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TDL TRL2

True.

Do you think you will finish them sometime? I was keen to see them finished with the cool perspex fronts ;) Anyway, good luck with the Sonys, Ive been reading the thread and they look interesting, Seas drivers is a good bet for decent sound too. :)
 
Hi all

First post after stumbling into this thread whilst doing loads of research on the TDL RTL2 that i pinched off a mate who had them gathering dust in his garage. :cool:

So far i have done exactly the same as Mike and fitted the Jantzen Cross Caps.
Replaced the 6uF cap with the 5.6 and 0.39uF cross caps.
Used a MOX 1.8ohm resistor instead of the ceramic one cos i ordered the MOX by accident! Don't know if this is affecting it at all.
Changed the 10uF cap for a Cross Cap as well.

Using QED micro wire internally.

All i can say is that the sound is now much better than before. Running off Nad C320BEE amp and Nad C521i cd player.

No more bass boom and the treble is more forward and totally smooth. Also i've sat them on 'Tesco Granite Placemats' using the original spikes to stop them vibrating against the floor.

Prob the best £26 i've spent in my hi fi career so far! lol!

Looking forward to anymore tips on making these classic speakers sing. :)

Kenny
 
I'd say fiddling with the lining of the cabinets is a definite imrovement- this holds true for most speakers in my experience...

I used to have that NAD amp, it's nice- have to spend decent amount of money before significantly bettering it imo
 
Hi all

First post after stumbling into this thread whilst doing loads of research on the TDL RTL2 that i pinched off a mate who had them gathering dust in his garage. :cool:

So far i have done exactly the same as Mike and fitted the Jantzen Cross Caps.
Replaced the 6uF cap with the 5.6 and 0.39uF cross caps.
Used a MOX 1.8ohm resistor instead of the ceramic one cos i ordered the MOX by accident! Don't know if this is affecting it at all.
Changed the 10uF cap for a Cross Cap as well.

Using QED micro wire internally.

All i can say is that the sound is now much better than before. Running off Nad C320BEE amp and Nad C521i cd player.

No more bass boom and the treble is more forward and totally smooth. Also i've sat them on 'Tesco Granite Placemats' using the original spikes to stop them vibrating against the floor.

Prob the best £26 i've spent in my hi fi career so far! lol!

Looking forward to anymore tips on making these classic speakers sing. :)

Kenny

To those who've changed the tweeters for something that doesn't roll off as steeply below 2KHz (looking at the pics above), the designer suggested replacing the 6uF approx cap with a 4.7uF one! I didn't like what it did to the standard Vifa tweeter, but it would be better possibly with the Scan or Morel as there would be less smearing at the crossover point I was told.

PLEASE - NO QED MICRO!!!!!!! It's absolute bell-wire CR@P of the finest order and sold as a hifi cable by dozens of Sevenoaks staff who only sold it 'cos clients' wives didn't like chunky cables like Chord Co. carnival.

The best thing to wire the speakers up internally with is the 50 strand from Maplin, available in red and black for around a quid a metre (£2m for a pair). if it's good enough for Epos Es14's it's more than good enough for RTL anything!!!!!!!!!!
 
To those who've changed the tweeters for something that doesn't roll off as steeply below 2KHz (looking at the pics above), the designer suggested replacing the 6uF approx cap with a 4.7uF one! I didn't like what it did to the standard Vifa tweeter, but it would be better possibly with the Scan or Morel as there would be less smearing at the crossover point I was told.

PLEASE - NO QED MICRO!!!!!!! It's absolute bell-wire CR@P of the finest order and sold as a hifi cable by dozens of Sevenoaks staff who only sold it 'cos clients' wives didn't like chunky cables like Chord Co. carnival.

The best thing to wire the speakers up internally with is the 50 strand from Maplin, available in red and black for around a quid a metre (£2m for a pair). if it's good enough for Epos Es14's it's more than good enough for RTL anything!!!!!!!!!!

Well i'll give the maplin stuff a try but i thot any decent oxygen free copper cable shud suffice, i used to use Silver Anniversary and it did make everything sound a touch bright. I'm using QED Bronze for the speaker cable as well. Shud i change that as well?
Whats the name of the Maplin cable?

Fraser - Yeah love the amp, had it since early 2003 and i was looking at replacing it but can't find anything better unless i spend a fortune, i'm lookin at the Rotel RA-05 but bit skint at the moment.

Kenny
 
QED bronze is fine in lengths under 10m each I reckon. The maplin is just a standard 50 strand cable available off the drum for about 90p/m IIRC. Buy two lengths of red and black and "lightly" twist them together.
 
Had a look at the maplin website and they have 42 and 79 strand as bog standard speaker cable. Then it moves to the dearer stuff.

Whats up with the QED micro? Just as well i get it for free off a mate in Sevenoaks! lol

what about the following 50 strand stuff?
http://www.audiovisualonline.co.uk/...l-miniature-series-speaker-cable/display.html

I've got loads of Gale 315 lying about, would that be any better or overkill as its quite thick. Or shud i jus use the Bronze for internal wiring?

Apologies for all the questions! :D
 
Nice one Kenny. Get some pics up then mate ;-)

On the wire front I'd suggest something without any silver plating. Good thick OFC copper should be good enough for the short runs inside the box.

I recently did some mods to my Amp and the treble extension has gone up several notches, amazing detail. I'm considering changing the crossover resistor to a 2 ohm or even 2.2 to calm it down a bit as its too bright at the moment. I'll leave it till I've refined the work done on the amp though.

Try tweaking the stuffing, but remember exactly how it was in case you want to change it back. Adding some bitumin sheet to the inside is a no brainer though.
 
Nice one Kenny. Get some pics up then mate ;-)

On the wire front I'd suggest something without any silver plating. Good thick OFC copper should be good enough for the short runs inside the box.

I recently did some mods to my Amp and the treble extension has gone up several notches, amazing detail. I'm considering changing the crossover resistor to a 2 ohm or even 2.2 to calm it down a bit as its too bright at the moment. I'll leave it till I've refined the work done on the amp though.

Try tweaking the stuffing, but remember exactly how it was in case you want to change it back. Adding some bitumin sheet to the inside is a no brainer though.

I got bored 2nite so i changed the internal wiring for QED bronze, so its now running the same cable from amp to xover to speaker.

haha, wot pics do u want?

My soldering skills are limited so the xovers are not the prettiest and my TDLs hav the horrible rosewood vinyl finish! :eek:

See if i want the treble to b a bit brighter shud i lower the cap value? ie. instead of 5.99 shud i try droppping it a bit?
 
Right i've been listening my modded TDLs consistently and have noticed a distinct sound difference between these and my Q Acoustic 1010 speakers.

I'v been playing 128kbps MP3s(i know its not a CD! lol) thru the 1010 and TDL speakers back to back and i've noticed that the Q speakers do a more pronounced job of piano key notes, now is this because these mordern speakers like to bump up mid range frequencies to make it sound better or are my TDLs missing something?

I'm hoping the TDLs are jus passing on the musical info without colouration etc.

Any ideas folks?

Cheers

Kenny
 
The RTL2 mk1 is a bit bright in standard form, so I wouldn't increase the tweeter level if I were you. Changing the cap adjusts the frequency the tweeter comes in. Changing to 4.7uF brings the tweeter in later and tames a slight rise at 2KHz according to the chap who designed them (Clive Gibson). I just found the remaining sparkle a bit detached from the midrange when set this way, although just using the one, higher value cap without the second smaller value one is fine I was told.

If you use a tweeter like the Scan which has a much wider bandwidth, you may care to use the 4.7uF cap instead of the 5.7uF one, as this "should" restore the tweeter roll-in characteristics I think.

The maplin cable I suggested is a general instrument cable, not a "speaker" one.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=6200

The link above is for the red one, also available in black.

The QED Micro is too low in gauge to be regarded as a serious HiFi cable, no matter how good the copper inside. It's the kind of stuff we were throwing out thirty years ago in favour of heavier gauge wires. I appreciate things have gone mad regarding cables, but the stuff linked to above is fine and not expensive at £1.78 per meter (red plus black). It's flexible enough to to work inside a speaker cabinet too.


Listening to speakers back to back can be a minefield, especially on less expensive models where various compromises are all too obvious. The RTL2 mk1 model was quite natural in balance apart from the slightly bright treble register and the bass went down further and cleaner than many other small inexpensive speakers of the period. This doesn't mean to say that they could be improved though......

As I stated earlier, the better finished RTL2 mk2 (SE) had very little treble at all, to make it compete with the AE109. The treble shelved down horribly, but could be partly corrected by decreasing the tweeter resistor from 5 Ohms approx to 1.5 or 1 Ohms (I can't remember exactly as it was so long ago).

To be honest, I'd try to find some Studio 1 M's. They're lovely with a smooth balance (despite the metal cone bass/mid) and take over and expand where the RTL series leaves off.

Apologies for being a bit vague with some of these tweaks, but it was nearly twenty years ago now and the nineties was a decade of major personal change, grief, joy and growth for me, so these latter memories take precedence in my mind over the more mundane (by comparison) audio ones.
 
"is this because these mordern speakers like to bump up mid range frequencies to make it sound better or are my TDLs missing something?

I'm hoping the TDLs are jus passing on the musical info without colouration etc".

I like to think its the latter. However I did notice you can easily make the mid sound more forward by messing about with the stuffing. Is mentioned earlier in the thread how to do it. The modded RTL2's are very smooth and need the right amp I think to retain good dynamics. How old is the NAD? Might benefit from a PSU re-cap.

My advice would be 'dont play with the cap values unless you have speaker measurement gear' :) You risk messing up the FR and without proper reading's there is no way to tell if its set up right. I'd say having a play with the resistor is fine as long as you stick to within an ohm either way of the original valu'e. And make small changes going up or down by a little at a time. Maybe replace the resistor for an L-pad attenuator and when you find the best setting measure its resistance and replace it with a good resistor?
 
I've only suggested what I have as I knew the designer very well and we discussed this one model very well, as we in the shop loved this speaker so much and sold very many pairs (for an independant dealer).
 
Thats good to know. Its just that you seemed uncertain about the cap value earlier in the thread. And I personally don't like the idea of changing values unless you have the proper gear to evaluate the changes. I suppose its worth a try though as if it dosent work out the 5.6+0.39uF Jantzens can go back in. Im going to try removing the 0.39uF soon and see how I like it. At some point I plan to get mine measured and have the XO adjusted for the Morel properly.
 
I like to think its the latter. However I did notice you can easily make the mid sound more forward by messing about with the stuffing. Is mentioned earlier in the thread how to do it. The modded RTL2's are very smooth and need the right amp I think to retain good dynamics. How old is the NAD? Might benefit from a PSU re-cap.

My advice would be 'dont play with the cap values unless you have speaker measurement gear' :) You risk messing up the FR and without proper reading's there is no way to tell if its set up right. I'd say having a play with the resistor is fine as long as you stick to within an ohm either way of the original valu'e. And make small changes going up or down by a little at a time. Maybe replace the resistor for an L-pad attenuator and when you find the best setting measure its resistance and replace it with a good resistor?

The Nad is 6 years old this Feb, i jus found the receipt the other day! lol.

I've re-arranged the stuffing and will give it a good test when the neighbours r out! I put one of the lengths of stuffing above and behind the mid/bass to see if that'll bring the mid-range out a bit more, if that works then i'll b a happy chappy!
 
The Nad is 6 years old this Feb, i jus found the receipt the other day! lol.

It would probably benefit from a Power supply re-cap. If that interests you start a new thread on it. Its easy to do and will bring the amp back to life like when it was new.

looking forward to hearing about the stuffing changes.
 
Dont think i'll bother with the PSU re-cap as it seems a bit overkill at the moment.

Re-arranged the stuffing and haven't noticed much difference in sound, will check it all again then re-evaluate.

Does anyone know the resistor value for the woofer? Can't see it without removing the resistor from the crossover. I'm going to change it for a better quality one.

Also can i run a 0.5 watt resistor? Will this affect the sound or will it be too low a wattage?

Kenny
 
Thanks for the info Mike.

Strange how loads of capacitors are only available in 1 and 2watt versions. Also is there any difference between using the Metal oxide resistor instead of the Ceramic one?

Oh, any idea what the resistor value is for the woofer? Would save me the hassle of undoing it from the crossover if u did! :D

I think after sorting the crossover i'll brace the cabinet behind the woofer then see what else i can do to these little boxes. I really don't like the rosewood vinyl on mine at the moment. Wonder how hard it would be to get them finished in a nice gloss black, similar to Quad speakers. :rolleyes:
 
Wonder how hard it would be to get them finished in a nice gloss black, similar to Quad speakers. :rolleyes:

Pretty bloody difficult!! :D It's easy to rip the vinyl covering off and underneath is like a chipboard frame.. can see a rough idea here: http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a329/fraser1985/DSCN0642.jpg

You'd need to go over this again with some proper wood or ply before thinking about sanding, finishing, staining, priming and spraying very well before getting an acceptable looking gloss... with this in mind i tried to refinish mine with a matt finish.... and i still made a bit of a mess of it!! Acceptable in my dungeon of a room but not exactly fit for a palace :D
 


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