Recent content by RustyB

Yes, I agree. Few products are perfectly engineered and can't be improved upon with the advantage of experience. Honda, for instance, for all their undoubted genius, can't design cam chain tensioners to save themselves. Bizarre. There are hordes of speakers out there that can be improved...

ISTR that the later, twin-motor version upped the pace of those decks. The HR 100 I've always regarded as a fine piece of elegant engineering.

I gave up actually buying hifi mags a while ago, after a lifetime's addiction. The absurd component pricing just annoys me, regardless of the fact I can't afford these things. (The most interesting article in HFNews became the Vintage section). The business has now polarized into, at one end...

Don't know about under-rated, but I'm running a couple of components which AFAIK aren't in the "go to" category: Aura VA 50, Systemdek I 920.

Do those have down-firing ports?

A good reason to go EBS.

Yes it will drive them, but you need tubes for those Tannoys. Like a Leak Stereo 20.

I've said this many times before, and I'm sure no one believes me, but my ported speakers sound not only more accurate, but subjectively faster than my sealed speakers. Why? Because I chose lightweight drivers with a powerful motor that has a lot of control, over that light paper cone. Well I...

I would call that overhang, rather than delay. Delay is obvious looking at an impulse response graph, where the woofer's rise is delayed relative to the higher frequency driver(s), in a typical non phase coherent speaker. The other factor is the frequency of port tuning. A two way, 7 inch...

It won't surprise you that I disagree with your theory. With a ported design, the driver back wave is released via the port. In a sealed box, you need more damping to control the captured back wave. As for "delayed" bass, don't buy that, as the initial transient from the driver isn't affected...

I was always sceptical of the 96 dB claim, as the tweeter used in the O/96 comes nowhere near this. John's rationale in the comments was...er, interesting. Sensitivity is what it is, and if a speaker is an easy load impedance wise, that's something else again. Having said that, I have found...

Here's the thing: if we're talking 2-way speakers, then the internal cabinet damping will be very different for a ported or a sealed box. So closing off a ported design is unlikely to be optimal, hence the many negative experiences above to choking the ports. I can attest to the detrimental...

Litz: nice and flexy.

As for the wire: rewired an RB 250 and, lo, there was BASS, and the greyness disappeared. Not subtle, that and the counterweight mod transformed the arm from meh to a giant killer. I would have thought by now, after all these years, and all those rewired arms, that the efficacy of Rega rewiring...