Anyone tried the Troels Gravesen L112 upgraded crossovers ?

[Ian Mackenzie]

Earl makes a great point.

Way back in the early 80’s l used to hear Maggie’s regularly on weekends with mainly jazz labels....

Most of these quality labels had a familiar presentation.

But once l got my diy 4343 Biamped clones going we became familiar with right sounding recordings.
52nd Street really snapped with dynamics and clarity on the 4343’s.

I can only assume Jbl monitors were used in the recording process.
In any case we craved for well recorded imported pressings and enjoyed marathon listening sessions that lasted whole weekends.

The benchmark of enjoyment was the next door neighbor knocking on the front door for 15 minutes or so. We only heard the knocking between tracks. The complaint was he could not play his own LPs because the stylus kept skipping across the surface of the record with the bass vibrating through his house! (True story). Never a problem with the Kenwood KD650 turn table equiped with FR 12 arm and FR mc cartridge.

Edit. Our friend with the Maggie’s said at the time the JBL midrange was the best.

[Robh3606]

any suggestions to stun my ears with in a new medium?

There is a duet with Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong that is really something! Or some Dire Straights or Billy Joel An Innocent Man

[rusty jefferson]

lots of talk here about imaging. I've a a few speakers in my days () , and the best imaging ones
have usually been small 2 way 8 inchers (usually British). Not sure why

Small 2 way monitor speakers do create a good center image with a stereo recording and are used in mastering just for that reason. Many can also create depth in that image to give the feeling of space. Others present the image right on plane with the speakers. But generally speaking, the drivers are closely aligned with just one crossover point to get right, you're sitting close to them and don't play them loud enough to distort. However we (I) are talking about something beyond just creating the center image.

In what has long been referred to as the Absolute Sound, recreating an unamplified live recorded musical event in an acoustic space (opera or orchestra primarily), the goal is to have all the characteristics of the event be reproduced by the stereo. To do so precisely will not happen in our lifetimes, too many factors.

One of those factors is creating the soundstage image and the image specificity (pinpointing where on the stage a particular person/instrument is located) . To do this the system must be able to create the image wider than the speakers, and also behind and above the speakers. Then, it must layer the image from front to back and left to right so you sense the placement. Violins near the front left, then cellos, brass, woodwinds, etc. all moving farther away until the tympani are in the back left corner of the room, seemingly 30-40 feet away. All sound is disconnected from the speakers. They are standing in the room, but no sound appears to be coming from them, because it's coming from everywhere. This can only be accomplished with simple 2 or 3 microphone recordings, because it's the time delay of sounds getting to the microphone that's being reproduced.

It's enigmatic, but can be thrilling. Or not. Many hear such systems and it doesn't rock their boat. Then there's the downside of such systems. They generally can't be as dynamic as horn speaker systems or played as loudly without distortion, or they are inefficient, or you need a dedicated room with the speakers sitting 10ft into it with room treatments, etc.

It's just a natural evolution, or branch of evolution in the hobby. The last audio show I attended as many people seemed to like the modded Quad 63s with plasma tweeters, as liked the Volti Audio 2 way horn speakers. Very different speakers.

[SEAWOLF97]

It's enigmatic, but can be thrilling. Or not. Many hear such systems and it doesn't rock their boat. Then there's the downside of such systems. They generally can't be as dynamic as horn speaker systems or played as loudly without distortion, or they are inefficient, or you need a dedicated room with the speakers sitting 10ft into it with room treatments, etc.

It's just a natural evolution, or branch of evolution in the hobby. The last audio show I attended as many people seemed to like the modded Quad 63s with plasma tweeters, as liked the Volti Audio 2 way horn speakers. Very different speakers.

thx for answer

I have a pair of Walsh F2's (omni) that create such an enveloping sound stage that many listeners remark that they've never heard anything like that. They can point to an empty space in the room and say something like "the trumpet is right there, I can hear it, but I can't see it".

You can stand a foot away from 1 speaker and not lose the image tho the other speaker is 6 feet away.(yeah, sounds crazy, but is true) . They are very dynamic and people are surprised how small the driver (not the cabinet) is ...only downsides are: they are inefficient, fragile, 4 ohm, and cannot play super loudly.

If you ever get the chance to audition the latest Ohm Walsh speakers, it's very educating.

pics in this thread ==>>

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbullet...l=1#post384129

The Ohm F2 was the first Ohm F cabinet with a second generation driver. It increased the sweet-spot and maximum output, while also extending the treble. The driver was smaller and the system was vented through a vent on the driver board which extended the bass and reduced the distortion.

[rusty jefferson]

Thanks, I am familiar with omnidirectional speakers. They are another good attempt at recreating that space, and many types do it well, but as you stated, there are downsides. Every speaker has a downside.

[marco_gea]

The main reason for the comparatively poor imaging capabilities of many older JBL (and non-JBL) speakers is that their crossovers were relatively crude and paid little to no attention to inter-driver phase tracking. And incidentally, the latter is more difficult (but not impossible) to achieve in a loudspeaker system employing horn-loaded compression drivers and passive crossovers.

But there is no valid justification why a modern, carefully designed system of this latter type cannot have spectacular imaging too. It can be done.

I'll just give a couple of current-production examples of such systems below (which I have had the pleasure to experience myself).


- JMF Audio HPM500 (from France)

- GT Sound SRS-1 and SRV-1 (from Japan).

Both happen to be rather "exotic" products manufactured in limited series by small high-end companies. But don't be put off by that. Similar results can be achieved by careful DIY efforts, provided one understands the underlying design principles.

Here's my humble (but let me say, pretty successful) attempt at a similarly engineered system:

- http://www.homebuilthifi.com/project/18865

Regards,
Marco

[Robh3606]

As far as imaging the smoother and more uniform your off axis response is will certainly help things. And as far a speakers being a point source to reproduce a live event is concerned I don't think so. Not only are the instruments not point sources as in they have different directivities vs frequency the stage distances even in a small intimate club can be quite large.

[Ian Mackenzie]

Hi Rob

Not sure about that

With the recording process the mic distance is constant over the frequency range of a particular musical instrument (assumed).

Therefore if there is no time alignment continuity with frequency in the loudspeaker for that particular instrument you have phase issues

At Two k hertz the threshold of time alignment is around 1 ms.

I agree at the stage in a live situation this is irrelevant.

[Robh3606]

Hello Ian

This is what I am talking about. All of these instruments have unique radiation patterns that change with frequency. If you sit on the left or the right or change height it's going to sound different.

Rob

[Earl K]

andresohc,

Here's a 2 year old L112 Restorationthat might interest you.

- The cabinets were redone ( which is a real understatement ) and the crossovers were recapped ( using Clarity Caps ) and partially rewired.

The British author also owns restored Yamaha NS1000M 's ( & so is able to compare them to his L112's ), though little of this gets mentioned within the thread.

Additionally, the author is quite familiar with the Troels mods ( for both the L100 & the L112 ).

Here are a few pics of his restoration;





Anyways, my thought is that you might register over at that forum and pop into that thread and ask ( now that two years have passed ) what the author thinks of his lightly modded L112's ( and whether or not he would bother pursuing the Troels full-blown mod. ) .

[Doctor_Electron]

Just purchased my first SACD player in anticipation of setting up my system in my new home. Problem for another thread but . . . I have no SACDs to listen to. Beyond DSOTM (which I'm so over), any suggestions to stun my ears with in a new medium?

I think true binaural recording and playback would be stunning. There is a recent hi-rez source of binaural recordings available but the company offering the material escapes me. I will look for its URL.

Here's a throwback. Too bad it didn't catch on, possibly due to the overwhelming competition from, and general acceptance of the more conventional approach to stereo LP production and playback.

[Earl K]

I think true binaural recording and playback would be stunning.

It certainly is that!

I bought a Sennheiser Binaural mic setup back in 1978 ( & I'm currently looking at the mannequin-head part holding a bunch of my golf hats ).

I used to use the setup to record some of the bands that I was mixing at the time.

Suffice to say that playback must be over headphones ( then it's truly spooky-real in it's replay of a "snap-shot" from a past aural event ).

[rusty jefferson]

Well, we have been moving off task quite a bit, and I apologize for my contributions. Maybe Mr. Widget would want to move some posts to a new thread?

As far as imaging the smoother and more uniform your off axis response is will certainly help things. And as far a speakers being a point source to reproduce a live event is concerned I don't think so. Not only are the instruments not point sources as in they have different directivities vs frequency the stage distances even in a small intimate club can be quite large.

Hey Robh,
The idea of the theoretical speakers being point source mounted in spheres is all about off axis response as the spheres have no diffraction issues as well as no variations in radiation patterns as the point source would be a single driver with no crossover. Again, not happening in our lifetime. Frequency response would be the same at any position, theoretically.

I am certainly no expert on the subject but I believe the biggest factors in creating the quality 3 dimensional image are cabinet diffraction, radiation patterns at crossover, and room interaction.

Here's a review of a small 2 way monitor that was designed to a more optimal cabinet shape to reduce diffraction. There is a discussion about cabinet shape in the article. These speakers are as absolutely transparent as any I've heard. They simply disappear in the room and create an excellent soundstage. However, as always, there are other shortcomings. They don't have the dynamics of horns, deep bass, the ability to play at high sound pressure levels without distortion, etc.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sou...-egg-150%3famp

[rusty jefferson]

Earl, that link doesn't appear to be working?

[SEAWOLF97]

Thanks, I am familiar with omnidirectional speakers. They are another good attempt at recreating that space, and many types do it well, but as you stated, there are downsides. Every speaker has a downside.

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbullet...l=1#post169729

forum member SOUNDBOY stopped by today. Pete knows more about speakers and electronics right now than I ever will. He's been in JBLs for many years and runs Dynaudio mains with a JBL 18 in sub in his primary system, plus JBL's in his other 3 systems. He knows his stuff, besides playing in a band and really knowing what instruments sound like.

So we played his fav CD and he sure had a grin on his face. We eventually subtracted all processing and eq so he could just hear the F's.

without boring everyone, I'll try to remember his final quote...something very close to "If those F's were mine , they would be my mains, they make all my JBL's sound like sh1t and I would have to invest a lot more money into my already substancial system to even come close to that sound"

He did say that he had more bass, but it wasn't as natural.

Not trying to provoke anyone, and I do also enjoy my JBL's , just saying that there are other fine speakers available.

If I am misquoting you Pete, please publically correct me.



SOUNDBOY's followup

What I think I said was "If I had these Ohm's in my house, I would have to start tweaking all my other systems so they wouldn't sound like shit in comparison"

Yes, this is a JBL forum, yes I am an old JBL nut, and yes the Ohm F's made the mint 4412's sound like a cardboard cutout....and you can quote me on that too. The ohm's didn't sound at all like a speaker, period. Just a vocalist, piano, or a guitar. Wow.

The only downside is....maximum volume level....but...they were loud enough... and the bass was surprising.....not only did it sound completely effortless and natural, but it shook the floor when it was supposed to, just like my 2245's, just not as powerful....amazing stuff.... Ok, here comes the retaliatory attacks, huh?...."There must be something wrong with your JBL's, or your hearing" or "what box you got those 2245's in?" or "MY 4412's sound killer"....but you haven't heard the OHM's, or your ears would be amazed at what is missing.... Time to go home an reavaluate the Dynaudio's, and all my JBL's

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbullet...l=1#post169729