When I first joined Stereonet in 2007 I was in the early stages of searching for a complete new system to replace my Dynaudio Audience 82’s/ Marantz PM17 integrated/ Denon DCD3000 and subsequently received some great advice and leads to various manufacturers and suppliers. That eventually led to my purchasing the earliest of the Maestro series from SGR Audio with subsequent upgrades, all of which have been wonderful, the company being a joy to deal with, but that’s not the story I want to relay here. Because all the while that I have used the Dyn’s and SGR’s I have had a pair of speakers stashed in the study behind the door. A (hoarded) pair that I put too much time and effort into to just chuck away, that were too good to abandon but not well known enough to sell for any worthwhile amount and that I had too much affection for to forsake for good.

They were a kit speaker, the drivers and crossovers purchased from Pat O’Brian’s WAR Audio here in Perth

 

 

Original Cabinet design ^^^ Frequency response of my finished originals ^^^ and tweeter blurb can't find anything on the Access drivers.

 

and enclosures produced by a cabinet maker mate in a nice Jarrah finish. I added internal mid-range enclosures, a plinth base and spikes and filled the bottom third chamber with dry builder’s sand to add mass. Originally intended as large stand-mounts I decided the stand should be integral, therefore simply to make them floor-standers. A note on the kits, built in ‘98 they are MTM design with Access (Focal offshoot) 120mm x 2 mid-bass and Orca Tweeter with Axon caps and WAR custom inductors. Once I had assembled the speakers and fired them up I never quite got them sounding as good as I expected. Different amps and pre’s maybe made them sound different but not great and eventually I bought the Dynaudio’s with the WAR’s relegated to the study.

 

There was a brief renaissance when I found a pair of DIY speakers by the side of the road with a very nice 10” bass driver called Wico Acustic (German) that I decided to include in the build by emptying the bottom chamber of its sand to free-up the space in the sides (above) for the bass driver and created a 'port' of sorts by building out the back an add-on section with openings that I could adjust with inserts and stuffing. This actually worked reasonably well considering the volume of the chamber was pretty random and the crossover was adapted by myself having no real experience in custom speaker building despite the fact I did build a pair of Wharfedale speakers from kits back in my twenties (early ‘70’s) and they lasted for almost 30 years. The Dovedales had a super-musical sound, if not hi-end, but one thing I knew (though I did keep myself well in denial) was that the WAR Audio speakers just didn’t have that musicality of those plain old Dovedales.

So, the speakers languished behind their door for years and years. Though again, I did attempt to revive them briefly by swapping-out the passive crossovers for a pair of Redback A5350 active processors and using 6-channels of SGR amplification to power them, though using the Denon CD variable output as source.

Now as good as that player was back in the day, having to use the output from the CD at less than half volume didn’t do the sound any favours. Although performance was much better it was still too messy, too inconvenient and not, of course, near the level of the SGR –Bel Canto combo, so back to the study they went, even more unloved.

 

Forward fast several more years to Covid 19 boredom and the need to free up the area behind the study door for a new bookcase,- what to do with the unwanted speakers? Still not happy to simply dispose of them and knowing they’d be unsaleable I had to give them another shot at proving their worth, so started to look for enough channels of decent amplification to get them singing. I have a Rotel stereo power amp and then two Marantz stereo integrateds that I wanted to use but they’re not practical for use as power amps. Cruising the classifieds I found and enquired after a few multi-channel power amps and mono-block sets that I lost interest in or were just too expensive for a whimsical experiment that could be a total waste of time (apologies @Spinnergeoff & @AJL999 & others ) Then came @Analysis and his Marantz Multi Zone Selector ZS5300 that looked as though it may be right for the job and for once I stopped pondering and went for it. Many thanks to Bill for his patience and excellent packing. I must remember to learn how to give positive feedback for sellers who come good like that.

 

The upshot of all this, - did it work? Well yes, it bloody-well did. This time I fed the system from the spare XLR analogue outputs of my Bel Canto CD2 which has all the connectivity you could need and is a better player than the old Denon then into the Redback X/O’s then six line feeds to the power amps,- I had to make six XLR to RCA patch-leads up to make it work though, then six speaker cable feeds. Jeez, I do remember one of the reasons I gave up previously was the faffing about to connect a system like this. A little more determination got it done properly this time.

You may see from the pics the set-up and positioning of the speakers is not ideal. My room simply does not have the space for multiple sets of large speakers and I am lucky that this is at least MY area of the house to play around in, though I do get the occasional whinge as to the mess.

 

One potential drawback has been the inclusion of 13 yes thirteen! volume controls in the chain. First the pair in the variable output from the Bel Canto then the two master vol’s and six, (3 x 2 individual sets) in the Redback for each channel. THEN 3 more in the Marantz controller/amp.- Recipe for disaster or what! How I’ve largely overcome that is to set the outputs from the player to 95 – 100%. Set the Redback gain levels for each driver to the attenuation required for a flat (to my ear at least) response. Then set the amp levels to around 50% so as not to overdrive them and use the Master gain in the Redbacks as volume control, though I do have the option of remote volume in the Marantz for listening position fine-tuning.

Another quandary was the crossover points for each driver. Luckily the Redback allows this adjustment very easily and I’ve tinkered with different combinations for the last week. The mid-tweeter was reasonably easy as according to the documentation from WAR Audio that I still have the X/O point is around 2.5 to 3kh and anywhere around there I can’t hear too much difference, fine tuning is not so fine with the Redback. Mid-Bass, allows a far greater play around as the two mid-bass units were originally meant to do full bass duties anyway. I’ve been as low as 200Hz all the way up to 700 as the Wico 10” is pretty capable, but settled around 500 as being best for tune-full and not-too-boomy bass performance

 

All up I’m more than happy to have these old friends back in my life. No they sure can’t match my SGR’s, at a fraction of the cost I couldn’t expect that, the bass is not as full and deep, mids not as pure and defined but they are a surprisingly pleasant listen the tweeters are excellent really chrystaline and sweet. I tell you they bring a smile to my dial just to have them back. What is a revelation is how much better they are than what I remember. Musical, engaging and clear (up to certain levels) I have been having fun listening to album after album and really enjoying the experience. All that's left to do is clear some space in my rack to fit all of that in there, which I can do as the old DVD player and multi-disc CD (for party times)can both go.

 

Happy days,

Ged

great story Ged, its good to hear that components so far down the chain still bring smiles and fun when listening to them

Good work Grimmie!

:Looks awesome Ged!

17 hours ago, TP1 said:

:Looks awesome Ged!

 

On 23/07/2020 at 4:33 PM, Spinnergeoff said:

Good work Grimmie!

 

On 21/07/2020 at 7:58 PM, wen said:

great story Ged, its good to hear that components so far down the chain still bring smiles and fun when listening to them

 

Thanks fellers, others on here have reported fixing up components or systems and this almost always brings a happy reaction. I guess once you have invested time and money to something it pretty much guarantees positivity to the result.

 

Nevertheless, it's all good. Listened to Get The Blessing 'Astronautilus' this morning which is a pretty heavy and unforgiving modern jazz album. Really sounded good. A different presentation the the SGR/AMR/Belcanto for sure, but a real pleasure for sure.

 

One thing that's holding it back is the cramped nature of it's situation. The room is simply not big enough, yet I have managed to squeeze it in.

 

 

The cavities created by the speakers and walls are bound to lead to boominess and unwanted reflections but whadaya do. No way am I going to remove the main speakers, not even for a test!