Alon model 1 problems

Wwshull & Spencer,

Thanks for your responses! To answer your questions, I've moved up to around 9' from the Alon's, they sound better! Right now they are not toed in. I have ordered spikes, just waiting for them to come in.

I'm using two Nakamichi 620 power amps bridged to drive them. These amps sound fantastic on my Digital Phase EP.7bs, a/d/s L780/2 and Focal 806V lodspeakers.

The popping in the midrange drivers sounds like when a speaker is overdriven, I can turn the volume down ever so slightly and it goes away. I had this problem with the Digital Phase until I had them upgraded with new drivers and crossovers.

Thats why I'm wonderng if this speaker works better with two seperate amps, one driving the bass and the other (which could be attenuated) driving the mids and highs?

Thanks,
Jeff

Hi Jeff,
I owned the Alon I MkII's. My room is 13 x 14 with a 14.5' ceiling. The Alons sounded worse on the long wall than the short wall. It didn't make any sense to me. I had them nearly 42" off the back wall and 24" from the side wall. I sat between 7.5' to 8' max away from them. My room has always had problems with bass. I had too much bass with the spikes, etc. I actually placed the Alons on Vandersteen 2Ci (sound anchor) stands and magic. I got the best of both worlds tight and articulated bass. The Vandersteen stands are about 6" from the floor and I had them screwed to the stands as I did the Vandersteens. The Vandersteens were way too bass heavy even on stands. Same with Von Schewiekert VR3's.
I use an Odyssey Stratos Amp and I will tell you it was one of the best sounding combos I have ever owned. I tried tubes and that was a NO NO for the Alons. With the Odyssey Stratos I got a detailed presentation with excellent depth and sound stage along with vocals that were very natural. I do have the med tube traps in my room. I need a set of the larger Tube traps for my room because it's so hard to get clean bass frequencies in it.
As far as the popping noise they never did that at all and I cranked them pretty loud. I will tell you this, they will sound different with each and every change in your system including cables. The Alon I Mk II's were a speaker I wish I had never sold.

I think with a room as large as yours you may need a subwoofer eventually. Especially for classical and sonics featured recordings. You should have excellent dynamics, center fill and a wonderful soundstage regardless. Your Nakamichi amps are stereo amps why not use one per speaker. You really don't need that much power for the Alons. I would try that first. But it is strange that another set of speakers made that popping noise too. That is very odd. If you ask me the amp may be oscillating. Even though the Alon's are 8 ohms the amp should not have a problem with that load at all. I would pull the Alons out about 6' from the rear wall and at least 2 to 3 feet from the side wall and sit about 7 to 8 feet back. Try moving forward and back to see which position is best.
And Carl is a wonderful person and will help you. Alon was till in business several months ago and still in either Upper NJ or NY. You will have to talk to Carl to get new drivers anyway if you ever need them. If you ever need to have your woofers refoamed you should check out Bill at Millersound. He does wonderful work on The Alon Woofers.

I would like to thank you gentelmen for helping me with my problem. I took your advice and low and behold the Alon's sound great.

I ordered cones for the feet, until they come in I've taken 1/4 x 20 x 1 3/4" long socket head srews and attached for the feet, moved the speaker's to 22" from the back of the speakers to the back wall, bi-wired the LF and M/HF terminals from the amps.

The popping in the midrange driver was because I was running the amps at too low Ohms (around 1.5 - 2), I had forgotten that I had wired a passive subwoofer to the same amps and the sub is 4 ohms and the Alon's are 8, thus playing hell with the amps.

Thanks again for your very informative help!

Music Rules

Jeff