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Stereophile Review of Klipsch Forte


toddc

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  • 2 years later...

Julian DID admit that he DID hear differences in Power Amps!

However, he did not find these to be signifigant!

Julian used tone controls shamelessy, and simply compensated for different amp's "sound" by adjusting the tone controls!

I knew this before he admitted publicly that he did hear differences in amps!

Julian Hirsch was a Ham, and I had spoken to him several times on the air

Ka7niq

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"I recall a few forum members dumping on ol' Mr. Hirsch in the last year or so as being, shall we say, less than capable of accurate hearing, which kind of took the wind out my sails on this review"

Maybe his SLM was inaccurate too. The review measured the Forte at +/- 2dB in room from 200hz~20Khz.

I used to sucker audio snobs with the Forte.

I would put them side-by-side with big B&W or KEF that they were in love with, and use an amplifier that has A and B speaker switching with seperate input level controls (so you could match levels and not be able to spot the Klipsch by the level difference).

I would get them to agree that speaker 'A' sounded much better than speaker 'B' (they thought they were listening to their snob speaker).

When everybody was in agreement, I had them walk up to the speakers that were playing that they (thought) sounded better. They alway accused me of somehow cheating.

The original Forte blows away the British snob stuff!

The only mods these Forte had were the wires soldered to the terminals (the push-on clips were cut off).

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How right you are DJK!

My son, who is 24, owns my old B&W Matrix 801's series 2's.

He also has the Krell bass alignment filter for them.'

It extends response real low.

Most of the time, he just laughs at whatever new speakers I have "passing through".

He wasnt crazy about the Klipschorns, and heard the woody coloration right away.

He did like some things about them though.

When he came over, and heard the Forte's today, he listened for about an hour.

Actually going out to his car, and bringing in his own CD's.

He said "Dad, these are the best speakers that I have heard over here since you gave me the 801's"

He thinks they need a subwoofer, but he really liked them.

Regarding Julian Hirsch, he was a strange cat.

I talked to him on the air several times, he was a Ham, like me.

He was really into tone controls, always used them too.

So, he felt that sonic differences between 2 different amps listened to in their flat position were un important, since he could "correct" these "insignificant" differences.

He seldom raved about speakers, but when he did, like the Forte's and the Celestion SL600's, they usually were special speakers.

Unfortunately, for me, I never saw the Forte review in Stereo Review.

In the mid 80's, I had more money then sense, and I was an audio snob.

If it wasnt British, I didnt want it.

Boy, did I ever miss the boat!

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About a year and a half later Mr Hirsch did a review of the Chorus. Interestingly, he was much less enthusiastic-- Not critical really, just gently pointing out some 'issues'. It is hard for me to tell if he was really liking them less--or just was not in a good mood on the review day.

Anyway.... I see nice speakers and think of 'upgrading'. Cornwall IIIs are drifting into view now. But each time I listen to my Forte Is I wonder if anything can really make me happier.

Although, if anyone would like to loan me a pair of these 6' tall, 950lb horns, with dual 18" woofers....I'll consider it:

http://www.westlakeaudio.com/Speakers/Hi_Fi_Series/tower_sm-1.html

Mark

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"About a year and a half later Mr Hirsch did a review of the Chorus. Interestingly, he was much less enthusiastic-- Not critical really, just gently pointing out some 'issues'. It is hard for me to tell if he was really liking them less--or just was not in a good mood on the review day."

The original Chorus sounded no where near as good as the original Forte. The ports were mistuned, and something was wrong with the crossover.

Our Klipsch rep wondered why we weren't selling many of the Chorus. I made him sit down and listen to them vs the Forte.

A short while later Klipsch came out with the MKII versions of both. The Chorus II got better, and the Forte II suffered.

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djk,

Interesting-- That does run somewhat counter to the general opinion on 'A vs B' threads here, which tend to place the Forte II (Tractrix) over the Forte--and put Chorus (irrespective of version) a step above Forte.

Which maybe just tracks logical expectations--

And are not often based on side by side comparison.

Mark

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