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Late last year (2004) I decided the time came for me to move into a larger apartment.
Oh yeah, getting married sorta helped in the decision as well. Haha.
Anyway, the new place was specifically selected for the dimensions of the living room where I planned to set up the new system. To get her to approve my plans, I had to give the wife the run of the rest of the house. Thanks Dear…..
As you can see, I’ve changed my system quite a bit from the original one first posted here. The only components that weren’t replaced are the 531 (CN129) multicell horns, the JBL 2405 tweeters & the set of 300B SET amplifiers.
The rear wall of the hall was lined with two inches commercial insulation (Rockwool), with a half inch soft board over that and vertically running MDF strips of alternating height hold the lot in place.
Speaker System.
Starting from the bottom most;
LF Enclosures
These are hulking units are Onken Ws and house two Altec 416-16Z woofers each. The enclosure is MDF with Teak veneer and has “Rockwool” insulation for damping. These are crossed at 250 Hz.
I’m still looking to acquire another K15/50 woofer (Currently I have 3) so I can try them out in these enclosures.
Upper Mids
Dukane badged CN157 dispersive horns with Altec 288-16G drivers. To take the ‘ring’ out of these, I’ve attached non-drying modelers’ clay on the outside of the horn and glued a very thin layer of cork in the mouth. These are crossed at 1 kHz.
HF
JBL 2405 “slot” tweeters. Brought right over from the old system, crossed at 6.5 kHz.
Lower Mids
CN129 horns with single Altec 290D aka “Giant Voice” drivers. Since these are to be used from the 250 Hz to 650 Hz range, the Altec 290 with its phenolic diaphragm would be a better performer in this application than my usual 288-16G..
Source components
Some major revisions here too.
CD / SACD
The latest member to the system is a beautiful Marantz SA11S1 CD/SACD player (Top shelf; center). It sounded dreadful out of the box, but sweetened up after about a month of use. Beats the original Sony CDX5000 & Sonic Frontiers SFD DAC hands down.
Crossover
Yamaha D2040 4 way stereo digital crossover (Below the Marantz). Got this one off ebay and was the one and only I’ve ever seen. It features parametric EQ, digital delay (Very useful when using horns), memory presets, digital attenuation etc.
Preamp
This nifty unit uses a single directly heated 45 triode per channel with input & output transformers. (Unit is located below the Yamaha crossover, in between the Quad IIs)
The basic configuration is as follows:
Daven attenuator – UTC A11 Input transformer – 45 Tube (Valve) – Tamura (5k : 600) ohm output transformer.
I had a big problem with hum pickup which was only solved by regulating the HT power supply, and moving the components around.
LF Amplifier
Built from a Marchand MOSFET kit, for about 150W per channel. It can be seen right in the middle on the lowest shelf of the rack.
Upper Mid Amplifier
Existing 300B SET amplifiers. Configuration: MH4 – 46 – IT – 300B. (On either side of the Yamaha crossover)
Tweeter Amplifier
New DIY 45 SET amplifiers. Configuration: SRPP MH4 – 45. (On either side of the Marantz CD/SACD player)
Lower Mid Amplifier
The original plan was to use a SET GM70 amplifier (MH4 – 46 – IT – GM70), but only one was completed in time, so right now I’m using the Quad IIs. The single GM70 amp can be seen right beside the Marchand amp on the left.
Future Updates / Changes
Tweeter upgrade
To make the best use of the Marantz SACD capability, I’ve just bought a pair of Dukane Ionovac Plasma tweeters to replace the JBL 2405’s . These high voltage things can go to 40+ kHz flat and I’ll also probably just use a simple capacitor filter instead of running the signal through the Yamaha digital crossover, as it is only rated to 20 kHz.
Tractrix wood horns
I’ve always been fond of wood, and have wanted to try out tractrix horns for a long time too, so I’ve plonked down for a pair of Sierra Brooks 330Hz horns.
I hope be able to try these and the plasma tweeters in June/July.
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