Ron’s New System

[PeterA]

I disagree strongly with this statement. Numerous components in audio sold today to my ears are edgy or bright or analytical.


I do not know what is your quantification of "change the game." I know that the 6dB slope crossovers were causing most, if not all, of the edginess.

Everyone knows that speaker position can change the sound.

Ron, I am glad to read that you are once again satisfied with the sound of your new system. Did you ever try Ralph's suggestion of adding a small capacitor to the input of your amps to limit the bass going into them? I might have missed your report on that experiment. Thank you.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Ron, I am glad to read that you are once again satisfied with the sound of your new system.

Thank you!

Did you ever try Ralph's suggestion of adding a small capacitor to the input of your amps to limit the bass going into them? I might have missed your report on that experiment. Thank you.

Yes, I did. In concept I think Ralph's suggestion was a great one, and I agree with the technical point behind it.

At a point in time I was suspecting that the Italians were clipping or distorting, and that that was the reason for the edginess. I used a very cheap high pass filter from Amazon.

Initially I thought this cheap high pass filter was helping with the edginess by relieving the SET amplifier of having to reproduce frequencies below 250Hz. But this might have been expectation bias, because upon longer-term listening and switching back-and-forth I decided the sound was actually less edgy without this cheap capacitor in series with the signal.

Thinking that relieving the SET amplifier of having to produce frequencies below 250 Hz still made sense I commissioned Phil Marchand to prepare short interconnect jumpers containing an expensive capacitor that I sourced.

Presently, with the Italians driving the midrange/tweeter ribbons I am not hearing any clipping, and I don't think Marty heard any clipping at typical listening SPL.

So I have not actually tried the expensive high pass filters. If I am not hearing an actual problem, nothing good is going to come from inserting an unnecessary capacitor in the signal path.

 

[Holmz]

I disagree strongly with this statement. Numerous components in audio sold today to my ears are edgy or bright or analytical.


I do not know what is your quantification of "change the game." I know that the 6dB slope crossovers were causing most, if not all, of the edginess.

Everyone knows that speaker position can change the sound.

Usually when 6dB slopes are used it requires much better drivers.
So one reason for higher slopes is to save money for the speaker manufacturer.

 

[bonzo75]

Usually when 6dB slopes are used it requires much better drivers.
So one reason for higher slopes is to save money for the speaker manufacturer.

If Ron wants to use SETs and 6db slopes, he should get a dual woofer front loaded Altec

 

[bonzo75]

I don't think it took anything like a miracle to remove the edginess of the tweeter that Ron was experiencing. Uros got it right,. For reasons I don't quite understand, somebody thought it was a good idea to uses a 6 db/octave crossover into the tweeters rather than the 12 db/octave crossover that came with the original speaker. I almost passed out when I saw the tweeter excursion when using the 6 db/octave crossover. I thought the tweeters were going to launch out of the cabinet as their excursion was easily +/- 1 inch. Distortion had to be in the 5-10% range! Once the correct 12 dB/octave crossover was re-installed, the tweeter performance, drive by that Italian parallel SET amps was just superb. Violins in particular were sweet and wonderful with the "breath of life" of the real thing. That ribbon tweeter with those amps were deeply satisfying, at least to my ears. Bottom line- Frankenstein lives! And it sounds pretty darned good as well.

What I don't understand is if this was so obvious how was he listening to it all this time (never mind I do).

 

[bonzo75]

Everyone knows that speaker position can change the sound.

In which case why were those couple of inches not tried before in such an active audio room (active in terms of the owner and visitors are all active in this hobby, no one lazy not caring or not knowing the theory).

Or was it tried, but ithe listening of what sounds right and what does not wasn't carried out correctly before?

 

[DasguteOhr]

Usually when 6dB slopes are used it requires much better drivers.
So one reason for higher slopes is to save money for the speaker manufacturer.

A 6dB in front of the tweeter is a no go. Under certain circumstances the tweeter has to produce full volume at its resonance frequency (risk of destruction) if the phase is right, 12dB is always the better choice. A 6db filter only makes sense if the separation point is significantly higher.
an example if you want to have down to 2 khz output with 6db filter should separate at min. 4.5khz

 

[morricab]

Thank you!


Yes, I did. In concept I think Ralph's suggestion was a great one, and I agree with the technical point behind it.

At a point in time I was suspecting that the Italians were clipping or distorting, and that that was the reason for the edginess. I used a very cheap high pass filter from Amazon.

Initially I thought this cheap high pass filter was helping with the edginess by relieving the SET amplifier of having to reproduce frequencies below 250Hz. But this might have been expectation bias, because upon longer-term listening and switching back-and-forth I decided the sound was actually less edgy without this cheap capacitor in series with the signal.

Thinking that relieving the SET amplifier of having to produce frequencies below 250 Hz still made sense I commissioned Phil Marchand to prepare short interconnect jumpers containing an expensive capacitor that I sourced.

Presently, with the Italians driving the midrange/tweeter ribbons I am not hearing any clipping, and I don't think Marty heard any clipping at typical listening SPL.

So I have not actually tried the expensive high pass filters. If I am not hearing an actual problem, nothing good is going to come from inserting an unnecessary capacitor in the signal path.

Hi Ron, remind me again why you went away from the stock, 2nd order Clarisys passive crossover?

 

[Ron Resnick]

Florián thought it was worth a try to get more upper bass to lower midrange body, and I agreed it was worth a try. The thinking was to have more driver overlap in the crossover region.

 

[Atmasphere]

The stock Clarisys Studio cross-overs have 12dB slopes. Florián and I thought that perhaps 6dB slopes would offer a fuller upper bass to lower midrange. That thought was incorrect.

The original 12dB cross-overs are back and the edginess I wrestled with from the 6dB slope cross-overs for the last few weeks went away. Hat tip to Uros (Thundersnow) for diagnosing this as the likely source of the edginess. 6dB cross-overs ask the midrange/tweeter ribbons to play too low.

Marty visited me for four days, and I had a wonderful time with him. Marty, being a natural problem-solver, was determined to leave me with better sound than he found me. Marty accepted the parameters of (i) Frankenstein system, (ii) tri-amplification and (iii) passive cross-overs.

Marty accustomed himself to the system for a day or so. Marty has a Steinway piano in the back of his listening room, and one of his set-up techniques is to solve for the most natural piano reproduction possible.

Marty moved each Clarisys speaker two inches towards the middle, and he moved the Gryphon bass towers forward and in-line with the ribbon panels. He also moved the listening chair back an inch or two toward the rear wall.

These position changes noticeably improved dynamics and impact and smoothness and naturalness. Removing the edginess caused by the 6dB cross-overs allowed us to remove DIY Zobel networks which I had installed as a Band-Aid to reduce edginess, but they also sacrificed "air" and open-ness.

This is the happiest I've been with the sound of the system since I started this thread.

Thank you very, very, very much Marty!

Thanks for the explanations of what was up. 6dB slopes can be problematic as there can be phase shift up to (or down to) 10x (or 1/10th) the cutoff frequency. This can sometimes be heard as a weakened sound stage and can introduce tonal anomalies (brightness?) as well. And that has nothing to do with the mechanics of the tweeter, which was clearly being stressed. I'm glad this got sorted!

Oh, and the week before Marty arrived Robbes and I removed the 20 inch round TubeTraps in the front corners.

PS: Doesn't that look like a good spot for a big subwoofer?

View attachment 163201

It does but be careful of how you point it. Keep in mind its likely to be inside the room boundary effect which can boost output by about 3dB per octave going down. Audiokinesis Swarm subs are specifically built to take advantage of this fact and so neatly fit in such spaces without being boomy. Its likely that whatever sub you put there will work better if its angled so its output is bounced around like a cue ball. In that way its output will be more able to prevent standing waves in the room.

So I have not actually tried the expensive high pass filters. If I am not hearing an actual problem, nothing good is going to come from inserting an unnecessary capacitor in the signal path.

Without trying it you won't know. If the amp is seeing signals that the tweeter is not able to reproduce, the amp will be making power that isn't used and additional distortion. You have the stuff, try it! You might be surprised.

A 6dB in front of the tweeter is a no go. Under certain circumstances the tweeter has to produce full volume at its resonance frequency (risk of destruction) if the phase is right, 12dB is always the better choice. A 6db filter only makes sense if the separation point is significantly higher.
an example if you want to have down to 2 khz output with 6db filter should separate at min. 4.5khz

The 12dB slope also limits the spread of the phase shift.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Without trying it you won't know. If the amp is seeing signals that the tweeter is not able to reproduce, the amp will be making power that isn't used and additional distortion. You have the stuff, try it! You might be surprised.

Of course, I agree, that without trying it I don't know.

Right now the system is working, I am happy, I am not touching a thing.

 

[Atmasphere]

Of course, I agree, that without trying it I don't know.

Right now the system is working, I am happy, I am not touching a thing.

Happy is good! Is even happier better?

Asking for a friend I really don't know- but it seems that such is the basis of why audiophiles exist.

 

[morricab]

Florián thought it was worth a try to get more upper bass to lower midrange body, and I agreed it was worth a try. The thinking was to have more driver overlap in the crossover region.

I could see having a 1st order slope on the bass panel would give you that but 1st order on the ribbons sounds like it wouldn't help significantly and, as you heard, it stresses them quite a bit. You then have asymmetric slopes but with some additional shaping of the response it might work kind of how you intended.

 

[Holmz]

Florián thought it was worth a try to get more upper bass to lower midrange body, and I agreed it was worth a try. The thinking was to have more driver overlap in the crossover region.

How the bass and midrange shapeshift into the tweeter also getting affected?
I am assuming 6-6-6dB slopes, which I guess explains the exorcism part from a few pages back?

I thought that the speaker were supposed to be something special?
Sounds like a bunch cowboy, or Rube Goldberg, engineering that translated into Italians versus French along the way.
I think that I sort of lost the thread on this.

 

[PeterA]

Oh, and the week before Marty arrived Robbes and I removed the 20 inch round TubeTraps in the front corners.

PS: Doesn't that look like a good spot for a big subwoofer?

View attachment 163201

I had great results from removing tube traps from my front corners. Could you describe the improvement you heard?

Regarding those front corners for subwoofers, don’t you have massive woofer towers from your pendragons? Are you going for a six tower system with four sets of amplifiers?

 

[Ron Resnick]

I had great results from removing tube traps from my front corners. Could you describe the improvement you heard?

I am a big believer in A/B/A. We didn't put them back after removing them, so I'm not sure what differences I heard.

Robbes, who formerly was a recording engineer, was confident that "the soundstage opened up."

Regarding those front corners for subwoofers, don’t you have massive woofer towers from your pendragons?

Yes; Marty thinks subwoofers are totally unnecessary in my system.

Are you going for a six tower system with four sets of amplifiers?

Maybe more subwoofers for that ham sandwich?

(But a subwoofer would not be another tower.)

 

[bonzo75]

Florián thought it was worth a try to get more upper bass to lower midrange body, and I agreed it was worth a try. The thinking was to have more driver overlap in the crossover region.

It’s always worth trying new things. But when you did it did you not hear it not work as well as you expected, and why did you not switch back, till Marty told you to

 

[Holmz]

It’s always worth trying new things

Maybe not “always”?

. But when you did it did you not hear it not work as well as you expected, and why did you not switch back, till Marty told you to

It would have been good to see a before and after with REW or the like.
I am sure that the distortion would have been high under and over the drivers range with over excursion and cone breakup respectively,

It’s sort of a lost opportunity there to not see the objective and subjective comport with each other.

 

[Porsche]

It’s always worth trying new things. But when you did it did you not hear it not work as well as you expected, and why did you not switch back, till Marty told you to

I was going to ask same thing, pretty simple fix