TubesGlo

I'm still running my old Anthem processor. Built well, sounds awesome paired with my amps. It's been very reliable and their support is excellent.

Thank You Sir, I appreciate your input. I do trust my ears, very much actually. These speakers have been part of my system less than a year and I'm constantly amazed at what they're capable of. I'm very happy with the complete setup and having listened to music critically for over 40 years squeezing every bit of performance out of the systems I've owned...I'm more content now than ever.

At this point with the speakers positioned as they are I really have no complaints. They do everything well. Imaging, tonal balance and clarity are excellent at all volumes. Most impressive is how dynamic and natural the presentation is, 3 dimensional and just plain "real". I've made some incremental adjustments in components including replacing the Sonicraft crossover caps with NOS paper/foil in oil which I'll discuss in a different post. I've never toed speakers in this much or had them out this far in the corners and really not experiencing 1st reflection issues is new to me. I suppose I'm conditioned to believe absorption panels should be there in every situation which obviously isn't the case. I may experiment with a few without permanently installing them as not to place them where unnecessary.

Optimizing this space for both theater and 2ch has its compromises. Most people would be using their mains for both applications and this isn't the case here. Originally I had the speakers in about a foot from the sidewalls without as much toe in. Side wall treatments in that position would have been necessary to help with reflection, which isn't the case now. The speaker's image well with clarity and good tonal balance. Conventional wisdom would dictate treatment for early reflection which has been taken care of behind the curtain for the theater mains. For theater use this room likes to be a bit on the live side and that will change so I want to minimize side wall treatments. Cornwall owners seem to agree that corner placement with considerable toe in produces best results which I've found to be true with my speakers in this room. Point being (finally)..with the speakers firing towards the opposing rear corners can I expect acoustic improvements absorbing high frequency further back on those side walls? My feeling is that with toe in as is, that problem which normally exists close to the speaker pretty much doesn't exist here and I may potentially "deaden" the room. I'm curious for opinions from you who may have speakers set up in a similar way.

Not much of a problem, just not ideal. Two large amps at bottom of rack that I need to power cycle with switches on front panel, I can reach them. I don't want to compromise speaker position by moving them off the side walls, they sound best right where they are. The amps are each on their own power filter/surge and 20amp circuit and I may raise those up in the rack and reconfigure with auto power cycling through my Elan system controller. The 2 channel rack isn't very attractive and it does protrude a bit forward, not a big deal but the wife isn't overly thrilled with what I've done and liked the room before the big wooden noise makers got planted in here.

I built this room as part of an addition in 07 when I was in business designing and installing home theater systems here on Cape Cod. Until last year it was a theater room only. The screen and LCR speakers are behind the curtain. Two 12" passive subs are under the stage front firing with a 15" front firing through right side wall at listening position. Equipment rack is flush with the right side wall. I had a dedicated 2 ch room in the finished basement but that's been reperpoused so now I'm trying to use the two systems in the same room. The space is 14ft wide x 20ft deep. The floor standing speakers are 9' 6" center to center. The listening position is 10' from the face of each with 5' behind to the back wall. The room is acoustically good and tight, no windows and one solid core entry door behind the chairs. There are minimal wall reflections and I'm changing up the acoustic treatments. I always subbed out that portion of theater builds but I'm on my own with this one. I'm planning on a simple combination of absorption and deflection panels on the side walls. No corner bass traps as of yet, surprisingly no issues have arisen. The 2 ch system gets the most time by far and I want to be careful not to deaden the room. I know what do do with the walls but I'm not sure I need to bother with the ceiling much. Now the kicker....the rack between the speakers as it protrudes into the room. The way these speakers project and disperse the sound has me experiencing no problems as currently configured. I sure don't want to cut into the stage to recess it and I don't want it off to the side. I know purists and perfectionists frown on this....but hey. For anyone that might be reading this I'd appreciate any input or suggestions, Thanks

Thanks Dave, With these particular caps to make up the 2.5uf I can only get 2uf and .5 or 1uf x 2 and .5 (no 1.5) I'm assuming as long as the voltage of the three are the same, summing three caps to get the value I need shouldn't be a problem.

I need 2.5uf for the mid circuit and 4uf for the tweeter. I'm experimenting with NOS PIO caps. 1)Should I use a single 4uf or 2x 2uf in parallel? Also I can't get a cap in the 2.5uf value so I can use a 2uf and a .5uf or 2x 1uf and a .5uf paralleled, recommendations? 2)Is bypassing either of these caps with a small value poly-film considered necessary?

Congrats on your build, nice work. You'll enjoy the fruits of your labor and the satisfaction of listening with a smile thinking...wow... I made these. Enjoy! Maybe a DIY tube amp kit in your future.....

Neither, never had those. I built these.

Finally rewired my amp. It started when replacing the original tube sockets with Amphenol blade style. I installed a new stock replacement 7199 board from Dynakitparts a while ago. Just installed CDE WMF series film caps with stock values, painted them black because I don't like yellow. The choke, bias supply and cap can are new. Diode replaced the selenium rectifier. I have a near new testing vintage Mullard GZ34, four matched pairs of strong Mullard xf2's and 3 pairs of 7199's. Fortunately I read Dave Gillespie's ST-70 Baseline paper before doing anything to the amp. I'm very happy with the stock circuit and it sounds beautiful with my Crites Cornscala's .

Do you have them toed in?

Not the best pic I realize.

Yes that's always been my understanding hence my request to decrease (attenuate) the midrange. He was aware that they were shipped with mid connected to tap 1 and knowing I wanted to tame it explained with a photo how to achieve it by moving the lead to tap 2 and connecting the 2nd 2.5uf cap leads attached to tap 5 that were shipped disconnected under heat shrink tube. This as stated was to drop (attenuate) the mid output by 3db down from -9 to -12. I have no way to measure this other than listening with my ears which tell me the mid is less forward and the drivers appear more balanced. I don't know the numbers, the right or wrong of it. I just did as instructed to achieve my goal and it worked. Clarification would be nice though I suppose.

Dean, I don't build crossovers but I understand you are are an authority on the subject. I only quoted what the builder of these particular crossovers stated to me verbatim in his email. I suppose he could be mistaken or I'm mistaking the definition of attenuation. "If I wanted to cut back the mid horn output just a bit, is there a simple tweak I could make on the network? I listen primarily to Jazz with sax and trumpet that comes through a little hot even at moderate levels." "Jim, This mod simply changed the midrange attenuation from 9dB to 12dB. We originally intended them to be set at 12dB, but due to what people wanted we changed it to 9dB. With this change the speaker will be more “correct”, we definitely prefer it that way. Now you actually have the speaker the way we designed it. Thanks, "

Not sure about that, I haven't changed anything there. It just goes through the choke for low pass. This pic is how they were shipped and I followed Crites instruction recently to move the lead on tap 1 over to tap 2 while joining the terminals under the shrink wrap that connect the top capacitor to tap 5. I was asking for lower output from the squawker and Mike said this adjustment would put it at -12db vs -9db as in the picture. That 3db attenuation brought everything in to balance for me, I like it much better.

Pics are the same, uploaded twice. They were shipped with the squawker at tap 1 as the pic shows.

They weren't from Crites. Bought them on ebay.

This is how my crossovers were shipped.

I looked very closely at that DAC because of my experience with a Jolida tube CD player that I had and foolishly sold after building a music server and ripping all my CD's. I Have a tube preamp and tube amp and I'm running Euphony Stylus with a Schiit Modius DAC and it's very ,very nice. I've been looking at multibit R2R lately and want to give it a try.

That's how my crossovers were shipped. After a few months with them I found the mid horn a bit forward, out of balance with the other drivers. I emailed Michael C. And he instructed me to move the lead on #1 tap to #2. Also the cap lead on the 0 tap should then be connected by joining the leads under the heat shrink tubing. This attenuates the mid horn by 3db which is how they designed them . They began shipping as shown in your pic to satisfy the requests of so many who wanted extra boost in the mid. To me it sounds right in my system after the change.

Nice! They stole your TV but left that sweet stereo system?

I've tried everything and ended up with them close to the outside walls toed in so they cross a couple feet in font of me. They're 10' apart on center and I'm 10' from each speaker. So far this sounds the best.

Yes, I got them on Ebay.

Did you get it?