Mighty Favog Posted January 26, 2013 Share Posted January 26, 2013 WIth the help of Bob Crites and Dave Harris and really good pair of sneakers to run up and down my basement steps a few hundred times since yesterday... [] I am the proud father of a pair of Cornscalas. Sure these pics look like everyone a couple hundred others but I don't care. [] Shoot the paint isn't even dry yet on these as you can see. The only I did extra was I ran a 1/8" roundover router bit on the horn and woofer openings. These speakers have two sets of grills; the original cane that are still minty except for the badges that are lightly smudged and a pair that Budman gave to me for me to finish with original black grill cloth....just to gain that extra WAF. The quandry I have is now that I've relieved the black grills to go with the new Fastrac horns do I have the audasity to do the same to the cane grills. One side of me says "do it" because they're mine and I can do what I want. The other side says it's woould be like putting drag slicks on a 39' Caddillac. Sorry the pics are dark but it's a dark room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mighty Favog Posted January 26, 2013 Author Share Posted January 26, 2013 ...and the right side. Now to dial them in ( I don't know why the bass changed since before the tranformation but I'll find out somehow). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boxx Posted January 26, 2013 Share Posted January 26, 2013 Congratulations... I hope that you are pleased with the result... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dude Posted January 26, 2013 Share Posted January 26, 2013 How do they sound, what crossovers are you using. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mighty Favog Posted January 26, 2013 Author Share Posted January 26, 2013 They're Bob Crites' B3's crossed at 600Hz. Here's a pic of the business end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daddy Dee Posted January 26, 2013 Share Posted January 26, 2013 congrats. very nice. could you say more about how the bass has changed? Is this a cornwall conversion? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mighty Favog Posted January 27, 2013 Author Share Posted January 27, 2013 Hi DD,Yea, it's an 84' CWO. The bass seams to have decreased since I put in the Fastracs and put them back together. I triple checked polarity of all the wiring and put the cabs back nearly exactly where I had them before. It could be that I'm concentrating more on the smoother mids (getting rid of the K57K/K601 combo) now that it's using the Atlas PD5VH. Then again, I haven't been able to give it a good sit-down listening to, also haven't been able to "let them breathe" (i.e. - turn em' up), maybe tomorrow when I'm home alone. It could also be that I'm comparing the bass to another system in my study that is about half the room size and listening to KLF-20's with all kinds of EQ inserted (man it's loud in there!) Also, I've been sick lately with a little of that flu-bug the whole country has. I've only had the cough but while that's been going on I've had tinnitus in both ears (rather than only one) and had decreased bass in that same ear during the sickness. The biggest thing I did notice is that the K57K / K601 combo must have a heck of a ringing shrillness about them. I’ve only heard LaScalas a couple of times and the mids from these Cornscalas is definitely softer and more subdued. Oddly enough it's something I'll get used to. But one thing I won't miss is sometimes being driven out of the room from the ringing/shrillness of the mids. UPDATE: I took apart both cabs and replaced about 6-7 screws that were stripped out between the Fastrac mounting flange and cab's back panel. Also checked to make sure the woofer's (Bob's cast 15") screws were as tight as I could get them without stripping (one of them is). Worse comes to worse on the woofers I could always run bolts all the way through the motorboard with aircraft nuts to hold em' tight. Bass seams to be coming back but I'll know tomorrow when I get the chance to give em' a good workout. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mongo171 Posted January 27, 2013 Share Posted January 27, 2013 I like the concept of using toothpicks in the holes that are stripped. As a very last resort I would do the bolts through the motorboard thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coytee Posted January 27, 2013 Share Posted January 27, 2013 Congrats on the acquisition! I wonder if the breakables on top are at risk of vibrating off? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daddy Dee Posted January 27, 2013 Share Posted January 27, 2013 Very cool. I love the sound of a tractrix mid in Heritage speakers. The motorboard looks OEM quality. nicely done. One thing I did with pleasing results with Khorns and LaScalas was drop the autoformer tap by one tap on the mid. This lowers the mid by 3db. In one particular room this made the sound just right to my ears. The result is more perceived bass. in my application the mid and bass blended nicely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MechMan Posted January 27, 2013 Share Posted January 27, 2013 Welcome to the club. Your gonna love how they sound once you have them dialed in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Budman Posted January 27, 2013 Share Posted January 27, 2013 skip the grills and go nakid. sweet corns Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mighty Favog Posted January 27, 2013 Author Share Posted January 27, 2013 Yea, I tried that but it had a very low WAF.........on both fronts. [] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhoak Posted January 27, 2013 Share Posted January 27, 2013 Congrats! Nice liiking Cornscalas for sure. I'm betting that they sound great. I wonder if the breakables on top are at risk of vibrating off? Yes they are. Ask me how I know that. [] [:$] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted January 27, 2013 Moderators Share Posted January 27, 2013 The bass loss could be as simple as now you have more and bigger mids and highs. ? I know it sounds crazy but just like if you were to turn up the bass or treble, the other end appears less pronounced, not a loss but out of balance one way or another. The idea of a cornscala is to add more and bigger mids to help catch up with the Cornwall bass, well it sounds like you added more mids. [] I think that was some of the thinking behind the double bass bin Cornscala, in a way, to also add a little more bass at the same time. Just a wild guess really, haven't got a clue what's going on with the changes, but sometimes it is just something simple, with any luck ! [:S] Looks good either way, nice work. [Y] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moray james Posted January 27, 2013 Share Posted January 27, 2013 I damp both my drivers and my horns. Ti diaphragms can be played much louder cleaner than can phenolic units. I damp the driver poles with dynamat and F-11 acoustical felt I also damp the witches hat which helps to laminarize the air flow into the throat due to the way I apply the damping. I also damp the motor structure and the butterfly which the diaphragm is mounted to and I replace the paper diaphragm spacers with a lead one. This goes a long way to making the driver sound much better. I damp the horn body and throat and I use a diffraction device within the horn to improve dispersion and reduce mouth to throat reflections. I do all this on tweeters and mid horns alike. Best regards Moray James. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACM Posted January 27, 2013 Share Posted January 27, 2013 " One thing I did with pleasing results with Khorns and LaScalas was drop the autoformer tap by one tap on the mid. This lowers the mid by 3db. In one particular room this made the sound just right to my ears. The result is more perceived bass. in my application the mid and bass blended nicely." DD, would you mind expanding on this? As in how to do this, pics would be super helpful. I have this setup converted from '82 cornwalls, but retained the K77-K51V-K33 drivers with recapped B-2 xovers (in other words, added the fastrac mid horn). The more pronounced (and much smoother, bigger, and overall morepleasant IMO) mid range has often been something I've wondered about in relation to HF and LF balance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mighty Favog Posted January 27, 2013 Author Share Posted January 27, 2013 Well, after playing them most of today it sounds like a meeting of the transducer and the transducee (speakers and ears). After my posts this morning I broke out some CD's that spread the frequency spectrum pretty far and in the beginning I was boosting the mids because they sounded rather subdued. My preamp is a McIntosh C46 w/ dbx 1231 EQ and I also boost the trim level on the preamp to about 4.5 or 5 (out of a possible 6) but normally it's about 2.5. After some bass boosting (about 3-4db) I turned up the volume to 42%. Now, normally 42% will drive about anyone out of the room but now it seemd like normal listening levels (should have broken out the SPL meter). I started to do some cleaning/dusting in the room to pass the time. Also needed to stay close to the volume knob in case my wife came home early from church. [] After about 30 min. I lifted my head from dusting some low shelves while playing Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival 2007 and it hit me....MAN, that just got loud!! Now I really wish I would have A/B'd it with the meter. With it this loud I went up to one speaker and did an unscientific measurment with the meter - B-weighted; ita was ranging from 90db to 107db. By now the bass level wasn't near where it should have been, until hours later when I incrementally decreased the mids to darned near flat and boosting the bass a smidgen more. But I'm sure as time goes on I'll bring the bass back down to where it used to be or maybe a bit above. I also brought the trim level on the preamp down to 3.0 So, yea....we're gettin' there![] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mighty Favog Posted January 27, 2013 Author Share Posted January 27, 2013 DD, would you mind expanding on this? As in how to do this, pics would be super helpful. I have this setup converted from '82 cornwalls, but retained the K77-K51V-K33 drivers with recapped B-2 xovers (in other words, added the fastrac mid horn). The more pronounced (and much smoother, bigger, and overall morepleasant IMO) mid range has often been something I've wondered about in relation to HF and LF balance. I'm not sure if the factory transformer has multiple taps to choose from...I may be wrong. It's been a couple of years since I've had my original B3's. I know Bob's do and my factory KLF's don't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted January 27, 2013 Share Posted January 27, 2013 I dropped the mids on my LS as well, after building my own crossovers. They are much more balanced and the bass doesn't seem to drop off as much, i.e., you dont have to turn it up for the bass to be heard, making the mids too hot. Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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