hcnelly Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 Hi guys, I'm pretty new to all this, and I have a question about a 2nd pair of fortes I recently purchased. A couple of months ago, I purchased my first used pair of fortes and fell in love with them. Compared to my heresy iiis, they just seem to have more musical presence and slam, and it really sounds like a live musical performance in the room- especially with vocals. I decided to purchase a second pair as a Christmas gift for my dad. Well, I hooked this pair up- they didn't sound bad by any means, but I noticed that they lacked the magic and detail of the first pair. It just didn't have the same bass or vocal presence or slam for that matter. Vocals seemed to be coming further away, not in front of me if that makes sense. The drivers seem to be working fine and all, but I can't give these speakers to my Dad. I'll give him the good ones and possibly upgrade this other pair- which I have never done before. What needs to be done with these? Would upgrading the crossovers on this 2nd pair breathe new life into them, or do i need to replace the drivers as well? I'm kind of bummed that they didn't measure up to the first pair. They have the year 1985 on back while the first pair has 1986- not really sure if this matters or not but they seem to be older. The speaker terminals are a little bit different too. How much would all of this end up costing me? Thanks guys Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryC Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 but I noticed that they lacked the magic and detail of the first pair. It just didn't have the same bass or vocal presence or slam for that matter. Vocals seemed to be coming further away, not in front of me if that makes sense. The lack of bass and distant vocals that don't locate well suggest to me that they might be out of phase. Reverse one of the speaker leads and see what happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonzo Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 Welcome to the forum. I'm thinking your second pair of Forte's have a round terminal cup, the plastic plate where you hook up the speaker wire. Chances are your first pair have a more square cup. The round cup has the crossover components glued to the inside of the cup, the latter uses circuit boards. I would carefully unscrew the cup from the cabinet and inspect them. It could be that one or more of the capacitors came loose and may have diconnected from the network. If everything is intact, I would then check the drivers. While playing a familiar song with some good high end, put your ear up to the tweeters to ensure they are working correctly. It helps to stuff a sock or towel into the mid horn when doing this. Also check the mid horns and the woofers as well. The next thing to check is the rubber surrounds on the rear firing passive radiator and make sure it is sealed properly to the cabinet. It is critical that the drivers passive radiator have an air tight seal to work correctly. If you do have issues with the drivers and/or crossovers, there are several sources here that can help you get them working correctly. Hope this helps and good luck, they are great speakers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dennie Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 Good advise so far! Do all that and then look at Bob & Michael Crites site for parts. Here is the link -------> CLICK HERE When I replace the crossover's in my La Scalas, the Bass came to life and the High's and Mid's became crystal clear. The Imagining and sound-stage became wide and full. Did your first pair have updated crossovers already? Carefully open them up and check. It is funny (funny weird, not funny ha ha []) how your first pair sounded great from the get-go and the second pair didn't, when they are only a year or so apart in age. Keep us posted and welcome to the Klipsch forums, Dennie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hcnelly Posted December 11, 2011 Author Share Posted December 11, 2011 I'm thinking your second pair of Forte's have a round terminal cup, the plastic plate where you hook up the speaker wire. Chances are your first pair have a more square cup. Yeah, that's exactly how they are. I did the sock trick to the horns on each speaker, and the drivers seem to be ok. One of the tweeters seemed to be a little weaker, but I really couldn't tell for sure- It wasn't obvious enough and I eventually decided I was just hearing things.(I'm going to pay attention to that though just to be sure) Thanks for the advice on that one Bonzo, but does it damage the speakers at all plugging up the midrange horn like that while playing them? I still haven't looked at the crossover components, but I'll get to that tomorrow after work. The rubber surrounds on passive radiator also seem to be glued on tight, although i noticed some slight cracking spots, on the outer edge near the screws, that go all the way around on one of them- I think its ok though. Dennie, I'll check out the crossovers on that first pair of fortes as well. The guy I purchased them from never mentioned updating the crossovers, but you never know, he may have forgot to mention that. He was the sole owner of the pair. Larry C- The lack of bass and distant vocals that don't locate well suggest to me that they might be out of phase. Reverse one of the speaker leads and see what happens. I'm sorry Larry, I guess I'm not quite sure what you mean here. I'll definitely try it though. Anyway, thanks a lot for the advice guys, I'm still experimenting with them right now, and currently have them side by side doing an A-B comparison. I think I was a little harsh on the second pair of speakers. Really, they sound very similar to the first pair, and I won't have any problem giving them to my Dad. I must have been hearing things or something, because the bass match up the same on each pair, and they both have a great live presence. My ears must change on a daily basis, but it sure does help having them next to each other. They do sound slightly different, though, and I really can't explain it. The first pair just seems to do vocals a little bit better, and has a more polished sound. Either way, I guess its not a very big deal. I wouldn't have known any better if I didn't have the two pair to compare to each other. I prefer the first pair, and now I feel that the second pair is going to make a great gift for Dad. I may end up updating the crossovers on the first pair down the road, but for now, I can relax a bit and enjoy the music. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hcnelly Posted December 11, 2011 Author Share Posted December 11, 2011 Oh yeah, Dennie, thanks a lot for the link, I really appreciate it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryC Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 Larry C- The lack of bass and distant vocals that don't locate well suggest to me that they might be out of phase. Reverse one of the speaker leads and see what happens. I'm sorry Larry, I guess I'm not quite sure what you mean here. I'll definitely try it though. Speakers out of phase means that, when two speakers out of phase are given an identical signal, they act in opposite directions -- one speaker cone pushes the air while the other pulls back. The basic effect of this is that the two drivers partially cancel each other, particularly in the bass because those waves are very large. The other effect is to create a "hole in the middle" where, instead of blending, the sound seems to be distant and to jump abruptly from one speaker to another, playing havoc with localizing singers and instruments.In phase reduces or eliminates these bad effects. http://www.richardfarrar.com/are-your-speakers-wired-correctly/ -- scroll down to the "speaker phasing test" and click the arrow. All you have to do to check it out is switch the "positive" and "negative" wires on ONE side. You'll hear what I describe in one of those 2 arrangements. It gets much more complicated if only one driver is out of phase, e.g., inside the network. Only your bass drivers might be out of phase, and tracking it down might mean reversing ONE pair of only the wires going to the woofer. Does that help? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skonopa Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 Larry C- The lack of bass and distant vocals that don't locate well suggest to me that they might be out of phase. Reverse one of the speaker leads and see what happens. I'm sorry Larry, I guess I'm not quite sure what you mean here. I'll definitely try it though. Speakers out of phase means that, when two speakers out of phase are given an identical signal, they act in opposite directions -- one speaker cone pushes the air while the other pulls back. The basic effect of this is that the two drivers partially cancel each other, particularly in the bass because those waves are very large. The other effect is to create a "hole in the middle" where, instead of blending, the sound seems to be distant and to jump abruptly from one speaker to another, playing havoc with localizing singers and instruments.In phase reduces or eliminates these bad effects. http://www.richardfarrar.com/are-your-speakers-wired-correctly/ -- scroll down to the "speaker phasing test" and click the arrow. All you have to do to check it out is switch the "positive" and "negative" wires on ONE side. You'll hear what I describe in one of those 2 arrangements. It gets much more complicated if only one driver is out of phase, e.g., inside the network. Only your bass drivers might be out of phase, and tracking it down might mean reversing ONE pair of only the wires going to the woofer. Does that help? The short answer after this very nice explaination is make sure you did not accidently hook up one of the speakers "backwards". That is, make sure the '+' goes to the '+' and the '-' goes to the '-' on each side. Most typically speaker wire has some kind of marking or color coding on one lead, (typically black and red). Thus, if you use black for the "+", on the amp end, make sure the black lead is also on the "+" on the speaker end as well for both sides. Like wise for the red going to "-" on both the amp and speaker on both sides. If you get these connections reversed from one side to the other (i.e, if the left side had black to "+", but the right side had the black to the "-"), than you get the situation of being out of phase as explained above. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hcnelly Posted December 12, 2011 Author Share Posted December 12, 2011 Yeah, everything was hooked up correctly- I'm paranoid about that sort of thing so I always triple check that before I play my music Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moray james Posted December 12, 2011 Share Posted December 12, 2011 Have you checked the polarity of the drivers inside the cabinet? Someone may have had the drivers out and not installed them correctly. This may be your problem. Simple to correct. Use your ok pair as a reference for proper polarity connection. Best regardsMoray James. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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