Jump to content

Stormy2021

Members
  • Posts

    30
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Houston, Texas
  • Interests
    music, astronomy, sci-fi

Stormy2021's Achievements

Newbie

Newbie (1/14)

0

Reputation

  1. I was wondering if anyone knew anything this ubiquitous tweeter which in the 70s seemed to be used on dozens of different companies' loudspeakers, from entry-level models to respectable "Buick-level" speakers. I've heard them many times and never thought they sounded *bad* and quite a few times I thought they sounded quite good, if a bit on the beamy side as far as dispersion is concerned. 1) what company designed it? 2) what was the phenolic ring - sometimes black, sometimes reddish brown - specifically used for? Why not plastic or some other material? 3) was KLH's cone tweeter the inspiration for it? I've seen these with small magnets weighing around only 3oz., and versions in better loudspeakers with heavy 8oz. magnets. I think some later models also included ferrofluid. Until a year ago or so, I saw this tweeter on the PartsExpress site and it was built by Pioneer. BTW: any thoughts on why cone tweeters fell out of favor? I realize domes are almost always better in most respects, but for 2-way systems their (relative) drawback is that their crossover frequency is usually much higher than the typical cone tweeter's xover point.* Did speaker system manufacturers finally decide that the advantages of a dome tweeter outweighed its problems in a 2-way system i.e. being crossed over at a higher frequency, say 2500kHz which could affect the system's midrange output? * I realize some domes had quite low xover points, like the one with the inverted dome made by Genesis in the late 70s/early 80s. I think it had a xover point at around 1500Hz or so.
  2. As someone who owns Boston Acoustics speakers and recommends them to anyone who asks (and also used to own Advents for 14 years and now a pair of Smaller Advents), this is an interesting discussion. >>> When Advent ran into financial trouble in the mid to late 70's <<< Do you know why this occurred? This is surprising, being that the Large Advent was one of the most successful loudspeakers of all time. >>> it changed ownership, and things went downhill very fast. <<< I think I might be entering touchy territory here, but what aspects of Advent went "downhill"? >>> “Here, take this home, and make it sound the way you like it. Mark down the settings of the EQ when you’ve got it right, and then we’ll talk. <<< Holy cow, can you imagine a speaker company doing this now? While I think highly accurate/100% scientifically-researched speakers have their place (recording studios for one) in the home environment they can sound really sterile and uninvolving....which is why I think so many home speakers sound like this now i.e. too many speakers being designed totally(?) "in the computer" to save on R&D costs rather than with help from the ears. >>> Henry and Andy also believed in the importance of smooth on-axis response as a starting point for good loudspeakers. They didn’t place much importance on power response at all. <<< I always wondered why these two company's speakers sounded so different from each other.
  3. >Really, it is just a box >reduction, and new woofer. I guess for a student of MIT the word "just" is appropriate but for this Average Joe, the thought of designing a new woofer, especially *that* one and its associated xover, is quite intimidating! ***************************************** Fun factoid: around the late 70s someone at Radio Shack's speaker division must have been inspired by that woofer because one of their better speakers (a 3-way) used a 10" sealed woofer with a dust cap almost identical to the Smaller's cap. As a 12 year old kid just getting into audio I was always fascinated by that huge wrinkled cap (and the funky 1/4" gray ring of sandpaper-like coating around it). IIRC another Realistic speaker used this same heavy-looking woofer in a two-way system with a 1" soft-dome tweeter, but this time as a passive radiator coupled with an 8" active woofer (passive radiators were another mystery feature for me at the time). That same eight incher was also used by RadShak in a transmission line enclosure.......but that's another forum! :^)
  4. I'm sure others will add their 2 cents too so until then... 1) About the only thing on a woofer that truly seems to wear out is the surround (foam types that is) and i've never seen the cone itself break down except from outside causes like water damage or physical abuse (babies, pets, etc). 2) in 1997 when I ordered woofers from Advent for my 14 year old Advent "Babys" (I didn't know about refoaming kits back then) the woofers I received were *almost* the same though the cone material was not as felt-like as the originals. I would be a little wary of "upgraded" woofers - a good speaker consists of a carefully integrated woofer/tweeter/crossover system and many times (in a woofers' case) a tweeter or especially the crossover is designed to make up for a specific deficiency in the woofer. So if a different woofer is used, the tweeter's/crossover's "settings" so to speak will not fit well and the speaker system's overall sound could be audibly affected. 3) YES! If the surround is falling apart this could cause the cone to become misaligned and the voice coil (the unseen electrical part pushing the cone) could scrape against the internal magnet structure and permanently damage the coil, rendering the woofer useless & unrepairable. The surround supports the outer edge of the cone and also provides a specific amount of compliance to allow the cone to move the desired distance back & forth with a specific amount of power. If the replacement surround is much too soft or much too stiff, bass output will be audibly affected. 4) I sold them for three years at Best Buy and I liked their sound & consider them to be worth repairing. And I agree that they are very attractive speakers. We sold many of them almost for that one reason alone. Acoustic-suspension is very rare these days. Off the top of my head the only company that uses this design in most of their speakers and is *not* a tiny boutique manufacturer (i.e. relatively easy to find so you can audition them) AND has a great rep is NHT ("Now Hear This"): www.nhthifi.com Any company that uses yodeling on their front page can't be all bad! :^) I would love to own a pair of their Classic Four floorstanders for a stereo-only/no subwoofer music system I am trying to put together. This company was also affected by Recoton's mismanagement but they survived. Heres' a story about that which includes a link to a story about NHT's cool/quirky founder, Ken Kantor: http://www.stereophile.com/news/102405nht/
  5. btw: Recoton declared bankruptsy several years ago and Audiovox bought the Advent AND Acoustic Research names at that time (and Jensen too). http://www.audiovox.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/advent.jsp http://www.audiovox.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ar.jsp AR isn't *total* junk IMO, but bears no resemblance to its former self; according to their site Advent has been reduced to selling mobile video gear. :^( Those weird looking home speakers, supposedly rebadged speakers from a German manufacturer, AFAIK aren't on their site anymore. As bad as sales for home audio components have been the past few years, as much as part of me hopes, I can't see Audiovox devoting any time/money to resurrecting even a respected name like Advent: 1) only people @35 years old and older will even know what Advent was all about; 2) the biggest group of listeners/buyers of music are people younger than @25; and (here's the clincher) 3) from what I've seen, most people under 25 think anything larger than an iPod is "old-fashioned". I think if they were shown a typical console stereo system from the 1960s, they would need a jolt of oxygen to stay conscious: "Oh....my.....gawd......that thing is HUGE!!" :^)
×
×
  • Create New...