Judge only by what you hear.

[Romak]

I picked up a second pair of Forte's today from CW_82 (great guy by the way). I drove 700 miles round trip and it was VERY well worth it. Jim is a super nice guy and we listened and talked for atleast 2 hrs.

I told him I would call when I got close to let him know my E.T.A. and he asked me the words I was some what dreading to hear "do you want me to hook them up to have a listen?" Well of course I said yes, I knew he had tubes! But also knew I didn't NEED to listen to them knowing I would want to upgrade to tubes. I have 2 Carver TFM -35's and a CT-3, which I was content with. I also had in the plans to possibly get an Emotiva MMC-1 processor and EPA-5 amp. After listening to his set up......ehhhh I'm rethinking my plans. He has an Eastern Electric 8 watt Minimax amp and a Minimax preamp that blew my sox off, I cannot believe what I heard out of these! I know there has been great debates about tubes and S.S. here and don't mean to cause a ruckus, but WOW I'm sold on tubes. He told me he got them from Morningstar Audio Imports and gave me the business card.The above subject line is from what is printed on the card and that says it all for me. Like I said I have read a lot of "discussions" on here about the S.S and tubes and hearing IS all I needed to tell me the deference. To top it all off he also had a pair of Eastern Electric mono block 160 w. from Morningstar that he hooked up to his Corns and that was completely uncalled for! LOL I had a great day today, got another set of Fortes, heard my first tubes and met a fellow forum member.[Y] Now for those tubes.[]

[Daddy Dee]

That's some great hospitality on that trip.

Thanks for the review. So now you are going over to the dark side.

[Romak]

Dark side it is! [6] I still can't believe the sound they made! I knew it would be good but.......

Solid state is nice but the tubes are just so much more. A whole differnet experience altogether. So much more "open". I really can't put it into words.

[tom b. 57]

Be careful.

It was a trick!

They got me that way too!

LOL

[oldbuckster]

Both TUBES and Solid State have their good points, and their bad points, which you will discover for yourself !!!!!!!!!

[cw_82]

Hey Romak,

I had as much fun as you for sure. Still can't believe someone from the Chicago area didn't want the Forte's, glad you made the 700 mile trek. Wow!

I too own a Carver m1.0t and with my 1982 Cornwall's in Walnut (cw_82) the sound was impressive. At some point I found I was not LISTENING to musuc anymore, or buying new cd's. I didn't know it then, but I was not involved with the 1-D soundstage, tone, etc anymore. I learned about DVD-A and SACD and was blown away by high-res multi channel surround. After 20+ years with my Cornwall's I felt I was hearing a new speaker. The darn things were sleeping more or less this whole time. I had a whole new interest in LISTENING to Music! This got me thinking and reading about stereo gear again. I still had never listened to a tube amp with Klipsch speakers, despite reading (for years) about how wonderful the combo could be.

I got caught between vintage tube gear and early solid state gear, ugh! Kind of like the cars of the mid 70's- 80's. ( I own a 69 RS/SS Camaro[H] ).

I had been fooled enough times by marketing hype and magazine review hype to be skeptical about "tube nirvana". I simply had to hear for myself what all the poetry was about. If any of it was true, I wanted in. A reading frenzy submerged me into a world of S.E.T., push-pull, point to point, bias, pentodes, transformers, holy crap. Three places I found advertise "internet sales" budget minded tube gear near Chicago burbs, the first 2 would not let me see or hear anything without buying first and returning if not happy, no store, no demo.

Then I called Bill O'connell (really my buddy Tom did) at Morning Star Audio Imports. Bill invited us over and soon I was hearing the "Tube sound"for myself. Here was a guy that was passionate about LISTENING to music. Bill answered all of my questions and sent me home with some Tube amps to try with the Cornwall's. IT IS TRUE! Wow. I ended up getting the Eastern Electric M520, a 24 watt pentode/ 18 watt ultralinear integrated el34 amp. I was hearing things from my Cornwall's like I never did before. Forget about warm and fuzzy, forget about 24 watts, or 1% distortion. This was all "class A" tube sound and it was plenty loud. It's like 3-D surround sound with 2 speakers! I found myself repetedly getting up to see if the center speaker was on? I replaced the chinese stock tubes with better old and new ones and things got even better, tone detail, and ( ( s o u n d s t a g e ) ).

I have gone around and listened to many other systems since, I've had my amp's at just about all of my friends houses and learned a few things about tubes, Klipsch and "Hi-Fi". Tube amp's (or any amp) will not sound good in any room with any speaker. It turns out my room sounds pretty good with the Cornwall's on the long wall (24'x 17') The same amp with the same speakers in 2 peoples houses sounded completely different! one of them not sounding so good.

I now understand why some people dont like the Klipsch sound, if you don't get the synergy right, it can be really bad. If you do get it right, it's really really good. I listened to $80k worth of tube mono blocks and speakers at a local "Hi-Fi" store and the room was untreated, I couldn't believe how bad it sounded! Go forth and listen to as many peoples stereo's you can and experement with speaker placement and furniture placement as much as you can in your own.

Sorry for the long reply, I feel like I'm on a mission to help people hear real Hi-Fi, I feel confident I have it now. I met SWL (Scott) this way and now Romak (Eric). I think they were impressed with what's going on over here. Pictures later... also Eastern Electric EL156 mono block review. Bill Let me take home his personal pair while he was traveling. : )

(I'm not in business with Morning Star Audio or Bill O'Connell, although I do consider Bill a good friend Now)

[SWL]

Yes, cw_82's Cornwall's made me drool as well.......powered by the Eastern Electric tube amps.[]

Jim, you gotta hear this Cambridge Audio preamp I'm demo-ing from Simply Stereo. With my RF-7's, it sounds incredible. I don't think it's gonna leave my shelf.[Y]