Bye Bye B&W...

well they are gone. Sauerkraut (nice bloke) made me a good offer and they are now winging their way back to his abode to hopefully give him as much pleasure as they gave me. i now have a small pair of mission 700 doing standby duty until i start on their replacements which will be...

some IPL Transmission Lines . these are self build monster 3 ways so i'm going to be bodging it myself armpit deep in glue, drills and lairy automotive paint over the comming weeks. suggestions for colours are welcome. i was thinking of a nice deep cherry red at the bottom blended into bright lime green at the top. or maybe not. can you powder coat mdf?
cheers


julian

 

Part A: Good move!

Part B: God help us!

 

Nice one Julian, I'll have to come over for a listen when they are finished.

Robbo

 

^^^^^^^^
What he said.

What made you decide on that particular kit? Do you have some links of other kit makers that you found on your search? You've given me some ideas.....

Michael.

 

Nice to hear they've gone to a Z/G friendly home .
I still use my 7NT's for rears but if Julian is after increased bass definition (at the low end) then a change was a good choice IME.

 

Good luck putting that kit together Julian - hope it's nice and easy.

I'll be interested to know how you get on; speaker kits are always tempting...

 

Got a bit of a shock there. I thought you meant the company.

 

B&W lovers will have to excuse me - i don't like most B&Ws, definitely not cheap ranges, particualry CDM NT range, especailly cdm 7 nt model

i think they spend too much money and time on marketing and CAD.

good move, julian.

 

Croc
I notice you own a Meridian G08 cdp, how does it sound and compare to others you have auditioned.
Cheers

 

i must admit i really liked the 7nt's they didn't do anything wrong to my ears and were fairly neutral if you give them room to breathe. they can go nice and low (just without the absolute definition of some speakers i have heard recently - but then they do cost aobut 10th the price ) and the mid and treble are clean and well defined. the fact that they are the last of my origional system to be sold on shows how highly i think of them. sorry croc, horses for courses i guess.
i'll have to arrange a get together when they are done. to be honest the reason i chose the ipl's is that they are advertised as having 20 - 20k htz frequency response and aren't hugely expensive. they also seem to be very tweakable either electronically (especially since i'm - or more precisely tony is - going to put the crossovers into external boxes) or by changing the amount of wadding in the transmission line. i must admit it's a bit of a gamble as i've not been a huge fan of most tl's but then they do seem to need a huge amount of run in.
merlin,
to be honest i saw the ipl's and thought yup that's the one. ther than wilmslow and that place you pointed me at in the usa i've not really looked about much more. the ipl stuff does seem to get good reviews especially for being 'fun' so they sound like the ones for me. if not i'll just have to save up for some 803's or maybe 802's and hope i can sell the ipl's or go deep into the cult of tweakage and crossover design which might be fun.
sometimes you just have to throw caution to the wind and jump in with both feet.
cheers


julian

 

G08, hummm nice and hifi

 

nice one Julian. Always tempted me, but i cowered away from it. Good to see someone taking the plunge.

edit > I dont think you can powder coat MDF as powder coating requires baking. I am sure that you can get a better finish with good paint techniques. Powder coating always seems to have a slightly eggshell finish.
If it was me, i would be looking at veneer, cocobola is lovely

 

Presumeably you can get a reasonable paint finish by using a few coats of spray paint? Personally I'd go for wood veneer, particularly if there's a chance of selling them on in the not too distant future.

 

Interesting....

I may put a motion to the meadowlark mafia at the next big meeting to allow you honourary membership on the basis of the transmission line. Whether this will be extended to owners of Rega and PMC models may be debated...

 

julian,

i know what you mean.

i owned cdm 9 nt for a year and chose them after auditioning quite a lot of speakers.
i was completely inlove with them.

but firstly that "loose" overblown bass started to kill me by generating standing waives.
i didn't let go and fought like 9 months to resolve it.
during one of the tests we discovered that cdm9nt's port is tuned to 25 Hz - isn't it a bit too much to squize from two 6.5" drivers

some time later i heard tubes and other good setups and i found that b&w tweeter is quite bad.
that FST midrange is quite OK and produce big sound but it's a bit compressed.

in the bottom line - my knowledge and priorities evolved and B&W had to be dumped.

i heard N803 and it much more civilized but "didn't touch my soul".

today after i listened to more speakers i'm enloved with old 15" designes from klipsch, tannoy, altec etc.
those can be found quite cheap s/h and produce magnificent sound that rare modern speaker can match.

 

it happened that i didn't compare it to anything.

i did a lot of comparisions when i bought my 588.
i listened to Krell, Wadia 861, simaudio eclipse, perpetuals and more.
i prefered 588 to all of them.
the only one that was marginaly better was a Burmester (that 4000-5000euro model).
mark levinson i didn't hear.

later i heard head ti head 588 against scd-777es.
sacd was better but on RBCD sony lost significantly.

after that i ordered "blindly" G-08 and waited for few months.
IMO it has the same good points as 588 but it doesn't have that "closed" treble and "meridian warm" sound - its treble is very very open and very detailed but not mechanical/borig/unnatural/forward/"in your face".

 

croc,
as i say horses for courses and once you've heard big driver / big box bass it's difficult to go back. there are of course domestic tradeoffs though and if you or your s.o. are house proud then the kind of speakers you mention aren't going to be acceptable. for my money the b&w's provided a sound that kept up with my system advances for over 4 years from the (then) entry level cd5 / nait 5 right up to my current system and i wouldn't have thought twice about going further with them if i hadn't chosen to go this route.
-
thanks for all the encouragement. to be honest the powder coat was a bit of a joke although some of the deep red metalic powder coats i saw on american chopper looked fantastic. there were some standmounts i saw recently which had a 2 tone paintwork that faded together which i thought looked very sweet. how closely i could aproximate this with some spraycans is debateable though i may just go for some gloss black and a coat of laquer or something to keep things simple. veneer is something i'm trying to stay away from.
cheers


julian.

 

I follow your thinking. DIY is a good way to get speakers that they just dont sell at sensible prices - like big muthas. Well done for avoiding Wilmslow - too pricey for me. Good idea to keep the x-over outside. It gives you peace of mind [ie you can check it anytime] and makes things easier to modify. My DIY 3-ways have them inside, and I just can't get the time to make simple changes. I'm guessing they won't have enormous headroom as the audax are reputable rather than earth shattering bass drivers, but 10" is the best size, and there are some serious [m]others out there you can try if you have upgraditis [tho maybe not ~95dB efficient]. Hell, a joiner could probably get a 12" hole in that cabinet..

[edited] One point just occurred to me how will you know if it is better without your B&W originals to compare?? Or will you just treat it as an ongoing project until it does what you want?

 

Julian

I've heard the S3 in my room and they sounded great, so I don't see any problem for you. The impotant thing is to make sure they are air tight. As long as that is done well all else is easy.

There are some guys over on the WAD forum www.worldaudiodesign.com who own the S3's. Maybe ask them for some advice.

 

thanks guys,
i've seen some serious speakers out there - largest was a 24 incher for about 500 quid! but even with my lax domestic situation wouldn't be going that far. 10's seem to be a nice compromise and as you say the front is 320 mm so it *may* be possible to squeeze a 12 incher in there - either that or get an improved 10 inch with a bigger motor and longer throw . efficiency isn't a huge concern as my nap 250 likes something to push against and 9 o'clock on the volume dial is currently bloody loud, impedance is probably more important for amp compatibility which is stated as 8 ohms.
the b&w's had to go as i needed the money to start the project so back to back comparisons were not an option (and wouldn't have been with another speaker either as i'd still have needed the dosh) so i'm going to trat it as a 'clean sheet' type of thing where judgement is purely subjective against the speakers i've heard and liked in the past (including but not limited to merlins d100's, my old 7's and others).
lee,
i'll have a look at the wad forum. i was advised to use silicon sealant on the inside of the cabinet to keep things airtight at the joins. btw. my daughter has just seen your avatar and asked 'whats that dad'? thank god for scroll wheels.
cheers


julian