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In Reply to: RE: Vandersteens fixed, well maybe not! posted by Lou S on November 22, 2014 at 06:17:27
Ok, prior to adding the jumper from the common to the common on the speaker terminals, I had no brightness issues. I also had no soundstage, et al. Now I have used a 10 Ohm Mills resistor between the positive terminals, and the highs are more tame.I am wondering if the "Vandersteens are detailed" camp have this configuration, and the "Vandersteens sound like good speakers with blankets over them" camp have not done this??? I also wonder why the heck manufactures aren't doing this internally when they manufacture bi-wireable speakers?
Next, I may pull the Teflon caps to try them this way factory style, they may sound fine??? I don't grade speaker on a curve though folks, they are good, to my arbitrary standard(s), or they give me listening fatigue and are $hit. I do think speakers are a bit personal and my opinions are worth every penny you pay me for them! ;-)
Best Regards,
Lou
Edits: 11/22/14Follow Ups:
What you have discovered is that you should always work from the outside to the inside, not the reverse.
Experiment with external cabling before experimenting with internal parts. It saves work and it generally makes more sense that way.
Also, for me at least, the goal is a system that sounds right with the majority of the good recordings I own. If a few of my good recordings sound a little worse than others, I'm OK with that.
No, I learned what I already knew, but circumstances would not allow, and that is to start with a standard. I have always used certified test equipment so that, most likely, I am dealing with something I can trust, test equipment can slip out of calibration and still work. Honestly I would NEVER have discovered the speaker cable issue on my own unless it was completely by accident, and then my fix would have been to just run to one post and use a jumper to the other.
I have been listening to Sinatra's works for years without ever thinking they were bright. I did know it was not the material. Granted some of the horns are pretty hot, but with the right gear they never cross the line.
Had my other speakers been working, or had I been willing to steal by wife's beloved Ellis Audio 1801's from her, I would have found that there was a cable issue through standard half step troubleshooting, but I would have just tried other cables without understanding why the Goertz cables which should have worked fine, did not, and because the only other cables I have are not bi-wired, the cable issue would have been resolved.
While I understand your premise, it directly contradicts mine though. I think if you start with garbage, it matters not how you connect garbage to garbage, you end up with garbage. So, I start with the internals, and once I know they are right, I can move on to the peripherals. I do this for a living, so I have to be able to move fast when need be, so I do tend use more traditional troubleshooting practices. This time I was handicapped because I lacked a working standard, no question. Furthermore, I am still not positive about me results because I cannot check the supposed offender, the opamp, against my standard.
Best Regards,
Lou
Vandersteen went to a lot of trouble and testing to create a product that sounded a certain way. You, OTOH, might be technically competent in some ways but I doubt that you are a speaker designer on par with Vandersteen. Consulting with Vandersteen about your ideas beforehand might have helped you find your way through this mess.
Might being the operative word. I figure anyone who goes to the lengths that Mr. Vandersteen has to make modifications, or even repairs, nearly impossible is going to be less than excited about people doing modifications. Furthermore, this is about what I had expected due to the fact that he used a metal dome tweeter. I knew from the onset that this was a very likely out come.
The real problem was not having speakers to readily swap out to determine what was causal. I am not a crossover expert, but considering that capacitors have value tolerances, and are not perfect, a .1 uF bypass capacitor in that position is simply not going to significantly effect anything other than the sound.
As far as being on par with Vandersteen, no, I am not currently, though judging from his result, I would argue that not just I, but many, are POTENTIALLY better. Dennis Murphy for one I would argue is better, judging from the results of one his works, the Ellis Audio 1801's. His work is not commercially as successful, but Sony out sells Nelson Pass, so numbers do not necessarily correspond to quality. I can listen to Professor Murphy's design without fatigue due to missing information.
I would argue that Vandersteen is a better marketer than designer. He knows his niche and does not wander out of it. Just like KEF, some claim that KEF gave into the mainstream buyers and moved towards what many considered the inferior sound of JBL in order to sell more speakers, that is for greater commercial success, I would argue Vandersteen has surrendered detail to politeness so that his speakers sound "better" than others in far more systems.
I am a big free market guy, modified by the ethics of the founders of our free markets. So more power to him, but I am still going to call a spade a spade, and a muffled sounding speaker a muffled sounding speaker. That does not make it a bad speaker within it's niche, but outside of that niche for obvious reason(s) there will be some like myself who are not fans of their sound.
It is funny that when people try things and fall short how folks love to criticize. I think they use such little setbacks to reinforce their not being willing to push boundaries. I can respect that, safety by maintaining norms is visceral as at it's core it's a survival skill. OTOH, if some don't push, nothing ever changes. Even Vandersteen had to push to find his niche after all.
Anyway, say nay all you want, it's my prerogative to not be happy with status quo in the arena of audio. I can't actually criticize you though because in other areas I am just like you, just in other things. I don't try kicking my employer in the shin just to see if he'll cave on something! ;-) YMMV
Best Regards,
Lou
I don't want to make a long post, but much of your info is not correct. The tweeters are metal, but they are ceramic coated. They sound totally different than any metal tweeter I've ever heard. How old did you say the speakers you have are? He had made tremendous changes in them yearly and most recently he's using woven speaker cones that make a HUGE difference. He's a great marekter for sure, but have you ever sat down and spent time with the man? If not, please don't make comments about his engineering background or his design work. That's really unfair and totally off base. Ask anyone in the industry who knows the man. I will agree that you must set them up properly to get out of them what you are looking for. That's just how they are designed. Also the cable and components need to match properly. Most folks in this price range don't fully understand that and that's why I personally feel it's so important that folks purchase them at a dealer who knows what sounds best with them. Personally that goes for any component as most listeners don't understand this concept (not saying you don't, just a general observations over many years around this industry). I have used Proacs for years as I didn't like the Vandersteen's back in the early 90's. I went to update my Proacs a year ago and ended up falling in love with the new line of Vandersteens. I ended up with the Treo's after auditioning nearly all the speakers from 10k down and that included many of the boutique brands too. I updated my Quicksilver tube gear (great for Vandersteens) to Ayre gear and WOW are they detailed, musical and they throw a huge stage if it's on the recording.
As for Richard thinking he owns your speakers, that's the furthest thing from the truth. He wants to protect the brand as well as original owners who spent the money to purchase them. If you want his words, just go to his site and ask him. He personally will answer your question. The irony about your marketing quote is that he had to hire Shane Buttner for marketing. My comments are very recent as we spoke about listening to live music last week while listening to his new amps on the 7's at Audio Connection in NJ. I met the man back in San Diego in 1983 and he hasn't changed that much other than become much smarter.
With all that said, we all have different ears.
"I don't want to make a long post, but much of your info is not correct. The tweeters are metal, but they are ceramic coated."
Scan-Speaks, yes, as I said, metal, dip'em in chocolate and they still come out metal. Metal domes, as far as I can tell are problematic. Everything is mind you, but some things are more than others. I'll give Mr. V this, he did a very good job with what he chose to start with, but we are miles apart in out philosophy concerning where and why to start from X.
"They sound totally different than any metal tweeter I've ever heard. How old did you say the speakers you have are?"
They may sound different, but they sure seem to share the brightness issues with the rest of them IF you use clean caps in the crossover. Not sure of the age, they are Signatures, early 2000 era I would guess.
"He had made tremendous changes in them yearly and most recently he's using woven speaker cones that make a HUGE difference."
Yeah, you can use good caps, coils, and resistors and still get good sound! I don't even design speakers but that much I know.
"He's a great marekter for sure, but have you ever sat down and spent time with the man? If not, please don't make comments about his engineering background or his design work."
I have spoken to him on 2 occasions, and he was personable. So, looking at a painter's work does not allow me to comment on his painting, I have to know the painter first? I understand that you have a personal relationship with the man, and I am sure he is a very nice fellow. I just have a different philosophy then he does when it come to audio, and he is free to take shots at my position(s) as well.
"That's really unfair and totally off base."
Not once he puts them into the public arena. If he is designing them in his bedroom and not allowing anyone to listen, then it would be unfair and off base to comment because you would know nothing about them, but once in the public domain, they are fair game, just as are Ford vehicles and those who design, engineer, and build them. That's just reality. Again, I get that you are taking this personally. I'd rather keep emotions at bay and just deal with things rationally, because it IS unfair to expect me to deal with your emotional attachments which I have no control over, nor have I a desire to have any control over them. If you want an intellectual argument, I'm good to go, if not, then this is really futile because I am not going to get into an emotional battle.
"I will agree that you must set them up properly to get out of them what you are looking for. That's just how they are designed."
No problem!
"Also the cable and components need to match properly."
Here we may be seeing daylight between us. I use Goertz speaker cables with zobels, nothing else works like it because the others all have inductance issues. Goertz alone (to the best of my limited knowledge) can pass a pretty darned good square wave, which translates into good transient response, which means you are not hearing the cable.
As for components, I go one of 2 ways, low power efficient speakers, or high power for the rest. Aside from that if it's not pretty much neutral, it's junk in my book. I went down the compensating equipment rabbit hole, it's like a dog chasing his tail, in the end your dizzy and your system sucks. If you want flavor, start with neutral and then roll tubes. Anything other than that you are going to drive yourself nuts if you want neutral/accurate.
I have a Stasis amp which was rebuilt from the ground up. It can drive about anything. I have a Sony ES SACD, I have several actually, all the top of the line in the early to mid 2000-2010 years. Sony does very good with their power supplies leaving me with capacitor changes and opamp changes. After that they are pretty hard to beat. I have an AR LS-15 with bypassed caps, and use Amperex Bugle Boys, 6DJ8's. I do miss 12AX7's and since I do have a pile of them often consider getting a preamp that uses them. Moving to the computer, I have one of these:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/SMSL-SD-793II-DIR9001-PCM1793-OPA2134-DAC-Headphone-Amp-Toslink-Coaxial-/251314231055?pt=US_Home_Audio_Amplifiers_Preamps&hash=item3a837ed70f
I replaced the dark BB opamp and built a tightly regulated power supply to replace the noisy switching power supply that dirties up the DC bias for the DAC. I feed that with a sound card using bit perfect drivers.
If you read up on that DAC, it costs nothing, but they are using a really good DAC. Oh, I did replace one of the internal filter caps with a Black Gate and bypassed it as well...
"Most folks in this price range don't fully understand that and that's why I personally feel it's so important that folks purchase them at a dealer who knows what sounds best with them."
Well, unless that means neutral gear, with guts, then that to me a the rabbit hole theory and I have no use for gear that needs flawed gear to compensate for it's flaws. That makes ABSOLUTELY no sense. If something in the system dies, and no one makes that flavor anymore, than the system if junk, NO THANKS!
"Personally that goes for any component as most listeners don't understand this concept (not saying you don't, just a general observations over many years around this industry)."
Nor should they either understand it nor buy into it. Buy quality and stay out of rabbit holes is my philosophy, anything else is self effacing at some point or another.
" I have used Proacs for years as I didn't like the Vandersteen's back in the early 90's. I went to update my Proacs a year ago and ended up falling in love with the new line of Vandersteens."
Well, if he has changed his tweeters to something that does not cause my ears to bleed when I put Teflon in the signal path, I might love them too. Again, to me metal domes are sending you down that rabbit hole. Who puts THREE capacitors in series in a speaker? The ONLY reason to do that is because you have ISSUES, ISSUES you could have avoided by using better, and perhaps even less expensive tweeters, in MY opinion, and I am not going to come off of that one because I have played the rabbit hole game and I know where it leads! It's a dark hole and I don't what to climb out of any more of those. If I stick a good capacitor into a circuit, and it sounds bad, stick a fork in it, as far as I am concerned it is a flawed design, and you are not going to talk me off of that position! If you start with something terribly flawed, that's what you end up with, it's a RABBIT HOLE! I'll grant you that it takes tallent and persistance to take something that flawed and make it sound musical, I just don't for the live of me know why you would even try when there are so many GOOD alternatives out there!
" I ended up with the Treo's after auditioning nearly all the speakers from 10k down and that included many of the boutique brands too. I updated my Quicksilver tube gear (great for Vandersteens) to Ayre gear and WOW are they detailed, musical and they throw a huge stage if it's on the recording."
I cannot speak to that other than to say that I have heard that those Quicksilvers are supposed to be awesome sounding, and the Ayres are too from what I know. If Mr. Vandersteen has changed his M.O., more power to him! I am tickled pink, I have always wanted to love Vandersteens because they are phase and time coherent. If once I pull the Teflon out of these and biwire them correctly, they sound detailed, I'll be thrilled, I'll still wonder why he started with such flawer tweeters, and I NEVER would, but I will be very impressed. Thing is, the only thing that changed with shorting the grounds/return paths and adding 10 ohms across the positives is that they were less bright, and they finally threw a sound stage. I have to admit, I had never had speaker that I biwired so it was new to me. I came out of the electrostatic dipole ranks, Acoustats and Quads were not biwired.
"He wants to protect the brand as well as original owners who spent the money to purchase them."
Protect the brand is what I was talking about, as far as protecting me, I am a big boy, I don't want or need his protection, and if I get into a pair of speakers under warranty I value my mods more than his warranty. That though is EXACTLY the oligarchic BS I was complaining about, protect me? That is a canard. I am an adult who is fully capable of protecting myself within the current system. I actually resent that type of thinking.
Anyway, I think you are far too personally invested to really rationally discuss this topic, that's just my opinion.
Best Regards,
Lou
Aesthetix gear is a sonic match for Vandys as well.
Great choice with them....also any AR gear or Quicksilver or Rogue...For the 1 or 2''s you can also use NAD separates and rock them. I have also heard them with the brand new Rotel integrated. I don't know which one, but they were pretty powerful and rocked the new 2's...It's not like you must have top of the line gear to wake them up, but the better the gear, the more you'll hear.
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