Mika K's system

Excellent, my apologies for missing that & you having to repeat it ;)

I should imagine the capacitors may well be running in but I doubt the inductors/transformers will. But then I have been wrong before :eyebrows:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7162/6...c32fee79_z.jpg

Nice looking tuner there....Sansui?


Regards D S D L

Sansui tuner indeed, mint condition model TU-9500 from 1973 to be more exact.

Loong long time time and no update, so..

..perhaps time to open things up a little ;)

Work aside during the past months have mostly been just listening music, written few album reviews and done few visit to listen other enthusiasts systems. Also had a change to visit the factory of Genelec studio monitors coming from Finland http://www.genelec.com/. Oh boy, they had few really nice listening rooms there as well some fairly competent information available considering speaker enclosure diffractions and room acoustics among other things.

For what comes to my own system there is no changes but I've decided to try new horns instead of current Altec H-811B cast aluminium ones and have already white Jabo KH-55 tractrix horns waiting for suitable adapters. Hopefully will get these in place during the next few weeks and post my initial results.

Lovely system Mika and Shindo amps! I was hunting for some Shindo 300B's to power the Agi's a while back but gave up when I saw the price! Nice 401 too...

Thanks!

The Shindo amps (and especially the Aurieges MM preamp) really are something special even if they're considered to be only the entry-level units. However the maker himself says that there is that kind of hierarchy between the units as each design is complementing the tubes used and thus always their own beast in some sense. Shindo amps also seem to have some synergy with the Altecs and Auditorium 23 cables I'm using, so all smile here.. :D

Also if you ever find yourself travelling in the northern Finland, you'd be most welcome to have a listen.

Today finished the hard part, so the new horns are now in place. Tomorrow evening starts the easier part i.e. fine tuning the crossovers and the aligment plus listening the result.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7215/7...6576bc35_z.jpg

Then sometime later have to think setting up the supertweeters and also crafting better support for the horns as the old ones are not so well suitable for the round shape.. ;)

Wow, some nice looking horns. That should sound mighty fine when ready. :thumbsup:

Jabo KH-55

Have now listened these horns for few days and the xo adjustments start to be somewhere at the correct area with 500Hz xo frequency as well as the alignment for the horns. Yesterday crafted quickly supports from the Biltema corks had around at the warehouse but still need to come up with a sturdier design that has also some built-in adjustability. Below you can see the adapters and the Biltema supports doing their job.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7102/6...df114a92_z.jpg

After started to adapt to the new sound connect also John Blue ST-100 supertweeters and with trial-and-error method ended up to use 14kHz xo point with the few dbs lower sensitivity than the main drivers. Even if separately the supertweeters do not add much, they seem to have serious additional value for the system soundstage and also resolution. Have to still try out few different locations for the supertweeters etc but sounds promising already.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7054/6...c2d46c75_z.jpg

Now the speakers bandwidth starts somewhere from 35Hz level all the way to the 30-40kHz region and despite of their not so compact size (140cm tall, 85cm wide and more than 70cm deep with weight approx. 130kg each) they seem to blend pretty nicely to our living room. Even Mrs. commented the old Altec H-811B horns "Oh boy they look small and funny" when I was taking them to the storage. So I guess these are then approved ;)

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7208/6...443cdd56_c.jpg

Now trying to calm down and only listen lot of music with some fine tuning. Atleast until summer that is as have decided that next thing is to build some cross-section support inside the Onken cabinets and also add some dampening material to critical places.. :D

Furutech DF-2

There's nothing so irritating than just receiving recently bought LP and noticing that is warped pretty badly. Because owen-method is not so well received and the commercial machines for this are really expensive, the registered national finnish association of hifi enthuasts (Hifiharrastajat ry) bought Furutech DF-2 LP disc flattener that travels from member to member around the country.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5447/7...0e4e79c8_z.jpg

The usage of the machine is easy, almost idiot proof I could say and so far have flatted few of my LPs and again one is under work as I write this. The only downside seems to be the time the operation takes as usually you need to adjust the machine to warm the LP at mild 65 deg of Celcius temperature from two to three hours depending of the problem and thickness of LP and after that it takes still two more hours for cooling down. Luckily the machine does this all automatically.

The Furutech is solid and really expensive machine for very limited use but still it seems to do what is promises. Still have few LPs to go and then the machine will continue to another local enthusiast in its custom crafted wooden case. Quite a nice benefit of belonging to the association.. :D