British electrostatic-speakers overhauling and rejuvenation in German sauce

THE Electrostatics specialist from Germany

Thanks to my friend Daniele.

Springtime

Crazy weather!

Seems impossible this VERY picture was shot only few days after the "Winterreise" 6HS5's amp, in Thomas' garden...

This is a classy Parallel Single Ended amp, about 16W per channell, always based on 6HS5's tubes...

It's "Fresh as a Sweet Sunday Morning", as would say Bert Jansch;-)))

.... sssssshhhhhhh.... secret, secret...

Mister "X"... aehm, "C" music system

I get this preview in the mail, which I consider both useful and interesting at several levels...

How to build a music system, more than an "audio" system... that's the TRUE secret, if any... and tons of dedication, culture, knowledge, and a braveheart mind and self-consciousness are needed to conceive, build and maintain such a system.

... "meeeooowww!" for yr. new Music Room, Mister C;-)... and keep on the great job!

xxxxphiles

The almost infinite declinations of being a "........phile" - you name it: cinephile, bibliophile, musicophile, discophile, motorbikesphile, dogphile... is part of everyone, myself included, lifes.

Wikipedia better defines it... Suffix -phile

Hobbies

* audiophilia: Love of high-fidelity sound reproduction
* arctophilia: Love of teddy bears; especially, an interest in collecting teddy bears
* bibliophilia: Love of books
* cinephilia: Love of cinema and film
* glossophilia: Love of languages
* icthyophilia: Love of fish
* logophilia: Love of words - Logophiles may be interested in word games, such as crosswords, or Scrabble, and in the extreme, derive enjoyment from reading things commonly given less notice, such as labels
* metrophilia: Love of the metro rail or subway systems
* necrophilia: Love (usually sexual attraction) to corpses
* neophilia: Love of the latest novelties and trends
* oenophilia: Love of wine
* ornithophilia: Love of birds
* taphophilia: Love of graves, cemeteries and funerals
* technophilia: Love of technology
* turophilia/turophile: Love of cheese / connoisseur of cheese...

... now, like Wikipedia gave the Olympus (just kidding: only due to the "A";-))) of possible, hobbistic "philias", the audiophilia... must understand if "audio" is better than "arcto"... yeahhhh, I love being surrounded, graved under tons, hundreds Teddy Bears of any size and material;-)))

... seriously, my friend Tim recently, yet innocently wrote, coined "Gotophiles", which is the most correct declination of = people owning, using and appreciating those f...ing expensive, wonderful drivers and horns, handmade in Japan;-)))

... so what? Nothing, folks... plainly said, an HUGE, amused, proud, yet humble & ironic "nothing"... all is OK... feel quite nicely and "a mio agio" in that "family of individualists"... Gotophiles... GOTOphile;-) I like it: feel MUCH better being a Gotophile, than a... idiotphile (an audiophile believing everything and ALL the magazines write about the last gear or accessory;-)) or a Teddy Bears' addict... yeah, gimme a fix... I want my pelouche straight in my vein;-)



Of the various "... philias" I joyfully suffer - including a bad "turophilia";-))) - Goto's is one of the most rewarding, ever.

BTW - ... hey, Tim... believe me: we can recover from "turophilia";-)! ... but: do we want it?!?!

Thanks for empathy and giving a smile, Tim;-)

Winterreise

... not properly a Schubert's affaire, yet music is involved: my pal Thomas Mayer recently brewed this very amp, using SE 6HS5 tubes, paper-in-oil caps and ALL Tango irons...

He found that briefly exposing his creations to Bodensee's air gives more "liquidness" to his amp(s) sound;-) - while some snow in the background do not harm sound, which remains warm, without any coldness...

Clever and well done, Thomas...

;-)

CouchSurfing

A lovely site

Jeffrey W. Jackson's vision & approach

Line Level Crossover at Experience Music Inc.

An alternative to L-pads in passive crossovers... Dave Slagle's Intact Audio SLA

Speaker Level Autoformers

These tapped units make a perfect replacement for resistive L-pads and can be tapped in a number of various ways to provide the precision in level matching needed for any specific situation. Cores available are nickel, amorphous and 2mil steel C-cores. Full design support and spice simulation available.



Price: From $300 a pair.

A cheaper and (maybe) better custom-tailored approach to different needs vs. the Fostex R100T transformer-attenuator, only available as an 8 ohm designs.




Dave's site and Forum

I'm a proud and satisfied Dave's TVC user (in my Thomas Mayer's preamp), but all Intact's catalogues is well worth considering.

The Slagle's motto "We listen" sure is well-spent, here...

WJAAS - The art of crossover building - more Goto/Shinichi Tanaka's wisdom

No comments, as is ALL in the attached pixes...

WJAAS - ... more passive crossovers - Shinichi Tanaka-san's

If pushed on a shove... the above would be the old Shinichi's approach on passive crossovers, 18 db/octave.

More recently, Shinichi Tanaka-san's hints goes for active crossovers, 1st order AND solid-state amplifiers (Goto's) or more conventional 2nd order passive using L-pads... already seen stuffs.

BTW: nice C-core autoformers - they look VERY Takahashi's, don't you?!?!;-)))

Thanks to Tim and Shinichi.

WJAAS - ... again about the noble art of brewing a passive/massive crossover - Akira Takahashi's way

From Akira Takahashi-san's:

"4 Ways Dividing Network: Crossover frequency are 200Hz, 1000Hz, and 6000Hz and the slope is -18 dB/oct. Level control is called [transformer type] - i.e. "autoformers": I do not adopt the attenuation by resistors in my shop. It is because unit dumping will worsen and will cause poor tone quality, if resistors go into a circuit in series".

If asked "Why 18 db/octave, Akira?" he'll reply: "Because it's the best sounding x-over I ever listened to".




By chance, Takahashi-san is a long-time Goto's user.

... feel bluesy... John Miller - First Degree Blues on Blue Goose

... so I had a fond visit to my records shelves and felt a shiver handling the area with John Miller and others on Nick Perls' Blue Goose label: Woody Mann, John Miller, Jo-Ann Kelly, John Fahey... Blue Goose always had a special place in my heart...

It's - like Kicking Mule, Arhoolie, Takoma, Philo in the USA or Leader and Trailer in the UK or Mulligan in Ireland - an almost one-man-label...

Sincere, great music... no frills, no big industry games... ONLY Music!

Had a listen to John Miller's First Degree Blues... the 21 years old guitar player and blues scholar gives a goosebumps rendition of... living blues... his voice reminds the late Skip James... while a gorgeous pre-War Martin OM-28 blinks from the beautiful, simple cover.

Pure blues. Easy...

Read what John Fahey wrote about him and his very record in liner notes:

"A thoroughly enjoyable album - that's quite a change from mr. Perls' usual shit... it must have been recorded by accident... Spanish Breakdown: that's incredible - almost as good as Lonnie Johnson, or maybe a little better... Titanic's beautiful, as it's Shady Lane.... Chester County's so good it's scary.
I'd say seventy-five to eighty per cent of his stuff is really exceptional: very very rarely do I like that many songs on any one record.
He has one of those funny voices where you can't tell whether he's black, white, young, old, gay, hetero, conservative, radical... He even knows how to sing neutral notes consistently: that's unusual.
His voice sounds like livid, vapid pools of iridescent irrigation water..."

... and while listening to the great Jo-Ann Kelly... well, folks: seems Blues be the only possible Music on this Planet.

... for the adventurous, die-hard archivist and sincere music lover... go straight as an arrow and check # 360209662467 on Ebay for a NM original first pressing (golden label) like the VERY one I own...

Feeeel goooood!

Battery Biased Caps in Passive Crossover for High Efficiency speakers

"The battery is tied between two capacitors and a high value resistor therefore there is no direct current path for the battery to discharge. The capacitors block DC current and the high value resistor raises the AC impedance so attenuation doesn't occur through the battery. The battery will last for years. The only discharge path would be through the capacitors due to leakage current, which will be extremely small.

To install a battery biased network perform the following:
For each series capacitor (high pass) in the network, replace it with two capacitors of twice the value and series wire them together. ( i.e. replace a single 10uF cap with two series wired 20uf caps) Tie the + terminal of the 9V battery between the two capacitors. Next connect a 1 or 2 Meg resistor to the - terminal of the 9V battery. Lastly, connect the other end of the high value resistor to the return leg of the network.

To play it safe take your voltmeter and make sure there is no DC voltage on the feeds to your tweeter. If you do it right there should be no DC voltage. The caps block it from getting there. You should only see voltage at the node where the 2 caps and the resistors meet....

And yes, it will make a difference with high efficiency speakers. The battery biasing lifts the low level single away from the zero crossing point of the capacitor's dielectric, thus increasing detail that would be otherwise lost."

... from AA (thanks all...) and after brainstorming with Tim...

Duracell: the best audiophile friend? Would seem definitely "Yes!"

Nuff said...

WJAAS - old "Barocco Tedesco" reviewed...

My friend Seo-san took a chance in listening to my own "Barocco Tedesco" disc from 1992... a quartet "ALL tube-pure analog" recording I made almost 20 years ago;-) - music by J.S. & C.P.E. Bach, Telemann and Quantz... flute, violin, cello and harpsichord... Seo, like myself, appreciated - with the music - the birds singing in the recording background.

Musicians/friends and myself as the recordist and producer, were younger;-)... yet, VERY fond of Music!

... and: yes, definitely we're ALL lunatics;-)))

Here are his thoughts:

"　イタリア語の正確な発音が分からないため、タイトルはローマ字表記です。（誰か発音が分かる人があれば教えてください）意味は「ドイツ（人）のバロック」。
　メールで知り合ったイタリアのステファノさんが９２年に制作したＬＰで、フルート、ヴァイオリン、チェロ、ハープシコードのカルテットによるバッハやテレマンのソナタが収録されている。
　かすかな小鳥のさえずりの中で曲が始まり、美しい楽器の音色がヴィチェンツァの教会の建物内にゆっくりと響き渡る様が素晴らしい。
　録音機材にはルボックスの真空管式レコーダー、ノイマンの真空管式マイク、ヴァン・デン・フルのマイクケーブル、モニターにはスタックスのＳＲＸ－ＭＫ３が使われたとあり、使用した真空管は６０年代のテレフンケンのフラット・プレート型・・・と、ステファノさんの尋常ならざるアナログへの拘りが伺える。そして、情熱の成果は確実にこのＬＰの音に凝縮されています。"

Arigato-gozaimasu, Seo-san;-)

WJAAS (related) - Yasujiro Ozu-san, 無 (Mu) and 物の哀れ (Mono no Aware)

My love for Japan had this very afternoon an highlight while watching at "Tokyo-ga", Wim Wender's hommage to the late Yasujiro Ozu, the Japanese film-director whose use of fixed camera (a Mitchell) and a 50 mm lens always at seated actors height were a statement of pure "nihon-jin-ness" vs. Hollywood and its dogmas and characters, all well afar from the pre-Hiroshima, virgin Japan in the '20s, at least.

This H.C. Bresson of cinema - beside through a different medium, the Leica M for HCB, they both shared this human-like lens - was also very... I'd say, full of "compassion"... a Buddhist/Zen sense of partecipation and brotherhood for humankind, through his Tokyo-only stories, characters and, again almost exclusively, humble, "normal" family scenes and situations: the relationship between father and son, the departure, death...

Through Wim Wenders' "Tokyo-Ga", this old world and care for the detail, down to the humblest - so Japanese - is well represented, remembered and (sort-of) glorified...

A young Wim searched for Ozu's most famous actor, Chishu Ryu and for his life-long assistant and director of photography/camera operator, Yuharu Atsuta...

The interviews (with the support of a translator) are really a masterpiece.

Can't imagine my emotion while listening to a so passionate, humble treatize in Japanese-way-to-cinema, friendship and loyalty!

Wim Wenders has been so... clever: in a dream-like, stream of consciousness, he compares Ozu's aesthetic to Western's through his own feelings and let old Ozu's partners to rememeber and commemorate him...

Ozu on Wikipedia

Much impressive is thinking to the debit many modern film-makers owe to Ozu, a man whose grave in a Japanese cemetery only bears the "MU" syllable (無).

"Nothingness"

A man who had a "chronometer" custom built for him to measure film length and shooting time, while during co-writing movie scripts he an his partner used emptied sake bottles enjoed to arrive to the end of writing as another kind of chronometer... a sakemeter?;-)

A true Dadaist... better: Mono no Aware sensei-san!

Like at Paris' Pere Lachaise cemetery, on Jim Morrison's grave, people often leave some drinks... "Kampai" to Ozu-Sensei-san.

Thanks to Wim Wenders and to my friend Luci who lent to me "Tokyo-Ga" on DVD.

... those were the days...

Beautiful...

WJAAS - Preparing for Japan Tour 2010

Japan as seen by Foreigners

Always the MOST enriching browsing ever when considering a trip to Japan, Professor Jim Breen's superb site is THE goldmine to browse, period.

The above is only a cute example of Japanese kindness...

The noble art of brewing passive crossovers - Jorge's way or the Current Charged Caps technique

I owe to Jorge, a gentleman from Mexico City, a BIG "Thank you!", as, asked for more details about his "secret";-), he sent to me the following text to be shared with everyone interested...

"Well, the idea about "the secret" is that Current Charged or Active Biased caps sound so good it will send high end cap companies to ruin;-), and they are making such a nice effort... we can use high end cap for coupling stages in amps, but for Xovers the best cap is a cheap electrolytic with batteries...

I am sending you a pic of the caps I have tried, all are the same value 4.7 mfd, first from the top is Vcap OIMP, wonderful cap, the best I heard with horns, next down is Mundorf Mcap silver in oil, very nice also very quiet and it has a spatial quality I really liked, the soundstage it makes is sort of hypnotic, but the Vcap is just plain more natural sounding. Jantzen Silver is a wonderful cap with attributes of both Vcap and Mundorf silver in oil, is like a mix of them but I will put it just under the Mundorf, but for the price, it is a winner. The Jantzen Superior red cap is a little bit more closed in than the Silver one but pretty good also. the Hovland can sound wonderful and open on some tweeters and horrible on other setups.

I tried Current charged capacitors with Jantzen Superior Zcaps, I bought a whole bunch of them since price wise they are the best buy, With the batteries they sounded better than any other cap, the Vcap or Mundorf Silver oil, I tried them first with just the tweeters and the difference was amazing, the highs were open extended transparent out if this world, they made the rest of the system pale in comparison, they also have less resistance so volume was higher with the current charged. I was so exited about this I couldn’t wait for shipping and etc of more Jantzen caps, so I hooked the Solen caps we all have in the drawer some where, It took me a couple of hours to make the whole Xover board for one side but when both were running it was excellent. I had to use all the plastic caps I had and some had different values and brands on some sides, you need 4 times more capas than original, so I decided to try exact values same caps even if they were cheaper electrolytics.

I run to the electronics shop and bought the first cheap electrolytics I could find (SC) with the correct values for the rest of the horns, to my surprise the electrolytics sounded way better than the plastic caps, the difference was almost as much as when I first put the batteries on the caps. This is the way to make them!

I started again with the tweeters since they are the easiest to make and the less problem if they burn ;-) I found Polarized electrolytics and non polar, so I started with the non polarized caps, they were wonderful, I was again amazed that they would sound even better than the plastic caps, the difference was a little like the difference between the Vcaps and the Mundorf, electrolytics sounded just more open and natural.

They didn’t have enough non polar caps at the store for the rest of the system, so I tested polarized: no problem they sounded just as good, now I have diagrams were they connect both positives to the batteries and others were the negatives go to the batteries, so I hooked the older tweeters and made the change from positive with batteries to negative with batteries, both worked the same and both sounded great.

When I finally finished the whole system the difference was jaw dropping...

You need to double the value of the caps and put two of them in series with the battery and resistor in the center. ie: If you have a 4.7 cap you can substitute it for two 10 mfd caps in series with the resistor and battery in the center, were both caps meet.... This is a more technical explanation I found some where on the net, I am sorry I don’t have the author.

"The networks employ DC bias to operate the capacitors effectively in a Class A mode. The batteries provide a voltage bias to each of the capacitor positions in the various networks. The biasing of the capacitors is done through a large value resistor (2.2 mega ohms) and thus draws no appreciable current. The expiration date printed on the battery generally coincides with the need to replace the batteries. Each capacitor position is actually made up of two capacitors connected in series. The battery voltage is applied to the center connection of the two capacitors. This produces a voltage potential between the two plates within the capacitor. When the two parts are taken as a whole, there is no DC voltage that appears across them, but individually they are each biased. The sonic result of the biasing yields an increase in detail, increased smoothness, and considerably more natural decay of sounds within the music."

So it is really simple to make and the cost of cheap caps and 9 volt batteries in nothing compared even to a good cable!

Another tip I can give you are the Jantzen WAX coils you see in the picture, just so much better than plastic covered foils. Duelund resistors are pretty good also.

I am using Series Xover..."

... I'll have to carefully re-read the above and to digest the drawings and instructions and squeeze them in my so un-tech head...

Anyone having similar Jorge's experiences? Must say - as I learned from Tim - JBL Everest is using such a layout in its filter, after the exposure I had months ago - in Akihabara, Tokyo - wasn't something I fell in love with, BUT possibly other details flawed my listening experience...

Worth adding also Y.B.Andrè and Vecteur from France (thanks Mirco...) experimented on this very path in the '80s... but not with high efficiency speakers;-)

Thanks again, Jorge!

.... again about caps and cats... Roman's enlighting point of view

Jokingly said, Roman Bessnow denies the following http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PageIndex=3&postID=12982#12982 is related to "wisdom", reducing the whole to "marketing" paraphernalia...

Not so sure, Roman;-)... maybe a mix: "your" wisdom and "industry" tricks... same sensation I had while reading the CES 2010 review http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue47/cesgw.htm and the gears price-tags...

Pricing as a designing tool - 2010 style - reminds me...

BONK!

... mo' caps and related: mo' Music or "We're only in it for the money"?

... as the late Frank Zappa once said...

http://www.laventure.net/tourist/caps.htm

Thanks to Tim for the above;-)

A nice survey.

Only caveat: this sentence... "Duelund has since introduced the CAST PIO (Paper-In-Oil) series. With a retail price of $675.75 each in Copper and $3,920.65 per piece in Silver Foil (10uF values), we can only guess at how good they may be."

... sounds to my virgin;-) ears like the hideous price-tag makes the above super sounding per-se or something... 'c-mon: let's be democratic: nicely reproduced music is for everyone, not a tycoon-only affaire!

Fortunately, the reviewer next comment is wisely reconsidering "real-world" silver market price per ounce, so - ironically sort-of - bringing whole matter a bit down to earth... and let me add the Copper foils I (too) briefly, recently tasted already are a (much more affordable) sonic beauty!

Why Duelund's should feel embarassed after building those HUGE cans.... aehm caps;-), sure involving a lot of care and skilled workmanship to make'em, for a fee and a 10K euros cartridges or arms builder not?!?!

Nothing against - personally - spending wisely in a free-world of adults relationships... but the hypes (and a.m. bold) may kill...

Anyway, same as for love... money can't buy it, BUT it sure helps while looking for it...

... or not?