Revisiting the X-Statik's...

Chops · « **Reply #20 on:** 26 Dec 2011, 09:43 pm »

You're not being a party pooper at all. I completely understand what you were saying. The X-Statik's have plenty of treble to my ears as well as the X-Voce. I just want to clean them up a little as they tend to sound just a tad bit "fuzzy" at times. Maybe that's a side effect of the grills, but I can't remove them as I refuse to have the cats do anything to them possibly. Maybe it's due to baffle diffraction. That's why I would like to try some felt around the tweeters and see what that does.

Hopefully, since Danny knows these speakers best, maybe he will see this and add his thoughts. Hint, hint...

Danny Richie · « **Reply #21 on:** 26 Dec 2011, 10:01 pm »

Sorry, I haven't had time to do a lot of posting lately. I checked on this thread several times over the holidays but just didn't have time to compose my thoughts. There is a lot in this thread for me to reply to so i will try to take the early stuff first and make it down to these last questions.

Chops · « **Reply #22 on:** 26 Dec 2011, 10:19 pm »

No apologies needed Danny. We all know you're a busy man, and with the holidays and such, it's quite understandable.

Danny Richie · « **Reply #23 on:** 26 Dec 2011, 10:24 pm »

Quote

Danny, those "old" lamps are there to keep the cats off of the speakers. Besides, both of those lamps aren't old, they have very nice LED's in them!

By old lamp stands I was referring to the speakers.

Regarding high loss cabinets (unbraced and highly resonant): This older speakers were built to a price point and lightly built for that reason primarily. Also, back in the day most speaker companies simply didn't know any better or didn't care. Seldom was it on purpose. The highly resonant cabinets add a coloration to the bass and mid-range that some people really like, but it is an artificial addition and not part of the original signal. Think of it as running the signal through a reverberation device before amplification. It might sound cool, but is added coloration unquestionably.

Regrading cap and coil upgrades:

Any time you are using several caps to make on value then you want to avoid using various differing values. By that I mean that you don't want to use a 6.0uF and a 9.0uF to make a 15uF. The discharge rate between the two caps are different and one will lag the other causing a smearing effect. Using a pair of 7.5uF values avoid this problem. When you drop a really small one in there though that is a .22 or a .1uF or smaller then the phase shift caused by the smaller cap verses the larger one is higher in frequency than you can hear (above 20,000Hz). So effectively you are discharging the larger cap and reducing it's stored energy with the larger one. No problems with that.

The Jantzen caps are not bad caps but results can vary with application and cap type. Several of them are known for having a flavor of there own.

Their inductors are fairly reasonable (price wise) and especially considering that they have to be imported from Denmark, and a 5% duty is added to their price, plus heavy shipping cost because of the weight. And they are cheap for good reason. Independent tests have shown that the Copper is recycled and about 94 to 96% Copper. The rest is whatever trash got mixed in during recycling. A/B comparisons to other inductors further confirms this to be the case. So I don't recommend those inductors.

Danny Richie · « **Reply #24 on:** 26 Dec 2011, 10:47 pm »

Quote

I have to admit, moving them to the inside positions made a huge improvement! The soundstage has grown even wider and deeper. It definitely sounds better!

Man, you haven't heard anything yet. By that I mean it can still get A LOT better.

Just for fun, move them out so that they are half way onto that floor rug. Don't worry, you can move them right back before you girl friend sees them.

Now how does it sound?

Treating that wall behind the speakers will make twice as much difference again than just pulling them in and out into the room. This can go up several levels.

Upgrading the parts quality to Sonicaps and even adding Platinum by-pass caps won't make them sound brighter or in any way change the tonal balance. What that stuff really does is puts more space between the notes. It does this by reducing smearing. So the details and spacial ques become more apparent.

The negative to the cleaner and faster discharging caps is that it also allows the sonic character of everything ahead of the speakers to come through. So if your gear is a bit harsh or grainy then it will be real apparent. It might even become a bit of an annoyance. Sometimes the slower discharging caps tend to smear or soften the sound of some gear to a level that is more tolerable.

With some budget type gear you might not even notice the effects of higher quality caps. There may be too much coloration to begin with.

django11 · « **Reply #25 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 03:34 am »

Quote from: Danny Richie on 26 Dec 2011, 10:47 pm

So the details and spacial ques become more apparent.

Just trying to follow. Is that a typo?

corndog71 · « **Reply #26 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 03:56 am »

spatial

django11 · « **Reply #27 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 04:11 am »

Quote from: corndog71 on 27 Dec 2011, 03:56 am

spatial

What about "ques" all I get is "Ques is one of 24 parishes (administrative divisions) in Piloña..." which doesn't seem relevant...

Danny Richie · « **Reply #28 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 04:27 am »

That's what I call a double typo...

Okay, spatial cues.

srb · « **Reply #29 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 04:28 am »

http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/42206

Steve

django11 · « **Reply #30 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 02:11 pm »

Quote from: Danny Richie on 27 Dec 2011, 04:27 am

That's what I call a double typo...

Okay, spatial cues.

I should have been able to guess that

...

Chops · « **Reply #31 on:** 27 Dec 2011, 02:14 pm »

Quote from: Danny Richie on 26 Dec 2011, 10:24 pm

By old lamp stands I was referring to the speakers.

Regarding high loss cabinets (unbraced and highly resonant): This older speakers were built to a price point and lightly built for that reason primarily. Also, back in the day most speaker companies simply didn't know any better or didn't care. Seldom was it on purpose. The highly resonant cabinets add a coloration to the bass and mid-range that some people really like, but it is an artificial addition and not part of the original signal. Think of it as running the signal through a reverberation device before amplification. It might sound cool, but is added coloration unquestionably.

Regrading cap and coil upgrades:

Any time you are using several caps to make on value then you want to avoid using various differing values. By that I mean that you don't want to use a 6.0uF and a 9.0uF to make a 15uF. The discharge rate between the two caps are different and one will lag the other causing a smearing effect. Using a pair of 7.5uF values avoid this problem. When you drop a really small one in there though that is a .22 or a .1uF or smaller then the phase shift caused by the smaller cap verses the larger one is higher in frequency than you can hear (above 20,000Hz). So effectively you are discharging the larger cap and reducing it's stored energy with the larger one. No problems with that.

The Jantzen caps are not bad caps but results can vary with application and cap type. Several of them are known for having a flavor of there own.

Don't knock those old "lamp stands". Those Genesis speakers sound pretty darn good. They have a continuity and naturalness to them that not even the X-Statik's can match. These Genesis speakers even put down a pair of NHT 2.9's! Not to mention that they image amazingly well and throw a wide soundstage.

As far as the caps, this is where I got my idea from for Cascade Bypassing... http://www.northcreekmusic.com/Bypassing.html

I noticed more detail and air after making this mod to the crossovers in the Genesis speakers. Those are some amazing tweeters in those speakers.

Chops · « **Reply #32 on:** 31 Dec 2011, 06:12 pm »

Since I haven't received an answer yet about using felt or foam around the tweeters, I went ahead and put some egg crate foam around the tweeters on my own. Unfortunately, I have yet to do any real listening with this mod as we have company over for the weekend. I did manage to knock off a few pics real quick though...

Danny Richie · « **Reply #33 on:** 31 Dec 2011, 06:47 pm »

That will actually adversely effect the response on these. You will reduce the tweeters output and create a hole in the 3kHz range.

iskandam · « **Reply #34 on:** 1 Jan 2012, 01:04 am »

Quote from: Chops on 31 Dec 2011, 06:12 pm

Since I haven't received an answer yet about using felt or foam around the tweeters, I went ahead and put some egg crate foam around the tweeters on my own. Unfortunately, I have yet to do any real listening with this mod as we have company over for the weekend. I did manage to knock off a few pics real quick though...

I did something similar to this when I had my X-Statiks. I added diffraction-be-gone around the tweeter. It did wonders to my previous speakers but, as Danny mentioned, had the opposite effect on the X-Statiks. It made the sound hollow and weird. I took them out after a week and the glorious sound returned.

Chops · « **Reply #35 on:** 1 Jan 2012, 03:37 pm »

I've given them a little listen today and the only thing I can tell is that it made the tweeters sound a little detached from the rest of the speaker. The foam will be removed shortly.

Thanks Danny and iskandam for your input.

Chops · « **Reply #36 on:** 5 Jan 2012, 03:35 am »

Danny, I was just thinking about one other thing with the X-Statik's. Since they are open baffle, they are nearly a full dipole design minus a rear firing tweeter, why not just add a tweeter to the rear?

I have a pair of Dayton DC28F-8 1-1/8" soft domes sitting here doing nothing but gathering dust. I'm seriously thinking about hooking them up to the X-Statik's and see how they sound. Just tap them in right at the binding posts. I already have two Dayton poly caps soldered in series to them, a 3.0uF and a 3.3uF. I think that might put the crossover point around 3kHz, 1st order of course.

What do you think about this? And if I'm correct on the 3kHz point, should that be moved up more?

Danny Richie · « **Reply #37 on:** 5 Jan 2012, 04:04 am »

I wish it were that simple.

Just adding it on somewhere and putting a cap in line with it could cause several other issues. First of all getting them to be in phase with the woofers given the different offset that will occur could cause less output to the rear wave in the 2 to 3kHz region than it adds.

The impedance will drop too, and possibly less than 4 ohms.

The only safe way to get some positive benefit is to use a cap value of 1.0 uF or smaller.

Chops · « **Reply #38 on:** 5 Jan 2012, 01:40 pm »

Quote from: Danny Richie on 5 Jan 2012, 04:04 am

I wish it were that simple.

Just adding it on somewhere and putting a cap in line with it could cause several other issues. First of all getting them to be in phase with the woofers given the different offset that will occur could cause less output to the rear wave in the 2 to 3kHz region than it adds.

The impedance will drop too, and possibly less than 4 ohms.

The only safe way to get some positive benefit is to use a cap value of 1.0 uF or smaller.

Exactly why I asked at the end of my post if that crossover point should be bumped up or not. I was thinking somewhere in the lines of 10-15kHz or so.

Also, I just realized that I was wrong about what I said about the caps I have. They are 3.3uF and 3.0uF wired in series, so that would make it roughly 1.57uF, not 6.3uF. On these tweeters, I'm thinking that should bring the crossover point up to around 12.5kHz. This is how I used them before on my tower speaker project a little while ago. You're thinking I should shoot even higher than that?

If I do this, I'm thinking I can position them directly behind the stock tweeters, mounting them on the rear grill with stand-offs, washers and rubber washers. That way they are completely removable and no marks made to the baffles or grills.

I'm getting my idea from Siegfried Linkwitz and his famous Orion's. Later on, he decided to add a matching Seas tweeter directly behind the front tweeter. Unfortunately, I don't have time to read it at the moment.

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/orion++.htm

Danny Richie · « **Reply #39 on:** 5 Jan 2012, 01:58 pm »

A 1.5 uF would be a good starting point too.