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bliss53

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Posts posted by bliss53

  1. I have some homemade absorber/reflector tubes. I noticed a big bass tightening effect on my quartets and vandersteens. I think this is because they have some rear firing passive/active drivers. There is a noticeable but lesser improvement with cornwalls, heresys and advents. There is also a an improvement to placing them in the back corners of the room.

    They were built from large round pipe insulation with the covering removed. The seam of the tube is closed with construction adhesive. A circle of plywood is added with construction adhesive to the top and bottom to provide a stapling surface. Half the surface area of the tube gets wrapped in plastic the other half is left with the surface of the fiber glass. They are then covered in speaker cloth. I added unplayable records to cover the staples on the top. One set for a friend will get cherry tops and bottoms. With the half plastic cover you then can rotate them to adjust the absorption/reflection effect.

    They did improve my friends high end proclaim speakers.

  2. I have not been inside my vandersteens. They were sealed in new factory boxes from refurbish when I got them. They appear to be a pressure fit on the bottom with four dowels. See the vandersteen instructions on opening them http://www.vandersteen.com/pages/Pdffiles/RepairIns.pdf. It does not sound to difficult. Give them a call if you get stuck. The two times I have called with questions I was connected to Richard Vandersteen and he was extremely helpful.

    The 2w sub was the key to these speakers for me. I have acoustic issues in my main room that do not all them to sound their best. I set them up in the inlaw apartment when the inlaws go south. I look forward to setting them up each fall :-) They are very accurate. They point out bad recordings and are not overly forgiving. Small changes in placement, upright angle and toe in can have tremendous impacts. Once they are dialed in they are in a class with speakers that cost much more. They require more power to drive than the Klipsch.

    They are a different sound than Klipsch. The Klipsch have a more listenable quality across all recordings. Klipsch are much more forgiving to my rooms acoustical issues. They have a snap that is very engaging in comparison.

    I have limited experience, but I would own two sets of main speakers when I hit the lottery. One set would be a set of vandersteen 5a and a set of khorns.

  3. Got them sounding great with new caps and tweeter diaphragms, now for the refinishing. Sanded down the original finish carefully with a belt sander. Ordered two sheets of 10 mil backed sequential cherry veneer from Oakwood (Thanks Greg).

    Greg where did you get the veneer trimmer that you use for trimming with the grain?

  4. Audition?

    I am in Amherst, New Hampshire. It is probablay to far to travel with current gas prices but if you find yourself in my area come listen.

    I have a pair of cornwalls, heresys and quartets. We can hook up a vintage 70 watt receiver, a newer 35 watt tube integrated amp or a higher power tube pre amp/solid state amp combo. A couple of turntables, a music server and a decent cd transport are available for sources. You can also audition a vandersteen 2ce/2w combo, psb 5t, or 4 stacked large vintage advents. If you decide to make the trip you could bring your own source and amp stuff.

    My wife would like me sell all of them. so we can talk if you really like any of them. The cornwalls and the vandersteen set up would be a little out of out of your price range.

  5. I had a real problem with my room. I have a square room. This is the worst. My main issues were midbass mode cancelation and very bright highs. I made my own treatments and I have to hang blankets over the homemade formica video screen for serious two channel listening. I bought acoutically transparent screen material but I haven't gotten around to making a new screen with absorbtion behind it. The results are not perfect the big issues are mitigated. See the pic.

  6. I will second innertuber about getting the bits out of the computer. I use a M-audio audiophile interface that acts as a cheap dac. I run usb out of the computer to the dac then analog rca connections to pre amp . This set up sounds much better than the headphone out on the computer connected directly to the premap. I am currently using itunes. I have a mix of file densities but a while back I changed to lossless going forward. I have also ripped some vinyl with audicity freeware with good results. I have a friend with a musical fidelity usb dac that I am planing to test to see the difference. I am looking for cost effective improvements in software or anything else if any one has any suggestions.

  7. Good show. I agree with Fremer the drums were a little dominating but not to bad. Donald's voiceBand was great. Horns, back up singers were especially notable. Walter is not a vocalist, but he still can play the guitar riffs really well. The two excessively drunk guys in front of us caused a disturbance through half the show before they were taken out. That was kind of a damper on the value of $85 tickets. The CT crowd was very mellow. They did not get a second encore song out of the band. In the end I came out feeling very happy that I went.

  8. I have the illness. Landed a pair of 89 Heresy II in rough shape for $120. I was traveling in CT on business and a ebay seller could not sell them at $250. I went and looked at them after the sale. The tweeters are blown. There is one corner that looks a little punky. It looks like it got wet at some time and swelled. The inside of the cabinet is solid at that point. I will re-veener.

    How do repair this area?

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