Photos of my system

[trio leo]

WELL HERE GOESt=1306603430http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i444/trioleo/SDC11495.jpghttp://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i444/trioleo/SDC11492.jpghttp://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i444/trioleo/SDC11492.jpghttp://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i444/trioleo/SDC11490.jpghttp://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i444/trioleo/SDC11491.jpghttp://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i444/trioleo/SDC11489.jpghttp://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i444/trioleo/SDC11487.jpghttp://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i444/trioleo/SDC11486.jpg Ha Hah! done it

[Stefaan]

Hi Alan,

You need to put [IMG] tags around the URLs. An easy way is to use the postcard icon in the editor.

Stefaan

[keiths]

WELL HERE GOESt
http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i444/trioleo/SDC11495.jpg
http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i444/trioleo/SDC11492.jpg
http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i444/trioleo/SDC11492.jpg
http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i444/trioleo/SDC11490.jpg
http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i444/trioleo/SDC11491.jpg
http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i444/trioleo/SDC11489.jpg
http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i444/trioleo/SDC11487.jpg
http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i444/trioleo/SDC11486.jpg

Ha Hah! done it

Well done Alan. :clap:

Smashing system.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Exceptional speakers, very good amplifiers and the best turntable I have ever owned and continue to regret selling.

Roy Allison is very undervalued and misunderstood in the UK, he IMO makes the BBC type designers look like they live on another planet. He understood speakers have to work in a room not an anechoic chamber.

[John]

Lovelly looking system and very jealous around the Trio

[Reid Malenfant]

Wow, i must be seeing things? :scratch: Corner mounted speakers with the bass driver at the very bottom, right in the corner...

Something tells me they must have a very low Q & a gradual rolloff from above 100Hz to avoid too much bass reinforcement :scratch:

What speakers are they out of interest?

Love the TT by the way, what a beauty that Trio is :drool:

[Alex_UK]

Great looking (and I'm sure, sounding) system, Alan. :)

[trio leo]

Wow, i must be seeing things? :scratch: Corner mounted speakers with the bass driver at the very bottom, right in the corner...

Something tells me they must have a very low Q & a gradual rolloff from above 100Hz to avoid too much bass reinforcement :scratch:

What speakers are they out of interest?

Love the TT by the way, what a beauty that Trio is :drool:

Hello Mark, I used to be the importer for Allison Acoustics and Roy Allisons ethos was something called room coupling, I don't technically know what that is, but he said it was to do with having the bass driver close to a reflective surface, floor and walls, so they interacted with the room and the other drive units, they are supposed to be used within 2 inches of a wall, they were superbly built and Allison were so confident in their quality control, there was no such thing as a matched pair, the tweeter is a pulsating hemisphere, I understood that to mean it moved like a jellyfish swimming and not an in-out piston action like some tweeters,as far as I am aware they were world patented to be the only speaker with a 180 degree dispersal, so you can sit off centre if you wish,(that was 25 years ago, if that's the case now I don't know) figures I remember were they had a flat response down to 40 Hz and a peak handling capability of 1,760 watts, If you want all the official figures and explanations google Allison,what I am sure of is they are one of the best speakers I have ever heard, some of you remember hearing them at Hi-Fi shows like Swiss cottage,Manchester and we won best at show in Edinburgh using Albarry/Allisons. If only someone would relaunch them,but maybe I'm just harping on a memory,PS the Allison ones are like 2 threes back to back and you can place them facing you or one facing you and the other on a side wall. enjoy your music Alan and thank you for your comments about my LO7D

[Reid Malenfant]

Hi Alan, cheers for that :) Yep, Alllison i have heard of & now it all falls into place very nicely with my thoughts on the gradually rolling of anechoic bass response ;)

Deliberately designed to use the natural reinforcement of the room & it's boundaries to create a flat bass response in room :cool:

[Marco]

Hi Alan,

Great pics, and a lovely system. You own arguably the best turntable I've ever heard, built like a hi-end turntable should be, with no-compromise engineering! Hope you continue enjoy contributing to AoS.

Marco.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

This is a good article about Roy Allison - http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/105villchur - the tweeters is a paper nipple not a dome, it propagates sound differently, it was the first effective tweeter as before that speaker manufacturers just used smaller coned drivers or whizzers. It is still one of the best tweeters ever made but is difficult and expensive to manufacture.

[trio leo]

wow! that sounds better than the way I said it, but yeh, that's what they do, unfortunately I need a new pair of original bass drivers, which so far are a little illusive. Al

[trio leo]

Thanks for the link Richard,maybe you remember we used to chew the fat way back when I worked for Bespoke Audio with Albert and Barry, and we sold NVA amps, Hi-Fi was good fun back then eh! regards Alan

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Roy Allison a few years ago was talked out of retirement to head up a company to re-manufacture his speakers, I think the company has failed as you don't get a reply to emails. Anyway I doubt the bass drivers have had it as they were built like brick **** houses, it will just be the dreaded foam surround rot and new foam surrounds are available for all his speakers on US ebay. Don't be scared it is a surprisingly easy repair.

If you don't fancy doing it then sell them to me, I would love them as a reference, as my work with speakers is very much rooted and extends on from his.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Thanks for the link Richard,maybe you remember we used to chew the fat way back when I worked for Bespoke Audio with Albert and Barry, and we sold NVA amps, Hi-Fi was good fun back then eh! regards Alan
I obviously remember Albert and Barry, and Bespoke was one of the few shops that refused to give into the flat earth brainwash and suffered because of it, but now people are beginning to see who knew their onions and those two definitely did, but that didn't make you money when you were up against the bullshit dominating the industry back then.

Too many years ago mate, but what was sold in that shop in those days would see off 90% of what is being peddled now.

You have the classic Bespoke Audio system, and I always took it as a compliment that they sold NVA when they had such good amps as the Albarry that they distributed and I think part owned at one stage. Anyway the name of the amp was just an amalgam of their two first names. Nice to see Albarry being made again pity he didn't take the risk to go direct with it.

[trio leo]

Hi Alan,

Great pics, and a lovely system. You own arguably the best turntable I've ever heard, built like a hi-end turntable should be, with no-compromise engineering! Hope you continue enjoy contributing to AoS.

Marco.
Thanks Marco, back in the 80s we were selling the LO7D at £1400 and I think at that time an LP12 was £248, according to Trio back then they lost money on every LO7D they sold, there was a no expense spared battle going on between Sony, Trio and to a lesser degree Yamaha at that time. They also made the LO7C pre-amp,(which I sold to buy the Spectral) LO7M power amps and the less powerful but more responsive LO5M amps,( which were the inspiration for the Albarry M408s) then the LO1A integrated amp (I still have) and the matching LO1T tuner which you can see on my pics. You're right about the engineering, everything on it was designed to cancel out conflicting resonances, It weighs 72 lbs,the arm is a mixture of carbon, beryllium and cobalt if I remember right, even the internal arm wires are silver and glued down to reduce vibrations( technical guys can google it) the arm has a massive clamp to hold it still and 10 revolutions of the little side wheel raises the arm 1mm. some machine eh! regards Alan

[Reid Malenfant]

<snip> Anyway I doubt the bass drivers have had it as they were built like brick **** houses, it will just be the dreaded foam surround rot and new foam surrounds are available for all his speakers on US ebay. Don't be scared it is a surprisingly easy repair.

If you don't fancy doing it then sell them to me, I would love them as a reference, as my work with speakers is very much rooted and extends on from his.
It might appear to be easy as you say, but ending up with the same driver parameters might be a totally different kettle of fish :doh:

To do the job properly you need to cut away the dustcap & shim the voicecoil so all is totally stable. You then need to remove all the old foam from the bass drivers & chassis. You can then glue on the new surround.

But who is to say that the new foam surround is exactly as supple as the original? & how much does the new dustcap weigh & where are you going to purchase it from? All this needs to be taken into consideration before you say things are "easy" as you'll likely totally mess up the driver parameters.

The moving mass needs to be exactly the same & the VAS needs to be the same before you can call it the same driver. Get those right & you'll have a match, get it wrong & you won't get how it should sound..

[trio leo]

It might appear to be easy as you say, but ending up with the same driver parameters might be a totally different kettle of fish :doh:

To do the job properly you need to cut away the dustcap & shim the voicecoil so all is totally stable. You then need to remove all the old foam from the bass drivers & chassis. You can then glue on the new surround.

But who is to say that the new foam surround is exactly as supple as the original? & how much does the new dustcap weigh & where are you going to purchase it from? All this needs to be taken into consideration before you say things are "easy" as you'll likely totally mess up the driver parameters.

The moving mass needs to be exactly the same & the VAS needs to be the same before you can call it the same driver. Get those right & you'll have a match, get it wrong & you won't get how it should sound..
Hi Mark, thanks for your comments, I have seen the instructions placed on the net by the foam ring manufacturers and I have discussed it with my friend Barry and he has talked me through the process, as he had the same problem,he said he cut the dust cover leaving a small piece still attached and folded it back while he shimmed, Barry said his sounded perfect when he had finished them and he has ones which have 4 drivers,I will pluck up the courage and tackle them, I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I miss them regards Al

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Sorry I have rebuilt Allison 6 drivers in the past and it is easy. These drivers in his speaker are very similar to the old AR3 drivers but built even more strongly, with a more rigid spider and thicker paper cone. It was designed for acoustic suspension so the surround was very flimsy and compliant, in other words it did not centre the cone. This makes the surrounds dead easy to replace and you do not need to remove the dust cap or shim the voice coil, just cut the old ones off and glue on the new ones, just make sure you line them up - simples!

Even with completely rotted surrounds there is no cone drop or voice coil rubbing, the speaker runs fine you just lose bass due to losing the acoustic suspension.

What you don't seem to realise is that in the classic acoustic suspension system as developed and invented by Ed Vilchur and continued on in design by Roy Allison the surround ceases to be *seen* by the driver when the cone is sitting on the air and compressing it, the whole point of the design was that the surround just kept the cabinet air tight.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

You only need to shim with drivers designed for port or pipe or line loading as they have more compliant spiders and stiffer surrounds. Also the large old driver like the Tannoys that were designed to fit in wardrobes :rolleyes: need shimming to. I wouldn't even attempt a pair of Tannoys and would leave that to experts like Lockwood to do them.

[Reid Malenfant]

Oh dear oh dear :eyebrows:

Please don't think i'm a simpleton ;) Yes i understand that an acoustic suspension speaker is near as damn it governed by the enclosure volume & it is more important than the drivers VAS, it swamps it - hence the acoustic suspension thing! It relies on the restoring force of the air in the enclosure to swamp the driver parameters so the enclosure takes control.

However, as i said previously if the whole new assembly with new suspension etc weighs more it'll have a lower free air resonance frequency & on top of that a higher driver Q. In the same enclosure this will result in slightly lower efficiency & & higher closed box Q (Qcb) & the end result will be different from what the manufacturer intended.

That's not even going into what a stiffer or more relaxed foam surround would add or take from the mix :doh:

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Sorry but within accepted parameters it will make no damn difference, the surround is rejected, you would have to be a lot out in weight and compliance of surround to make any difference. Anyway the guys who make these surrounds stateside used to supply then to AR and Allison and Jensen and others.

Perhaps you haven't seen that I used to work for AR (uk) for about 5 years in the 1970's. I know this type of drivers backwards. I even replaced foams on the speaker production line at Houghton Regis when the assembly girls tore them.

[Reid Malenfant]

Sorry but within accepted parameters it will make no damn difference, the surround is rejected, you would have to be a lot out in weight and compliance of surround to make any difference. Anyway the guys who make these surrounds stateside used to supply then to AR and Allison and Jensen and others.

Perhaps you haven't seen that I used to work for AR (uk) for about 5 years in the 1970's. I know this type of drivers backwards. I even replaced foams on the speaker production line at Houghton Regis when the assembly girls tore them.
Name dropper :eyebrows:

Frankly i'm not interested in who you worked for...

You make a driver cone heavier with the same suspension compliance & the driver Qts increases! So does the Vas & in the same enclosure it'll result in an increased output but at a lower efficiency at low frequencies.

You may well know your stuff with amplifiers etc, but i have been designing speakers since the early 80s.

I really don't want to get into too deep a discussion with you as this is the wrong thread & i hate threadcrapping, but all the driver parameters are vitally important.

That glue you use to stick the new surround, the weight of the surround, it's compliance etc.

If you can keep it all the same when fixing it then yes you should get what the manufacturer intended. Get it wrong & you'll either get more or less bass than was intended... Along with a slower or faster rolloff :rolleyes:

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Then we will just have to agree to disagree, Trio Leo can decide which advice to take and which has more validity.

BTW I also design and build speakers and I rebuild the bass drivers for the speakers I currently make, and they are acoustic suspension like the Allisons.

[Reid Malenfant]

I'm pleased you are interested in the electronic/acoustic interface Richard :)

If there are any other comments i'll attempt to get some kind of coherent reply together tomorrow as i'm off to enjoy the music, & a few more beers :eyebrows: ;)

[Marco]

Hi Alan,

Please see further discussion of your system (and some other stuff) here: http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?p=220092#post220092

:)

Marco.

[Beobloke]

Apologies for prolonging somewhat of a thread drift but I'M going to have to jump in here and agree with Richard.

The fact is that only around half of the surround roll contributes to the moving mass of the cone assembly and in the case of the drivers used by the Allisons, the size of the cone will form the majority of the mass in question. Hence the mass of the surround can vary to a surprisingly large degree before it has a noticeable effect. Also, it is true that in most drive units (certainly ones designed for use in sealed enclosures) the free air resonance and thus the overall parameters of the drive unit are governed by the suspension rather than the surround, thus demoting the importance of the surround parameters further.

Hence, whilst aware that a drive unit will generally sound different, I would say that re-foaming for a good but rotten driver is always worthwhile, particualrly as the effects will be less pronounced than replacing the whole driver with a modern 'equivalent' to the long-discontinued original.Equally, a re-foamed driver that sounds a bit different is still going to sound better than one with knackered foam!

The only other thing I would say is that I personally would NEVER re-foam a driver without removing the dust cap and shimming it. It can be done without, but it's far more hit and miss, espeically with drivers that have small magnet gaps.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

With the Allison drive unit the OP is talking about there is no need to shim. Remove the surround and shake the driver, the cone wont move it is held rigidly in place in the horizontal mode by the spider. Most large bass driver designed for acoustic suspension are the same. You would have to be really stupid and physically pull the cone off centre when gluing the new surround to cock it up.