TAKET BATPURE Supertweeter - Mini Project

[Wakefield Turntables]

Hello everyone. I fancied doing a little mini project with a second pair of these excellent little supertweeters which shall be used with my 15" Tannoy Monitor Gold speakers housed in Lockwood cabs. I originally ordered a pair of these months ago and found them to be benficial with the Tannoys and now I would like them to be a permanent feature when listening to Jazz. I've been slowly accumulating the parts and I'm now happy to say that everything is now here. I originally used 4mm Blue Van Damme cable, the audio studio version of my first pair but I'm going to be using 2mm solid silver which shall be housed in Teflon on the 2nd pair. I'm slowly getting a full loom of silver in the Valve setup. I'll be swapping my 6mm Van Damme blue for 3mm solid core silver as my main speaker cable of choice of the Tannoy speakers but more of that later. I sit here typing this a little blearly eyed and ready for bed (yep it's only 9pm) so no DIY tonight. Here's a quick pick of the parts.

20520

So the idea is to house them in some nice boxes and then they live on top of the Tannoys. OK, more another night.... :zzz:

[brian2957]

Nice one Andy . Like you I found the first pair of these excellent supertweeters to be a very welcome addition to my system . I'm planning to add another pair soon so will be watching this thread with interest :)

Have you found decent boxes yet mate ? . I'm reasonably happy with the ones I have at the moment , but would welcome your suggestions for different ones .

[montesquieu]

I bought a pair of these as well but worried about

1) sensitivity match - 70db to 90-ish db on the Tannoys, so unlikley to hear much of an effect?
2) impedance match - if installed in parallel with the main speakers it could drop the impedance the valve amp sees with all the issues that entails around oscilation, shifts in the response etc.

I had been discussing with Jez the possibility of using a separate chip amp to drive them to an appropriate level (see another thread in this sub-forum).

Your Sondex S100 is pretty like my Radford STA100 in many ways, your 15in Golds not so far away from my 12in HPDs ... have you given any thought to the above?

[brian2957]

Have you received yours yet Tom ?

[montesquieu]

Yes they are here. I bought some very similar wooden boxes too to what Andrew is showing in his pics!

[brian2957]

What's the plans then . Have you tried them at all ?

[montesquieu]

not yet ....

[brian2957]

I'll be interested in your take on these Tom . The Takets have been my first foray into this area of audio reproduction . If I remember correctly you have previous experience of supertweeters .

[montesquieu]

I'll be interested in your take on these Tom . The Takets have been my first foray into this area of audio reproduction . If I remember correctly you have previous experience of supertweeters .

Yup .. Townshends, Audiosmiles, Tannoys, Fostexes, no-brand ebay jobs ... tried them all. Can make a difference depending on the speaker.

[Wakefield Turntables]

Nice one Andy . Like you I found the first pair of these excellent supertweeters to be a very welcome addition to my system . I'm planning to add another pair soon so will be watching this thread with interest :)

Have you found decent boxes yet mate ? . I'm reasonably happy with the ones I have at the moment , but would welcome your suggestions for different ones .

I just got these from eBay I think I paid <£10 for them delivered. They are ok for what they are and am more than happy to keep using them.



I bought a pair of these as well but worried about

1) sensitivity match - 70db to 90-ish db on the Tannoys, so unlikley to hear much of an effect?
2) impedance match - if installed in parallel with the main speakers it could drop the impedance the valve amp sees with all the issues that entails around oscilation, shifts in the response etc.

I had been discussing with Jez the possibility of using a separate chip amp to drive them to an appropriate level (see another thread in this sub-forum).

Your Sondex S100 is pretty like my Radford STA100 in many ways, your 15in Golds not so far away from my 12in HPDs ... have you given any thought to the above?

No I havent't but at the price I'm happy just have them sitting around experimwnt with other speakers. I DID notice some difference with them when using them with my Tannoys, certainly enough for the cost outlay. Sounds like your plan is far ore exciting than my little project!!

[brian2957]

Thanks Andy , I'll have a look .

[Wakefield Turntables]

Batpure adventures Pt II - 50% complete - Still Knackered.

Just a few more pics and a little info. So this is what it looks like in the box, nowt very special I'm afraid. Just some silver wire in Teflon. The box does a good job of keeping the cables seperated and houses the supertweeter.


20533

This is what it looks like on top. The red things are cable seperators and offer a degree of vibration isolation from the cabinet and speaker terminals but are mainly used to stop any damage on the cabinet veneer and to tidy the cables.

20534

Many cable seperators!

20532

So this is how they terminate into my bespoke Tannoy XO's.

20531

This is what I see when I sit and have a whisky and listen to Jazz. :drinking:


20535

Now to finish the other tomorrow if I get time.

[brian2957]

Looking good Andy . This is a very similar set up to mine , although I fitted binding posts to the back of the box so I could use different cables . I'm now happy with the Kimber Varistrand cable so the binding posts and banana plugs can go and the cable can be connected directly to the Takets .

Nice work so far Andy . I look forward to the finished item .

Just one question . Is this your 2nd set of Takets . If so where are the others situated ?

[Wakefield Turntables]

Brian, theotherpair are being used with various 1970s speakers and quad ESL 57s. Just experimenting.

[Firebottle]

Be interested to know how you get on using them with ESL57's Andy.

[brian2957]

Brian, theotherpair are being used with various 1970s speakers and quad ESL 57s. Just experimenting.

Are you going to be using them together on the one speaker at any stage Andy ?

[Wakefield Turntables]

Be interested to know how you get on using them with ESL57's Andy.

OK, maybe another thread. :eyebrows:


Are you going to be using them together on the one speaker at any stage Andy ?

What do you mean both pair of super tweeters on one set of speakers?

[walpurgis]

What do you mean both pair of super tweeters on one set of speakers?

Try one pair facing forward and another pair facing upwards. I've done this with supertweeters and the effect is interesting.

[Wakefield Turntables]

Try one pair facing forward and another pair facing upwards. I've done this with supertweeters and the effect is interesting.

Not enough hours in the day at the moment Geoff. I've got a lovely NAD3020B to play with (my second) and various British 70's speakers. Lifes hard!

[brian2957]

Try one pair facing forward and another pair facing upwards. I've done this with supertweeters and the effect is interesting.

That's the sort of thing I was thinking about .

[Wakefield Turntables]

Well all the old traits have come back again. Mainly

1. Slightly more shimmer to brush work on some of my Jazz records.
2. Piano's seem to have a little more solidity.
3. Bass seems a little deeper and extended.
4. A little more realism.

Just having a quick listen now as I type this. I'll have to do more listening tests to see if the silver re-wire has been an improvement. I would have to say the soundstage seems a tad more coherent maybe a smidge more holographic. More on my next post.

[brian2957]

Yup I concur with your findings here Andy . It will be interesting to see what difference the silver wire makes .

[Wakefield Turntables]

Yup I concur with your findings here Andy . It will be interesting to see what difference the silver wire makes .

I've always liked silver and I'm a firm believer it add micro detail to the soundstage.

[montesquieu]

Well I bought all the bits for my project but right as I was about to assemble, Jake sold off his factory-made ones so I've nabbed those.

Interesting ... can't hear a peep out of them when played solo, but the effect seems real enough - in a subtle but definite way, more engrossing and a heightened sense of space. No idea how you would explain it.

I'm running them with a cheap Chinese gainclone to take the strain off the power amp.

[brian2957]

Welcome to the Batpure club Tom :)

[Arkless Electronics]

Well I bought all the bits for my project but right as I was about to assemble, Jake sold off his factory-made ones so I've nabbed those.

Interesting ... can't hear a peep out of them when played solo, but the effect seems real enough - in a subtle but definite way, more engrossing and a heightened sense of space. No idea how you would explain it.

I'm running them with a cheap Chinese gainclone to take the strain off the power amp.

Well that was an hour or two of my time I'll not get back or get paid for.... just saying... in fact that's bad form IMO.

[montesquieu]

Well that was an hour or two of my time I'll not get back or get paid for.... just saying

An hour or two to do what? You quoted me £300 to build something involving a chip and some autoformers - that's with me providing the chip (you sent me the link to buy it from China), the mains transformer and a ready built up case with switch, RCAs etc all done. On top of that you 'couldn't guarantee' whether it would do what I wanted it to do and there was no way anyway to measure what volume setting it should be running at.

To put it politely Jez that didn't seem like the most enticing offer. I seriously thought about it but it was a lot of money to gamble on a custom build with no guarantees.

My thinking was that it would be simpler for experimental purposes to get one all built up with a volume control for under £100 that would appear to do most of the same thing - then if the experiment worked I would get back to you to see if it could be improved on.

TBH it was never clear to me what the autoformers were supposed to be adding in an active configuration like this one (maybe you can enlighten us?) I had raised the question of whether they would be appropriate in boosting the level of a signal from the main amp, that's when they came up.

[Arkless Electronics]

An hour or two to do what? You quoted me £300 to build something involving a chip and some autoformers - that's with me providing the chip (you sent me the link to buy it from China), the mains transformer and a ready built up case with switch, RCAs etc all done. On top of that you 'couldn't guarantee' whether it would do what I wanted it to do and there was no way anyway to measure what volume setting it should be running at.

To put it politely Jez that didn't seem like the most enticing offer. I seriously thought about it but it was a lot of money to gamble on a custom build with no guarantees.

My thinking was that it would be simpler for experimental purposes to get one all built up with a volume control for under £100 that would appear to do most of the same thing - then if the experiment worked I would get back to you to see if it could be improved on.

TBH it was never clear to me what the autoformers were supposed to be adding in an active configuration like this one (maybe you can enlighten us?) I had raised the question of whether they would be appropriate in boosting the level of a signal from the main amp, that's when they came up.

You really are bang out of order mate.

You contacted me asking for advice as to how best to go about driving these batpure super tweeters. I explained that it was not as simple as it may seem and outlined various issues and how best to tackle them and you then left me believing, after further emails and PM's, that you intended to commission me to carry out this work.

One of the major points I put forward was that it was maybe less than optimal to put the capacitive reactive load on to your main amp as it could potentially spoil the audible range treble. I suggested a separate amp as it would also allow the volume to the batpures to be adjusted to fit in with the main speakers, and advised that a chip amp of a low power would be appropriate as it should easily handle the job and it should keep it cheap.

You asked about a class D Tripath amp you already had and could you use that and I explained that it was not suitable due to it being class D. You then sent me photos of the class D amp you had already had made up by someone and asked me if I could re-use much of it in building you a new chip amp amp for the batpures. So I spent a while studying it, and said yes but the chip amp would need a lower voltage secondary transformer.
I even, in good faith of the work coming my way, went on ebay and checked out Chinese made boards with LM3886 amp chips (which I had specifically recommended as most suitable), and found a specific board which seemed ideal for the task.

This amp was to be used via step up auto transformers I was to design and build..(or so I was invited to believe)... There is I believe a version of the batpures, at a much higher price, with suitable transformers built in, these come back into the story later....

Yes I went to great lengths to explain that to the best of my knowledge there were no published examples of previous DIY etc versions of what I was suggesting as the optimal solution and so, as I was having to do everything from scratch, and you cannot hear or reliably measure 30KHz + sound, whilst I would use best possible practice, precisely this solution has probably never been done before and so I couldn't guarantee 100% success. It would certainly have been infinitely better than any of the methods you were going to try without my advice and probably as good as the factory version.

And on we go with me led to believe you were assembling all the bits such as the chip amp boards from China... and then, only 10 days ago or so, asking what transformer to order to go with the boards...(:eek:) and expecting to hear that you've got the bits together to send me so I can build up the chip amp (a "gain clone") with the transformer I recommended, the boards I'd recommended and your old class d amp as a case donor... and then build the auto transformers to match....

Next I hear about is today, this thread. Without further contact, not a thanks, not an "I've found a new solution sorry for the hassle"... you've used my idea of the separate amp with it's own gain control, the boards I recommended, even the transformer you asked about only 10 days ago, and obviously either managed to do the work yourself or get a mate to do it for you, and scored some second hand batpures with the built in transformer so no longer needing me to wind the transformers for you....

All the emails answered and advice given in good faith. Time spent working out how best to do this job. Time spent searching on ebay amongst all the possible chip amp boards in order to suggest which to order.... and you even came back to me to ask mains transformer specs etc... Not even a PM or email of thanks or of "sorry I won't be going ahead with the work"

Very shabby, to say the least.

[montesquieu]

Interesting perspective you have on this Jez.

From my point of view - yous suggested on a thread that you could do something here. After several exchanges you quoted me £300 (plus some parts I was required to provide) for a solution that wasn't guaranteed to work. I suggested we might re-use a digital amp I own already to bring the cost down but was told the guts would have to come out anyway (so no reduction seemed forthcoming).

My last communication with you on this was that I was unconvinced that I wanted to spend that amount of money on something with no guarantees but that I'd pick up the bits anyway (board and mains transformer you specified) and have a think.

When I went online to buy the bits (chip amp board and mains transformer) I quickly discovered that I could get a fully built up unit for not a lot more. Add in the fact that going down your route I would also be cannibalising a perfectly good Tripath 2022 90w stereo amp that cost me £60 in the first place, and a new unit was a no-brainer.

I don't see what's out of order here. Maybe if you'd been clearer how much of that £300 was building a gainclone and how much the rest of the solution we could have had a more productive discussion - as it was I came to the conclusion £300 was too rich for what I told you was a total experiement and what said at the outset I planned as a low-cost exercise.

To quote you on what you said (your confidence level) - this more than anything was what gave me pause for thought:

>
As I intimated in a previous PM, there is no tried and tested way of
doing this and this may well be a first, hence whilst you are assured
of my full attention and best efforts in this, and whilst I'm pretty
confident about it, as it can be regarded as quite experimental I
would not be willing to offer any guarantee that this will do a superb
job or you get your money back! I've never been asked to do this
before and I would be amazed if you could find anyone who has! This is uncharted territory....
>

Not exactly compelling is it?


You really are bang out of order mate.

You contacted me asking for advice as to how best to go about driving these batpure super tweeters. I explained that it was not as simple as it may seem and outlined various issues and how best to tackle them and you then left me believing, after further emails and PM's, that you intended to commission me to carry out this work. One of the major points I put forward was that it was maybe less than optimal to put the capacitive reactive load on to your main amp as it could potentially spoil the audible range treble. I suggested a separate amp as it would also allow the volume to the batpures to be adjusted to fit in with the main speakers, and advised that a chip amp of a low power would be appropriate as it should easily handle the job and it should keep it cheap. You asked about a class D Tripath amp you already had and could you use that and I explained that it was not suitable due to it being class D. You then sent me photos of the class D amp you had already had made up by someone and asked me if I could re-use much of it in building you a new chip amp amp for the batpures. So I spent a while studying it, and said yes but the chip amp would need a lower voltage secondary transformer. I even, in good faith of the work coming my way, went on ebay and checked out Chinese made boards with LM3996 amp chips (which I had specifically recommended as most suitable), and found a specific board which seemed ideal for the task.

This amp was to be used via step up auto transformers I was to design and build..(or so I was invited to believe)... There is I believe a version of the batpures, at a much higher price, with suitable transformers built in, these come back into the story later....

Yes I went to great lengths to explain that to the best of my knowledge there were no published examples of previous DIY etc versions of what I was suggesting as the optimal solution and so, as I was having to do everything from scratch, and you cannot hear or reliably measure 30KHz + sound, whilst I would use best possible practice, precisely this solution has probably never been done before and so I couldn't guarantee 100% success. It would certainly have been infinitely better than any of the methods you were going to try without my advice and probably as good as the factory version.

And on we go with me led to believe you were assembling all the bits such as the chip amp boards from China... and then, only 10 days ago or so, asking what transformer to order to go with the boards...(:eek:) and expecting to hear that you've got the bits together to send me so I can build up the chip amp (a "gain clone") with the transformer I recommended and the boards I'd recommended and your old class d amp as a case donor... and then build the auto transformers to match....

Next I hear about is today, this thread. Without further contact, not a thanks, not an "I've found a new solution sorry for the hassle"... you've used my idea of the separate amp with it's own gain control, the boards I recommended, even the transformer you asked about only 10 days ago, and obviously either managed to do the work yourself or get a mate to do it for you, and scored some second hand batpures with the built in transformer so no longer needing me to wind the transformers for you....

All the emails answered and advice given in good faith. Time spent working out how best to do this job. Time spent searching on ebay amongst all the possible chip amp boards in order to suggest which to order, even coming back to ask mains transformer specs etc... Not even a PM or email of thanks or of "sorry I won't be going ahead with the work"

Very shabby, to say the least.

[Arkless Electronics]

Interesting perspective you have on this Jez.

From my point of view - yous suggested on a thread that you could do something here. After several exchanges you quoted me £300 (plus some parts I was required to provide) for a solution that wasn't guaranteed to work. I suggested we might re-use a digital amp I own already to bring the cost down but was told the guts would have to come out anyway (so no reduction seemed forthcoming).

My last communication with you on this was that I was unconvinced that I wanted to spend that amount of money on something with no guarantees but that I'd pick up the bits anyway (board and mains transformer you specified) and have a think.

When I went online to buy the bits (chip amp board and mains transformer) I quickly discovered that I could get a fully built up unit for not a lot more. Add in the fact that going down your route I would also be cannibalising a perfectly good Tripath 2022 90w stereo amp that cost me £60 in the first place, and a new unit was a no-brainer.

I don't see what's out of order here. Maybe if you'd been clearer how much of that £300 was building a gainclone and how much the rest of the solution we could have had a more productive discussion - as it was I came to the conclusion £300 was too rich for what I told you was a total experiement and what said at the outset I planned as a low-cost exercise.

To quote you on what you said (your confidence level) - this more than anything was what gave me pause for thought:

>
As I intimated in a previous PM, there is no tried and tested way of
doing this and this may well be a first, hence whilst you are assured
of my full attention and best efforts in this, and whilst I'm pretty
confident about it, as it can be regarded as quite experimental I
would not be willing to offer any guarantee that this will do a superb
job or you get your money back! I've never been asked to do this
before and I would be amazed if you could find anyone who has! This is uncharted territory....
>

Not exactly compelling is it?

I consider £300 to build up a gain clone from parts supplied by you, including having to first strip out an old amplifier to re-use the casework, sockets , speaker connectors etc and then to design build and supply one off auto transformers is VERY reasonable!

This would have been very much an experimental project hence I could not give watertight guarantees. To the best of my knowledge you will not find any reference as to this having been already successfully done elsewhere on either the internet, any electronics mag, hi fi mag or text book. There is no "this is the accepted way to do it" to base it on. In spite of this I was willing to take on the job. Hence I had to put quite some thought into how best to do it.

The salient points here are that you took my advice, my IP, and the best part of 2 hours of my time it took to work all this out and recommend specific amp boards etc, led me to believe I was to get the job of carrying out this work, and then used my ideas and advice to do the job yourself on the cheap and all without even a thanks, an acknowledgement, a PM to say you would not be going ahead or anything of the type. The closest hint I got that it even may not go ahead was this on 6/6/17

"HI Jez
I’ll pick up that board anyway and let you know what I’m doing after the Batpures arrive from Japan.
Still a fair amount of cash to spend on a total experiment so I need to be sure in my head that I want to go down that route."

Well you did go down "that route" using my ideas but on the cheap and doing it yourself...

And then this on 11/6/17 "Hi Jez just getting round to ordering that board do you have a suggested mains transformer to get as well?"

Whilst you expressed concern over the price and the experimental nature of this, the fact that you said you were going ahead and ordering the board, and then a week later asked for advice on the transformer to go with it, would I believe lead most reasonable people to concur that the job was to go ahead. I heard nothing further until reading this thread last night!

[The Black Adder]

I wouldn't mind giving some Super Tweeters a try again TBH.

I remember the ones in my Harbeth SHL5's to add realism.

[RothwellAudio]

After several exchanges you quoted me £300 (plus some parts I was required to provide) for a solution that wasn't guaranteed to work. I suggested we might re-use a digital amp I own already to bring the cost down but was told the guts would have to come out anyway (so no reduction seemed forthcoming).

To be fair to Jez I think you may not be aware how much work is involved in doing custom work, and reusing old casework can involve more work than building from scratch. I use metalwork that is CNC punched and folded and it takes literally seconds for one of those machines to knock out a case. Doing the same work by hand could take me all day.
Similarly, the machines that assemble surface mounted boards can pick and place 12,000 components per hour. Get a bloke at a bench to work at that speed!! :stalks:
Then compare Jez's quoted price for custom work to what a solicitor would charge just to write a letter :doh:
I don't think Jez was trying to rip you off.

[montesquieu]

Jez I have no desire to have a big public fight with you - I respect your work and enjoy your contributions here.

But - I told you I was looking to do something on the cheap to prove the idea. I had a bad feeling about spending £300 here, and if it turns out the bulk of the the £300 was in building a gainclone then I certainly made the right decision. Though to be fair, perhaps I should have contacted you to tell you what I was doing and why. I'm certainly sorry now I didn't

I went on to ebay immediately after that email on the 11th to look at boards and mains transformers - only to find I could thanks to the miracle of chifi I could get a fully built up device for not much more. (About $80, and customs only charged me £3 for some reason).

As I say I planned to come back to you about the autoformers (not really understanding what they would add in this scenario). I'm still up for that if it makes sense.

But your IP - buying a gainclone? Come on.


To be fair to Jez I think you may not be aware how much work is involved in doing custom work, and reusing old casework can involve more work than building from scratch. I use metalwork that is CNC punched and folded and it takes literally seconds for one of those machines to knock out a case. Doing the same work by hand could take me all day.
Similarly, the machines that assemble surface mounted boards can pick and place 12,000 components per hour. Get a bloke at a bench to work at that speed!! :stalks:
Then compare Jez's quoted price for custom work to what a solicitor would charge just to write a letter :doh:
I don't think Jez was trying to rip you off.

I don't think that either - I just wasn't convinced I wanted to spend that much at this stage and I told Jez as much. This was an experiment I made that clear.

I genuinely though re-using casework would help, it's a small case with switches, RCAs etc in place- it appeared to me that to swap out a ready-populated chip amp board for another one and swap the transformer was a half hour job.

[Arkless Electronics]

Jez I have no desire to have a big public fight with you - I respect your work and enjoy your contributions here.

But - I told you I was looking to do something on the cheap to prove the idea. I had a bad feeling about spending £300 here, and if it turns out the bulk of the the £300 was in building a gainclone then I certainly made the right decision. Though to be fair, perhaps I should have contacted you to tell you what I was doing and why. I'm certainly sorry now I didn't

I went on to ebay immediately after that email on the 11th to look at boards and mains transformers - only to find I could thanks to the miracle of chifi I could get a fully built up device for not much more. (About $80, and customs only charged me £3 for some reason).

As I say I planned to come back to you about the autoformers (not really understanding what they would add in this scenario). I'm still up for that if it makes sense.

But your IP - buying a gainclone? Come on.

I have no particular desire for a "big public fight" with you either and also enjoy your contributions to AOS but felt that something had to be said here. I certainly would not have thought you the type to do as you have....

At least half of the fee would have been in designing, building and testing the custom made auto transformers. They would then have needed testing in conjunction with the gain clone and the tweeters and any snubber networks etc found necessary (to suppress likely ringing etc) would have to be experimentally arrived at and added. Like I said, it is less straightforward than it appears. The points made by Andrew above are also most pertinent to this...

"But your IP - buying a gainclone? Come on." You were planning on obtaining the batpures and just connecting them across the outputs of your Radford power amp, sans transformer... I came up with the whole idea of using a separate amplifier to prevent the capacitive, and probably very low impedance loading at HF, from spoiling the top end from your Radford, as heard through the Tannoys own tweeters. I pointed out that a step up transformer would almost certainly be required. I said that a volume control on the extra amp would allow the super tweeter level to be set appropriately to match the Tannoy's. I advised that no you couldn't use the class D amps you had already and advised a specific gain clone type amp which I considered most suitable for the task, even going to the lengths of providing a link to a suitable board on ebay... and then gave you the specs for a suitable transformer.

Other than the autotransformers, which no doubt are built in to the factory version you bought second-hand, you followed all my technical proposals in carrying out the job yourself. Yeah that "IP".

I'm not about to take this any further or to put you on my ignore list or anything of the sort but to say I'm disappointed is putting it mildly... I would certainly think twice before doing any work for you in the future, not without guarantees that you were not going to use my answers to the questions on the lines of "and how do you propose to overcome this or that issue Jez in building this "thing" for me?" and then using the advice to either do the work yourself or get a mate to put into action or buy similar from China....

To someone who can afford the sort of hi fi gear you own, not to mention vintage harpsichords etc, I guess £300 isn't really much... It's a lot to me and I now know how a hi fi dealer who has gone to the lengths of a home demo etc must feel when the "customer" then buys it secondhand or from Amazon etc...

There is a possible issue with the bought in version of the gain clone which may make it less proficient than you would have hoped for in its standard form and which I would have remedied in my application of it.... I think I'll keep the details to myself....

Edit for your edit....
"I genuinely though re-using casework would help, it's a small case with switches, RCAs etc in place- it appeared to me that to swap out a ready-populated chip amp board for another one and swap the transformer was a half hour job"

More like 4-6 hours+ in all including safely removing all the old gubbins for re-use, measuring up, marking out and drilling new mounting holes for the board and for mounting the chip packages to the heatsink with new insulating pads etc and then testing it etc... More if there were any problems and it went less than 100% smoothly.

[The Black Adder]

Can we now bring this thread back to discussing the subject please. Thanks.

Sent from my 9001X using Tapatalk

[montesquieu]

Interestingly I took the Gainclone out last night and wired these direct from my speaker terminals.

The 4k ohm load seems to have no effect whatsoever on the power amp, which works just as it did before, no degredation at all in performance (this is currently a Tsakiridis KT120 push pull amp - the big Radford has gone off to Will for its long-awaited refurbishment). Meanwhile the supertweeter effect remains quite clear even given the (presumably measured) 70db sensitivity. I don't understand at all what's going on - comb filtering, phase shifts, I don't know but the effect is definitely there..

I contacted Takei-san at Taket and he says the batpures can be used as they are for speakers up to 94db. Above that he says you need his fancy ones (much more expensive) with the autoformers built in. This is the same info I got from the US distributor.

Really curious.

[brian2957]

I use mine connected directly to the speaker without any problem .

Tom when you talk about the effect of the Takets do you mean that this is a positive or negative effect ? Like most hifi some will like this kind of thing and some won't .

[montesquieu]

I use mine connected directly to the speaker without any problem .

Tom when you talk about the effect of the Takets do you mean that this is a positive or negative effect ? Like most hifi some will like this kind of thing and some won't .

Definitely positive. And it's top to bottom.

[brian2957]

Yup , I agree the Takets seem to provide improvements across the whole audio spectrum . Like you I've been at a loss to fathom what's going on . I only know what when I take them out the SQ suffers and they are quickly plugged back in again .

I've been thinking about buying another pair ( I missed yours for sale :( ) and moving them around my listening ares to see what the effect will be .

I'm surprised you didn't do that Tom ...or did you ?

[The Black Adder]

Me too, thanks Tom for going in depth with these.

So, do you have a link to where are these available from? Or have I missed something?

Sent from my 9001X using Tapatalk

[montesquieu]

So, do you have a link to where are these available from? Or have I missed something?



type 'batpure' into ebay, lots of Japanese sellers. There is a guy in France as well details on the taket site






I'm surprised you didn't do that Tom ...or did you ?


No I didn't ... beginning to wonder if I should have done!

[Wakefield Turntables]

Tom, you'll probably be getting more out of this experiment than myself as you have the updated Tannoy XO's. I'll have to wait until September for mine and subsequently miss out on all the fun 8-(

[montesquieu]

I've been thinking about buying another pair ( I missed yours for sale :( ) and moving them around my listening ares to see what the effect will be .


To maximise output how would you wire them - series or parallel?

[Wakefield Turntables]

Paul @ RFC has some rather interesting comments about Super Tweeters and Tannoy speakers, he's not a fan. :eek:

[montesquieu]

Paul @ RFC has some rather interesting comments about Super Tweeters and Tannoy speakers, he's not a fan. :eek:


Yes I know!

[brian2957]

To maximise output how would you wire them - series or parallel?

Aaah...now there's a question . I hadn't thought about that . I suppose I will have to try them both ways and have a good listen .

[walpurgis]

Parallel.

[brian2957]

That's what I was thinking Geoff , however , for a bit of fun I may try it both ways .

[Chris]

My Bat pures have just arrived. To be used with my WD25Ts. in the last 6 months has anyone arrived at any sort of conclusion regarding where and how many ? I rather fancy fitting them at the top of the rear baffle pointing straight upwards. Any views ?

[montesquieu]

You could give it a try but I found they worked best facing forward.

[Wakefield Turntables]

Forwards for me.

[Chris]

Thanks for the info. It´s just that I saw on the web somewhere that a guy used his facing upwards on the rear baffle out of sight. He used a small right angled shelf support as a base for them. If they need to be facing forward and I like what they do I guess I´ll inset a pair of banana female terminals into the tweeter compartment of my speakers via the rear baffle so I can fit them on a nice wood support and just plug them in when I like.

[CageyH]

Thanks for the info. It´s just that I saw on the web somewhere that a guy used his facing upwards on the rear baffle out of sight. He used a small right angled shelf support as a base for them. If they need to be facing forward and I like what they do I guess I´ll inset a pair of banana female terminals into the tweeter compartment of my speakers via the rear baffle so I can fit them on a nice wood support and just plug them in when I like.

That will be me.
http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?50498-What-are-your-Super-Tweeter-findings&p=852060#post852060

[Chris]

Hi Kevin,
Yes, you de man . Obviously it would be much more convenient to place them out of sight but why did you prefer them on the rear baffle ? Or rather any idea on what it depends ?

[CageyH]

I think it all depends on your speakers and environment. They sounded too "shouty" sat on the top, so I moved them to the back firing up. There is another pair firing out of the horn mouths as well....

[walpurgis]

They sounded too "shouty" sat on the top, so I moved them to the back firing up

If you can hear anything from them there's something not right. Supertweeters are supposed to emit sound above the audible output from the main tweeter.

[CageyH]

Yes I know. I am referring to the overall presentation of the music.

[montesquieu]

I think it all depends on your speakers and environment. They sounded too "shouty" sat on the top, so I moved them to the back firing up. There is another pair firing out of the horn mouths as well....

Your speakers aren't terribly sensitive though ... 86db according to the specs. Though the Takets are meant to be 70db (if measured correctly) so they ought not to be doing very much

My Tannoys are 93db ... there is nothing at all detectable directly from my Takets (put your ears to them with music playing, nothing appears to come out though my ear always feels a bit funny afterwards). But the best effect (subtle at best anyway) is forward firing. I suspect if I stuck them on the back any effect would diminish to nothing.

[walpurgis]

Your speakers aren't terribly sensitive though ... 86db according to the specs. Though the Takets are meant to be 70db (if measured correctly) so they ought not to be doing very much

My Tannoys are 93db ... there is nothing at all detectable directly from my Takets (put your ears to them with music playing, nothing appears to come out though my ear always feels a bit funny afterwards). But the best effect (subtle at best anyway) is forward firing. I suspect if I stuck them on the back any effect would diminish to nothing.

Yes. I agree with all that. Including the bit about making your ear feel funny. Listening close to a supertweeter will do exactly that.

[CageyH]

Your speakers aren't terribly sensitive though ... 86db according to the specs. Though the Takets are meant to be 70db (if measured correctly) so they ought not to be doing very much

My Tannoys are 93db ... there is nothing at all detectable directly from my Takets (put your ears to them with music playing, nothing appears to come out though my ear always feels a bit funny afterwards). But the best effect (subtle at best anyway) is forward firing. I suspect if I stuck them on the back any effect would diminish to nothing.

Horses for courses. I tried them on top, and preferred them on the back firing up. The key message is to ty them for yourself, and see what position you prefer. What they do is subtle for sure, but they do something,

[muimui]

Hello everybody
I also have a pair of Batpure tweeters. They are connected to stacked QUAD 57 directly to it’s speaker terminals. The tweeter is mounted between the QUADs with no enclosure (wires and friction between QUADs only support). They sound so good that I just ordered another pair. I intend to use one pair per stacked QUADs. They also seemed to make the QUADs blend in better with my pair of Linn Sizmik 12.45 subwoofers .
Muimui

[alphaGT]

Horses for courses. I tried them on top, and preferred them on the back firing up. The key message is to ty them for yourself, and see what position you prefer. What they do is subtle for sure, but they do something,

I agree there can be many factors involved concerning if you like them forward or upward or backward. How reflective are your walls? How big or small your room? Do you have heavy drapes behind your listening position? Or behind the speakers? (A friend hung a large tapestry behind his speakers and made a huge difference in their sound, although no super tweeters.) and why are they called Batpure? Are they made with guano or something? ;-)

Russell

[Chris]

I have lent my Taket Batpures to a mate who has the WD20T speakers which use the Seas transparent concentric driver and their effect is nothing short of miraculous (clarity, liveliness etc. and apparent higher volume) compared to how they perform with my Seas Millenium tweetered WD25Ts (smoother, more sophisticated sounding ). Is this to be expected ? Do concentric cones´tweeters benefit more from supertweeters than conventional ones ? hence the existence of the Tannoy jobs in particular?

[Chris]

I have lent my Taket Batpures to a mate who has the WD20T speakers which use the Seas transparent concentric drivers and their effect is nothing short of miraculous (clarity, liveliness etc. and apparent higher volume) compared to how they perform with my Seas Millenium tweetered WD25Ts (smoother, more sophisticated sounding ). Is this to be expected ? Do concentric cones´tweeters benefit more from supertweeters than conventional ones ? hence the existence of the Tannoy jobs in particular?