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In Reply to: RE: do you have your speakers wired for bi-amping? posted by KIS on June 07, 2012 at 23:19:34
jsut need to find out what i am doing wrong
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
quote by Kurt Vonnegut
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Get the bias up...low bias well make any ESL sound bad..i no most have this ...
At one point i got a new transformers...I put in and becasue it was not exactly clear what is what....i just wired it in the same order as the old one
here is the old transformer....
and here is the new one.
Looking at tyu s diagram i have a sneaky suspicion that the new one is backwards if the black wire is supposed to be ground in both.
dee
;-D
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
quote by Kurt Vonnegut
You really ask hard questions with minimal information. Here I would say at first glance that both transformers appear to be oriented the same way, with the primary leads toward the bottom of each photo. However, I have never seen an SL bass transformer with four red primary leads and one black. Moreover, there appears to be a lot insulation on the four red and and single black leads, suggesting they could be secondary leads, which carry high voltage. On the other hand, a secondary should have only have three leads, pos, neg, and ground. The transformer with the orange, yellow, etc, primary leads is like every other SL bass transformer that I have ever seen (N = 2), oriented with respect to the back plate as it should be. Take this question to SLOG or email William directly; he may know.
But if i look at tyu's diagram the black lead goes to the - terminal of the input and the center, in my case orange is the positive... I had the green terminal going to the - because it was in the same location as my old one. so today i reversed the order swapped black to green and yellow to blue. that would reverse the order of the leads...I stil have the distortion, even with the Ma-1. I isolated it to the bass section. So I either already blown something, or the distortion is caused by something else. But what could it be? And why would having the the 8 ohm resistor in the circuit would make it not noticeable, or am i going deaf? This is about as maddening as it can be :). So before i keep murdering stuff, does anybody have the color coding for the bass transformers? The old ones are wired correctly because those are the factory things. I know the that the red and the black wire are the primary side because on the secondary side i have 3 big terminals encased in some insulator plastic. on the old transformers. the new ones are just three leads coming out from the other side of the transformer.
Based on what i am experiencing, maybe the old bass transformer is fine too, something else is giving me fits. I am not not about to start swapping things between the tow backplanes, i find that hit and miss approach to dangerous when dealing with high voltages. Is there a more systematic approach to track this down?
Here is the where i am sitting.
I modified one back plate only. I disconnected the 8 ohm resistor, if i hook up the bass section only to either of the amps, MA-1 or the SS amp with the i get distortion. I have not moved the backplate to the other panel. Based on tyu's diagram i think i had the bass transformer reversed. I swapped black and green, yellow and blue. So right now the input of the bass is between black -and orange+, used to be green - and orange +. Distortion is still the same.
Do i have something blown in the mixer? Do i have a blown toroid? Am i just insane? Ok the last one has a trivial answer, but still, this is nuts?
So i have a fine mess on my hands :)
dee
;-D
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
quote by Kurt Vonnegut
-
Both visually and by swapping sides
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
quote by Kurt Vonnegut
I moved the modded backplane to the other side and it works with both amps...
Now i need to figure out, where is the damage. I read somewhere that you can crete a temporary fix using silicone :). One of these days i need to ship them to soundlab for repairs.
dee
;-D
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
quote by Kurt Vonnegut
Take a flashlight and shine it through the spandex as you examine every rectangle in the speaker frame, looking for holes or tears in the diaphragm. Typically they occur at the edges, where the frame impinges on the mylar. Typically you will find them along the topmost row of rectangles, nearest the top edge of the frame. If one or two are "holey", you can repair that by "killing" that rectangle, using silicon caulk. You will have to slice an opening in the spandex so as to admit the nozzle of the silicon caulk tube. (I did it at the rear so the damage to the spandex is not seen from in front.) Then squeeze the tube so silicon caulk is deposited between the mylar and the stator. This will eventually cut off the capacity of that rectangle to respond to audio signal. It's actually a permanent fix, unless or until too many of the rectangles are affected. You won't hear any difference between the affected panel and the intact one (after repair). if it's only one or two or three rectangles flapping.
SO i put the un-altered backplate with the "damaged" panel...and it sounds quite alright, the modded backplate is with the other panel and it is just fine, quite a bit more dynamic and open sounding, but the two sides together are listenable and no rattling distortion is noticeable....If i swap the backplates, and the modded (no resistor) backplate drives the "damaged" panel then the sound is quite distorted from that panel. SO it still puzzles me what would the resistor across the toroid do to eliminate most of the distortion? Does it somehow dampen the diaphragm? preventing it to slap against the stators? Really strange. I am trying to recollect everything i learned about electrostatic fields and forces, but cannot come up with a good explanation. Maybe the fact that the membrane really sees about 8K across the secondary of the toroid when when the 8ohm resistor is in place and infinity when not, allows it to move more freely and the tear can actually be more independent from the rest of the membrane...I do not know, but trust me you would be sitting here scratching all your hair follicles if you were sitting here listening to the panel with the resistor in and out. with the resistor out it is unlistenable, with the resistor in, you can drive it quite hard before it starts to distort. I am listening to it right now, the system probably plays around 80 - 85 DB and no buzzing .
dee
;-D
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
quote by Kurt Vonnegut
Edits: 06/12/12
I am at a loss to explain your observation except to hypothesize that the speaker is so much more efficient and dynamic without the parallel resistor that perhaps you are able to put enough more energy into the speaker (rather than speaker + resistor) such that it excites a resonance that is not evident otherwise. Also, 80 to 85db is not very loud. "Loud" starts above 90 db at my listening position, by my reckoning.
Anyway, good choice of what to do.
80-85 is my normal listening volume :)...agreed loud is 90+.The salient point here is that the mod exposed a fault in the system that is not obvious without the mod. Morale is that when people perform these mods and things do not work, the cause may be a pre-existing problem, it was just covered up. The normal swapping backplates, visual check, etc is still the first line of defense.
dee
;-D
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
quote by Kurt Vonnegut
Edits: 06/12/12 06/12/12
Heres the two things that CAN make a man NUTs.... the on paper best ESL ever made...an you can figg the other
First of all, neither Ralph (I am sure) nor Lew want to take the responsibility for what might happen as a consequence of any of these mods. So, neither he nor I want to be on record as advocating anything that goes against the advice given by Sound Lab (i.e., Dr. West) regarding the use of their speakers.
So here we are......or you are...well...I had the SL A1 here...for about 6weeks....3 years a go...i did some mods too the A1s that had worket on the Acoustats....these A1 had older tranfourmers..one thing i saw was the panels are so big... that i new thay would not work for me... the Acoustats M3 with 3 panels in each speaker.. thay did not work much better but had a much better SPL.....So the A1 went to a new owner.
So what i well say about the SoundLab mod is this....i would only use the New Fullrang tranfourmers like Lew an others have done!
I would not on my new panels use the stock high frc. tranfourmers with this mod...but that just me ...
Just one ESLs OTLs lovers 5cent..... goodluck
for the cost of roundtrip shipping plus the work, they will be as good as new, and with the transformer mods, i do not not think i need to go PX either. Talked to Brent today. The cores will be trucking out on monday. I could try the caulk fix, but then it will be messier to deal with the repair at the factory. I can live without them for a month or so anyway.
dee
;-D
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
quote by Kurt Vonnegut
need to arrange shipping.
dee
;-D
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
quote by Kurt Vonnegut
Let me be certain I understand your question: You want to know about wiring the transformer in the bottom photo, or the one with the yellow, green, orange, etc leads. Yes? In that case, the black lead ALWAYS goes to the negative post on the amplifier input. The "non-black" leads attach, respectively, to different parts of the primary winding within the bass transformer, so the turns ratio is different depending upon which one of them is making contact with the inductor in series with the positive post on the amplifier input. For example, orange corresponds to "0db". The choices are +3, 0, -3, -6, I think. Those non-black leads normally go to a switch or jumper arrangement, so you can easily switch bass level; the other end of the switch or jumper arrangement goes to the series inductor. I chose to hard wire the orange lead to the single inductor I use in series with the bass transformer, but that's an option. I am not surprised that you would have distortion if you connect one non-black lead to negative and another to positive. IIRC, black lead is always to negative.
That's why I don't know what to say about the transformer with the four red leads and one black, except that the black probably goes to negative.
Thanks. That clears up one issue:). I will try the other panel tonight. Maybe Ralph is right and I have a damaged panel.
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
quote by Kurt Vonnegut
looking at your diagram...which is pretty cool, did you draw it?..I had the black wire of the torroid connected to the minus terminal of the high input, the green to the cap and the other side of the cap to the plus terminal. The bass transformer is hooked up right now as stock. I am not certain if that causes issues. On your drawing there is a line between the bass and high positive input terminals. Is that intentional? I would assume that you do not want them connected together.
dee
;-D
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
quote by Kurt Vonnegut
Edits: 06/08/12
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