Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

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Ordinaryman
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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

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The forever changing mind of an enthusiast :clap:
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karatestu (Tue Jan 19, 2021 5:42 pm)

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karatestu
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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

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Ordinaryman wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 5:12 pm Would absolutely Love to hear them :grin: . What a journey, could you not step back awhile and just enjoy? Aesthetics are imo important but not more so than the sound. enjoy ,relax and just make sure if you can, you emulate what you have built now, as close as possible when you produce the finished version, if that ever happens :idea: . I'm sure you'll find something to "tweak" no matter what ;)
Thanks :grin: Where do you live Mr O ? If you are anywhere near Yorkshire then maybe one day when all this Covid business has blown over. I won't be taking them to any large get togethers or bake off's but if I am confident enough about their abilities and appearance I may have people round or take them to small half a dozen people maximum get togethers.

Although I am always planning something I do get ALOT of time listening to them in my office / work room at the farm. I enjoy them most days when I don't have to be outside. The road has been a lot smoother since I stopped trying to squeeze 12 " isobaric woofers in cabs and rooms that were just too small for them. Valuable lesson learned there.

I still hopefully have some improvements to come :pray: They will hopefully come from replacing the crappy chipboard cabs I have now with some made from much better materials (Baltic birch ply and Redwood legs).

Don't worry, when these speakers have been finished I have my amps, CD player and turntable to tweak / finish :dance: Then I finally might get time to try some file / streaming based source thingies :roll:
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karatestu
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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

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Ordinaryman wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 5:28 pm The forever changing mind of an enthusiast :clap:
I don't change my mind much....oh, on the other hand I think you are right :lol:
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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

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Mr O , Berkshire is where I'm located . However my daughter (a nurse) lives in Knaresborough. Maybe, just maybe when all of this crap eases I will be able to travel "up north". Would love to hear them and of course see my daughter who is pregnant with our first grandchild. Splendid :dance:

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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

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Turntable :epopc:

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karatestu
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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

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Ordinaryman wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 5:59 pm my daughter (a nurse) lives in Knaresborough.
I am about 25 minutes south east of Knaresborough.
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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

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A few more albums under their belt now. One thing is for sure, I don't want to skip any tracks it is just so captivating. Every song has something to give, something emotion to convey that just makes you want to listen and listen.

Mahavishnu Orchestra - The lost trident sessions. My favourite MO album and one which I know very well having played it on countless speakers and through every change I have made on my diy speaker journey. It is a very dynamic recording going from whisper quiet to Hulk like anger in the space of an eye blink. The layered guitars of John McLaughlin, electric violin of Jerry Goodman and Jan Hammer's synthesizers can be a bit hard to track as they come and go, often panned from one speaker to another.

I have NEVER heard that album make so much sense. The quiet atmospheric sections really are beautiful, you can hear the subtleties of the playing to the full and the feel of the musicians is even more awe inspiring - the changes I have made are letting these things come through even more. The layered guitar parts are all as clear as a bell now, there is no mistaking what JM is playing on each guitar track. And there are actually more of them than I remember. Billy Cobham's drumming prowess was never under question. Powerful machine gun drumming with monstrous fills that make you think WTF. Well the more subtle part of his playing has come out from behind somewhere. There is an intricacy to it that was alluded before. Cymbals hit together can be clearly heard as two different pitched cymbals rather than one. Two cymbals hit slightly apart now have more of their own individual decay evident. But there are little things coming to the fore over the whole frequency range. Little bass drum hits that were masked before, ghost notes on the snare etc etc etc.

It all adds up to a more detailed performance and so many more things make sense. I have more spine tingling, hair standing up on the back of my neck experiences in the last day than I ever remember with these diy efforts.

Time for me to shut up now and carry on listening to The Crusaders - Street life. Marvellous. Stevie Wonder Innervisions was also a roller coaster of discovery. You will just have to take my word for it :grin:
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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

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Three GREAT albums there. Crusaders always sounds good radio ,echo dot whatever, the Stevie and particularly MO can sound a bit confused/ harsh if not reproduced well imo. Don't know what source you are using mine is vinyl. You obviously got something right there. Well done
Bit of topic I know :oops:

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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

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At the moment my source is a much abused (modified) Naim CD3.5. I bought it new in 1997 (£1,000) and started modifying it in about 2007 when I joined pink fish media. It's now got separate power supplies for the digital side, one for the clock and one for each DAC psu pin - so five PSU's in all . It would have had two more but I bypassed the anologue output stage and much preferred it without.

I gave it a tentlabs clock with a dedicated PSU & regulator called the PFM flea. The Dac got apfmflea on one of anologue supply pin and the two digital supply pins got a pre-tracking reg based on the LM317 with gyrator filters before them. Swapped a few capacitors here and there and built and installed a FET based capacitance multiplier that goes before all the digital regulators. Oh, and off boarded all the psu's.

It's still in an easy modification ready state - lid has been off for years now :grin: It's quite a surprise it still works as the motherboard has been in and out more times than I can remember. Still on the original laser as well (24 years old soon :shock: ) Got two spares if it ever goes tits up. It sounds nothing like a stock Naim CD3.5 and absolutely too lovely to ever part with or stop using.

Well, you did ask :lol:
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Ordinaryman (Wed Jan 20, 2021 4:09 pm)
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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

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Serves me right :-?
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karatestu (Wed Jan 20, 2021 4:43 pm)

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