Plastic ring over tweeter opinion

They're just trying to conserve precious server space. I mean, you know how expensive hard drive storage is.

Eldee: No mistake, the thread's been permanently deep sixed (try the link I provided in my first post above, which wasn't dead when the thread was active; also the thread title "Who Does He Think He's Fooling?" has disappeared from the list of threads initiated under my username). I imagine the clock could be ticking on this one too, especially after these last few posts...

Zaikesman...Censoring seems to be quite haphazard. What passes one day is gone the next. Sometimes the missing post is quite innocuous, and I wonder if I mistakenly didn't hit the proper key.

Update: More than two years after the fact, Audiogon has now deleted from the archives my above-referenced thread concerning the advice (such as circumsizing your tweeters) proffered in the Mapleshade catalog. Let me say for the record that, any sarcastic tone aside, everything I took exception with over there was 100% accurately quoted verbatim from their catalog, and for each point I provided factually sound reasons why many of the actions Mr. Sprey urges without any disclaimers or caveats could not always be of benefit. I guess the truth hurt somebody too much to bear.

There was a thread on Audio Asylum about removing the plastic bit around tweeters. Charles Hansen of Ayre acoustics said these parts are "helmholz" radiators tuned to beam at a frequency, somewhere between 12 and 16Khz, in order to make the treble more pronounced. He espouses removing them as well for better overall audible performance. However, it will void warranties, might be cosmetically bad, and does seem to be irreversible, so it could negatively effect resale value.

PP: They posted it, but I'm having trouble posting my response there because my pooter has picked this time to start arbitrarily freezing up on me. I already lost this short reply once, and about half of my detailed post over there this morning...it might be a while... :-(

One way to put the question is, although obviously there are very specific reasons for the phase rings, at what cost the benefit. The same may be asked of Pierre's suggestion. Again, a call to Pierre might shed some light more specifically. I just left a message on his machine.

Z, the other thread was quite old and I thought it relevent to this one, but, point taken. I certainly did not complain to Agon. Re: your last line, I don't get you, but I speak for the record and to those with ears to hear. As they say in AA, take what works for you and leave the rest. I thought your questions were good ones, just didn't llke the attitude.

I don't have any experience with removing waveguides from speakers, but I do know that the new waveguide on the Revel F52 has resulted in drastically improved integration between the treble and midrange as compared to the F50. Needless to say I won'tbe removing the waveguides from my speakers anytime soon.

PP: IMO you should have responded to me about the other thread *on* the other thread. But instead I guess you complained to Agon about it, because when I took the liberty of attempting to copy and paste the pertinent part of your response here over there, so I could reply to it in context, it wound up pending moderator approval. If and when they decide to post it there, I'll respond there, point by point. But sarcasm aside (and my degree of sarcasm was only inspired by and proportational to the overheatedness of Mr. Sprey's claims and rhetoric, which he still mails to me unsolicited from time to time), suffice it to say I stand by all of my criticisms, and do not feel anything you've said here refutes the substance of any of it.

p.s. reversable with a bit o' glue.

Why do I bother adding to these threads 3 months late???

To start the ball rolling on the wrong foot right from the start, I'm a Mapleshade dealer and friend of Pierre's. Although this might discount what I have to say for the cynically inclined, it puts me in a position of intimacy with his knowledge and what's behind it. As you know, forums like this are wonderful but full of opportunities for, among other things, wandering around, the blind leading the blind. Here's my set of blind spots:

I will start by pointing out that very few manufacturers would have the integrity and equanimity to repond to this question in any other way than was posted by Stearnsn. Furthermore, the engineer types are precisely the guys that come up with stuff that theoretically specs well but may or may not actually sound better subjectively. This is a famous audiophile conundrum and I'm surprised that you didn't recocgnize it since most of us spend alot of time on the other side of the measurements vs. sound argument.

It is a testimony to Pierre's humility and truly scientific approach that he is delighted to uproot even his own pet theories in the face of imperical evidence. There are specific and good reasons behind every one of his recommedations. Whether they are absolutely always true or not is another issue and I think that Pierre is possibly erroring slightly here and there, but relatively speaking, you can count on them being pretty darned true.

To speak to Zakesman's parallel thread:

(I'm sorry Z but it seems like you finally caught a sucker (me) with your needlessly sarcastic tone. Occasional caveats aside, you were out classed by your repondents kindness.)

Firstly, Mapleshade is driven by Pierre's passion to offer great sound, great value and facilitate great musicians getting their music out and getting fairly paid for it. His recording contracts are a model of simplicity and fairness to the musicians. I know this because I was one of them. He abhors over inflated pricing. He was forced into his more recent stratospheric pricing of his upper end Omega Mikro line by the unreal amounts of time he has in imperical experimentation. But he has put just as much time into developing budget products so the rest of us can benefit from his work. His products and educational catalogues are an expression of his truly generous nature and his penchant for cutting to the chase. There's never any right way for everyone. Pierre has his priorities. Mine happen to be similar. Yours may differ. Oh, and incidently, he quit his pentagon position because they were obviously more interested in padding the wallets of their contractors than implimenting his more-effective-in-real-life-(and death)-situations minimalist designs.

It is common knowledge that sitting closer gives a higher ratio of direct sound to reflected sound, the result being dramatically increased clarity. The extreme example of this is head phones. If you've never ABed your speakers vs. headphones you'd be shocked at what is lost.

Most speakers are severely compromised; time alignment being one very common example. Room interactions are also reduced by positioning the listener nearer to a room boundary, such as the floor or the back wall. This has the added advantage of supporting the bass as well. moving the speaker out into the room will automatically open up the soundstage, deepening it dramatically. Loss of bass support is then made up for by sitting near the back wall. This also removes bass reflections adn minimizes room nodes.

Putting speakers on the floor works with similar issues. Talk to Roy Allison about it.

The 8' speaker cable issue has to do with cable reflections/resonances issues interacting with the amplifier and is known to many cogniscenti other than Pierre. He found out through a customers imperical experience then coincidentally heard about the reason for it through a famous EE, whose name slips my mind at the moment, who made these contoversial claims over 40 years ago.

You can explore these questions further if you like by simply calling the Mapleshade tweek hotline and talking to the man himself. or not. your call.

"Duct tape is the answer to just about everything."

That's certainly Red Green's philosophy...(those not in the habit of watching reruns of Canadian comedy on PBS, don't ask)

Agree that altering whatever "phase" or "diffusor" plate/plug/ring/lens accompanies a tweeter -- anything more than just a guard-wire -- will greatly and unpredictably alter its response and throw out of whack all the engineering that the designer put into the speaker. So consider this: the Stereophile reviewer Wes Phillips, whose writing I generally enjoy and don't usually find to be partially insane or blissfully ignorant, stated in print that he actually heeded Pierre Sprey's personal urging and clipped them off the pair of Thiel 1.6's he seemed to have kept in-house for an extended stay. Aside from the questions this raises about Phillips' sonic and reviewing accumen and judgement, what must Jim Thiel have thought A) about anyone doing this to his speakers, much less B) about a reviewer doing this to gear I assume was on manufacturer loan?

Read about another great use for duct tape in the "Why so many" thread next door...

Duct tape didn't help my circumcision (or my tweeter). Neither did a "Clever Little Clock" - with or without duct tape. I guess that a little time can't heal everything and maybe these cure-alls can't cure all? Darn...

Duct tape is the answer to just about everything.

No need to cut the tweeter bridge. You can achieve everything you want by duct taping a "Clever Little Clock" directly above each tweeter.

I posed the question to the speaker manufacturer and they wrote back:

"Hi Nick,

I forwarded your question to our head engineer, and he strongly urges that you not do any of the things recommended on that website. Many of the things recommended on that website will make things worse, some can even cause damage to the audio equipment.

Removing the diffuser from the M6 will make its high frequency dispersion worse. It will make the speaker brighter on axis. It will be different, but not better. This assumes that the customer can remove the diffuser without damaging the dome.

Furthermore, it would void your warranty. It is therefore our strong recommendation that you not modify your T6 in that manner."

I'm glad I asked, thanks all.

I wanted to buy some of their maple platforms a few years ago cut to specific sizes to use in constructing a hardwood version of my Magro 24 stand. They couldn't guarantee accuracy better than ±.25".

One thing that seems consistent throughout their literature is that warmer is always better.

Can you say "more twinkle tweaking tweeter" fast 10 X's . If you can then I'll agree with that hocus pocus offered by mapleshady
:-))

Thanks, Zaikesman. I love the idea of sitting off-axis to your tweeter and putting your monitors closer to the floor to get more bass, and then snipping off the tweeter wave guide to get more treble. Gee, why dontcha just turn the freakin' volume up???

Check out my archived thread on this topic and more such proclamations from Mapleshade...

Circumcised tweeters! What next?

These are the same peo. who recommend sitting on the floor while listening. IMHO, they have a credibility issue like most tweakers.

I wonder how they determined it was "as much as 100%"

Perhaps they have a special tweeter meter.

This sounds like a very, very bad idea to me.

You lost me at "as much as a 100% improvement in treble". Now how exactly did they quantify this benefit? What is this supposed to sound like? Also what is a plastic phase ring? I've seen some tweeters that have a plastic strip or series of strips which may help prevent damage but that wouldn't effect the phase of the driver. Smells like BS to me.

This is the same outfit that sells $24 Iso-nad cork blocks that may be procured at your local HVAC dealer for $4-5. Of course, Myrtleshat 'specially' tunes them. Some believe their recordings have not quite achieved near-mythical status as proclaimed on their catalog cover. But audiophile opinions are like ashholes, everybody got one.

BTW, tweeter diffusers are a good thing and an integral part of the driver design. Even the speaker manufacturer doesn't remove them! Then again, Pierre Is a former rocket scientist...

Removing the grill is often a good idea. (But it varies, so you need to try it both ways.) But snipping off the tweeter's wave guide? Giving advice like that goes beyond stupid, to the borders of venal.

I agree with Shadorne. Mapleshade may make good recordings -- even make decent equipment accessories (I haven't tried them) -- but they certainly don't make other company's speakers, so they should NOT be making suggestions about how to modify them. Ignore their suggestions to remove the phase ring, because at the very least, it will void the warranty, and you may really dislike what you hear as well.

My preference is to tend to stick with what the speaker manufacturer intended or recommends. I use the same logic with power cords - what comes with the component is acceptable to me.

My logic is this: I know far less about these things than the equipment manufacturer's do. I have already made a careful component selection leading to a $$$ purchase. If I find myself beginning to second guess the manufacturer's design choices, my preference would be to change component altogether rather than make any irreversable modifications. (an item that is modified from the original may be harder to sell second hand)