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Forte's in-wall?


bitece

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I'm building a screen wall for my home theater and was considering the following: The screen wall will be nearly 13' wide by 71/2' high and 4' deep. I'll use it as a closet, storage for DVD's and CD's, and my equipment rack. I was also considering cutting holes just slightly larger than the dimensions of my Forte's and placing the Forte;s in the wall. The Forte baffle will be flush with the wall and covered with an acoustic fabric. Here's the tricky part-- the Forte's, with their rear passive radiator need to be near the back wall and the back wall should be in the same room. What if I enclosed the Forte's? Made a super cabinet? Say this cabinet extended 1 foot from the back of the Forte's and perhaps 6 inches around the each side of the speaker. Basically I would place the Forte's in an enclosure that would be 6 inches wider, 3 inches higher and 12 inches deeper than the speaker. What would I do to the sound? Too boomy? I like the idea of an "invisible" front soundstage; however, I don't want to sacrifice the speakers' performance!

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That approach would not only sound very boxy, but it would change the tuning of the passive radiator which would throw everything off.

What would you say to building yourself some new cabinets and either putting the passive radiator or implementing ports to fit on the front? You could probably even cut up your current forte cabinets, remove and seal the passive radiator and then install ports on the front...of course this would diminish the resale value of the speaker.

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Hey, use your rears as mains, and your mains as rears,

or go with some speakers *made* for in-wall installations.14.gif

I do think it's a big risk to take by customising a wall, and possibly compromising the good sound of either one, though.

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The screen idea is excellent. Works in many ways.

The box around the Fortes is not a good bet. I'd pursue a speaker change: for example, use Chorus with their front ported design.

Good luck with the project.

Rob

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Alright-- I'll let it go. I couldn't "cut" my Forte's. I haven't spent alot of time listening to my Heresy's. I'm sure they'd do great in 5-channel with a subwoofer but how well in 2-channel without a sub? I plan to use an analog set-up with an old Soundcraftsmen tube amp connected to a turntable. So I'd switch my mains between 2 amplifiers.

I still need another pair of speakers for upstairs. I haven't found any heritage products nearby (other than the Heresy's and the Academy and that was a 7 hour round trip--well worth it).

The problem is that once the Forte's aren't part of the front wall I can no longer place the Academy in the wall. I think they should all be on the same plane, so to speak.

Back to the drawing board!

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"The box around the Fortes is not a good bet. I'd pursue a speaker change: for example, use Chorus with their front ported design."

Rob - The Chorus are made the same as the Forte, with rear passive radiator.

I would go with the Heresys up front. Another option would be to score some Cornwalls or La Scalas if you have room on your front wall.

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"Rob - The Chorus are made the same as the Forte, with rear passive radiator."

NOT CORRECT!

The original Chorus had NO passive radiator and was ported in the front, the latter Chorus II used a 15" passive radiator in the back.

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Could you draw up a layout of your original plan? (a simple windows paint picture would be enough). If I'm understanding it correctly, perhaps you could make the closet not as wide as the whole room and leave sufficient space to the sides for the forte's to fit. If you're talking about a "closet" jutting out 4 feet, then that leaves plenty of space behind the forte...perhaps integrate angles into the sides of the closet so as to avoid any standing waves in those corners.

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I am on the same bandwagon as everyone else here.

A quick caution if you use a sealed, front ported or front horn bass cabinet - you need to try and 'float' the cabinet. That is to say you may not want it to be directly attached to the wall. I have done that and I have gotten varing degrees of not so good results. There seems to be some sort of resonance issue that the box movement can impart to the wall. Making a shelf for support and keeping the wall boards out of direct contact gives you a speaker that sounds just as intended.

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"Rob - The Chorus are made the same as the Forte, with rear passive radiator."

NOT CORRECT!

The original Chorus had NO passive radiator and was ported in the front, the latter Chorus II used a 15" passive radiator in the back.

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

My bad... I forgot about that. It's been a while since I have seen a Chorus I. Thanks for pointing that out to me.

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

On 5/19/2005 10:55:46 AM hwatkins wrote:

I am on the same bandwagon as everyone else here.

A quick caution if you use a sealed, front ported or front horn bass cabinet - you need to try and 'float' the cabinet. That is to say you may not want it to be directly attached to the wall. I have done that and I have gotten varing degrees of not so good results. There seems to be some sort of resonance issue that the box movement can impart to the wall. Making a shelf for support and keeping the wall boards out of direct contact gives you a speaker that sounds just as intended.----------------

Correct. You will want to mount the speaker on a post mounted to the subfloor or slab, mechanically decoupled from the wall. If this is not done, the wall sheetrock will become a secondary tranducer with perhaps the worst impulse reponse and day late phase error yet recorded...resulting in extremely muddy sound. And sheetrock's high frequency response is a bit lacking!2.gif9.gif

The idea of flush mounting is wonderful, but most easily done while framing a house. But simply mounting them in, or attaching them to the wall introduces as many problems as it appears to solve.

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