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Forte II's


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Have Forte II's in my office that used to be my primary two way system downstairs until I picked up some 77 Cornwalls and did a little refurb with the help of Mr. Crites and some old fashioned sweat. There are still times when I get into a good zone in either location and swear I will never divest myself of either. Both sets of speakers hold my attention regardless of what I am listening to. Cornwall/Forte. Forte/Cornwall???

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I hear ya, Klipsch is Klipsch, some guy offered me a pair of Band and Olufsen RL-140's for the Forte II's, I politely replied that Klipsh trading is like Baseball card trading, we might swap card for card, but never would we swap a baseball card for a soccer card. I nevr enven knew B&O made speakers.

I'm just looking for something different from Heritage sound right now. RF-5 is different enough

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  • 3 months later...

I wanted to bring this thread back because I did recently aquire a pair of Forte's and felt compelled to follow up with my opinion. What I can say about these Forte's, without a doubt or second thought.. these speakers have the best imaging ive heard from Klipsch. the over all sound is very spacious with detail , Fantastic imaging just abselutly a delight to listen to. They might not get down n dirty like my KLF's, But i give the Forte's #1 in imaging and balance. If anyone out there has thought about getting apair...Do it you wont be disappointed!

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I agree. I've got quite a list of speakers at home, and the first thing I noticed about these was their imaging. It's very clear and very detailed. The bass isn't what I expected from a 12" woofer and 15" sub bass radiator, but the sound is very good. Man these things are monsters...talk about gigantic.

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OK Quadklipsch........you have to realize this room is used for 2 channel also, and the furniture is moved around for the Christmas tree but the speakers stay where there at.

Center........ I had to move it the other day, it usually has a block of wood under the rear of the speaker which points it down toward the seating position. Tv is 65" for size comparison,

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I'll pitch in here with my experience. I have two sets of the mighty Forte II's and I love them. I also have Heresy's and RF 25's, At wuzzzer's suggestion in a previous thread I stacked my two pair and man what a diff!! I just recently kicked up the power from 60 wpc to 120 wpc then went all in with a Kenwood Basic M2 at 220wpc (@8). This was a real improvement.

I had positioned the stack well before but the extra horsepower really made a difference in the sound. More and tighter bass, broader sound stage, more defenition. I am hearing new licks from Santana on an Albumn I have heard a hundred times. Lot's of possibilities with the Forte's get em and make them sing!

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I had no other choice for the placement of speakers, considering the room.

Rear speakers.....pointing down to the seating position. The room is 24' wide and 18' deep from that beam by the rear speakers to the wall by the TV, another 16' behind that beam is kitchen , dining room.

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An overall pic to give you an idea of the layout, the sub is behind that "little" MWM on the right side of the room.

All speaker placements were a compromise but you would be very surprised how it sounds. [;)]

The Oak MWM K402 horns were my wife's Idea in that room ! [:D]

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dtel,

Have you shared the how-to or where bought for those MWM K402 Horns?

Anecdote: When I was in Highschool (late 90's) I got hooked on Audio. One of my many monthly rituals was to drive up Route 1 to the Tweeter Etc.. in Dedham and listen to all the nice gear with the CDs that I had. I totally wanted the KLF-30 in oak, I mean they were monsterous! Another one of my rituals was to test drive all the lexus's and BMWs on the auto mile.. :-)

Yet, I couldn't affort them nor would the parents support such gargantuan speakers in the house. (I had a pair Large KLH speakers purchased from a friend for about $200 bucks.. and they lasted all the way thru college before the were sold..) So another set of Large speakers were gonna slip into my room.. One day our TV broke, and I threw out the idea of going up Tweeter to get a nice TV and while we were there I sat them down infron of a pair of Forte II, man did they sound good! Full bass, that concert experience, Pink Flyod's Pulse entranced the whole store.. eeerer, Record skip, "They are too big..", comes from the parents.. ARRGGH! I was THIS close to buying in the Ministers of anti-big speakers on the basis of how they sounded..

That day, I still was successful at spending some one elses money, we walked out of the store with KSF-10.5 (which aren't that much smaller but have much narrower cabinet), a Kenwood 5.1 Reciever (the second one only made at the time to have 5.1 instead of Dolby Pro Logic) and a mungaso 40" Mistubish CRT TV.... My parents still to this day have the Klipsch Speakers and Reciever.. over the years they added a Cambridge Sound Works Sub 1 (Bob Carver designed, 12" sealed beast) and upgraded to a LCD TV. I would crank that system and It has never let me down, But man oh man, do I wish we still had purchased Forte IIs.

-Bill

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Your anecdote makes me smile, back in 1976 my parents moved back east from Carlsbad, CA to Newton, MA, it was also the year I started college, I was wrestling for an east coast college in NY state. My folks settled into Newton comfortably, bringing their Klipschorns with them. As a bonus, they bought me a pair of Heresy's to take to school, all the east coast people were amazed, me, growing up among Klipsch and Altec powered homes, I thought it was normal. That year was also my introduction to Bose 901, as a good So.Cal boy I knew about Klipsch, Altec and JBL, all the others were, well, random.

Kids used to come into my dorm room and were amazed, they had never experienced a really good loudspeaker. Me, I was astounded by some of the stuff I heard, I thought the 901's were broken until my roomate, a Long Island native explained that they were supposed to sound that way. The only Klipsch Heritage dealer back in the day was a store in Wellesley(figures), Tweeter was still pushing ADS or some other nonsense.

Ok, enough, I have Forte II's, they have had some parts upgraded, and they are great, every once in a while I get the itch for some Altec VOTT stuff, but it passes, the Forte II's are my keepers, a logical progression from my first Heresy's, my HII's and my folks old Khorns, in storage for now. I still live back east, near what is apparently our common home area, some habits just die hard I guess. Once I move out of the city, the Khorns come out of storage, but I have no complaints.

When I was a kid, I went out to Rte. 1 to test drive a Jetta, I never had the guts or looks to snag a test drive in a BMW.

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dtel,

Have you shared the how-to or where bought for those MWM K402 Horns?

A forum member in Georgia sold me 2 MWM bass bins in black that I use in the workshop, I copied those in Oak to use inside. Another forum member in Georgia sold me the two K402/K69 horns/drivers and the EV Dx38 (eq) that I use with two Crown D75 amps (35 wpc) to power the 2 CH.

Georgia's forum members Mark and JC have been good to me, also many others on this forum ! [Y]

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How would you compare the KLF's to the Forte IIs?

amusing to answer you honestly. The Forte's are the only klipsch speakers ive owned that can sound sonically perfect across the board with all types of music ( anything). Powerful and spacious in movies.. The klfs are fantastic rock n roll speakers, with excellent kick drum bass..bass as flat and as it gets. where the forte s bass seems to be more spacious and seems to present a wider sound stage IMO.. side by side I prefer the forte's because the imaging is very pleasant where the klfs can sometimes be a bit harsh and in your face.

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How would you compare the KLF's to the Forte IIs?

amusing to answer you honestly. The Forte's are the only klipsch speakers ive owned that can sound sonically perfect across the board with all types of music ( anything). Powerful and spacious in movies.. The klfs are fantastic rock n roll speakers, with excellent kick drum bass..bass as flat and as it gets. where the forte s bass seems to be more spacious and seems to present a wider sound stage IMO.. side by side I prefer the forte's because the imaging is very pleasant where the klfs can sometimes be a bit harsh and in your face.

Wow, that's interesting to hear from a man who's heard both. I remember finding some KLF-20's in my area, cheap, right after I bought my Forte's and I always wondered how they would compare.

I must say, the Fortes really surprised me. They were the first speaker I ever heard that just explicitly sounded the best with classical music and at the same time could just utterly bring down the house with rock. The bass is insane, yet really balanced...I just love them to death. In terms of design, they just scare me with how easily they can push ridiculous amounts of sound. You can turn them up and the sound gets disturbingly loud very fast, but without any distortion, and it's confusing to hear such loud sound with no distortion at all! PWK was a master of audio engineering, without a doubt.

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That's what also makes 6 of them sound so good in HT. I have bigger speakers and much more expensive speakers but will never get rid of the Forte ll's

No matter what speaker I hear I can go back and listen to the Forte ll's and they still impress me every time.

Music gets played on the forte ll's as much as the MWM/K402 or the Cornwall lll's, there NOT just for HT. [Y]

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