Jim Coash

I have repaired plenty of Polks over the years because I was a dealer for so long. As far as the woofers go, unless you can get identical, factory replacements, having them re-built is a much better option. I have been sending all types of drivers to The Circuit Shop in Grand Rapids for many years. They will replace rotted foam surrounds with improved foam, rebuild open voice coils and completely re-furbish just about any type of raw frame speaker. I have never had any problems with their work and always found the results to be perfectly matched to the original design or an improvement. Tweeters usually cannot be fixed unless they have a replaceable diaphram. Most of the pro models do and the better home units made in the modern era. They can be done by anyone with a little skill. In some cases, it is about the same cost to get a comparable tweeter that is also an upgrade, but try to match the original and always replace in pairs. That also goes for re-coning. If only one is bad, have both serviced to be identical when finished. Of course, remember that in nearly all cases, in my vast experience, speakers that have been damaged have been destroyed by the user simply because they were over driven by an amp to small for the application. In all the years I sold and serviced audio, a lack of power was the most common problem. Carver amps solved most of those situations for me. The more power you have, generally, the safer your speakers are. Jim

Carver tuners, especially the TX-11a were miles ahead of everything else when they came out. I did so many demos where I tuned in stations with one people could not get on their tuner. Sometimes getting a weak station and then just switching on the ACCD to their shock and amazement. I also used a paperclip as an antenna just to prove how little signal could produce listenable results. When my Dad and I built the Dyna FM-3t tuner in 1962, it has a separate "kit" to make it "Stereo Ready" if you wished. The base model was mono. I don't listen to a lot of radio but I did ask for and get a new outdoor dipole mast mount antenna for Christmas. I plan to install it soon. That should make things in the Party Barn better for radio. It wasn't bad until we had to replace the shingle roof and went with steel. That really made the indoor dipole essentially worthless. Jim

Gary: Glad you found the site. You will love the Carver M-500t, it is a wonderful amp. I had several and never had any complaints. I also owned two pair of E/V Interface:A speakers. I assume you are using the supplied active EQ. I have very fond memories of those speakers. I have at least a dozen pair of E/V speakers right now including a pair originally made in the early 1960s. They have been modded with new tweeters but I listen to them everyday. I spent almost 40 years in the DJ business and used E/V speakers from my first gig in 1973 with the Interface: A speakers through many models and now use the E/V SX-200 system. Feel free to ask questions and learn about your gear. Jim

I sold quite a few Dahlquist speakers beginning with DQ-10s in the 70s. I did hear and liked most of the later models including these DQ-12s you just bought. They remain relatively close to Jon Dahlquist philosophy. He used a woofer and box assembly from the Larger Advent for bass, added 5 high/mid drivers in a time aligned configuration and fitted a nice curved cloth covered mesh grill with walnut side panels to create the original DQ-10. It was a breakthrough. Soon you could buy a kit with Mylar caps and the instructions to make them mirror imaged which I did to several pair with noticeable effect. Still, the last pair I upgraded in the early 90s was a pair I took on trade. After finishing the upgrades my colleagues and I spent some time comparing. After more than 20 years, they were clearly beyond their sell date. The later models, like those you bought, used vastly superior driver elements, pretty decent crossovers and a well designed, fairly well constructed package. Certainly they were better than 2/3rds of the run of the mill box store speakers. The last ones I sold were a few years newer than yours. Made in the early 2000s they still were somewhat faithful to the Dahlquist ideals although I doubt he contributed anything to them but his name and patents. I was working for a trade company and we bought about a dozen pair, three different models and sold every one to people who enjoyed them. The pair I brought home to audition were good, but no match for my KEFs. Jim

Remember, I was one of the last people in the A/V business to actually own a CD player. My experiences with them was very negative from a reliability standpoint. Now I own at least a dozen. They are still the most trouble prone, unreliable, expensive to repair source units I have EVER owned. The latest ones have been much more reliable than the older ones. The only repairs I have done, successfully to CD players are belt replacements, especially loading belts, cleaning the slides and optics and re-aligning mechanisms. I tell all my friends DO NOT push the door closed. Use the button. It is the safest way and will avoid problems in the future. Still, many "insist" pushing the door shut is just fine. True only if you use just a light push squarely in the center of the door. I have had to remove paper labels from mechanisms so I tell people never to use them. Now, after selling off the bulk of my vinyl, CDs are my biggest software investment. As I said, my biggest disappointment has been the failure of so many of the CDs I and my friends have custom made. Those that were made on quality blanks have held up better. Those made on poor ones seem to be reliable for less than ten years at best. I agree completely with Chuck. Unless you are extremely careful, CDs in cars will suffer an early demise. Both the machines and the software. Of course, we live in Michigan. Perhaps the weather where you are is less of a problem. When it is very cold, I let CD players acclimate slowly to the temp and humidity problems. At gigs, cold CD players must be warmed before use, after traveling in the car for long distances. The CD rack is always in the warmest place I can carry it. Jim

I have had little or no trouble with any CDs I bought new. Of course, I treat them the same way I treat all software. No matter what it is, vinyl, tape or CD, they are always stored in the original box or package in a cool dry place. My home is humidity and temperature controlled most of the year. All vinyl is clean, in a VRP, stored on edge, alphabetically in the original sleeve the open end turned 90 degrees to the top. All tapes are in the original package. Played back to the start, never fast wound, cassette or reels. Also stored carefully. CDs in the jewel box, stored either in a nice rack or a zippered Case Logic unit. No software of any kind is ever left in the car. When I do take some on a trip, it goes with me back inside the house or to my hotel room. Nothing is ever left in any machine. I have seen plenty of tiny holes in burned CDs that do eventually skip and are then worthless. I always buy Maxell, TDK or Sony blanks and I record them in real time on one of three machines, always one track at a time, analog. By far CDs are the worst format I have ever seen. Period. A few of my records have some surface noise, a few cassettes have gotten eaten and if not repairable, thrown away. I have never lost a reel. When I had DAT and DCC they were OK but definitely second only to CDs in terms of problems. I have thrown away several CDs. Sometimes I was able to copy at least some of the tracks to a new CD but a few would not work at all, in any machine I tried. There is no question that a lot of people are to blame for the poor condition of their CDs but I am not one of them. It bothers me to know how much time I spent recording just to find out that the CDs after 5 to 10 years become a problem. Just one reason why I mistrust them so. I love vinyl for sound and longevity. Jim

I had extensive experience with CDs in car systems during my Stereo Showcase years. So many times I had someone ask me to sell them a CD player and I pointed out the likely problems they would encounter. Even so, I sold some. Invariably, several came back and complained about the poor quality of the equipment I sold them. Most of the time the CDs were simply trashed from being in the vehicle; dusty, dirty, scratched, worn and abused. My first test was to take a couple of them into the store and prove that they would not play in any CD player. Then take one of my CDs out and demonstrate that it worked just fine. My stock statement about CDs in general was, they are clean. quiet and dynamic. They are also the most unreliable, service intensive and over hyped product I have ever come across. I never bought a CD player for my vehicle until they came with one and cassette was no longer available. I have nothing against CDs except that the records I have that are 50 years old still sound great, none of my CDs ever sounded as good and quite a few of the ones I burned do not work. I have cleaned some that skipped successfully but some just do not work ever again. I have found some machines that will play more of my questionable CDs that others but I am reluctant to ever really trust CDs the was I do vinyl or tape. All I can do now is preemptively copy my favorite CDs to a new burned copy before they get too old. The question is, how old is that? 5 years, 10 years? The thing that really made me mad was the big billboard near my store put up by Classic Stereo that said, "Denon's $200 CD player, perfect sound forever". Words I would NEVER use about anything. Jim

Delicious vinyl. Some great finds are still out there. Gov't Mule on vinyl is interesting. Tom Brignall was one of my employees at Stereo Showcase and his Uncle Bob the last and best drummer in my band. I have the CDs of two albums but no vinyl. I recognize so many of these and some that I had long ago and sold off when I dumped the bulk of my collection. At one time it was huge, over 10K, My son Chris had his choice first and still owns most of that, I kept only my top favorites, about 500 and the rest went to a collector with the maple shelving. Most of my CD collection are compilations of the favorite albums of the past. Plus all the taped recordings and burned CDs I made either for saving oldies or for specific gigs. Here I am, very sick, with the vinyl behind me, in 2005. The whole wall was vinyl, end to end, top to bottom, alphabetical. Jim

I'm glad you like them. My ears are bleeding just looking at the pictures. They must be incredibly loud. Jim

I did actually sell a few pair of Cerwin-Vega speakers during my years at Stereo Showcase. One customer in particular was the perfect customer for them. His name was Derek and he was one of my long term customers. In fact, I heard from him just a few months ago. He called to tell me he was no longer using his Carver MXR-895 receiver and wondered if I was interested or knew a potential buyer. I remember delivering it to him long ago. Derek and his girl lived in an old house very close to the Woodward School neighborhood on Kalamazoo's near west side. Martha was raised on Woodward and I knew it well. Derek came to Stereo Showcase after having destroyed a couple systems he purchased at the appliance stores. I had his number quickly and decided the truth was the only way. When he saw and heard the Carver gear, he wanted it, but I was worried. He was young, working a construction job that paid well and loved headbanger music as loud as he could play it. The red flags went up and I tried to dissuade him from buying equipment from me. I told him, no matter what I sold him, he would blow it up. He literally begged me. He did have good taste and he wanted KEF speakers but I told him no way. I had a pair of Paradigm Model 11 floor speakers that were more efficient by far and I knew that was my best chance. I delivered and set up the Carver MXR- 895 using the pre-out to feed a Paradigm 15" powered sub, then took the high pass out to a Carver M-1.5 to drive the mains and used the receivers on board amp(s) for speakers in the rear of the room, Paradigm Phantoms, also with no deep bass going to them. It didn't take a week before he blew several drivers. I replaced them and warned him about clipping. No charge. Two weeks later, he did it again, and this time Paradigm called me up and said the warranty was void. I told Derek and suggested he buy some E/Vs from me. Big ones that would produce well over 100 db/watt/meter. Too much he said. Then go to Highland Appliance and buy the biggest Cerwin-Vegas you can get I told him. The only spec you want to look at is "efficiency" and it has to be as high as possible. It was at least a month before he called back and invited me to his new place. It was way out in farm country, high on a hill, overlooking a valley where the town of Lawton lay. When I drove up, I could hear the stereo, then I saw the Cerwin-Vega speakers on his deck, pointed out into his massive front yard. He was listening to Triumph while mowing his lawn on a tractor! I checked his install and made a few tweaks but I told him his system was not designed for outdoor use. The next time he showed up he had sold the Cerwin-Vega speakers, blown, to a friend as is and he was ready for E/Vs. I also took back his M-1.5 and gave him a generous trade in toward a PM-1200. He bought four E/V 15" horn loaded two way stage systems. That really made him happy and I never heard another word for several years. We are still good friends but these days he has a family and his habits have been toned down some. His wife is the same lovely girl I met the first time I visited his place. He now is owner of an asphalt business and makes good money. They both tell me they consider my consulting the best thing they ever had happen to them. At some point, you must be truthful. I can complement the owner of products I never could recommend sometimes but I cannot tell people what simply isn't the truth. I know plenty of people who love what they have but you never see those units on anybodies list of great components. Names come and go, brands change ownership, what was once good is now not any longer but some things are just facts. Please don't see my criticism as personal. If you like it, so be it. But have you taken the time to really listen to something else? Who knows what another person really is hearing? I only know what I hear. The thing is, who has had more practice than I have? Anybody? Jim

This is actually a case where a simple upgrade would yield a major improvement. Go to the Vifa page, or Peerless or Scan Speak. There are others. Find a very nice soft dome tweeter, large diameter that will perfectly fit the opening. You have a tweeter level control so you can compensate for an efficiency difference easily. There will be a nice improvement. Also, stop over driving your amp. The reason the original tweeter is open is because you clipped the amp. Either reduce the volume or get a bigger power amp. Of course, the best solution would be to just dump these turkeys and get a good set of speakers. Cerwin Vegas are among the worst of the mass market companies if it is sound quality you are interested in. A pair of Paradigm Titans would blow them away. You could also reduce the stress on the amp by going with a powered sub that included a high pass filter. Provided you have separates or a pre-out/main in set up. Consider all options before you spend your money. Even with a really good pair of tweeters those speakers will continue to be the weakest part of your system, most likely. I would recommend these but they will not stand the abuse that damaged your current speakers. Jim

In my experience, voice coil rubs are more often than not the result of a warped voice coil due to overheating from clipping. If the speaker was dropped, then it is possible the magnet alignment is off. Before I attempted a re-alignment I would have a qualified re-cone company have a look. This is always superior to replacing drivers but it should be done in pairs to retain a mirror image match between speakers. I have had little success re-aligning a magnet structure to original tolerances in any case. Too often I have come across really good speakers that have been bastardized. The worst was a pair of McIntosh ML-4 speakers where the original woofers had lost their foam and been replaced by generic woofers. The owner's kids had "fixed" them for the owner and thrown the originals away. Huge mistake. He wanted big bucks for them. I told him they were worthless unless he still had the original drivers. Part out the original elements and chop up the cabinets for kindling. If only he had re-coned the originals. They would have been worth a lot then. I bought 6 E/V-15B woofers on eBay for .99 cents each plus shipping. All were destroyed by being driven by an amp insufficient in power for the task at hand. It cost me about $70/each to have them completely re-done as the latest E/V-15G speakers with the finest parts available. They now are in my guitar amps and sound incredible. Stevie Ray and Joe Bonnamassa use(d) only E/V in their amps (many other great players too). I still have one pair left for a future project. I do not believe there is a better speaker unless it is the E/V-12G or JBL D-130/140 series speakers now supplanted by the E-Series which are supposed to be even better. So far, I have never had the chance to see or hear those. I sure am sorry I sold the pair of D-130F JBLs I owned in the 60s. Jim

Like a lot of rock bands, there are snatches of both music and lyrics taken from old black musicians from long ago in nearly every Led Zeppelin tune. We had a DJ who worked in town at the rock station and every Sunday night he played nothing but the blues. When people called in and asked him to play a Led Zeppelin, Clapton, Hendrix or Stevie Ray cover he would refuse and play the original instead. Kind of refreshing actually. 12 bar blues is the most common musical form in the world and much of what I like to play is based on it. Any good guitar player can sit down and play several hundred "different" songs all with the same three or four chords. Just make up your own words. Jim

I don't think there are many Led Zeppelin songs that aren't basic blues based riffs with plenty of borrowing being done. Jim

When I think of my life I am stunned to think of how my values and opinions have changed. I was brought up in a Catholic home where my family routinely disparaged minorities, denigrated other religions and forced their opinions upon us. I was headed down that same path when I met Martha. I attended an all boys Catholic high school, she attended Kalamazoo Central with plenty of minorities. There were 75 boys in my class, 600 boys and girls in hers. She made me take a whole new look at the world. I came to understand that we are all in this together and that we were no more than a spot of mold growing on a tiny planet in a remote corner of a huge universe. Our time here on the earth is but a blink in the age of our 4.5 billion year old solar system. My ancestors were Canadian fur trappers and poor immigrants from England, Germany and Poland. My boys and their children are my future. Just as I learned so much from my Dad, I pass all that I can down to the next generations and try to help them understand science. We are atheists. I had nightmares for years growing up about my sinful nature. Then, with help from Martha and some of my college professors and friends, I finally left that behind. It is easy to see how humans evolved from earlier species for me. I believe in Darwin. I also understand how our ancestors came to look to gods for answers but we are growing beyond that now. In a few hundred years I hope humankind will rid itself of that curse. I sure have. Below, my parents, Bob and Sherrie Coash. Born 1927, married more than 60 years. Jim