Papajoe

Hi Guys, It has been a long time since I visited the site. Too many things going on with my sculpture and life. I purchased a Sony XBR65X-850C, 4K, 3D TV last week. The old one (10 years) just gave up, it started to cut off every few minutes and then cycle on again. Hard to watch TV that way. The new one is amazing. I also upgraded to the Dish Network Hopper and that install included a new HD satellite dish. Because these thin panels have a lack of great sound, I am now using the full theater as my sound source. We streamed 'Interstellar' over VUDU the other night and that soundtrack is really dynamic, it gave that whole system quite a work out. First time in a long time did I see the power lights rising on the amps. It was a chair shaking adventure. The Oppo BDP 105 player that I have, has an upscaling feature that allows you to convert the standard blue ray to 4Kx2K. Now that is something to see. Nice to be back, Papajoe

Well, hi guys. I have been busy doing other things. I was disappointed by the TFM 24 that I bought to repair. It turned out to be a real wreck with the front panel in pieces. The photos that were with the unit did not show the extent of the front panel damage. Bent brackets and small pieces. Without a new panel, it is useless to fix. The electronics look in good shape. I wish that I could find someone who is willing to take it off my hands, just for the components. As for the 2CE Vandersteens amplification, I am using the two TFM15s that I rebuilt, to bi amp the two speakers. They sound great and have lots of power. The system is in my rec room and I play only vinyl on it. Papajoe

Welcome. Just keep looking on E-bay until you find a decent price on a 500T and once you have that in your hands, get one of the many members who tweak them, to do his magic. If you are a hands-on type of guy, the members will help you with all the info you will need to upgrade anything Carver. Papajoe

Hi guys, Having spent most of my life working with plastics, let me repeat what I said on another post about warped records/plastic. A record is made by placing a small, heated wafer of plastic on top of the record mold. High pressure is then applied to spread the plastic into the mold, after a controlled time the mold is opened and the record is removed. When plastic is pressed into the mold, it creates stresses internally in the plastic, ie record. As long as the 'record' stays at a reasonable temperature, the stress forces are neutralized. When a record is subjected to higher heat, it allows the stresses in the plastic to have an effect on the shape of the record, thus warping it. To remove the effects of the warp is near impossible as the material has been stretched. You may get them flat again; but, that does not mean that they are back to its original integrity. Papajoe

Hi Bob, Welcome to the site. I am running a pair of Vandy 2 Ce speakers in my rec room system. If you want to make those 2 Ce's really perform you need to vertically Bi- amp them. I am using a pair of TFM-15s that I recapped. A pair of M4.0Ts would make a killer system. Papajoe

I thought that they were a 'medieval torture device' with a compressing screw on the top. Does it come with a bejeweled screwdriver to make adjustments? Papajoe

My son saw the new Star Trek in a theater that was equipped with the new Dolby ATMOS systems. It uses 64 discrete tracks played through 64 speakers placed through out the theater. He said that it was awesome but very loud. Not sure they weren't just pumping the sound that day. Although, I would think that when they set the levels they have to take into account the sound absorbtion of all the bodies in a theater full of people, so when it is half full that might be a factor in the sound level. His friend, who also went with him, said that he enjoyed it just fine with his earplugs in. LOL Papajoe

Thanks Guys, I really enjoyed figuring out the schematic. What initially spurred me to upgrade the xover components was the article that one of our members posted about using better quality components can really improve the sound quality. The jumpers on the inputs are just for testing. Going to sit down and listen some more. Papajoe

My speaker project has reached completion. A quick explanation- I purchased a pair of damaged Vandersteen 2Ci a few months ago. They had been fried by a dying amp. I found that some of the resistors in the xover had been burnt and the tweeters and one woofer were bad. Vandersteen was using VIFA drivers. So, I replaced the tweeters and woofers with comparable new models. I decided to replace some of the components in the xover with higher quality components. The original xover was mounted inside the back of the speakers and since the new components were a lot larger, I decided to move the xover into an external case. I carefully plotted out the Vandersteen xover schematic and made my own . I even etched my own PCB board. You can see the original xover in the above photos and the new one is below. I temporarily attached the xover to the back of the speakers for testing and am listening to them right now. I will have to buy a new pair of socks for the speakers, next and I will be done. Truly turned out awesome. Papajoe

If you want to get the real essence of early produced LPs, you need to hear them on those speakers. Papajoe

The great and wise Bill Cosby, had some advice that I remember about this. He said "I use the 'sit method' of remembering important things. That is where you are always seated when you are concentrating on an important fact, if you get up and forget what you were thinking about, just sit down and and most times it will push it back up to your brain again". Papajoe

Welcome to the Forum. Papajoe

If the isolation and stiffening elements don't completely do the job, you could cut a hole in the floor and build a concrete plinth up from piers anchored a few feet below the basement floor. Papajoe

Retriever- I can think of a few simple questions to ask about the turntable itself. Is the turntable level? Measured with a sensitive level on the platter itself? Have you actually measured the tracking force? Not relying on the numbers on the weight? Have you recently reseated the cartridge to be sure that it is tracking correctly? Some people think that once it is set, it is always correctly attached. Not so. Has the turntable been stored for a long time of non use. The sensitive bearings in the pivot can 'settle' after a long unused period. Papajoe

From the photos above you can see how the circuits were made by soldering the leads on the large areas. I have to build new circuit boards and am laying out for the PCB board. I have a good idea of what the schematic looks like and was also thinking that it would be easier to solder onto individual pads. The width of the traces has to do with what amperage it will carry. How much amperage do you think a crossover trace needs to carry? Thanks, Papajoe

Enigma- first album.

Anytime someones is introduced on TV and the person says " A great entertainer ". I always finish it with " A great entertainer, A great humanitarian and a Dear friend of mine for 25 years", Roy Scheider in the original 'All that Jazz'.

In order to get this type of job done quickly, you need a second person to change the speaker angles as you listen. Alternately, you can put them on turntables and poke them with a pole. Papajoe.

Zumbini- I have stopped trying to put listeners in the 'sweet spot'. I just play it loud. I like to keep that secret all to myself. Papajoe

If you plot the speaker cone angles of all your speakers, you will find that the so called 'sweet spot' is quite a large area and the louder that you play your system the bigger it gets. Papajoe

I think that the spikes on a rug rely more on penetrating the rug and contacting the floor below it. It may seem silly to place a large, heavy speaker on pointy spikes and expect it to 'couple' with the floor better than just placing the speaker on the floor. Logically, a big flat speaker bottom sitting on the floor/rug should do a better job of coupling with the floor than pointy feet. But, that is far from the truth. Take for example, a speaker that weighs 100 lbs. If you were to put a scale under each corner, they would read 25 lbs each. But, that is spread over the area of the scale surface area, maybe 1 Sq. foot. So you could say that the speaker weighs 25 lbs/sq.ft . Now, when you put the large end of a spike under the area that the scale was measuring, it is now supporting that 25 lbs. But since the large part of the cone, which is 1 sq inch, is supporting that 25 lbs now, the force on the top of the spike is now 25 lbs per sq in. But, that is not the main fact, since the spike is a cone all the weight at the top is transferred to the point at the bottom, now. Since the point is relatively sharp, say only 1/32" diameter, it is .0002 Sq inches, now that 25 lbs is being applied to the .0002 sq in, which is 125,000 lbs/ square inch, that is the coupling force of the spike. That also comes into play with a phonograph needle, you may put 2 grams force on the top; but, the force that the tip actually applies to the record is many, many time more than that. Papajoe

I now see why the only damage so far is one blown woofer and a few burnt resistors. They must have been the first hit by the short. Papajoe

This is the back of the board that I have removed from the case. The components are on the other side. Notice that all they did was drill holes where the leads go through the board and then use a copper backed aluminum tape to make the circuits. Then sealed the whole thing. I will be using a small circular saw blade on my Dremel to cut the tape on either side of the leads and then pry the leads straight and remove the components. Then test everything and replace as needed. Front of board. Black spot is where the burnt resistors were. I have laid out a schematic of the circuit and am going to get a blank board, and using this one as template, drill the lead holes, reattach the components and solder wires on back to make the circuits. Notice that they have used that same foil on the front of the board also. There is plenty of room behind between the board and the face plate to allow for the wires. I will probably need some help in identifying some of the components . Papajoe

I have removed the crossover from the Vandersteen 2Cis that I am repairing. I am drawing a schematic of the circuits. I came upon an interesting fact. The variable pot that is marked ' Bass' is not connected into the woofer circuit, at all. It is part of the Midrange/ tweeter circuit. It is connected directly to the Midrange speaker lead. There is a direct connection from the pot that feeds the tweeter back to the midrange pot, though. This system is bi-amped and so I am feeding full range signal to both the 'Bass' and 'tweeter/midrange' connections. Am I correct in saying that : the 'woofer' circuit 'filters out all but the lower range. While the midrange/tweeter areas filter out part of the lower range and uses the rest of the signal. I 'wrongly assumed' that the "bass" pot adjusted the level of the Woofer. It appears that it just adjusts the signal to the midrange driver. I guess that 'roundabout' it would increase or reduce the bass signal being fed to the midrange and so that makes the 'woofer' look like it is being controlled. Boy what you can find out when you get deep into the electronics of speakers. Papajoe

Well, I got tired of not being able to get at the components to test them, so I removed the crossover from one speaker. It was held on by 4 screws and lots of silicon seal. Carefully prying around the edge until it let go. The silver tape like stuff is really a thin copper foil with an aluminum back. It looks like they assemble the crossover by pushing the component leads through the board and then just bending them over in the back. Then using this thick foil they just lay it over the exposed leads in a pattern that represents the circuit and then spray a clear coat of some sort of sealer over the whole thing. Very clever. I may just layout the circuits and make a new one using wire this time. Papajoe