Clipped and Shorn

Today fini and I made a visit to the home of audio maestro extraordinaire mdeneen. It is so cool that we all live within covenient visiting distance here in the Northern California wine country. After an audio tour of mdeneen's main system , an amazing ongoing development which is already top flight, and let me tell you those home made speaker cabinets of his are way more impressive than the posted photos would indicate, we went to the garage shop where I was instructed to start dismantling the old Dynakit -70. After biting the bullet, and with total trust in the maestro's prospective alterations, I started snipping away and de-soldering. By the time I was finished, and learning about that solder vacuum cleaning thingy for the first time- something I do not remember from 50s ham radio days, there was virtually nothing left on this classic Dynakit-70 but the transformers and chassis, gulp! At least the old 15.6 ohm extracted resistors, unique to this circuit are worth a couple of dollars on eBay. The rest of that old stuff under there was loosely referred to as "let's get all that crap out of there", yes, a good sign indeed, and affirmation that everything will be replaced with choice upgraded components and the wizard's mystery schematic. Now I will be able to polish up the old chrome chassis and wait for the next installment. All and all my understanding of things electronic is making quantum leaps forward, as you would imagine, just hanging around mdeneen. Mr. fini and I now understand "the capacitor" along intuitive lines that few textbooks could make as clear. I am stoked and excited about the sonic results that will ultimately result from this Dynakit customization. I'll keep you posted on future progress. -stripped and de-soldered - This message has been edited by Clipped and Shorn on 02-27-2002 at 10:43 PM

I am considering bi-amping my Cornwalls. Does anyone have a schematic of the crossover I could look at? Has anyone had some experience bi-amping or otherwise modifying Cornwalls-eg. like trying other Woofers than the stock Klipsch in the process? Just curious and ready for some interesting experimentation and exploration. -Lewised and Clarked.

fini never ceases to amaze me with what he finds on the bargain tables of yard sales and flea markets! You should see that Pioneer SX-1050 receiver, or better yet you should try to pick it up. Man does that thing have some large transformers, heaviest home electronic thing I've ever tried to pick up. Looks to be a really top of the line SS unit, be interesting to hear what it does on the track. Also I It didn't realize that Pioneer made such a nice turntable. It matches the receiver cosmetically. Very straight forward, simple, and elegant. No reason not to believe it will be just dandy with the right cartridge. If nothing else the dual gives him a 78 speed which comes in handy when playing grandma's old records for the kids. Like my Dual 1019 it seems like there are too many moving parts under there, but it was working. Sometimes with these old units there can also be a problem with the wiring from the cartridge to the jacks. They can pick up all sorts of undesirable noises etc.You will know about that when you hook it up and listen even with the old cartridge that it came with. Of all the ways we are all trying to beat the system (257K preamps etc.) yours will be one to write a book about. "How I put together a high-end audio system for under..... $ whatever. Meanwhile I am getting excited about the prospective chopped, channeled, dropped, and supercharged pp triode wizardry mdeeneen is dreaming up to hide under the hood of my unassuming Dynakit-70ST designed to make my Cornwalls sing more clearly. -cluttered and shelved

delete. This message has been edited by Clipped and Shorn on 03-08-2002 at 11:15 PM

fini, When you say broke, do you mean the table does not turn, or does not hold speed, or what? Maybe it is fixable? Hey, with your ability to be at the right yard sale at the right time, mdeneen's inside knowledge, and my knack for getting up early to prepare Crawfish pie, we could have a big audio bargain fest, fill fruit jar, and have big fun down on the Bayou. -Clip-on Soup-stain

fini, Does that Dual 1219 have the 78 speed? I picked up a Dual 1019 awhile back (forgot to show it to you since it is over in the old editing room with all the old 78s and lots of mildew --yes, I need to buy one of those serious ozone generator air cleaning things, the kind you cannot be in the room with when its doing its thing. Not good for anything made of rubber though. Ozone will cause it to decay fast. So what was I talking about....hmmmm Oh yes Dual turntables. As I remember, both the Dual 1219 and the Dual 1019 are sought after on eBay. I still have to get a cartridge for my 1019. What kind of cartridge is on your 1219? The Dual 1019 is a workhorse, although a bit over the top mechanically, lots of things meshing and levers doing their things, almost too much to deal with,but I know some vinyl and 78 collectors who love the 1019. I believe the 1219 is also a workhorse. I am not sure about its audiophile appeal though. I was going to use the 1019 for transferring 78s so I can toast some CDs on my iMac. The 1019 even has a 16 speed. Only thing it cannot do is play 16" transcription discs (of which I have only 3). Not worth getting a transcription player just for these. Think I will dump them on eBay. I am sure you could make out handsomely on eBay with the 1219, considering you got it for $5. Cl&Sh

I was reading through this thread and noticed a little heating up in the personality department. I am just starting down this road of upgrading and going back to tube amps etc. All because I grabbed some nice old Klipsch horn driven speakers. I have never met any of the members of this forum, and I can only tell their respective credentials from how they discuss problems and issues that we beginners bring to the table. As far as I know some of you could be top notch engineers who have the highest of credentials and experience. For example, I just read this statement about Capacitors from mh: < "I can tell you that the modern oil caps are simply amazing... so smooth with excellent detail. Putting a Jensen oil (they have been in the business for 50 years btw) vs a Hovland vs a Orange Drop 716P can be easily discernable. And you can hear the increase in performance. Of course, I would not put something like this in the Scott. But I might suggest the reasonable Auricaps for the important coupling caps. And I would opt for good PS caps as well. No, not Black Gates WKZ at 100 a pop. But there are good alternative low ESR caps. "> This creates in me an image of Mr. Mobile Homeless at a bench with a particular amplifier with a particular circuit taking one after another of every Cap currently available and systematically plugging it into the circuit for an objective comparison. What I want to know is , did you really do that? Sometimes I am totally amazed at what seems like such absolutely thorough knowledge of what is available and what it implies sonically. I am curious how you actually obtained this knowledge which seems like it would take a high paying job at a major test laboratory to obtain. Forgive my naivete here, I am only beginning down the path and it seems like there is so much to know and so many damn variables and comparisons and evaluations. Has someone, maybe you in fact, actually tried every one of these Capacitors in an amplifier, and then went on to compare every one of these available Caps in yet another amp circuit, and then another, and then another? And are the sonic evaluations of one Cap over another further verified with a sample of listeners over a range of recorded music and a range of additional necessary components to the system like speakers and preamps and media players etc.? Seems like such an overwhelming number of variables in order to come to the desired conclusions. Maybe I am making it more complicated than it actually is. Just Curious. -lippedcayed and hornsayed, OR -awed and dismayed This message has been edited by Clipped and Shorn on 02-14-2002 at 10:43 PM

What does it mean "Tube Rolling". Assuming, as I intuitively sense, that it means trying different tubes to explore subtle variations in sonic manifestations, I would like to know some examples of typial substitutions. I do understand that many discussions of substitutions have simply to do with manufacturer brands and vintage where it is obvious that it is simply a matter of changing the tubes. I assume that the most common substitutions of actual tube type do not require any rewiring in the circuit, but are there also some typical substituitions which are done that do require this. For example, could one simply substitute any of these output tubes in any amplifier without rewiring the circuit, and are there other typical "families" of similar lines of substitution. KT 88 EL34 6L6 6V6 6550 KT 90 KT 66 5881 Generally I would like to know more about what I hear the tubers (bulbies) discussing in this regard. -rhizomed and cormed

I only see one control pot on the cabinet housing the 15" triax, so maybe there are some other terminals on that crossover unit attached to the side of the speaker for hooking up a second control. Maybe I will take a closer look at the unit and get back here. -clpd &shrn

If I am not mistaken the term "triaxial system" was on the back of this unit Model 315. I wasn't really thinking of of ebaying it out right away. It might be fun to see what it sounds like first and if it is good I could use it in a two channel with the other cabinet that has the 12" and horn that I described. This brings up another question. What is the "balance" control on a receiver really for. I never really need it so I just keep it in the middle, but if I had slightly different speakers on either side maybe it would be necessary to tweak the balance between them? - equipped and hornswoggled

Cool, so your suggestion is a series wiring (I didn't know you could do that, interesting) and the two 8 ohms in series will make it 16ohm? I will dig out my old electronics book. Actually a neighbor hired me and my truck to clean up an old storage shed and take a bunch of stuff to the dump, these goodies were in there, so I held them back) and one of the other speaker cabinets was a thrift store discard from their "as is dept." think it was $3 at the most. I am anxious to hook the speakers up to something so I can report on how they sound. I think I heard somewhere that a triaxial speaker is a woofer with a mid and tweeter horn built in the middle. I cannot see the front because it is covered with grill cloth which has no apparent way of removal. The cabinet is decent so I will temporarily leave this thing intact. {fini, you should come over and look at this good junk} maybe tomorrow I will hook it up. -diced and spliced

Rescued from the trash: one old mono tube receiver, and two homemade speaker cabinets. Finally got inspired to plug the receiver in and to open the backs of the speaker cabinets to see what was in there. One cabinet contains an enormous 15" University model 315 Triaxial speaker, 50 watt, 8 ohm. I can only see the back, does the term "triaxial" mean that there are horns in the center of that woofer? There is a crossover box mounted on the side of the speaker and wires to an exposed control. Could not find much web info on the "University" brand, but I do remember it was widely sold in the 50s in the Allied Radio catalog and was economical for DIYers. By todays standards are these things any good? Was University somehow associated with the Altec company? The second cabinet contains another DIYer's efforts: one University 12" adjustable response woofer, model C12W, 30 watt, 8 ohm, a Mid.T Driver and cast iron horn (9" long opening to a rectangle about 5+"x7+", plus a 15watt Tweeter (Calrad), there are two other units (University brand boxes-like some kind of transformer) in there which I assume are crossover related, one has 6 numbered terminals and the other has 8, everthing is wired up and there is an exposed control on the front of the cabinet. I am assuming that the number "1" is the common terminal judging by how many wires are connected to it. This assumption will allow me to determine which side is the + since nothing is notated. All these speakers look very well built, but I have not heard any raves about University speakers, is that because they are so obscure today or because they were nothing special? The receiver on closer examination turns out to be a Pilot HF-56 High Fidelity and is strictly mono with only one phono plug and only one speaker connection. It uses 2 -KT66, 2 -6sn7 and a mess of miniature tubes most of which are shielded. I put a plug on this thing and it lit up, so I attached a speaker and it seems to work on a locally strong FM station. After a while there was some intermittent cutting out of the signal, don't know at what stage this problem comes from. Although it is only mono, it might be fun to hook up one of those old University speakers to it. Another question: is there an "approved" way for hooking up two speakers to a mono output. There is an 8ohm and a 16 ohm option on the receiver. The speakers are 8ohm. If I hook two 8ohm speakers in parallel, which terminal do I choose, the 8 or the 16? How does that theory work anyway? I wish there were two of everything here instead of just one set of things, but, hey, many of my old records are mono, maybe I will take them up the hill to the studio where I have all this old junk. It did cross my mind to design a cabinet to house all of this stuff, but unfortunately there is only one of everything and thus not enough for two channel. It seems unlikely that I would find more of these same old speakers. The triaxial definitely looks impressive, I would be curious to know more about this concept in speakers. When I did an internet search I didn't find much on University but I did stumble onto a bunch of reference articles about speaker designs, with many regarding Klipsch. http://invalid.ed.ntnu.no/~dunker/refs02.html http://melhuish.org/audio/horninfo.htm - recycled and horded This message has been edited by Clipped and Shorn on 02-11-2002 at 10:58 PM

Doouugh...! of course {he says slapping himself in the forehead} I just now got it. (like when hours later you start laughing at a punch line). Yes, mobile, the Chicken Sandwich scene in "Five Easy Pieces", is exactly the pair-of-dimes. {see, you are Yoda} I do with my Dynakit-70 what Jack Nicholson asks the waitress to do in order to get his coveted toast apparently not on the menu. Starting with an order for Chicken Salad on Toast (original Dynakit-70) then hold the mayo, hold the lettuce, and hold the chicken (stripping out all the old parts in order to get to those transformeroonies). He then tells the waitress to hold the chicken between her knees (like buying NOS tubes on eBay)......huh? tnx 4 the reminder...yes Ornette...I will now go dig out some of those nice old ones on Atlantic and see what they sound like. Just realized that audio upgrades is a good way to rejuvinate one's listening patterns. This is fun. -here's johnny PS: when everything is fired up I could be running as many as 6 pairs of speakers. I do use a Rotel speaker selector RS-900 and that is how many swithches it offers. When I bought it , the audio guys in the store felt the selector would protect everything and make this madness possible (I could see their eyebrows raising tho). As of yet I have not had any problems with this so far either with the NAD, Carver, or even the Dynakit-70 which will be retired from this chore immediately since it is headed for major surgery and a consequent demotion of wattage in the process. Yes, I know I have been a bad boy, but soon I will have all my electrons lined up, and let the Carver do the multiple speakergasm dirty work. This big carver SS recvr actually sounds fine to me, just not anything special. This message has been edited by Clipped and Shorn on 02-11-2002 at 05:40 AM

kh, I have been spaced out, what with spying on eBay bidders and realizing just how many posts are on this forum. Yes, I took you suggestions to heart and think you are right about having maybe the dynaco as the work horse and then perfecting a SET set up with just the Cornwalls, thus enabling me to finally zero in on the finer points of audio listening. From other things you have said, I am also wondering if I shouldn't maybe investigate other old eicos as starting points for the upgrading which could be coached by mdeneen. Maybe he thinks a dynaco-70 is a perfectly good starting point. I did notice that the 22 watt monoblocks you recommended to another on the forum finally went at $500. What do you think about that price? I am still watching the 60 watt eico monoblocks which close today, they represent a much larger investment for that big iron. Then again your great experience with the Welbournes backed up by others who took your lead on that is very tempting and would be something to shoot for (it would involve my getting a digital camera so I can take pictures of all the crap I would have to sell on eBay in order to justify that expenditure). The trick about eBay these days is you really have to be motivated as a buyer to spring for the bid that will actually get something. At this point I am still learning about what is out there and what values (ball park) some of the old classics bring. As for confusing you with mdeneen, I think I have it straight {you are Yoda and he is Obi Wan Kenobi or is it the other way around.....I am having a geezer moment..... oops...someone is knocking at the door....More later. -subbed and supered

No, the thread ain't over until we dig out the Kate Smith...and Mama Cass records. I was so distracted with other angst I forgot to respond to mdeneen. For sure! I am open to the experience, at least to set my mind and ears at rest that there is not something seriously wrong with the amp to begin with. Part of why I am here is to find out what I am missing without even knowing it. It is funny how one is capable of not totally trusting one's own perceptions or on the other hand how one can convince oneself of anything. Again the gestalt thinking. Awhile ago I started avoiding hanging out at expensive audio stores because it momentarily made me dissatisfied with what I already had that I had been perfectly happy with. Those kinds of upgrades then were always out of financial reach so I started to not want to be reminded. After springing for the Cornwalls I now want to make them sound about as good as I can within reason. Years ago while mixing an album in the studio the engineer felt it necessary to check the mix on a cheesy player and not just on the great high end studio monitors. The mix was supposed to sound good there as well since some people would be listening to it that way and even digging it in that context. This point popped into my head just now, and I cannot remember why....sort of seemed vaguely relavant. Right. An ongoing musical experience is just as fast becoming an ongoing memory of a musical experience and not all aspects of musical invention depend on experiencing the finer points of audio quality for appreciation. It is even possible to enjoy a memory of a musical experience played back in one's head, .....I think....therefore I hear.....or maybe not...... I will email for details regarding making contact. -over and out

not to be confused with the one pictured in grandma's peep toy thingie appliance/ could be this thread has petered out also. -wring rang wrung

We had an old Bendix washing machine with a picture window (early form of tv) and it was often out of balance and bounced around the floor and made a sound like African drums. I used to sit on it and today I play LPs with lots of bongos in them. Go figure. -popped and slapped

fini stated: "(Just trying to shepherd the sibilance for a moonlight Cornwall test)" How did you know I was listening to songresses Cybil Shepherd and Vonda Shepard and comparing Cybil sibilances to Vonda volume in the moonlight. You must be psychic or have the sixth sense of an Austrailian sheep dog. Do you remember the former "Moonlighting" star's nude debut in "The Last Picture Show" mmmmm... mmmmm....mmmmm -bogged down in a ditch

Monoblock 300B Kit - The Billie Does look intriguing. Looking forward to mobile's review of it when he has access to one in the flesh. -tinned and slobbered

mdeneen, are you serious about the dynaco upgrade? you would be adding goodie$ more than what I shelled out for it in the first place. so the qvestion iz what would I end up with in this dynakit-70 hot rod? this is kind of intriguing, I assume you would be upgrading parts and tubes, would you also be changing things in the circuitry? had you done this particular upgrade before? would anyone else in the future understand and appreciate an $800 Dynakit-70 (eg. how would it later translate into resell value if I ever wanted to part with it after upgrading). btw, i am still using a pretty basic SS Hafler preamp, seems to work fine, but what do i know. -picked and pocketed ps: bottlebarn SR has ample supply of the 2000 Syrah and I understand it is as good as the 1999 but I have not actually tried it myself. Oliver's (Cotati) still has some of the 1999 last time I looked, but bottlebarn sold out and has moved on to the 2000.

I am hooked on Mont Pellier 1999 Syrah {and their Viogier ain't too shabby either}. Talk about bargain vintages. I have heard that the 2000 Syrah is also as good, and it is currently available. -crushed and fermented

any reason, beside the bread and the off chance I might eventually stumble onto a deal like lady jasmine got , not to go directly to the full blown Supercharged Welbourney Laboratoroonie Moondoodle Mononucleoid {2A3} kit and thus become a member, along with my vintage Cornnelias, upstanding in the jazzvinylholic audiophiles anonymous klub? -crimped and soldered assuming I somehow get the comparable preamp {anyone else notice the 'stereo panning effect' on the smiley faces, they seem to have different expressions and all be unique individuals, this is what I mean by the "gestalt effect"} This message has been edited by Clipped and Shorn on 02-08-2002 at 09:54 PM

You use special silver wire and silver solder no? Same soldering iron? -tipped and fluxed

At least two guys that like jazz vinyl among other things are after my own heart, so it looks very likely I will want to go down a similar path in regards to equipment. Getting the Corwalls opened that door. Fini and I have discussed the possibility of finding someplace relatively locally where we might hear a sample of such. I too would certainly consider flinging some solder, although my chops are 50s ham vintage and octal soup ..behind victory garden walls.....¿{?}¿ --flammed and paradiddled

At least two guys that like jazz vinyl among other things are after my own heart, so it looks very likely I will want to go down a similar path in regards to equipment. Getting the Corwalls opened that door. Fini and I have discussed the possibility of finding someplace relatively locally where we might hear a sample of such. I too would certainly consider flinging some solder, although my chops are 50s ham vintage and octal soup ..behind victory garden walls.....¿{?}¿ Current system with Cornwalls has a bit of brightness verging on harsh at louder volumes that I am hoping to ameliorate with future upgrades, and it looks like the right combo of amp and pre are in order among other things. --flammed and paradiddled This message has been edited by Clipped and Shorn on 02-07-2002 at 05:46 PM