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Best Receivers for Cornwall II in 15x18' room?


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I have a Marantz 2220B driving my 1987 Cornwall II pair with Bob Crites' crossovers (2017) and Ti diaphragms on mids (2017). My room is 15 x18, fully carpeted, acoustic ceiling.  Voices sound shrill. Something lacking in midrange, as I have to push mid gain to three o'clock (25% increase clockwise). However, on old mono LPs, from 50s and 60s, voice reproduction seems spot-on. What's happening? My Marantz has been checked and di-oxed and runs fine on phono and CDs. FM reception through 300-ohm twin lead antenna usually good, since I'm on the beach and it's a straight shot up the coast to the transmitter on top of Mt. Wilson, is it? But vocals and announcers' voices are thin and shrill. Would a better antenna help?

Edited by Andy Andrews
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It is puzzling.   Some FM stations with EQ in the line might make voices shrill, but most don't.  Why you would have to turn up the mid gain, when the voices already tend to be shrill and thin is a mystery.  Ti diaphragms have a rep (in some quarters) of being bright.  

  • Make sure your midrange horn is working and is undistorted with good program material on both speakers.
  • Confirm the function of the woofers on both speakers, as well.  One woofer not working would make the voices thin, since the male voice can be robust well below the lower crossover frequency of 600 Hz (?), in fact to below about 80 Hz with some men, like a basso profundo.  So, a male (and some female) voices with extreme roll-off below 600 Hz (due to not working), could sound thin. 
  • Is the voice thin and shrill only when very loud? 
  • Did your system used to sound good?  What has changed?
  • Is it a different room?
  • You could put a little more absorption in at the first reflection points, but I don't think that is likely to be the problem.  Although, if the room is new to you ...
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Did you have Bob make the crossovers with the modification he does for titanium mids?  If not, the titanium mid runs hot at certain frequencies if you simply just replace the oem diaphragm with it.

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3 hours ago, wuzzzer said:

Did you have Bob make the crossovers with the modification he does for titanium mids?  If not, the titanium mid runs hot at certain frequencies if you simply just replace the oem diaphragm with it.

its not so much an issue of running hot it simply runs a wider bandwidth (a little higher) without the extra filter and it may or may not be an issue depending on who is listening and the system/room. I have speakers with the extra filter and some without the extra filter I am fine with both.

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I ordered new crossover in 2017 and Bob Crites made them up for me in a day and on the third day I had them. It was an unbelievable turn-around, considering it's about 2,000 miles between us. Unfortunately, two years later I ordered titanium diaphragms without stipulating that I had new crossovers from Crites and perhaps his son handled the order and may not have noticed I have the crossovers for the old phenolic resin diaphragms. That may be the problem. Thank you, guys, for pointing this out. The clue was my old monaural LPs sounded great and very natural. They have a narrow response band. At my age, though, I shouldn't be hearing much over 10K, so I don't understand the shrillness I'm bothered by.

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1 hour ago, Andy Andrews said:

I ordered new crossover in 2017 and Bob Crites made them up for me in a day and on the third day I had them. It was an unbelievable turn-around, considering it's about 2,000 miles between us. Unfortunately, two years later I ordered titanium diaphragms without stipulating that I had new crossovers from Crites and perhaps his son handled the order and may not have noticed I have the crossovers for the old phenolic resin diaphragms. That may be the problem. Thank you, guys, for pointing this out. The clue was my old monaural LPs sounded great and very natural. They have a narrow response band. At my age, though, I shouldn't be hearing much over 10K, so I don't understand the shrillness I'm bothered by.

how long have the ti diaphragms been running in your speakers? If it is only days then be calm and give them some time. They will settle down with play time.

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My memory isn't what it used to be. I checked invoice and it was diaphragms for the tweeter (K-79-K) that I replaced. There were no Ti replacements for the midrange (K-57-K) available from a source I trusted. A couple days ago, I received an absolutely stunning CD from MA Recordings which is uncompressed and unmanipulated and the old Corns sounded like the musicians were right there in my room! Nothing wrong with them now. It's my sources: old cds, lps, 42-year-old receiver pulling from FM station 100 miles away that are probably the culprits. I'm going to order more of those 176.4 kHz High-Resolution CDs. They sound like the best tape imaging you've ever heard!

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