I will experiment with the mix on some plywood first and see how the coating hangs on. After drying I may have to spray coat with a low shear acoustic paint I have been working with as a sealer over the Micro Bearing. Tom
Showing 50 responses by theaudiotweak
Robert For temporary listening test only!!!!! Remove and then replace after testing the front panel and door assembly and take a listen to the improvement. I plan on having the machine shop I use that makes my brass parts for string instruments fabricate a hinged all-brass cover assembly. I think the magnetic fields generated within the box are disturbed by the ferrous cover plate. These newly bent magnetic fields are reflected back into the same box and become a part of the power signal that travels to your components and elsewhere, Ideally an entirely new box and cover plate should be constructed and installed by a licensed professional. That would be a serious mod and undertaking. TomD
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At Starsound we have our wire in our speakers that is surrounded by a double jacket. Between the void of the 2 jackets we fill with our Micro Bearing Steel. The bearing acts as a shield and as a reactive resonance control system. The bearing dissapates vibration before it contacts the conductor. Tom |
You can also read up and use the Bud Purvine EnABL method for which he was granted U.S. patent # 5,304,746..filed 1991. The Purvine patent originally described a method to reduce or eliminate standing waves now better described as transverse, or shear waves or a type called a Raleigh wave. The EnABL used for years by many online can be applied to both sides of a surface including those of a speaker box and a speaker cone . Shear waves have 2 polarities and can only travel thru solids or on solids. Their polarity will change direction when it meets another different conductive material or geometric boundary .This process repeats itself until there is no signal contained or there is no longer a conductive material. The shear waves generate an odd affect on boundary edges that join up and meet, almost seems to be a fluttering of energy that will wrap around the front of a baffle and carry over to a portion of the joining side. A corner in a glass house would be an extreme example of how a surface conducts sound vibrations. You can apply the EnABL method to drivers, cabinets, turntable platters ,walls and probably a race car..endless surfaces and materials. There are other methods available to reduce interfering energy on many different products. By doing so there sounds to be an increase of effiencey. Exactly as in the Debbie Miles patent she describes a method to reduce shear wave interference in the floor surface boundary of a string instrument. This method is easily heard as an increase in volume and power while at the same time reducing the amount of energy needed to make any given sound. Debbie likes to call this a reduction of interfering energy. The shear waves travel in and on the materials, the air that lays against these solid materials vibrates and relates a character of sound to our ears, some could be described as dry or woody or glassey and tinny each depending on the material, its shape and boundary . All materials have a different shear velocity among other descriptions this is why lead sounds different than brass or glass, wood or beryllium. A reduction of a polarity of shear on and in a large surface in motion such as a room wall will improve laminar flow like we use in The Energy Room. We originally applied these same methods to our complete speaker system. As Debbie says that reduces interfering energy. Tom D. |
Well you would have 2 conversions when really only none is required..And you would have many more component parts including the probable use of a couple of noisey switching power supplys. Other than that it would work. I have run digital eq and xo on my system once and only on the subs which I quickly removed. Tom |
Get it all out here..When I did a remodel of my power amps I took the main board Nichicons off and chassis mounted 4 of the Clarity Cap TC's these are hard mounted to the metal bottom with Audiopoints. You could do the same in a speaker when replacing a large value cap. These caps a very nice up grade. Flys high now with the Vishay nude metal films in every position.Tom |
Question can you run a cap and resistor in series to equate the the esr of the original ? The best sounding resistors are the Vishay nude metal films. When I rebuilt my long gone Dunlavys years back..I had to build resistor bridges with several of these low wattage resistors to meet the power requirements. The improvement was almost staggering well that and sealing all the pores of the MDF inside of the cabinet with Cascade Vbloc..the formula now is a little different. Kinda like troweling on concrete. Sucks in and seals and kills the glue..Much more dynamic and open. I sealed 1 and kept quantity measurements, let dry for a few days and reassembled and compared..The treated one sounded like it went out the door and down the street..the other one was still in the box. The pair was amazing. My experience tells me not to replace inductors..go gently with the caps..and replace all the dime store resistors. Tom |
vair68robert..Just saw the exposed crossover you posted. The single easiest most dramatic improvement would be for you to replace all the resistors shown with either non inductive wire wounds from Mills or Mundorf. I would replace the resistors first before the wire..You will always hear the resistors shown and their low level noise will still be present in any wire you try. Change the resistors first/next.. Tom |
The Audiopoint was introduced in 1989. Around that time we made available the smooth barrell pressure fit brass point for select Thiel models. I checked today there are zero available. Reference in time at my first home in '79 I used hardened steel points sold thru Linn dealers. I used these on Time Aligned speaker prototypes developed by Ed Long. I remember Harry coming over for a listen.Soon after came the aluminum TipToes from the Mod Squad. Tom |
Maybe something here for those dodging the cold the snowflakes and the latest covid variant... a way to pass the time with a deeper look into this hobby. Found this while searching for an illustration of multiple velocity stacks that could be applied to a new speaker design. Tom Dan Russell's Acoustics and Vibration Animations (psu.edu) |
Tom Thiel when you stated Long Engineering was that the company of Ed Long who patented the Time Align setup for crossovers? In the early 80’s a friend and I contracted Ed Long to design a 8 in midbass driver and a 4 inch midrange driver that were built by Eminence which is about 30 miles from my home. The 8 inch was in a rather small sealed enclosure and the mid and tweeter were mounted on sculpted panel time offset to the wooden cabinet attached below. The midrange was mounted in a open back damped tube. Both the 8 in and 4 inch were very shallow in cone depth. Ed’s thinking was the deeper the cone the more time the cone was out of time alignment as it traveled. Of course Ed designed the crossover as well. The bass eventually became a early version of the ELF subwoofers who along with Long was patented by Ron Wickersham . Eminence built us 10 inch woofers which we mounted 2 in a each separate but attached cabinet. These also had a time offset. The drivers were crossed over below the system resonance point and we put in use a Mcintosh MQ 104 xover and eq for the woofers extension and control. They were powered by a Tom Holman amp. Incredible soundstage and super fast powerful bass with no boom or overhang. May be the the best integrated bass I have ever heard to this day. Good luck to all following this thread and sharing their experiences and upgrades. Tom |
There are methods to adjust the resonance point of the crossover even when it is mounted internally. This adjustment can be done externally and improvement can be both seen and heard. Much like a string instrument. You cannot do this with so called isolation materials they deny energy transfer and store energy. TomD |
Tom Thiel.. About the Sonoran wire from Starsound..this product line has been made since the early 90's and has never had any relationship with MIT. As with all our products the Audio Points and Sistrum family of audio racks and platforms.. and most of the cables... we have designed in methods for resonance control and mechanical grounding. We know from years of listening experience that any mechanical conductor such as a listening room a speaker cabinet a stand and any type of electrical conductor can be altered by vibration and resonance. We have learned from previous works that if you overdamp a product that you eat into the spectrum that suggests that you are listening to a live event. There is a fine line in keeping it real. Even a signal wire can be over controlled and we accrued many hours listening to the same wire again and again surrounded by different materials and geometric shapes even in the same family of elements. While we thought that a container of steel bearings 5 million per pound would sound the best around our conductor we instead sonically chose surrounding the conductor with the same material and geometry but one which had a part count of 970,000 bearings per pound. And no I didn't make a part count myself. Even the conductor can be damped to sonic detriment. Same with speaker stands. No to sand or lead shot as those materials have a very low shear velocity and will overdamp the device. Even with the steel shot we usually suggest filling a post 1/2 to 2/3's..As you add more you suddenly hear too much darkness and then the sound stage begins to shut down. Darkness and virtually no light. Not that. Recently I have been experimenting with materials and coatings that can be easily applied to many different shapes and surfaces. They control shear induced resonance which travels on and thru any solid material. I have applied this same material to an active room device that greatly enhances laminar flow and reduces the impression of room boundaries. Listening in wide open space. Tom |
All of this interference is nearly invisible and maybe at this point is not measurable but can certainly be seen in my mind's eye as myself and a friend have listened here and at his house. When I made my port treatment on my recent speaker rebuild, I couldn't believe the improved clarity of detail now coming out of the port everything improved. The tweaking of the bass frequencies was the catalyst, but what occurred was an enhancement of vocals and their placement. So in search of a more specific solution, I may have found a solution to reduce some boundary interference which degenerates laminar flow. In a phone call about three years ago I mentioned my Dahlquist and Bud Purvine experience with you. Those 2 improvements I understand. The EnABL process by Bud Purvine took me a long time to figure out with the help of my geophysicist friend Debbie Miles. What I am doing now I cannot seem to measure but the improvements are pretty damn exciting. Tom D |
Tom Thiel The metal and its shape is more reactive to vibration. In this case the reactive material will dissipate the vibrational energy because of the bearing motion. The steel bearing can also be another barrier to RFI penetration along with any other metal barrier that may already exist around the conductor. Back to the whole shear velocity thing. In this case you don't want even smaller more densely packed particles that have very slow velocities because they could or will over damp the copper or silver wire. As I wrote earlier with the same material and shape the smallest material that could be more densely packed did not sound as good as it's larger brother of the same shape which is less densely packed. Any single material boundary can swamp and overwhelm the sound of another material and its boundary.. From the International Atomic Energy Agency below. I found this years ago and forgot and found it again recently. I want to post this on other threads as it will describe how particle waves react with each other and their material boundaries. https://www.ndt.net/forum/files/ut--.pdf Look to pages 38 to 41 or so. What is described is how and what we hear and how different materials and shapes sound the way they do. I want to thank a lady Debbie Miles, a seismologist for 40 years, she has greatly influenced my venture into how materials and shapes interact and their influence on what we hear.. Tom |
Hello Jafant, On 1-27 you asked about products from Starsound. With a host of new people, the Company name will change along with the current product roster. The new company is scheduled to go online shortly and will feature Audio Points™ that were introduced thirty-two years ago, Rhythm Platforms™ and Energy Rooms™. Two new lines of equipment racking systems will be featured titled Rhythm Junior Platforms - a more affordable version of the multiple Award-Winning Rhythm Platforms and Timbre Platforms™ which is our initial venture into the world of wood shelving now infused with Live-Vibe Technology™. We will be back in the compact monitor stand business and are currently prototyping new products based on the Energy Room mechanical grounding methodologies designed to compete with the current oversized acoustic panels, pillows and bass trap products. In the musical instrument industry, we remain active and plan to expand the cello end pins while prototyping mechanical grounding products for the violin of which I am nearing completion. Tom Audiogon member Dale Humphrey has his Virtual System on display on these pages. Dale is located outside of Madison and if you would like to hear the Energy Room which is hidden behind the drywall.. drop him a PM..Dale is a member of our corporate group. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8168 As for amps most of the Krell amps that are class A/B will operate fine with a 15 amp circuit. The best Adcom amp is the GFA 5802 and Nelson Pass did have design input on this piece as he also had input on GFP 750 and the GCD 750..these pieces stand up very well even today. The Ayre power amps are also a great match with Thiel. Never a dealer for Ayre. I worked for 2 dealers in the past and we sold Krell, Adcom and Forte as well as Thiel. The Forte seemed gassed easily.. The big Krells and that Adcom 5802 were excellent. Tom |
Myself and others have applied an opposite or different method to the mounting of crossovers internal to the cabinet.. We do secure the individual components to the board using rope caulk or other soft adhesives as well as zip ties. Instead of slowing down and storing some of the vibration inside we direct couple the slowed and misdirected energy to the floor or wall of the cabinet. I use small brass Audiopoints and the brass coupling discs. The board rests on these devices and the board can be secured with brass screws to the cabinet base. We have an extended method that allows for resonance tuning from outside the cabinet. This method while more invasive the improvement can clearly be heard by using a hex tool..To provide a continuum of thoughts on this mechanical conduit we set the speakers on our Audiopoints or our Sistrum Platforms and speaker stands. We use the same materials and geometry to maintain the capture and redirect direct the exit speed of resonance to the largest mechanical ground plane..the floor. There is also a similar method that can be applied to bass and midrange drivers which also allows for resonance tuning outside the box. Tom |
Resistor upgrades have been discussed and revealed on these pages for years. The greatest upgrade for me over 20 years ago was to replace all the resistors in my speakers with Vishay resistor bridges. This portion of the upgrade was larger than the cap and inductor upgrade..only thing of equal was to seal the interior of the cabinet with Cascade Vbloc..a cement like product that is drawn into the pores of the wood seals the wood and greatly reduces energy storage of the cabinet.also strengthens the corner joints that are the weakest. A speaker cabinet itself is a passive radiator..not only do the drivers move and play but also the cabinet. Poor quality speaker resistors become part of the feedback loop of the amplifier and become part of the signal. Upgrade the resistors. Tom |
A friend of mine has a patent on the selection of travertine stone to be used as an acoustic sink for the endpin of cellos. The right tile removes the wolf tones present in almost every cello..You may research travertine stones and cut as Tom suggested. Debbie’s website is Cellostone.com With the absence of the original Cascade Vbloc. I will experiment with quick set cement and mix in a quart or more of Micro Bearing steel and trough on like thin set. Careful to measure and match the amount laid out so the stereo pair have the same volume. Let thoroughly dry for a few days and then carefully vacuum out what may have fallen. Tom . |
Unsound maybe you found this. With much info contained. I would be interested in seeing how the driver is terminated on the edges so some polarity of the signal does not return into the path of the next uncoming signal. Same thoughts on any of the Walsh drivers the inside and outside of the cone must react with some signal inversion. Tom. https://www.bendingwaveusa.com/technology/ |
And there was a positive sonic benefit correct? The sonics will also benefit with the removal of any steel screw to a brass replacement. Any fastener holding or near the crossover or binding posts should be brass. Non ferrous materials sound better. Brass is the metal of music and I think sounds best.Tom D. |
I understand Tom Thiel has been working with surface treatment of a speaker baffle to enhance laminar flow while also reducing interfering energy. This energy migrates back and forth on a vibrating surface and causes a pile up of noise that does return back down the speaker cone colliding with the next wave launch. Everything vibrates and everything that does generates shear waves of many types. Shear waves travel in 2 or more directions and their collision create an infinite amount of more collisions. These shear waves only travel in solids and all materials have a different shear velocity. The music we hear is the result of air affected by the shear generated in these solids. The air contacts the solid surface, so the air vibrates, and we hear those vibrations as sounds. Shear wave velocity passing thru any carpet will be changed by the material and the density. Hardwood and glass both have their own unique velocity. Look at your room materials and shape that is why they sound different. The compressive wave upon impact creates shear wave and those in turn travel and impact other solids and make more shear and compressive waves. And the beat goes on...This is a regenerative process. Because these vibrations generate sound you don't want to kill them all. It's tough to be selective without causing more harm than good. The early work of Jon Dahlquist and his use of spray materials. Spray flocking on the baffle and spray Nextel on the cabinet was the first surface treatment that ever made a profound impact on the sound of a speaker cabinet with no woof tones just more refinement and clarity. I know this impact as I heard the same cabinet untreated and then months later returned to me as treated. Bud Purvine's patent on the Enabl process probably achieves much the same but applied directly to the driver surfaces His method launches away polarities of shear and Raleigh waves so they reduce collisions with the next wave launch..Bud now considers these waves as Rayleigh waves. standingwaves (positive-feedback.com) Over the last year I implemented laminar flow devices I have built and placed in strategic front locations of my 27/21/9 ft room. I also have for years used now 3 Natural wool panels on the front wall 1 each at the side reflection points. The laminar devices are inexpensive to make and are the biggest acoustic improvement I have made over the last 49 years. They are a wow factor. Small in stature they seem to comb bass frequencies making my dueling 12s enhance the mid frequencies. With placement the vocal clarity now coming out of the rear mounted ports is nearly as clear as what comes out of the front mounted drivers. They clarify the instrument location all along the watchtower. The sound stage is panoramic even more so when the active device is engaged. Pretty much the room boundaries and its contents are gone. Looking forward to seeing and hearing the Pauley and Thiel front baffle treatment..Tom D
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I have replaced all the steel fasteners in my system with brass including the circuit board standoffs and mounting screws and transformer lock down bolts, nuts and washers. This is a practice I have applied since the late 80's. thru to this day even on my new speaker build. The brass has a much lower shear velocity than steel and causes less interfering energy to the flow of electromagnetic waves. The tiny metric screws that hold the tweeter dome element to its mounting plate should also be replaced as those are closest to the moving coil and will create much interfering energy. I have not used a Derlin replacement, but that material is of very low shear as well. This may sound shocking, but I removed the door and the mounting cover of the breaker box that is conveniently located in my audio room. With 2 friends who have listened to my system multiple times. I was able to do a quick A/B . The difference was easily apparent each time,.the steel cover was removed and replaced. The steel is interfering with the electromagnetic field of the moving coils which varies from driver size to driver size and then to the greatest area of field disturbance the source of where it all starts the... breaker box. It would be great to replace the deep well section of the breaker box but that would need to be a custom piece of brass to bend. I am onto to methods to maintain and enhance laminar flow with my new devices. Anywhere you put them in the music field you can retrace an individual event. It is never etched just more focused within more air. These are passive but can be further enhanced with an active device. One other thing my new crossovers are external, and wire tied to a solid poplar board. I used some of the left-over wool felt lining of the cabinet walls to place under the inductors, thought that made sense to do.. But it was restrictive to both the bass and treble section...unstrapped them and out came the soundstage and dynamics. The engineers at Solen thought no way. I used 8gauge 49 strand Litz inductors that I then had double cryoed and dipped in an organic paint no foreign metals. These inductors have a linear inductive value to nearly 35k. Solen said their best competition was good to about 10k..These would be the best choice for at least the tweeter section...I never heard the term Linear Inductive Value before. All a part of those most important electromagnetic waves. Keep those waves linear undisturbed and focused. Tom D
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I would not change the inductors but would change the resistors to the Path brand or with the Vishay nude resistors and build a bridge so you can reach a 5 to 10 watt power rating..Cost for the Vishay product would be over $100 per position. Other improvement would be to remove the crossover from the box so as to avoid the head banging it receives when internal. If mounted external then you have it at hand and can experiment at will. I have my boards mounted on 1.5 in. Audiopoints 1 in each corner away from the 2 inductors.Tom D |
Imhififan, For fun and a further learning experience you should try replacing what certainly appears to be steel fasteners holding your crossovers in place. I would do only 1 at first as my guess would be an imbalance left to right. Probably need to settle in for 12 or more hours. If you do hear an imbalance or change in response then do the other speaker to match. My preferred fastener is brass a non ferrous material.Steel will bend the intended field of flux. I did this 20 uears ago replaciing steel fasteners with brass in and around the crossover of my Dunlavy SC4.. Then replace the cast resistors for Mills or Path for simple and quality upgrade. TomD. |
Hello Tom Thiel, I want to ask you about the shim or shims you added to the driver to aid in alignment. Was there a number such as .125 or .250 shim thickness added singularly or in addition to arrive at your final destination? Is there a minimum fractional distance that the brain can determine as a skewed time offset? Personally I think it is as small as 1/8 of an inch. Thanks for your insights. Tom |
Tom, Thanks for your answers and response. I need to do a time offset on a speaker that already has a physical offset. The new ribbon tweeter I thought would be nearly a drop in has its element recessed by a bout a .5 inches. Now it needs to come further forward. So I need to be creative with the added shim shape or bullnose to blend into the poured granite cabinet..Awesome tuneable external resonance control for both woofer and crossover board. Maybe difficult to maintain a good blended look. Thanks again. Tom |
Tom Thiel with the recent improvements made to my sound system with my laminar devices it has even made the low bass more apparent as a supplement to the soundstage. This has been a noticeable factor to the landscape of soundstage for years with my stereo sub set up to my mains run full range. I understand some of the fundamentals of music start in the bass range but not all but the subs do have harmonics well above their crossover point. I have never read a satifactory explanation of why a pair of well set up subs add to the enhacement of soundstage. Can you add your input and experience . Thanks. Tom D |
Tom, Could the splatt heard be caused from turbulence inside the cabinet generated from crossover placement or the mounted components. The air flow would be disrupted by the mounting arrangement of the components on the board. The turbulence would change with an increase in excursion. Internally I have much sonic success with hard coupling the board to the speaker bottom and able to tune the board externally with a brass hex head assembly..1/8 of a turn can make some good magic. When the board is mounted outside there wouldnt be the turbulence but there is always a benefit in mechanically grounding the board to the higher mass of the floor. Resonant energy will go that way if given the right material and geometry. Tom |