipsch uses some very unique matching techniquesusing things like a type of transformer. (see A Visit to the KlipschKingdom in the 4/89 issue of Speaker Builder for comments from PaulKlipsch on their autoformer design). Transformers are obviously inductive,as they are made out of inductors. What this means is that while the amplifierused doesn’t need to have a very high power output in typical terms, itdoes need to be able to deal with the very difficult load that inductorspresent. Using a cheap receiver to drive these speakers just because youdon’t need much power is the wrong approach. What you need is a high- currentamplifier that can deal with difficult loads without introducing problems. One of the problems you’ll constantly fight with these speakers is thatany components that might sound a bit harsh with other speakers will havethat harshness revealed in all its glory. Use a typical cheap CD playerand a pair of these speakers will drive you from the room. The amplifiermatching in particular can introduce an incredibly rough sound. Back whenI was using an Adcom GFA-555 with these speakers, an amplifier generallyrecognized as being a bit too aggressive in its treble, I had to deal witha level of sibilance that was almost unbearable. The Proton D1200 amplifierI current use is a very good match, but you can’t buy them anymore. Essentially,I recommend trying amplifiers from manufacturers known for producing laid-backcomponents. I’ve had excellent luck building a system around these speakerswith components from Rotel, and I have no reason to expect that their poweramplifiers would be a bad match for these speakers (and they even makeinexpensive, low-power models that still have excellent current drivingability). The tube amps I’ve tried all sound terrific with these speakers.A 35w/ch Dynaco ST-70 is plenty of power to drive a pair to ear-bleedinglevels with no problems. Placement The other thing that really can bite you and leave a bad impressionof these speakers is how you place them. All of Klipsch’s speakers aredesigned to be placed closer to the corners than typical designs. I likethese best sitting about 1-2’ from the left, right, and rear walls. Pullthem far out into the room and they don’t sound as good. Another thingsto watch out for is toe-in. Most people angle their speakers so that thedrivers are directly facing them. Bad idea here--you want these facingdirectly forward, with no toe-in rotation toward the center. When pointedright at you, the harshness that’s always waiting around for the unwarycomes right out. The off-axis sound is much smoother and more pleasantto listen to. The manual that comes with the speaker has very generic recommendationsthat recommend toe-in for all their speakers; ignore all of their suggestions.They may very well be true with other models, but with the Forte II theyare just plain wrong (current production might have a revised manual thatgives better advice). Don’t wait too long... Two warnings. First, if you’re interested, start moving now. I’m toldthat the rerelease of these speakers is a temporary thing, and that theyare going to disappear again in some indeterminate period of time. Second,I haven’t actually had a chance to try out a sample from the current productrun. I don’t see any design changes, and they seemed to sound about thesame during a brief listen at the local dealer, but I’m not 100% certainthese are exactly the same speakers I’m used to. Even if I had a pair,I couldn’t tell you for sure for a while--it took me six months to getmy old pair broken in properly (you really have to move that woofer aroundto stretch the cone and radiator out to get the bass going as deep as itshould). The bass does take a while before it sounds exactly right, andthe volume level required to break these in right is enough to get youraverage dealer evicted if they tried it in the store. As far as I’m concerned, the Forte II is a terrific design competitivewith any speaker in the $1000 price class is every category. And they arepossibly the best available in terms of deep bass output, sensitivity,and maximum output for that much cash. If you give them a fair audition,following the suggestions I gave for matching components and room placement,you may just find that inexpensive horn speakers can sound better thanyou thought possible. .....GS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Groomlakearea51 Posted January 22, 2010 Share Posted January 22, 2010 Greg's a snob... "inexpensive horn speakers" ... and he makes no bones about bashing some of Klipsch designs. His comments about "breaking in" is horse-crap. Ask Klipsch engineer Roy Delgado. All Mr. Smth wants is that "smeared" sound from the bass which is a characteristic of cone material getiing, shall we say, less than rigid. He also apparently has a problem with horn loaded speakers in general, and while emphasizing a characteristic that is indicative of the source material and how it was amped to the speakers, NOT the speaker design, he does, in substance, basically say that unless you have associated high end components, don't buy them. Crap. Just a backhanded attempt to bash the Forte's, nothing more, nothing less. I've had 3 pairs of the Forte's (and a couple pairs of Chorus along the way). Outstanding speakers, and to be honest are a hell of alot more forgiving in terms of placement than many, if not most other non-Klipsch speakers. Only reason I sold all of the "Classic" series is that I did not need them, and wanted to concentrate on the Heritage series. Second only to the Heresy, the Forte is probably the easiest to use in just about any application, and is well worth the money as at least a start until one goes for the K'horns, etc. Just my opinion on the "review" and the Forte's in general. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Chi-town Posted January 22, 2010 Share Posted January 22, 2010 I agree with your assesment 100% as it relates to Greg's article. I own a pair of 1992 Forte II's that I will pass on to my son prior to ever parting with. Originally powered by an Adcom GFA 555II, and now by an Adcom GFA 5802. I was and have always been happy with the sound. I would not consider Adcom components at the "High End" today or ever, but a great "Bang for theBuck" in my humble opinion. The reason I posted the article is that I am in search of a used pair in the marketplace and was wondering if the 1996-1997? re-issues are exactly the same as the original run of Forte II???? Thanks! John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Groomlakearea51 Posted January 22, 2010 Share Posted January 22, 2010 If you can snag a pair or the re-issues for a reasonable sum, they would be worth it as the drivers, crossovers are not "old", with all that entails (cap degradation, diaphragm brittleness, cone rigidity loss, etc.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wuboy Posted January 22, 2010 Share Posted January 22, 2010 If my relatives weren't such a bunch of bose eating morons, I'd leave them to them, not like I'm going any where tomorrow, so between the Forte II's and the Quartets I am in hog heaven, the Quartets are a great center channel. Since Klipsch no longer makes woofers for the Quartet, I got the theile-small parameters from Klipsch Parts, and found the matches. Go figure, my local DYI electronics store had what I needed. My Forte II's were made in 1995, so they are relatively young, too bad my deaf younger relatives can't hear it....bose eating morons, the whole bunch, maybe mine will go to the local VA Post, or my Coast Guard Aux post. But I really have to be dead first, otherwise, no way... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fwphoto Posted January 23, 2010 Share Posted January 23, 2010 If my relatives weren't such a bunch of bose eating morons, I'd leave them to them, not like I'm going any where tomorrow, ... You are too funny wuboy! Mine are '92s. The Klipsch product page says they were produced between '89 & '96. It doesn't say anything about about a "re-issue" of the Forte II or any mention of differences among the years of production. So, when did they suspend production of the original run & when did they bring them back? Frank W. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wuboy Posted January 24, 2010 Share Posted January 24, 2010 This is a question I will leave for the erudite among us, because I don't think there is a wiki page on it, although the Forte II does make the Klipsch wiki page. The Forte II's great strength was sound, it's weakness, expensive to make, expensive enough to cannibalize the Cornwall market by pushing it's price point to a higher level. Not like I think companies are strictly motivated by profit, but this is a company that actually brings proof of concept to production, which is pretty cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carbon summit Posted January 24, 2010 Share Posted January 24, 2010 This is a question I will leave for the erudite among us, because I don't think there is a wiki page on it, although the Forte II does make the Klipsch wiki page. The Forte II's great strength was sound, it's weakness, expensive to make, expensive enough to cannibalize the Cornwall market by pushing it's price point to a higher level. Not like I think companies are strictly motivated by profit, but this is a company that actually brings proof of concept to production, which is pretty cool. er⋅u⋅dite /'?ry??da?t, '?r?-/ [er-yoo-dahyt, er-oo-] –adjective characterized by great knowledge; learned or scholarly: an erudite professor; an erudite commentary. FYI for those of us without wuboy's vocabulary! [] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carbon summit Posted January 24, 2010 Share Posted January 24, 2010 If my relatives weren't such a bunch of bose eating morons, I'd leave them to them, not like I'm going any where tomorrow, ... You are too funny wuboy! Mine are '92s. The Klipsch product page says they were produced between '89 & '96. It doesn't say anything about about a "re-issue" of the Forte II or any mention of differences among the years of production. So, when did they suspend production of the original run & when did they bring them back? Frank W. I found that article on the internet a while back so I contacted Klipsch tech support. The main thing I was curious about was the swing in ohms that the article talks about trying to justify to myself that I needed an amp since my Yamaha 663 doesn't really put out the power Yamaha says. I also asked in that email about what the article said about the reintroduction of the Forte IIs. Here is part of the email that addressed the question about when the Forte II was made: Thanks for the complete article, I think I have it somewhere, so I will cut paste in a word doc. The forte II, notice lower case first letter as that is the correct way to spell it, was built between 1989 to 1996, no time lag between. Steve Phillips Senior Tech Support Klipsch, Mondial Designs, Jamo, API I notice on the Klipsch website it is spelled with a capital F so I'm not sure if it is that way because whoever put the website together capitalized it. The original boxes that came with my Forte IIs have it as forte so he is probably right. I still capitalize it, must be the only thing that I learned in grade school english class that stuck with me, capitalize proper nouns. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fwphoto Posted January 24, 2010 Share Posted January 24, 2010 Thanks for the info! What a great resource this forum is! I think I'll start using the lower case, just to be different. ;-) Frank W. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wuzzzer Posted January 24, 2010 Share Posted January 24, 2010 I think I'll start using the lower case, just to be different. ;-) Frank W. Too late. [] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astralography Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 I just bought a pair of Forte ll's and really am shell shocked at how wonderful these speakers sound. I am a huge fan of horn music, jazz, funk, and so on.. rock with horns.. and I think vocals sound best through horn driven speakers. Having the two horns to me added the dynamic range that was not in other single horned speakers I have owned. What really blew me away was the bass response.. not just the volume of bass, but the CLARITY of the low end. I am a bass player, and as an electric bass player, any great bassist worth his salt KNOWS that you need a 15 inch woofer in your cabinet. I don't care what the modern tech guys argue about smaller coned long throw subs... they just ain't the same my friends. A 15 inch speaker is going to move air in a different way.. and if you want proper sound replication... you need a 15 inch woofer to properly re create what the original microphone diaphram picked up from bass guitar coming out of a a fender bassman cabinet or similar set up. I would argue that acoustic bass also sounds much more REAL coming out of a 15. I don't like powered 15 inch woofers. The 15 inch passive radiator is the way to go. It was a great invention and should be in any serious audiophile's speaker stack. Pushing the speakers back into the corners is the right way to do it. This way you really get the walls working for you. I have owned Bella's and heard Cornwalls, and as far as detail .. the Forte ll leaves those others in the dust. These are incredibly musical speakers that should be able to contend with just about anything out there from any era. The Forte ll? Why would you have anything else? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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