Hey guys,
Here’s some more news on my Moab speaker adventure. The speakers came on time this morning, undamaged, nice helpful driver. All went well. After you unboxed the speakers you’re really not quite ready for what you purchased. They look much bigger in person. I ordered mine in bright red, they look sick! Almost like something from another planet.
Some background, I currently have Tekton double impacts with 2 4-10 Subs. I really like the idea of feeling the music even at low listening levels. These four speakers have done a great job for me the past eight months. I’m not sure why I wanted the Moabs, I was going to order them instead of the double impacts but I chickened out and didn’t wanna lay out that much money based on some thing I never heard only saw on the Internet. In hindsight I definitely wished I would’ve ordered the Moab.
I am a big fan of Macintosh Products , These Moab speakers will be hooked to a Bi-amped setup, Macintosh last year came out with a hybrid half tube and half solid-state amp. I believe it’s the MC901. It’s also $35,000 which is way out of my league. So, my Macintosh MX122 Pre amp has a Bi-amp Wiring option. So I found a Macintosh MC275 tube amp to drive the 15 tweeters in each speaker and I purchased a mackintosh MC 352 solid-state amp to drive the 2-12 inch woofers in each speaker.
We got everything wired up and I left all the settings in the preamp like they were for the double impacts that had been removed. I put on one of my favorite songs from Steely Dan called Hatian divorce. As the song unfolded these monsters came alive. It was almost like I invited these two giant red bulls into my home And they were completely out of control. I’ve never experienced anything like it. My buddy Calvin was like Scotty on Star Trek saying turn down the power! The whole thing was pretty funny.
So I’ve spent all day going through my favorite music and figuring out what settings I like best for input levels to little tweaks with the inboard equalizer that comes inside the preamp. Basically if I wanted to I feel like I could knock down half of my home with these things. I really like the Hybrid bi-amp Set up. The solid-state amp really pushes those 12 inch drivers. The tube amp makes all those tweeters sing. I just need to do some fine-tuning. I would like to make this Report a little more detail and scientific but I’m running out of gas.
If you have any questions feel free to ask me. I definitely am saying that this whole adventure has been absolutely worth it and I can’t wait to find out how much more I learn in the future. It looks like my next adventure is going to be learning how to use Roon So that I can preset some of the Equalization for older and newer tracks.
Well the last track on king fish Ingram’s first album has just started and I’m going to call her tonight. If you have any questions please ask thanks, Ray
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#Miller carbon if you have a small dolly and are not a klutz,Moving, unpacking and changing positions is a one-man job.
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#jovialspirit yes we do! Except you took it to the next level. My system is technically in my bedroom which is pretty big. It’s 20‘ x 26‘ and I had the other channels built in to the rear and the ceiling to go for that hidden
sound feeling. Like miller carbon said, Now I know where wall of sound comes from! It’s really beautiful seeing it all together in one picture.
#Miller carbon I highly doubt that you are going to be disappointed. If you are the type of listener that doesn’t have a problem with making a few minor adjustments, (I hope that this statement doesn’t degrade the speaker review) you will find that you have lots to work with and that it will be moldable into your room and system beautifully.
MC what are you going to be driving your speakers with? Can you tell from any of my equipment or jovial spirits equipment if you’ll be OK with your current amplifier?
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Hey guys,
What happened did somebody get sent to the principals office? Do they still paddle in school these days? I’m kind of bummed that there are still people these days who just can’t be happy for somebody else.
#shalommorgan, Thanks for the nice words. I’m still enjoying them very much as we go into day two. I was getting dressed this morning and turn suddenly and actually scared myself when the speakers entered my field of view. LOL it was pretty funny.
I’ve basically spent the Day with myself and my aid, Calvin figuring out what settings to set the subwoofers at. Now that I have another amp driving strictly bass in the by amped set up I found I had Way too much space that overlapped each other. I figured the best way was to just reset everything back to zero and start over. That was the right decision and Calvin and I both agreed on how things were set up. The mid range and highs are so clear and effortless that we try to balance it out with tight clean base. I didn’t realize how complex all this could get. It took all day but it feels right.
Miller carbon I checked out your app it looks beautiful and it should do the job just fine. Eric is not making up that 98 Decibel output number. I started watching the meters on my mackintosh MC 352 That just handles the low end, at a higher listening level the meters live in the zone between 35 watts and 350 W as they bounce back-and-forth.How’s that for some scientific jargon!?
For all the guys who don’t believe that the speakers are as good as we have been reporting, I don’t know what else to say except that I really think that this Eric fella is really onto something. This is one of the few purchases that I can remember making that I am happily paid the full asking price. I think that alone says something. Anyways I hope everyone is well,See you tomorrow, Ray |
May 1 ,Eric guess is around six weeks, I think mine showed up at my door right around seven weeks. If that’s the case with you when are you expecting yours?
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#p05129 why are you so bent out of shape at Miller Carbon because he is excited about getting some new speakers?. I think it’s cool that he is super excited. I think he said he was 62? Most guys at his age are kind of that cranky old man type. Why can’t you be happy for the old guy that he’s having a good time and looks forward to getting up every day? (MC I hope you find this funny I’m not trying to pick a fight with you.)
Then you take a poke at me “that when I got up in the morning , the speaker scared me because it was so ugly. “How would you like it if I said that I was scared because your mom was making me breakfast and it was the first time that I saw her in the light? LOL isn’t this getting ridiculous?
why don’t you call Eric and ask him what his “secret sauce” is to these speakers? Maybe you’ll learn something new..... |
Miller carbon,
The statement you made about feeding the speakers made me wonder are you strictly an analog guy or do you do any streaming? I just got hooked up to ROON this morning. It’s amazing the different things that you can do. Have you ever messed around with any of this stuff? |
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It looks like the thread is dead. I got the SVS subwoofers the model 4000. They are not as good as the Tekton 4-10s. It’s nice having the convenience of the app that the SVS offers But the 410 inch woofers I’ll play the 13 inch single woofer in the SVS. It looks like I made a mistake. I think I’m gonna get rid of the SVS and order a new set of 410s
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Hey guys! I thought I would leave you with a little facetious joke before I had some dinner. I came back not realizing that I set off a firestorm of activity. Sorry guys it was meant to be funny. I have them horizontally bi-amped. It’s nothing special from the manufacture, it’s on the website it’s a $75 up charge. Miller carbon I don’t think that they would sound any different Except for the fact that I’ve got tubes running the mids and highs and a solid-state amp running the lows. I stole this idea from the new Macintosh amp call the MC901 which is a mono block set a amps that are a hybrid set up of tubes and solid-state amps. The problem with it is it’s $35,000, way more than I would ever spend down audio equipment. https://www.mcintoshlabs.com/products/amplifiers/MC901Once again, sorry for making will Roger All upset, danger danger |
Hey Miller carbon since you are the undisputed unofficial Tekton sales rep why don’t you just do it for real? Go to Eric and pre- buy five sets of speakers for $3500 per pair shipping included. Then, you spend your time on the Internet advertising that you are the only official Tekton sales rep in the world and you can ship TODAY! You offer the speakers in charcoal and black only. You retail the speakers for $4500 just like Eric but you only offer them in the two colors. If you want something special you can take an order but normal wait times apply. Then you get a smaller commission from Eric just for taking the order..... Say $200-$300. Here’s a recap, if you ordered five sets of speakers at the discounted price of $3500 you would lay out $17,500 to Eric. All you would have to do is sell the five sets of speakers and you would pocket $5000. They would ship from Eric‘s factory and he included shipping in the discounted purchase price to you. You could be Mr.Tekton Jr. !!!! How cool is that?
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I’ve had my Moab for two weeks now. I listen to them every day all day. I am recovering from a surgery that is going to keep me in bed for another five weeks. I look forward to turning them on first thing in the morning. Mine are bi-amped, mids and highs are Mcintosh mc275 tubes, lows is Mcintosh Mc352 solid state. That’s 425 watts Per channel. I listen to mine through a lumen D2 streamer with full MQA decoding. I tweak mine from time to time with my ROON powered parametric equalizer. I’ll add a little bass and a little pinch of treble very sparingly to basically bring some of the older recordings to life. All the newer recorded music I run everything flat. The speakers fill the room with music. At night when I’m listening with the volume up while I’m reading I couldn’t tell you where the speakers are in the room. The room is about 26‘ x 24‘ the Moab’s fill it full of music.This is my third set of speakers in two years. At last I have found what I was looking for. They are pretty awesome especially for the modest price |
Hmmmm, it’s working ok...I just hooked both amps to the one set of posts on each speaker
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I got my isolation feet on my speakers today. On the blue subwoofer is the mag Lev feet. On the red Moab speaker is the spring loaded feet. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8788#&gid=1&pid=2They both work amazingly well, there is approximately three eights of an inch of travel in each of the feet. They do an amazing job of taking away all of the bass that travels into the wood floor. When I’ve got the volume up I would get this feedback feeling of having too much bass traveling around in the floor space. Isolating the speaker cabinets with either magnet or Springs has done an amazing job of cleaning up That feedback or reverberation sound. The bass is clean and tight now. |
I am new to the audio market. I recently just took delivery of a set of Moab speakers. I’ve been thinking about a lot of the questions that have come up recently in this thread. Below is a list of the reasons why I purchased my Moabs.
The Moab looks different than any other speakers in the price range.
When I searched for reviews I found many of them on YouTube. In these videos it was cool to see the owner in many of them discussing what was unique about his product.
Many more of the YouTube videos were done by customers. If a customer will take the time to make a video and post it they must be pretty happy with their purchase.
They offered special colors and finishes.
They encouraged you to call and talk with the owner.
I looked on a used equipment website and it was very rare to find a pair of them for sale. That made me feel like the people that have purchased them must be happy with them.
I believe in tone controls. So I knew that if what I purchased was lacking in some thing I didn’t like that I could probably correct it with tone controls.
I figured if it turned out that I hated them, because of the price point, their uniqueness and that the market wasn’t flooded with them that they would be easy to sell off. So, I really didn’t see the fact that I didn’t get to listen to them as being a huge risk. I just didn’t want to spend $4500 on something that was a regular wood grain box with a black mesh fabric face.
From what I’ve read about Eric or seen in video interviews that he has done, he’s a pretty smart guy. He had said in these videos that he loved music and knew from an early age that he wanted to be a manufacture of speakers. He had purposely gone to work for speaker manufacturers to learn all he could about the industry and how the business worked. That tells me that he had a lot of time to plan out how he was going to start his business. I did the same thing with my business. I thought about it for almost 10 years before I Started it. I think that had a lot to do with the reason it’s a success today, Same for Eric. |
MC......How much longer was he suggesting that you may have to wait to get the better tweeter?
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I see, when I read your post I thought that when he said it was going to have some engineering problems to solve that you weren’t willing to wait the extra time to get your speakers. When I called Eric about switching out the tweeters he said what you described in your last post to me and I said just screw it I’m gonna stick with the stock tweeters. Well let me tell you I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. I listen to my system a minimum of four hours a day and the speakers really are remarkable. It’s the first time I’ve ever listen to a recording and heard clearly The musician breathing in air to play the next line. Pretty cool for a modest sum. I really don’t think that the more expensive tweeters would’ve made a huge difference because he would have probably tune them to sound like the stock ones, so what’s the point?It’ll be interesting to see what you have to say next week.
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#millercarbon
I would agree with Eric‘s description of “ Meaningful output“. It got me thinking as I listen to music digitally that I owned on record, tape and cd. I’m hearing all kinds of new things as I listen to recordings that Have been in my brain for 35 years. Is it the speaker array or is it the new digital files that I stream from Tidal? I ran into a video on YouTube about how years ago, when they would engineer a record, some information would get left off the recording if they couldn’t fit all of the songs on the record. I was shocked when I heard this and I wonder if some of what I hear is Sounds that didn’t make the record but show up on the digital file from Tidal? Do you listen to strictly records?
Sorry for getting off track, back to what you were saying to me earlier about the highs and lows being divided at 220 Hz, I think I understand what you were saying. I would describe the magic that I hear that I’ve never heard before is for instance when I hear somebody pluck a guitar string , I am used to only hearing the guitar string, Probably only at its peak of making noise. Now I hear the beginning of the pluck, then at the peak of the note and then I hear it die off. There’s like three parts to each pluck of the string. That’s what I think is the magic of the speaker array. Which is why I moved up from the direct impact to the Moab. The Moab has twice the number of speakers in the array. I feel like I got what I paid for , 100% more of what I wanted. I hope you can get that kind of detail from a record and it’s not just something that I’m getting because I got a new streamer, MQA and ROON all about the same time. |
#mahgister
Is this the best statement of this thread? “ Thanks for your interesting post in an interesting thread“ For my part, you are welcome. This thread HAS IT ALL!!!!....politics, profanity, sex, violence......What am I forgetting guys? |
I think most of us are waiting for Miller carbons review! My comments above were all meant to be funny
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#millercarbon Hey MC don’t forget that they sent out an email to you when they’ve been shipped with the bill of lading from the trucking company. Here was what they sent me. Hi Ray, Your Double Impacts and subs shipped out with Old Dominion on Monday. I've attached your Bill of Lading so you can track the shipment on their website. I'm also including in this email some Double Impact unpacking instructions below to help you unpack them safely. Please read all the way through and pay careful attention to the 2 notes at the bottom. Enjoy! Karma Double Impact Unpacking Instructions… Important! Please read all of the instructions before beginning to unpack your loudspeakers! The Double Impact is a heavy loudspeaker. Take no chances with lifting. It is best to use a hand truck when moving. It is important to unpack the Double Impact loudspeaker very carefully. Improper unpacking can result in a damaged tweeter and/or drive unit. The shipping box is in two pieces - there is a taped seam all the way around the middle of the box. Note that the spikes are located in the top piece of foam in one of the loudspeakers. 1. Open the top of the box. However, don't remove the top pieces of packing foam. 2. Carefully cut along the tape line around the center (ensure that you don't cut deeply). 3. Lift the top box up and off the loudspeaker while ensuring the foam is held precisely in place. 4. Next, remove the loose pieces of foam on the front and sides of the speaker being extra careful to make sure that the packing foam directly touching the front baffle of the loudspeakers safely clears the drive units when removing the foam. If the foam directly contacts the tweeters, it can damage the domes. 5. Tilt the box forward a bit, while supporting the speaker, to remove the back piece of foam. Place a blanket or protective fabric on the floor and very carefully lay the speaker on its side. Lift to stand upside down, remove the bottom of the box. 6. Put the spikes in, lay on its side and stand upright. Floor spikes are embedded in the top piece of packing foam in one of the boxes. The spikes are vital and must be installed. Leveling is crucial as well once the speakers are in place. PLEASE NOTE: Occasionally some damage may occur during shipping. Please inspect the boxes thoroughly. If there is noticeable damage, it is IMPERATIVE that you note that on delivery BEFORE you sign to accept them. Make sure the driver notes “DAMAGED” on the documents. Immediately take pictures of the boxes. When you open them if there is visible damage to your loudspeakers take pictures of the loudspeakers, the packing materials, and the boxes or we cannot file a claim for damage. Call the carrier to let them know and email us as well.
2. If you feel an Inside Delivery Service is required you will be charged the additional fees for these services. Tekton Design does not authorize these charges and they will be your responsibility. These charges range from $50-$150 per speaker. I hope you enjoy the speakers! -- Eric Alexander
President
Tekton Design, LLC
www.tektondesign.com
tektondesign@gmail.com
801-836-0764 |
Yes, they call you to schedule delivery. I would guess you gave them your cell phone.Well let’s hope you get the email tomorrow!
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Did you see that Old Dominion Trucking is on strike because of the pandemic?
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Thanks MC. Sorry for the (over the top) response that day. It’s been a wild ride waiting for your speakers to arrive ! I learned a bunch of stuff about speakers from the everyone And many times this thread help me pass the time I’m stuck in bed. 2 more weeks and I’m back in my wheelchair!
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What is the story with these HFT’s? Will you be using them on the Moabs? How do they work and what can they change about the Moab?
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@millercarbon..... Why no subs?
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So I get up this morning and my aid set me up with my iPad in bed. I figured I would look forward to reading the interesting and fun review from Miller carbon. I get about seven or eight posts into the story and I read this... middlemass and viablex1- If you're ever gonna get anything out of reading reviews first learn how to read. If this is any example your reading comprehension sucks. If you actually believe what you posted then you must have skipped the next paragraph: Only thing is, I have actually done this stuff myself, just enough times to know how much work it is and how much you can spend and still not have what you could have bought for the same money and no trouble. People who follow me know I preach this all the time with DIY wire. Total waste. Because just like this, to think you are gonna luck out and do on one try what people have devoted DECADES of their LIVES to is beyond insane. It is ignorance and arrogance. On stilts. So what this is doing, is showing you completely misread the paragraph you quoted by failing to read and comprehend its meaning in light of the following paragraph. Pitcher of Pina colada, three bowls, and I can still write better than you with one hand tied behind my back.... Miller carbon, what is wrong with you? Everybody was in a good mood and saying how happy they were for you that you were happy with the speakers. Why do you have to act like this? I can’t understand why you had to insult these two people. They didn’t do anything to you. If you want respect you have to give it. I’m sorry I thought it was really cool that you and I bumped heads and then worked it out, but man what you said was so un-cool. I know you’re going to write back and insult the hell out of me, I really could care less. One thing you should care about is your friendship with Eric. If I was him and I read this, I wouldn’t want you anywhere near my brand. It would suck if He was following this thread. |
Now that we all know that Eric is following along, I would like to state for the record that I’ll be leaving my new Moabs alone (they sound amazing as they are) all I did was change the feet on mine. I hope he chimes back In as some of you guys hack into his life’s work.
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#randym860 i looked at those too. I went with springs first then I switched to maglev feet .check out www.solidairaudio.com very cool stuff for speakers and. Components |
The springs do not bobble. You cannot even see the speaker move even that really loud volumes. The magnetic ones are the same way they don’t bobble unless you bump into them. Some of you guys are making way more of this than what it is. The townsend design is on four springs, The one I did has multiple springs and you use as many springs as you need for the proper weight. It really did make a big difference in how the bass sounded mostly at upper Volume levels. All of the talk about the woofers moving the springs laterally....doesn’t happen, the speakers just sit there and the springs absorb all of the vibration that used to go directly into the floor. |
#glupson
Elac is making more for released in September 2020
#nwres
You would need 6 mag lev feet for Moabs. 4 spring pods should be fine,I did 6 just because... |
I use Tekton 4-10 subs, two of them. I shake the entire house sometimes. They are $800 each. There’s picks on my page of my Moabs and 4-10’s.
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Sorry everyone, didn’t mean to be Debbie Downer...lol. I thought I’d try and wake everyone With a virtual “line” with the coke reference. It looks like it started to work......MC Do you have any ideas to get this place rocking?
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I’ve got springs on my Moabs (6 on each) and mag-Lev feet on my 4-10 subs (6 on each). It really cleaned up the giant mess of vibrations I had kris-crossing through my floors and walls.there is pics on my system page.after I did all 4 speakers I really cleaned things up. Here’s a link talking about it all. https://youtu.be/BOPXJDdwtk4heres a link for magnetic repulsion feet www.solidairaudio.comii made my spring feet |
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#MC I used 6 outriggers and 6 spring feet. The whole project was about $150 off amazon. I think we had 1 trip to hardware store for fasteners. We spent 3-4 hours doing the whole job. Totally worth the effort. It’s amazing how much cleaner the bass is when it’s not molesting itself from speaker to speaker like Townshend showed in the video.
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Is everybody in agreement that changing out the screws to brass screws makes a significant difference? |
#miller carbon
springs? Remember “because Newton?” LOL... glad to see an old dog is man enough to try a new trick. :) |
Nice to meet you jolly green! I too love meters!
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#millercarbon i tried to pay you a compliment with the “old dog” comment a few posts back. I started a thread back in early May called something like...”what’s your choice, spikes or isolation feet” you were the first post. Here it is below starting with an excerpt from my opening statement.
05-13-2020 7:00pmI am in the camp of vibration isolation. I think it makes sense that the less energy transfer into the floor goes into the air. I found these really cool magnetic isolation feet that I’ve never seen before.
So these really cool magnetic isolation feet that you've never seen before, I imagine they float the speakers above the floor in gloriously perfect isolation. Wonderful.
So then when the speaker cone moves one way, the speaker cabinet moves the other way. Because, Newton. That force has to push against something after all, even if its just the air, and if its gonna move the air one way the air is gonna push back and the speaker is gonna move the other way.
Which the speaker is now free to do, floating on magnets and all. Free to move.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems we want the air to move, and not the speaker?
MC, if not me, who was it that corrected you? Since you were wrong...
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Just for the record...I started asking you guys what you thought about vibration control way back on May 13th. Read the thread, it’s pretty short. It shows who was for it and against it. As soon as I saw Townsend’s video I was sold. What your choice speakers with spikes or speakers with a vibration isolation device? I am in the camp of vibration isolation. I think it makes sense that the less energy transfer into the floor goes into the air. I found these really cool magnetic isolation feet that I’ve never seen before. They are very affordable, the guys are from England. Here’s a link, The company is called solid air audio.https://solidairaudio.com
raysmtb1 |
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Congrats kesnel331 ! You will love the set up. I ordered mine bi-amp set up so I could bi-amp them. Did you do any special options? Ray
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It’s $75 to bi-amp. I have mc275 tube amp for mids and high and mc352 SS lows... nice headroom. It’s called horizontal bi-amp. Why not for $75?
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All of the very expensive speakers I have seen offer the ability to bi-amp. I think that’s why Eric decided to offer it on the Moab because he sees the Moab competing with the much more expensive competitors. He doesn’t offer it on all of his speakers, at least on the website. I’m sure if you asked him he would do it to anything he makes, that’s just how he runs his business. Bi-amping is all about sharing the work. I like tube sound, so I have my tubes on top. Solid-state amps are better at base so they get the base job. Sharing the work is what the tweeter arrays do on the Moab speaker itself. It kind of fits with the whole theme to me.
I don’t see the thinking behind the jumper argument or the speaker cable argument. As long as you buy decent quality speaker cables and a jumper you’d be fine. It’s also about options, you don’t know where this hobby may take you. You may get really into the hobby And decide someday that you’d like to bi-amp the speakers. Or someday you may decide you want to sell them and it’s another added value that only cost you $75 when you buy the speakers. I know for sure that when I like to listen at a heavier level that if I’m listening to music that’s more bass heavy that it’s not sucking the life out of my high end. Or you could dig around inside the speaker and find the crossover and solder a wire onto it and run a speaker through the rear port. It’s going to cost you more than $75 to figure out what wire to Solder where. I don’t know, but would there be a difference in how Eric constructed the crossover? Are you even able to hot rod I’ll Bi-amp?
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