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Are Your Capacitors Installed Backwards ??


Kreg

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I time aligned my tweeter on top of my Cornwall and could notice a difference at 1/8" one way or the other.  I did not try 1/64".  I cannot explain why there was such a difference at this small of variation.  The difference to me though is quite noticeable.  IMHO once you have heard a Cornwall with tweeter that has been time aligned you will never go back.

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13 minutes ago, Jeffrey D. Medwin said:

 

Facts can be MISAPPLIED.  What sounds best to me is what really counts in my home . 

 

It starts with the amp.  

 

Jeff 

 

=== actually, no. It starts at/with the source. When fed shitt, the finest of amplifiers output the same - shitt —

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39 minutes ago, larryk said:

I time aligned my tweeter on top of my Cornwall and could notice a difference at 1/8" one way or the other.  I did not try 1/64".  I cannot explain why there was such a difference at this small of variation.  The difference to me though is quite noticeable.  IMHO once you have heard a Cornwall with tweeter that has been time aligned you will never go back.

 

Say you've got the voice coils perfectly atop one another both front-to-back and left-to-right.  In that case if you had a laser level between them with a visible beam spinning around, anywhere your ears had the laser shining on them would give you time-alignment between the drivers.  However, if you're using a high-level crossover between the amp and drivers, in order to get time alignment established directly in front of the speaker cabinet you'd have to move the higher-frequency driver rearward because the crossover causes an electrical delay to the lower-frequency driver relative to the higher-frequency driver.  Now that spinning red disc the laser is describing is no longer pertinent because if you got off to the side of the speaker you'd need to move the higher-frequency driver away from you to re-establish time alignment, and that would throw it off a bit in front of the speaker and make it even worse on the other side of the speaker.

 

So your benefit is really only directly in front of the speaker and only at one height.  The benefit goes away to greater extent the further you get away from the sweet spot in any direction.

 

I enjoy music that sounds relatively realistic but needing to sit with my head in a vise to get even more enjoyment via a more coherent audio "image" would fairly negate enjoyment in other respects.  If you had a speaker that produced all the frequencies from very nearly one point in space, and an active digital crossover that did not cause electrical advances and delays to be produced for the separate drivers being driven by separate amplifiers you could free yourself up to enjoy the more coherent sound just about anywhere in the room, standing, sitting, or laying on the floor.  That would be worth something but no matter how you go about it it's going to cost considerably more.  Is it worth it?

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29 minutes ago, Jeffrey D. Medwin said:

The original poster has reported he heard a difference in cap polarity, and Marvel and this chap have reported hearing a difference in time alignment.  I can probably hear a finer increment because NONE of you guys have my amps and through-system wiring .  But itsaudible on an anverage hi fiIF one takes the time and LISTENS for it, ro it.  Glens calculation mean nada folks !!

 

Yes, all of you have reported you hear differences.  Differences between configurations at different times.  In many of those cases there's no way you can really reach such a conclusion because you're comparing something happening "now" to something you're pulling from memory.  And we're not talking seeing a red traffic light in front of you in comparison to remembering seeing a green one, or reading the word "comparison" vs. remembering reading the word "comparative."  We're talking about extremely minute audio cues in most of the present cases.  These things in particular can be extremely difficult to compare between different moments in time, the further separated the moments, as well the closer the differences, the greater the difficulty in drawing a meaningful comparison.  If the air pressure in the room, or the humidity or temperature of the air, changed even minutely during the several minutes between then and now (did you let the dog out or in while you were swapping capacitor leads?) then that factor alone could render the comparison entirely moot.

 

My calculations are the exact opposite of meaning nada.  You don't even have to get up and walk across the room to move the HF driver back 1/64", you can merely raise your ears 3/16" where you are - exact same difference and effect.  Wanna move it forward 1/64"?  Lower your head 3/16" where you are.  Of course those are only approximate figures.  It may be as much as 1/4" or as little as 1/16" vertical head movement needed.  The fact remains that unless you can ensure you've got your head in the exact same orientation and location in space (within thousandths of an inch) when you return to a seated(?) position after however you got there and back to bump your HF driver 1/64" (or even 1/8"), whether or not your aural memory is good or bad will not even be a valid factor in your comparison.  You're so totally wasting your time, IMO.  "Aim small, miss small" is harder and harder to do the less still the target is.

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The difference I am hearing does not require that you have your head in a vice.  I do have a sweet spot for critical listening but the benefits of the alignment are noticeable within a reasonable area of that.  The benefit in my system is a much more focused image with greater immediacy and natural sounding timbre.  The difference I am hearing is not small.  Some may be critical of this but my guess is they have not actually tried it.  Everyone values different things in their system so to each his own.

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46 minutes ago, glens said:

Yes, all of you have reported you hear differences.  Differences between configurations at different times.  In many of those cases there's no way you can really reach such a conclusion because you're comparing something happening "now" to something you're pulling from memory.

But some people believe they have a perfect auditory memory. I do not and I KNOW I do not.

But like the folks that have a perfect auditory memory, I know what I like:)

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53 minutes ago, larryk said:

The difference I am hearing does not require that you have your head in a vice.

 

Note that I said "in many of those cases," not all of them.  If you're going for that last 1/64" that would definitely fall under the "many" though.

 

In your HF relocation, how's the improvement while standing or walking around the room?

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Jeff - whether one believes he can actually hear certain minute differences, seems to advocate (mainly) that one should experiment, listen and make judgment as to what might sound best in a given setup. He's not telling folks to go out and buy "X" product.   His basic amplifier audio path approach and choice of operating points + output transformer reflection to the loadline is valid for the world of SE tube amplifier (which by many hobbyist and audiophile is considered sonically superior to PP tubes). Jeff says time after time that good reproduction ability of a system starts with the amplifier - and in the world of horn loading , that's often some low power tube unit.  I don't get the hostility towards the guy.

 

Jeff's spiel in my opinion is worthy enough but probably should have its own thread.  At the Klipsch "Talkin' Tubes" section  https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/forum/109-talkin-tubes/

 

 Audio reproduction has a lot of flavors and opinions.  

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1 hour ago, glens said:

 

Note that I said "in many of those cases," not all of them.  If you're going for that last 1/64" that would definitely fall under the "many" though.

 

In your HF relocation, how's the improvement while standing or walking around the room?

 

I Am not even sure how I could even measure 1/64😊.   When my HF is aligned I can here the difference left and right of the center position as well as standing in the area behind my listening position.  Of course the soundstage locks in and sounds best when sitting in the sweet spot but that is the case whether you are aligned or not.  My room is Fairly small, 13x17, so there is not a lot of listening angles to choose from. 

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Jeff is a long time builder of vacuum tube amplifiers.  I would not suggest for a novice to wire something like that in fear of cooking the caps when soldering heavy junctions.   Whether Dennis Fraker's approach to power supplies vs using Lcritical choke input = "vast improvement" I don't know but for the hobbyist - one could experiment and listen. To myself, its doesn't look as foolish as supports for speaker cables, goofy wood turnings, etc. which some audiophiles with excessive money buy.

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