A cautionary tale for FR owners (and probably for owners of other Apogee models):
I am guessing that many people are innocently listening to these speakers incorrectly. Why? The polarity (phasing) of the drivers relative to one another can easily be incorrectly connected. This topic can be very confusing. The pigtails on my FRs and (my Divas too) have colored sleeves indicating what would seem to be the “+” terminal. But these colors do not really indicate “+”. They are relative connection aids only. The stock interface boxes for FRs have a non-inverting transformer connection in the bass but the transformer for the MR has an inverting connection, as does the TW’s connection to its RC crossover. The simple passive line-level crossover is non-inverting in both paths, of course. If the speakers are completely original then connection is straightforward. Blue goes to blue, red goes to red, white goes to white and black goes to black. Everything will be right if the speakers are original, all original boxes are used, and everything is connected per the color codes. And - if the speakers are placed per Apogee’s guidance with minimal toe-in.
The problem is that over the decades, owners, or even restorers, might have changed the pigtails and relabeled the assumed hot leads based on a battery deflection test, but that will be wrong! Furthermore, if users decide to modify or to replace the interface box or to tri-amplify, they can inadvertently reverse the polarities of the drivers relative to one another. I refer here to woofer-to-MR phasing and MR-to-TW phasing, not to side-to-side polarity. But we will check for correct side-to-side polarity too. I discovered that there is confusion about the details of correct connections even among the experts. So I ended up discussing the matter with Graz.
My best advice is what Graz told me: You HAVE to experiment by listening to make sure all the drivers are correctly connected. All Apogee owners should run these tests to verify correct connections. I have described how I did it with FRs and Divas, but owners of other models can do similar tests.
First place the speakers in the listening room where you want them (another big, but separate topic). They should be symmetric relative to side wall distances, and at least 4 feet from the wall behind them. Set toe-in to be either zero or very slight (less than a half-inch of rotation across the face of the speakers).
Next make sure all drivers are correctly “phased” side-to-side. I verified this by playing monaural pink noise from a test CD through both woofers with the other drivers disconnected. I then reversed the connections on one side. The correct connection will place the noise tightly into the center between the speakers. The wrong side-to-side polarity will make the noise diffuse and it will seem to float around your head. Repeat this test with the MR drivers by themselves, and finally with the TWs by themselves. Yes, you must test the different drivers separately. Testing with all drivers connected might hide or confuse a polarity error if one set of drivers is wrongly connected. OK, that’s just the start. Hopefully your speakers will at least have side-to-side polarity right. Now the real fun begins.
Next connect the woofers and MR ribbons only (including any needed corrections from the side-to-side tests). Leave the tweeters disconnected for now. Play a known-good recording of a female vocal, where the voice comes from the center of the soundstage. Listen carefully to a selection. Now reverse the pigtails of BOTH sides of the woofers and listen again. With the wrong connection the voice will be diffuse and disembodied. It will not be tightly focused in the center. It may not sound bad at all, surprisingly. But with the correct connection the voice will snap into focus in the center of the soundstage and it will sound fully fleshed out and whole. It is not hard to discover which connection is correct and which is not.
Next connect the tweeter ribbons and play the selection again. Reverse BOTH sides of the tweeters’ pigtails and compare. Listen to vocal sibilants. I also listened to percussion instruments. Make sure the leading edge transients sound crisp and focused. Incorrectly connected, the sound might be dull and slurred.
Now sit back and enjoy!
This test can be conducted on any of the Apogee speakers. I suspect that the FR is at the highest risk of being connected incorrectly due to its age giving it more opportunities for changes to have been made, and because of some intended polarity inversions inside the interface box. If the interface box has been modified or replaced, or if the MR is driven through a series resistor as some prefer to do, the MR amplifier’s leads must be reversed to match the inverting MR transformer. For those such as myself who drive the woofers directly, we can use the same correct polarity as when we used the bass transformer because, unlike the MR, it is non-inverting.
My advice, and I think I am paraphrasing Graz too, is not to try to think it all out. The proof is in the pudding. Just do the simple tests I described above, and you will KNOW for sure that you have the phasing correct.
I suspect that a fairly high percentage of Apogee owners are playing their speakers with incorrect polarities. Because of the gentle first-order crossovers in the bigger models, these speakers will still sound better than they ought to sound when one set of drivers is connected backwards.
I suspect that the driver polarities might have to be set differently if the speakers are fully toed-in and facing the listener, contrary to what Jason Bloom and Leo Spiegel advised. In fact, if a listener prefers the sound of large Apogees fully toed in, that may be indicative of a driver connection problem.
Correctly adjusted and positioned, the FR speakers will deliver vocals as natural-sounding as I have ever heard. They will reveal differences in microphones, venues and recording settings. It can be uncanny to hear the front-to-back layering of instruments and voices. I have never heard anything quite like them.
. 
