|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
In Reply to: ST-70/PAS posted by NoTransistors on December 24, 2003 at 16:41:15:
Have you tried different speakers? I've found some metal-tweeter speakers to be un-bearable, even with tube everything: JBL L100 w/ titanium tweets, and my Klipsch SF2's w/ aluminum tweeter driver. (both now banned from my system.)The Klipsch Forte made life good again, de-harshed the top end and really fleshed out and cleaned up the mid and bass. I think I've found my small Dream Speaker. Phenolic drivers. Smooth as silk, as detailed as anythign I've heared, and not a trace of hardness anywhere. That mid horn is da shiznit. Don't be scared of those who say horns honk. Piezos do, a proper horn doesn't. Something like a Forte may just cure all your headaches =o). Just don't feed 'em crap transistors....
Follow Ups:
Man I have been dreaming and lusting for a pair of Forte's. But the size has scared me away. But to hear you call them small.....well maybe they aren't as big as I remembered. Nice to know they work well with the Dynaco and (I am assuming) don't require a large room to sound good.Did you ever get the PAS sorted out? If so how does it compare to the ARC? I am happy with mine. It compared quite well with a friends highly tweaked A.I. 3a which is a pretty well regarded preamp.
To me, the Heresy is impossibly small to get bass out of. Bass takes cab volume, contrary to fashionista's claims..The Forte is the smallest K considered. Cornies woulda been better, but oy, they are *ahem* "medium" size K's ;o) They won't fit in any room I have right now. =o( My ultimate dream would be k-horns, JBL Hartsfields, or something along those lines.
I got the PAS mostly sorted out. Even with the hot-rod ps, and total cap + resistor re-do, it's still a bit veiled against the ARC. That's about it. Just a little bit less transparent, really. The ARC has a really strange design, it's almost direct-coupled from stage to stage. The PAS has so many caps in it my head spun.
[]=== < ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!
Funny you should mention speakers. As an alternative to the Pioneer CS-99A, I have tries Dynaco classics, RatShack Linneum, two different A.R. models, a pair of Jamos (spelling). The stock Pioneers have only paper and mylar dynamic drivers; no piezo at all. Pass the buffered Bayer.
If you have the chance to listen to a pair of medium-to-large horns, do so. I think it'll be an eye-opening thing. The compression horn speaker is pretty much the lowest-distortion reproducers out there. Folks have written about it, and once I tasted it I became a believer as well.The sound is open, airy, transparent, punchy, powerful, refined, smooth, detailed, full-bodied, all at once.
IMO, go straight to the mid-horn designs (sadly no longer made, except for the Heritage line.) The magic is 80% in that mid horn. My SF2's have mids coming from the woofers, and an alum. tweeter compression horn. The result was a hard treble, and a notchy, dirty midrange. Typical coner sound.
The fortes are mid-horn, tweet-horn, cone woof. Night and day difference.
Took me almost 20 years to get my pair. It was well worth the wait. They literally re-defined what hi-fi is for me. After so many years of trying, I can finally say the system I have is truly high-fidelity.
Oh I forgot to mention. The amp I use, and have used for a few years, is a stock rebuilt Stereo 70 with SDS Lab's cap board. ARC SP6A does the preamp work. Absolutely no hard / harshness with the fortes. But it was an ear-driller with the SF2, L100's, Infi SM110's. It wasn't the amp. It was the speakers. In my case, anyway. I was hearing the @#@#! cone midrange. And in 2 cases, metal tweets.. those things should be abolished! ( the SM110 has polycell foam tweets. Didn't matter. The midrange still sucked. )
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: