Deang

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Gently tapping around inside the cabinet on the parts revealed some surprises. The squawker lens, generally speaking, doesn't really resonate all that much while it is securely attached to the baffle. It resonates a little, but nothing that I believe would contribute to a degradation in sound. Once removed however, tapping it with the back side of the fingernail makes a nice ringing sound. Since I had them removed, I went ahead and sprayed them down with a 1/16" of "Road Kill" acoustic damping spray. If anything -- they certainly look better now. The "demon" in the box is the stamped woofer basket. It's bad. Very bad. Playing the speaker with the back off, with a stand-offish ear -- shows what I believe to be the major problem regarding the loss of coherency at higher SPL's. It's not the squawker that's falling apart -- it's the lower midrange/upper midbass. Damping the basket got me another 10db of clean bass. The Northcreek wire is a winner. Removing the lamp cord wire and replacing it with the silver coated copper results in substantial lessoning of grain in the treble. Late last night I started experimenting with a minimal amount of damping in the box itself. Currently. I have thin pillow on the lower shelf area adjacent to the ports. The ports are NOT blocked. So far, I really believe this is helping the woofer out some. The bass doesn't appear to be as loose, and I think there is a little bit more control going on here. I also found out that playing the Cornwalls with the backs removed -- nets a very good sound as well. I don't quite know what to make of this yet. Sitting them a foot from the back wall with the backs off creates a chest pounding experience. Still playing.

Hey man, I'm using the cheap wire. I didn't think the Scott and Cornwalls could handle anything decent. Do I really owe you $50. That would suck. Where the hell is that 7 pin? What oil "cans"? Hell, I thought those were batteries or something.

C'mon Allan, they like horns so they can't be that bad. They did a vanishing act before his RF-7's." You gotta be kidding me. This is one hell of a busy band. Hell, they just finished a nationwide tour in November. Since they're typically considered a "live" band, it shouldn't be surprising they haven't put out anything from the studio in almost two years. They spend a lot of time on the road. Scott Weilland is currently working on his 2nd solo effort, and believe it or not, will probably end up recording some stuff with the reunited Doors. STP didn't vanish -- you did. The reunited Doors plan to record new material for a future album release, featuring vocal and lyric contributions from the lead singers of Stone Temple Pilots, Creed, and the Cult. Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek told LAUNCH. "We're going to be sending out the instrumental version of the songs to a couple of different singers and poets and see what they can put to it," he said. "Like, Scott Weiland's interested in doing some stuff, and maybe Scott Stapp and certainly Ian Astbury. And Jim Carroll will be writing some poetry for us, too, so it'll be spread around."

Just think about this a minute. Vintage pieces are everywhere...and still running. 40 years old or more and they're still kicking! Circuits ulitizing tubes do not fail catastrophically. They tend to fizzle out over time as the parts slowing wear down. Replace the parts and they're good for another 40 years. Let's take something like the Zen for example. There is ONE resistor and ONE capacitor in the signal path. My Quicksilver amps have 5 parts in the signal path. There is actually very little that can go wrong in a tube amp that can't be fixed without headache. Solid state is infinitely more complex, and when they fail -- it's almost always catastrophically. To repair even the simplest thing takes forever since finding exact matches for transistors is close to impossible. Blow a SS amp and you mind as well pitch it to the curbside, because with the repair bill you could almost buy a new amp. Check out the pictures of the Scott amp on Craigs website. Those pictures are of Craigs first 299a, which he eventually sold to me. That amp sounded every bit as good (although different) as the Cary/AE-25 DJH and AE-3 DJH combo I was running at the time. Those two pieces combined sell new for $3700. The vintage stuff was designed built by those who had very high standards. I wonder what it would cost to build a Scott 299 now.

I was using Stone Temple Pilots 'Core' -- which is a great recording. When I play this CD on the RF-7's -- they pull a vanishing act. If the problem is related to system matching or cables, then it seems it should manifest itself at any and all volume levels -- but that is not the case. Must be that damn Scott.

Bummer. DVD's are fun. I used the wire from Northcreek. Nothing overly fancy. 14 gauge silver over copper with teflon sheathing at .45 cents a foot. Seems to be a difference between silver plated over copper, which uses a chemical process to bind the silver -- and silver clad, where the silver is pressed or rolled on. However, the guys at Northcreek swear by this stuff -- so I figure why not give it a try. I can always yank it. Besides, 45 cents a foot is hard to beat. I think Home Depot sells some similiar stuff. I think it's called 'Carole', or something like that. I don't think it has the teflon sheathing though. I don't know how DH labs gets the silver on the copper. I wouldn't pay what they are asking however unless it's clad. Also, you can almost get real five 9 silver in bulk for not much more.

So, how do your RF-7's stack up against the venerable Cornwalls.

Nice setup. Why do you have such an itty bitty T.V.?

More than enough power. You might do better focusing on some "cleaner" power however.

Well, it certainly starting to look like Saddam's got a secret stash, that is -- if we can believe the blathering on the old T.V. set. Just think of us anti-war folks as "anti-mass death" folks. Before people start sacrificing their lives -- I think we really need some evidence that Hussein is planning to turn the world upside down. If it starts, you won't hear any "protesting" from me. The time for that is now. After -- we all need to get on board. It does bug me that the bastard is so bent on hiding the stuff. New Moon started on the 16th, so -- if nothing this week, look for all hell to break loose on March 18th.

I originally said: "The Cornwalls are a wonderful sounding speaker... up until about 9 o'clock position on the volume knob, I have a set of speakers that give me everything I could possibly want in a speaker. They are crisp, tight, airy, and smooth. There are times I am listening, where the sound is so similiar to the RF-7's it's spooky. Excellent in every way." What else could I possibly have said that would have been a stronger endorsement? The battle I am fighting over here is simply related to the higher SPL's, which is really no problem at all considering their general use and placement. This "problem" is probably due to a combination of things: Room acoustics, I'm too close to the buggers, and I'm sure resonances emitting from the squawker lens are playing a role as well. My Marantz DV-7010, though good for the money, is probably not the best source machine for them either. I bought them to fulfill a very specific role in my listening -- and they are doing this fine. I will say that Andy was correct when he said the Heresies were a more "forgiving" speaker. I spent yesterday finishing the RF-7's and my dads JBL's. I took a break in the middle of all this and tore down one of the Cornwalls. I soldered in some new silver/copper wire and removed the squawker. I bought a can of "Road Kill" from Parts Express (located here in Dayton, Ohio), and prepped the lens. Tonight, I'm going to my dad's to install the new crossover boards and repaired woofers -- when I get home I'm going finish wiring the Cornwall's crossover board. Tomorrow I'll start on the other Cornwall. By Monday I'll have both lenses ready for installation. Tuesday I'm going rewire the Scott in triode. At that point -- I will re-evaluate the situation with the higher SPL's. I'm expecting significant improvement. I'm not buying the non-sense regarding higher distortion levels as compared to the K-horn. This simply doesn't wash.

Agreed. I've said this before, but since I love repeating myself: I think the reason most Americans have become ignorant in the areas of politics and religion is because they never talk about politics and religion. As far as the religious right goes -- what a shame. Somehow, we (religious right) were duped by the Republicans into thinking they were actually going to champion our cause (abortion issue). Most Christians have made the mistake of becoming one issue voters. As for me, I've decided more can be done through education and changing hearts -- then by building rule-sets that people will rebel against.

If one knows a lens creates a resonance peak at say 3 Khz, one could then create a bandpass circuit in the crossover to compensate for it. Is this true, or am I confused again?

Unsettling information. I wasn't aware of it. How did I miss your posts about the negative reports? I know you're not to thrilled with the Chinese amps, but I've never heard you outright diss them before. Most seem to be happy with them. OTOH, when I was considering a Jolida, I went to the Asylum Archives and was run over with posts regarding reliability problems. Of course, most don't post if everything is going well. Buying a restored Scott from Craig would certainly be a good option. They take a licking and keep on ticking, and mine is doing rather well.

I think the argument from the other side is simply that he is a dangerous, unstable, unpredictable orge -- and must be dealt with. "Liberating" the Iraqi people will just be by-product of the action. I'm sure the Iraqi people will appreciate their "liberation" as they are digging themselves out of the rubble and burying their loved ones. "Gotta love those Americans for giving us a helping hand." North Korea is just as big a problem, but they have long range ballistic missile capability. Hmmm. Guess we don't want to mess with them.

Hee hee, how completely bizarre. Well, the Cornwalls are my next project. They are a gorgeous set of speakers, and I have no intention of letting them go. I'm going to start by damping the metal lenses, replacing the internal wiring, and then building a set of ALKs. If you've been following the thread in 2-channel, then you know I think the main problem is the ringing of lenses at when I turn them up. I do think they sound great, just right now as they are -- the 7's sound better to me.

$600 price range also puts you in the market for one of these. They list for $830. 30 watts of class A with EL-34 output tubes will rock your Fortes. http://www.divertech.com/aq1003dt.html I think the Jolida 302B is ugly. NEVER buy an ugly amp.

If Hussein had wanted to ice Israel, he would have done it long ago. During the Gulf war, when he certainly had the nasty stuff -- he resorted to lobbing pathetic scuds. The only thing that even remotely freaks me out is the idea that if he has the material, he could supply it to terrorists, who could in turn bring it into the country. If it could be demonstrated to me that: 1) He actually possesses these materials, AND 2) there is money or paper trail leading from Iraq to Al Quada - - then I could support the position. However, so far it has been nothing but postering by the Bush Administration. But I'm telling you -- the money trail leads to Saudi Arabia.

I keep hearing references to the 'autoformers' when Mac's are discussed. What meaneth it?

Yes, I bought it, but only because Edmond was nice enough to put me on a payment plan.

I'm sure Greg is a mature adult, who places his faith in the Everlasting God. There is nothing in this thread that Greg hasn't already contemplated and prayed about. We all know each other pretty well over here, I don't expect this to denegrate into name calling and mud slinging. If we can't debate and discuss the issue in a mature manner, then what does THAT say about us? This forum is as much about the virtual relationships we maintain as the information we gleen regarding audio. We've gained respect for each, and this is simply just another issue that we can use to help each other grow and maintain some balance. There have been threads like this in the past, and because of them -- ended up reversing my position on some things (the concealed carry and pledge of allegience threads). We ALL have posted topics dealing with personal issues. These topics always end up taking twists and turns. I simply cannot understand why anyone would get stressed about it. I would rather have a discussion like this over here than almost anywhere else. I respect everyone over here, and I always learn a thing or two. I can't do this in General Forum -- I get chest pains.

Agreed. Need more info.

Yes, and now it will really be a "mobile" home. Jim, you might want to strap that home to the foundation so it doesn't roll down the street. You may even have to go into Odds and Mods for a while -- you ever think about putting your mobile home on spikes?

Man, your'e worse than me. I thought you were unemployed and broke. I always land my best deals when I'm broke too!!