My Modified Forte' Speakers, I Don't Hear Anything Better -- What Is Wrong With Me?

[cgregory4]

I visited this forum a few months ago. You helped me bring my Forte' speakers 'up to speed'. Thank you. I bought them new in the early eighties -- always sounded good. BUT, by 2010 I started to upgrade my system: Rotel CD & Oppo CD, Rotel Pre-pro, Classe' amps. I ordered the Crites crossovers and tweeter, but I decided to go with the Klipsch midrange replacement. I ordered 2 12''X18" blocks of granite from California -- each one 80# and just the right fit for the speaker base. To slightly decouple the Forte' base from the granite, I used six microdots of not-very-compressible material (1/32 or less thickness) for each speaker base. I figured the Forte' mods would work until I could find a 'real' speaker -- you know, a speaker 'worthy' to be matched to my system. Well, I'm still lookin'! [] B&W, Paradigm, etc. -- they just don't give me the full range of the Forte', and now I'm hearing 'stuff' from my speakers that I never knew was on the recordings. Are my 65 year-old ears shot to hell -- or, is it possible this sound is as great as I think? There are guys tellin' me I need $7000/pair speakers, but I just don't hear it. Anyone else out there as clueless as me? []

Hello folks -- I added a photo of my 'finished product at the bottom of page 2. Please take a look. []

[Cal Blacksmith]

Fort'e speakers are great speakers, I see no reason to dump them just 'cause, someone tells you that only mgea buck speakers will do.

I have had my Fort'e 1 speakers for quite a few years and I have no plans to let them go anyplace. Yes I have other Klipsch speakers but the Fort'es have found a permenant holme here.

If you REALLY want to spend 7K, pick up some Khorns, new in the box, your choice of finish and live the rest of your live in total bliss.

If NEARLY perfect is good enough, keep what you have and spend the 7K on music!

YMMV, enjoy!

[Dennie]

Clueless? You sound like the smartest guy on the block!

If it works, don't fix it! Really, what else could you want? I spent a few years chasing a better speaker. Then one day a pair of La Scalas come up for sale from the original owner on Craigslist. $1100 and $300 for new crossovers and I'm done looking.

Are there better sounding speakers? There might be? Do I care? HELL NO!!! My system sounds better than I could of ever imagined and I'm done chasing speakers. It's a great feeling.

As Cal said, go buy some new (to you) music and enjoy your Audio Nirvana!

Congratulations by the way! [<)]

Dennie

[dtel]

Trust your ears, if they sound good to you nothing else matters.

If you feel you want to hear something else listen to other systems but don't jump unless your just blown away, you will know if you hear something that matches your taste in reproduction better than the fortes.

I didn't see if you said or not but you should consider a sub, integrated properly it will not take away anything from the fortes, only add to the bottom end where the fortes leave off.

[tromprof]

I owned Fortes for over twenty years and sold them to get my La Scalas. When I hooked them to a tube amp to demo them to the eventual buyer I was shocked at how good they sounded (they had been sitting in the basement for a while) even compared to K-horns and La Scalas and almost told the guy to go home, I wasn't selling them after all. However he was a good guy and really excited to be getting them (he drove over two hours to get to my house), and SWMO wanted to see some cash to help cover the La Scalas so off they went. Your ears are just telling you the truth, they are dam* fine speakers.

[moray james]

Congratulations on taking the big step and finding out how good what you have is. The fun part is that there is still likely plenty you can do to extract even more when you are ready. Take a look over at AK and read SET12's long but informative thread on upgrading his Forte crossover. Well worth the imvested time to read. Drop about 2.5 ounces of dead weight onto each passive and re tune your Forte a little lower you will be surprised how much more clean bass they can make. Have fun keep posting so others will get the hint. Best regards Moray James.

[bracurrie]

My Fortes come out of the closet for some reason or another every six months or so. Its getting more and more difficult to put them back away.

[cgregory4]

It's good to know there are others with similar 'takes' on the Forte'. I 'did my thing' and made several mods at the same time, so it is difficult to get a handle on the ones that may have been the most significant. The Crites crossover board surely made great impact -- I'm confident in that. I vibration-proof-mounted it in the bottom section of the cabinet in a vertical position.

In time, however, two additional specific changes revealed noticeable increased detail/clarity in the music: the titanium midrange from Klipsch, as well as the Classe' power.

I ordered both the Crites phenolic midrange and the Klipsch titanium. I took a chance with the Klipsch first, and was quite disappointed in the sound initially -- and for several days. Before pulling the titaniums, I tried taking direct digital from my old Sony ES cd directly to the new Rotel dac input. It was night and day. The speaker was absolutely 'clear' -- top to bottom. I evidently modified the Forte' to the point that it revealed the not-so-resolute nature of some of my older electronics.

The next surprise was the impact from the Classe' amps. I knew the Klipsch were efficient because I had always managed to drive them well with some fairly 'poor-boy' stuff. But I figured to upgrade the speakers eventually, so, when I found the Classe' gear, used and for a good price, I jumped on it. I managed to get the monsters in the wife-pleasing console, after some serious structural reinforcement. [] When I fired the whole package up, I was surprised to hear another serious incremental increase in definition of the sound. Even though the Forte' design is efficient, it was clearly responding well to equipment that could supply Class A power 'in spades' whenever it was called for.

The walnut on the Forte' speakers is still in perfect shape, so the wife likes the 'furniture' look, although she casts questioning looks at my black granite bases. [] The function is now as lovely as the form. What more can 'oilfield trash' like me ask for??!!

[John Chi-town]

cgregory;

You have a speaker that will last your lifetime as well as another or two! The forte, and forte II are the hidden gems in the "Extended" Heritage line. Many will argue, but as far as I am concerned beats the Cornwall in every aspect.

My forte II are circa 1992, I am the original owner and the boxes are dead mint. I have also done all of the upgrades you listed above with the exception of reinforceing the cabinets, and the slabs of granite underneath.

Moray James suggestion of adding a couple ounces of weight to the passive is something I will get around to one day. I think I am getting the same effect of extended bass with my Velodyne sub, I keep the crossover on the sub at the lowest possible crossover setting just to add where the forte II would roll off.

I am very satisfied with the performance, and have yet to find a speaker that would make me sell, other than perhaps a K-Horn. However when I factor in real world issues like foot print space, WAF, etc. I know that I am over 98 % there already!

Enjoy the music, sounds like you have one hell of a system!

[bracurrie]

The Crites crossover board surely made great impact

I would agree that the Crites crossover board was a signifigant upgrade.

In addition I installed the Crites tweeter upgrades and that really "opened up" the speaker.

I haven't touched the midrange, so my question to cgregory is what was the motivation to install the Klipsch titanium?

I just installed a Van Altine Synergy 240 power amp and my initial impressions are very favorable. I will post on that subject later. But with the Forte IIs its making it more difficult to go back to my bi-amped Jub clone with Eliptrac - Fatail speakers. Its good to have options.[]

[cgregory4]

Brad,

To me the Crites tweeter was a no-brainer. That was an undeniable consensus of this forum.

The Crites crossover had similar favor. But, I had some of my 'ocd' concerns about the terminal strip connections and the placing of the board on top of the lower baffle -- which had the foam pad on it. So I 'fixed' those concerns purely for my selfish 'peace-of-mind' reasons.

The midrange was altogether a different 'animal'. Conversations with Bob convinced me that he thought there was a better Ti midrange 'out there' -- but his experiments led him to offer his phenolic midrange upgrade as the best option. He takes his responsibility to the Klipsch community quite seriously, and I respect him greatly. His 'bottom line' was clear: the midrange could be improved substantially and he offered his best effort for sale to the Klipsch owners -- and it was a phenolic -- nothing wrong with that.

But .... I wanted at least one other option. If I was going to explore the 'bowels' of the 2 'ladies', I was going to spend some coin and experiment. A newer Klipsch speaker(s) -- I don't know the model(s) -- had the same size midrange -- but in titanium. Some rave reviews were written about the midrange performance of the speaker(s). I figured 'what the hell -- it can't hurt', so I ordered 'Part # 127122, K-52/53 - TI DIAPH KIT'. Make that 2, please. []

After the complete reassemble and setup, and reacting (and substantially correcting) to the demand of this new system (ie speaker, as modified) -- and it seems, especially the Ti midrange -- for a high quality input signal at its terminals, I never looked back. And I can't find anything that sounds better. Some folks have been downright rude in their reaction to my speakers and my stubborn refusal to go with something better. After all, a 30 year old Klipsch is just 'laughable' as a producer of quality audio! Right? [H]

I'm sure the Crites are great midrange phenolics for the speaker, and, no doubt, definite upgrades to the OEM driver. I'm just so 'blown away' by this midrange clarity and detail, that I will unreservedly give my 'new' Crites phenolic midrange drivers to anyone who wants them.

Brad, there are so many variables to consider, involving the Forte', the II, the Chorus(?), the newer Klipsch models, etc -- that I would never presume my mods would be relevant to any speaker but mine. It's just one old man's tale. []

[John Chi-town]

Cgregory & Brad, please read below from Bob Crites. I added per his recomendation about a year or so ago. Much better sounding from a seperation standpoint when you have changed your squakers from phenolic to titanium like you and I have done.

I can provide a little technical information of using
the Klipsch titanium midrange to replace the orignal phenolics. On the
trace below, the red is an original K-53 phenolic diaphrgm and the green
is the K-53TI titanium midrange diaphragm on the same 700 hz horn. We
see slightly higher average output for the titanium than the phenolic.
The phenolic output drops like a stone at 6khz where the tweeter takes
over. That allows the crossover to be pretty simple since there is no
reason to roll off the midrange. But, the titanium diaphragm keeps on
going, in fact heading for a peak at around 7.3khz before it drops off.
So, if the titanium diaphragm is used in place of the phenolic without a
crossover mod, you would have the midrange and tweeter both at full
output at the same time around 7khz.

Bob Crites

[Vital]

I would really like to make these mods to my Chrous ll's and Forte's. Reading stuff like this gets me excited... lol

[Mighty Favog]

Just a short suggestion regarding coupling. Hard couple your speakers to the floor. Period. If they sit on carpet, use spikes to pierce through the carpet and let the speaker rest on the floor underneath. THEN de-couple the front end equipment (pre, amp, source, etc.). Vibrating front end gear can/does cause all kinds of nasties.

One more thing.....make sure the speaker cabs are level. Yes, get out a bubble level and git er' done. I don't know why it works but it does. I was asked to attend a workshop for Nordost a couple of years ago and witnessed it first hand.

[fwphoto]

. . . I'm just so 'blown away' by this midrange clarity and detail, that I will unreservedly give my 'new' Crites phenolic midrange drivers to anyone who wants them.

Ummmm, just let me know. :-) I'd love 'em!

Frank W.

[cgregory4]

Frank W.

Email me your mailing address and I'll make sure you get them. However, it will be Tuesday or Wednesday before I can get them in the mail to you. I'll ship them USPS Priority Mail, if that's OK with you.

[fwphoto]

Thanks! We can work it out the details next week. I understand super busy! ;-)

Frank W.

[Vital]

Frank W.

Email me your mailing address and I'll make sure you get them. However, it will be Tuesday or Wednesday before I can get them in the mail to you. I'll ship them USPS Priority Mail, if that's OK with you.

How cool is that??? That's what makes these Klipsch forums so special IMO.

[Fish]

Maybe too many microdots, who knows...[]

[Turbox]

Im a little late on this thread, but earlier on, i see that B&W, paradigm dont sound as good. the guys are right, its all about what sounds good to you.

Now having said that, my opinion is that its all in the horns...the only thing better than horns is bigger horns. Forte is a solid performer. i'd love to own a pair.