Deciding on which Klipsch model I like the best and suits me the best

[MikeFord]

About a year ago I started looking on ebay and CL on a regular basis, and despite buying Heresy's and Forte's, I haven't stopped looking. Last week I found what looked like a great deal on a set of Quartet's, but listening to them didn't motivate me to buy them. I ended up picking up a pair of KG1 from the seller to use for either my office or surround. A few minutes ago I saw a pair of Forte II local to me at a decent price, and it sort of dawned on me that buying one of each model might not be the smartest way to sort out my own preferences.

I was kind of excited to contimplate buying the Quartets since many here speak highly of them, and I do want to see how I like a Tractrix horm, but maybe I should be thinking more about Chorus II, or something with much different driver like a TAD?

[willland]

Mike,

I think any of those choices, Quartet's, forte II's, and Chorus II's are great. IMO, they are the same speakers with size being the "only" difference. Of course the Chorus II's do sound bigger than the Quartet's with the forte II being a true compromise(best qualities of Q's and Chorus II's). Maybe room size will determine your choice.

What I did like about the tractrix horn of my Quartet's over the exponential horn of my forte's, is it's off-axis listening. I think they sounded very similar when toed in the same but the Quartets were smoother when seated out of direct line of fire.

Bill

[moray james]

Bill the Quartet have the same mid horns and drivers (phenolic) as do the Forte ll and the Chorus ll. The Quartet have the same tweeter lens used in the other speakers mentioned but the motor on the Quartet tweeter is smaller than a K79 motor and it uses a softer diaphragm which seems to be mid way between a phenolic and a poly as used in the Legend KLF series tweeters. I simply switched out my Quartet tweeter motors for K79 with ti diaphragms.

I like the hybrid horn lens used in the Quartet, Forte ll and Chorus ll a lot but I was playing with it using some diffraction or reflection in the mouth when I last had the Forte ll here (my son has them now).

I have been playing with my H3 and I am using a table tennis ball (ping pong ball) wedged into the throat in the middle of the horn, the ball has a half inch thick square about 3/8 inch in diametre F-11 acoustical felt stuck to it which faces the throat. I know this seems counter intuitive but this works very well and I would have to say it makes the K701 sound about better than the Quartet mid horn. I do the same thing with my K79 tweeters. This is a very effective mod. I hope others give it a try I have spent much time developing this and it is now at a very high level of performance. The critical part has been the size and the location of the ball I am experimenting with some slightly smaller balls about 38.5 mm in dia which are a little smaller than an official ping pong ball at 40 mm dia. For reference my H3 are up on 21 inchhigh four post stands and they fire directly at the listening position with the centre of the mid horn at ear level. The balls are not installed in the attached picture though you can see the use of F-11 acoustical felt around the horns and over the woofer. Best regards Moray James.

[rockhound]

Good luck in your search. I went through several different klipsch speakers Cornwall 1, KLF 20's, Forte 2 and Chorus 2. In the end the Chorus 2 won but the Forte 2 was close to sealing the deal,man these Chorus 2's just jam. I have never heard quartets but hear nothing but good things from reviewers. Again good luck in your journey!

[andyo5]

The Forte II was reviewed by Stereophile when it was new and they concluded it was the most accurate loudspeaker they had ever measured.

That being said, I own a pair of Heresy IIIs and love them. If you can't place them in corners, you will probably want a subwoofer.

I found that over time, my woofers sounded more powerful and my tweeters sounded smoother and more refined.

Good luck!

[MikeFord]

I had a chance to buy the Quartets at a great price, but the owner was really into boom boom dance music, and despite the subwoofer I think he ran the speakers full range so that tweeters and maybe woofers had some issues. I didn't think to bring some test disc or even music of my own, so I listened, kneeled down to try and hear the tweeters, but ended up just getting a pair of KG1 for surround use. My feeling is that I might actually prefer the sound of my original Forte (not II), but could have been the room or music or subwoofer, etc.

There was a set of Chorus II not that far of a drive, but they had a LOT of mods, Crites diaphragms in mid and tweeter, a new crossover, and ports in the cabinets, but price not very tempting.

Lately I've seen a set of KLF20, and I think its RF83, and it all increases my uncertainty of direction.

Was there something of a progression in quality, or is it more like highlights in the series with different people liking different eras?

I have no idea when I would have the time, but something of an itch is growing for scratch built speakers using best drivers etc.

Almost certainly I will be high passing the mains between 60 and 80 hz and using a monster subwoofer.

[Cal Blacksmith]

You made the best decision you could at the time but in my HUMBLE opinion, you blew it, I have Quartets, Fort'e 1s, Cornwall 2s, H1, H2 and an Acadamy.

The Quartets, Academy and H2s make up my HT setup with KG 1.5s bringing up the rear, The Quartets meld with the Acadmy better than the Fort'e 1s do because of the horn differences but other than that, it is a toss up between the Fort'e and Quartets in my HO, with as said, the size difference taken into account. The rear passive speakers are fairly sensitive to placement and that may be part of what you heard (or did not hear) when you listened to them YMMV!