2ch: WiiM Pro; Topping E30 II DAC; Oppo, Acurus RL-11, Acurus A200, JBL Dynamics Project - Offline: L212-TwinStack, VonSchweikert VR-4
7: TIVO, Oppo BDP103D, B&K, 2pr UREI 809A, TF600, JBL B460
Work! This is what we like to call "Hell Week" each month.
And you might not have noticed but these things are HUGE! Neither my wife or my house are prepared. These are way to big for our living room but might be what we need to get us going on building that house for which L300s were supposed to be a housewarming present.
Fedex simply says the Ashly was in Phoenix last week and expected delivery is . . . tomorrow. But I've got another trip I have to take first.
This is one project I don't want to leave half-way done. And I also hadn't considered the interaction between the virgin grilles and our two cats! They've learned no to bother the C37s but that's some tough grille cloth. These get only one shot at being perfect until a casual claw gets too close. Rabbit wire?
(not my hand!)
Sigh!
Aww - c'mon - I have a TINY room and we got the smaller 4341 4 ways in there, you must have a BEEEG house out there in the country, at least bigger than our little city house.
But a cat delay I do understand! Ours Himalayans were rescue cats, (and they don't go outside!), plus I don't know which previous owner had their front claws removed, but that makes a world of difference in woofer comfort. I've seen them stretch their paws up on the 15s - but its just bare pads so nothing happens. I understand you might want to be more careful with 18s ...
Are you going to electrify that screening? - that could be effective ...
besides, if I can't tease you about those things, living in a van, down by the river ...
2ch: WiiM Pro; Topping E30 II DAC; Oppo, Acurus RL-11, Acurus A200, JBL Dynamics Project - Offline: L212-TwinStack, VonSchweikert VR-4
7: TIVO, Oppo BDP103D, B&K, 2pr UREI 809A, TF600, JBL B460
Hopefully the only filter that will need looking at is the HF (horn).
1,500-sq.ft., 4-bedroom, 2-bath, 1-1/2 story is not large. We've lived here for 25 years, even before three kids. Mansions all around, but we were newly-weds when we bought it. One of the best school systems in the country and best elementary in the district was one reason. Mountain views, another. Fred's house is close to twice as big. Heather's may be a bit larger, but I'll bet we have more junk, never having had to move!
Thanks Ian. We'll see shortly!Originally Posted by Ian Mackenzie
2ch: WiiM Pro; Topping E30 II DAC; Oppo, Acurus RL-11, Acurus A200, JBL Dynamics Project - Offline: L212-TwinStack, VonSchweikert VR-4
7: TIVO, Oppo BDP103D, B&K, 2pr UREI 809A, TF600, JBL B460
It is sort of a full-circle JBL saga for me. Old story: When I first came to Virginia for college I wanted to bring my C37 030's along. But my car was a tiny BMW 1600-2. Not to be left without my stereo, I pulled the back seat and stashed it in the trunk, cut a piece of plywood to fit over the seat cavity, and managed to get both cabinets in standing up with one turned sideways. Nice tall roof in those old BMWs! As long as I had them in the car I figured I might as well hook them up to my 8-Track player (this was 1973 and I hated cassettes and had a Sony 8-track recorder . . . clunk!). It was quite an interesting 800-mile drive with my JBL "headphones". As much as things change, so much stays the same. At least this time I didn't hook the 4345's up to the fine Chrysler Infinity sound system.
Sad but true. Here they sit. (I had to fiddle with the pic in PhotoShop just so you could see the second one, since it was bright sunlight in a dark van, in the snow.):
After two weeks with the 4345s sitting in the van, the forecast was for 50º yesterday. No one home. Looked like a good time to rearrange the living room.
Not easy. Build a ramp. Buy a furniture dolly. False start up the ramp. Not strong enough to get the bad boy re-centered on the dolly. It outweighs me by twenty pounds. Back to the van. Fulcrum. Back on the dolly. Ratcheting motorcycle tie-down. Up the ramp. Piece of cake. Flip the box on its side on a pad, screw 100-pound-rated ball casters to the base. Stand 'em back up. Wire the crossovers. Whoops! Looks like the HF wires are connected to UHF wires on the crossover. Hmm. That's how I got 'em. OK. Hook up portable CD player. Pull some crossover wires to see what cuts out. They're right, just labeled wrong. Re-label existing wires to match the terminals they're connected to.
Pull doors and adjust cabinet shelves to accommodate the Ashly and the crossover boards. Man, where does all that dust come from? Pull and wipe all cables with wet paper towels. Put all the stuff back in, cut a larger hole to gain access the back of the Crowns. Whoops. Interconnects from Ashly to Crowns too short. Too late tonight. Wait. Rummage. Find eight RCA-to-1/4" adapters (after 35-years of Crown ownership and eight amps you keep this stuff around . . .). Whoops! LF leads in the Neutrik NL8 harness are too short. Play it anyway without LF on right channel. It's now 4:30am and there's a 60-cycle hum, but we made music. Quietly.
Wake up next morning after 4.5 hours of sleep. Clearer head tells me it's not worth it having the crossovers take up cabinet space. Plus maybe running the high-level wiring in and out of the cabinet is causing some hum. Never hummed before, well, maybe years ago. Once. Before I replaced all the interconnects. Off to the guitar store for some longer (3' is all I needed) 1/4" cables. Back home, pull doors off cabinet again, un-rack what I just moved last night, kick the crossovers out of the cabinet. Hook it all up. No LF out of right channel still. Didn't think it was really possible to hook up a dual-Pomona plug and miss one terminal! That's what happens when you're upside-down on your back with your arm contorted plugging something in somewhere you can barely see even before you stick your hand in the hole. Okay, plug everything back in. Still a slight hum with no signal. Play music anyway . . .
O.M.G.!
Let's put on some real music on now. Wow! It's like having new ears. Tried a few old favorites. Horns on horns; just makes sense now. Twist the L-pads to flat. Defeat the EQ. Sweet! Put on a CD I've never listened to and didn't know my wife had. Must have gotten it as a present from her sister: Emmie Lou from 2008. My wife comes in from the kitchen to see what I'm playing and sits on the couch. Time for a shower. Helping a friend with a sound job in a half-hour. Come back twenty-minutes later and my wife's still sitting there listening. Humming along to the music now. She never does that. So I say, "Yeah, I know they're huge, and they've disrupted the entire house . . . but don't they sound nice?" She answers, "Yes, they sound very nice!" My daughter comes in and just shakes her head. "What was wrong with the old ones?" she says pointing out the C37 standing on its side now dwarfed by the 4345, even on the dolly. "Nothing" I said with a smile.
I leave for work around 3:30pm. Easy job and, for once, I'm home by 10pm. As I get out of the car I remember I hadn't covered the grilles in case the cats decided to get to know the new family members. I walk in the living room and see my wife had covered them with cardboard before taking my daughter ice-skating. That's must mean she likes them.
Or didn't want any dead cats!
These are very cool. Brought home a sound generator from the job so maybe tomorrow I'll see what's happening. They sound fairly balanced flat but I just don't really hear anything coming out of the 10". If I mute the LF on the Ashly, I get an awfully tinny sound. Seems like a waste of the 2122H. I can hear a difference when I give it a boost on the L-pad, so I now they're working. With a sweep maybe I can tell how close the Ashly is getting to 290Hz. That seems a bit high for an 18" to me. Time to experiment—and get rid of the hum!
But right out-of-the-box, I'd say they're probably the best speakers I've ever heard. Ever. Very sweet sound. Can't wait to play them with some volume. My family says I must be deaf. When I leave the room and come back I can't believe how loud they are. But when you're listening to them, it just sounds so good you want to turn it up. I've had to back the amps way down just to get the volume level of the Soundcraftsmen pre-amp to stay in the normal range the family is used to. These are really efficient, even compared to the 030's with D130's! I've set the Crown input attenuators at less than half just to get the volume control even to 10-o'clock at "normal" room volume, and that's with the Ashly at unity. The amps are Crown DC300A-II and D150A-II, and they're just loafing. The 4345s must really kick ass when played loud. Maybe tomorrow. I love the sound at low level. The same bit of smiley-face EQ for loudness contouring on the 030s at low levels really isn't necessary with this setup. The 2245H's just pump enough to fill the room with no effort at all. It's like walking into a room full of sound rather than listening to speakers. I can't thnk of anything bad to say about them, but that's after maybe an hour of serious listening. I don't think I've heard one entire track yet. I'm trying everything I own. The one drawback is these are in the living room, and my room is upstairs. I'm not good at sharing but the 4345s are not climbing my stairs!
Did I say they were huge?
speaker law:
bigger = better
air has to be moved, baffle has to be stepped on, throats have to be sung.
its an easy law.
big big big.
im looking forward to read more of your pretty (big) clones. you totally hooked me with your report just now. thanks!
cheers,
mikey
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