dcl

I have the Super Jr. Initially I brought home the Sunfire True and found it awesome, perhaps more than I needed (that sounds bizarre ) for the room and returned it for the Jr. and saved some bucks. The Jr plus ALS Silvers is a good combination. Diagonal corner placement sounds best and I am tinkering with the optimum X-over freq. setting and volume level. AT very loud levels the Jr. vibrates audibly on the wood floor, the wood not being level across some spans. The last nudge in position cured that. Also, at very loud levels of Pink Floyd the Jr. will distort whilst the ALSs are still clean; did not expect that but I do not go there other than curiosity. 99.99% of the time, even with deep organ pedal notes, the Jr. is just fine.

Bowers & Wilkins offers Society of Sound, a music subscription curated by Peter Gabriel & Real World Studios and the London Symphony Orchestra. Trial members can try out the music for free & download selected tracks. Members receive two hand-picked studio-quality album downloads each month plus a selection of catalogue albums; all available in Apple Lossless or FLAC 24-bit. I am doing the trial; the catalogue offers artists & music I would not normally consider or even know of and so far have been pleasantly surprised. The FAQs were helpful for me now just getting into digital downloads, a new dimension in my music library.

Note of interest: when fiddling with toe-in try a live recording from a closed venue/music hall/ballroom. I am listening to Virgil Fox, More Heavy Organ: Bach Live At Winterland. Fox's patter between pieces reveals some ambience of the old ice skating arena turned music hall but the real surprise comes with the applause–the sonic space extends beyond the back wall, all the way to the cheap seats, and the side walls disappear. The sense of space, up-down-left-right, is enormous–I caught myself looking up in shock. Toto, we are not in the living room anymore but in Winterland. Anyone fiddling with fine tuning toe-in might add this to their evaluation.

Trying the no-toe-in a the moment: the room is approx. 28 x 13, seated at approx. 15 feet from the speakers & off-center of a theoretical triangulated sweet spot. There just is no seating in the room at such a center spot, much like the majority of concert seats are not in the best sound field. Well, I prefer no-toe-in to the toe-in set-up. Time & tinkering will tell. Thank you Daddyjt for the research.

Being so long since buying as new the ALS Silver IV, having tossed the boxes after moving & missing the Carver instructions, I forget whether toe-in is recommended on set-up. The review in Sensible Sound points out that toe-in is not advocated. Just curious as to the reason & how many here toe-in -vs- not toe-in. My set-up has them 3 feet away from the back wall and as of this morning no toe-in.

In, thank you very much.

From what I am learning in the forum, tightening too much the screws may damage the ribbon assembly and too little allows buzzing. How does the original factory assembly avoid this? I would be in interested in learning how the factory assembles the ribbon components. My imagination runs off to some miniature torque wrench that should be in my tool kit. Perhaps someone in-the-know here would like to share insight into this matter. Back to listening again today and minimal (1/8-ish) turns. So far each screw1/8 turn has met no resistance of the kind sensed when a screw has reached or is very near the stop point. Pat Metheny recordings, his electric guitar tone, reliably buzzes, so it will be Pat & me today.

Thank you, makes sense, but being cautious comes with inexperience on my part. How far has any one particular screw been turned been by anyone doing this procedure? I've done 1/8 so far and not resolved the buzz sites. 1/4? 1/2? Proceeding with caution (jeez, you'd think I was doing touch-and-go brain surgery). Thank you for ongoing support.

Regarding tightening slightly the screws at the level of buzz, may this be performed whilst music is playing or is it to be done with no audio signal. I have identified at least two, maybe three, buzz zones.

You fellows are sharp. Back to the second hand store for another wine rack.

I will apply delicate attention to the screws this weekend, thank you for the emphasis on minute turns. As things stand now the components hide out of sight behind the left speaker, the True Sub Jr. behind the right speaker.

Thank you for the warm welcome, that is very nice. I will review the posts regarding ribbon buzz & selecting appropriate screws to minimally tighten, as well as humidity, although I think it is a low humidity situation indoors this winter–but humid summers in Northern Virginia. We tend to keep the windows open spring through autumn. What would be the benefit, if any, to running a hair dryer set to low heat & low speed from a distance, not close, over the buzzing area? Bad idea? Not trying to shrink wrap the ribbons like the window insulation treatments I put up in winter. Future plans: perhaps introduce the second M1.0T into the system, both set mono, driving their own speaker. I have yet to top-out the M 1.0T LED lights, so would there be any real sonic benefit? My guess is probably not. These, as I have learned here, are the non-inverting models so a flip of the switch on the back panel would precede a new hook-up. Still experimenting with the Sunfire True Subwoofer Jr. crossover level & volume. The ALS's bass is incredible, more so than in the past and I attribute that to room placement, having back and side walls walls not opening into another room or hallway. I have set the crossover at 35 Hz and the volume rather low and the low end is very nice. My wife said it is good to have Big Music (her words) again, meaning the sound & soundstage of the ALSs. I will post an update as things proceed. And to correct a mistake, that is a CT-7 in the system, not TFM-35. Thank you once again for the cordial advice and hospitality.

The old ALS Silver Mk IV s had lost all 6 subwoofer surrounds (literally all the way around) and one ribbon was buzzing. Ugh. In came the Polk SDA-SRSs hooked to M 1.0T amp, TFM-35 preamp and a Yamaha 5-disc changer. A pair of Bose 901 Mk IVs sat on the sideline needing speaker replacements. A fortunate situation indeed but I sighed at the thought of giving up the Darth Vaders in spite having the Big Coffins in their place. Luck enters the scene: I discover The Carver Site. Eureka! Following the forum discussions I ordered 6 woofers from Dynavox months ago, Over the weekend my wife and I replaced all the degenerate woofers. Needed to drill new mounting screw holes, three of four for for each woofer, and make ugly solders that actually got better by the end. Holding our breathes the ALSs were plugged into a Denon multi-channel receiver that was powering Mirage Nanostat 5.1 speaker set-up. The surgery worked! Not as astonishing as I had remembered but a start. Today the M 1.0 T/TFM-35 combo was connected via a Sunfire True Subwoofer Junior line level high-pass output set to approx. 40 Hz. The room is 25 L x 12 W with ALS at one of the 12 wide sides and out three feet from the back wall. At first, no sound whatsoever. The fault was Tape Monitor buttons pushed in whilst cleaning the TFM-35 face. One click and voilà! My mouth dropped open, my breath stopped. Oh my, my, my – this was astonishing! It was My Mourning Jacket's Evils Urges slamming sublimely . I had forgotten how astonishing music-at-home can be. There is a ribbon buzz and a subwoofer hum to sort out so back to the Forums for collective wisdom. My sincere appreciation goes out the Carver Site Forum members for their help. And my wife.