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Re: Hi-Fi Companies that lose themselves
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 11:46 pm
by jandl100
Kevlar - didn't B&W use that for their midrange drivers?
---- b
oooooring sound!
My old JBL L110 Monitors had paper mid and bass drivers - wooo, they were fun! Musical excitement by the spadeful.
Re: Hi-Fi Companies that lose themselves
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 12:07 am
by Dr Bunsen Honeydew
Yes you are quite right but you obviously didn't read my post about Kevlar properly, go and read it again, then comment on what I actually said.
JBL and Altec paper is not just paper, that is where the misunderstanding occurs. It was the construction or the cone and how the paper was graded across the cone that made it work. Both companies used the same company to make their cones and that was the secret.
Re: Hi-Fi Companies that lose themselves
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 12:17 am
by jandl100
Ah, you mean the dopes at B&W didn't dope the Kevlar drive units properly? - they sounded kind of soggy to me.
Re: Hi-Fi Companies that lose themselves
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 12:23 am
by jandl100
Out of curiosity - who did make decent speakers with Kevlar drive units?
Re: Hi-Fi Companies that lose themselves
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 12:25 am
by Dr Bunsen Honeydew
""""""DOPED KEVLAR""""""
Re: Hi-Fi Companies that lose themselves
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 12:29 am
by Dr Bunsen Honeydew
jandl100 wrote:Ah, you mean the dopes at B&W didn't dope the Kevlar drive units properly? - they sounded kind of soggy to me.
Their drivers were undoped pure Kevlar cones. Kevlar has a midband resonance that can either be filtered in the crossover as B&W did or sort it out by doping the cone. Filters kill music.
Re: Hi-Fi Companies that lose themselves
Posted: Mon Dec 30, 2019 8:09 am
by karatestu
jandl100 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 16, 2015 8:15 am
_D_S_J_R_ wrote:Jerry, have you heard any of these old suspects on MODERN sources and amps? I only ask because many systems today, using any source, seem clearer and easier to 'hear through' than they were back in the mid 70's ime. Not saying it'll make a silk purse out of a bucket of turnips, but it does seem to help them no end to use an amp with good damping factor (if you believe in such things - Harbeth don't:(), decent gauge speaker cables and a good digital or clean vinyl source (not the way we used to site a turntable, with no real thought for isolation).
Hi Dave
Yes, I quite agree with you that modern electronics and ancillaries can raise the game of older speaker designs. (I think I've made the same point myself on AOS).
The reason I use a duck in all my avatars goes back to a disagreement I had with a guy on the Wigwam who insisted that my latest fave speaker purchase at the time (Bowers Active One's, remember them?) had unacceptable levels of 'bextrene quack' from the cone material used. Try as I might - and compared to a nice example of Quad 57 stats - I couldn't hear it with the modern electronics I was using - I said the only quack I could hear came from a nearby lake with ducks on
and changed my avatar accordingly. I invited the guy over to have a listen (to the speakers, not the ducks) as he wasn't too far away, but sadly he didn't accept the invite. It would have been interesting.
And yes, I've heard the vintage Rogers Export Monitors previously mentioned with modern electronics, as well as more modern Spendor SP1/2 and others. After the initial "Wow" factor of tonal neutrality, which lasted a quite impressive couple of days with the SP1/2, all of them are like watching paint dry as far as I am concerned.
Thread resurrection alert.
I stumbled on this thread which i found interesting. Hope you don't mind me quoting you Jerry. Your duck obsession explained
Re: Hi-Fi Companies that lose themselves
Posted: Mon Dec 30, 2019 8:23 am
by jandl100
Hah, yes, that's how the ducks started.
Interesting to be reminded by the previous posts that RD and I usually had very similar views on how hifi gear sounds and whether it was any good.
... we both hated Tannoy dual concentrics, for example.
Of course, RD had infinitely greater insight as to the causes and underlying technical reasons.
Re: Hi-Fi Companies that lose themselves
Posted: Mon Dec 30, 2019 10:04 am
by CN211276
Oppo used to make good headphones and I have a pair in regular use. The company decided that more money could be made elsewhere (mobile phones) and stopped making them. When I was in Kenya there were posters everywhere advertising their mobile phones. I expect it is the same in other countries where they are tapping a growing market. Not so much a company losing its way as a multi national corporate knowing where its bread is buttered.
Re: Hi-Fi Companies that lose themselves
Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2019 7:00 am
by antonio66
Oppo phones are popular in the far east.