Fluance Signature Series Speakers Preview

[Justin Zimmerman]

Well, I hope it works out. I just ordered your parts. Even with my commercial discount, the damage was $135/pr with shipping. I used higher quality parts than in the stock crossover (except for one film capacitor, which I borrowed from the board), but nothing more expensive than I use in my Affordable Accuracy speaker. I'm not expecting any contracts from Fluance.

Speaking of that, I would like to pick up a pair of the AA bookshelves for my office when I come for my Fluances.

 

[Hocky]

Well, I hope it works out. I just ordered your parts. Even with my commercial discount, the damage was $135/pr with shipping. I used higher quality parts than in the stock crossover (except for one film capacitor, which I borrowed from the board), but nothing more expensive than I use in my Affordable Accuracy speaker. I'm not expecting any contracts from Fluance.

How easy/hard is it to get to the crossover to swap them out? I would pay for a prebuilt replacement crossover.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

How easy/hard is it to get to the crossover to swap them out? I would pay for a prebuilt replacement crossover.

The only slightly tricky part is prying the decorative rings off of the top woofer, and that's pretty trivial if you have any fingernails. Then it's just a matter of taking 4 screws (Phillips) out of the stock board, snipping the wires, stripping the ends and twisting them on to the wires on the new board. The real issue is whether I have time to get involved. And I wouldn't do it for free. Mounting the components and wiring them together is a lot of work. That's why we have China and printed circuit boards.

 

[speakerman39]

The only slightly tricky part is prying the decorative rings off of the top woofer, and that's pretty trivial if you have any fingernails. Then it's just a matter of taking 4 screws (Phillips) out of the stock board, snipping the wires, stripping the ends and twisting them on to the wires on the new board. The real issue is whether I have time to get involved. And I wouldn't do it for free. Mounting the components and wiring them together is a lot of work. That's why we have China and printed circuit boards.

Dennis, if someone was willing to buy a set of the Fluance Sigs, ship to you, and then you swap the crossovers out. How much would you be willing to do that for? Then, of course the buyer has to pay shipping from you to them. Let us know when you have a figure. Shipping can be estimated per the owner.

Cheers,

Phil

 

[3db]

I'm waiting to hear back from Gene to see what FLuance is saying about their crossover. It would be nice to see the factory corrected response curves.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

Dennis, if someone was willing to buy a set of the Fluance Sigs, ship to you, and then you swap the crossovers out. How much would you be willing to do that for? Then, of course the buyer has to pay shipping from you to them. Let us know when you have a figure. Shipping can be estimated per the owner.

Cheers,

Phil

Well, I'm doing that for Justin, but I'm not charging him labor. I just don't think I want to do all of that given my other commitments. I've contacted someone to see if he had any interest in building the boards for owners to install in the field, but it's going to get expensive. It would help me if you guys could tell me what you think are the best two or 3 towers out there in the $800 - $1200 price range.

 

[speakerman39]

Well, I'm doing that for Justin, but I'm not charging him labor. I just don't think I want to do all of that given my other commitments. I've contacted someone to see if he had any interest in building the boards for owners to install in the field, but it's going to get expensive. It would help me if you guys could tell me what you think are the best two or 3 towers out there in the $800 - $1200 price range.

Right, I fully understand Dennis. To be honest, I am much more of a bookshelf guy. Others here could be of more help in that regard. However, I am looking to acquire something much more musical then I have now. The Polks are just NOT doing it for me. That is why I sent you a PM. When you have the time Dennis, please get back to me. Wished that I lived closer as I would be more than happy to help you as much as I could.

Cheers,

Phil

 

[John Melnicoe]

The only slightly tricky part is prying the decorative rings off of the top woofer, and that's pretty trivial if you have any fingernails. Then it's just a matter of taking 4 screws (Phillips) out of the stock board, snipping the wires, stripping the ends and twisting them on to the wires on the new board. The real issue is whether I have time to get involved. And I wouldn't do it for free. Mounting the components and wiring them together is a lot of work. That's why we have China and printed circuit boards.

Hi Dennis, Gene, and anyone else reading this,
I have a question and found something that seems bizarre to me with regard to my Signatures. I have been reading the forums and did the upper terminal reversal thing as suggested by Gene. Per my SPL meter and ears, this did result in a better response with the mid range. However, here is where it gets weird. I decided to isolate the bottom terminals and reversed the BOTTOM (woofers) and measured them. When just the bottom was hooked up reversed (out of phase) it improved volume and sound. However-this resulted in me having to again reverse the TOP terminals (Now back IN Phase I guess), to get the best response with Mid/Tweets. So, I basically wired it all opposite, bottom reversed, then cross wired to top, (Top in phase again, but bottom out of phase/reversed. This odd hook up seemed overall better as to SPL reads and to our ears. Does this make any sense? I am puzzled. In closing, I initially followed Gene's suggestion which did improve things, but after I played around and reversed the bottom phase and re-did the top, it was even better. Am I nuts? Thanks for reading this everyone!

 

[Dennis Murphy]

Hi Dennis, Gene, and anyone else reading this,
I have a question and found something that seems bizarre to me with regard to my Signatures. I have been reading the forums and did the upper terminal reversal thing as suggested by Gene. Per my SPL meter and ears, this did result in a better response with the mid range. However, here is where it gets weird. I decided to isolate the bottom terminals and reversed the BOTTOM (woofers) and measured them. When just the bottom was hooked up reversed (out of phase) it improved volume and sound. However-this resulted in me having to again reverse the TOP terminals (Now back IN Phase I guess), to get the best response with Mid/Tweets. So, I basically wired it all opposite, bottom reversed, then cross wired to top, (Top in phase again, but bottom out of phase/reversed. This odd hook up seemed overall better as to SPL reads and to our ears. Does this make any sense? I am puzzled. In closing, I initially followed Gene's suggestion which did improve things, but after I played around and reversed the bottom phase and re-did the top, it was even better. Am I nuts? Thanks for reading this everyone!

Some people believe that absolute phase makes a difference. That is, a speaker will sound different depending on whether the wiring to the input terminals is direct or reversed. Advocates would say the human hear can pick up on whether there was a phase reversal between the signal recorded in the original venue and the output from the speakers. I've participated in blind tests of that theory, and I sure couldn't pick up on any difference. And in any event, the "correct" hook up would vary across recordings. So I'm skeptical that you were actually hearing a difference. But I would be interested in what Gene or anyone else has to say.

 

[haraldo]

I contacted Fluance tech support about the phase coherence question and got really good support, via the tech guys at the end... They understood that some info on website actually was incorrect so now they took away the specification of speakers being phase coherent...

It took a while to get the answers but they got back to me answering everything I asked precisely, not so comprehensive answers but precise answers to exactly what I asked, quite good guys

 

[3db]

Some people believe that absolute phase makes a difference. That is, a speaker will sound different depending on whether the wiring to the input terminals is direct or reversed. Advocates would say the human hear can pick up on whether there was a phase reversal between the signal recorded in the original venue and the output from the speakers. I've participated in blind tests of that theory, and I sure couldn't pick up on any difference. And in any event, the "correct" hook up would vary across recordings. So I'm skeptical that you were actually hearing a difference. But I would be interested in what Gene or anyone else has to say.

I agree with the results of your blind listening test. The main thing is to keep the wiring consistent across the speaker pairs.

 

[haraldo]

Hmmm, what's the real value of blind listening tests...

Say you put 5 women in line in front of you and you must blindfold kiss all of them. Would you always with 100% reliability be able to say which of them is your wife?

And if you can't, does that mean you love your wife less?

 

[Hocky]

Fluance support confirmed to me that they're currently reworking the crossover with an ETA of late May and that any existing owners who request the update will be upgraded free of charge.

 

[gene]

Hi Dennis, Gene, and anyone else reading this,
I have a question and found something that seems bizarre to me with regard to my Signatures. I have been reading the forums and did the upper terminal reversal thing as suggested by Gene. Per my SPL meter and ears, this did result in a better response with the mid range. However, here is where it gets weird. I decided to isolate the bottom terminals and reversed the BOTTOM (woofers) and measured them. When just the bottom was hooked up reversed (out of phase) it improved volume and sound. However-this resulted in me having to again reverse the TOP terminals (Now back IN Phase I guess), to get the best response with Mid/Tweets. So, I basically wired it all opposite, bottom reversed, then cross wired to top, (Top in phase again, but bottom out of phase/reversed. This odd hook up seemed overall better as to SPL reads and to our ears. Does this make any sense? I am puzzled. In closing, I initially followed Gene's suggestion which did improve things, but after I played around and reversed the bottom phase and re-did the top, it was even better. Am I nuts? Thanks for reading this everyone!

That is puzzling. It's hard to say what's going on without measurements but it really shouldn't make a difference if you wired both bass sections 180 out of phase. Maybe Dennis can check at his end if he still has the stock crossovers?

 

[gene]

Some people believe that absolute phase makes a difference. That is, a speaker will sound different depending on whether the wiring to the input terminals is direct or reversed. Advocates would say the human hear can pick up on whether there was a phase reversal between the signal recorded in the original venue and the output from the speakers. I've participated in blind tests of that theory, and I sure couldn't pick up on any difference. And in any event, the "correct" hook up would vary across recordings. So I'm skeptical that you were actually hearing a difference. But I would be interested in what Gene or anyone else has to say.

I haven't seen any proof that absolute phase matters. That said, you generally want to avoid too many phase changes of gain stages within a feedback loop for stability reasons.

This article talks about this a bit:
http://sound.westhost.com/ptd.htm

and our article with Rod Elliot contributing:
http://www.audioholics.com/audio-amplifier/the-sound-of-an-amplifier

 

[Dennis Murphy]

That is puzzling. It's hard to say what's going on without measurements but it really shouldn't make a difference if you wired both bass sections 180 out of phase. Maybe Dennis can check at his end if he still has the stock crossovers?

I do have one of the Fluances running with the stock crossover. I'll try the experiment, but like Gene, I can't think of any reason why it would make a difference.

 

[John Melnicoe]

I do have one of the Fluances running with the stock crossover. I'll try the experiment, but like Gene, I can't think of any reason why it would make a difference.

I look forward to your take on that Dennis. Out of curiosity, I ended up switching back the top speakers to out of phase, (now matching the out of phase lowers I wired and being back to Gene's suggestion as to the mid/tweet section) as I discovered some music indeed seemed better that way, (or my wife and I are becoming psychotic). I did that after reading your post as to different recordings, which made me curious. I am glad to have read a post about Fluance being willing to swap out crossovers after they come up with a fix and putting this to rest! Thanks to all you guys! I just love good audio, and am learning a lot from the forums.
I hope that Fluance will allow people the option to install the new crossover themselves, thereby saving everyone time and money. Happy listening.

 

[gene]

Guys, anyone that has these speakers and a way to measure, I just thought it might be interesting to reverse the polarity of the tweeter after you've already reversed the polarity of the top terminals.

When I reversed the polarity of the top terminals, it fixed the lower mid suckout but created a new suckout at 2kHz. It got me thinking that all that may have been needed was a reverse mid polarity but NOT a reverse tweeter polarity. Too bad I sent them back as I wonder how this would measure wired like this. Any takers???

 

[John Melnicoe]

Guys, anyone that has these speakers and a way to measure, I just thought it might be interesting to reverse the polarity of the tweeter after you've already reversed the polarity of the top terminals.

When I reversed the polarity of the top terminals, it fixed the lower mid suckout but created a new suckout at 2kHz. It got me thinking that all that may have been needed was a reverse mid polarity but NOT a reverse tweeter polarity. Too bad I sent them back as I wonder how this would measure wired like this. Any takers???

Hi Gene,
Crazy John here who has switched polarity a lot. I MIGHT be willing to do that, but I have not obtained re-assurance yet from Fluance as to this whole crossover issue, and am reluctant to "Break the Seal" and perhaps void my warranty, especially IF they make me send them back for any work. Would it just be to pull the ring, remove the tweeter and switch the wires to the tweeter only? I also have only a crude way to measure, nothing really scientific, so it would only be listening to my old ears. Might I hear the difference?
I like the idea, but do not want to void the warranty or ruin any changes at a real fix down the road.
Any ideas? Thanks for all you and others are doing, I do want the most out of these speakers.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

Guys, anyone that has these speakers and a way to measure, I just thought it might be interesting to reverse the polarity of the tweeter after you've already reversed the polarity of the top terminals.

When I reversed the polarity of the top terminals, it fixed the lower mid suckout but created a new suckout at 2kHz. It got me thinking that all that may have been needed was a reverse mid polarity but NOT a reverse tweeter polarity. Too bad I sent them back as I wonder how this would measure wired like this. Any takers???

Hi Gene Reversing the inputs to the upper pair of input terminals wouldn't change the phase of the tweeter in relation to the midrange. Both drivers would reverse in polarity, but stay in the same relationship with each other. And if you look at my before and after plots on the previous page, they show a dip at around 1300 Hz in the reversed plot, but not in the crossover region between the mid and tweet. I can try your experiment just to see what happens, but if the stock crossover really has second order slopes, reversing the upper input terminal wiring should just correct the woofer-mid crossover. It shouldn't affect the mid-tweet transition. BTW, the tweeter is already wired in reverse polarity to the mid, which would be correct if the mid-tweet cross is also 12dB.