I'll post some photos later today / tonight, but I have to say that I'm slightly disappointed in the sound of these so far. I'm going to mess with some damping and allow some more break in time, so the jury's still out.
The main issue is that CDs sound fine, but vinyl sounds like total ****. I have read a post somewhere where a statement was made that these speakers "expose" the problems with your vinyl rig. If this is the case, then I wish it would remain in the closet-- I don't want no speakers outing my vinyl.
I have now moved them from my main listening room (about 15' by 10'-- probably too big for the 108EZs) where I have some 206Es (which I really, really like and apparently, do not desire to perform an expose [can't find the accented "e", but you get it] of my Thorens / Rega combo) into a smaller bedroom hooked up to a Gainclone. The sound is much better, but I'm still puzzled by the sound of the vinyl.
It just sounds like there's no top end to the vinyl on these things. Everything sounds muddy. Has anoyne else had this experience or can anyone offer some advice? I know these things take about 100 hours or so to break in, but the vinyl sound is just awful.
In any event, I'll take some pictures and post soon.
Kofi
The main issue is that CDs sound fine, but vinyl sounds like total ****. I have read a post somewhere where a statement was made that these speakers "expose" the problems with your vinyl rig. If this is the case, then I wish it would remain in the closet-- I don't want no speakers outing my vinyl.
I have now moved them from my main listening room (about 15' by 10'-- probably too big for the 108EZs) where I have some 206Es (which I really, really like and apparently, do not desire to perform an expose [can't find the accented "e", but you get it] of my Thorens / Rega combo) into a smaller bedroom hooked up to a Gainclone. The sound is much better, but I'm still puzzled by the sound of the vinyl.
It just sounds like there's no top end to the vinyl on these things. Everything sounds muddy. Has anoyne else had this experience or can anyone offer some advice? I know these things take about 100 hours or so to break in, but the vinyl sound is just awful.
In any event, I'll take some pictures and post soon.
Kofi
Kofi,
Bummer to hear the vinyl problem. I'm only speakeing from a small amount of experiance, but don't some styluses for record players only go up to 18k Hz? A cd player will go much higher.
With the 206e's (as I have recently found out myself) are a little soft at the top end of the bandwidth. The loss of high freq. may not have been as noticeable with the 206e's. As well as the 108ez's breaking in may have a exagerated midrange, and that would compound the problem. Just a thought.
Best of luck,
Chris
Bummer to hear the vinyl problem. I'm only speakeing from a small amount of experiance, but don't some styluses for record players only go up to 18k Hz? A cd player will go much higher.
With the 206e's (as I have recently found out myself) are a little soft at the top end of the bandwidth. The loss of high freq. may not have been as noticeable with the 206e's. As well as the 108ez's breaking in may have a exagerated midrange, and that would compound the problem. Just a thought.
Best of luck,
Chris
Corloc said:
Thanks for the advice. I have moved them to another room and hooked them up to a Gainclone and things have improved. The bass is pretty boomy and the midrange is a bit overpresent, but I'm hoping this will smooth out over time.
I'll also be playing with the damping. I only have a very little bit right behind the driver but I think I'll need to beef that up.
Anyhow, here's a link to my .mac space where you can see the construction photos, if you care to. Nothing great here, but I had fun building these and the photodocumenting was a scream.
Kofi
see if you can borrow another amp, ~ 30W /channel, tube if that rocks your boat, ss is fine. I am just curious as to what difference if any you may hear.
3.5W sounds like a 2A3 SE, that ain't gonna cut it unless you only want background levels without dynamics.
I also have a gainclone, one of Scott Nixons's inverted kits and it is good but different amps do things differently so its always nice to have something else in the arsenal, something with some power.
Andrew
3.5W sounds like a 2A3 SE, that ain't gonna cut it unless you only want background levels without dynamics.
I also have a gainclone, one of Scott Nixons's inverted kits and it is good but different amps do things differently so its always nice to have something else in the arsenal, something with some power.
Andrew
Kofi,
I hate to say this, but It might be best to step back. If you have less than 100 hours of break in time on these drivers it might be best to either leave the setup as is and let them play. Or put them back into your break in cabs and let them run continous for several more hundred hours.
I know it took my 206's about 300 hundred to really start singing. I have read posts that said the 168 and 108 can take to 500 to 1000 hrs to break in. I think that is excesive, but I also don't own a pair.
It's no fun trying to hit a moving target. It's better to shoot fish in a barrel.
Chris
P.S. You did a great job on the swan cabs.
I hate to say this, but It might be best to step back. If you have less than 100 hours of break in time on these drivers it might be best to either leave the setup as is and let them play. Or put them back into your break in cabs and let them run continous for several more hundred hours.
I know it took my 206's about 300 hundred to really start singing. I have read posts that said the 168 and 108 can take to 500 to 1000 hrs to break in. I think that is excesive, but I also don't own a pair.
It's no fun trying to hit a moving target. It's better to shoot fish in a barrel.
Chris
P.S. You did a great job on the swan cabs.
I've always thought that the the 300-400 hour break in time seemed a little excesive. Most of the break in seemed to happen in the first 4-5 days with regular listening. I imagine they might improve more over time, but it's pretty subtle and since I never had anything to A/B them with it's pretty hard to say whether it was the speaker or me that changed. My point being that if you've had them for a week or so and are not happy I would not think that they would change so much that all of a sudden they'll sound great.
I would think that the amp might be the problem. I could not find the post, but I remeber a guy who built some swans and tried to run them off of a SET tube amp and hated them. He then switched to a SS amp and was quite pleased. I believe the horn/TL cabinet can give some funky impedence. Also placement makes a big difference. They need to be a little bit away from the rear wall to calm the bass down. If you really need to calm the bass down you can shrink the throat down with a piece of felt with a hole in it slightly smaller than the throat. We did this with my brother's swans and it worked, though you shouldn't need it with proper placement and amplification.
They do look good though. I was a little worried after your jazz cabinet building explainer.
Joe
I would think that the amp might be the problem. I could not find the post, but I remeber a guy who built some swans and tried to run them off of a SET tube amp and hated them. He then switched to a SS amp and was quite pleased. I believe the horn/TL cabinet can give some funky impedence. Also placement makes a big difference. They need to be a little bit away from the rear wall to calm the bass down. If you really need to calm the bass down you can shrink the throat down with a piece of felt with a hole in it slightly smaller than the throat. We did this with my brother's swans and it worked, though you shouldn't need it with proper placement and amplification.
They do look good though. I was a little worried after your jazz cabinet building explainer.
Joe
Yeah, I certainly didn't mean that nothing changed after the first week of break in. Simply, that the first week is fairly dramatic, but after that it seems to be fairly subtle. Pretty much my thoughts were that if you're displeased with the sound after the first week, the subtle months of break in after that is not likely to bring you around. Of course sometimes it takes longer than a week to get used to the new sound of a speaker. Either way it's all pretty subjective, and hopefully enjoyable 
.
Joe
.Joe
Found that out the hard way.
That's the plan for now.
...which is a good segue into my take on the situation now: I like these quite a bit when they're hooked up to the Gainclone in my smaller room. And the bottom has come up... WAY up! which then brings me to...
AND HOW!!! They'll positively smear you with bass if you leave them too close to a wall.
Well, I must say that I like them quite a bit now. The mids are really nice, but they could still calm down a bit. Given my experience with 2A3 SETs, you may want to reconsider mating these with a 300b, unless you're going push-pull; but I'd let other members of the community offer advice here-- I don't know anything about 300bs.
Overall, these are really enjoyable. I'd like to bring these to the Atlanta DIY meeting as long as no one laughs too hard at my inaccuracies in cut and finish.
Anyway, I have been distracted this evening by a new purchase: I bought a Dynavector 10X5 high output moving coil cartridge to replace a Grado Black. Holy, holy, holy ****. What a difference. Its like I wasn't even listening to music before.
But I digress...
Thanks so much for all the advice. I'll post more details as I fine tune.
Kofi
ulfheden said:
Well, I made some changes to the overall stuffing. I added strips of a hand towel and some Dacron Polyfil to the back and sides of the compression chamber since I was getting a little too much in the midrange department. This helped in the midrange quite a bit and now I can see what people are talking about when they laud the midrange of the 108EZ. Very sweet.
The bass remained very boomy and too loud, even when pulled back from the wall by about 3', so I stuffed the bass port with a generous amount of Polyfil. I found that too much stuffing lended to a muffled "boxy" sound, where I could hear the plywood. I didn't like that.
In removing some bit by bit I found that the bass came back and sounded less muffled. Overall, I think I've got the right amount in there to calm the bass down quite a bit, but it still sounds a bit "boxy"-- in other words, I can hear the cabinet during some bass notes.
I am considering trying these in an ML-TL or maybe a backhorn (I think Fostex has a recommended BLH for these and I think another horn design works nicely as well-- maybe its the Dallas horn?). I think if the hole where the bass comes out (technically speaking) were in the front rather than the back, I'd be able to keep the back wall reflections down and reduce the overall bass resonance.
I think I'll play with the stuffing a bit more and see if I can get rid of the boxy sound, so I'll keep you posted. I would say, however, that for anyone that has a good sized room and an amp with enough power to push them (NOT a flea-watt SET) these could be a real winner.
Please understand that I am not saying I don't like these-- I really do. But I wanted to offer a picture of how these perform, warts and all. Again, if you've got the right room and amp (my Brian GT GainClone works VERY well for this) I think you'll be very impressed.
Whew!
Kofi
Sorry for the delayed response. Been pretty sick with a bad cold. Couple that with the fact that I'm kind of a nancy boy when I'm sick (and not much better when I'm well) and you'd yield one lazy and disgusting Kofi Annan.
Right! That's the one.
Well, its actually going to be an EL84 PP-- Morgan Jones' Bevois Valley. I got the tubes for it, but I haven't started the project. I had put off the expense for a while since Mrs. Annan's birthday came around and we had a whopping ridiculous vet bill for two dogs who, against my better judgment, remain alive and healthy. Actually, I love the dogs...
I'll see if I can order parts for the EL84 job soon-- maybe tomorrow or this weekend. I need to get as many projects in as I can as I will have some major expenses really soon and I need to get this audio stuff out of my system for a while.
Kofi
Right! That's the one.
Well, its actually going to be an EL84 PP-- Morgan Jones' Bevois Valley. I got the tubes for it, but I haven't started the project. I had put off the expense for a while since Mrs. Annan's birthday came around and we had a whopping ridiculous vet bill for two dogs who, against my better judgment, remain alive and healthy. Actually, I love the dogs...
I'll see if I can order parts for the EL84 job soon-- maybe tomorrow or this weekend. I need to get as many projects in as I can as I will have some major expenses really soon and I need to get this audio stuff out of my system for a while.
Kofi
Kofi Annan said:
Hi Kofi,
Thanks a lot for your description of the Swans. I think I get the picture.
Perhaps I should introduce myself now the second time I'm posting...
I've been building speakers almost all my life. Not so much the last years. I've built horns, Voigt pipes of various types. Mostly success but some failures as well. Some worth to mention that I built in the end of the 70's are the Schmacks horns, equipped with Coral Beta 8. Oh... I miss that punch. I also built a pair of Voice of the theater clones. Oh yes, I have a very understanding wife.
The speakers that I have now were built more than ten years ago so it's about time to make something new. The current ones are aperiodic d´Appolitos with two Dynaudio 6,5" bass drivers and the D28 tweeter. They are sounding great. Particulary at low levels. They are so well behaved that I think they are a bit boring.
Now since the kids have grown up (15 and 19) I dont have to keep quiet at saturday nights and I feel the urge for horns again. The hard part is not to build them but to choose what to build. I've considered Buschhorns, Fostex recomended, ML QTWP, Nagaoka (yes I've bought the books from Madison).
The biggest problem with the Nagaokas are that most of the designs are for obsolete drivers. But it seems that the D-57 would work with the FE208EZ. I'll investigate further.....
Peter
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