Still thinning

Sold a couple more pairs of speakers from the closet this week, dawned on me that I never really talked about either one. Both on Craigslist, a nice guy Tom from California bought my ADS 300s (here we go, Craigslist out of state again) and another nice guy Gary swapped me some stuff for my Rogers LS-2s. Gary is actually local, and has been playing with this stuff for years. He has McIntosh, Klipsch, and has made the transition back to strictly two channel.

Rogers LS2

 The LS2 was a more practical version of the LS3/5A BBC monitor, more efficient, played louder, and handled much more power. Both 4" two ways, this was more of a regular listening speaker as opposed to a near-field monitor. Plus it handled 100 watts  instead of 20! Rubber surrounds with polypropylene cones, these basically will last forever!

ADS L 300 minispeakers

 ADS or Analog Digital Systems  had an early affiliation with Braun, and between the two of them I give them credit for inventing the first high quality mini speaker. Diecast aluminum enclosures with high quality drivers, they were a bit of a revelation in their day. Often used with a subwoofer, although very few choices existed back when these were introduced.

 Available with or without brackets, the intent was for them also to be used in automotive applications.Probably the first audiophile quality speaker available for cars.

Their name was interesting because at the time digital as we know it didn't exist. There were no CD players or downloading of music. The digital referred more towards the designing tools, CAD/CAM and programs.

 Their logo was changed a few years later to A/D/S, as Aids awareness came to the forefront. They did not want to be associated with this terrible disease.

I sold these at JB, and probably had this pair close to 20 years before recently selling them to Tom in California.

Elite TZ-F 700 speakers

Found some updated pictures of these, much better views of what they really look like. Still liking them, months later.Wrote about these more in depth in my June entries.

Ahhh, the clever marketing people!

   You gotta hand it to Ion and some of the other cheesecake turntable companies, they are starting to look more like audiophile tables all the time! With the exception of the Ipod , this one looks like it could have been made by VPI!  It even has built in phony Tip Toes! I am tempted to buy one just to look at it , not even plug it in. Probably still uses piano wire for the tonearm bearings. Nobody that has one of these will ever borrow any of my records!

From the why didn't I think of that department

 Before I get completely off the tweaks-

 New from PS Audio- a combination isolation platform/ power conditioner! Way cool! Available soon. Makes too much sense.

R.I.P. Dave Brubeck 1920-2012

Dave Brubeck—recently called "the reigning elder statesman of jazz" by the Washington Post—died Wednesday in Connecticut on his way to a cardiology appointment, one day shy of his 92^nd birthday. Even the younger audiophiles among us if not intimately familiar with all his works have certainly at least at some point heard "Take Five". His 1959 album Time Out, after rising to No. 2 on the charts, became the first jazz long-player to sell a million copies.

"Take Five"—composed by Dave Brubeck Quartet member Paul Desmond—which achieved a rare success: "hit jazz single." Never mind that it was in 5/4 time!

 

Happy December!

The last essential tweak

                                               A   Good Chair



                                      You thought I was going to talk about the new fuses, huh?



                            ( Does anyone else remember this from a Maxell tape ad in the'70's?)

Record Clamps

                                                           Mpingo crazy weights

                                                                           The Pig (!)

                                                               Monitor Audio Pod

                                         ADC Pro Grip (later Monster bought the rights to this).

                                                          The famous Sota Superclamp

A typical record weight

I could have addressed these in my last post, but then I would have one less thing to banter on about. These basically are divided into two schools, clamps and weights. A floating subchassis table is typically better suited to a clamp, as the excess weight of a weight  might require you to re-adjust the suspension.I have had most of these over the years (shy of the crazy Mpingos) and currently use the Pro Grip (branded Monster) and the Sota.(arguably the best). They work well with or without vacuum, and almost every audiophile table sold today includes or at least offers a clamp of sorts. I also still have a Pig, believe it or not, not really sure how it got its name. Those crazy English! Depending upon the mat or whatever else is under the record these can provide a synergy to the sound, more stability and fewer audible flaws.Some companies like Oracle and VPI have made the clamps an integral part of their tables, they screw down on a threaded spindle, as opposed to the reflex action of many of the others. While not as universal, they can be equally as effective.

Turntable mats

Another tweek, this time turntable specific. A variety of these have been available over the years, with various benefits ranging from damping, deadening, stabilizing, and isolating records from their players.

  From the Linn /AR philosophy of a simple felt mat to the Sota Supermat, whose material is a sister impedance to vinyl, and when combined with their vacuum system creates a 22 lb record! 

 A series of squishy, deadening mats arrived from Canada in about  the early eighties, the Platter Matter, Roundel, Platter Pad and later the Audioquest Sorbogel made the scene. I can remember the rep demonstrating the Platter Matter, he would sprinkle salt on a record and tap it with a pen.The salt of course would bounce all over the place. Next, he placed the record on his mat, tapped, and the salt didn't move.

  The naturally adhesive properties of this were such that you often picked  up the mat with the record when taking it off, and it was not light! The mat supplied with the Oracle tables, The Groove Isolator was very similar, coincidentally also a Canadian product.

  An extreme was Micro Seiki's  solid copper mat, pictured above, which still commands a high price on the used market today.There also are a variety of carbon fiber, brass, and even shale(!) materials that have been used.

 Lastly , the Ringmat, that I never completely understood the concept of, but it was and is  extremely popular. Cork rings glued to cotton flocking on a small 10" mat. Some had holes, some didn't. The cork rings almost always came unglued. Think I tried this once and sold it. Guess I am from a different school.....

  My takeaway from turntable mats in general was they sounded pretty much like what they were made out of. If they were soft and dead, they sounded soft and dead. If they were hard and brittle, well , you get the point. I think the squishies were best suited to direct drive tables. The Oracle being the possible exception. Whether you use a clamp with them or not, and what type makes as much if not more difference than the mat itself, as I will discuss in the next section.

Another local Craigslist idiot

 Maybe I am old fashioned, but when I contact someone in a classified ad I am fairly serious, have done some research, know what I want, what it should be worth, blah blah blah.


             This dude emails me about a nice little pair of KEF monitors I have listed,  wants to come see and hear them. My response is usually pretty generic, if you are coming to buy them, I will pull them out and hook them up.

  Too many times in the past I have been treated like a dealer's showroom. No, I am not here for your evaluations. Not interested in what you  don't like about it/them.

 No, you can't bring your amp over to hook up to see how it sounds. Much as I love this hobby, I price things to sell, and resent all the extra work. If I buy something and later decide I don't like it, I resell it.I research it carefully enough that I am willing to take that risk. I never abuse the seller.


  So the dude shows up, (mind you I am a little under the weather  from meds and didn't want to do this today anyway) , listens, hems, haws, and makes me a ridiculous offer. After stating that I have lowered the price on these twice on CL, we strike a deal for $140. for the pair . Cheap, but as I mentioned earlier I am clearing stuff out I don't use anymore. He hands me the money, takes the speakers, and calls me a couple of hours later. "Can I bring these back?" What??  All of a sudden he is critical of the midrange and says they smell like cat, he is allergic. Now, mind you the cats walked in front of him about 8 times when he was here! All of a sudden he mentions he is allergic! My stuff is generally not in the same room as the cats anyway.

                 DUDE! THESE WERE $140!  What is wrong with people? Guessing he wasted about $20. in gas.So petty! Gave him his money back,he apparently needs it, even though he pulled up in a brand new loaded Nissan.

He should go to Best Buy and see what he gets for $140.

   As I have said here in the past, anything over $100. on Craigslist I generally end up shipping out of state. A few exceptions, but for the most part I am extremely wary of the locals.

Room treatments

 I guess I would have to give the most credit here to Mr. Michael Green of Room Tunes fame for popularizing room acoustic panels for the masses. These were mentioned in the same breath as Monster Cable back in the mid '80s. I still have a pair of Room Tunes (above) and Corner Tunes in my studio. He is still in business today :

                                                  http://www.michaelgreenaudio.com/

                                        The competition  followed, ASC with their Tube traps,

     Aurulex and numerous other companies with their sculpted foam sheets and corner pieces, and Echo Busters which are very similar to Michael's designs. There are literally hundreds of these companies making this sort of thing today, mainly for recording studios, but they can cure significant problems in your room (echos,delays,boomy bass, etc). Try before you buy applies here, and many tend to overdo things by using them to excess.

All in all, it's just another (VPI) brick in the wall.....

Other resonance tuning devices besides feet- this has had quite a following and a reasonable bit of demand- the magic VPI brick. When placed strategically on a component , this eliminates hum and stray magnetic fields from a component that otherwise might hum- probably because it doesn't know the words. (Bad joke, I know, I have used it before). Since the advent of the toroidal transformers in power supplies this has not been as much of an issue,they used to be mainly constructed from iron plates.

The Tekna Sonic vibration dampers that you attach to the backs of your speakers, Totem Beaks (which look like tiptoes but are actually placed on top of the speakers),  Mpingo dots, Shakti Stones, and several other offerings.

The Magic Brick is the only classic one so far that has truly endured the test of time. It helped establish VPI, which is now a huge analog company.

More tears

Almost everybody who is into this hobby gets at least a little emotional occasionally when they play a certain special piece of music.

  I mentioned this when Donna Summers passed a few months ago.

 Tonight it was Dan Fogelberg,  (I know, I am showing my age).

Between the Leader of the Band and Another Old Lang Syne  it got to me, all teary eyed.

 Not sure if it was the memories of my father or a previous girlfriend, spent some time  dialing it  in right, and the emotions set in.

System sounds good, good reference recording, great engineering, and a great set of production values!


When things are right, they are right..... you know it when you get emotional.........

Other feats (feets?)

With the advent of the spikes and Tiptoes came other methods of coupling/isolating components. Sorbothane   became somewhat common with companies like Audioquest, and a myriad of options appeared. The Q foot, Big Feet, Discwasher Footers, and Vibapods, to name a few. Some people were setting their speakers on cinder blocks, all kinds of tweeks were born. A more elaborate measure would be the isolation bases, shelves that were placed under a component to ward off all sorts of bad karma. Bright Star, Black Diamond Racing, and numerous other companies charged as much or more than you would pay for an actual component!

Speaking of speaker spikes

Or had I spoke, spat, spit, in spades?

 In the early eighties a guy by the name of Steve McCormick of Mod Squad invented an aluminum cone known as the "Tip Toe". These were quite radical in their day, causing many an audiophile to scratch their head. At $5 each, these were not cheap in early eighties dollars, I must confess to being an early adopter based on the way they looked under components. Tip Toes went rampant, there were dedicated threaded versions for specific components like Sota turntables, and of course the other Mod Squad components like the Phono Drive, Line Drive, etc.  The imitators soon came, Sumiko Counter Feet (joke intended? A blatant attempt by a Japanese company to rip off an American one?) Today, just about everyone including Parts Express offers their own version of these. They have been placed under everything from turntables to speakers, not convinced they make anything sound better, but again I like the way they look.

 Some of the companies that actually made some headway in improving the original Tip Toe design would include Black Diamond Racing (high tech carbon fibre resonance analysis with all of their products) and German Physics tone cones , a combination cone/spike used on many high end speakers throughout the '80s. as oem equipment. I could probaly mention 100 other cone/spike manufacturers in existence today, but I won't. Need to hold your attention span. But anyway, official credit goes to Steve McCormick  for starting it all with the Tip Toe.

Tweaks Tweaks and more Tweaks

I have referred to various tweaks and enhancements on and off over the past year, and have promised to elaborate. The following few entries will describe some of the classic and famous (or infamous) enhancements and band aids that have made audio history. I will try to maintain an unbiased description of each, I am definitely not the snake oil type. While some of these admittedly invoke sarcasm, others have passed the test of time and have become very commonplace. Speaker spikes, for example have appeared on just about every currently offered high quality floor standing speaker or speaker stand from your favorite hifi salon to Best Buy. Power conditioners are also an accepted enhancement that defines a new(ish) component category, and I won't discuss these here. Anyway, here we go!

My various incarnations of home brew speakers

Over the past few years the putterer in me has surfaced, and I have played with building a few high efficiency horn designs. I have been mainly inspired by the German Avant Gardes, of course I can't afford them.

 The top three photos are one of my most recent efforts, a Fostex FE 208  full range 7'' driver with banana pulp paper and Planet 10 phase plugs mounted in a 24'' Atlas stadium horn. I recently swapped the Fostex out for some older full range JBL alnicos, the model number escapes me at the moment.

A lady that I worked for gave me the metal racks, actually for clothing displays in her accessory store. The top arms came right out, and these ended up looking pretty cool. The black backs are actually waste baskets! I obviously used these with a sub. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.........

  The bottom four pictures kind of started the whole thing, a pair of fibreglass planters from Home Depot that I painted and mounted some Altec  compression drivers on the back of. These are sitting on Altec Santana cabinets with JBL professional 15s, again the model number escapes me. An Apt 80 tweeter also mounted in the cabinet added sparkle. Eventually I mounted the Fostex drivers in these, and the whole system was biamped. Triodes on the tops, Chiro on the bottoms, professional two way crossover. this sounded very powerful, and was quite flexible.

   The problem was I couldn't stop fidgeting with it! Every record I changed the levels just a little, raised or lowered the crossover point by a few hz, just could never leave it alone!


I still have all or most of this stuff laying around if I ever want to pick up where I left off. Sound like Avant Gardes? Probably not, I have never heard them.


    Like I said, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.........