These don't come up often and for good reason. This one was Designed by Nelson Pass...Forté Audio was the "budget" line of parent company, Threshold Audio. It runs Pure class A and sounds fantastic, especially after the update.
The phono section is one of the best around. It allows the use of both MM, MC
and LOMC cartridges with three different selectable gains (40, 50, or 60 dB). The loading and capacitance are selectable also (47K, 100, or 47 Ohms) (100, 200, 300, or 400 pF). If you don't need a preamp but need a phono amp, this is an excellent alternative. Input impedance is 25,000 Ohms and output impedance is 470 Ohms.
It was serviced/upgraded in December 2017; ALL new capacitors (Elna Silmic II, Vishay 1837, Nichicon VX), signal caps were bypassed with film caps, power supply diodes have been switched to ultra-fast recovery versions (Vishay/Telefunken) for smoother sound, Cardas QE silver solder was used in the process. Also, sound damping material was added to both chassis' to reduce vibration. Ready for another 30 years of enjoyment.
7/10 condition: some superficial marks on the faceplate that do not go through to bare metal, near the logo in the middle. Some tiny marks along top front edge that do show bare metal (see pics), these would be very easy to cover up with a black touch-up marker. I re-sprayed the lids for both chassis. Keep in mind, it's 30 years old (the PCB says 6/87)!
Asking
$500> There's a ton of detailed pics here:
https://imgur.com/a/K4CTp <
