Just Installed B&K Crossovers and Titanium Diaphragms in Forte II's

[guitarman]

Earlier this week I ordered a set of Bob Crites' crossovers with his connection wiring and titanium diaphragms for my cherished Forte II's. Thought I'd give some insight on what I learned.

Bob is a super nice guy. Helped me all the way through the process, even during installation. Prior to this, my Forte's were working fine, except one tweeter would rattle from the vibration caused by the subwoofer under the Fortes.

Left speaker and sub:

Right speaker and sub:

Keen eyes will notice no drivers in the subwoofers....these were taken a few weeks ago during the buildup. See below for more on the subs.

So I knew the rattling tweeter had to be fixed anyway, and I was curious as to what was causing the rattling. I had no expectations for these upgrades except to allow my Fortes to give me all they had. I am not dissappointed.

First, I removed the grill, laid each one down flat on its face and removed the radiator. No sticky glue here, just a thin peice of rubber. The radiator came up without a problem. Then I removed the speaker wires noting where each one had been (ie. where the black wires were in relation to the drivers' terminals). I removed the jackplate with attached crossover. I got and old block of wood and mounted both crossovers to it for safe keeping. Finally, I removed the two pieces of foam in the cabinets which were just wedged in with no glue (to my delight). These are there presumably to reduce resonance. Here's the first factory crossover with one of Bob's about to go in:

I made it a point to ask Bob how he thought I should mount these. He recommended I do as a former customer did and use velcro. Well, I had access to some industrial strength velcro that has a super sticky backside like a rubbery asphalt. Perfect. The crossovers came with little felt pads stuck in each corner, which was a nice touch, but had to be removed for the velcro to work as intended. Here's the velcro "fuzz" half attached to the first crossover:

Before putting these in, I thought about using some silicon to seal up the cabinets' corners, as there were small seams present. Whether or not these leak air I don't know. Anyhow, I thought against it and left them as they were:

I then sat the cabinets upright for easier access. After sticking the other half of the velcro to the bottom of the cabinet (oh, I had to remove a factory inspection sticker on the bottom of each cabinet and scrape away some of the glue for a flat surface), I attached the crossovers to the cabinets. Now it was time to replace the diaphragms with Bob's titanium versions. Sure enough, when I removed the tweeter from the left cabinet, the magnet (driver?) was loose on the horn. Replacing the diaphragms went off without a hitch, except for two things; I had to slightly enlarge the holes for the little locating tabs on the diaphragms for the diaphragms to sit flush against the drivers. Additionally, behind ONE original diaphragm was a small piece of what looked like cotton. I emailed Bob and asked him about this and he said it was not needed with the new diaphragms. BTW, the tweeter that was loose on the horn did not have the "padding" (as Bob calls it). Maybe this one was worked on at some point in the past (I've had them since new though....)?? I left the padding out of each diaphragm and tightened them to the horns real good. Here's the new and old diaphragms:

After reinstalling each tweeter, I set about hooking up the crossovers to the drivers. Well, I got confused and had to email Bob again regarding the positive and negative wires for the tweeters. Like a true trooper, Bob was right there and told me that the reverse phase on the tweeter was already done in the crossover. So I hooked up the red wire to the positive and the black to the negative on all the drivers. I installed new binding posts (http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=091-1250) on the plates (the factory ones were already stripped and appeared a little cheesy) for a solid connection. I was pleasantly surprised to see Bob had included spade lugs on his wiring for the binding posts. The speaker wires Bob included were also of much higher quality than the factory wires. I would guess factory wires to be 14-16awg and Bob's 12. Not sure though. I changed out the little plastic wire holder attached to the sides of the cabinets with ones that fully captured the wires for piece of mind. I stuck the factory foam back in the original positions as best I could, keeing it from physically touching each of the drivers. Finally, I reinstalled the radiators. DONE!

Listening

I first tried some jazz using "Pure Audio" mode on my AVR. Very nice. Subjectively, the sound was more forward. More in the room. I made a cursory check to insure all drivers were functioning (they were) and decided I had had enough of jazz. I grabbed my Montrose Greatest Hits and rocked out to "Space Station Number 5". Now we're talkin'! In "Pure Audio" mode, my Onkyo bypasses all processing, including the subwoofers, which normally handle everything below 80hz, sending the full range to the main speakers. Wow! I've never heard bass like this from these Klipsch's! I'm lovin' it!

I will of course have to run Audyssey MultiXT EQ calibration again (this weekend) to see if there are any minute changes that it makes for the theater sound. Otherwise, I'm completely happy!

Quickly, I jumped on another thread (in the Technical Questions forum) regarding "Matching Speakers" to see if anyone had any ideas about how I could better match my Tangent Theater (center speaker) to my Klipschs. Apparently, I broke some forum "edict" and the OP didn't like it. I didn't feel the question was worthy of its own thread. At any rate, I'm looking for any ideas anyone has about changes I can make (tweeter replacement, crossover freq changes, etc.) for the Tangent.

My subwoofer build-up can be seen here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10781545&post10781545).

Finally, I want to thank Bob for his help and say that he has come up with a remarkable product. I realize I couldn't sell the Fortes for what I've got into them, but that's not the point. These speakers are a part of my adult life. Any impressions of music I hear is based on the character of these speakers and I wouldn't have it any other way.

[Guest " "]

those metal diaphragms should be a big plus.