Forte II Amp Pairing

[MBM135]

Bought a pair of mint Forte IIs last winter. Spent $900 so not exactly a good deal. Upgraded my KG4s. Plan is to move soon to a home where I will have both an HT and 2 Channel setup. Will put the Kg4s back to work in HT and use the FOrte's for music--primary interest.

I read some old posts on recommended Amp pairings but wanted to ask again if anyone has any more up-to-date suggestions. Currently have the Forte's connected to a Harman/Kardon AVR-110, a 5-chan HT set-up. To be honest I have not been that impressed with 2 chan. Having buyers remorse over the $900. Yeah I guess they sound better than the 4's but not $900 better. I read a review from an Oct 1996 audio magazine that said you can't just plug-and-play Forte's with cheap equipment or they will sound like toilet. So, I plan to find a better amplifier. Article suggested Rotel equipment since it's "laid back" character is Forte-friendly. Also suggested tube stuff but I know ZERO about it and have little patience for messing around with that sort of thing.

I will probably spend around $500 which limits me a bit. I will search for used in May-Jun timeframe. Several questions:

1. Is anybody using any of the mid-1980s Harman Kardon or Rotel integrated amps or receivers? Are these inexpensive units worth a try?

2. Any good solid state stuff out there now?

3. If I was to go "tubular" what should I look for? Need something I can plug in, hook up a CD player to and press the power button.

Any ideas? Trying to maximize the "assets" of the Forte's.

Mike

[Audio Flynn]

You may have paid a little more than you needed. But you have them.

That is the start.

Heritage and Vintage Klipsch are very sensitive to the digital "cloud of chaos" involved in HT and the dirty first watts of Solid State(SS) amplification.

I left several years of very good HT in the family room and put 2 channel in the living room last October. No regrets.

Any old amp to start...and I mean old. Older SS without integrated circuits from the 70s are cheap and can be a good interim until you can do better.

Marantz

HK

Pioneer

Tubes when you can...

And get a CD player with Burr Brown chips, not 1 bit. Or a DAC.

AND READ ALL of the stuff here

[leok]

Forte II is a nice speaker. It's hard to do it justice without resorting to tubes (I gave up, but some here claim to have ss solutions). I'm at work. I'll write later. But, for now, some ideas: ss - class A only (used Nelson Pass). Tube: used "Superamp" if you can find one. Use triode mode (no feedback if possible). SET: I haven't tried my new Moondogs with the Fortes because I'm afraid they will sound soo good and I won't know what to do with the RF-7s (mostly kidding).

later,

leok

[Colin]

You will probably be able to sell those big old horns for the price you paid for them someday, which is a hell of a lot better than what anybody else can say about their new cone loudspeakers. If your CD player has a volume control, or your receiver has a RCA pre-amplifier jacks on the back, you can try something as simple as the Antique Sound Labs Wave 8s tube monoblocks for as little as $99. (The CD player may still need a pre-amplifier to sound really good.)

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0302/aslwave8.htm

Otherwise check out the ASL, Scott (see NOS440 posts) and Jolida integrated amplifiers.

[j-malotky]

MBM

$900 - Not bad. You could have paid twice that price and got speakers that are half as good.

First off, Receivers and Heritage(ish) speakers do not mix. You have to get into separate pre amps and amps. You may end up going over your $500 mark.

For tube amps, if you go moondog, you may not have the SPL for HT. If you want an amp to use for both, you will need something a little more powerfull (20-40 watts), but you will give up the SET sound.

I bet going to a good quality SS preamp, amp combo will sound good and get you into the $500 range and sound a lot better than your receiver.

JM

[Audio Flynn]

"I haven't tried my new Moondogs with the Fortes because I'm afraid they will sound soo good and I won't know what to do with the RF-7s (mostly kidding)."

Leo,

You chicken!

You need to do that. Even if it does mess with yoour mind.

--------------------------

ALSO

THe old tubie sales guy at my favorite HIFI shop who makes all his own tube stuff wants me to bring by the WI Tripath for a listen.

They have a homemade line stage&tube phono, with Marantz 8B(?) power amp, and MMF7 TT with Grado Platinum for the front end. THey use it into the single driver Moth Audio speakers.

I can sub out the marantz and put in your amp. Should be a cool test.

[leok]

I will. The Fortes aren't real easy to move, and I wanted to understand the Moondogs with the RF-7s first. Also, I'm probably going to try Erik's Ultrapath mod first. In the end, I suspect it's just going to be 2-way vs 3-way. And I'm chicken.

Let me know how the Moth Audio speakers sound relative to your Chorus IIs.

leok

[Krispy Kirk]

Mike,

Congrats on your new ownership of a truly awesome pair of speakers!

As you can see from my winning entry in the recent Storyteller contest, I've run my '89 Forte IIs on a wide variety of amps. I doubt there is a single receiver, amp, or audio device that I haven't hooked up to them at least once (if only just for fun.)

My golden ears may be tarnishing with age, but I honestly have never heard an objectionable sound out of them with any amp. I currently run my F2s in an HT rig with a newer Onkyo DD/DTS receiver (100wpc I think) and they sound fantastic on either 2ch or multichannel sources. Prior to that I had an Adcom GFA-545 powering them for over a decade (GFP-555II preamp). I never felt like replacing them with something "better" except for one short break around 1997 when I tried out an 80wpc Jolida integrated (KT88 power and EL34 pre tubes if I remember correctly.) The Jolida didn't stick around long though because its strengths didn't sufficiently offset its weaknesses when compared to my Adcom combo. The Jolida "warmed up" poorly-recorded material in a pleasant way and threw a nice deep soundstage, but the Adcom stuff seemed just a bit more transparent, was capable of wider dynamic swings, and controlled the bass with a (much-needed) iron fist.

Since different amps never really sounded all that different to my ears on my Fortes, I chose to focus on cables and source equipment instead. My Adcom gear was revealing enough to allow me to hear the differences between Monster and Kimber (I went with the Kimber) and between Rotel CD players and Adcom/Sony (I went with Rotel).

But you want to know the quickest way to maximize the performance of your Forte IIs? Put them in the right room (the bigger the better.) Set them up properly (6-8ft apart, slightly toed in, and within a foot of the wall behind them.) And sit far enough away from them to get a good coherent sound out of them. Take the distance you've got them apart and add about 25%. That will give a good distance to start looking for the sweet spot. It will usually end up being a little farther away from the speakers than you are accustomed to.

Good luck and best wishes to you and your Forte IIs!