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My Fortes hate Ray Davies


KenazFilan

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After replacing the midrange and tweeter diaphragms with titanium I was generally blown away by the additional clarity.  I did notice, however, that badly recorded material became difficult to listen to: MP3s show every artifact in painful (and I do mean painful) detail.  

 

The weirdest thing, however, is that now when listening to Misfits Ray Davies sounds like he's singing through a sweaty sock after taking enunciation lessons from Michael Stipe.  There are other CDs and songs which show this distortion but the Kinks are the absolute worst.  This is not my imagination. When I played the source material through my Bose 10.2s it sounds crystal clear but through the Fortes it sounds awful.  My wife heard "Misfits" through both speaker systems and agreed Ray Davies sounded worse through the Fortes.  

 

Right now I'm listening to Lindsey Buckingham's 1981 Law and Order.  His voice is clear as a bell and there is not a hint of distortion in the music.  I would say this is the case for about 80% of the music in my collection.  (I'm excluding 128k MP3s and other bad material although I will note they also sound much better through the 10.2s than my fully refurbed Fortes.  Say what you like about Bose, the 10.2s are very euphonious and forgiving).  The other 20% shows a greater or lesser degree of blurring.

 

I suspect this has something to do with the crossover frequencies and might be my excuse to try bi-amping the Fortes with an active crossover (or upgrading to Cornwalls or La Scalas -- we all know how the addiction works, don't we?).  I checked the diaphragms and they are all installed properly: I wonder if the Crites crossovers, which are lying on a wooden block on the speaker's floor, aren't resonating at certain frequencies and Davies (whose vocal range is about three notes) happens to hit those frequencies.   Right now I'm more curious than anything and wondered if anybody has ever had a similar experience.

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Increasing sensitivity and lowering distortion in your system (speakers) is like zooming in on the sound with a microscope. The good gets better but the bad gets worse. It's kind of a double edged sword. Some here have gone as far as re-mastering music, I myself just listen to the bad stuff less.

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^^^^^

True statement. You put together a high resolution system where the good takes a big jump forward and the bad the same jump in reverse. Applies to both recording and synergy of components. Some of these Big 'Ol Klipsch horns can really bring to the forefront a noisy front end and/or poor system matching. Good results can take some time comeing together but are satisfying when they do. 

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17 minutes ago, jjptkd said:

Increasing sensitivity and lowering distortion in your system (speakers) is like zooming in on the sound with a microscope. The good gets better but the bad gets worse. It's kind of a double edged sword. Some here have gone as far as re-mastering music, I myself just listen to the bad stuff less.

 

Yeah, what he said. I have noticed it too. Some stuff is just terrible on my La Scalas. That is when I switch to my Bozaks or Large Advents - more forgiving.

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I believe what we have here is a case of Garbage In Garbage Out: while it is a great album, Misfits was not all that well produced.  I'm also listening to some rips of old (1980s-90s) CDs that were pressed before engineers learned how to properly mix for CDs.  (Apogee had to attenuate the treble on one of their models because CDs sounded like nails going down a blackboard, which isn't what you want to hear when you've paid $5k for speakers and $10k for amps capable of driving them).  

 

I like the idea of a second set of more forgiving speakers.  When I save the shekels for La Scalas or Cornwalls I may move the 10.2s into the main room and put the Fortes in the bedroom system.   The titanium midrange sounds absolutely breathtaking on the proper recordings, and I'm willing to listen less to badly recorded material just because the good stuff sounds so good.  Right now I'm listening to Natacha Kudritskaya playing Debussy's "Claire De Lune" and the Fortes catch the transience and decay of the piano notes in an uncanny way. 

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Further evidence: my wife recommended experimenting with Husker Du.  Checked them out on Apple Music and Bob Mould's vocals sounded just as distorted on Candy Apple as Davies did on Misfits.  Houston, I believe we have located the problem.  The answer is better material 

 

3 hours ago, cincymat said:

Two thoughts,

 

Did you install a bandpass filter to keep the titanium midranges from going to 7000hz? 

 

Have you tried going back to the original midrange diaphragms? 

 

Mark

 

I have not done either yet, but I did a tone sweep and did not notice any ringing or distortion in the 6k-7k range.  (I also discovered I'm deaf to frequencies higher than 13k, so 52 is more than just a number after all... ).

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41 minutes ago, KenazFilan said:

Further evidence: my wife recommended experimenting with Husker Du.  Checked them out on Apple Music and Bob Mould's vocals sounded just as distorted on Candy Apple as Davies did on Misfits.  Houston, I believe we have located the problem.  The answer is better material 

 

 

I have not done either yet, but I did a tone sweep and did not notice any ringing or distortion in the 6k-7k range.  (I also discovered I'm deaf to frequencies higher than 13k, so 52 is more than just a number after all... ).

When I did the same upgrade (also bought the Crites xovers) on my Forte II, I added the bandpass filter based on Bob Crites recommendation. I found the speakers to be way less tolerant of compressed, think iTunes files, than CD's. I think the issue at 7K is more a peak boost than a ringing sound. Somewhere on this forum is a graph that shows the issue. I'll hunt around to see if I can find it. 

 

Found it: 

There's a frequency chart from Bob Ctries in the post by Chi-town.

 

I'm glad I can still hear 16K at my advanced age of 60. 

 

Mark

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4 minutes ago, cincymat said:

When I did the same upgrade (also bought the Crites xovers) on my Forte II, I added the bandpass filter based on Bob Crites recommendation. I found the speakers to be way less tolerant of compressed, think iTunes files, than CD's. I think the issue at 7K is more a peak boost than a ringing sound. Somewhere on this forum is a graph that shows the issue. I'll hunt around to see if I can find it. 

 

I'm glad I can still hear 16K at my advanced age of 60. 

 

Mark

 

What scares me is the comparatively advanced age of us hi-fi buffs.  Most of the technicians who can work on vintage stereo equipment are retired engineers doing this as a hobby or for a second income and most of the stereo fans I know are aging baby boomers like yrs. truly.  Meanwhile there is a whole generation raised on iTunes and cheap earbuds: they literally have no idea what good hi-fi sounds like.  And what's worse, I know symphonic musicians who complain that people today can't distinguish between a grand piano and a synthesizer.  I would hate to see orchestral music die out in America from lack of interest: if it weren't for Chinese mothers insisting on violin and piano lessons it might well be doomed all over the world.  

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26 minutes ago, KenazFilan said:

 

What scares me is the comparatively advanced age of us hi-fi buffs.  Most of the technicians who can work on vintage stereo equipment are retired engineers doing this as a hobby or for a second income and most of the stereo fans I know are aging baby boomers like yrs. truly.  Meanwhile there is a whole generation raised on iTunes and cheap earbuds: they literally have no idea what good hi-fi sounds like.  And what's worse, I know symphonic musicians who complain that people today can't distinguish between a grand piano and a synthesizer.  I would hate to see orchestral music die out in America from lack of interest: if it weren't for Chinese mothers insisting on violin and piano lessons it might well be doomed all over the world.  

 

I know, my daughters can't take the time to sit and listen to my La Scalas. BUT, they have their ear buds in almost continuously. 

 

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I hear to often you detect every bad aspect of a recording because of speaker sensitivity.  Some of that is true but, IMHO is smaller than one would think.  I use mp3 and digital HD files exclusively and like both.  If it is  crappy, something in the audio chain is the culprit if this is a common issue.  I have some good and bad mp3's and HD files.  Some of it is related to the era in which the recording was made.  System synergy is a common topic on the forum and for a good reason.

 

I owned a set of Forte's with the Crites XO and the Forte's are an excellent speaker and well balanced from top to bottom.  All digital sources are not the same as with CD quality from one artist to the next.  I have noticed certain artist always have high quality recordings and others don't.  The problem is somewhere in the audio chain if this is a common problem in the system.  Check the source and equipment again.:ph34r:

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First off welcome Ken & secondly The Kinks have had notoriously bad recordings through their entire career. Their label Pye, is among the most hated in the business by Kinks fans for their poor acoustics and crappy pressings. When you have poor masters, transferring them to cd will only do so much to improve the dynamics.

 The Kinks have released remastered versions of some of their back catalogue which are an improvement. You have found one of the cardinal truths of Klipsch speakers, which has been cited earlier in the thread: "Garbage in, garbage out."

 

 PS: Still hoping the Davies brothers can put aside their differences and do one last tour. They always put on an entertaining show & have seen them many times dating back to '77.

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17 hours ago, derrickdj1 said:

I hear to often you detect every bad aspect of a recording because of speaker sensitivity.  Some of that is true but, IMHO is smaller than one would think.  I use mp3 and digital HD files exclusively and like both.  If it is  crappy, something in the audio chain is the culprit if this is a common issue.  I have some good and bad mp3's and HD files.  Some of it is related to the era in which the recording was made.  System synergy is a common topic on the forum and for a good reason.

 

I owned a set of Forte's with the Crites XO and the Forte's are an excellent speaker and well balanced from top to bottom.  All digital sources are not the same as with CD quality from one artist to the next.  I have noticed certain artist always have high quality recordings and others don't.  The problem is somewhere in the audio chain if this is a common problem in the system.  Check the source and equipment again.:ph34r:

 

It turned out to be the source after all, or as my wife said, "Garage Band In, Garage Band Out."  Low-end production and high-end speakers are a match made in hell.  

 

Yesterday I listened to a great recording of Ralph Vaughan Williams' one act opera Riders to the Sea and it sounded great without a hint of vocal distortion. And while the Fortes may hate Ray Davies, they love Art Pepper: I'm listening to So in Love right now and the sense of presence is amazing.   (Given Art Pepper's history I feel like I need to go lock my medicine cabinet).  I've found the horns are great for reproducing saxophones and other brass and woodwind instruments: this is a big plus since I mostly listen to instrumental jazz.

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