Painful Reality

Did you get those for a good price? You bought them locally?

I had the original prototypes of these. Never hooked them on my Klipsch though. Only on my Lamhorns. The Tenor Classic serie is simply the best amp I've ever heard. After hearing these, with the exception for the Lamm Ml2, all other amps sounds like toys. But it comes with a price tag and a big drawback. These generate heat like crazy. Nothing like an Atma-Sphere though. In the winter time I could heat my living room by letting them on all the time. I couldn't use them in the summertime.

Grenade isn't actually a Warrior, per se, but it's an ordnance so widely employed that no Flame Warriors guide would be complete without mentioning it. When lobbed into a discussion forum Grenade instantly blasts civil discourse into smoking rubble. Grenade's explosive content can be adjusted to the forum's interests. Typical detonating materials can be Bill Clinton, George Bush, gun control, homosexuality, Reagan, SET, test equipment, loosing a poll, abortion, taxes, conspiracy theory, the NEA, welfare reform, etc. When facing certain defeat a Warrior can stall even the most determined attack with a diversionary explosion. Grenade can bea particularly destructive weapon in the hands of Evil Clown, Issues, Troglodyte or even Weenie, but almost any Warrior can use it to gain a temporary strategic advantage. Eagle Scout has been known to throw himself upon Grenade to save the forum.

Wow, selling your parts to 1% of the world population must have made you "richer than astronauts" (if I can steal these words from Homer Simpson).

Guy, I'm so happy you asked. I'm not really good with posting schematics. But I'll gladly say that the crossover was made of a 16 ohms resistor across the binding posts. It was difficult to solder because the binding posts were massive so I had to use a small blow torch I bought at the local Radio Shack. The capacitor, in serie with the signal, was a 2 uF Hovland. Anything else you want to know? Please don't use email for your requests as I'm not sure yet that all people here knows I'm building my own stuff.

This probably isn't of much interest to some, (and boy would I understand this). The phase inverter on the HF-81 is a cathodyne type, which uses a single tube for phase inversion -- very common on push pull amplifiers. I studied the connections, and found some very good on-line examples of this type of inverter. Just wanted to share this. BTW, when I built my Ariels, a DIY enclosure design by Lynn Olson, I used a simple first order crossover on the tweeter, letting the mid-bass driver running full range. Happy happy joy joy.

Well... kind of...

Veuillez, cher Monsieur pardonner, cette impardonnable coquille. Étant donné mon incapacité à m'exprimer par écrit dans la langue de Shakespeare de façon impeccable, je vous répondrai donc, à partir d'aujourd'hui, dans la langue de Molière. Afin qu'il n'y ait point de malentendus entre nous, j'apprécierais grandement si vous pouviez en faire de même. Veuillez agréer l'expression de mes sentiments distingués.

I'm using the cheapo Weller WLC100 soldering station. It does the job perfectly and you can have it for around 40 USD. I've been using it extensively for the last 5 years, dropped it on a concrete floor at least 4 times and it still going strong.

You know, it's so easy to build your own crossover. It's not much of an hermetic science as some people would make you believe. For exemple, I just made four pairs by myself yesterday with the help of my old mother (she can't tie her shoes nowadays by it doesn't matter she was so happy to help me).

Allan, you probably didn't try hard enough...

I'm not sure, but I think it's O.K. to do S&M and soldering at the same time. Deano Most will usually stop at hot wax...

Er... Shawn, I hope you'll agree that there is a slight difference between offering a design on the web and encouraging everybody and their dog to jump in the DIY bandwagon. I sell irons for the DIYers so I sure hope there will be some DIYers! Also please note there are no "Hear Hear! DIY is soo easy even mom can do it!" anywhere in the text... Judging on what landed on my bench from time to time I just don't think DIYing is for everyone. Neither is bungee jumping, pottery, s&m, stamp collecting, home renovating, etc... Funny b*tch slap nonetheless...

Let me disagree with your rather optimistic "Hallmarkish" view of how DIY is simple. Here is an excerpt from the Ariel website, a speaker design that Lynn Olson made public. It is about his view on crossover design. A Brief Digression about Crossover Design: There is misinformation promoted in some Internet news groups that all you need is the currently fashionable expensive driver and an off-the-shelf active crossover to equal $1,000 to $10,000 commercial designs. This, to be blunt, is just plain wrong. The most exotic and advanced drivers are notoriously hard to integrate into a speaker system, and professional designers know this. The best people in this field take anywhere from 6 to 18 months to design a system that is ready for sale, and that's with years of design experience and daily access to advanced test equipment. If you found some unusual drivers on eBay, good for you, but now it's up to you to find a professional designer and pay them for their time (I am not volunteering). To give you a idea of what this might cost you, I generally charge US$20/hour for design services, and the Ariel took me 6 months to design (pretty fast for me), so by a quick reckoning that's $20,000 of my time, at least 80% of which was spent refining the crossover. Matching the crossover to the specific drivers in the Ariel took 25 years of experience, $16,000 of hands-on time, and $5,000 of test equipment. That was with drivers that were very easy to work with. The Ariel webpage can be found here: http://www.nutshellhifi.com/Ariel.html While I'll never discourage someone interested in building their own stuff, I'll never encourage it either. You don't seem to realize it but the vast majority of people are totally inept with a soldering iron. Just ask DocB the about the percentage of uncompleted or non functionning kits that are sent back to him because The "Mr. ten thumbs" that tried to put it together wasn't gifted enough to say the least. Yes building a kit is fun, yes a gifted person can build is own stuff, yes some people can learn about electronics. But it's not within everyone's reach. If someone feel he's able, he should go ahead. If someone hesitate, maybe there a reason for it...

Screaming deal!!!

Do you think it's possible to DIY a cartridge? I'm sure it could be fun. Must not be that hard.

You got me there! Does it probably skips like one too?

Yeah, I've shed quite a lot of pounds lately... Nice and informative post about the McIntosh. Thanks for sharing! Seriously, I envy your patience to work in these old amps.

I must say you have nimble fingers for a troglodyte! Nice job!

Is this a classic greek recipe?

Allan frog legs don't really produce any sound. French amps (do I hear Jadis) also won't produce any sound 80% of the time because of their tendency to blow up, therefore smelling like burnt'chickin.

No wonder, it's a Crown D75!

It's an old fine tuning techique my mom showed me (she also gave me this superb marinated chicken recipe my wife loves so much).. For some reasons, I'd like audio electronics to remain something very serious and unapproachable. I'll therefore keep this technique a familly secret. I hope you won't be offended if I don't share it with you. I wouldn't want unsuspectful DIYers to be hurt in the process of trying it. Some hints, this technique must be used while yelling the magic words. "That'll teach ya you goddamn piece of s**t" Got to go... the chicken is simmering...

Here is my favorite tool to fine tune a circuit.