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TDL TRL2

fraser. said:
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
Click to expand...

haha! Are u tryin to put me off?!

I'm sure ur matt black spks look better than the Rosewood ones anyday! They really are quite nasty looking.

I think i'll try and buy a set of the RTL2s off the bay for cheap and get to work on the cabinets, i really like the dinky size of these cabinets and i'm pretty happy about the sound of them so will probably keep them for a long time and if i can get the cabinets up to a decent gloss level then i might just keep them forever!
 
You can get many different value resistors. I don't know if the type has much effect on the sound quality, haven't tried the exotic types. One site I can think of is Hificollective but there are others. Wilmslow audio.

For the finishing you could recover them in 1/4" Baltic birch ply or even 1/8th inch. Baltic Birch can look amazing if you Finnish it right. I plan to do this, I'm even going to replace the whole front baffle with thicker 1" Birch Ply of MDF with piano black finish. With the new baffle I want to have it made on a CNC mill so I can flush mount the midbass drivers. Of course all thins helps to stiffen the cabinet which should result in tighter bass and improved midrange detail.
 
mikesnowdon said:
You can get many different value resistors. I don't know if the type has much effect on the sound quality, haven't tried the exotic types. One site I can think of is Hificollective but there are others. Wilmslow audio.

For the finishing you could recover them in 1/4" Baltic birch ply or even 1/8th inch. Baltic Birch can look amazing if you Finnish it right. I plan to do this, I'm even going to replace the whole front baffle with thicker 1" Birch Ply of MDF with piano black finish. With the new baffle I want to have it made on a CNC mill so I can flush mount the midbass drivers. Of course all thins helps to stiffen the cabinet which should result in tighter bass and improved midrange detail.
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All of the reisitors at Hi fi collective' bar the 'Mills' and 'Mundorf' ones are under 5 watt! My options are a bit limited then.
 
Mills 12watt resistors:

http://www.hificollective.co.uk/components/mills.html

Mundorf 20watt resistors:

http://www.hificollective.co.uk/components/mresist.html

Dueland 10watt resistors:

http://www.hificollective.co.uk/components/duelund_resistors.html

More:

http://www.audio-components.co.uk/store/SubCategory.asp?SubCategoryID=8

There are others believe me, use Google. To be honest using exotic resistors in your crossover wont make much difference, apart from the Dueland which apparently do but they are expensive and awkward due to their size. Look up 'Caddock' and 'Riken' too, they both have have gold plated leads and look the buisness. :)

Good luck with your mods!

Mike.
 
Alright Mike

Not bothered to change the resistors yet, been busy hunting out bargains to upgrade my budget home cinema!

Do you think it will make much difference if i change the 1.8ohm resistors to 1.5ohm? I'm still running the orignal tweeter.

Kenny
 
Hi mate.

The original resistor is 1.5ohm. The point of changing to a larger value is to calm down the speaker due to the extra HF output of the Polyprop caps.

I just noticed you are using MOX resistors. to be honest thy are pretty good so I'd stick with them in your case.

The best mod you can make is to change the tweeters to Morel MDT30s. When doing this you might prefer a 2ohm resistor but that depends on your system really. Try the Morels and if its too bright go for the 2ohm or 2.2ohm. With your crossover mods the Morels will really shine.
 
Do you think it will make much difference if i change the 1.8ohm resistors to 1.5ohm? I'm still running the orignal tweeter.
Click to expand...

If you want more tweeter output then switch back to 1.5ohm. In my opinion you might end up with overly bright sound as you have upgraded caps in there.
 
Mike have u got any thoughts on the TL vents at the bottom of the speaker?

I find that the RTL2s do have a bit of bass boom so i rolled up some old thin socks and stuffed them into the lower vents to see if that makes them any better.

This is a trick i've been doing with my sub(5.1) to tighten it up and stop the booming which annoys the neighbours!
 
Boomy bass?

Have you played with the positioning much? It sounds like you have them too close to the rear wall and/or too far into the corners of the room. Do that first before the old christams pressies come out.

I know stuffing ported speakers is often advised but TL's are different. You will probably notice that the midrange changes also when you block the vent. I wouldn't recommend it but try for yourself and let us know what happens.

The RTL's are inherently a bit boomy due to the chipboard cabinet I think (resonance). Addressing this issue with some bitumen or external-cladding (Baltic birch ply;)) would improve this and should tighten up the bass too. Box coloration will be decreased so the midrange should sound more clear and open with added detail. In the summer I'm doing the Birch ply and a new front baffle section.

I allmost forgot to mention. One thing I did which made a big difference to the bass was to remove the plinths and add new ones which overlapped the edge of the cab to give a wider footprint to the speaker. Also sitting them on top of some stone or granite slabs. This was a definite improvement. Theres pics earlier in the thread. I got the plinths from Saisburys (£5 chopping boards) and the stone stands from Homebase.
 
The sub would benefit from a stone plinth and spikes if it hasn't got them already. And if its in the corner move it away in either direction a bit.

I think I read somewhere a set-up guide for subs where it said to play music (in 2-ch mode) and gradually turn up the sub a bit at a time each time going back to the listening position to check how it sounds. The idea was that as soon as you can hear the sub you stop and back it off a little. The principal of this was that the sub was serving the purpose of filling in the low bass that the main speakers cant produce (like explosions in movies), without overlapping the bass from the main speakers which would sound boomy. Might be worth a try...
 
Yeah the speakers are only about 1 foot from the rear wall and one of them is 2 1/2 ft from the side wall.

Ain't got much choice cos my flat is small, living room is 15' x 12'. Its a new build flat made out of cardboard so i need to contain the bass boom to keep the neighbours happy.

I've already got the speakers sitting on its original plinth and spikes. They are then placed on Tesco granite placemats. Placemats look rather nice under the speakers! lol.
Might give the stone slabs a try when i get paid.

Socks do make the mid range sound a bit different, gonna try with one sock in vent instead of blocking both vents.

I think the speakers are a bit overkill for a small modern flat but i got them for free so will be keeping them! :D
 
update - had a brainstorm and used 'Asda smart price sponges' to replace the original vent stuff and seems to be working wonders! lol.

Bass boom is much reduced and sound quality doesn't seem to be affected.

I cut the green scourer bit off the sponge and then cut the sponge to fit the hole and it looks horrid without the grills covering it obviously, but once the grills are on no one is the wiser!
 
The original RTL2 box was quite rigid actually, as the internal strut making up the long port (nothing like as long as a proper transmission line) helped to brace the panels. I'd also suggest the chipboard helped absorb some of the nastier resonances, whereas a heavier box could store energy and take remaining box resonances up into the midrange.

Remember, this was very much a "budget" floorstander, made for profit and large volume manufacture and costing little to make (around £50pr IIRC).

Good luck with all your mods. It's good to keep this forgotten classic going.
 
Hi DJSR. :)

In many (not all) of the 'high-end' speakers I have seen the designer has aimed for the most rigid cabinet possible. (not to be argumentative by the way, just sharing my viewpoint :))

Although the center section (TL partition) helps to brace the box The front and rear panels have large areas with no additional bracing. It is my opinion that a woofer is best mounted on a rigid inert baffle in order to maximise its energy into producing sound waves rather than that energy being sucked out or absorbed by the baffle. Likewise the rear baffle being nice and rigid will reduce the effect it has of producing sound waves through vibraton thus reducing colouration perhaps. I would say this also applies to the side panels but as you say they are actually quite stiff in a TL speaker.

I dont think my planned cabinet mods will have any negative effect at least, and I hope to find an improvement in the bass being a little tighter and better defined. Its all experimental though so its hard to say what the effect will be.

You mentioned earlier about changing the tweeter cap to better accommodate the Morel Tweeter. I have a thread in the DIY section where Im looking at ways to get measurement on the cheap so I can do this the proper way and analyse my results.

http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/showthread.php?t=59608

Thanks for all your contribution to this by the way. ;)
 
After reading Mike Snowdon et al, I have been motivated to upgrade my RTL2 Mk1s. I also have a pair of standard Mk2s which have always been my preferred speakers, these will provide me with a benchmark comparison at each stage of the Mk1 upgrade.

I have always found the standard MK1s treble harsh with a dip in the midband when compared to the Mk2s. When I compared the two crossovers, the 10mfd capacitor and the 22 Ohm resistor on the Mk1 bass circuit has been removed on the MK2 and the resistor on the Mk1 tweeter circuit is 1.5 Ohm as compared with 2.2 Ohm on the MK2. :confused:

Apparently the missing Capacitor and resistor were probably a second order crossover which made the woofer frequency response cut-off sharper at the crossover frequency. Although it's likely this was done to save money, I can't help thinking it might also explain the more forward midband I get from my MK2s. :)

So on my Mk1 upgrade I decided to do away with these two components whilst replacing the 6.00mfd tweeter capacitor with a polypropolene equivalent. For the moment I have left the original 1.5 Ohm tweeter resistor in place.

The listening results on the Mk1s so far have been outstanding ... the midband is back to what I prefer and the treble clarity and imaging has improved significantly. :D However, the treble is still too dominant and a touch on the harsh side, so ... I will shortly be replacing the tweeters with Morel MTD30s and replacing the 1.5 Ohm resistor with a 2.2Ohm ... Watch this space ... ... ;)
 
Thats really interesting about the 10uF cap and 22ohm resistor. I think I'll be trying mine without, I'm already using 2.2ohm resistors so that would make my XO equivalent to the MK2 version.

This is good stuff, thanks HandyG! :)
 
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