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Revisiting Jim Rogers JR149s

only 50 units off mine, you're in for a treat, had to have mine recapped but still worth it, with my Leaks TL 12+ they were made for each other,I'm close to making them my go to combination, they just make great music
 
andvinylly said:
only 50 units off mine, you're in for a treat, had to have mine recapped but still worth it, with my Leaks TL 12+ they were made for each other,I'm close to making them my go to combination, they just make great music
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andvinylly

I've just looked at your profile, your from Newcastle as well, how weird is that.
 
Good question, I'm not sure at the moment.
My idea is to have a second system I can put in my partners holiday cottage which we try and use more during the winter months when
it isn't being rented as a holiday let. I enjoy going there but miss my music. The cottage is small, so I thought I'd put together a simple system i can take up there for the winter.
I have a spare CD player, an Audiolab 8200CDQ with a built in pre-amp, I thought I might run that directly into a power amp and then the
JR149's.
The obvious contender would be a Quad of some type, TonyL early in this thread said he got good results from a Quad 306.
I'm open to suggestions.
 
I've got them sitting on the floor upside down at the moment, crossovers exposed, wired up to my Puresound 2a3, and they sound surprisingly good, I've got the volume low.
 
They are very like the LS3/5A in that they are high impedance (8 to 16 Ohm), especially when compared to a modern mini-monitor, so love valves and work very well with the 303 too. Any nice amp should be able to drive them fine as whilst they are not efficient they are an easy load and can’t take much power anyway (a B110 can only move a certain distance!).
 
I'm not sure how well the Quad 303 works with other preamps,only ever used one with a 33,many moons ago, then the only problem was CD was a little too hot for my tastes then, it would certainly look the part though, classic design
 
I never tried it with a passive back then,I was thinking about Colins idea of using his Audiolab CD/preamp into the 303
 
Does anyone sell replacement crossovers for these?

As shown in my posts up-thread, mine came modified for bi-wiring. The black metal crossover covers are modified too, to hold the 4 speaker terminals.

Kevin
 
andvinylly said:
only 50 units off mine, you're in for a treat, had to have mine recapped but still worth it, with my Leaks TL 12+ they were made for each other,I'm close to making them my go to combination, they just make great music
Click to expand...

That combination sounds good. I'd love to have a listen sometime.
I've ordered a set of capacitors from Falcon Acoustics and some new foams from gshg-48.

Have you experimented with cables at all?
TonyL earlier in this thread said he was using Van Damme 1.5 Blue which would fit through the rubber grommet into the crossover housing, I suppose one could remove the grommet and use something wider.
 
You're most welcome to come and have a listen,I'll PM you
With regards speaker cables I had mine fitted with some short leads and female speaker terminals, so I didn't have to dismantle them to fit speaker cables,I havent messed on with cables really, as they sound fine just the way they are,using some Chord Carnival or Van den Hull CS22 I think,I dont have them set up permenantly so whatever is to handouts good you can DIY them yourself
 
Colin123 said:
TonyL earlier in this thread said he was using Van Damme 1.5 Blue which would fit through the rubber grommet into the crossover housing, I suppose one could remove the grommet and use something wider.
Click to expand...

I eventually swapped it out for Chord Rumour II, which may well have been a mistake. Purely on the assumption it seemed well liked and was about the most expensive thing that would fit! I’m a firm believer in a lot of very ordinary thick copper for speaker cables so thin audiophile stuff always makes me suspicious!
 
Graham Hartle has informed me that Wilmslow Audio are now selling a JR149-inspired design, available both in kit-form and fully assembled. It uses MDF enclosures and off-the-shelf drivers so is unlikely to be of interest to many here but I thought it was worth mentioning anyway.
 
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Three things to report, all concerning Mk 2s, with a Conrad Johnson solid sate amp.

1. Had them on brackets on either side of a chimney breast, with alcoves behind. Thought they sounded fine but that was an illusion - they are much better on stands about 30cm from any wall behind. The reason is so simple and predictable it’s almost laughable - with space behind the image has more depth!

2. Now experimenting with height. Previously they were on stands or brackets with tweeters at ear height, I’ve just moved them to about 40cm off the ground, so far so good but it’s early days. The stands in question are light, open frame metal jobbies.

They are much less intrusive in the room if they’re lower, obviously. So maybe I can compromise. We’ll see.

3. A comparison with my Spendor SP1s made me clear about one thing - I much prefer the Rogers speakers! So much so I now wonder if my SP1s are working properly - so in for a service they go!
 
I’ll be interested to see what height you settle on. My suspicion is they want to be lower than LS3/5As. I’d guess a 50cm stand is about right, I’ve been using 60cm as it is all I have. Trying as best I can to figure out from a brochure picture I think the original JR stands (which have all the style and flair of an umbrella stand) are 50cm. I think 60cm just dries them out a bit too much in the bass - their bass is excellent, but they lack that warm upper-bass bump of the LS3/5A so need a bit of help IMO.
 
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