Pharos
06-03-2017, 22:49
Hello all, as instructed I will introduce myself and my system.
I started this interest in my teens and it has evolved, with various degrees of control since that time.
As a young man employed by the BBC I had what was a pretty good system then; a home built Nelson-Jones 10+10 from Wireless World, a Quad 33 pre, and FM tuner, driving Tannoy Lancaster Gold 15s, and a little later a Revox A77.
Then all the sound seemed equally good and I felt that I had a professional sound in my home, and it stayed unchanged for some years whilst I pursued other things.
Then in 1985, I saw an ad. in Exchange and Mart for a pair of American speakers described as having; "Sound as clear as Light". I had to pursue this and bought them at great expense, and then rebuilt them in negotiation with Jeff Shields of ESS, this costing several hundred pounds.
After converting them from AMT 1AMs and correctly weighting the forward facing passives of these now "Monitor" speakers, everyone who heard them was blown away by the clarity of the Heil AMT, and I kept them until 1991, when I became hypnotised by ATCs.
I then sold them and bought a second hand pair of passive ATC S50s, but was not satisfied, and then a new pair of active 50s. These were subsequently improved and I replaced with the newer model, but on moving to a larger room they were 'lost', and so I bought 100s. In 1997 I decided to upgrade the 100s, and rebuilt them with SL drivers, improved cabinet damping, front panel decoupling, and rewiring, and they were much better, for a few years at least.
I was running this with an AVI preamp and tuner, but I was still not feeling satisfied, and yearned for the clarity and openness of the Heil, and in April 2002 saw an ad. in Hi-Fi News selling a pair of AMT1bs, which I bought.
I then contacted Audio International and purchased what was required to upgrade them to AMT1e spec. and was happy for a few years, but realised that they were not accurate in the FR sense, so I then bought a pair of BBC/Rogers LS 5/8 mid/woofers and went through several iterations of crossover to integrate the drivers.
I think these were much more accurate, and the mid range was beautiful, especially on piano, but they were not perfect and some artefacts were evident from the Heil units, and the bass a little weak because of errors in calculations due to BBC data errors.
Recently I have acquired a pair of Mk1 active ADAM Tensor Gammas, and these seem to have improved Heils, and I sit now with both these pairs of speakers ready to improve my own design ones.
I was drawn to this site by a discussion on ATCs, and ESS Monitors, and felt that I could contribute usefully to that threadit discussing AVI and Quad 33 preamps, ATC 100 speakers, and ESS Monitors.
I started this interest in my teens and it has evolved, with various degrees of control since that time.
As a young man employed by the BBC I had what was a pretty good system then; a home built Nelson-Jones 10+10 from Wireless World, a Quad 33 pre, and FM tuner, driving Tannoy Lancaster Gold 15s, and a little later a Revox A77.
Then all the sound seemed equally good and I felt that I had a professional sound in my home, and it stayed unchanged for some years whilst I pursued other things.
Then in 1985, I saw an ad. in Exchange and Mart for a pair of American speakers described as having; "Sound as clear as Light". I had to pursue this and bought them at great expense, and then rebuilt them in negotiation with Jeff Shields of ESS, this costing several hundred pounds.
After converting them from AMT 1AMs and correctly weighting the forward facing passives of these now "Monitor" speakers, everyone who heard them was blown away by the clarity of the Heil AMT, and I kept them until 1991, when I became hypnotised by ATCs.
I then sold them and bought a second hand pair of passive ATC S50s, but was not satisfied, and then a new pair of active 50s. These were subsequently improved and I replaced with the newer model, but on moving to a larger room they were 'lost', and so I bought 100s. In 1997 I decided to upgrade the 100s, and rebuilt them with SL drivers, improved cabinet damping, front panel decoupling, and rewiring, and they were much better, for a few years at least.
I was running this with an AVI preamp and tuner, but I was still not feeling satisfied, and yearned for the clarity and openness of the Heil, and in April 2002 saw an ad. in Hi-Fi News selling a pair of AMT1bs, which I bought.
I then contacted Audio International and purchased what was required to upgrade them to AMT1e spec. and was happy for a few years, but realised that they were not accurate in the FR sense, so I then bought a pair of BBC/Rogers LS 5/8 mid/woofers and went through several iterations of crossover to integrate the drivers.
I think these were much more accurate, and the mid range was beautiful, especially on piano, but they were not perfect and some artefacts were evident from the Heil units, and the bass a little weak because of errors in calculations due to BBC data errors.
Recently I have acquired a pair of Mk1 active ADAM Tensor Gammas, and these seem to have improved Heils, and I sit now with both these pairs of speakers ready to improve my own design ones.
I was drawn to this site by a discussion on ATCs, and ESS Monitors, and felt that I could contribute usefully to that threadit discussing AVI and Quad 33 preamps, ATC 100 speakers, and ESS Monitors.