Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

May be KM could also review the JBL L-100 Classic speakers ......... L-100 Classics are also about the same price, $4,000/pair :-) .........

... a full-range horn-loaded design.
As mentioned in the review, a "steep-filter passive network crosses over at 650Hz and 5.2kHz" to the horn-loaded mid-range and tweeter.
So, the main radiator of frequencies up to 650Hz - about one and one-half octaves above middle C - is the 12" paper cone woofer.
In that event, how much of the apparent sound quality from the Forte III is a function of the horn-loaded mid-range and tweeter versus the relatively conventional passive-radiator-loaded paper cone woofer?

kind of amazing that in 2019 an old fashioned conventional horn loaded dynamic speakers-in-a-wooden-box can be described by a reviewer in such wonderfully imaginative terms of sound quality. And only four grand! For 700 bucks a pair of the new maggie LRS speakers would,I suspect,reveal the primitive nature of the aformentioned Klipsch horns.

It's nice to see Klipsch regarded as "Hi Fi" again.

In the millennium prior to this one, Klipsch was anathema among the Hi Fi hoi polloi.

I don't have precise recollection of when Klipsch was welcomed back into the fold, perhaps when Sam Tellig heard a pair during his travels and mentioned it in a column?

I root for Klipsch. Horn loading and high efficiency strike me as the beating heart of getting at 'the absolute sound.'

Thanks for a fun review!

I impulse bought a pair of new Heresy's last year to use in a small loft and love them (observations in the press about occasional HF intensity are correct, by the way,) and my son uses a pair of La Scala speakers with a PS Audio Sprout to FABULOUS EFFECT.

It's nice seeing Klipsch back in the pantheon.

and best of all they're really really LOUD!!!! So loud that you may not ever want to listen to anything again.

Nicely written article Ken, I remember hearing a set of Klipschorns at Kenny's Castaway's on Bleecker St., back in the late 80's. From the first note to the last, wow, those babies really sang out and opened my ears to a new level of reproductive high fidelity sound that I didn't think was possible at the time. Of course the living musical waves that resonated out from the large plywood cabinets could only be amplified by a fine vintage, sweet-sounding, and artfully crafted McIntosh tube amp that was well cabled.

The Klipsch/ McIntosh combo creates a sublime depiction of a musical landscape that still lives on within my inner ear. I'm grateful for holding dear to those beautifully sounding sense memories that I recall when an occasion arises. Plain and simple, music, I mean high quality sounding music makes life truly enjoyable in this paradise known as earth. Thanks Ken. You truly are a gifted writer, and you really helped me out all those years ago. Kudos, to you my friend.

Ken? Hmm... I think I subleased your place back in 1990 on MacDouglal Street, I remember a roommate who played a great jazz trumpet as the aroma of Mamoun's spicy fried falafel balls wafted through your place enticing me to indulge... Though, perhaps you're a not the Ken I once knew. Anyway, keep up the great work. I too love the fine art of audiophile grade music as much as you and your esteemed colleagues at the venerable Stereophile magazine enjoy. Cheers.

... work/sound with the First Watt SIT-3?
https://www.stereophile.com/content/first-watt-sit-3-power-amplifier

No, not true.

"which implies low distortion."
Why don't you do speaker distortion measurements?
Would be interesting to see speaker efficiency vs distortion.
Maybe don't want to show orders of magnitude of distortion between speakers and electronics.

I just wonder if Ken ruffled any feathers with those who own the O/93. Several on the 'phile staff do and Ken reports that the Forte is more transparent than the Devore. I believe it, but this would be amazing, at the Forte's price.

I guess Klipsch had Stereophile review Forte III instead of Cornwall III, because Forte III has smoother 'horizontal' off axis response.

However, there are online reviewers saying that Forte III is very sensitive to positioning: toe angle, tweeter height, etc.

I guess the discrepancy between JA's off-axis plots and human experience is due to the incompleteness of two sets of off axis measurements: horizontal and vertical.

We naively guess all off axis responses from the two sets: horizontal and vertical. It may not work that simple in the real world.

If a speaker has an ideal point source as a tweeter and an ideal point source as a mid-range driver, the two sets, horizontal and vertical, can give us a good guess about all off axis responses. Reality, however, is more complicated.