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Klipsch heritage speakers to be raised to ear level?


egoquaero

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Hey guys!!

I've been wondering whether the Klipsch Forte III should be raised to ear level or not.

I mean, tweeters are supposed to be ear level or slightly above, but the Forte III's tweeters are definitely below ear level if one sits on a normal sofa.

On the other hand the engineers who designed the Fortes must have kept this into account and calibrated the Fortes accordingly to sound in a certain way?

And so it might be somehow stupid for us to mess with their height by putting them on something to raise them...

I don't know... let me know what you think or what you've done!

 

Cheers!!

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See the following:  https://community.klipsch.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=54362

 

If you have issues with tweeters being shadowed by furniture, etc., move all those belongings out of the way and tilt the loudspeakers back a bit, making sure to keep the gap underneath the loudspeaker as small as possible to prevent a cavity being formed underneath.

 

If you're crossing over to subwoofers above 60-70 Hz, then you can raise the Fortes up to ear level (about 43-48 inches above the floor level) without total loss of bass below 60 Hz.  If you build a solid box to mount the Fortes on to raise them up to ear level, you can reduce the effects of bass loss, but not totally avoid bass extension loss.  The worst thing that you can do to incur bass extension loss is to raise the Fortes on open-leg platforms.

 

Chris

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1 hour ago, egoquaero said:

Hey guys!!

I've been wondering whether the Klipsch Forte III should be raised to ear level or not.

I mean, tweeters are supposed to be ear level or slightly above, but the Forte III's tweeters are definitely below ear level if one sits on a normal sofa.

On the other hand the engineers who designed the Fortes must have kept this into account and calibrated the Fortes accordingly to sound in a certain way?

And so it might be somehow stupid for us to mess with their height by putting them on something to raise them...

I don't know... let me know what you think or what you've done!

 

Cheers!!

I think that you will find if you care to experiment that if you raise up your Forte so that the centre of the mid horn is at your seated ear level. This will result in the smoothest possible response along with the best stage and image. You will find also that removing the factory risers and placing your speakers up on a good set of four post stands you Forte will look as superb as they sound. Stands like the Skylan can be mass loaded by adding rice to the stand columns and you can tune the stands to improve the performance of the loudspeaker.

I have attached a photo of a set of Forte 3 up on some Skylan Stand four post stands as well as some other speakers just to give you a better idea as the Forte photo is very dark. I hope this is of interest.

Klipsch Forte 3 on Skylan Stands.JPG

Skylan Stands with Harbeth M40.jpg

Skylan Stand-M40.jpg

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I recommend taking full-range REW measurements in-room with and without those cavities under your loudspeakers.  You may be insensitive to bass extension loss. 

 

For me, the effect is very audible.

 

Chris

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Thank you guys for your help!

mmm... those are not exactly the solid boxes Chris A referred to, right?

I'm waiting for my acoustic panels to arrive to really start tweaking with my setup. I'll most probably play with digital correction once I place all the acoustic treatments. And so, I might decide to cross over to the Klipsch R-115SW at a certain frequency level.

 

Current setup:

  • Speakers: Klipsch Forte III
  • Amplifier: Hegel H190
  • Subwoofer: Klipsch R-115SW
  • DAC: Hugo 2
  • Room size: 4*5 meters (roughly 13*16 ft)
  • Four wall-wall corners treated with GIK Tri-Trap Corner Bass Trap
  • Two front wall-wall-ceiling corners treated with GIK Soffit Bass trap
  • Side walls, rear wall and ceiling reflection points are treated with Monster bass traps

 

Actually I haven't started gathering information on what would be best to do for my setup DSP wise.

Which software?

How should I set the subwoofer crossover?

Black magic vibes…

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14 minutes ago, Chris A said:

I recommend taking full-range REW measurements in-room with and without those cavities under your loudspeakers.  You may be insensitive to bass extension loss. 

 

For me, the effect is very audible.

 

Chris

I agree that a stand which is not open helps a little with the bass but the open stand looks so much more attractive and I like to keep my speakers close to the front wall which results in a boosting of the bass frequencies. So in the end I don't feel much loss as a result of the open stand. As I mentioned the stands can be tuned to improve speaker bass response. I find that filling the stands about 20% with rice I can achieve a good response. When the stands are filled to the to the bass is much diminished  which can be useful if dealing with a speaker that has bloated bass response tightening and taming its response.

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The suggestion about taking full-range REW measurements with and without the open leg stands is important.  This just happens to be one of those cases where you can take an objective measurement and see the major effect that's occurring. 

 

PWK didn't equivocate on this particular subject.  I independently found that his observations were right on. The Forte III has very similar bass performance relative to a Cornwall prototype, which was the loudspeaker's low frequency response that was plotted in the article. 

 

Chris

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59 minutes ago, egoquaero said:

I might decide to cross over to the Klipsch R-115SW at a certain frequency...

I would recommend keeping the subwoofer within 1/4 wavelength at the crossover frequency, e.g., that's 3 1/2 feet of each bass bin if you're crossing at 80 Hz. Unless you're in a very small listening room (i.e., less than 13--14 feet in width or depth), I recommend using two subwoofers and keeping them within 3.5 feet of the Forte III bass bins if crossing at that high frequency. 

 

Chris

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On 6/22/2019 at 12:38 PM, Chris A said:

I recommend taking full-range REW measurements in-room with and without those cavities under your loudspeakers.  You may be insensitive to bass extension loss.

 ... or have a subwoofer crossing over at 80 Hz, or so, hidden somewhere.

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On 6/22/2019 at 1:47 PM, Chris A said:

See the following:  https://community.klipsch.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=54362

 

If you have issues with tweeters being shadowed by furniture, etc., move all those belongings out of the way and tilt the loudspeakers back a bit, making sure to keep the gap underneath the loudspeaker as small as possible to prevent a cavity being formed underneath.

 

If you're crossing over to subwoofers above 60-70 Hz, then you can raise the Fortes up to ear level (about 43-48 inches above the floor level) without total loss of bass below 60 Hz.  If you build a solid box to mount the Fortes on to raise them up to ear level, you can reduce the effects of bass loss, but not totally avoid bass extension loss.  The worst thing that you can do to incur bass extension loss is to raise the Fortes on open-leg platforms.

 

Chris

Why dose the solid help with bass loss?

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