I knew the boss of Blue Mountain. I had no idea. It was only when I saw him on TV! When I say knew him well I would say a friend. The weird bit is I never asked his name and for all that talked to him many times. He would often seek me out for hi fi advice, that's how I knew him. I tend not to be nosey about people so doubtless there were many? Radiohead were just lads I knew. I had no idea who they were. My hairdressers girlfriend became their manager.
Dejan. The thong was the end of it all.
I buy Encona Hot Pepper Sauce. It is the NAD 3020 of things. After years of trying the kids like the results. It's the only way I can get them to eat good food. Stupid thing is Chris is a Bio Chemist. He is getting better. He grows things now. My daughter mostly eats pasta.
Dejan. The thong was the end of it all.
I buy Encona Hot Pepper Sauce. It is the NAD 3020 of things. After years of trying the kids like the results. It's the only way I can get them to eat good food. Stupid thing is Chris is a Bio Chemist. He is getting better. He grows things now. My daughter mostly eats pasta.
Just make sure you washed your hands twice after chopping chilies before you get up close and personal with your ladies lingerie!
I made that mistake once and for about 30 seconds she really admired my 'technique'.
Then she screamed and spent the next 45 minutes in the shower.
Unsurprisingly I didn't get any that night.
I made that mistake once and for about 30 seconds she really admired my 'technique'.
Then she screamed and spent the next 45 minutes in the shower.
Unsurprisingly I didn't get any that night.
Finally got around to putting in the 15 inch bass unit into my OB spekers. The choke is from a power suppy in M6 metal, it was the only thing I have that is about right. The 100 uF the only thing to hand also. From the word go it works. For whatever reason the Beta 12 LTa is far happier as a 200 Hz to 7 kHz driver. I dare say a bit of tweeking will make very OK into very good. If the 100 uF was 200 uF for example.
The tweeter although tiny seems very OK.
The one doubt is shouty upper mid. When on a very low mass baffle it was better. I dare say if I dare graft on a rubber surround it would slove that. To remove the dust cap or add a phase plug might help. I wish I was rich enough to treat the wizzer with PVA wood glue. I have a hunch it would do the trick. I have 3 tiny rolls of toilet paper between wizzer and big cone. It helps. On the low mass baffle none were required.
The Spendor BC1's I repaired recently were better, not greatly and the speed of the OB is vastly better. Also OB has better dynamic scale. Voice quality not greatly different. Seems to me broadcast voice quality is not as good as it once was. The BC1 also a bit cupped ( baffle reflectioin ? ). Polar responce is far better than I guessed. The Maggies are poor on that.
In some ways this is a 4 way speaker. 90 % of the music is one driver that has a mechanical crossover. Unlike the silly 4 inch units it gives up at 7 kHz when the polar graph might close to near zero if trying harder. The sound is a little bit better than many Audiophile full range speakers ( silly money types ) . Those always seem very coloured to me. The people who like them seem to be OK with that.
The tweeter is working nearly as a super-tweeter. It's two pole suggested lower limit is 5 kHz. As I am crossing higher one pole can be used. The tweeter is cheap, but far from nasty. I like it mostly as it has similar output as the 12 Lta. A very marked improvement over full range use with EQ. That makes the sound very unpleasant if above about 90 dB.
The bass unit has surprised me. Excellent is the only word. It is a very cheap replacement unit for a speaker QTX 178.412 UK. The stunning quality is it is very fast and very well controlled. I can get funny sounds out of it if pushed too hard. The sort that says " that's nice " . Some show it with a small magnet. That is wrong, the magnet is 6 x 1 1/4 inch as is the 12 Lta.
I wish Matt who sold me the 12 Lta had the room to test them. He has the measuring gear. Knowing Matt he would double the cost so far for a crossover. I think I will build an active test bed using TDA 2050 or similar. Good enough to get ballpark crossover points. I might even use the capacitor coupled version as it protects the dirve units.
My next idea is a phase plug held from the front. As the 12 Lta moves less than 1 mm It could sit 1mm from the dust cap. If I don't like it no problem.
Cost so far about £200 / $300 .
As Churchill said . The end of the begining. Depth and sweetness now better. The choke as much as anything to help the amplifier. It doesn't get warm, when Magneplanars it gets very warm. There is no obvious problem between bass and upper bass. The opposite in fact. No obvious mid coming from the bass unit. No problem adding EQ to both. 100 uF might be OK to aid that.
Someone has a good solution here.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/full-range/179161-beta-12lta-3cf-box-port-size-8.html#post3559610
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/full-range/179161-beta-12lta-3cf-box-port-size-8.html#post3559610
I was reminded again yesterday, of a key marker of good sound - I hadn't listened to decent audio for weeks, for a combination of reasons, but fired up the PC monitor speakers again properly, to get back into the swing of things - and that was that there is no such thing as too loud. There is a natural urge to keep upping the volume, to intensify the buzz from the listening - and the little speakers were doing it nicely, no matter how close you were to the speakers the pleasure hit was good.
Tried Relax from Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and there are no excuses for this not sounding good. In fact, it was not as good as the CDs I had on previously - because, the playback was sourced from the compressed audio of a YouTube video,
. Yet, the swimming pool splash was quite clear - this is a classic example of using a snippet of sound in a track to precisely "measure" the competence of playback; you assess levels of distortion by carefully listening to precisely how that particular sound is reproduced.
Tried Relax from Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and there are no excuses for this not sounding good. In fact, it was not as good as the CDs I had on previously - because, the playback was sourced from the compressed audio of a YouTube video,
. Yet, the swimming pool splash was quite clear - this is a classic example of using a snippet of sound in a track to precisely "measure" the competence of playback; you assess levels of distortion by carefully listening to precisely how that particular sound is reproduced.I tried three cubes of acoustic foam between wizzer and main cone. There is a change that gives mixed blessings. What it does show is long before designing a crossover get this as good as I can . Both Royd and Dynaco use a wide range main driver with no filtering. The main unit sounds very odd on it's own. The 12 Lta sounds better I would say. I am convinced wood baffles are not ideal. Metal should be worse.
One very interesting thing is even with a 15 inch bass driver near the floor the speaker only hints at bass. It is very very fast which is a good exchange. Maybe some side boards as feet to get just a tad more bass. Slightly sloped to discourage standing waves.
I am 101% happy with this stupidly simple bass EQ. Basically EQ both but stop the main 12 Lta driver seeing the boost. So easy, it seems flawless.
The Quad 33 will mimic an active crossover nicely in this application. It has 5 , 7, 10 kHz turnover . If I build a tweeter amp I could be 90% there.
One very interesting thing is even with a 15 inch bass driver near the floor the speaker only hints at bass. It is very very fast which is a good exchange. Maybe some side boards as feet to get just a tad more bass. Slightly sloped to discourage standing waves.
I am 101% happy with this stupidly simple bass EQ. Basically EQ both but stop the main 12 Lta driver seeing the boost. So easy, it seems flawless.
The Quad 33 will mimic an active crossover nicely in this application. It has 5 , 7, 10 kHz turnover . If I build a tweeter amp I could be 90% there.
Frank. One thing these speakers do very well is loud. I can not talk to someone half a metre away when it seems only mildly loud. I was very concerned that the impedance curve might dip to two ohms. The Quad hardly gets warm which is not so with the Magneplanars four ohms resistive load. The bass unit is 5R7 and the 12Lta 7R8. The 4 mH is about 5 ohms at 200 Hz and 100 uF about 8 R at the same. Although reactive it must be helping. I might try 200 uF to see if a slight bit of colour can result. The 4 mH is a 20 amp mains filter device I specified to go down to 5 Hz. Should be OK. It is a common mode type wired single ended here. Although for 230 V it will saturate in this use. Sounds very odd when it does, not unpleasent. Thought it was the bass unit until I noticed it was well inside it's limits. It is M6 metal so very low distortion when not saturated.
Peggy Lee Fever suits them well . Salsa , Paris Texas, 78's all sound very good. Caned Heat needs work. They sound too much like a studio monitor speaker on that. They need some bloom. If you saw the original film Flight of the Pheonix they are sort of in that state of tune when it just about got off the ground. Being a very lazy person I wish they were better. I will have to work a bit. My ex wife thought they sounded very good. Funny thing is I didn't ask ! I said not really, but starting to be OK.
I am almost certain the wizzer cone is not the source of the problems. It seems to me energy is returned from the baffle that is time delayed. This is then added to the problems a simple device has. On a low mass baffle the time delay or interaction is then mostly main and wizzer cone. The baffle adds a fatal extra group of resonances with very long time delays. I tried by using plywood and MDF bonded together to change this. It might have helped. It didn't do as much as I hoped. Expanded polystyrene is great and has good bass ! I am listening to coral muisic right now. Not bad. Some low level detail just stops dead. Mid level detail at about -20 db is excellent and not far off of the Magneplanars. Modern Maggies don't seem as good. Rather thin sounding. The - 40 dB stuff I suspect is the baffle. Perhaps 80% of how good or how bad a spaeker is will be the roll surround. Dejan, AR were right. No one would use a foam surround if it weren't for this.
I now understand the Klipsche speakers better. They are fast and open whilst being sweet if the Forte. The 15 inch ABR helps. They are very cheap for how well they work. Surprisingly fast. Not much deep bass compared to their look. No boom if is a good situation. They seem to favour modern amps which is not what I thought would be true. Even Naim worked ( NAP 250 ) !
The tweeters are doing a good job. I am feeding them in at 10 kHz and they die at about 18 kHz. Covering them over almost says they do nothing. Without them the music seems close in . If the 12 Lta is EQ'ed to get 14 kHz it sounds almost OK. Then something makes it sound very poor. These cheap tweeters are as good as they claim. Like a ribbon is strecthing it a bit. I suspect if I filter the 12 Lta and bring in the tweeter at 7 kHz job down. I suspect a 3 dB shelf boost about right.
Peggy Lee Fever suits them well . Salsa , Paris Texas, 78's all sound very good. Caned Heat needs work. They sound too much like a studio monitor speaker on that. They need some bloom. If you saw the original film Flight of the Pheonix they are sort of in that state of tune when it just about got off the ground. Being a very lazy person I wish they were better. I will have to work a bit. My ex wife thought they sounded very good. Funny thing is I didn't ask ! I said not really, but starting to be OK.
I am almost certain the wizzer cone is not the source of the problems. It seems to me energy is returned from the baffle that is time delayed. This is then added to the problems a simple device has. On a low mass baffle the time delay or interaction is then mostly main and wizzer cone. The baffle adds a fatal extra group of resonances with very long time delays. I tried by using plywood and MDF bonded together to change this. It might have helped. It didn't do as much as I hoped. Expanded polystyrene is great and has good bass ! I am listening to coral muisic right now. Not bad. Some low level detail just stops dead. Mid level detail at about -20 db is excellent and not far off of the Magneplanars. Modern Maggies don't seem as good. Rather thin sounding. The - 40 dB stuff I suspect is the baffle. Perhaps 80% of how good or how bad a spaeker is will be the roll surround. Dejan, AR were right. No one would use a foam surround if it weren't for this.
I now understand the Klipsche speakers better. They are fast and open whilst being sweet if the Forte. The 15 inch ABR helps. They are very cheap for how well they work. Surprisingly fast. Not much deep bass compared to their look. No boom if is a good situation. They seem to favour modern amps which is not what I thought would be true. Even Naim worked ( NAP 250 ) !
The tweeters are doing a good job. I am feeding them in at 10 kHz and they die at about 18 kHz. Covering them over almost says they do nothing. Without them the music seems close in . If the 12 Lta is EQ'ed to get 14 kHz it sounds almost OK. Then something makes it sound very poor. These cheap tweeters are as good as they claim. Like a ribbon is strecthing it a bit. I suspect if I filter the 12 Lta and bring in the tweeter at 7 kHz job down. I suspect a 3 dB shelf boost about right.
Thinking in terms of the extent of vibration caused by a 15 inch woofer, one would not want any ripples from this source travelling upwards through the material used for the baffle. The effect could be like shaking a tall structure. You might need to find a way to decouple that unit so the vibration goes to the floor. That might entail splitting the baffle in two in such a way these fit together with some airtight but flexible material in the divide gap and suspending the upper half of the baffle by a separate frame.
Yes, a very good sign. If the impression that a system gives is that it is loud then it's most likely doing something wrong - intense, powerful, musically involving are the expressions that should spring to mind. "Loud" equals distortion - the brain is hearing too much "bad stuff" and doesn't want to digest it - it shuts down on processing the sound. The music starts becoming a racket, the mind wants to ignore major chunks of what's going on ...
And the disconcerting thing, for some, is that the better the sound becomes in this sense, the more work has yet to be done! You listen more "into" the sound, and start hearing anomalies you weren't aware of before - you want to resolve these, and the cycle begins yet again!
.Canned Heat is good to work with - I have old, classic tracks, and, a modern album they did. Their sound is very "sweet", very comfortable and cosy - the antithesis of the "modern" style - and that's how it should come across even at maximum volume.
Hmmm, I would say you are half way there.
When a system is getting really good it sounds BIG, without sounding LOUD....turning the volume up makes the sound more exciting and without a sense of loudness as such.
Also when the sound is really good, two can converse and understand each other without need for shouting all the whilst trousers and body are being shaken.
Dan.
True. Clean, well sorted out sound of a system invites you to turn the wick up and stop only at the point where the sheer loudness in dB becomes unpleasant due to room behavior. No matter how good a system may sound, there is a point at which you say that's it, no louder please, this is loud enough.
On the other hand, you will know you have a good system when you are always tempted to turn it up, no matter what you're listening to, all of the time, assuming a typical room SPL for home listening.
Let's not forget that our ears, just like our speakers, also have a sensitvity which varies with the person. For example, my wife's hearing is 2-3 dB more sensitive than mine, so what's comfortable for me is a bit loud for her. OTOH, I hear things, nuances, that she doesn't, even if I jokingly say that she can hear the grass grow.
On the other hand, you will know you have a good system when you are always tempted to turn it up, no matter what you're listening to, all of the time, assuming a typical room SPL for home listening.
Let's not forget that our ears, just like our speakers, also have a sensitvity which varies with the person. For example, my wife's hearing is 2-3 dB more sensitive than mine, so what's comfortable for me is a bit loud for her. OTOH, I hear things, nuances, that she doesn't, even if I jokingly say that she can hear the grass grow.
Nige, I plain hate foam surrounds, because in my experience they will sooner or later disintegrate into nothing. Hence, the life of your speaker is limited right from the start, or you need to have a qualified technician standing by to change them every now and then.
In 1996, I could only note that due to eavporated surround, my ARs were working like a bastrad reflex system. Thankfully, we were able to find classic rubber surrounds exactly made for my speakers, however at a cost of about twice what the foam surround would cost. And THAT, I believe, is why they are used so much, quite simply they are cheaper.
However, my principal speaker system does have rubber surrounds on both the bass and the midrange one drivers.
In 1996, I could only note that due to eavporated surround, my ARs were working like a bastrad reflex system. Thankfully, we were able to find classic rubber surrounds exactly made for my speakers, however at a cost of about twice what the foam surround would cost. And THAT, I believe, is why they are used so much, quite simply they are cheaper.
However, my principal speaker system does have rubber surrounds on both the bass and the midrange one drivers.
Dejan, I'm blessed with having a wife who gets as much a buzz from hearing "big sound" as I do - if anything, she wants me to turn it up more ... I have to disappoint her at times by saying it's running at maximum right now, it's got no more to give,Let's not forget that our ears, just like our speakers, also have a sensitvity which varies with the person. For example, my wife's hearing is 2-3 dB more sensitive than mine, so what's comfortable for me is a bit loud for her. OTOH, I hear things, nuances, that she doesn't, even if I jokingly say that she can hear the grass grow.
.Generally, classical material is run flat out, or close to it - gives the concert hall feel to the experience, one fully enjoys the dynamics ... especially, well played violin, and opera.
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