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I purchased a pair of preowned Audio Physic Avanti III speakers in 2011. I improved them with better parts in the crossovers, replacing the MR's HP filter (cheap plastic-film caps)...
...with a high-quality cap in front of the poweramp, replacing internal wiring with very-high-quality stuff, removing the woofer filters from the boxes, rewiring the four woofers, and actively filtering and amping the bass. The sounds of the MR got so good, I began to notice the grittyness of the treble (from the ring-radiator tweeter) so I replaced that with a BG Neo-3 PDR mag-planar tweeter.
Overall, the top-seven octaves sounded much better, but I never got the bass sounding as good--as well integrated--as the rest, so I moved on to Vandersteen 5As. I used and loved them for a couple years, and last year I bought a pair of excellent-sounding Serenity Acoustics Super-7s.
Drove those with a pair of Nelson Pass's FirstWatt J2s, and that was a match made in heaven.
...
Hmmm...what happened to the rest of my post?
......
and again? This forum suddenly has the dropsies.
...
So let's try again.
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Well, at 71 years old, it's time for me to downsize, so off the wall came the banished-for-four-years Avantis and into the system they went.
Drove the MR/treble with the 60-into-4 J2s and the woofers with a pair of inexpensive plateamps my goodbuddy suggested and loaned me, and BINGO! the system quickly sounded better than I ever remember it. Lack of integration of bass and lower-MR was its unsolvable problem four years ago, but did those plateamps with their 2nd-order filters ever solve that!The system has a dB or two too much treble so I'm playing with 1- and 2-Ohm resistors driving the tweeter, and I'm also driving the MR driver* with two Ohms to warm the tonal balance a tad, but right now I'm about 95% convinced the Avantis will stay in the system. I have L-pad resistors on the way to get the filter points back where they were.
*The pair of visibly identical MR drivers on the front panel aren't identical. That immediately below the tweeter is the MR driver; it has a double-strength magnet system and operates from c. 100HZ to maybe 3KHz. The one lower on the baffle is driven from 100Hz and is rolled off around 500Hz.
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
Edits: 07/29/15 07/29/15 07/31/15 07/31/15 07/31/15 08/26/15 12/30/15Follow Ups:
Finally got around to installing the new, custom-wound, all-Neotec-UPOCC-silver-conductors speakercable* (from amp to x-over boards). Also installed quick-connects on the cables from the x-over board to the drivers so that the speakers can be moved more easily.Here are a couple pics early in the process. The old input cables are mostly gone.
I still have a little recabling to do, but that's for later; this chubby old fart is tired.
* It's made of all UP-OCC-silver conductors in teflon, 18g. stranded and solid 22-, 24-, and 26g., custom wound, covered, and partially terminated by Sonic Craft.
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
Edits: 01/05/16
...and have posted some pics on the c-j-owners site.
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
Got it running today and will be running it 24 hours per day for about 3 weeks; it apparently has a dozen or so Teflon-film caps that don't sound their best until they have about 500 hours on them. Like almost-all poweramps, this'n has about 15dB too much gain, but I'll add some resistors to the inputs to reduce that (and caps in series to create the high-pass filter required by the speakers.)Lots of pics at
http://s89.photobucket.com/user/jeffreybehr/library/C-j%20equipment/conrad-johnson%20ET250S%20poweramp?sort=3&page=1
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
Edits: 10/23/15
...the Avanti IIIs. I'll be leaving the MR cable, a combo of all-Neotec-UPOCC-in-Teflon solid conductors, 2 coppers and one silver, there. I'll also leave the lower-MR cable, the low-frequency half of Audioquest Rocket-88. The tweeter will be rewired with a pair of 23g. silvers from x-over board to driver.
All new will be the amp-to-crossoverboard cable. That too will be all Neotec-UPOCC-silver-in-Teflon, a mix of 18g. stranded* and solids in 22g., 24g., and 26g..
So we'll be opening the box just for the tweeter cable.
Also ordered a c-j ET250S hybrid poweramp that'll be here next week. 400WPC into 4 certainly ought to be enough power. :-)
* Sonic Craft ran out of 18g. solid before I ordered any...boo hoo...:-(
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
Any new pics/upgrades to your system?
...the system (for the THIRD time!).
Returned from RMAF yesterday, and I'm lusting after a pair of Sanders Sound Systems' 10d hybrid/'stats, my selection for Best-In-Show sound. BUT...I came home, watched too much football, and then listened to the entire Tchaikovsky 5th Symphony (Oehms SACD, Kitajenko, Gurzenich O., Koln). The music sounded EXCELLENT, and I'm no longer in lust. (Next year? Only God knows.)
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
I look forward to the next set of pics!
havent experienced the avanti but have the older Caldera's and have heard the tempo and scorpio's. My experience is these AP speakers need plenty of space off the walls. my setup is not optimum as i have limit space but when i played around with them, moving them into the room really helps. On the other hand, your mods are intriguing and your system/equipment is fantastic. i am a fan of Nelson Pass equipment now owning the pass 30.8 amp and xp10 preamp. I was looking at the F2 before i brought the caldera but Nelson convinced me that 30.8 would be a better match for my setup.
oilmanmojo
Thanks! for sharing- feel free to post pics!
Excellent! you own quite a system.
...and I've settled on the composition of the new cable for this system. I'll replace the major portions of the amp-to-crossover-board and the board-to-MR-driver and the board-to-tweeter cable.
The amp-to-x-over cable will be an existing piece of trigage Neotec UP-OCC (hereafter 'N.UP-OCC') copper driving the lower-MR section of the x-over which in turn will use the existing half-Audioquest-R88 to drive the lower-MR driver. A new cable made of three sizes (what I call 'trigage) of N.UP-OCC (which I already have), all-silver conductors, to which I'll add a new 22g. silver pair, will run from amp to the MR and treble sections of the board. The MR cable from the board will be new, a combination of 18g. copper and 22g. silver in a twisted quad. The new tweeter cable will be a twisted pair of 23g. silver.
Have just ordered the wire; pics later.
I continue to be surprised and thrilled with the sonic quality of these speakers. And months ago, I thought I might have to sell these as unfinished projects for a grand or so. :-( Not any more; in fact, their value increases a little with each day I listen thru them.
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
Keep those pics a' coming.
The original 3rd-order filter is wrong because it's for a different tweeter, the original hard-sounding ring radiator.I've calculated both a 1st-order filter (3KHz & 8 Ohms* = 6.6uF = 6.8uF caps I already have) and a 2nd-order L-R (3.3uF and 0.85mH). I have all parts but the correct-value resistors in Mills SRA-12s. Tonite I jumper-cabled the 1st-order filter and listened for a while. Haven't decided if I have too much treble or the treble is harsh in quality; based on what others have said, probably it's the latter. Sunday I'll patch together the 2nd-order filter and hear how that sounds. I hope the sounds are better.
And before someone tells me--I KNOW the new filter won't be exactly right, but it's as likely as not to be less wrong than the original. Also, it'll have only one cap in series, which is only half as bad as having two caps in series. After all, just as there's no connector that sounds as good as NO connector, there's no capacitor that sounds as good as NO capacitor. :-)
* including a 4-Ohm dropping resistor
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
Edits: 08/23/15
...(FOF being 'first-order filter') for 3 days, including getting my golden-eared buddy (who hears lots better than I) over today for a couple hours, we decided that the FOF sounded not just good but REALLY good. Ended up with 5.6uF into 8 Ohms, the latter including a 4-Ohm dropping resistor, altho I'll try it for days with a 6.8uF cap, too, before soldering anything. I have enough 5-star-quality SoniCap Platinum (Teflon-alloy-film-and-tin-foil) caps* for either value...
...so maintaining 5-star quality in a pair of high-value caps will not be a problem.Here's a rough filter barely soldered together...just a cap and resistor.
Probably I'll also replace the tweeter wiring, currently a multiple-gage cable wound from Neotec solid-conductor UP-OCC copper, with Neotec 22g. solid silver, and add a 23g. pair of the silver to the current MR cable, a trigage version of the tweeter cable.
* The big 6.8uF cap is a preproduction version which is why it's white and not black. Both of these examples are well used. :-)
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
Edits: 08/26/15
Sweet! Keep posting those excellent pics.
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
Very nice!
Original was wound with 20g. wire.
Output in the LMR drivers' passband increased 1 to 1-1/2dB. The sounds are now a tad warmer and richer, and I'm happy.
I'm still thinking about replacing the original 3rd-order HP filter to the tweeters with a 2nd-order filter better suited to the Neo-3 PDR that's in there now, but I haven't done much about it. Also, I considered replacing the internal wiring to the tweeter and MR, using all Neotec-UPOCC-solid-silver-in-Teflon wire currently on HALF-PRICE sale at Sonic Craft, but decided not to. I have a couple short lengths of triple-gage Neotec-silver wire that I used on the Super-7s that I'll be replacing the amp-to-x-over feeds.
The Avantis continue to sound better and are now about 95% likely to stay in my system.
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
Edits: 08/19/15 08/19/15
The custom spikes I had made for the Avantis.
It's been so long since I used these, I forgot how they went together. Now I'll have to dis- and reassemble them.The holder I made for the MR/treble x-over board. The switch with its big black knob was a work in progress, since removed.
A later view from the other side.
The three cables into the cabinet feed the three separate drivers. The lower-MR cable is half of an Audioquest Rocket-88; the multicolored woven cable is made with Neotec Teflon-insulated UP-OCC-copper solid conductors. The thicker three-strands* (per pole) cable drives the MR while the tweeter is driven by the 2-strand**.The bundle crossing it is interconnect, mostly Audioquest in this pic. The round, white-insulated cable on the carpet is 4-solid-strand 14g. (netting 11g. per pole) to the four bass drivers and is driven by a separate line-level low-pass filter and amp. Currently that function is handled, very well, IMO, by a 350W.-into-4 plateamp.
* Probably 18-, 20-, and 23g.
** Probably 20- and 23g.
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
Edits: 08/30/15
Thank You! Sir.
A ? about the diffraction felt you installed. Did you buy felt and cut that out yourself or is there a source for those ready to install? I remember some years ago a guy offered felt rings for tweeter diffraction devices but haven't seen anything on that in some time.
Thanks
"You can't know what the "best" is unless you have heard everything, and keep in mind that given individual tastes, there really isn't any such thing." HP
...but that site now apparently abandoned or at least available. I've e-mailed him; we'll see if he's still around.
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
Those are some lovely tweeters, and seem to prefer a higher/steeper xo, well above the lower-end "blump" centered on 2.4kHz. I have them in some small DIY standmounts, crossed at 4.2kHz (-6dB) to some really smooth Peerless 5.25" midbass units that were on closeout at Madisound some years back. Slopes are 2nd order electrical LP, and 3rd order electrical HP. They sound SO MUCH nicer than they did in a previous iteration crossed at 2kHz, 2nd order! Shimmer and sparkle and highly resolved detail to be sure, but with a delicacy and refinement that easily equals or surpasses the best domes I've heard.
...I've never tried to measure it. I have no idea if the MR driver could sound good with a low-pass filter as high as 4K. As I wrote earlier (below), my speaker-design skills might stretch to about 0.5 on the 10 scale, so probably that redesign is beyond my lack-of-skill level.
The original filters were interesting--bass-to-MR was 2nd-order LP and 1st-order HP, while MR-to-treble was 1st-order LP and 3rd-order HP.
I replaced the first pair with a 2nd-order filter in the plateamps and 1st-order SoniCap Platinum cap on the amp's input. Both of these filters I moved down, maybe a couple octaves in the plateamps and about an octave in the MR LP. There's so much upper-bass/lower-MR energy from the bass drivers, I'm tempted to say that the plateamp's slope is closer to first order, and I suppose that's why I'm using the plateamp's crossover control at its lowest setting of 40Hz. So set and including the third-octave eqing, the bass sounds excellent--VERY well integrated with the I-believe-excellent-sounding MR drivers playing acoustic bass*, orchestral cellos, etc.
* The Knud Jorgensen Jazz Trio, Opus 3 CD #8401; recorded (a little too 'hot'; the piano sounds a bit hard and clangy often) with a single Blumlein stereo mike.
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
Straight as a string over its entire usable range, which definitely makes it easier to work with than a dome with varying impedance vs. frequency! If your original tweeter was a different impedance (6 Ohms nominal being the industry standard), your original highpass filter will be mistracking, throwing off both the corner frequency and the Q of the slope. Assuming your original mid-to high xo had both drivers down -6dB at 2.7kHz, and you haven't altered the lowpass section on the mid, a complementary third order highpass would be 8.2uF series/0.15mH shunt/25.5uF series, followed by an appropriate amount of L-padding which retains the 4 Ohm impedance.
Hey, since you've long ago voided the warranty on those speakers (heh heh), you might as well keep tinkering! Because nothing is EVER "perfect," and Goldilocks is NEVER completely satisfied!
Hi Jeff,
This year at THE Show Newport Keith Herron brought his pair of Avantis for his demo. His are an earlier version as I remember them from years ago before he utilized speakers of his own design for his demos.
Anyway, I considered his room to have among the most musical and pleasing sounds at Newport. So I can only imagine how good your newer versions which you've then upgraded must sound. That is a very good speaker model.
"You can't know what the "best" is unless you have heard everything, and keep in mind that given individual tastes, there really isn't any such thing." HP
...that I heard at a CES/THE SHOW. Maybe he gave up on those.My A3s right now could use a dB or 2 more warmth and maybe a dB less treble, but first I'll get the L-pads in so the filter points get back to 'normal' (which, of course, there's no such thing with a different tweeter in the system).
I did play my most-transparent recordings the other nite (the first with the SoniCap Platinum tweeter caps), and they seem to be as transparent* as any system I've ever heard. I'm sorely tempted to replace the tweeter's third-order HP filter with a first-order one, but my speaker-design skills might stretch to about 0.5 on the 10 scale; probably I'll leave that good-enough filter alone. Sometimes 'good enough' is indeed good enough. IOW, probably I'd be unable to make a better-sounding filter for the tweeter.
* I define that as the sense that there's only 10 of 20 feet of air--that is, NO intervening electronics or transducers--between me and the musicians, so that one can hear EVERYTHING.
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
Edits: 08/20/15
I wondered too if Keith gave up on that but didn't ask him. Another reason might be the Avantis weighing maybe one-third as much as his large design would cost far less to ship from MO to Newport. And even if he drove a van or with a trailer to haul it all himself the much smaller Avanti would be so much easier to transport.
But I have a question for you. Do you own any component that you haven't modified or at least upgraded parts? ;^)
"You can't know what the "best" is unless you have heard everything, and keep in mind that given individual tastes, there really isn't any such thing." HP
Oppo '105D--I've replaced its feet with Herbies Tenderfeet.Serenity Super-7s--replaced their ugly 'flying nun' bases with ones a goodbuddy and I made of steel strap.
The plateamps driving the Avantis' woofers are still original.
The Crown CDi2000 poweramp driving the SuperSubs is still original if rather dusty.
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
Edits: 07/30/15 09/28/15
Another great pic! I like your room the way it is- keep posting pics of your gear.
Just created this one. It's a small part of one of my FirstWatt J2s, showing the powersupply bypasses. Each PS-pole on each channel's circuit board has a 2200uF/35VDC BlackGate VK and a 0.47uF SoniCap Platinum bypass cap. That's four pairs per amp. I don't have a light small enough to get under the board, so in developing the image I had to lift the darks a lot; pls pardon the weird tonality in a few small parts of the image.
What I'm trying to show are the two BGs hanging vertically and behind them the two black Platinums mounted horizontally. The far Platinum (to the right of the RH BG) is rather difficult to see.FWIW, I have new PS caps (Mundorf M-Lytics), rectifier diodes (Fairchild Stealths), and dropping resistors (Mills 12W.) for the powersupply...
...but I'm so far unsuccessful in talking my goodbuddy into doing the work; my 71-year-old hands are somewhat arthritic and, besides that, my buddy does neater work. :-)
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
Edits: 07/31/15 07/31/15 07/31/15
More great pics! Anything built by Nelson Pass is outstanding!
Excellent pics! Jeffrey.
I would like to see more of your listening space.
Try not to laugh too hard. :-)
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
No laughing. You have a sweet listening space. That is some serious gear you own. Did you build the book/cd racks ?
No, the book/CD cases were purchased from a local Scandinavian-teakwood retailer. I've added shelves to the cases holding the Blu-rays/DVDs and the audio discs.
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Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
Edits: 08/20/15
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