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Speaker Mystery - Trevor Lees


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I have a pair of Trevor Lee Floorstanders, large sentimental value. Weight 30kg, Height: 112cm, Depth: 39cm, Width: 22cm 

Previously run through a Sherwood Amp / Pre-amp  (gold coloured..) then an Onkyo Tx-nr801 which i have in storage.

I'm currently running them as a 2 channel system through a Yamaha rx-v479 as that matched my budget at the time.

Now in a position to do them some justice with a decent Amp. Probably remain a 2 channel system in a smallish room. 

 

Seeking any feedback on:

- How I can find out what's inside. Believe they were custom made and my memory is of them going seriously loud when powered by the Sherwood.

- Melbourne based audio shops that I can visit to inspect the speakers, source recommendations on amp etc

- Are there any creative ways to use the NR801 in 2018? ie as a pre-amp to the 479 or similar as the 801 has no hdmi. cant see any audio outs from the 479

 

Would love to get them cranking up again.

 

 

IMG_6157.jpg

IMG_6158.jpg

Edited by reesy2000
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These have focal tweeters and (i think) audax drivers in them.

Not sure about the amp situation but typically those older analogue yamaha amps are very good 2ch amps. I would be using that over the onkyo.

If you are amp shopping id start at trevor lees as these are his .. the tla-150 [emoji1]

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I have a pair of Trevor Lee Floorstanders, large sentimental value. Weight 30kg, Height: 112cm, Depth: 39cm, Width: 22cm 
Previously run through a Sherwood Amp / Pre-amp  (gold coloured..) then an Onkyo Tx-nr801 which i have in storage.
I'm currently running them as a 2 channel system through a Yamaha rx-v479 as that matched my budget at the time.
Now in a position to do them some justice with a decent Amp. Probably remain a 2 channel system in a smallish room. 
 
Seeking any feedback on:
- How I can find out what's inside. Believe they were custom made and my memory is of them going seriously loud when powered by the Sherwood.
- Melbourne based audio shops that I can visit to inspect the speakers, source recommendations on amp etc
- Are there any creative ways to use the NR801 in 2018? ie as a pre-amp to the 479 or similar as the 801 has no hdmi. cant see any audio outs from the 479
 
Would love to get them cranking up again.
 
 
IMG_6157.thumb.jpg.2a05836cc17069805371832e09149d8d.jpg
IMG_6158.thumb.jpg.d01fc49ac40994b1145f0eeab0c686a4.jpg

i had these speakers and they are far better than most speakers below $3000 - internal wiring was kimber 8TC for the bass units and silver solid core for the tweeter.
wondercaps and handwound inductors.

excellent value speakers that sell for too cheap 2nd hand.

best bass i’ve heard

needs a powerful amp to sound best. forget those cheap home theatre receivers. i ran it with a A200 benchmark power amp and my systems since i regretfully sold it all off hasn’t sounded as good.
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8 hours ago, Snapper() said:

If you are amp shopping id start at trevor lees as these are his .. the tla-150

Trevor closed his shop around 12 months ago. Still sells on ebay I believe. He told me a few months before he had had several lucrative offers from property developers. Timed that 1 perfectly I'd say.

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9 hours ago, Snapper() said:

These have focal tweeters and (i think) audax drivers in them.

Not sure about the amp situation but typically those older analogue yamaha amps are very good 2ch amps. I would be using that over the onkyo.

If you are amp shopping id start at trevor lees as these are his .. the tla-150 emoji1.png

I reckon you’re correct on the Focal tweeters, but the mid bass drivers don’t look like Audax. I’m thinking perhaps Scanspeak Classic 18w??

 

Cheers,

 

SS

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38 minutes ago, Mat-with-one-t said:

I bought the recent set of the classifieds here for $400.  Running with a 250wpc Music Labs.  Bloody bargain of a speaker!  Same focal tweeters as my Osborn Epitomes.  

Yeah they are. I had the earlier smaller floorstander which was a Proac clone, and needed to spend $4.5k to better them. The only issue with them is the jarrah real wood laminate fades. I guess ones where people didn't use the grill would still look perfect.

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Awesome feedback from everyone. Thanks! They were definitely custom from the standard trevor speakers. 

 

So last q, with Trevor Lee's shut does anyone have any good melbourne shops I should chat to or amp recommendations?

Second hand ok. 

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Awesome feedback from everyone. Thanks! They were definitely custom from the standard trevor speakers. 
 
So last q, with Trevor Lee's shut does anyone have any good melbourne shops I should chat to or amp recommendations?
Second hand ok. 

i think you need to try a few , wish i had a class D amp back then to try it.

how much do you want to spend on a amp?

i rec. a high power class A/B

but i did try a 12w tube amp on it and it sounded good too.
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I built a number of TLA150's during my brief tenure and although I cannot say what happened before or after my (somewhat frustrating) experience is that practically every pair is unique depending on what parts were on hand at the time. Sometimes you got lucky and wound up with Goertz ribbon inductors or Hoveland caps while others got standard air cored inductors and Solen caps but more critically Trevor kept changing the crossover or parts were not available which drove me insane trying to series/parallel caps in order to get the correct value as the correctly valued cap wasn't in stock at the time ?

 

You'll also find the tweeter attenuation consisted of a bunch of metal film resistors which was tweaked by snipping of one at a time until the balance was right.

 

Also he obviously changed drivers at some point as the ones I worked on all had ScanSpeak 8545's in them.

 

In saying all that they were a great speaker and when on point they sounded as good as the competition costing many times the price. Oh and another tip (which was another ProAc ripoff) was to stuff the rear port with straws either cut to the same length as the port or longer if you wanted to tune the bass a little. This reduced port chuffing when being driven hard

 

Here's a really old pic of the ones I built for myself including a custom matching centre channel. BTW in case you didn't know Colin Whatmough used to build the cabs for these as i used to drive to his factory and pick them up for Trevor.

20190126_072135.jpg

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On 25/01/2019 at 6:29 PM, reesy2000 said:

Awesome feedback from everyone. Thanks! They were definitely custom from the standard trevor speakers. 

 

So last q, with Trevor Lee's shut does anyone have any good melbourne shops I should chat to or amp recommendations?

Second hand ok. 

Trev is still around in Melbourne I believe?

You can email him ( might be best to pm it, just in case ) also added his phone number in the pm.

Edited by 5L15
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