Go get out your pitchforks, I’ve done a sacrilegious thing. . .


. . . I’ve added an EQ!

A Loki Max to be exact - and so far, I love it!

I believe in the purist approach for the most part, and I have a main system that that’s all about, but this system, this is my fun house system, but my room acoustics are not great in my living room.  But that doesn’t mean I want crap sound in it either. The wife won’t let me treat the room, but frankly, that isn’t even the main reason I did it. 

The system is basically Klipsch Forte III’s, Balanced Audio VX 3ix pre-amp, ARC balanced V35 tube amp, Bifrost 2 DAC getting sound from a Marantz ND8006 streamer.  I put the EQ between the DAC and the preamp.

It’s dead quiet, and I can’t discern the difference in bypass mode either. 
 

I figured it’s was a lot easier, and cheaper, to add this one component and get the exact sound I want versus going through a bunch of cables or changing out other equipment. 

Soundstage is great, and there doesn’t paper to be any aberrations, but keep in mind this isn’t the most reveling system, another reason I wasn’t too worried about adding an EQ.

All in all, a good investment and make my music more enjoyable!

 

 

last_lemming

Xcool,

 

You can’t turn The unit on or off, however you can turn bypass on and off and you can turn and control all the different EQ settings which also have presets, on and off with the remote.  So basically you can sit in your chair and mess with all the different EQ frequencies to get exactly what you want and then save it to a setting so you can recall them at any time should want to adjust it for something else without ever leaving your chair. And yes all the EQ knobs rotate to the different settings when you press the EQ remote, however the audio signal is not flowing through the EQ knobs as I understand it. 
 

All I can say is I’ve always questioned an EQ in the audio chain, but in this system it only makes it better without compromising all the other things that audiophiles love to cherish so much, and if the EQ does compromise the quality of the signal somehow, I can’t hear it.

@last_lemming

I like this post. There are no "right" or "wrong" answers here. I can certainly appreciate your affinity to your Loki Max. Tailoring the sound to your liking, effortlessly, and on demand checks a lot of boxes in the plus column.

Klipsch speakers are high on my list of speakers that actually deliver what they promise. I’m quite familiar with Klipsch speakers (I have a mono K’Horn in my loft built in 1958), and have been providing performance modifications to Klipsch speakers for several decades. We recently completed what we refer to as a Level II upgrade on a pair of Forte IIIs. At this level, we focus on keeping the speaker "All Klipsch" with all factory-installed crossover components, drivers and input terminals remaining intact. Dampening horn bodies and speaker frames (including passive radiator), replacing factory cabling with "real" speaker cables, and eliminating spade/lug connections with direct silver solder connections offers tremendous bang for the buck in sonic improvements.

I’’ll save you labor pains and just give you the baby: If you heard a pair of these side by side compared to a pair factory-stock Forte IIIs, I sincerely hope you have on a pair of Depends when you listen for the first time. If taken to a competent shop, expect to pay $700-$800 fo have this work done. (Assuming $200-$300 of the budget for competent speaker cables). If you’re handy with a soldering station, you can do the work yourself. Or, at the very least, a DYI with $20 worth of Dynamat and a couple of hours applying the material in the right places will pay sonic dividends many times the investment.

I am 100% in support of your application of the EQ in your environment. I would also consider (for about half the price of the investment you have in the EQ) extracting a new level of detail, transparency, warmth, imaging, increased dynamic range and less fatigue than you thought possible from your Fortes. You’ve got "big boy stuff" delivering the energy to the Fortes. It’s time to consider a modest investment in a very substantial sonic improvement.

And, I promise, you’ll like your EQ even more than you do now.

Good it works for you. Lose the sacreligious part. And the sacrilegious  part. The religion is suspect. I reserve my pitchfork 

@ Waytoomuchstuff

 

thanks for the info and vid. I already did the midrange dampened soon after I bought them but I am curious on the soldering required, is it simply soldering to speaker connection wires directly to the crossover?

 

im pretty handy with a soldering iron, I’ve built my own tube amps and such .