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I hate speakers...

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Graham Slee View Drop Down
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    Posted: 14 Jul 2011 at 9:02pm
It has now taken 7 months to find a position the "award winning" Usher 520s will work in.



Excuse the mess... this is after all a hard working workshop and is more of a tip because of messing around with speaker placement.

These Ushers have been just about everywhere in here, rerouting cables on a weekly basis and lugging things like filing cabinets around to try and please them.

So do I find these Usher's particularly difficult? Well, I suppose not really. It's been nearly 40 years since I started finding just how awkward speaker positioning can really be.

The thing is, until you get the speakers in their correct position you simply won't know how good or bad the rest of your system is.

Now, for me that's crucial, and why I've spent 7 months on and off just on these speakers.

Placement wasn't the only problem. I just can't understand how these speakers gained any award? These are ex-dem so were fully burnt-in but sounded highly distorted for the first few weeks, until that is I got rid of those horrible audiovile wound (read highly inductive) caps in the crossovers, replacing them with stacked film types. Don't blame the amps - they can drive just about anything.

Even that wasn't enough. The 520s are ported and in the past, ported (or reflex) speakers were never stuffed full of wadding, so what's changed? I reckoned nothing, so I pulled out all but the bits fixed round the back of the bass drivers. OK, this made them slightly boomy - flick a 9V battery on their terminals and you get "bink-b*nk". Ideally you want "tick-tock" and the way to do that is to tune the port. I did it by stretching some weed stop membrane (any cheap cloth tends to work) over the rear of the ports and securing it with strong rubber bands. The bass/mid driver isn't sufficiently low Q to get "tick-tock" but they sounded better balanced so in the weed block stayed.

And then it was back to speaker placement. They're not bad back to a wall and set like nearfield monitors they worked great with some music, and equally not great with other music.

So, here they are in the best listening position yet, and upside down to boot. The grilles are on because otherwise there's a nasty shout and the grilles help disperse it.

Next week I'm hoping to receive some BBC Harbeth Monitor 20's (re-jigged LS3/5a's) - another shoebox design but this time they're a sealed box. As they're designed to go back to a wall (in a broadcast truck) I also ordered some Sonex tiles to stick behind them...

The "fun" begins all over again Wink


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Fatmangolf Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jul 2011 at 12:04pm
Great photo and post, full of insights and great tips. Fixing the room by moving furniture and fixing the speakers as well. What's behind your desk, is it a blank wall or similar to the shelves and bins behind the speakers?
 
"The "fun" begins all over again Wink" is hi-fi appreciation in a nutshell!
Jon

Open mind and ears whilst owning GSP Genera, Accession M, Accession MC, Elevator EXP, Solo ULDE, Proprius amps, Cusat50 cables, Lautus digital cable, Spatia cables and links, and a Majestic DAC.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jul 2011 at 7:52pm
Oh Dear, no Leaks :o(
 
Last photo had the Leaks in place ;o)
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote tg [RIP] Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 3:51am
Another cabinet leak ? - this time at GSP HQ  Shocked
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Graham Slee Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Jul 2011 at 11:40am
Originally posted by ABPest ABPest wrote:

Oh Dear, no Leaks :o(
 
Last photo had the Leaks in place ;o)
 
Adrian.


Hi Adrian,

They're large speakers, almost the size of my old 2x12 cabs I used for disco work. They sound really nice. The problem I have is that the tweeters are offset and not offset opposite ways for left and right. With my limited space I wasn't able to set them apart sufficiently and far enough away such that the sound from both drive units merged together. I got the treble leaning to the left as such and wasn't able to obtain a stable stereo image. In a larger room they'll score highly I'm sure. At that point I thought I'd try and find them a good new home and offered them for what I paid (just £50 for 4 speakers - two of which have upgraded crossovers - no charge for that), and put them in the "free-ads" section.


(a picture of somebody else's sandwiches picked up on a google search)

Since then you kindly sent me the instructions the previous owner had found. It mentions they are designed for floor mounting back to a wall which I can do, albeit under the worktops. I'm going to try this as soon as I can get John to bring me our drum of speaker cable which he keeps in his workshop. It will be interesting to discover if this placement yields the sort of image I've heard with other floor-standers. If the results are acceptable then I'll be withdrawing the ad and writing more about these 1960's classics here.

Graham


Edited by Graham Slee - 17 Jul 2011 at 11:44am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote mrarroyo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Jul 2011 at 1:38pm
Graham, if you could flip the front wood then you would have a mirror once the drivers are re-mounted. Don't know how much work is involved but ...
Miguel
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Graham Slee Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Jul 2011 at 2:18pm
Originally posted by mrarroyo mrarroyo wrote:

Graham, if you could flip the front wood then you would have a mirror once the drivers are re-mounted. Don't know how much work is involved but ...


That, or something along the same lines, could be the solution I end up with.
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