After the amp went I hooked back an old DVD player knowing the TV sound was going to be really bad after the the Duelund loaded amp was taken in for repair.
What really SHOCKED me is how much better the Oppo BDP95 picture is! Holy Smokes just crazy! Even my wife is going Holy Smokes this is awful compared to the Oppo.
The kids got Lost series for Christmas (we have watched at ton of it and I do not normally watch TV) but I have to admit watching it on the Oppo and hearing the sound of my system is just unbelievable. Makes watching VERY enjoyable.
Using the same system for music and stereo TV has really reduced any complaints from the wife! (about $$$) The wife and kids think the sound for movies is awesome!
Duelund makes great a product but so does Oppo. Not only did the BDP-95 beat my $7k CD player it is just AWESOME for sound on movies in stereo (we do not use 5.1 just one system) and has a fantastic picture. The realism in voices just amazing... (fantastic value)
I am very glad I went the one (really high quality) system route and has really worked for me! (and the whole family)
When your wife and kids really want your amp to get repaired this works wonders on how the money was spent as a family purchase. |
On the fritz again. EL 84 today into the repair shop. Thank goodness I found a local amp repair shop and builder.
Amp was sounding fantastic. |
Hi Tom,
Thanks for you advice. I will be changing one component at a time, listening and measuring the effect. I will try changing the inductors too, but they do not improve the sound, I will keep the original ones.
Cheers,
VN |
Vn 101606
Years ago I worked for a dealer that had multiple locations in the mid-west and we sold many pairs of Dunlavy speakers. I took a deposit of 15k on the first pair of SCVI's to be delivered.. almost a year to get those babys. I had many conversations with Mr. Dunlavy during the waiting period. I had purchased a pair of SCIV's for my personal use and like everything I do I take it apart in hopes I can make it sound better.
Easy thing to do was to replace all the steel and aluminum fasteners with brass. Non ferrous material interferes less with the intended electrical field than does steel which bends the same field. I did this around all the drivers including the delicate face plate and dome which is held together with metric steel screws. Nice apparent improvement. Brass as a material is very musical and pleasant to hear.
Next I removed the crossover and then replaced all the steel brackets and screws with brass. Again an apparent improvement. While inside the crossover area I made a record of all the component values and their placement and physical size. Over the course of time I made many changes that proved to be upgrades. In retrospect the best bang for the buck was the replacement of the very inexpensive resistors with bridges made of multiple Vishay metal films. Dunlavy himself told me I was wasting my money to do this swap. Today I would use the Duelunds as replacements because of their value and cost. The difference that late night was so extreme I asked my daughter to come and listen. What did you do to make such a difference she asked. I showed her those component parts that were swapped. She had no I idea what she was seeing but new what she was hearing as I had recorded her many times playing classical guitar between those very speakers. Super quiet yet highly resolving.
There was one other major undertaking that actually made for a greater improvement and that was to remove everything inside the speaker cabinet and paint the interior surfaces with Cascade V-Bloc. This paint is drawn in to the pores of the mdf dry like concrete and seals and stiffens the cabinet and blocks the sound of the glue mixture and its damping ill affects. After I did this the sound stage was as wide as my room is wide 22 feet.
Okay, I did replace all the caps and inductors and the wire but the biggest bang for the buck was the replacement of the resistors. In retrospect I would not change the factory supplied inductors in the Dunlavys. The inductors have a Q value as well as their own measured inductance. Changing from a 14 gauge inductor to a 8 or 10 gauge inductor not only decreased the dc resistance but also changed the damping of the entire system. So change what ever else you want but leave the inductors in place. All of these changes were performed over 15 years ago, one at a time over the course of a 18 months or more. If I still had those speakers today I would apply methods of resonance grounding to the drivers and the crossover components..Tom |
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Charles1dad, Thanks for the additional comments. I also took a look at your system page and saw your comments there. Very helpful! |
Hi Salectric,
My crossover has only 1 cap that is 5.6uf and was a Solen. Sal it was the best 850 dollars I ever spent without question and the 440 dollars for the CAST in my Yamamoto Ddigital converter. The sound is just fantastic.
Regards, |
Charles1dad, You said you replaced your speaker caps with CAST. What speaker caps did you replace? Your cost of $850 for the pair of speaker caps suggests that it's a rather small value. Did you replace the full cap or are you using the CAST as a bypass? What cap was in the speaker before the replacement?
Sorry for all the questions but I am trying to determine the most cost effective approach for my own speakers. I need both a 7.5uf and 3.0uf for my high-pass crossover, and the low-pass uses a 5.6uf. Trying to do all those with CAST would be very expensive. I recently hooked up a brand new 1uf CAST in parallel with the 7.5uf and I was really quite surprised by the magnitude of improvement. That has me thinking of using smaller CAST caps just as bypass caps. |
I meant the mundorf silver/gold in comparison to the teflon v-caps I installed in my omega duos in early '07.
I agree with you that most companies use caps of lower quality than the mundorfs in their expensive speakers. Imagine how much such speakers can be improved with top quality caps like cast or v-caps |
"Mundorf caps are just average sounding"
Duomike to bad Mundorf were not average sounding. Most companies use caps of wayyyyyy lower quality. I think I know what you mean though average compared to CAST. |
The Duelund CAST in silver foil are pretty good...:) |
Charles,
Yes, when they were kind enough to throw in the amplifiers we do parts for, it really did do something... ;)
They certainly had good sound when I was there. |
Hi Frederik,
I wish we could have met. Was`nt that room really a treat to listen to?The first day they used the MSB amplifier and the sound was respectable but nothing special.The insertion of the Absolare Passion amplifiers completely transformed the sound in that system in a profound manner.
Regards, |
Charles1dad,
I was in the absolare room a lot, to bad we missed each other.
Best regards,
Frederik |
You can by this direct or from Parts Express. I paint this on speaker baskets as well as cabinet internals. Also use on tweeter face plates and then paint over with a clear poly.The rough surface reduces fz stick. Used this product on my SC4's years ago.Did one and the stage went to the wall..Had to do the other so I wouldn't have to sit so far off axis..Tom
http://www.cascadeaudio.com/car_noise_control/pdf/VB1X_101612.pdf |
Chadaffect,
I bought dynamat on Amazon. Like Duomike said, it is the stuff people use it on car stereo by stick them on door, hood, floor, and trunk. |
VB 1-x from Cascade Audio is the paint on or spray on thick acoustic paint that helps seal off the bad sounding stuff bleeding thru your drivers or cabinet. I like this product because it drys hard and is not a soft damping energy storing energy robbing soft material. Please keep in mind a speaker cabinet is a passive radiator. Even a sub box crossed over at 50hz has harmonics generated and passed thru the cabinet enclosure..it also is a passive radiator.
As for the horn speakers. If there are holes in the stand then there is discontinuity in the material and the stand. The sides with the holes are disconnected from the other sides. If your thought is to ground these rails to the floor which is the best for sound quality then you need to have a controlled surface material that transmits vibration in a linear fashion and time. The Brass screws completes the connection within the vertical rails. There is so much more that can be done in this manner...to drivers, enclosures, components of crossovers as well as the entire crossover mounting method it's all a continuum. Most manufacturers don't go to the level that an informed hobbyist will. Actually many of these vendors see no value or lack any understanding of some of these methods mentioned here. |
Chadeffect,
I don`t even consider the Duelunds "expensive" anymore.Their performance relative to the cost is such a high ratio that I believe they are a very high value purchase.
The best sounding system I heard at CES a few days ago used the Absolare Passion amplifier and linestage(driving the Rockport Altair). Both of these Absolare components use the Duelund CAST capacitors.The sound in that room was stunningly good.Just fantastic!
Regards, |
Chadeffect,
don't remember the name of the stuff. Did do that tweak in 2001 in Germany. It was some stuff car audio guys use to dampen panels inside the car. 1 was app. 1mm thick black bitumen with one side with aluminium foil for heat protection I guess.
Houstonreef, since you are very serious improving the sound of your speaker I got another tweak which makes a huge improvement at almost no cost at all. Time align the tweeeter with the midrange. If you are interested I can give you the details. |
The audiotweak makes some very good points.
There is most definitely a point at which you can over damp and make the sound lifeless. This not only applies to vibration control but even to RF and EMI filtering. Unfortunately there is only one way to find that happy balance and that is to try!
I did use sand in the speaker frame. It did make a nice improvement. I didn't fill the frame completely. Sand can kill off some aspects of the sound. For me it cleaned up some noise and tightened things up without choking the sound.
Is the latex material you mention light blue? I seem to remember it is extremely expensive. A few manufactures use it in critical places. I think Ref3A used it? It is said to be remarkable stuff.
Duomike, which dynamat did you use? There are quite a few different sheets.
Personally I like Mundorf silver/gold in oil and the silver in oil caps. If you can stretch to Duelund caps they do something I have not heard anywhere else. A kind of organic naturalness and image density. While mundorf can have a slightly etched or hyper quality to detail the Duelund doesn't draw attention to it while remaining detailed. Unfortunately they are very expensive and cannot be called a bargain. But they are very fine. |
Houstonreef,
Listen first to a selection you are most familar with. Mute the system but leave the volume control un touched.
Then do the following. If you have square tubing as pillars. The unused adjustment holes in the pillars should be filled with short brass machine screws. Thread these in and snug them up do not use any adhesive. Fill all these holes leave none open. Make sure these are 100% brass and not nickel plated. At this stage do not attempt to fill the tubes.
Then listen to the same selection at the same volume. Post what you hear. Tom |
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Duomike, how did you cover the holes on the frame? |
Houstonreef,
you have to fill the frame with all drivers attached to the frame, regardless of what material you are going to use |
Duomike,
I do not want any sand because i am filling the material while all drivers are still on the frame.
Theaudiotweak: can you explain more why you still want resonance and for that uses steel or bronze. |
Hi Houstonreef.
I put Dynamat into the mid/high enclosures a long time ago. Also wanted to fill the frame with lead shots but could not get any in my part of the world. Used sand instead. Made a small improvement. Remember Chadeffect tried the sand tweak as well and liked it too.
Replace the Mundorf in your preamp with cast or v-cap. Then you will know why I said they sound average! |
Looking in from time to time. I now see people using or wanting to use Dyna-mat and lead shot. Both these materials will decouple the speaker from supportive material/enclosure which was originally intended to couple energy..though poorly understood and executed. The use of decoupling materials erodes the benefit of horn loading which is designed to maximise the use of acoustic energy. Materials suggested for use here actually store energy and increase the decay time.
I would suggest the use of steel shot or bronze shot in bearing form and not just random slag from some machine shop refusge or the use of any leaded materials. Both the steel shot or bronze material and shape will maintain reactivity and maintain the desired resonance control with out killing the live dynamics. Even with these more active materials there is a fine line of overfill before you mute the sound. air and dynamics. You can hear this happen in a progressive fashion. For internal wall surfaces of an enclosure there is a water based latex material that when painted on a flat surface will dry hard like concrete and have a rough granular finish. This finish as it drys is drawn into the pores of the wood or mdf, sealing and stiffening the material and helping to seal off the mdf/glue and all of it's ill affects and gross influences to the sound . Tom |
Thanks Duomike. I also changed the Auricap with Mundorf gold/silver/oi; in a pream. And the result is great. The Mundorf is much better than the Auri. Next i plan to pour lead shot in the frame of duo.
Duomike: try to put dynamat in both cylinders of mid and high. I think it makes some improvement too. |
Hi Houstonreef,
I was pretty sure that you will be blown away. Mundorf caps are just average sounding! good that you have soldered all internal connections. This alone makes a nice improvement for nothing!
Guess sound will improve further with break in. Enjoy! |
Just completed mod of my speakers by soldering all internal wires, dynamat, and especially replacing Dueland Cast. What i can tell you that just after ten minutes of warming up the system, i played some favorite song and said WOW..Oh My G....The system is up to the next level. Mid gets better but high is a huge improvement. It is more extended, natural, organic, air, and detail from the high. Hearing some that i never heard before. These Dueland Cast are awesome!!!Thanks you all for the inputs. |
Voleyguy,
I am the wrong person to ask about the science of fuses, or any other science for that matter. I do, however, know what I hear, and I was only suggesting that for a small amount of money, you might be surprised by the positive sonic result of trying the AMR fuses. |
On the Duelund thread there is a link to a Tannoy blog where someone is talking about in their opinion the VSF sounds better and are cheaper than CAST. VSF the cap that does not get so much discussion as it's big brother.
I for one do not agree with the statement except VSF is more forgiving does not sound stiff when new and does not require the long break in.
Right now the test is and part of this is space reasons.
Left Channel
CAST Phono with VSF and Jensen on line stage.
Right channel
Vintage Phono with VSF and CAST on line stage.
This test was a which cap is more important line stage or phono? I can say the well broke in CAST in the line stage can not recuperate the lost energy from the phono stage with a vintage cap.
Early results (not broke in yet) is the phono stage is a very critical cap. |
Roxy54
At first it was laborious but not anymore. At first I had no idea what to expect now a good idea. Explain to me the science of a fuse I just have no idea? |
Volleyguy,
I have followed your journey, and I am aware that you go through all of your laborious capacitor experiments in the interest of better sound. With that in mind, I reccomend that you spend a small amount of money, and try AMR fuses in your gear that requires fuses. At only $20.00 a pop, I think you will be surprised and very pleased with the results. |
I have the feeling CAST caps pass a lot of current through them when they are forming at least in electronics?
Then they settle down. Is this due to construction?
I have not had a single other cap do this.
Read a good blog on Duelund Facebook about Tannoy Westminsters and upgrades. The owner was shocked at some parts quality. Reminds me of what Steen had said and sadly seems to be the case of cheap internal parts. My speakers had the signal go through a screw? (1" long) Leaves one scratching your head? |
Just installed the phono stage CAST.
At first the one of the output tube glowed very hot. I was thinking short.
Then quickly settled down. The CAST is doing as always just over powering the other caps. I am surprised more have not commented on the initial install of CAST is very overpowering. The volume out of the phono section with the CAST is double the other signal.
For anyone who reads this and is changing caps if you have two caps in the circuit from say pre-amp to power the first cap you change makes more difference than the second. The circuit tends to take it's most influence from the dominant cap. |
Just order a phono stage CAST cap. Thrilled the way the amp sounds so far andI have high expectations of CAST at this spot in the circuit. |
Not sure about the size/gauge of the internal wiring. For speaker cables I use VD Master bi-wire on the horns.Believe they are 10 gauge solid core copper. Heard Duelund also makes internal hookup wire. Maybe you try these |
Duomike,
What size of wires did you use for the tweeter and mid? It is hard to find Audio Note wires in the States. |
Houstonreef,
I change the internal wire to Audio Note silver. Do not use any jumper cable cause I'm tri-wiring my speakers. |
Thanks for all responses.
Duomike: Did you replace the jumper wires from the XO to the driver on both tweeter and mid-range? |
I remember at the time wishing Duelund made flat copper to compare to flat Silver. I was never sure how much of the difference was because of flat and how much was Silver vs. Copper? |
Like Volleyguy I tend to generally prefer good quality silver wire rather than copper.However the CAST copper leads are high quality as is the 6N copper wiring of my speakers and I left things as they were. It worked out fine and the sound is wonderful.
Regards, |
Houstonreef, the CAST cap is made with copper! |
I just ordered some of copper hook-up wires at VH Audio. I just think the Dueland leads are copper so i go with copper. |
Not all solid core copper or silver wire is the same....sounding |
Houstonreef
Why not a few inches of Duelund .5 Silver?
I have tried solid core Copper Duelund and it recessed the highs. Not sure Avantegarde uses for wiring but stranded copper in my mind chops up the sound.
I have Duelund .5 Silver all internal using the the solid core copper on the woofer and 2.0 for cables. To me the solid flat silver keeps the harmonic structure intact.
It is actually quite noticeable.
I had to add inches to wire because of much larger parts and did not hear a downside. |
Houstonreef, I use the teflon v-caps in my omega duos and they needed forever to burn in. not sure how long the cast will need. If the cast are extremely big you might not be able to attach them to the rear cover so you might be able to hang them on the cross bar. whatever you do, get rid of the xo board and hardwire everything and do not forget to solder the internal wire directly onto the drivers as well. |
Duomike, i plan to hang the caps on the cross bar inside the tweeter and solder the tweeter wires directly to the xo to eleminate the quick terminal connector.
Thanks for your sugesstion. i have to take a closer look on this and see if room available and structure that is able to hang and tie the caps since the Dueland is very big. How long does it take to burn in the cap? |
Duomike knows your speaker and is spot on for the best way to do this if you are able? |
