Audiophiles anyone?

GallopingGhostler wrote:About 6 months ago, I bought a 15" powered speaker system, 800 Watts, plus battery backed for use where there is no electric outlet. Also has 2 wireless hand mikes. Love the deep bass of the 15" woofer in this puppy, a Gemini ES15TOGO, even has Bluetooth. I thought it appropriate, as there is a lot of craziness in politics going around our world today. MP3 player is an ASUS 4G Surf with Linux installed as my MP3 player. Here, in this Google video, I'm playing "This Masquerade" on bari sax. Link is the video. Because it is not a Google video, I did a screen capture of the video to give an idea of my setup. The link, not the photo is the video. Enjoy!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7T9-FMCHtgJX1V5bThJSUxSWUE/view?usp=sharing

Very Nice George! Leon Russell would be proud! A nice mellow version for this Saturday afternoon I must say! I monitor my web-audio via a Denon AVR-1506 surround receiver.. with a small Polk-Audio sub.. so I got a nice deep representation of how your system sounds. Nice mix and tasty playing on your part! That's a nice room as well!

I remember when George "Benson" covered that tune in 1976 on his "Breezin" album. It was definitely one of my favs! I did enjoy and thanks for sharing!

With out going back through all the pages I know that I also share a grand music appreciation and am a failed student... always finding some other past time to peak my interest

That said...after drums.... my fav sound is a accomplished Sax player pulls me into his passion..

So much can be done with each of the various Saxophones,,,, I can hear them talk and sing

and there are several who use modern electronics to expand the range of sounds...

Bottom line is
I thoroughly enjoyed Georges offering


Mucho thanks brother!

Old thread but an interesting subject.

8-tracks never were a thing in Finland, we moved straight on from open reels to cassettes. I got my first ”HiFi” when I was 13 I think, it was a Philips combo with radio, tape and turntable all built into one 2ft wide unit. Very common in the 70s, I got mine second-hand in 1984 or so. The tape player on this one never worked.

Well, I won’t bore y’all with details of the past systems, but there were some more second hand equipment, some home-made speakers, a stack of very nice Pioneer units (an A-757 amp for example) and so on. I’ll just fast-forward to my current system.

The turntable is a Technics SL-Q3, my second ever turntable bought (second hand of course) after the stylus on the Philips set gave up. It was in 1987 I think. Maybe 86 even.  



I have replaced the cartridge a couple of times, this is the current one:



In 2012 I bought a Cambridge Audio CD and amp. The CD player was surprisingly noisy (while playing), clunky and slow loading. Never really liked it, but just put up with it. When it finally quit this fall, I started to look for a replacement. Looked at NAD, Maranz etc, but all the nice ones were sort of expensive, and the cheaper ones felt like toys. So when I saw a second-hand FASE Audio Evoluzione player for sale, I got curious. Could not really find a lot of info about it but the unit itself felt like it is built well, it is heavy, quick and quiet. Not exactly a steal but cheaper than any of the new ones plus I am a sucker for well-built machinery. I think it is from the early ’90s, hand built in Italy of all places. Here it is on top of the Cambridge amp.



I don’t know if I am just imagining, but this CD unit kind of sounds better too. More clarity and details in the sound, hard to explain but I hear new things on familiar albums

These are the speakers that in 2012 replaced the home-built ones (still have them, pics later) because ”we” wanted something more compact. They are a pair of lower end Amphion speakers, built right here in Finland. Actually pretty decent but obviously not with a very powerful lower end. The CEF universal standard of measure demonstrates the size



Well, the speakers rarely blare anymore, I mostly use headphones (currently AKG K712’s bought on sale this spring). Real HiFi but the downside is that many current albums are kind of poorly produced and these bring out the ”errors” Well, I’ll just use the  plug earphones for the not-so-good productions

Here’s the setup now. I got lucky with the piece of furniture, a colleague’s wife had bought it at a flea market, but it would not fit where it was intended, and the colleague was frustrated about the whole thing. I offered to take it off his hands for the same price his wife had paid, and got the whole thing for 20€. Still need to figure out the CD storage, most of them are in boxes, and looking for any particular cd is a pain.



The old homebuilt speaker set is in storage and will end up in the shop along with some of my old equipment. I’ll try to get the old Pioneer amp fixed too, as it is a really good and powerful amp (at about 40lb it has to be ).

Kari, it sounds like your old cassette tape deck probably needed to have all rubber belts replaced and moving parts relubricated (old grease dried out).

Back in the 1980's, I had purchased from DAK a pair of 8" acoustic suspension bookshelf speakers. They sounded nice, able to reproduce deep bass and the highs with their tweeters. 10 years later, the speaker quality degraded. I found that the rubber acoustic suspension had dried out, became hardened and cracked. I bought 2 replacement speakers from Radio Shack (Tandy in Europe) and that fixed the problem. Replaced the scratchy volume and equalizer controls on my Pioneer receiver. When we moved, those got replaced with a Toshiba theatrical sound system with 5 disk DVD /CD changer. Now I'm finding that the new TV's don't use composite analogue video, so the 12 YO Toshiba will some time future be retired.

15 years ago my old turntable went south, the rubber in the belts belts and on the capstan wheel was badly cracked and dried out. Replacement parts were out of the question, hard to obtain and not worth the cost for what was available.

I bought myself one of those relatively inexpensive turntables with built in MP3 conversion to USB thumb drive as files. I haven't used that feature, but if the occasion warrants it, now can listen to some of the dozen and a half old LP's I have.

I have about 80 VHS video movies. Most still play, don't know if it is worth buying a VHS copy protection breaker box and burning to DVD, as most still play.

And Jacob, thanks for letting me know about enhanced AM radio with ID and text info. Here in rural NM we only get a few AM stations and those we get, the reception is poor, so I rarely listen to AM and was unaware.

You’re probably right George. The rubber belts tend to deteriorate and it is amazing how hard grease can get after a couple of decades. Fortunately my turntable is direct drive, no belts there I should overhaul it though, as a preventive measure. Maybe re-lube the main bearings and see if the bearings in the base of the tonearm could be adjusted and lubed. The start/stop button has never worked, so maybe I’ll see if I can do something about it too, after 30+ years of manual operation

On the middle shelf is my old Pioneer CT-757 deck, bought new in 1990, it had a really great sound quality, but now it has the same problems as my old Philips had. This one even has a motorized cassette door, so a lot of belts and things. It won’t play or even open the door, I am thinking if I should take it to a service shop or maybe try to fix it myself. A tape deck would be useful because my Saab has one too, it would be nice to be able to transfer some of my old LP:s on tape for use in the car. The Saab system has no aux input and I don’t ”do” spotify and such anyway.

Old hi-fi is an interesting diversion. An old (and older) friend was a superb R/C and static plastic scale modeler as well as an audiophile. He used to go to airshows and place two separate mikes along the runway with several hundred feet of spacing and record WW II fighters doing on the deck high speed passes on a reel to reel tape machine.

Then once or twice a year he would set up his 400 watt RMS stereo rig outdoors in his residential neighborhood with one Harmon Kardon speaker on his back lot line and the other next to the curb and play the passes back at max volume at 2 AM.

ticomareado

thanks...now got to clean the screen

SOUND OF THUNDER... read-on... (cab=enclosure)

Many of you know that I'm a musician (piano/organ) and active in a Southern Rock band.. but last Spring I became employed (30 hrs./wk.) by a company local to me, that designs/manufactures loudspeakers. The facility is located in an old mill in nearby Whitinsville, MA. The mill is known as the "Whitin" mill. One section was built on granite-pilings with the river running under. Lots of history on the numerous textile mills throughout the Blackstone river valley during the industrial revolution. I was hired part-time and cross-trained in several areas over the last few months. I had prior experience operating CNC routers.. so I trained-on and co-ran their router for the first few months.. switching-shifts with the guy who trained me. I did some electrical production in the way of coil-winding (cross-over coils), soldering "fast-ons" (male spade-type connectors) to the crossover PCB's. Final-Assembly of various enclosure-models.

Testing is something that I am "observing" thus far. There are software-controlled parameters and a calibrated microphone used for testing each enclosure's output-level, frequency-response curve and proper phasing.

There's a single power-amp with a 5000W. top-end. Even the single small 5" drivers in our smallest studio-monitors will handle a continuous 250W program.

We produce a sub-woofer enclosure (bass/low-frequency/ported) that has X2 twenty-one (21) inch. drivers mounted in baffles oriented at right-angles to one another. I would guess this to save cabinet-space. A cabinet with two 21" drivers side by side requires a baffle that's at least 45".. requiring the cab to measure at least 48" finish size. By facing the driver's to cross-throw at 90 degrees.. it not only reduces the frontal area of the drivers from 42" to 32" but the enclosure also becomes unidirectional. The drivers should both throw horizontally.. (cab laying on its long-side) Sorry.. I'm becoming a speaker-geek..  

News-flash I was hired full time, 6 months (to the day) after I started. YAY!

Regarding the SOUND OF THUNDER... recently near the end of a workday.. a pair of 221-series subs were being "swept" by the engineering dept. to establish a custom TQ setting (Temporal EQ) for a customers' particular digital signal processing or DSP engine.

The test involved several sustained high-output/low-frequency tones.. which might cause you to question the integrity of the fillings in your molars.

This is where I've been working.. and being a musician.. it's pretty cool. There's a LOT to know about achieving high-definition sound from a system that covers a huge area. That's where a "DSP" comes in. It can control several signals over a large area.. making it possible for a stadium to deliver seamless high-def audio from front of house, to back of house.

roddie wrote:Many of you know that I'm a musician (piano/organ) and active in a Southern Rock band.. but last Spring I became employed (30 hrs./wk.) by a company local to me, that designs/manufactures loudspeakers. The facility is located in an old mill in nearby Whitinsville, MA. [....] I had prior experience operating CNC routers.. so I trained-on and co-ran their router for the first few months.. switching-shifts with the guy who trained me. I did some electrical production in the way of coil-winding (cross-over coils), soldering "fast-ons" (male spade-type connectors) to the crossover PCB's. Final-Assembly of various enclosure-models.

Testing is something that I am "observing" thus far. There are software-controlled parameters and a calibrated microphone used for testing each enclosure's output-level, frequency-response curve and proper phasing. [....] News-flash I was hired full time, 6 months (to the day) after I started. YAY!

Regarding the SOUND OF THUNDER... recently near the end of a workday.. a pair of 221-series subs were being "swept" by the engineering dept. to establish a custom TQ setting (Temporal EQ) for a customers' particular digital signal processing or DSP engine. [....] That's where a "DSP" comes in. It can control several signals over a large area.. making it possible for a stadium to deliver seamless high-def audio from front of house, to back of house.

Congrats roddie, glad to see you are finally fully employed and in a good job at that. Regarding sounds of thunder, this will be the 5th year I am Salvation Army belling ringing with my saxes again, plus doing a nursing home a week on jazz sax, still with the community band, gotten more refined in my improv soloing. Glad to hear you are still plugging away with your band.

The Salvation Army chapel here has a 20 YO Yamaha mixer plumbed to two similar vintage Peavey Impulse 200P 12" powered speakers, finally got the sound tweaked to both. Someone had run differing wiring between the two. Left channel was on 1/4" phono plug. Right was on XLR to the speakers XLR input / output and mixer mono / right, just didn't sound right. Replaced the right with 1/4" phono to mixer right 1/4" phono output, now sounds balanced plus corrected other issues.

Thanks much George. It feels good to feel "useful" again. You're a good soul to do what you do. Being a solo player has its challenges. I might be heading in that direction very soon...

Our Southern Rock band has reached that point.. where they should announce a farewell.. and play one last gig. There are some health issues which prevent accepting/booking any premier gigs.. for fear of sickness on the date of the show. That's my rose-colored glasses version. Back to back shows have been "no can do" status for the last 2-3 years. We had been averaging 3-4 gigs/month.. but this year and most of 2017 averaged one gig/month or less. Bar gigs; mostly at a couple of bars that we've been playing for years. There's been a few train wrecks as of late.. and I don't care to see another one. We're still a great band on a given day, but those days are becoming less frequent.

Regarding the Yamaha mixer and Peavey cabs; you may want to try swapping-out both 1/4" cables for ones with XLR connections.. (microphone cables) It's generally a better option for connecting a sound-mixer to a power-amp's inputs.

Thanks Roddie for the update, sorry to hear that the band is about to peter out.

Regarding the XLR versus 1/4", these speakers are close to 25 YO. XLR might have a tad better advantage over noise immunity, but as I just configured it, works without excessive hum, sounds balanced and good, plus have the wrong cable ends for Input#1. Thus, its up against the Law of Diminishing Returns (more you try to improve the less you get in return). Since its not my equipment, not worth putting any more money into it. The quality of sound is good even under the fluorescent lights.

Yes, I understand George. Enjoy the season!

Speaking of audiophile, E-bay had a 10% short lived coupon, so I put it to use. I just bought another keyboard, a Korg EK-50 for $315 with shipping included. I wanted an instrument that sounded good, could be outputted to a PA system or external amp, but wouldn't be a big loss if stolen. I can add additional styles from Korg and 3rd parties through the USB interface. I don't write my own styles or songs. Am now waiting for it to be delivered from Music 123.



My preference would be a top of the line $4,000 Korg Pa4x or $2,000 Pa1000 keyboard, but given the venues and our lawless society, its just not worth it.

In 1999, I had a professional model Yamaha YAS-61 alto sax stolen from my vehicle at a restaurant in Albuquerque. I didn't know at the time it was worth $3,000, which was unrecoverable. Since, I have been careful with my instruments, purchasing beginner and intermediate quality horns and equipment. I've learned that if you play them very well, people don't know the difference. Although a pro model might have that slight edge, I am not a celebrity and don't have an income where I can consider a $7,000 horn loss as expendable.

It doesn't have the longevity I'd get from a pro model keyboard, but then I don't put a lot of heavy use on it. My Roland GW-7 that went for $1,000 10 years ago, which I got as open box for $729, even though good is limited to what this Korg can do.

"I wanted an instrument that sounded good, could be outputted to a PA system or external amp, but wouldn't be a big loss if stolen."

What kinda joints do you do gigs in?

ticomareado wrote:"I wanted an instrument that sounded good, could be outputted to a PA system or external amp, but wouldn't be a big loss if stolen." What kinda joints do you do gigs in?

These days, very little is secure, even in civic centres. I play in parks, stores, streets, motorcycle rallies, churches, etc. With the Salvation Army, we deal in venues with not always the best of people. However, it is a venue I enjoy.

And Roddie, regarding enjoying the season, this will be my third year in front of Walmart, and my 6th year with the kettle campaign on my saxes.

Hey George, Congratulations on sourcing another keyboard-instrument! I still have my old Korg Poly-61 which I bought new in 1986. At that time, "MIDI" had just been introduced.. and I could have ordered my Korg with MIDI. I opted "not".. figuring it was just a passing fad that would never be standardized in the industry. Man.. was I wrong there. For those who don't know; MIDI is an acronym for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. MIDI allows connected devices to send-receive information digitally.

My newer keyboards all have MIDI in/out/thru connections. I use MIDI mainly for connecting "modules" which have their own library of instrument-sounds that were digitally recorded (sampled..) and can be accessed via MIDI.. and blended with another sound/instrument. My favorite application for this scenario is mixing a string ensemble with piano.. but I also mix various "organ" samples.. in an attempt to replicate a decent "Hammond/Leslie-chorale" sound for certain tunes that the band does. The "Leslie" tone cabinet is a beast. I have a Leslie model 147 that was purchased "used" in the early 1980's. It's a vintage amplifier that was primarily designed for the Hammond organs being used in auditoriums and houses of worship several decades ago. I used the amplifier for many years.

For those unfamiliar with the "Leslie" tone-cabinet; it is slightly smaller than the size of a clothes washer or dryer. The cabinet is made of wood.. and partitioned to employ a two-way speaker-system consisting of a single 15" speaker for the mid/low-frequencies.. and a compression-driver for the high-frequencies.

The 15" speaker was mounted mid-cabinet.. "facing-down" into a rotating drum.. having a 90 degree radial-port. It's referred to as the "bass rotor".

The high-frequency compression/treble-driver was also mounted mid-cabinet.. except "facing-up" in a shelf above the bass-speaker.

Both OEM speakers were supplied by Jensen; who would later become a popular aftermarket audio supplier.

There is a cross-over circuit employed in the Leslie Tone-cabinet which is OEM.

The cabinet's amplifier is a 40w. tube-circuit.. (uses electronic vacuum tubes and really produces that vintage warm sound..) Then there's a solid-state 175w. "pre-amp" PEDAL.. for use with keyboard-instruments having line-level signals. The pedal had two input-channels with separate gain-pots. for each.

The Leslie tone-cabinets might have been par for other period-correct tube-amps.. but the Leslie tone-cabinet also used two separate electric motors with belt-drives to rotate transducers for the LF and HF speakers. There were two speeds; slow/chorale and fast/tremolo. Some of the most iconic uses of an organ being played through a Leslie tone cabinet was by the band Steppenwolf in their two tunes; Born to be Wild.. and Magic Carpet Ride.

That's what the Leslie amplifier does. My Leslie amplifier; I had "hot-rodded" with an "Altec" 15" bass/bottom.. and an "Altec" HF compression-driver.. back 30 years ago. I had to have a "yoke" specially-machined for the custom Altec treble-driver.  

As of late.. the Leslie amplifier is stored in our shed.. and has not been used in a show.. for a long time. too long..

Below; an old shot of me playing my 1st portable 88-key digital-piano. A Technics P-30.



My very 1st digital piano was also an 88 key Technics digital piano/console made for the living-room.. wood-tone.. early-mid 90's. I got divorced.. then played it at parties.. and had to have it repaired afterward.. more than once. It still plays beautifully.. and is my favorite piano. It's downstairs here.. in the next room through a 12ch. analog audio-mixer, two powered reference-monitors and a small powered sub. The system is dialed-in nicely for rehearsal.. and practicing. I only need to swap in/out mics. and cables.. and the Kurzweil "Micro-Piano" module that I use with the band. The Kurzweil module has a string-ensemble (preset#29) that I mix with piano..

Here's a vid that I've posted before.. of me playing my first Technics PX103 digital piano with the Kurzweil Micro-Piano module connected via MIDI for "string sound". It's a song that I wrote called Theme from the Sea.

"Theme from the Sea" is such a beautiful piece. Roddie sent it to me a few years ago and I listen to it regularly. I also put it on a video I made in 2015.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8wb5mZs9_g&t=108s

Since we have a gathering of lots of audio expertise here, I have an inquiry as one with far less expertise. I have a pair of Advent A1103 bookshelf speakers from way back when. And they were some good kick ass speakers that punched far above their weight and size class. The speaker cones and perimeter flex rings are now all dry rotted out, but the voice coils seem to be fine. A couple of years ago I was on line and found some DIY cone rebuild kits for about $25 ea. including some sort of special glue for attaching the perimeter. Like so many other things, I just never found a round-to-it to git R done.

Who can advise me on the advisability of undertaking that sort of project?

ticomareado wrote:Since we have a gathering of lots of audio expertise here, I have an inquiry as one with far less expertise.  I have a pair of Advent A1103 bookshelf speakers from way back when. And they were some good kick ass speakers that punched far above their weight and size class. The speaker cones and perimeter flex rings are now all dry rotted out, but the voice coils seem to be fine. A couple of years ago I was on line and found some DIY cone rebuild kits for about $25 ea. including some sort of special glue for attaching the perimeter. Like so many other things, I just never found a round-to-it to git R done.

Who can advise me on the advisability of undertaking that sort of project?

Could not find the specs on your particular speaker, but Amazon has a speaker repair kit for your speaker model, $24 with shipping included:

Amazon: Advent Speaker Repair Laureate FSK-6-5


If you are good at kit building airplanes and fixing Cox engines, I'd think that for such a low cost you'd have satisfactory results in restoring your speakers (YMMV - your mileage may vary ). Once repaired, may also want to check that your crossover electrolytic capacitor is still good, too. The wound paper paste versions tend to break down over time.

"Once repaired, may also want to check that your crossover electrolytic capacitor is still good, too. The wound paper paste versions tend to break down over time."

How do you do that? Beyond checking voltage and simple open/closed circuits with a cheap multimeter, I have no electronic skills.

ticomareado wrote:

GallopingGhostler wrote:Once repaired, may also want to check that your crossover electrolytic capacitor is still good, too. The wound paper paste versions tend to break down over time.

How do you do that?  Beyond checking voltage and simple open/closed circuits with a cheap multimeter, I have no electronic skills.

Oh, rather than explain it, if the capacitor shows no sign of oil leakage, after your repair the speaker has been restored to how it sounded when you first bought it, I wouldn't worry about it.

My Korg EK-50 finally arrived. It was an open box item, but looks brand new with no wear or tear on it, came with the manual, power supply and music rack. Some some odd reason, although the midi arranger on it provided decent volume, the solo instrument volume was way down even though the volume control was at its highest.

I researched the manual and found the section on doing a factory reset. That restored it. Now I'll be able to research it out. It is made of plastic like your Casio keyboards, but the sounds from it are impressive even through the built in speakers. Later I'll connect it up to my 15" powered speaker and see how it sounds.