Duetta Re-Due

[wineslob]

As some may have noticed, or not, I am the owner of a pair of 1986 Apogee Duetta II's. One day I noticed that the right speaker bass panel wasen't playing (uh oh).
Well the problem was this:

The dark spots are cracks in the aluminum ribbon material, and caused the panels to open (electrical). They are dark because I tried a repair which diden't work.
Unfortuately getting the panels redone is out of the question, I've got a 13 y.o. daughter thats just gotten her braces and she's in Ballet. So it's gonna be a few years before I can spend $3000 to get them fixed up.
Well, I've been a DIY speaker builder for 30 years, so I come up with an idea. I'll "create" a hybrid Apogee. This is nothing new, Apogee realized that many potential customers coulden't afford their full ribbon speakers, so they came up with "hybrids" like the Centuar.
My idea is to make a "major" hybrid, which will use the midrange/ tweeter out of the Duetta and a bass/mid-bass driver (10" cone)
I have a couple of drivers laying around so I do the calcs and come up with a 2.7 cf box: (I do my own woodworking)

Here is one just after a coat of satin black, it's still shiney:

I've got both cabs done, woofers installed, but no pics yet. I'll post in the next couple of days.

 

[FrantzM]

Wine

There is a person in the MA area that repairs these for what I remember was a decent price around $300. The only issue was to ship the speakers. Google Apogee Forums .. now if you absolutely want to go ahead then by all means do ... else you can have the panel redone and there are even new panels for the Duetta from Graz HERE.. The bass panel requires some gig to mount it properly but since you are a DIY..

 

[wineslob]

Frantz, Graz will not do DIY on the bass panels (through Rich Murry out here West Coast only). Bob D (Mass) did one panel in 2005, total cost $1000, not too bad. Wish I had done both, but the one now dead, looked OK at the time. Bob has been MIA for a couple of years now.
Graz install is the roughly $3000, and is the only game in town anymore.
I'm not going to destroy the speakers, but pull the MR/T's out, and mount them in an Ipe "panel" about 5" wide with tilting abilities, so I can get the soundstage correct.
When I have the cash I'll drive the speakers to Rich's (a few hours drive to Nevada) and have them refurbished. Just not now.

I've actually got the speakers up and running, they sound pretty good. There's a bit of coloration (poly woofers) but I'm going to replace the woofers with a Peerless unit (SLS 830668) which will work in the box and has been getting rave reviews, plus the price is right.

 

[cjfrbw]

How are you handling the crossover on that, Wine?

 

[wineslob]

I'm going to pull the existing cross and make a box for it, or, because we will be storing the speakers (Ap's) behind a 56" TV, I'll make extensions.

 

[FrantzM]

wineslob

I can see you have done your research. I did speak to Bob D a few years ago ..Can you post Rich Murry coordinates? I have a Diva, that will likely need some repair in the future.. Seems to work but you never know. It is not getting any younger ...

 

[muralman1]

wineslob

I can see you have done your research. I did speak to Bob D a few years ago ..Can you post Rich Murry coordinates? I have a Diva, that will likely need some repair in the future.. Seems to work but you never know. It is not getting any younger ...

Rich Murry is in Minden Nevada. You can spend $3000 or $10000. He is now replacing all the magnets for some clients. He has done that for Duettas and Divas.

 

[muralman1]

Hi Wineslob,

Nice to see you do what you can to get decent music going again. The box finish is really cool, as good as Rich does.

 

[wineslob]

Thanks Mural! Wait till I get the Ipe panels done. The wood is a deep red. Just gorgeous.

 

[muralman1]

Awesome I bet. When my foot gets good enough to drive, I promise to make it up there.

 

[wineslob]

Here is one of the "bass" cabinets. I say bass, but they actually cross at 500hz, so more of a mid/bass.
I've got it positioned in front of the "good" Apogee, just to see if my idea is listenable. It is.

These are the Ipe panels that I'll be mounting the MR/T's in. This wood is VERY hard and, as I found out, somewhat brittle. It likes to splinter, making it a challange to work with.

Sorry about the fuzzy pics. I used my daughter's camera, which has shutter issues. We can't seem to get it to shoot in a "fast" mode.

 

[muralman1]

How do you do this without making your Duettas irreparable?

 

[wineslob]

How do you do this without making your Duettas irreparable?

The MR/T's unbolt from the panel they are now in. Surprisingly, they only bolt in from one side. I've had them out before to replace the ribbons which was an easy DIY.

 

[wineslob]

*update* I've got the Paduk NOT Ipe, (my bad), panels with ribbons installed on the "subs". The sound is very good. Some of the differences from the original Duettas: The positioning is nowhere near as a PITA as before. However the distance from the wall behind the speakers is still very important. If too close, say 3 ft or less, the mids become over excited. Vocals sound thrust forward. Not good. But if the speakers are out roughly 5 ft.................magic. They can also now stand a little toe-in which helps with the "dissapearing act" which the Duettas, to be honest, were not all that great at. Since the speakers are now smaller, they are far eaiser to position and put back after listening so the WAF is much better.
I also made a very, very plesant discovery. I recently picked up a Lux CL35 MkIII tube preamp. I made sure everything was OK with the unit. Cleaned and inspected, fired it up. So far, so good. I pull out the Lux CO2 pre that I've been using for 20+years and replace with the CL35.

I put on Essential Janis Joplin...........

HOLY *&%#

I haven't felt this "giddy" about my system since I bought the Duettas in 2005. What an incredible preamp, plus a pat on my own back for getting these speakers to "work". Honestly I didn't know if my idea would work, but I'm impressed.

I'm now thinking of all the music I can't wait to "hear again". This is fun.

I'll get some pictures up.

 

[cjfrbw]

Nice work, Wine.
I re-activated my rebuilt Stage speakers (Graz single sided bass and XLR mid) at our Santa Cruz place. I found a Parasound A23 amp brand new in a box at Goodwill for $45 for the bass panel. With an active crossover and tubes on the MRT, it's nice to hear my Stages sing again, they sound great.

 

[RUR]

Nice work, Wine.
I re-activated my rebuilt Stage speakers (Graz single sided bass and XLR mid) at our Santa Cruz place. I found a Parasound A23 amp brand new in a box at Goodwill for $45 for the bass panel. With an active crossover and tubes on the MRT, it's nice to hear my Stages sing again, they sound great.

Carl, have you ever posted details of your Analysis mods? I thought they were fascinating and regret not having the time, when I visited, to fully understand what you've done. Perhaps a new thread or a PM, rather than de-railing this one.

 

[cjfrbw]

Ken,

I don't think it will take up too much room.

The Analysis Epsilon two way ribbon speakers came with an external passive crossover in a box, so they had no on-board passive crossover. The mid and bass ribbons can be directly amplified through the speaker binding posts. The factory sold them this way as an option.

Scheme:

Allnic preamp feeds Accuphase solid state four-way F25 active crossover, crossover points 70, 350, and 3500.

Analysis Epsilon speaker is actually unmodified except for external crossover but is band restricted to 70-3500 with the bass panel getting band 70-350 and the midrange ribbon getting 350-3500HZ.

There is an array of aurum cantus foil tweeters on stands adjacent to the Epsilon speakers which handle 3500-20K plus and are arranged in a rough radialstrahler fashion, facing forward, up and backward,

The band from 80 and below is handled through a Yamaha RX Z9 home theater receiver, which does digital correction and bass management and feeds (currently)bass signals to four subwoofers around the room. Three of the subwoofers are set up in a Geddes array.

The Yamaha also handles the home theater surrounds and music surrounds, which are amplified by 300b amps.

The mid and bass panels of the Epsilon speakers are powered by two 50 watt Wavac stereo tube amps to handle the four channels, two channels for 350-3500 and two channels for 70-350HZ . The tweeter arrays are powered by a Wavelength Jr. EL 84 stereo tubed single ended amp to handle two channels of 3500 to 20k plus HZ. The subwoofers are self powered and are mediated through a tube rectified headphone/preamp with signal drawn from the Yamaha RX Z9.

Whew! I guess it did take a bit.

The Santa Cruz setup now is a kind of mini setup that is similar but using my out of storage Apogee Stage rebuilt speakers, with active crossover, but is all digital and mainly CD and AAC from a Mac Mini server.

 

[wineslob]

Here is what the almost finished speakers look like:

A bit fuzzy but you get the idea.

Close up:

My wife dosen't like the red color of the Paduk, so I'll be painting that part black.
I'm also going to use a different driver, a Peerless SLS woofer.

 

[cjfrbw]

Looks very nice, but as with all things WAF, your mileage will vary.

 

[wineslob]

Looks very nice, but as with all things WAF, your mileage will vary.

lolz, agreed, but she suggested the black, so she can't bitch................much. Plus the new 10" drivers will look much better than the 20 yo ratty driver I'm using right now. BTW the cabinets were designed for the new drivers, the old ones just happened to work in a 2.6 cf enclosure.