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Snake oil or a legit upgrade?
It kind of makes sense. Solid connection.
Follow Ups:
Before you do this, make a tally of all the solder joint and plug connections from your source all the way to those binding posts.
This is mostly snake oil, it can do away with oxidized connectors, but it also destroys the value of your speakers and locks you into one kind of cable.
I tried it years ago with my Bottlehead gear and it made an easily noticable difference in the sound (more 3D/REAL sounding).
I was already using RCA style IC's with zero added metal in the connection as well as bare end speaker cable.
Suggest you try it yourself before...
I think you are correct, but at least you don't have to agonize about which posts to use. The choices are mind boggling.
Dave
binding post and cables, don't waist your time butchering your equipment.
If you want to change the binding post for better ones go ahead, but keep it nice.
AB.
.
This tweak kicks ass sonically, and only someone who hasn't done it, or has no decent ears or system, or both, would say such a silly, ignorant thing.
Learning to spell would also help your credibility, especially in the first word of your post title.
Starting off with the word "Waist" rather than "Waste" is never a great idea if you want folks to take you seriously.
But you used the word incorrectly twice, so maybe your english sucks, too.
Sorry, but it really pisses me off when ignorant folks try to dissuade others from doing things that will improve their sound considerably. I've done it. It works beautifully. End of story.
Well I can tell you have lots of experience with wasted time, no wonder you think you hear a difference. WINSTON SHIT, oh sorry smith, bad spelling again.
more creedence to WS's OP, which had plenty to start with!
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" -Michael McClure
I simply ignore people like that. Works for me. Never give them the satisfaction.
Besides, I found that folks like that are simply jealous, little wimpy sorts who are scared to death that someone else will get better sound than them by experimenting and going further, so they attempt to dissuade others from doing something they themselves never did and never would, out of audio-wimpiness and fear. And that is selfish and totally uncool.
Tweaking works. Audio cowardice and fear do not.
Be fearless: tweak away! (Unless, of course, you are only concerned about resale value, which is cool, and fully understandable for some folks, but will limit what they can get out of any given piece. Because ALL gear has some compromises in them. Haven't found one yet that didn't.)
And besides, everybody who's anybody well knows there's no capacitor like NO capacitor, and no binding posts like NO binding posts. In audio, less (in the signal path) is more (sound), no doubt.
Thank you for the support musetap. Very kind of you.
(And I still get a BIG kick out of those two adorable kitties of yours in the pic every time I see them, which is a lot, because I always read your posts with great enthusiasm, and you haven't let me down yet!)
Cheers!
I've wanted to try this for a while since my Grand Veenas have no crossover and my Quicksilver 88 monos are fine amps.
The mid unit may not, but clearly the bass and tweeter do. Says so on the Reference 3a page.
My understanding is that there is only a single resistor between the midrange and the tweeter to keep the tweeter from trying to reproduce frequencies out of it designed range and the same is true of the woofers. There is one resistor(I guess it's a resistor, but it's one electrical device)to keep the midrange from trying to reproduce sounds lower than it was designed for. You may call those two resistors crossovers but I dont.
A resistor can not do what you describe. It attenuates all frequencies by a set amount.
For frequency specific attenuation you need capacitors or inductors ie a crossover.
I think he meant a resistor.
Oz
Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.
- Winston Churchill
He did say a resistor.
That's the problem.
.
Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.
- Winston Churchill
I said resistor but tht's not correct. The device between the midrange which is directly controled and moved by the amp and the tweeter is a high pass filter to keep lower frequencies out and a low pass filter is used to keep the higher frequencies out of the woofers. I assumed that the filter(s) were a single, simple device commonly used to "notch " ringing out, etc. Since it was a single simple device it dfidnt fit the usual idea of a corssover. Jim Thiel has the most complicated crossover i"ve seen.
Theoretically the simplest crossover consists of one inductor in series with the woofer and one capacitor in series with the tweeter.
This is known as a 1st order or 6dB xover.
In practice many 1st order xovers are vastly more complex with L-pads for level matching and Zobels to even out impedances.
Never seen a Thiel crossover, I prefer active ones.
To my ears inductors do horrible things to the sound, worse than even a cheap op-amp.
Yes... you could theoretically wire from your amp to the speaker's crossover input terminals with an uncut set of wires and use a "cable glad" to seal the hole.
Doing an A/B comparison would be impossible unless you did only one speaker at a time and compared in mono, or got a second set. Even then, with a second set, you can't a/b too quickly since you want the speakers in the same position. Long term a/b comparisons are possible.
Bear in mind that there are a handful (if not dozens) of solder connections in your crossovers. Imagine a capacitor lead going into an inductor lead. Should we also open up capacitors and hardwire inductor leads directly? Sure we could, eliminating one more connection.
What I am saying is that you are not really "getting rid of all connections". Since you are stuck with connections anyways, I would consider instead to converting to external solder connections. How often do you remove the wires to your speakers? If you are a DIY/experimenter and constantly changing in and out speakers, this would be prohibitive. But, if you only use the one pair and don't often "swap cables" in and out, you could solder instead of using binding posts.
Truth be told, quality banana jacks going into good quality 5-way binding posts is quite a good connection. Good contact surface area, and relatively easy to maintain. The days of #16 wire, 2 cents spade lugs and screw terminals are gone.
Just my 2 cents.
Cheers,
Presto
But, even if you eliminate mechanical connections at the speaker, then you have to do this at the AMP as well!! ;)
and having recently bought one of his (used) EVS-100S amps, I "think" it's a major factor
in the fantastic sound I'm getting from them. Without going into too much detail, the Class
D B&O modules are the same model to what I had in Red Dragon mono blocks, but Ric
"tweaked" them and the EVS just sounds MUCH MORE ALIVE than the Red Dragon did.
Both great amps, but the EVS is MUCH more satisfying for me, and the sound MUCH more...
vivid... and I'm thinking the binding post bypass has MUCH to do with this immediacy of sound.
Impossible to A/B at this point, the rest of the system is the same, used a teeny integrated the
past few months... but the EVS are truly wonderful.
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" -Michael McClure
Thanks for the replies folks.
Im always looking for good cost affective tweak.
And if you are interested in tweaking, please join us over in the "Tweaks" section. We welcome new members and contributors warmly and you will find supportive and friendly people with wide experience willing to help you as much as they can (aside from the few obnoxious nay-sayers who dismiss tweaks out-of-hand without ever trying them, trying to crap in the party's punchbowl whenever possible.)
Happy listening and keep tweaking! :-)
Cheers,
WS
Ric clued me into this killer tweak decades ago, and I am still grateful, as it was a superb (and basically FREE) substantial sonic improvement. Best of all, as the post is used as a compression device, and not for signal transfer, you can go with the super 'el cheapo' posts (as long as they make a VERY secure contact and are NOT magnetic, of course) and avoid the cost of things like Cardas, WBT, ET or Edison Price (are they still around?), etc. etc.
The only limiting factor is the length of wire needed to achieve the tweak, and you might have to solder a new, longer wire in place of the old, if insufficient in length to begin with. However, while that will then make the tweak cost something, unless your device uses the best of the best among wires, you are then in a position to replace the usual junk stock wire with some premium quality stuff.
If you decide to swap out the wire for something new and better (and the right length), I strongly suggest you ping Duster in "Cable Asylum" and get his opinion on what wire he would recommend. Duster's an institution around those parts, and a very fine source of great info on wires. Just give him your system make-up, and what you'd like to do sonically (e.g., brighten things up, reduce glare, improve lower midrange body and weight, etc.) and I'm sure he'll steer you right, no doubt. He usually is spot-on with his recommendations, at least in my experience.
Good luck!
Cheers,
WS
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