Well I received my wool surrounds yesterday and preceeded to do a 19 hour listening session. The surrounds fit like a glove. Even tho they don't look horrible, I'm not very fond of looking at them. I will give them quite a bit of time before I put the black shoe polish to them. Thanks for the little test pieces, they'll surely come in handy if I do go the shoe polish route. I was surprised at the thickness of these wool surrounds, very substantial. I personally don't see these things falling apart in the years to come and fully expect them to retain there composition.
Now for the sound,,,,,,,, I first played a Candian female jazz singer who I like better than Diana Krall or Patricia Barber, this being Emilie-Claire Barlow: The Very Thought Of You. I've always found this album to image excellent with a deep soundstage. I figured if I coud detect an image & depth perception on this album, your surrounds would be keepers. I'd say it took maybe 5 seconds,,,,, or was it 6, I don't remember exactly but my mind was made up somewhat instantaneously. BAAAMM, the Lorelei's were gone and I went from the middle row of my concert hall to like the 1st row. There was just more focus & more treble attack and even tho there was a deeper soundstage being created, the added focus drew me closer to the singer. The tweeter is much more defined now with a sharper clearer treble. Jim says I'm [size=06pt]edit[/size]
NOT getting the first reflection now so I guess that's whats accounting for these clearer sharper highs.
My Lorelei's have always done a good job of hiding themselves thanks for their imaging quality but now, my Lorelei's has left the building,,,, gone! Astonishing. With this increased focus & depth came the perception of increased volume. I'd guess a good 6-7 db increase from where I would normally listen to female vocals and I started out by turning down the volume(wasn't long before the volume was on it's way back up tho). I did end up recalibrating my speakers, they were all off a 1/2 db from each other,,front to back.
I then switched it and got down with Joe Satriani: Super Colossal,,,, and the volume went up,,,, and up some more. It's funny how I can listen to vocals, jazz, classical, etc with a low to medium high volume but when it comes to rock, it's only meant to be heard 1 way, F***ing LOUD!!! I think I can get use to this front row seating,,,this is focus to the extreme. Talk about X-Games.
Just a little more volune,,,,,, 99 db's just about right.
These wool surrounds are unbelievable on how they focus, intensify the treble and amplify my already dynamic system. It's really the first time I'm seeing what people see in stereo as I'm been using 2-channel to back off on this intense focus. The music is so projecting, that the rear speakers are almost overkill. I even had to shut off the panorama on the Dobly Pro Logic 2x, just to rein in this spacial dynamic soundstage of mine. A good analogy would be the Lorelei's have always made me feel like I was sitting in the center of an empty concert hall with that deep dynamic sound. Well now that deep dynamic sound has got so deep & focused that I feel like I'm in the front row and that dynamics is slapping me in my face. i started the day cranking the volume down cuz it was just too much. but as the hours went by, so has the volume risen. I have ways of taming the edge in the focus, that's the good thing about overkill, there's a lot of room for adjusting. That'll come if needed, but not for a while. I think I'll just let the tones slap me up side the face for awhile.
No doubt about it Jim, any surface mounted tweeter will benefit from these wool surrounds. The focus improvements rate right up there with what I achieved when I placed the Sistrum Platforms under my Lorelei's. Only difference was the Sistrum Platforms were like 10 times the price of your Surrounds. These product is a nobrainer if I've ever come across one, especialy at the more realistic price of $29.95. If I were you Jim, I'd keep that price and maye charge more for offering color coating, something you might want to work on. It's definitely something I'll probably be looking into after a while.
Thanks Jim for offering up this great tweeter tweak, I'll be especially looking forward to Jim N.'s comparson with those neoprene ovals. I'll be mighty surprised if the focus gains are on par with these thick wool surrounds. With the composition of this dense wool, I don't suspect them to fall apart as time goes by either. Only time will tell on that one but I will say that on the very first velcro square, I place the soft square on the wool instead of the hard and when I went to take it off, the wool keep it's composure. that in itself impressed me on the quality of this wool. Oh yeah, thanks for adding the extra velcro just in case mistakes happen or someone wants to secure all 4 corners. As per instructions, I found velcroing the top 2 corners to be suffient.
Well that's about it. Another satisfied customer and permanent owner of diffractionbegone. I'll be happy to awnser any questions if I can.
Cheers,
Robin
