[zenfishbike]

Such a gift to us to get to meet you and your family this way! So full of love! Congrats on all levels.

How did you remove the speaker wire insulation so cleanly at the speaker terminals without nicking or cutting the wire? Is there a special tool?

[Chewbacca]

Thanks so much everyone! I'm really glad you all enjoyed the thread so far! It was quite an exciting summer, and I'm glad I could share some of the joy with you all!

[Chewbacca]

Such a gift to us to get to meet you and your family this way! So full of love! Congrats on all levels.

How did you remove the speaker wire insulation so cleanly at the speaker terminals without nicking or cutting the wire? Is there a special tool?

Just a razor... and some patience I cut the wires with them already being wound together, so it was kind of a pain. But I'd still do it the same way if I were to again.

[Chewbacca]

Unfortunately I didn't get as much time to work on these as I would have liked to yesterday. But I did get the crossover fully figured out and tied together. Just need to solder the woofer positive, and the three negatives into the tube connector. I am pretty happy with how it turned out though! I'm going to have a hard time hiding these away in the speaker cabinets...

[Chops]

This is by far one of the best threads I've had the pleasure of reading through, on any forum!

Everything in that first post is cool, getting married, building sweet speakers, new source gear, and of course, Mr Roger and Mr LittleHead.

Which BTW, why and/or how did LittleHead get his name? His noggin looks like a normal sized kitty head to me. LOL

[Chewbacca]

This is by fat one of the best threads I've had the pleasure of reading through, on any forum!

Everything in that first post is cool, getting married, building sweet speakers, new source gear, and of course, Mr Roger and Mr LittleHead.

Which BTW, why and/or how did LittleHead get his name? His noggin looks like a normal sized kitty head to me. LOL

Thanks, Chops! I'm glad you enjoyed it! I had a really enjoyable time making the thread... was a great review of the better part of this past year.

Originally I named LittleHead Alfredo (full name: Alfredo Von Eats a Bird), then one day my dad came over (maybe 6 months after getting him) and he just randomly called out "LITTLE HEAD!" as soon as he walked in the door. The rest is history

And no, his noggin really isn't abnormally small lol!

[Chops]

Haha! That's funny. Another good little story!

We have our own version of "LittleHead". His name is Edgar, but he can be a rotten egg at times. LOL He's only one of five kitties we have roaming around here.

[Chewbacca]

Haha! That's funny. Another good little story!

We have our own version of "LittleHead". His name is Edgar, but he can be a rotten egg at times. LOL He's only one of five kitties we have roaming around here.

That's awesome! I love the name too. Random human names for cats always crack me up. Our next cat I believe is going to be named David LOL (after David Gilmour... of course ) My Wife had a cat named Syd, who was Rogers brother, but he was the first to pass... Aptly so.. So after David, we'll eventually have a Rick, and a Nick lol.

[Chewbacca]

Nice speakers BTW!

[Chops]

That's awesome! I love the name too. Random human names for cats always crack me up. Our next cat I believe is going to be named David LOL (after David Gilmour... of course ) My Wife had a cat named Syd, who was Rogers brother, but he was the first to pass... Aptly so.. So after David, we'll eventually have a Rick, and a Nick lol.

Yeah, we have a few "unusual" cat names for some of our cats... Charlie which is a little lady, Gandalf because he's gray, Mr Weasley because he's orange (yes, Harry Potter theme), and then Bucky, just because. We had one that passed a few years back that I named Harpo, because he never spoke. At least not until he was older for some reason.

And thanks for the speaker complement. Those are 13 year old AV123 X-Statik's with No-Rez and fully upgraded crossovers. I love these speakers!

[kickngas]

Excellent post, excellent work! Congrats on your recent marriage, and hopefully many years of wedded (and musical) bliss.
Are you planning on adding subs to complement the Otica's?

[Chewbacca]

Yeah, we have a few "unusual" cat names for some of our cats... Charlie which is a little lady, Gandalf because he's gray, Mr Weasley because he's orange (yes, Harry Potter theme), and then Bucky, just because. We had one that past a few years back that I named Harpo, because he never spoke. At least not until he was older for some reason.

And thanks for the speaker complement. Those are 13 year old AV123 X-Statik's with No-Rez and fully upgraded crossovers. I love these speakers!

That's great! Especially Gandalf

That's awesome, after 13 years you still love them!

[Chewbacca]

Excellent post, excellent work! Congrats on your recent marriage, and hopefully many years of wedded (and musical) bliss.
Are you planning on adding subs to complement the Otica's?

Hey, kickngas! Thanks for the compliment, and congratulations!

Yes, I either plan on doing (2) double, or (2) triple OB subs to compliment the Otica's. This will probably happen about a year from now... If I can hold out

[Chewbacca]

So I made a little more progress last night... But wasn't able to start working on them until about 9pm. I worked until my eyes could no longer focus. It doesn't look like I did much more, but wiring the woofers how I wanted to was a serous pain in the... Which, it's almost comical, because this will mostly all be covered by NoRez. But, I'll be happy knowing I did it the way I wanted to! Still need to wire up the top two woofers, but that will be pie!

I've also come to terms these won't be done before I'm gone this weekend... Which is probably good. If I had these hooked up, I doubt I'd be able to leave them

In addition to the fact my fears have been realized, and I'm going to run out of wire

Got an email into Danny this morning inquiring about more!

[Chewbacca]

Sent an email to GR inquiring about more wiring, and Hobbs sent me an email back with all the info I needed in under 10 minutes! Customer service at it's finest!

Thanks Hobbs/GR!

[Hobbsmeerkat]

Sent an email to GR inquiring about more wiring, and Hobbs sent me an email back with all the info I needed in under 10 minutes! Customer service at it's finest!

Thanks Hobbs/GR!

You bet! 

[Chops]

That's great! Especially Gandalf

That's awesome, after 13 years you still love them!

Thanks!

Yeah, these X-Statik's are awesome speakers. And they're still in mint condition after all of these years, including five or six moves over the years. Since we just purchased this house a couple months ago, the X-Statik's won't be moving again. 

[Chewbacca]

Alright friends... The time has come! I finished them up yesterday, minus the NoRez, and adding tube connectors to the Odyssey amp ends (reason for the covers being off of them).

Here's a pic right before firing them up... LittleHead, proud of his creation!



Few more pics of them after playing a bit:









Okay okay, so yeah. They look good. Almost forgot they play music as well...

So how do they sound? Well, I stayed up until past 2am, on a work night - so maybe that gives you an idea.

Initially, the first song or two, definitely congested sounding, highs a little harsh - but STILL better than I've ever had. After about an hour, the mids started to just blossom, everything started to open up. The highs still had a little edge to them, but this has a miflex cap on the circuit, so it may take a little bit to level out - In addition, my room is pretty live. Speaking of the room, I CANNOT believe how much bass these put out! I was floored! I check two or three times to make sure my subwoofer wasn't on. Doing a quick FR check (while just playing music) it looks like they play completely flat to 50hz, and then drop like a rock! The bass, and mid range are just UNREAL! Without testing it I can tell the Frequency Response is very flat. Each bass note has the exact same volume between them (or however the record was meant to be), with NO bass nulls that I can hear. I had a MASSIVE 50hz bump in my room before, had to really tweak in the sub to dial it down. That's completely gone! Open baffles really do help with room integration... Speaking of open baffles, once you hear them - you CANNOT go back to a box speaker! It's a whole new animal. The music just flows out of the speakers, and creates a monstrously massive stage, that's so robust and powerful, yet extremely delicate and detailed. Dynamics? HAH! I'm coming from (2) 5.5" woofers to (12) 6" woofers... It's unreal. The mid range grunt to them is just.. idk, I kept just saying things like "my god..." "what the..." "unreal, just unreal" until I realized it was 2am. Also - I was listening at about 93-95db peaks at main listening position. They did NOT sound like they were playing that loud! Definitely confirms how smooth and unfatiguing they are! Usually I listen to about 80-90db peaks at main listening position.

Music listened to:

Dire Straits - Communique (Qobuz HiRez)
Daft Punk - Random Access Memories (Qobuz HiRez)
     -Really the only music I noticed the sub-bass missing
The Eages - Hotel California (Original pressing LP)
Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy (Original pressing LP)
     -I was floored by this album. D'yer Mak'er is my favorite song of all time for drums.. Bonham just SHINED! It was unreal. The panning on the drums from left to right on the soundstage was just perfect. Each so clear and precisely located. Center image just LOCKED in! Then No Quarter came on... the song that made me start playing guitar. When the guitar riff kicked in on the left channel, I thought my skin was going to pop I got such huge goosebumps! Oh man...
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong - Ella and Louis (new production LP)

I cannot thank Danny, Hobbs, and the GR team enough for creating such an AMAZING speaker, and being so supportive and helpful throughout my journey!

I'll keep updating this thread, and give some better impressions once they're more broken in. I only have about 3-4 hours on them now... Besides the Little Lady probably using them to watch TV right now lol.

Wow... I'm so excited!

Oh, and btw, living with the speaker cables for about a week now, I can safely say about 50% of my RFI has been eliminated from them... Which is great, because these speakers are much more efficient - I was worried it would play the interference significantly louder. Currently (at it's worst) I can move some RCA cables around, and get it eliminated 98%... awesome! This issue frustrated me so much, I hardly listened to any music on the system for about 2 years. It made me furious thinking about it... So this is such a relief!

More to come! Couldn't be happier!

[Tyson]

Hell yeah, that's what I'm talkin' 'bout!!  That build looks incredible - very nice work!!

I'll admit I was laughing to myself when you mentioned the 50hz bass issue just SOLVED, with no other messing around with anything, just getting good OB speakers in place.  I laugh because I've had that EXACT same thing happen to me, twice! 

Congrats on getting everything built out and working - your system is on a whole 'nother level now.

[Chewbacca]

Thanks, Tyson! The lack of any room modes was probably the first thing I noticed. Just eliminating them simply makes you focus on the music. Not a "dang, that note shouldn't have been that loud, should it have?" - Immersion gone when that happens. These, it's just "oh... my... goodness... THAT'S how it SHOULD sound!" "That's how a bass ACTUALLY sounds!" "That's how drums ACTUALLY sound!"... coming from being around live music ALOT in my younger years. It doesn't feel like the sound is being reproduced... it's created in the room. Or it takes you to the room that it was created in! When "The Ocean" came on, on Houses of the Holy, you could hear the heavily damped room that Page was playing in. You could HEAR the sound deadening panels/materials in the room! Not just the reverb - More so them trying to eliminate the reverb!... unreal.

Yeah, these are a whole different level. I feel like the rest of my system is pretty up to the task of making the speakers sing too!... with the new DAC, Vinyl upgrades, and speakers, my system went from a solid 4 to an 8... I'm sure with the OB subs, and finishing break in I'll be at a nice 9.5.. There's always room for improvement Best I've ever heard being my gauge of a 10 rating - a $250k+ system.