A nice surprise here is the lovely space the family room has turend out to be. Extended capability has been given to the system that was in our basement at our Benedict Lake home.
This space was primarily the the grandchildren and as a living room/kitchenette for guests.
The room at the lake was a big space and very live, with a pronounced echo. Despite that the system gave a good account of itself.
Well I had a pleasnt surprise in that the system sounds ravishingly good in this new space. This is a space I have greatly enjoyed.
I don't know if these photographs can do it justice.
A great place to enjoy music fireside.
There is lots of natural light and a good view.
The kitchen
When the entry door is closed this is an enclosed space with no other openings.
The system is completed with a couple of isobarik coupled cavity subs.
So the equipment list is a Wii game player,
Oppo BDP-83 BD player from the Benedict AV room
Quad FM 4
Quad 44 preamp for superb LP playback.
Thorens TD 125 MK II turntable wih SME series 3 PU arm and Shure V15 xmr phono cartridge. This I think is really an absolutely optimal combination for LP playback.
Marants aV 7701 from the Benedict AV room
Chromecast
Comcast TV
Quad 909 power amp.
Quad 405-2 for the subs.
APC smart UPS.
Themostaically controlled cooling fans which have never turned.
Panasonic 55" Plasma TV from our Eagan Townhome
Of this list only the fan system and Smart UPS are new acquisitions.
The speakers were built for the lower level of our Lake home 13 years ago. I'm really fond of these speakers. The quality is very comparble to the B & W 800 D3 my friend Phil has. They do not have the 800s spl level though. In terms of SQ though I don't think they give any thing up to the best around.
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The drivers are a mylar planar ribbon unit from Hi - Vi. These units have to be crossed high with a sharp cut off, otherwise they are rouh with high distortion.
The mid is the long lamented Dynaudio D 76 dome.
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I don't know why we have not had more units like this available. The only others are the ATC unit, not generally avialable and the Volt unit which is a shameless copy of the ATC unit and very expensive.
The Dynaudio unit is ruler flat pretty much from 400 Hz to 4KHz, with sharp roll offs at each end.
The Bass unit is the great KEF B 139 of which so many are fond. This is one of the greatest bass drivers of all time and still highly sought after. It digs deep. However it is fairly insensitive. I think I have mentioned often the inverse relationship between bass extension and sensitivity.
The speakers are highly braced and are slightly overdamped B4 ported enclosures.
The subs I built mid 80s. Subs were rare back then. I built them to accompany he speakers that are now my rear backs. At that time coupled cavity bass alignments were in vogue.
They do have the advanatge that you can precisely set Qts. However as you lower Q bandwidth is reduced. Anyhow I only needed a 25 to 80 Hz or so bandwidth. The drivers are old 12 inch Emminence sub drivers, and in no way comparable to modern subs. So these are not high spl subs by a long shot. However they complement the mian speakers and do not have to be pushed hard. They are clean and not boomer. There are two 12' drivers in each box, since these are isobarik speakers to make them compact.
One disadvantage of these is that sound radiation from the cone is lost. It is all from the port.
So how does it measure.
The impedance and phase angles of the main speakers.
The FR and impulse curve of the main speakers.
I think the rise at 50 to 30 KHz is an artefact of close mic (2M) measurement. The D 76 does have a slight hint of a BBC "Smiley". This is not unatractive. Note the extended impulse response from the fourth order LR crossovers causing time smear.
This is the FR at my choice listening position be the fire.
This is the FR of the subs.
So enough bandwidth to do the job. The subs are cut in below at 40 Hz to extend the mains. So setting is LFE + Main.
So there you have it. A very pleasant system and a realy nice LP system.