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bhobba

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On 01/08/2017 at 11:42 AM, scumbag said:

What did you bypass the Jantzen Superior with (number 2 in your list)? I found that a large value Superior bypassed by a small value Silver produced nice results. It still tipped things a little "upwards" when used in the midrange but in this case I offset this by using an inductor that does not exhibit a midrange tilt. The Jantzen Litz inductors can be a little bit more "expressive" in the upper midrange whereas the Jantzen Wax Foils do not have this characteristic. 

 

Duelund Silver Bypass:

https://www.hificollective.co.uk/components/duelund-pure-silver-foil-precision-bypass-capacitors.html

 

According to the Humble Hi Fi great capacitor test they add about 2 points.   The Jantzen by themselves are about 10.5 - with the bypass about 12.5 - the super capacitors Duelund VSF and Jupiter Copper are rated about 13.  That's his view.

 

My view is - VSF just by itself seems best, then, the bypassed Jantzen but it's a bit more than .5 behind - more like 1.5 behind at say 11.5 - the Jantzen - about a 10 rather than 10.5.   What should you get - well I have an all out version - Duelund VSF everywhere but at $500 a capacitor and with 6 of them, and having been involved in extensive listening tests I would get as value for money two 10uf Duelund (the ones fully in the signal path) and the other two bypassed Jantzen.  But some just want the very best and Mike is building another all out version - VSF copper in every capacitor.  I have heard both a version with plain Janzen, and another with all the Janzen bypassed.   They both still sound awesome - but bot quite up-to the all-out reference.

 

Mike mentioned he will be building a more basic ML5 and a direct comparison hopefully will soon be possible - I have heard them all at one time or another, but not side by side.

 

Thanks

Bill

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21 minutes ago, Rob181 said:

 

Well...which variant Dazza...

Would have loved to hear these with your JC monos...

 

Rob, you are always welcome to Che Daz, JC1's are still in da house and will be for a very long time to come, God willing.

 

 Mike also thought the JC1's would get along with them as well.

 

Standard ML5. SEAS tweeter etc but not the higher spec crossover etc, @bhobba knows better than me. :)

 

Am going to go for standard high gloss black.

 

 

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4 hours ago, Rob181 said:

Once you have them domiciled in Chez Daz....

And put more than 400 hours on them...

Let me know...a visit will be organised...

Looking forward to this...

 

Rob, certainly, bring that Lismore hippy with you if you like.

 

Also feel free to remind me...oh look, something shiny...

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On 04/08/2017 at 1:11 PM, Darren69 said:

Standard ML5. SEAS tweeter etc but not the higher spec crossover etc, @bhobba knows better than me. :)

 

I would get at least the two capacitors in the direct path bypassed.

 

Thanks

Bill

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25 minutes ago, Darren69 said:

 

@Lenehan Audio I know Bill is trying to tell me something but what is it?

 

:D

 

Sorry Bill, I have no knowledge of electrickery type things.

Hi Darren             Bill is talking about the main tweeter capacitors in the Xover ! the ML5's run Jantzen Superior capacitors. They are excellent things but do benefit from bypassing them with the new Duelund Silver bypass capacitor.

                            There are 4 caps to bypass at $150 each so $600 .                          Regards Mike

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13 minutes ago, Lenehan Audio said:

Hi Darren             Bill is talking about the main tweeter capacitors in the Xover ! the ML5's run Jantzen Superior capacitors. They are excellent things but do benefit from bypassing them with the new Duelund Silver bypass capacitor.

                            There are 4 caps to bypass at $150 each so $600 .                          Regards Mike

 

Great, we'll do it.

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7 hours ago, Darren69 said:

I know Bill is trying to tell me something but what is it?

 

Just to expand on Mikes excellent answer.

 

Mike uses what's called a third order network on the tweeter without going into why he did that or what even a third order network is.  For this purpose you can think of it,  calling one speaker terminal positive, and the other negative, as a capacitor followed by another capacitor in series on the positive terminal going to one terminal on the tweeter (actually a small network as I will explain later - but forget that for now - simply think of it as connected to a terminal on the tweeter) then the other terminal on the tweeter going to the negative speaker terminal. Where the two capacitors connect you have an inductor going to the negative terminal.  Now its well known as much as possible you should try to avoid signals going just through capacitors - they 'harm' the signal worse than any other component.  The other two capacitors in the speaker are one on the woofer which has an inductor in the signal path like the capacitors in the tweeter and a capacitor like the inductor in the tweeter -  not directly in the signal path going from the inductor to negative.  Since its not directly in the signal path  it does not do as much harm as the ones on the tweeter.  The other is a small capacitor connected in  parallel with a resistor to feed the tweeter - this is a small network Mike uses to get the flattest frequency response - because some goes through the resistor it is not as critical as the two where the entire signal goes through them.   Experimentation has shown those other two capacitors certainly make a difference, and more than those into this sort of stuff like me and Rawl thought it would,  but its not as big as those main two capacitors.  Your best bang for the buck improvement is to use the best capacitors you can afford for them.

 

One way to improve a capacitors performance is whats called bypassing - that is in parallel with the capacitor you put a smaller but better quality capacitor.  On his other speakers Mike uses Erse capacitors in the base model - good quality capacitor - but not up to either the standard of the Jantzen Superior or of course Duelund - but of course a cheaper.  Mike in what he called his plus R used Erse as the base capacitor and bypassed it with Mundorf silver or silver and gold - cant remember which and it made an appreciable difference.   I nagged Mike - he is the Duelund guy after all so why use Mundorf - so he switched to Duelund for bypassing the Plus R.  Recently Duelund has released a capacitor specifically made for bypassing - the Duelund Silver Bypass (from Humble Homemade Hi Fi):

 

Technical specifications (according to manufacturer): "Precision Speaker Capacitor; Pure Silver Foil; handmade in Denmark".

Sound: In one word: amazing! I have used these 0,01uF pure silver foil capacitors as bypass capacitors in many different systems. In just about every case there was an improvement in overall coherency and realism of tone. With realism of tone I mean that acoustic instruments and vocalists seemed much more tangible, more intimate. The Duelund Silver Bypass Capacitor brings out a certain harmonic richness in overtones, for example with brass wind instruments the tone gets a sort of "glow" making them so much more realistic. Big-band music is bright and warm at the same time if you know what I mean, just like in real-life. And now for a cliché: the Duelund Silver Bypass Capacitor really does remove a curtain from the sound, creating more depth, insight and it generally does a very good job in cleaning things up. It does this without getting harsh nor adding artificial emphasis on any part of the spectrum, something that can happen with certain types of bypass caps. They even scared me once: my personal reference system uses a 1-inch beryllium compression driver connected to a tractrix horn that flares out to 29 inches. This "tweeter" has no resistors in the signal-path and is driven by a first order network, so only one capacitor in the direct signal-path. It works like an acoustic magnifying glass. I was fiddeling around as usual, tuning the value of this capacitor in steps of 0,10uF but the sound didn't quite seem to fall into place how I wanted it to. Then I decided to listen if the 0,01uF Duelund Silver Bypass Capacitor could help out here. Bingo! Makiko Hirabayashi's recording "Surely" (that I know very well) has some small bells that are used on several of the tracks. I thought I knew how they sounded but with the bypass capacitor in the network the bells were so realistic, it scared me :-) I am so pleased with these universal bypass capacitors that I have decided to keep them in stock. Verdict: add about 2 points to whatever capacitor you are bypassing.

 

Now they are quite small value and the technical side of Mike was skeptical because being so small you would not expect much signal to go through them so not make much difference.  But as an experiment some were got and take my word for it the above is all true - it was tried with a lot of different capacitors - the best overall bang for buck was using it with the Jantzen Superior.  I liked it with the much more expensive Jupiter Copper - but it is slightly bloomy - the Jupiter Aluminum was just a smidgen better than the Janzen for but there was hardly anything in it. The only caveat is if you are using really expensive capacitors like Duelund VSF sometimes it produced too much treble detail and depending on your upfront gear in that case you may be better without them.  Using them on Duelund VSF copper made a Killer DAC sound worse but a squeezebox sound better.  But its a no brainer with the Jantzen superior -  it makes a marked difference.

 

I know it's $600 extra but hopefully what I wrote above explains why they are worth it - look on it as going to the Plus R version.  Mike for the ML5, which is the best speaker he currently makes, has switched from Erse in the base model to Jantzen Superior.

 

Thanks

Bill

Edited by bhobba
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6 hours ago, Darren69 said:

Great, we'll do it.

 

Great to hear.   Its not much of a price difference in such a high quality speaker.

 

But before you posted that I penned a very detailed explanation to help you make up your mind.

 

Hopefully you and others will find it educational and interesting.

 

It's really the difference between the base model and Plus R - everyone I spoke to about Mikes speakers before actually knowing the guy - always said - spend a bit extra and get the Plus R - its worth it.

 

Thanks

Bill

Edited by bhobba
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  • 1 month later...
Mike, any mid-production pics of the babies?

Hi Daz
I’ve got 2 rather uninteresting ones ! Andrew is assembling the tweeter plate damping device in one and there’s a pic of one of the enclosures ready to accept the drivers .
Not long mate ! End of the week I hope
Regards. Mike a Lenehan IMG_6494.JPGIMG_6493.JPG


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Guest Muon N'

So the mid-bass driver part protrudes out from the rest of the baffle?

 

That's different!

 

Unless I'm seeing it wrong...

Edited by Muon N'
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50 minutes ago, Noum said:

So the mid-bass driver part protrudes out from the rest of the baffle?

 

That's different!

 

Unless I'm seeing it wrong...

The protruding bass driver is buried in a layer of foam, which forms the front baffle.

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2 hours ago, ljmac said:

The protruding bass driver is buried in a layer of foam, which forms the front baffle.

I always assumed that those 2 pieces were solid wood shaped and covered to form the front baffle. Mainly because the speakers weigh so much. :)

 

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