Forte's distance to wall?

[r.cherry]

I have not had these Forte's very long so they are / were right where they got hooked-up, about 12 inches from the rear wall. On a whim i moved them bact towards the wall about 4-6 inches and they sound very different! They are now about 4-5 inches off the wall. less boomieness? not sure that is a word but i think that is what i am hearing. I am the second owner thus i have no instructions, what might be the best location asfaras proximity to the wall behind be?

thank you

rich

[Olorin]

Rich, I've seen different people say different things about the "right" distance from the walls for these guys. Given the variability in people's listening rooms and preferences, I tend to believe that whatever sounds best to you is the best place for them.

[Bill H.]

rc,

Place them , as you first had them- no closer than 12 inches from the Wall. The neat thing about Fortes, is they have wonderful dispersion

of their sound facing straight forward. No need to toe them in..............Enjoy!

[dragonfyr]

While I have never had the opportunity to play with the Fortes, moving the speaker 'to the wall' would afford several changes (all positive to my way of thinking...) which are common by virtue of the spatial characteristics.

One, the near field reflections emanating from the back of the cabinet and off the rear wall would be reduced. (And this in itself could be a source of much of the boominess, if by boominess you are referring not so much too a 100-200 Hz emphasis, but to a less distinct 'impulse response'. As the slightly delayed reflections exhibiting a slightly longer path of travel would most likely fall within the psychoacoustic time differential referred to as the Haas effect - where your ability to localize the origin of the sound is impaired.)

Second, the effective volume of the room into which the energy is radiated is 'effectively' halved, resulting in a radiative environment of pi steradians (Q=4, or 1/4 of a sphere) rather then the 2pi steradians (Q=2, 1/2 of a sphere) of sitting on the floor away from any walls.

Thus the same energy is radiated into 1/2 the volume.

From this, the fabled corner placement evolved, further reducing the volume to p/2 steradians (Q=8, 1/8 of a sphere), which further reduced the effective volume into which the energy is radiated by 1/2 yet again.

And with each reduction of volume, there occurs an effective corresponding increase in energy.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

This sure would be easier to imagine with diagrams!

But the desired/preferred resulting sound will of course be dependent on the characteristics of the speaker itself, and you may not want the benefit of the additional gain afforded by the room. So I will defer to your or others' judgments here.

If you weren't confused before, I bet you are now!

[Number 9]

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On 5/15/2005 4:37:49 PM Bill H. wrote:

Place them , as you first had them-

no closer

than 12 inches from the Wall. The neat thing about Fortes, is they have wonderful dispersion of their sound facing straight forward. No need to toe them in..............Enjoy!

My experience has been the exact opposite. I have them about 5-7 inches from the back wall, slightly toed-in. After experimentation, this worked out best for me.

Strange

[fletcherkane]

I have a pair of original Forte's, and to my ears, in my room, 12inches away and toed in is best for HT applications. The Forte really sings when you feed it a full range DVD signal.

The original instruction book also tells you to toe the speakers in, and that is what I have always done. The passive radiator seems to need a little breathing room behind it if you want to experience the full range of sound the mighty Forte can produce.

As always this is just my 2 cents. Speaker placement is almost always a matter of taste, (Except for khorns of course, which really need to be in the corner...)

[Duke Spinner]

i have both C2's 'n F2's ...

both 12" off the wall, toed in ...

close the the wall is way to Boomy ....

[dragonfyr]

If it has a rear firing passive radiator, you WOULD want to place it out from the wall a bit!

[Rivendell61]

I've always wished I could place my Fortes in the corner--but must admit I never tried since I assumed the passive radiator on the back would make that a bad choice. I know deep bass is essentially non-directional--but leaving only the gap at the top of the back for it to 'escape' seems too constricted--am I wrong?

Has anyone here tried placing their Fortes tight in a corner?

Dragonfyr,

Do you know of any speakers besides Klipsch and Allison Threes that were intended for corner placement?

I should edit this to say: any fairly contemporary speaker....

Mark

[dragonfyr]

Generally speaking, most speakers will 'benefit' from the reduction of radiated volume (the steradian issue). There are of course exceptions such as dipoles, etc.

But experimentation is worthwhile as wall or corner placement may tend to emphasize aspects of the speaker's response that you may not like.

But 'toed-in' corner placement also minimizes many of the reflection issues contributing to room acoustical anomalies.

I am going to stick my neck out and say that, barring individual issues and a handful of speaker designs, that corner placement is a worthwhile consideration for 'any' speaker (with exceptions noted!).

And while you would not want to place a rear firing cabinet directly against the wall (unless you want to modify it's enclosure tuning!) Toed-in corner placement is NOT necessarily excluded! As long as the total area behind the speaker is equal to or greater then the area of the radiator, it should not present negatively impede the speaker's performance due to increased acoustical driver loading. However, the 'lossy' duct which is effectively created may reinforce lower frequencies, but as as it is likely to be very lossy, I would experiment and see if you notice any difference. I suspect that any 'tuned duct' effect will be very slight relative to the 4x increase in total gain from corner placement over 'free field' room placment.

Personally I would try it and see. The worst that would happen is that you might have to get out of your chair to move it /them one more time!

[leok]

My favorite for the Forte-II and Chorus-II is in the corners, within a few inches of each wall, and toed in to directly face a sweet spot about 8' to 12' away.

Leo

[sfellini]

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On 5/15/2005 6:47:57 PM dragonfyr wrote:

As long as the total area behind the speaker is equal to or greater then the area of the radiator, it should not present negatively impede the speaker's performance due to increased acoustical driver loading.

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Hi - could you give an example? A Forte I's PR area

would be ~113 sq in, and a II's PR would be ~177 sq in.

But I'm not sure what you mean by the "total area behind

the speaker".

Thanks,

Steve.

[Bill H.]

RC,

Here is an excellent review of the Klipsch Fortes from Greg Smith....circa 1996 which should answer all your questions.

http://www.soundstage.com/greg01.htm

I like this Quote" I like these best sitting about 1-2 from the left, right, and rear walls. Pull them far out into the room and they dont sound as good. Another things to watch out for is toe-in. Most people angle their speakers so that the drivers are directly facing them. Bad idea here--you want these facing directly forward, with no toe-in rotation toward the center."

[dragonfyr]

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On 5/15/2005 7:03:17 PM sfellini wrote:

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On 5/15/2005 6:47:57 PM dragonfyr wrote:

As long as the total area behind the speaker is equal to or greater then the area of the radiator, it should not present negatively impede the speaker's performance due to increased acoustical driver loading.

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

Hi - could you give an example? A Forte I's PR area

would be ~113 sq in, and a II's PR would be ~177 sq in.

But I'm not sure what you mean by the "total area behind

the speaker".

Thanks,

Steve.

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The cross sectional area of the triangular volume behind the speaker viewed from the top of the speaker downward ...

This total CS area should be equal or greater then the effective cone area of the passive radiator to negate additional acoustic loading.

Provided the speaker was toed in at 45 degrees, the back of the speaker would constitute the hypotenuese and the walls would form the a & b 'sides' of an equalateral triangle (and the cross-sectional area would simply be .5(ab) or .5(a^2).

But again, as this would be a very lossy space, it would have very little, if anny, impact on the total response. And you would still enjoy the increase in gain due to corner placement!

[Tonga]

Of course everybody has an opinion as to where the speaker should be, but a lot of it depends on the room that the speakers are in.

I recently brought my Forte 11 back into the system and have mine 2 1/2 to 3 ft from the back wall. On many times when I have listened to the system, it sounds as if there is a sub , but there is not. Speakers are also facing forward with no toe-in.

Moving the speakers to find the right position for them isnt hard as they are not a heavy speaker, so where one person suggests may not be the right place for another person.

[chuckears]

Here is how I have used mine for most of the 16.5 years I've owned them: toed in per Klipsch's instructions, seating distance 1.5x the distance from the midpoint of an imaginary line connecting the front of the two speakers, the inside back corners about and inch and a half from the wall (leaving the outside back corners four or five inches from the wall).

I recently tried bringing them forward, anywhere from an inch to a foot. Instant loss of deep bass, no apparant improvement in soundstage. I have nice outlines in the carpet where they have sat for years, and intend to keep them there.

[RickB]

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On 5/15/2005 9:26:37 PM chuckears wrote:

Here is how I have used mine for most of the 16.5 years I've owned them: toed in per Klipsch's instructions, seating distance 1.5x the distance from a the midpoint of an imaginary line connecting the front of the two speakers, the inside back corners about and inch and a half from the wall (leaving the outside back corners four or five inches from the wall).

I recently tried bringing them forward, anywhere from an inch to a foot. Instant loss of deep bass, no apparant improvement in soundstage. I have nice outlines in the carpet where they have sat for years, and intend to keep them there.

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I've had my Fortes for 18 years and mine have been set up pretty much identical to how you have yours. I'll have to agree that this seems to bring out the best from them.

They have been with me in 4 different houses and more rooms than I can remember and they always seem to wind up set up in the same position.

[heresy2guy]

I don't currently own Fortes, but my KG4s have a rear mounted passive radiator as well and I have found that I should really keep them about a foot from the wall in order for them to sound their best.

Any closer and the bass gets "boomy."

-H2G