[RonR]

Hi Peter, and welcome to the forum!

I hope you'll be as pleased with your Vsonics as I am with mine.

1. I didn't use a primer, but I did go over the surface with 800 wet or dry paper to help adhesion of the paint.

2. Looking closely at the woofer surround, just outside where the rubber suspension finishes there's a small "trench". I cut some very thin cardboard to make a tube that fit into the trench, then closed off the top of the tube with more cardboard and masking tape. A similar tube was cut to fit the rear of the driver in thicker cardboard, this was taped to the back of the surround. Effectively you have a closed off cylinder, with the driver sandwiched in the middle, and the surround sticking out of the circumference some way down.
A spray can of Smooth Hammerite was used, 3 coats with 20 minutes between coats. If you spray in a well ventilated area, most of the volatiles are long gone within a couple of minutes, and the cardboard tube is fairly effective at keeping them away from the suspension. I then removed the tube before the paint dried, but once dry put it back in place while the hammerite cured.

BTW I've not seen any deterioration in the rubber suspension in the several months since painting.

Hope this helps, and good luck with the build!

Ron.

[PJR]

Hi Ron

Thanks very much for that valuable information. I too had considered the use of cardboard tube, although I'd not thought of a second tube to protect the underside of a driver. No doubt your method will be adopted by other constructors as well.

Regards, Peter Roberts

[hybride]

Hi all,
I modified my Vsonic's. I changed the Peerless woofer to a Seas CA22RNY driver. The Peerless woofer is out of production and hard to get.
The CA22RNY is a marvelous driver with a higher SPL. I have got some first tips from Hugh to tune the filter for this driver. One coil has to be wind up to about 8 turns.

I am playing around with my Vsonic's to get the best out of them in my environment. I have a nice tweak for Vsonic owners to try. Try to solder a small (0,25w) 15 Kohm carbonresistor over de capacacitors which are in serie with the tweeter. There are two of them, so you need 2 resistors for one speaker. This idea comes from my Dutch friend and DAC designer John Brown from ECdesigns. He uses this trick also with coupling caps. For coupling caps the resistor has to be 2 Mohm. The effect i hear is that the top-treble is better, more fluid and transparant.

I wonder if there are Vsonic owners who experienced with the padding in the speaker. I would love to hear experiences on this.

Thanks.     

Hans     

[AKSA]

Hans, and other Interested Folkwith the VSonics,

Let me inform you all precisely what has been done with the VSonics, so you are no longer in the dark over a significant design change to accommodate the withdrawal from the market of the Peerless 830884.

When the chosen driver stocks dried up worldwide, Laurie and I conducted a DIY seance to select another suitable driver.  Eventually, we settled on the SEAS CA22RNY, a 3.6Kg 8" driver with large ceramic magnet, extremely light cone (17.9g), suitable Force Factor (8.5) and Vas (82 litres) and Qts (0.3).  This is a treated paper coned driver with 91dB/watt/metre sensitivity, 90W continuous power rating, and maximum voice coil travel of no less than 20mm.  It looked wonderful, and was a similar price.

I bought a couple, and Laurie converted my VSonics as the proto.  We had his VSonics with 884s for comparisons.  He set to work with Crossover Pro and much zealous tweaking and found that the driver was indeed highly suited to the enclosure, and in fact delivered slightly better bass and matching resolution.  Side by side tests also indicated very slight improvement in image depth and focus.  This was very good news.

The necessary changes to the crossover are minimal;  an inductor and a resistor change, essentially.  I have since bought another pair of these drivers so we can convert Laurie's speakers, we are now quite confident.  There are changes to the padding above and below the driver;  not the carpet, as specified, which lines the transmission folds, but the padding in which the crossovers were sent;  it is reduced in quantity and mounted differently.  Laurie has recently had eye surgery, nothing serious, and is temporarily out of action with email, but I am about to write this up and will make it available to any present VSonics owners who wish to convert to the SEAS drivers.

I would stress a couple of points.  We moved to the SEAS driver, which turned out to be slightly better, not because we wished to upset present owners of an exceptional Aspen speaker, but rather because the demise of Tymphany forced us to redevelop the speaker design for a readily available driver.  We deliberately chose something of comparable cost and ready availability worldwide, and this pointed us to the SEAS CA22RNY.  That this speaker turns out to drive the transmission line in the bass particularly well, even better than the original Peerless driver, is entirely serendipitous, but we ain't knockin' it back....

Accordingly, watch this space, and in about a week, any existing VSonics owner who wishes to convert can email me and I will have update instructions ready!!

Happy New Year, guys, happy speaker and amp building, and may your best music move you to tears......

Cheers,

Hugh and Laurie!

[Johnny]

Hi Hans,
Thanks for the ideas.
I have been contemplating experimenting with the stuffing now that Vs and my ears are well acquainted, but have not dived in.

Hi Hugh!
Thanks for the preliminaries. I have be wondering what I would do if my woofers were damaged, not by my amps, but an errant child or some such...
Does the Seas fit in the original flange area. I understand the outside diameter is smaller so it might fit within the original rabbeted area, in which case there would some what of a gap around the circumference I suppose. But, is there enough material in the original cutout for the new woofer screws to hold?

Best wishes to all,
John

[Tliner]

Hi All,

Regarding the stuffing:-  The placement of the stuffing is critical if you are attempting to get the last ounce of performence out of your VSonics. If you alter the position of the stuffing and amount of it you will notice a difference in souind quality for better or worse. The stuffing as supplied is to be positioned in two places in the cabinet. As supplied the stuffing is "an average amount" which makes the VSonics sound extremely good in most listening situations. What you will be attempting to do by altering the amount of the stuffing of the woofer only is to fine tune the VSonics to your listening area and to what you percieve as the sound that suits you best.

 The smaller piece of stuffing is to be placed directly above the tweeter hard against the inside top of the box. A little dollop of PVA glue can be used on the centre of the stuffing to hold it in place. There should be NO stuffing behind the tweeter or woofer. Do NOT alter the volume of the stuffing above the tweeter. The stuffing below the woofer should be positioned just above the internal port and  not below it. The stuffing should not block the airway and be positioned hard up against the V. A little PVA glue will keep it in place should it be found to move. You can reduce the length of the woofer stuffing by about half, no more. Somewhere in between you might find "the sweet spot" that suits your tastes.
John, The SEAS drivers do not fit directly into the rebate due to the flat sides of the 884 driver. You have to make the rebate round. I use the SEAS drivers as a template to scribe the where the flats are to be removed then carefully chisle the unwanted wood way. Some of the screw holes align. Drill new holes to suit. I think the top and bottom screw holes are ok from memory.

Cheers,

Laurie

[hybride]

Laurie, welcome back!

[Johnny]

Yes, welcome back Laurie and happy new year!

Thanks for the additional details- that's the clearest description of default and tweaking of the Vs stuffing if seen yet   

Cheers!
John

[Tliner]

 Hi All,

I hope you all have a rewarding 2011.

I'm stealing Hughs thunder a little bit but we had a hoot of a day altering "Supermart's" VSonics to the latest specs with the the SEAS drivers. Well I still can't see properly close up and Hugh seems to have smudgy glasses. I held the solder and sometimes held the wires to be attached while Hugh waved the soldering iron around. Gee, the job got extremely hot every now and again and we some times lost interest in what we were attempting to solder for the sake of self preservation. Marty wondered if his speakers were ever going to to work at all let alone as they should. We all had a good laugh. When we fired up the VSonics 11 we found that they worked as they should. The bass and general slam, attack and note decay is to be heard to be believed. And yet the sound is more "musical and real" than before. Soon we were absorbed in the music, forgetting the speakers and Hugh's new Naksa 70. Usually we spend our time nit picking the system and not listening, but this combination of amp and speaker is something special. I can't wait to audition the VSonics powered by the New Maya and the Naksa 100. Now that WILL be something worth waiting for.

Now it is up to  Marty to post his impressions when he has had a good listen to his favourite music pieces.
Cheers Laurie

 

 

[hybride]

John,
The driver is easily changed. I used a sharp chisel to 'round' the two flat edges in the driver hole. The Vsonic's II are driven now by my LF100 amp. Had them also connected to a (10 watt) 813 SE tube amp. Properly even with the filter not yet fine-tuned, the SEAS driver acts like an accomplished acrobat, accurate and fast. The driver has an enormous magnet and is due its high SPL easily driven. In my environment it gains more low pressure in the TL. The mid's and bass response is even more balanced and the deepest subtones are clearly present. Sometimes i 'feel' them like a 'passing train'. The Peerless is a fine driver, but imho it's worth to consider an upgrade.

[SuperMart]

Hi Guys,

Time to report on my experiences with the VSonics 2. I've heard them being driven by the NAKSA's (70 & 100), the Maya and now my own Sorayas (circa 2007)>

As I said to Hugh when I first heard them - for me, the upgrade was a "No- Brainer."

The improvements are right across the board but most immediately noticeable is the improvement to the bass quality - there is more quantity, depth and natural tunefulness and on its own it's almost worth the admission price.

IMHO the new driver effectively supercharges the performance of the VSonics 1. The VSonics 2 have greater clarity, speed and slam. The higher SPL makes them livelier at all levels of gain. To put it another way, my Soraya now seems to think it's a NAKSA 100.

If you are an existing VSonics 1 owner then I think you should give yourself a late Xmas present, like I did, and get into the V2 club.

Many thanks to Laurie and Hugh for lifting a couple more veils on the road to audio nirvana.

Cheers,

Marty.

[RonR]

Hi Hugh, Laurie, Marty and Hybride,

You've convinced me that the Vsonics can get even better than the Mk1, so there's a pair of SEAS drivers on their way to me now. This will be a good filler project to carry out whilst I prevaricate over whether to go for a Naksa 70 or Naksa 100.

Hugh, could you include me in the upgrade instructions mail-out please?

Cheers,

Ron

[AKSA]

Hi Ron,

I've started the instructions, but not complete yet, a few graphics to draw up.  Hans and Laurie have been most helpful in this connection;  I now have all the info, but will need to ask Laurie to proof my instructions first, bear with me, sorry for delays.

There are three mods;  replacement of woofer, adjustment of one inductor in the crossover, and resetting of the acoustic fill inside the first (driver) chamber of the enclosure.  Nothing more.....

You will not be disappointed, Ron, the change is considerable.

Thanks for the interest.  I should emphasise that all future kits sold will have these mods included as a matter of course.  Driver price is almost lineball with the Peerless 884, too, so it's no more expensive.

Cheers,

Hugh

[RonR]

Hi Hugh,

My Vsonics are now sporting their new bass drivers, and the other adjustments have been carried out to your very clear instructions. This gave a very nice improvement in low frequency extension and accuracy.

A router was used to unflatten the edges of the driver cutouts, mainly because I was wary of using a chisel on the plywood front baffle, as I don't have grilles.

A 2X1 inch batten was placed behind the driver cut-out and screwed through two of the driver mounting holes. Then a second batten the same thickness as the front baffle was screwed to the first. The centre of the cut-out was then marked and drilled, then used as the pivot point for the router circle guide. This also allowed me to deepen the driver cut-out slightly, as the SEAS driver flanges are slightly thicker than the Peerless ones.

Now to relax and listen to some Tunes!

Cheers,

Ron.

[Johnny]

Nice pioneering work Ron!
This will smooth the way for those of us who follow...
Best,
John

[Tliner]

Hi Ron,

The music gets better! I'm pleased that you have made the update and found it an improvement.

After fifty years of mucking around with speakers ther is always something new to learn.
I have spent countless hours cutting and recutting driver holes etc. Fortunately most of my attempts to make the driver holes smaller or larger have turned out ok. But there have been a few too many disasters and at the extreme new front panels have been made. I congratulate you on your technique to locate the router, it is so simple and obvious. I have always used a chistle and sharp knife to alter the hole size on a few pairs of VSonic speakers and all have turned out ok except mine. Unfortunately mine looked as if I used a chainsaw to do the job, very rough as I picked up some veneer which tore away.

After reading your post I made a jig as you described in about ten minutes. Then I got out the router, reset it and cut the rebate which has a nice clean edge. Fortunately the holes I cut were a neat fit (with jagged edges) with the driver so I simply enlarged the diameter of the rtebate to the same size as the rest of the rebate. Both speakers were "fixed" in less than half an hour.  The most time consuming part was removing and reinstalling the drivers. Before I reinstalled the drivers I used a black felt pen to mask the larger diameter of the rebate around the edge of the new driver. It is now very hard to see that the rebate has been altered.

happy listening,

Laurie