dls123 Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 Hi all, While I have heard various horns over the years, I have just purchased my first pair. I picked up a pair of the original Fortes that are cosmetically very nice. Drivers are all in very good shape. The seller had modded them. I have rebuilt my fair share of speakers so I know a decent job when I see one. His list of mods was: new, better quality autoformers, new diaphragms on the midrange horns, new good quality poly caps, I think Solens on the bass and I believe Musicaps for the mids and highs. He also made a nice lexan plate with nice terminals for bi-wiring. They sound very good indeed and I am driving them with my fully restored Citation I and Citation V. My question is this.... I am a tweaker. I rebuild tube gear all the time. So what else would one do to a pair of original Fortes? Any recommended interior cabinet treatments? Spikes? He pretty much nailed the crossovers already....I doubt further crossover improvements would yield more than a subtle improvement over what he has done, so what else is there? Also, they do seem very sensitive to placement. In my basement system they seem to do best about 3 feet from the wall. The mids and highs seem to suffer if you put them closer to the wall. Any placement advice will be read with interest! Any tweaks will be cheerfully considered! cheers, Don Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Groomlakearea51 Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 Welcome to the Forum! Other than experimenting around with placement, amp settings, etc., I would pretty much enjoy them for a while before any "mechanical" changes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dls123 Posted January 5, 2010 Author Share Posted January 5, 2010 Hi, Thanks. Yes, they are quite an interesting speaker. They are sitting next to a pair of AR3a speakers that I completely restored, much as the previous owner restored these Fortes. Of course those are two completely different ends of the speaker spectrum! You could happily live with either though. It is my basement system. I have a few tube amps around so for fun I hooked up an old Paco kit amp. It is a little 7199 PP integrated I rebuilt. Nothing special, about 14 watts/ch. Sounds very good through the Fortes. The Citation pair is much better, but you could live with the Paco. If the darn Fortes were just a bit smaller and lighter I would haul them upstairs and hook them up to the main system for fun, but I am afraid I might damage them moving them without help. Still, I just might. I want to hear what they sound like in my living room which is much bigger than the basement. These speakers are more room dependent than most I have heard. Upstairs is a Citation II (fully restored with all McShane mods). I bet the Fortes would sound very nice with the deuce. Anyone else out there running a Citation II in triode through a pair of Klipsch speakers?..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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