Stuck In The Middle With You.
Recently my time's been spent playing with the Beovox 5700, this is a B&O speaker using the HF2000, MD/F500 and a Phillips AD1056 / W8 10" woofer with ABR. B&O used a different crossover frequency to Celestion, the 66's cross at 500/5000, the 5700's 600/6000. As stereo speakers I far prefer the 66 crossover and T1600, but the 5700 crossover does reduce the resonance issues apparent with the 66 crossover. The resonance is still there but is less obvious in vocals, so although I prefer the 66 crossover for music the 5700 is more appropriate as a centre speaker. This is a result I'm very happy with as the baffle design of the 5700 make it a prime candidate as a centre.
It's still early days for the 5700, so far I've recapped them with Mundorfs and changed the stuffing for the foam stuffing used by Celestion. I think there's plenty of potential to improve the inductor layout of the crossover;
I'll also replace the HF2000 with the SEAS 19TFF. Once this is done I'll suspend the 5700 above the TV as being between the front speakers and in front of the fire place is a compromised location to say the least.
I've also been playing with the UL8's replacing the HF1000 with the SEAS 27TFF tweeter, they're getting pretty close now, just fine tuning the mix of poly props, electrolytic's and brands.
As for the 44's I think I'm done. The D5 mid's have been replaced with MD500's but I've decided not to build 66 clones to incorporate the ABR's. Instead I'll add a sealed sub, I've recently demo'd a REL Serie S5 which (in my room) took the bass to a level the 66's can't reach so for me this seems the better option.
Everything's coming together nicely, I watched American Sniper last night (a far better film than I was expecting) which was the first time I'd sat down and watched a film with all the new capacitors fully burnt in. I'm very happy to have a centre speaker back in formation and happy with the way all speakers are integrating, I still believe improvements can be made by fine tuning the capacitor choices and speaker placement but I feel like I'm on the home straight now.
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