Forte Trouble, No Bass.

[wuzzzer]

I had a woofer input wire come loose in an RF-7 I bought a long time ago.  Just laying on its back and driving home was enough to do it.

[captainbeefheart]

If dropped in the direction of cone movement there could have been a large excursion of the bass driver causing damage. Have a look at the tinsel wire running from the connection points mounted on the basket going to the voice coil, might be an easy fix. 

[avguytx]

To me, this reads like the speakers sounded fine before in the "location" they were in and, now that they are in a new "location", with the same gear, they have lost their bass response.  Right?

 

Sounds to me like a "location" issue and not some of this other crazy recommended stuff.  Do you own another pair of speakers to try out that are known to have bass in their "location"?  Can you take the speakers and an amp to any other room besides the basement and just hook a phone up and see how it sounds?  Did you try putting the speakers on a different wall in the room or more into the corners?  I went from mine being on the long wall and having more bass to going to the short wall and having less bass.  Just took a little finagling to get them to sound right and moving chair and speakers around some.

 

Location, location, location.

[OO1]

1 hour ago, wuzzzer said:

I had a woofer input wire come loose in an RF-7 I bought a long time ago.  Just laying on its back and driving home was enough to do it.

sure wonder whether he uses a recapped crossover or 1 of these -

 

 

 

[PrestonTom]

The same hunches are bing re-hashed. 

 

Important: this happened to both speakers not just one. Let's not get carried away by an improbable "coincidence"

Important: The OP said the bass was lost to an extent "that they sounded like headphones". "Sounding like headphones" is a major (not minor) deficit. And with other speakers in the room "those sounded normal"

 

Obviously two things would be helpful. ) First - an inspection of the wiring and a volt meter to check for a open circuit (crossover or blown woofer and by some weird coincidence it happened to both). Second - run some pure tones through the speaker (at least an octave or two below the crossover point).

 

Those would be interesting results (and some have already mentioned these diagnostics).

[babadono]

7 minutes ago, PrestonTom said:

. Second - run some pure tones through the speaker (at least an octave or two below the crossover point).

True dat.

Got to wondering about this, OP @RT FAN do the woofer cones move at all? Easily know by putting a finger on it while playing music.

[CoryGillmore]

Are the woofers getting a signal at all? Like if you touch them do you feel any vibration whatsoever? 
 

I mean this is obvious… but do you have the jumpers installed on each speaker? The jumpers that tie the HF and LF binding posts together…that’s the only thing I can think of. 

[RT FAN]

quick update, I opened the terminal cup on the back and saw that the crossover had fallen and was leaning against the woofer. First order of business is to check the connections. The positive connected to the woofer was out, so reconnect that. Reinstall the crossover doubling up the amount of sticky Velcro so that it adheres better. Move on to squawker, everything good there. move on to the tweeter, oops, one wire not connected and the “Female Disconnect F” spade or shoe is snapped in half. So off to True Value for a lifetime supply of 16-14 gauge connectors. Back down to the basement I go. I can only imagine the same problems or worse exists in the other Forte.

 Thanks again for the help, hopefully I will be up and running shortly.

[captainbeefheart]

1 minute ago, RT FAN said:

quick update, I opened the terminal cup on the back and saw that the crossover had fallen and was leaning against the woofer. First order of business is to check the connections. The positive connected to the woofer was out, so reconnect that. Reinstall the crossover doubling up the amount of sticky Velcro so that it adheres better. Move on to squawker, everything good there. move on to the tweeter, oops, one wire not connected and the “Female Disconnect F” spade or shoe is snapped in half. So off to True Value for a lifetime supply of 16-14 gauge connectors. Back down to the basement I go. I can only imagine the same problems or worse exists in the other Forte.

 Thanks again for the help, hopefully I will be up and running shortly.

 

Excellent job!! Most of us knew it had to be a bad connection to be as drastic a sound difference "sounded like headphones on the table" could not be the room EQ.

 

 

[PrestonTom]

This is progress, a tentative congratulations. I will say, these must have been beat up during the move or storage. 

[RT FAN]

Just now, PrestonTom said:

This is progress, a tentative congratulations. I will say, these must have been beat up during the move or storage. 

It was the movers, I moved all of my equipment, cds, LPs, tapes, myself but lugging the Fortes around by myself was a bridge too far. I figured loading them in and out of my Jeep would have been a disaster, probably ruining the veneer, etc. I foolishly thought professional movers would have treated them with the respect I asked for but good help is hard to find these days. 

 At least when I bought your Cornwalls, you helped me load them up! 😀

[jason str]

Ditch the velcro and mount it properly using screws. May not be so lucky next time.

[RT FAN]

3 hours ago, jason str said:

Ditch the velcro and mount it properly using screws. May not be so lucky next time.

 That thought crossed my mind, although I am always leery of making holes in the cabinets, even the interior. In the meantime, all is well that ends well. The second speaker had suffered the same fate with a runaway Crites crossover. It was resting, more like magnetized against the woofer. Those connections to the woofer had come loose, so the second speaker was an easy fix. 

 I turned everything on, and things worked as they should. Now is the sound perfect in a tiled basement? Of course not, but I was not expecting it to be, but compared to round one, night and day. 

 Our moving out of our apartment was an unexpected result of getting laid off and the pandemic. Moving was always in the future, which suddenly was upon us. So my advice would be, if you are moving, disconnect the crossovers, move your speakers yourselves if you can and pay up for a white glove moving company if you have enough stuff that you worry about them in transit. Moving compamies are a prime example of you get what you pay for. 

 Thanks to all for the helpful advice, I knew the folks here at Klipsch forums would steer me in the right direction.

[CWelsh]

We will be moving in a few months, and based on your experience, my speakers will travel in my car and I will load them myself...LOL  Glad to hear your problems are solved.

Edited November 25, 2021 by CWelsh

[Marvel]

Glad it's all sorted out. I've always moved the audio gear and instruments myself. the last to get packed and the first to set up, so we had music to pack and unpack by. It has become harder as the speakers have become larger.... 🙄

[RT FAN]

2 hours ago, CWelsh said:

We will be moving in a few months, and based on your experience, my speakers will travel in my car and I will load them myself...LOL  Glad to hear your problems are solved.

I hope you don’t have La Scalas or some other formidable such Klipsch speaker to transport, when I was younger I moved my Chorus II’s by myself. But that was many Advil’s ago 😃

[RT FAN]

1 hour ago, Marvel said:

Glad it's all sorted out. I've always moved the audio gear and instruments myself. the last to get packed and the first to set up, so we had music to pack and unpack by. It has become harder as the speakers have become larger.... 🙄

Thanks Marvel, you always post considerate comments. Moving thousands of cassettes, lps and thousands of cds is no small task, and took several trips by themselves. Besides amps, TT’s, tape decks, etc. I never thought about the speakers bouncing off the loading ramp of the truck. Operated by knuckleheads. Lesson learned.

[CWelsh]

54 minutes ago, RT FAN said:

I hope you don’t have La Scalas or some other formidable such Klipsch speaker to transport, when I was younger I moved my Chorus II’s by myself. But that was many Advil’s ago 😃

Fortes that fit nicely in the back of my SUV. Plus, we're only moving two miles. I'm glad you solved your problem.

[wuzzzer]

1 hour ago, RT FAN said:

I hope you don’t have La Scalas or some other formidable such Klipsch speaker to transport, when I was younger I moved my Chorus II’s by myself. But that was many Advil’s ago 😃

 

Man, I brought both my 150 pound THTs into my house and down in my basement by myself!  😅

 

In the few times I've moved, either my best friend or I are the only ones allowed to touch anything A/V related.  The same goes when I've helped him move.  Most people just don't have any appreciation for these large wood boxes.

[Shakeydeal]

I’m surprised with that much internal damage that there was no external damage? You must have had them packed pretty good. The last time I moved, my speakers were large magnepans but I moved them myself. I would never trust movers with any of my equipment.

 

Glad you got it sorted out.