[bjarnetv]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faust2D /img/forum/go_quote.gif Nice speakers. I was thinking for a while now it I should get me some Quads, but never got around to it. I am happy with my SAPs and Apologies. What kind of amp are you using with them?

right now i'm using the sumo andromeda.
haven't tried them on the music angel kt88 amp yet, but rumors has it quads sound awesome with tubes, so i'm looking forward to trying it out.

 

[Faust2D]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bjarnetv /img/forum/go_quote.gif right now i'm using the sumo andromeda. haven't tried them on the music angel kt88 amp yet, but rumors has it quads sound awesome with tubes, so i'm looking forward to trying it out.

I bet K88 amp will sound much better than Sumo. Quads with tubes = amazing soundstage and tonal balance

 

[wualta]

While I can't recommend that everyone rush out and buy classic electrostatic loudspeakers (abbreviated ESL), I can recommend sachu's get-the-'stat-phones-instead dodge, because poverty is what pushed me into stat phones.
Peter Walker, who developed the first QUAD ESL back in the '50s, was one of my heroes. Read his 55-year-old papers on ESL design to learn something about 'stats and planar speakers of all kinds. Some of it even applies to headphones.

 

[spritzer]

The original ESL is still one of the best speakers ever made but like all electrostatic speakers they will degrade with time and need to be refurbished which is quite expensive. You can still buy new ones though from Germany, made with the original tooling.

 

[Faust2D]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wualta /img/forum/go_quote.gif You're right, it's not very dense stuff, but it's not bunny-fluffy either. It's also not totally open-cell. Like I said, if you're a normal PC geek person, you'll have gotten some of this stuff in mailers used to ship video cards, graphics accelerators, muvvaboards, etc. Yes. Unfortunately they're not held on by doublesided tape; they're actually glued, so removing them is slightly destructive. The rings are made of dense foam rubber. Here are some pix. First, the rings: Next, one of the rings installed upside down so you can get a sense of its intended function: Finally, the baffle with the ring removed, driver clearly visible. You can also see where the glue has held onto bits of the ring: Note that the earpads will hold the rings on; there's no real need to reglue them, should you want to do such a thing, and you don't. The T20v2's baffle looks identical, but the 20's earpads are wide and flat, leaving only enough room in the center for the driver to peek through. It's technically supra-aural instead of circumaural. Experiments pending. .

I was re-reading some parts of the ortho thread and just noticed this. My T20v2 came with no rings and no traces of them.

Did it had these one time? Did all T20V2 had them?

 

[ericj]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faust2D /img/forum/go_quote.gif I was re-reading some parts of the ortho thread and just noticed this. My T20v2 came with no rings and no traces of them. Did it had these one time? Did all T20V2 had them?

Nah, he's referring to T40v1.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericj /img/forum/go_quote.gif Nah, he's referring to T40v1.

Funny though, that's basically what I did to my T20v2s with the K240 pads and the YH100 pads on the inside! I need to order some R10 pads to be properly tortured for more experiments on teh T20s though. I'd feel wrong tearing up the pads I'm using to tiune rythmndevil's YH-100s. LOL!

 

[malldian]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BoilermakerFan /img/forum/go_quote.gif Funny though, that's basically what I did to my T20v2s with the K240 pads and the YH100 pads on the inside! I need to order some R10 pads to be properly tortured for more experiments on teh T20s though. I'd feel wrong tearing up the pads I'm using to tiune rythmndevil's YH-100s. LOL!

How did the t20v2 sound with 240 pads?

 

[Faust2D]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericj /img/forum/go_quote.gif Nah, he's referring to T40v1.

Ah, so T40v1 had these funky foam sheets inside, got it.

 

[ericj]

Quote:

Originally Posted by malldian /img/forum/go_quote.gif How did the t20v2 sound with 240 pads?

iirc i tried that once and my general impression was "terrible" but the total experiment lasted about 2 minutes.

 

[wualta]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericj /img/forum/go_quote.gif Nah, he's referring to T40v1.

I was, I was!
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by BoilermakerFan /img/forum/go_quote.gif Funny though, that's basically what I did to my T20v2s with the K240 pads and the YH100 pads on the inside!!

If you mean you filled up the volume of the circumaural pads with other stuff, that's the right way to do it, assuming the 'phone doesn't need tweaking when the damping et cetera is nailed down. The "wrong" way to do it (and I quoterize it because depending on what you need to do to the response curve, there is no wrong way) is to make a tunnel for the driver that stops short of the ear and empties out into a big volume-- what you get is elevated upper mids (the sort of sound utterly despised by Faustian types). Great for guys laying down tracks, lousy for us.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Faust2D /img/forum/go_quote.gif Ah, so T40v1 had these funky foam sheets inside, got it.

Rings (in the earcup), yes. Sheets, no. Not inside (not from the factory, anyway). Which is weird, but that's Fostex as we know them.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by ericj /img/forum/go_quote.gif iirc i tried that once and my general impression was "terrible" but the total experiment lasted about 2 minutes.

Sometimes a blink is all it takes. A similar experiment with a pad swap between my modded T20v2 and T40v1 gave the same result.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by malldian /img/forum/go_quote.gif How did the t20v2 sound with 240 pads?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericj /img/forum/go_quote.gif iirc i tried that once and my general impression was "terrible" but the total experiment lasted about 2 minutes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wualta /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you mean you filled up the volume of the circumaural pads with other stuff, that's the right way to do it, assuming the 'phone doesn't need tweaking when the damping et cetera is nailed down. The "wrong" way to do it (and I quoterize it because depending on what you need to do the response curve, there is no wrong way) is to make a tunnel for the driver that stops short of the ear and empties out into a big volume-- what you get is elevated upper mids (the sort of sound utterly despised by Faustian types). Great for guys laying down tracks, lousy for us.

Yes, I tried just the K240 Sextett pads. No bass as the volume area in front of the ear is far too great for the little T20 driver to impact. I used the YH-100 flattened pads inside the K240s a la the T40 to fill the volume and surround the driver opening with no overlap. The stock R10 pads overlapped too much and I didn't care for the sound. The midrange honk wualta mentioned to a small degree, but serious cut of the upper highs was the worst offense. I'll try the R10s again now as they're stretched on the ID now.

The wiring in those T20s is crap. The jack is "jankety" and I had to use my T50 cable and twist it and the earcups just so in order to get both channels to work. But when it did, the YH100s nested inside the K240s was awesome! And those cans are bone stock, only the little felt liner to keep dust out of the drivers and earcups. They had great bass and smooth mids through the highs. That's why I'm working my ass off now to get my demo cable finished to work with my KH-83s so I can listen to them with just a little blu-tak and Moorbrok felt before any serious dampening attempts. Then the T20 drivers will be swapped in and dampening tweaked again if needed. I don't have to drill any holes out on the H-83 faceplates either, they're already drilled in progressively larger holes in rings from the center. The holes on my KH-33 are not drilled this way.


Will the Dynamat Extreme with the metal foil cause more problems than good? I can only find Extreme here locally and I don't feel like paying $20 for a 10"x10" sheet if i have to peel the damn foil off, but I am really interested in trying it instead of blu-tak to hear the sonic improvements if they're present.

 

[iQEM]

while wait for my replacement 120Ω to arrive, being play with ludoo's giveaway Woodie Ortho (yeah, i got it from Donny a.k.a Questa & only cost me the shipping from ludoo to him)...

not bad, maybe not very good material wood but i guess better than other fosterfone cups that i ever try...simple damping scheme with 1 hole on the top of the cup, not too precision on the measurement but maybe i'm gonna need it to make my own woodie cup or should i say Smeggy puck...the headband Grado wont hold still, i cant get enough seal&comfort with it so i replace it with cheaper OEM headband...add a simple more tweak like changing to bigger earpads&foam under the pads, slip on 1 thin felt & put nippon tape on 5 holes on the driver to bring up more treble...now it's improve alot more than from the very first time i receive it, even the 32Ω heard as my 120Ω...i think my 120Ω SFI's would be more superior even more than the 32Ω if i put it on this enclosure...

Before:

here's what it like (taken from my iMac at the office, lol)
After:

will add more picts later...

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Revisited the dampening in my YH3s tonight as I'm not happy with their sound now that I have the YH100s so far along. I kept the tape on the driver as it was and went with a full diameter Moorbrook felt disc held in the center rivet by blu-tak. For the cup I used b-t in the dimple at the back instead of cotton. Covered that with a piece of muslin to keep the FG out of the b-t. Then I replicated the Tomek EGGS with cotton quilting batting cut to be size of the cup with the centers cut out to a diameter equal to the diameter of the driver's holes. The center was slightly over filled with FG. Then a final cover of muslin to protect the felt on the driver from the FG.

Yeah! Getting so, so close to the perfect scheme! They are just overdamped a bit, but the mids and highs are addicting this way, so I may just leave the bulk as it is and only trim the bottom most layer of batting to open the vents a touch and trim the upper most batting layer in too, to remove a little dampening and allow a little more sound or air to get out the vents with the two middle layers a touch wider to offer resistance from front to back and out the vents.

The new scheme did drastically improve the soundstage though. Still not as open as the YH100s, but better than my stock ESW9s now, which it wasn't before. Haven't compared it to the K141 as that's probably the closest dynamic can I have.

I think that if I can just open the sound stage and shave a hair off the dampening to bring the bass up just [size=xx-small]that[/size] much it will be perfect for the MHM amp with 12AE6a tubes.

I compared it to the YH100s and they both have nearly identical mids, so I'm happy with the materials and tape on the drivers. Now I just need to take advantage of the YH100s larger driver for more bass and damp the 100s with more cotton and remove the felt from the vents and just have the batting discs go right to the edge without being pressed into it. That should open the soundstage on the 100s and the extra cotton should add the dampening I need.

Since pics of these drivers naked in their dampening beds could be considered Ortho p@rn and unsuitable for impressionable minds, I'm setting up a pay access website to supplement my income in the tough economic times. Team Ortho members will receive access for less than a dollar a day!

 

[dBel84]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BoilermakerFan /img/forum/go_quote.gif Team Ortho members will receive access for less than a dollar a day!

Bargain !!!! where do I send my cc details

- so satisfying to see you come this far to getting the sound where you want it.

..dB