rgdawsonco Posted January 25, 2010 Share Posted January 25, 2010 I am the original owner of a pair of forte II's I bought in 1994, sold to a neighbor in 1997, and bough back last week. (I sold the forte's in 1997 so I could buy some KLF-20's, which I still have and love.) So the forte II's are 16 years old and appear to be in excellent condition. But I think they don't sound as good as they are supposed to. Bass is very lacking and the mids/highs seem like someone is shouting at me through a bull horn. Is age the culprit? I have read here on the forum about many forte owners, who have repaired/replaced their crossover networks, tweeter, and even sqwaker diaphrams. One person said that capacitors wear out and negatively impact bass performance. I have been skeptical in the past about crossover part upgrades, but clearly, something's not quite right. Is it my own ears - I'm very used to the KLF-20's? I'm prepared to try crossover and diaphram upgrades, but I thought I'd see what the forum's thoughts are first and I always like to understand the the "physics" of what I'm doing. Thanks in advance for your thoughts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolenmammoth Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 People need to come to terms with some simple stuff. Capacitors have a shelf life. This means they wear out no matter how badly you want your old thing "all original". The End. You can go 'round and 'round on wether the caps in your crossover are good or bad, but if you throw some money at the crossover, there is no quesiton that you can upgrade it sound better than anything ever shipped form klipsch. ever. I have no idea what is wrong with your amp, but certainly the crossover is an easy enogh place to start and you dont even need to jump in with expensive caps right off the bat, you could just put some wima's in there or something cheap and see if there is an improvement. I recently rebuilt the crossover in a pair of forte 1's, I bought them a few weeks ago and while I was impressed with them I knew they were terrible. After only changing the caps, these speakers are back to life. The difference between my fortes before and after isnt anything close to subtle. If your crossover has those blue mylar caps that I took out of mine, you'd be wise to ditch those asap. Inductors go next, but thats getting into it. To thoroughly go through your speakers, first solder the wires to the speakers/horns. Your lack of performance can come down to an oxidized connection there with the clip on connector (if present), as simple as that is. Next, recap your crossover. Wima are cheap and easy. Sonicap are cheap-ish and easy. Both sound very nice (albeit very different). You dont need to spend $20 on each cap, however you should be careful not to listen to mundorf because you'll want to... Once you do that you'll hear improvement almost guaranteed unless there is something physically wrong with your drivers. I would work on those two things first before replacing the diaphrams. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteelerFan Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 Great, something else to worry about. I've had mine since the early 90's but they still sound good to me. I hope that continues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carbon summit Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 Great, something else to worry about. I've had mine since the early 90's but they still sound good to me. I hope that continues. I thought my Cornwalls sounded great until I redid the crossovers. There was a big improvement. You've had yours for a while and they say you really don't know what you're missing if you've owned the speakers for years and they have slowly been slipping down hill. I did the Cornwalls one at a time so I could hear old vs new. My Forte IIs and my Academy are next now that I've seen the difference it makes. I'm thinking about doing the crossovers and titanium diaphragms for my front two Forte IIs and my Academy but not the rears... at least for now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldmako Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 Lots of chat about Crites replacment crossovers. I had him reman the X-overs in my CF3s and I am quite pleased. So I guess my question is; What do I do about upgrading my old my Fortes? Rebuild, or replace the Xovers? Serial number 8910292 & 93. They still sound great (to my ears) but if the caps are craps, then what the hell? I haven't spent any money on audio gear in almost a month! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wuzzzer Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 Its possible the previous owner ran them too hard and one or more component may be damaged. My Forte IIs have Bob Crite's crossover networks, titanium tweeter diaphragms and will have new midrange diaphragms in a couple days as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgdawsonco Posted January 26, 2010 Author Share Posted January 26, 2010 Its possible the previous owner ran them too hard and one or more component may be damaged. My Forte IIs have Bob Crite's crossover networks, titanium tweeter diaphragms and will have new midrange diaphragms in a couple days as well. Perhaps, but they don't sound like theyare "blown" like I might expect. I wonder if there is some sort of test audio file out there that I could play to see if there is such damage. How would you describe your before/after experience with the crossover and diaphram upgrades, especially w.r.t. bass? I've been trying to figure out how aging effects capacitors and I'm not seeing big big numbers. I don't know anything about how drivers and passive radiators age either, could they just get really stiff? I don't know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carbon summit Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 Its possible the previous owner ran them too hard and one or more component may be damaged. My Forte IIs have Bob Crite's crossover networks, titanium tweeter diaphragms and will have new midrange diaphragms in a couple days as well. What made you decide to replace the midrange diaphragms? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russ69 Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 Have you checked your receiver settings? Thanx, Russ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wuzzzer Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 What made you decide to replace the midrange diaphragms? From Bob's site: NEW PRODUCT!! At last, we have our new replacement midrange diaphragms for the following: Klipsch Heresy II, Cornwall II, Quartet, Forte, Forte II, Chorus, Chorus II, and KLF Series speakers including the following specific Klipsch midrange (squawker) drivers: K-53-K, K-52-K, K-52H, K-57-K, K-58-K, K-59-K, K-61-K, and K-62-K. This is a high quality replacement diaphragm developed for us. It tests very good in comparison to an original Klipsch diaphragm and better in a couple of ways. It, has slightly smoother frequency response, it extends a bit higher and it rolls off smoother without a bounce back at higher frequencies. Price is $70.00 per pair plus $7.00 for shipping. The price wasn't bad and I figure I could sell them if I needed to. The original ones work fine but I'm always ready for an upgrade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peshewah Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 I wish I had a set of Forte's so I could replace things in them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgdawsonco Posted January 27, 2010 Author Share Posted January 27, 2010 Its possible the previous owner ran them too hard and one or more component may be damaged. My Forte IIs have Bob Crite's crossover networks, titanium tweeter diaphragms and will have new midrange diaphragms in a couple days as well. wuzzer, how would you describe before/after w.r.t. the mods you have made? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Groomlakearea51 Posted January 27, 2010 Share Posted January 27, 2010 I wish I had a set of Forte's so I could replace things in them. Now that's funny!!!! [Y][Y][Y] [H] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wuzzzer Posted January 27, 2010 Share Posted January 27, 2010 I wish I had a set of Forte's so I could replace things in them. I didn't know if that was meant as tongue-in-cheek or genuine so I'll take it as tongue-in-cheek. []. Lots of speakers can benefit by certain upgrades and changes. I really liked my Fortes before, now I love them. To me the upgrades were worthwhile. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wuzzzer Posted January 27, 2010 Share Posted January 27, 2010 wuzzer, how would you describe before/after w.r.t. the mods you have made? The titanium diaphragms made the high end much more detailed but made it smoother at the same time. Sibilant sounds aren't as grating on bad recordings. The crossover change didn't yield quite as much of a difference as I had hoped. Bass output seems slightly better. It'll be interesting to see what replacing the midrange diaphragms will do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolenmammoth Posted January 27, 2010 Share Posted January 27, 2010 some things are upgrades and others are just maintanence. If you had a v6 firing on only four cylanders, youd get it repaired, not upgraded... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BE36 Posted January 27, 2010 Share Posted January 27, 2010 Upgrading while repairing is fun and cost effective. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BE36 Posted January 27, 2010 Share Posted January 27, 2010 Good chance you are do for some scheduled Mx. Make sure you have them in proper place in the room before spending $$$$. Did you put them back into the same room? Same spot on the floor? Is the room still acoustically similiar? Fortes are very critical on placement from the rear wall and side wall distance. Same Preamp? Same AMP? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgdawsonco Posted January 27, 2010 Author Share Posted January 27, 2010 I started thinking more about Wuzzzer's question...Could they be damaged? I'm now suspecting that may very well be the case. I listened a little more carefully today to the midranges, comparing one speaker to another. They both sounded bad, but one was clearly worse than the other. I think one or both midranges may be damaged. Would replacing the diaphrams fix damaged midrange drivers? I'm hoping yes Based on responses so far, it seems the most prudent thing would be to replace the mid and tweeter diaphrams and see what that does. Agree? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolenmammoth Posted January 28, 2010 Share Posted January 28, 2010 hard to say without listening, but if it was me, I would start with the crossover unless they sounded fine one day and really different the next. you need one 1uf, two 1.5uf and a 47bipolar, the bipolar will the most expensive if you put digikey or mouser poly's in there. The good thing about going this route is that if it doesnt fix it, you'll eventually put new diaphragms in there AND have a new crossover which will be way the F better than what you have in there now, even if you put some super common caps like wima or panasonic in there... Conversely, you spend a bunch of money on a new driver and its being fed from a LC network with old caps that werent very good when they were brand new and now they are old enough to justfy taking them out just because they are old, let alone the fact that they are crap... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.