I have a near mint pair of vintage Chorus II's w/15" woofers - the big brother to the Forte. Mine are 1990 vintage. They too have a passive radiator on the back as all the II versions of Forte/Chorus had. I didn't care for the ported I versions of either - they sounded a bit boomy to me, but a lot of folks like them. I prefer the passive radiator version myself.
I have the original Klipsch brochure for the Chorus II's I have - msrp was $1850 when they were last sold. The Forte a few Benjamin's less. Back in the early 90's I thought the factory stock Forte was a little better balanced overall than the stock Chorus. The Chorus being a little tubby in the bass to my ears. However, the Chorus was/is even more sensitive at a stated 101db 1 watt/1 meter. Additionally, the perceived bass taughtness can be tuned a bit on the passive radiator versions by adding/subtracting mass from the cone of the radiator.
I can also tell you that the current-source output nature of my Torii has a very "unfavorable" interaction with the varying impedance of the xover in my Chorus II's. They have an awful "cupped hands awk" in the mid-upper midrange when driven by my Torii. That said, they sound pretty good with other voltage-source amps, which is nearly all solid-state amps and most modern conventional tube amps, that are not designed specifically for single, high-efficiency, full-range driver, crossover-less speakers like the Torii is. I have a Cary amp that sounds quite good driving the ole Chorus II's and a few "sand" amps laying around that work pretty well with them also. As good as they are though - they are not nearly as "resolute", transparent or as micro-dynamically alive as the crossover-less full-rangers and Torii are. In my inventory of speakers, I would categorize the Chorus' a bit more toward the "party speaker" classification - they do boogie pretty well.
I believe Crites simply does parts upgrades on the xovers, swapping like value for like value with higher quality parts. This doesn't do anything to wrestle in the impedance swings of the Klipsch stock xovers.
There is a guy who "re-engineers" the crossovers for Klipsch speakers.
http://www.alkeng.com/klipschI have talked to him about the xover in the Chorus'. He claims it has some pretty wild impedance swings, which explains their incompatibility with a Torii, and why they need voltage source amps driving them. Be warned though, that his re-engineered crossovers "are not inexpensive". Kind of negating the purpose of acquiring a pair of these ole Classics in the first place.
Around these parts...
back in the day... Klipsch speakers were demo'd mostly with solid state McIntosh amps. I believe Klipsch just demo'd with Cary early this year at CES.
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Klipsch Forte III (Read 7341 times)
