Comments on Profile Post by Inoculator

Some tracks sound absolutely stunning, fantastic air and texture to the sound, supremely natural guitar/bass/piano. Some poor tracks sound kind of trash though, just disjointed and listless. Hoping as break-in continues they get more forgiving.

They are also incredibly susceptible to position changes. Luckily not hard to place, just pretty drastic changes with minor tweaks. Keep coming back to flat or just ever so slightly toed-in and only 4"-6" from the wall. Further out and toed at you is also very satisfying especially at higher volumes. Sounds very full and atmospheric in flat/close to wall position.

I have the IIIs. I needed to play with positioning quite a bit and also rolled a few different amps. Like many, I ended up going tube. From there on out, I didn't have much trouble with brightness or brittleness. I think they're fantastic speakers. Have not heard the IV however.

My Fortes sound best to me when right speaker is toed to aim about 2 feet outside of my left shoulder and the opposite for the left speaker. PWK used to recommend this back in the day. Give it a try and see if you like it.

@crazychile I had wondered how they would perform crossed in front of the listening position like that. My local shop has talked about that being a good setup for horns before when I messed around with some vintage speakers I had trouble placing. Will have to give that a whirl. Right now settled on toed in just a few degrees to help focus the imaging a bit but keep the good qualities of flat.

@wbass what amp did you land on? Since I am using these in a very family/multiuse setup I was kind of stuck with a friendly SS integrated. Landed on the NAD M33 and happy with it, but I am still getting a bit of brightness/brittle sort of vibe with certain stuff. Might occasionally bust some tube/class A stuff out for personal listening sessions.

I tried the following: Peachtree Decco 2 (brittle), Nuforce STA-200 (?) (flat and hard), PrimaLuna Dialogue integrated (good but not worth the $$).

Ended up with Quicksilver SET monos with an old AES (Cary) tube pre. Given my experience, I’d be hesitant pairing with the NAD (as great as it probably is). I’m curious to try something First Watt

I’ve heard Klipsch on class AB amps that were tolerable, (some Mac and Bryston) but many more class AB amps that were a bad match. I think you’d be really impressed with some Class A or tubes.