The Mysterious Case of the Listening Window! By Jeff Day, Positive Feedback

PeterA

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So we can admit that the ultra heavily tweaked Jeff speakers sound "natural" ?

Quoting Jeff "To kick off the project we removed the stock Westminster Royal SE's internal low & high frequency crossovers, and all of the internal wiring and connectors. "

And then he replaced everything with cursed tweaks :) "including beautiful walnut & maple isolation platforms to mount the Duelund CAST components on" See https://positive-feedback.com/audio-discourse/duelund-coherent-audio-from-denmark-the-duelund-wrse-project-part-2-duelund-cast-silver-capacitors-and-duelund-cast-silver-copper-autotransformers/

Fransisco, Perhaps we are reading different articles. You like to reference reading material. My comments are based on the Jeff Day blog I linked in the original post of this thread. He discusses Altec speakers. He does not discuss the Tannoys to which you refer. Here is what he actually wrote:

"I have a pretty good idea of what Stokowski thought equipment should be like to sound "live", given I own the last pair of the personal loudspeakers Stokowski owned before he moved back to the UK from the USA, the custom "Stokowski" Altec loudspeakers that were probably built around the time the drivers were produced, 1961 to 1964 (more HERE). "

Here again are his words summarizing his thoughts on the matter:

"The ability of a hifi system - or the individual components it is composed of - to be able to play a wide variety of recorded music from different periods, of different styles, and of varied recording quality, I refer to as the listening window.

The listening window is a subjective measure of how wide a variety of recorded music one can listen to through a high-performance audio system and still have it sound and feel believably like a live music experience.

My parents console televisions stereos from the 1950s and 1960s had a wide listening window that allowed for enjoyable listening of pretty much anything of any recording quality. How was that accomplished?

Yet many contemporary audio systems fail miserably at having a wide listening window, and can only accomodate a very narrow listening window of superb recordings, or risk sounding decidedly amusical on average recordings of great music.

A narrow listening window results in their owners buying the same audiophile recordings over and over again with each new remaster of the same old recording, because that's the only thing that sounds good on their stereo systems.

An increasing number of us hifi nuts and music lovers again want a stereo system with a wide listening window - like many of those high-performance vintage systems so easily achieved - so we can listen to whatever we want to whenever we feel like it - 78RPM recordings, LPs, reel-to-reel, FM, CDs, digital streams, whether they are of average quality or of superb quality, and still have it sound and feel credibly like a live musical experience. "
 
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ddk

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So we can admit that the ultra heavily tweaked Jeff speakers sound "natural" ?

Quoting Jeff "To kick off the project we removed the stock Westminster Royal SE's internal low & high frequency crossovers, and all of the internal wiring and connectors. "

And then he replaced everything with cursed tweaks :) "including beautiful walnut & maple isolation platforms to mount the Duelund CAST components on" See https://positive-feedback.com/audio-discourse/duelund-coherent-audio-from-denmark-the-duelund-wrse-project-part-2-duelund-cast-silver-capacitors-and-duelund-cast-silver-copper-autotransformers/
They're not ultra tweaked, they didn't alter the cabinets nor messed around with the drivers they built another crossover with different parts still based on the original one which they can reinstall. Crossovers are the weakest link in most vintage and some modern speakers, if one knows what they're doing rebuilding them with higher quality parts isn't a necessarily a tweak. As far as this particular pair goes, impossible to say if the part replacement had a positive or negative effect without hearing the speaker specially since the Westministers aren't that great to begin with.

As far as Wide Listening Window goes, it has nothing to do with tweaks, upgrades, etc., or about any particular equipment, it's a philosophy and an ideal.

david
 

tima

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Peter, are you using your PassLabs phono, or the Lamm ?

Hi Lagonda, I am using both phono stages and will soon be auditioning a third. The post above is based on listening impressions with the Micro Seiki and the Pass phono. They hold for the Lamm also.

I must have missed your introduction of a Lamm phonostage. Which model do you have? I'm guessing the LP2.1D.
 
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tima

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that’s the one. I think you might’ve reviewed it but I can’t remember. I’ll search for your review and see if my listening impressions match what you heard.

 

microstrip

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Fransisco, Perhaps we are reading different articles. You like to reference reading material. My comments are based on the Jeff Day blog I linked in the original post of this thread. He discusses Altec speakers. He does not discuss the Tannoys to which you refer. Here is what he actually wrote:

"I have a pretty good idea of what Stokowski thought equipment should be like to sound "live", given I own the last pair of the personal loudspeakers Stokowski owned before he moved back to the UK from the USA, the custom "Stokowski" Altec loudspeakers that were probably built around the time the drivers were produced, 1961 to 1964 (more HERE). "
(...)
I did not reference reading material as you did it. Read what you get when you click HERE.

"This is an article that tells the story of the successful marriage of the latest state-of-art Duelund Coherent Audio CAST tinned-copper capacitors, inductors, and resistors—in a Jean Hiraga inspired crossover circuit (photo below)—with the historically important vintage Altec loudspeakers that were custom made for the domestic use of conductor Leopold Stokowski in the early 1960s (hereinafter referred to as the "Stokowski" Altec's). "

The Westminster's were just the inspiration. You can read the full 7 pages article - really interesting, and you will get a better idea of Jeff's ideas.
 

microstrip

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They're not ultra tweaked, they didn't alter the cabinets nor messed around with the drivers they built another crossover with different parts still based on the original one which they can reinstall. Crossovers are the weakest link in most vintage and some modern speakers, if one knows what they're doing rebuilding them with higher quality parts isn't a necessarily a tweak. As far as this particular pair goes, impossible to say if the part replacement had a positive or negative effect without hearing the speaker specially since the Westministers aren't that great to begin with.

As far as Wide Listening Window goes, it has nothing to do with tweaks, upgrades, etc., or about any particular equipment, it's a philosophy and an ideal.

david

No, it was a different crossover based on an Hiraga design. It all very well described in the articles. Anyway I can't understand how a complete re-design with ultra fashionable components, including wood dampers and special cables is not a tweak and using an audiophile speaker cable is a tweak ... BTW, as I told Peter I am addressing the Altec's.
 

ddk

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No, it was a different crossover based on an Hiraga design. It all very well described in the articles. Anyway I can't understand how a complete re-design with ultra fashionable components, including wood dampers and special cables is not a tweak and using an audiophile speaker cable is a tweak ... BTW, as I told Peter I am addressing the Altec's.
I guess it comes down to our definition of the tweak. This is a custom crossover not like changing a fuse, adding stillpoints or replacing random parts in the crossover which is what I would think of as tweaks. As I mentioned that most vintage speaker's crossovers can be improved upon by someone knowledgeable, the crossover is really the weakest link with these speakers and yet not so easy to update either. This tweak, upgrade, rebuild or anything you want to call it can easily bring more resolution, the problem I've encountered in many of these replacements is the change in balance and overall character of the speaker, some like them while others like me hear a loss in overall naturalness in exchange for some transparency, it's a personal preference. Altecs included.

david
 

microstrip

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I guess it comes down to our definition of the tweak. This is a custom crossover not like changing a fuse, adding stillpoints or replacing random parts in the crossover which is what I would think of as tweaks. As I mentioned that most vintage speaker's crossovers can be improved upon by someone knowledgeable, the crossover is really the weakest link with these speakers and yet not so easy to update either. This tweak, upgrade, rebuild or anything you want to call it can easily bring more resolution, the problem I've encountered in many of these replacements is the change in balance and overall character of the speaker, some like them while others like me hear a loss in overall naturalness in exchange for some transparency, it's a personal preference. Altecs included.

david

What is your opinion on the Duelund's? I have no doubt that Jeff's modifications changed the overall character of the speaker, particularly after reading his complete writings. ;)

How would a Duelund JBL DD55000 sound like?
 

ddk

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What is your opinion on the Duelund's? I have no doubt that Jeff's modifications changed the overall character of the speaker, particularly after reading his complete writings. ;)

How would a Duelund JBL DD55000 sound like?
You know I can't answer that without hearing speaker :) !

Aside from some cables I don't have any direct experience with Duelund products I only heard before and after results in a few friend systems when they did a similar construction and replaced their speaker crossovers with very expensive Duelund ones. Honestly I didn't hear much of a difference before and after, didn't like the speaker before and nothing major changed with the Duelund upgrade. Otherwise I have no other data points.

I have no opinion of Duelund products one way or another, the DD55000 is excellent as it is but surely can benefit from a crossover upgrade by the right person, the brand choice for parts is arbitrary.

david
 
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bonzo75

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So we can admit that the ultra heavily tweaked Jeff speakers sound "natural" ?

Quoting Jeff "To kick off the project we removed the stock Westminster Royal SE's internal low & high frequency crossovers, and all of the internal wiring and connectors. "

And then he replaced everything with cursed tweaks :) "including beautiful walnut & maple isolation platforms to mount the Duelund CAST components on" See https://positive-feedback.com/audio-discourse/duelund-coherent-audio-from-denmark-the-duelund-wrse-project-part-2-duelund-cast-silver-capacitors-and-duelund-cast-silver-copper-autotransformers/

Tannoys are known for great drivers and poor crossovers. Altecs too, JC Morrison has also mentioned on his blog how poor Altec cross overs are.
 
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kjartanb

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Altec VOT crossovers were made for example for cinema and the speakers standing behind the cinema screen. For home use, you need different crossovers. I have A5s and have original crossovers which I don't like at all. I used some 6db/octave autoformer crossovers for a period (which were fine) and now use Hiraga inspired crossovers on my A5s (which I like best at the moment). With a valve pre and First Watt or Neurochrome power amps I can enjoy any source: TV, youtube, Spotify, CD, Vinyl (old and new)... and I think I now understand what Jeff means with a "wide listening window".
 
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Ron Resnick

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Wilson Maxx something currently.

david

Really?!?! I did not know this until I just stumbled across this reply.

Maybe Lamm designs really do solve for, among other things, taming the metal dome tweeter of earlier Wilson speakers? (I have always suggested this about Steve's system, but I never knew that Vladimir Lamm himself actually uses a Wilson speaker with a metal dome tweeter.)
 
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