Recap my Fortes?

Redboy

Redboy

a few good watts
Is there a general consensus on when/whether to recap Fortes? I've had mine (vintage 1987) for a few months now. They sound fantastic, but of course I wonder if I'm missing anything...

If it is time to recap, does anyone have specific recommendations as to which type and brand of caps to use? Do I replace all caps with original values?

Any and all advice is appreciated.
 
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I'm sure the experts will chime in but I would think with 87's you are safe for a while. If not, I may be going broke soon.

cubdog
 
Any good polypropylene caps would be an improvement for the Forte crossover. The little blue mylar caps in it originally were not very good from day one. Also, to keep the Forte for a long time, I would suggest getting the heavy components off the plastic input terminal cup. I am seeing a lot more of those things broken all the time. Usually the heavy autotransformer just breaks off the plastic mount and often causes a short in the other wiring connections when it breaks off. A good thing to do is to just mount all the components on a piece of board and attach that board to the cabinet somewhere. Then you can still use the input terminal cup to just feed the new crossover. I like to also use a terminal strip on the new crossover board to clean up the "rats nest" of wires the factory crossover has.

Picture of Forte 1 crossover attached.

Bob Crites
 

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Thanks for the advice, Bob! I'll definitely do the board mount and use the terminal strips. Do you have a favorite cap for this application? I seem to remember from another post that you don't think much of bypass caps, either... was that right?
 
The Solen or Dayton polypropylene caps from Parts Express would be lots better than the factory caps. You would need 2 1uF and 4 1.5 uF caps. Use a nonpolorized electrolytic for the woofer roll off cap, 47 uF. We are only talking about $15.00 to $20.00 for all those parts shipped.

Bypass caps (what ever that term means) are a complete waste of time and money in crossovers.

Bob Crites
 
BECtoo said:
Use a nonpolorized electrolytic for the woofer roll off cap, 47 uF.

Bob Crites
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Bob, I'm taking your advice word for word here. Going with the Solens for the smaller values. There are several 47uF choices at PE:

47uF-100V non-polarized $0.90 ea.
Solen 47uF-400V polyprop $13.09 ea.
Ruby Gold 47uF 500V axial $6.85 ea.
Jantzen 47uF 400V Crosscap $12.01 ea.

The last three don't specify whether they're nonpolarized. Is one better than another, or can I really buy a $0.90 cap for this application? Does the voltage rating come into play here?
 
The non-polorized electrolytic for $.90 is fine for the woofer roll off cap in this crossover. You don't listen to any music through that cap. It just removes some of the highs you don't want to hear out of the woofer. Consider it like a trash can in function. A higher quality cap in that position does you no good.

Bob
 
Excellent! I'm okay with saving some change! Thanks again for your help with this.

This is why I love AudioKarma!

Nate
 
Bob, is it just the Heritage line or all older Klipsch speakers that suffer from poor cross overs? My recently aquired KG4's sound great but would they benefit from a crossover tweak? Also I am trying to buy some Cornwalls will the crossovers on those also need help and how will I know?

cubdog
 
I usually consider that caps that are at least 20 years old need to be replaced. Some of the Klispch speakers like the Forte, KG-4 and Heresy II could benefit from new caps regardless of age. Just that Klipsch used very cheap caps in them originally. Good news is that all of them can be rebuilt and the just replacing the caps with good polypropylene brings them all back into good shape. As I mentioned earlier, I like to get the components off some of the plastic input terminals and rebuid the crossover on a block of wood.

I haven't tried the build on a separate board trick on a KG-4 yet. It uses a little circuit board, so it is a bit different from some of the input terminal block crossovers.

Here is the KG-4 crossover.

Bob Crites
 

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Redboy,

Have you updated your Forte crossovers?

I was looking at the selection of caps and noticed that the 47uF-100V non-polarized cap is good for 200W on the other hand 200W through a Forte is insane.

I am considering updating mine but I would also like to re-wire my Forte's to bi-amp them with my Dynaco ST-70 for the mid & hi's and my Pioneer SX-1980 for the lows.
 
BECtoo said:
I usually consider that caps that are at least 20 years old need to be replaced. Some of the Klispch speakers like the Forte, KG-4 and Heresy II could benefit from new caps regardless of age. Just that Klipsch used very cheap caps in them originally. Good news is that all of them can be rebuilt and the just replacing the caps with good polypropylene brings them all back into good shape.
Click to expand...

Just thought I'd chime in with a me too. My understanding is that electrolytics were designed for a good dozen years. I figure that at twenty, they are done and I replace them. Polypros are good economical choices. Bob knows a whole lot more than most of us about the old Klipsch and crossovers and wouldn't steer you wrong.

Southern, if you are seriously considering biamping then you may want to look at an active crossover so you can get the most out of it that you can. A passive crossover may limit the quality of the results...may still be better though than what you have...
 
jcmjrt said:
Just thought I'd chime in with a me too. My understanding is that electrolytics were designed for a good dozen years. I figure that at twenty, they are done and I replace them. Polypros are good economical choices. Bob knows a whole lot more than most of us about the old Klipsch and crossovers and wouldn't steer you wrong.

Southern, if you are seriously considering biamping then you may want to look at an active crossover so you can get the most out of it that you can. A passive crossover may limit the quality of the results...may still be better though than what you have...
Click to expand...

I am considering an active crossover for the low end but I still need the passive crossover for the mid & hi end. Any recommendations for an active crossover?
 
Southern said:
Redboy,

Have you updated your Forte crossovers?

I was looking at the selection of caps and noticed that the 47uF-100V non-polarized cap is good for 200W on the other hand 200W through a Forte is insane.

I am considering updating mine but I would also like to re-wire my Forte's to bi-amp them with my Dynaco ST-70 for the mid & hi's and my Pioneer SX-1980 for the lows.
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Southern, I haven't gotten around to it yet. I got distracted by all the discussion around boutique caps over there at the Klipsch forum, and am considering buying some better (?) caps for the job. Possibly the Theta caps from PE. Problem is, then I start wondering if that's all I should do :scratch2: . I want to do this once and be done with it. So... caps and resistors?

I'll never have anywhere near 200W going through those speakers. Not with my setup, anyway.

Member doucanoe biamps his speakers via an active crossover, with tubes on top and SS on bass. Very nice sounds coming from that setup :thmbsp: .You might talk to him about his crossover.
 
Redboy,

I was/am in the same situation, should I spend more $ for the better caps or not. At the moment I am tempted to go with the Solon caps but that might change next week. Since my Forte's sound terrific with the original caps I was in no hurry to upgrade them.

Thanks for the tip on bi-amping.
 
Well, I ordered the Theta caps yesterday, should get them on Monday. My Forte's sound pretty great to me too, but the driving force behind this whole hobby for me has been "What else can I hear in my music?" My first vintage purchase opened my ears to how much I was missing before - I want to take that ball and run with it!

I got my Forte's for a song, so the cap refresh seems like a fairly inexpensive upgrade that I'll recover should I ever decide to part with these speakers (seems an unlikely scenario at this point!).

I also ordered the Dayton non-inductive resistors as replacements to the existing 40 ohm 5 watt ones in there. Anyone have any feedback on these?
 
Let us know the outcome of your new caps. :music:

I also got my Forte's used at a low price however, it makes it more difficult for me to justify spending 1/4 the purchase price for new crossover components. I also would never considered selling my Forte's.

What did you use for the 1.5uF caps since Theta doesn't offer this value, did you put (2) 3uF in parallel or series (1) 1 uF & (1) .47uF?

I'm leaning towards Auricap since they offer a 1.5uF value and are rated to 400V.
 
Southern said:
Let us know the outcome of your new caps. :music:

I also got my Forte's used at a low price however, it makes it more difficult for me to justify spending 1/4 the purchase price for new crossover components. I also would never considered selling my Forte's.

What did you use for the 1.5uF caps since Theta doesn't offer this value, did you put (2) 3uF in parallel or series (1) 1 uF & (1) .47uF?

I'm leaning towards Auricap since they offer a 1.5uF value and are rated to 400V.
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I figure the low cost of the speakers allows me to spend more on the upgrade... :yes:

I'll be using the 1uf and .47uf combination. Seems like the Auricaps are a popular choice for this application, so I don't think you'll go wrong there.
 
Redboy said:
I figure the low cost of the speakers allows me to spend more on the upgrade... :yes:

I'll be using the 1uf and .47uf combination. Seems like the Auricaps are a popular choice for this application, so I don't think you'll go wrong there.
Click to expand...

Did you also notice that those expensive caps are also rated at a 10 percent tolerance? That is a terrible tolerance value.

Bob
 
BECtoo said:
Did you also notice that those expensive caps are also rated at a 10 percent tolerance? That is a terrible tolerance value.
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Hmmmmm....

Bob, I probably should have consulted with you first. Are there any "high end" caps that you do like? My impression is that you think it's all a bunch of snake oil. 10 percent does seem pretty lame when you're looking at that kind of cash, especially when PE offers those 1 percent Daytons at a fraction of the price. But are there good sounding caps and bad caps, or are we just looking for something that measures dead on?

Theoretically, my cap values could be off by 10 percent, right? So my 1uf caps could measure between 0.9uf and 1.1uf. And my (1uf + .47uf) combo could measure between 1.32uf and 1.62uf. How much would/could this affect what I hear from my speakers? Do the factory caps that are in there have better tolerances than that? Were they measured and matched once upon assembly?

I don't want to tick anyone off, but there are passionate arguments made by both camps, both for and against these fancy caps. And I understand that I could spend a whole lot more on caps than this! Am I already wasting money?

It would be interesting to hear from anyone else who's actually used the Thetas on this topic, too... Do I send these things back, or are they really the magical creatures they're supposed to be?
 
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