newandold
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Posts posted by newandold
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18 hours ago, samberger0357 said:
Is that the Roy Allison group?
I am not a Facebook member, but it must be
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Right now it appears that Facebook has the most active Allison group I’ve seen in a very long time.
No surprise there, since Facebook is wildly popular
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29 minutes ago, xtophr said:
Hi,
Are you saying that you would go to them again regarding such an issue?
I would indeed, but with a live call first….because admittedly, it’s been a long time since I have used their service.
My other “Go to” had been Millersound in PA. Bill is getting on in years so I don’t know there. Had been a Lone Ranger but perhaps now he has help.
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I’ve had direct experience with Simply Speakers on a woofer continuity repair, involving a voice coil lead. That’s a priceless driver and I would trust them to get it working
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Almost a decade now since I first acquired these extraordinary loudspeakers.
A few weeks ago I took a grille off for a quick inspection and noticed a trace of what looked like a tiny spot of rust where the protective metal screen meets the bezel on a few of the midrange and tweeters.
I heard a few stories over the years of this getting out of hand and causing some drivers to lose continuity in extreme cases.So I got it now with a few dots of rust reforming paint and a brush no larger than a ballpoint pen….all is good.
If this is all the worry I’ve got on a pair of now 35 year old systems then I’m sitting pretty (me thinks!)
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On 6/22/2021 at 5:05 PM, Chris Barbot said:
I've heard that you can use the mids and tweeters regardless of model between the Allison Models 1, 2 and 3.
How about other models? Could I use the mids and tweeters from a CD-8 in an Allison 2?
Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions!
Chris
I wanted to share another story regarding Allison midranges and tweeters….then realized I left the second part of your question unanswered.
I suppose 14 months is better late than never LOL.
The answer to your specific question is yes (regarding the tweeters). All those models you referred to are 3 way systems. The midrange for those are all essentially identical (mechanically) and are ferrofluid cooled.
The tweeters in those units use silicone damping material. Smaller two way systems, such as the A4, use tweeters that look identical, but use the ferrofluid cooling material. Swapping those is not advisable, but if nothings left out there, you could get away with using the two way tweeter in a 3way system.
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1 hour ago, LorneG said:
Thank you @newandold, that means a lot to me. It's been a fun restoration so far - I have a separate thread on that in this forum. All of the vintage audio that I acquire has a back-story which makes it so much more fulfilling than buying new. Most of what I've bought is the original owner's kids who typically want their parents beloved stereo equipment from the 60's -70's restored, taken care of and enjoyed the way their parents' did.
My own back story on stereo equipment was that of my dad. He grew up on a farm on the middle of Iowa in the 40s & 50s and was infatuated with radio, because he could pull in stations from Chicago, Omaha and Kansas City. This is why he was a life long Cubs fan. When he got out of the U.S. Army in 1961, where he learned advanced radio operation and repair, he bought a Motorola 3-channel console - it was beautiful, and later a Harman Kardon receiver, Advent speakers and a Garrard TT which we were specifically not allowed to touch. My brother and I followed suit in the late 70's and early 80's when we hit our mid-teens and earned a few bucks, but we were sold on Japanese solid state big power - Pioneer, Yamaha, Technics and JBL speakers (thanks to Maxell).
Anyway, I got away from it after college but started back down the vinyl path a few years ago. I went into a high-end audio store and blown away by how great it sounded but it also lacked any soul, feeling or warmth - the sound just kind of hit you in the face instead of smothering and soothing you with its warmth. They had a room of vintage stuff, and after I walked in, was taken back 40 years and knew I found home, plus it all sounded great, not perfect but listening to audio is as much about your ears as it is with your eyes and your memories.
Always fun to come here and share these stories from those who have evolved through a common timeframe.
My “newandold” username kinda sums up my own spin on all of this. Ever since I got started, it’s been a process of advancing the state of the art while hanging onto those things that both appeal to me and are time honored. The loudspeaker is the most enduring component IMHO and if that sound grabs your ears…..matters NOT how old they are.
The electronics are the “new” side of the equation. My oldest component (I run separates) is my multi channel amp. that’s been delivering the goods since Jan. 2001. No more stereo preamp….. I use an AV processor. HDMI forces you to follow the upgrade path, but it’s been worthwhile because for me, lossless audio is the holy grail for truly outstanding audio reproduction.
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On 7/15/2022 at 5:43 PM, LorneG said:
I got the grills off today, lots of patience. I will start another thread with restoration questions.
Hi Lorne,Yours is a great story and strikes a nerve with me on a number of fronts.
First off, the AR2ax were my very first new pair of high fidelity loudspeakers.
(Brand new, around 1970-71)
Secondly, the LAST pair of loudspeakers I acquired ALSO had a very extended period of being unused and boxed up in original cartons.
The entire notion of coming up with stuff like this had been a dream for me and to have it realized is VERY gratifying indeed.
No doubt you’ll get all the help necessarily to bring those back up to snuff in short order. The scruffy pots are typical AR. That developed for me in a very short period of time from relatively new unfortunately.
If you’re interested, you can read here about my own “boxed up” discovery under the CSP Allison category: Allison IC20’s in original boxes for 20 years!
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19 hours ago, shoe333 said:
i have a set of allison cd6 that seem to be in good condition, intrested in selling them
If I were you I would hang onto them, and restore the woofers IF both tweeters work.
The tweeters are the heart of the issue. Worth their weight in gold if working with their wonderful wide dispersion characteristics….but nearly impossible to replace in 2022. A challenge on the used marketplace, though many of the two way Allison models can interchange that tweeter.The money you might get selling would hardly be worth the effort IMHO
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On 6/16/2022 at 9:03 AM, DavidR said:
I HATE my wife's Bose Wave. Gives me listener fatigue after about 1/2 hour.
Some like the 601 series 2 more than the 901 and others the 10. There is just something about listening to the 901s despite their short comings.
The “Wave Radio” was certainly nothing to write home about, but it was certainly a platform to hype their marketing strategy…..
I did get a sweet ride out of it with a fellow motorcyclist, who wanted to take a run down to a Holiday Inn where they were putting on a wave radio demonstration.
It started with a video demonstration on a large screen in a conference room and ended with the screen being raised and showing the Audio coming from that little radio behind it.
Nothing remarkable, simply clever. They showcased radios with the tops removed so you could view the passage ways the sound traveled through to attain their “sound”. They looked like hamster 🐹 trail obstacle courses to me!
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25 minutes ago, Paul the butcher said:
It was and I tried to get Roy to change it as most consumers at the time including myself had an 8 ohm receiver abd weren’t willing to upgrade and some people blew up their receiver running the Allison’s on it. He didn’t want to give up the sound quality.
That’s interesting…. I would not have thought a reasonably high powered receiver would have a tough time driving a nominal 6ohm load.
By the time I got into the Allison prisms (The A1 first) I was running separate components and 200 wpc.
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5 minutes ago, Paul the butcher said:
The black and white image of Bob Ricci brings back memories. I worked at Allison for many years. Great product. Thought he should have gone to an 8ohm unit.
Hi Paul,
Thank You for putting a name to the face (Paul R.)
I found that picture in a foreign publication, probably 12 years ago and until now, NOBODY has remarked on it nor attached a name to the face! (Mystery solved).
Curious about your thoughts on an “8ohm unit….” a challenge perhaps to arrive there with that unique driver compliment? -
5 hours ago, DavidR said:
That's a picture of a series 3 802. The originals used wood and looked a bit more like the 901.
I see David,
Not to derail the subject but talking “BOSE” has me thinking about the Bose system I have in my car.
It’s a 2017.5 Murano Platinum. The .5 introduced some end of model year updates that included Apple 🍎 Car Play for IPhone.
The system sounds great if your parked and playing it as if you’re home.
That being said, somebody dropped the ball when it came to real world listening while driving. 10 Bose drivers and a spare mounted subwoofer. Looks nice in the car and on paper, but in normal driving conditions my 20 year old Durango system sounds better…..Oh well.
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9 hours ago, DavidR said:
They were probably the 802 model.
I’m sure you’re right about that. The club I was in they were mounted quad style way up in the corners of the dance floor. Had that infamous 901 shape (similar)
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1 hour ago, DavidR said:
Get the Series II. They are WAY better sounding than the ported series. Dave Shirley can rebuild the EQ so that you will get the most out of them. If you're really stuck on the ported ones then go for the Series 6.
Decades ago, I was working in one of the local shopping malls that had a Bose retail outlet with an audition room. The place had virtually no customers at that moment, when I seized the opportunity (always armed with a carry bag loaded with CD 💿’s.)
I perched myself in front of a 901 system with the EQ and went at it, for an hour or so totally undisturbed!
It was a VERY live room and got some very pleasing sound out of that setup. That being said, I’m ignorant to which model they were…..ported non ported or anything else. Other than the odd shape, unique driver complement and that equalizer I know little about them. I also recall they had some type of industrial version that the discotheques were using because of their incredible power handling capabilities.
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18 minutes ago, Howard S said:
Hello everyone
I would love to have my 901 series 4 back, they were stolen from my apartment. I even had the spatial control receiver which cost a fortune back in the day
I would like to find a newer pair manufactured near the end of their run, before discontinued, or a pair of 901's in perfect condition without needs of repair
any advice? Who is "Dave" does he offer any speakers for sale?
If interested….MANY on EBay
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49 minutes ago, H.G.B. said:
In my case I have the older ones with the spring loaded pins, which I like by the way. My replacement tweeter had the rear push on connectors.
After locating the connector's position a small I pilot was drilled through the wood followed by clearance holes so the push on terminals could be embedded into the cabinet. They have no function at this time. The 2 thin wires from the tweeter fell off so I held them captive in the push pins and laid them over the original connection. The wires didn't like soldering but they are connected now..
Do you know any one who has repaired Allison tweeters?
I am using a pair of RDL F-1 and I suspect they share the same tweeter. e.g. wide dispersion.
So I purchased a pair of ELAC speakers about 6 weeks ago and when I a/b them-- they just can't compare to Roy Allison's speakers in any way.
They are going back. I did own a pair of model 6, model 4, the power hungry modern model 8 or 9 where the woofer is pointing at an angle to the floor.
I still have the ESW in the closet. It's sad when one makes a decision to sell one's equipment and then its gone are. Such is life.
Oh yes, I have 2 Allison 3 woofers which were overhauled-- yet they were placed in storage facing each other. Well I won't do that again. LOL
I knew a few of these forum members who had some limited success with tweeter connection repairs (like yours) but no one with real voice coil repair replacement which of course is the heart of the whole thing.
Interesting to note that Allison Acoustics themselves repaired no drivers for customers. If you returned one you could perhaps get an answer from them about what went wrong with yours and you would get a replacement. That was it.
I’ve had some midrange drivers repaired outside of Allison and the woofers but never a tweeter -
15 hours ago, H.G.B. said:
Well new and old I'm still learning and I appreciate your input.
I will check out this impedance issue further however. I didn't realized computer grade caps were already used
in 1977 by Allison.
Thank you
This is the last version (around 1988) that was drop in compatible with your A3. Could drop into Both first and second generation versions of your speaker. The later Allison 3 had rear connections only as the brass pins had been eliminated.
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1 hour ago, H.G.B. said:
Hi guys,
“ I got back to my hifi/stereo life a few months ago and am using the Allison 3 speakers again. My ears have lost the ability to hear highs at my older age, yet I will not stop cold turkey and walk away from my stereo system. The selector control on the tweeter is now set to full output.”
That “slope switch” is better than the AR pots, but it still needs maintenance otherwise the tweeters can become intermittent from the poor connection. It can be cleaned by sliding it back and forth many, many times. The most effective way to go is to remove the tweeter to access the switch from the inside and use deoxit and Dustoff or equivalent.
1 hour ago, H.G.B. said:“Had Roy Allison been alive and his company had prospered, I'm sure the tweeter would have been updated.”
He did so, and in the following years that tweeter got major updates that included rear connection and dispensing with the brass pins. Wood bezels replaced with plastic material and capped off with a protective metal screen to protect the dome.
“The model 3 has a 4Ω impedance and its not to be used with with certain ONKYO receivers which only work down to 6Ω. I finally had to try the speakers however and connected them and played the system at a low output. The speakers came back to life and I was pleased.”
Of course….those speakers are actually 6ohm. nominal and are an easy load for any typical receiver.
“The electrical mismatch such as I mentioned above... and the age of the crossover may be suspect.”
Nah
“Crossover have a life and the parts such as capacitors lose their values, which in turn affect the resistors and nothing is what seems anymore.”
Very high quality crossover components in the original Allison lineup with “ computer grade” caps.
Caps do drift, however on these, no one I know that swapped them ever heard much of a difference. -
35 minutes ago, DavidR said:
Good for you. I'm sure having rare Allison speakers (as most are) there is a fear level that you may not be able to repair/replace a driver.
Play On !
Yes indeed! That “fear level” turned into action now 22 years ago when I transitioned the Allison’s from typical stereo duty to multichannel surround. Who does such a thing with speakers that have gone out of business??
Nuts like me (I guess!)
Most grateful that Ebay came into play in and around the same time period and became the critical element in making it all happen.
Sad now to see nothing left but scraps there nowadays. That being said beforehand I scrapped up enough viable parts for a lifetime.
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May 10, 2022:
It’s been roughly six years since I completed the last phase of my Allison Acoustics Home Theater driver restoration. I don’t touch any of the drivers unless necessity dictates, however I thought I would take a peek and see how things are holding up. I took one of the plastic grills off of the I C 20 woofers which were redone in 2012. With central air conditioning in play it looked exactly the way it did when I had them redone now almost 10 years ago. And the ones redone in 2016 the smaller woofers were equally sublime. Between this and my back up drivers I continue to be sitting pretty while putting cutting edge electronics into play with these old beasts…. Life is good!
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17 hours ago, SC.SimiValley said:
Good move. I'm using those plastic furniture sliders now. As I recall, I used to just pick the A1's up and move them around. Not trying that anymore. I play classical music through old Yamaha separates. CD's and KUSC on the tuner. My turntable is in use by my daughter who has recently discovered vinyl. She is playing them through a Yamaha receiver and a pair of KEF bookshelf speakers. My next experiment will be to connect a Chromebox computer to my preamp and see how music from the internet sounds on the Allison's.
Steve
You won’t be disappointed In streaming with the Allison’s (been doing that for years….)
I stream mainly with A UHPH1 Sony high resolution Blu-ray player.
The Allison’s do the same thing they always do, provided they are maintained in restored original condition….If source material is great you’ll know and equally so if the material is bad.
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37 minutes ago, SC.SimiValley said:
I have been oblivious to the audio world for the last couple of decades. Only learned of Allison Acoustics demise when I started looking for the replacement woofers. Also discovered Audio magazine ceased publication in 2000. Always looked forward to their October equipment directory ( I still have the Oct. 1999 issue). IC20's must be awesome. Although they would be too much for my skinny arms to move around. When ever I move the One's, I sometimes think, maybe I should have purchased the lighter weight Two's, which I auditioned at the same time. Naw! I made the right choice and you probably did too.
The Allison:One was my first from the company and a quantum leap from The AR 2ax that was my first Hi Fidelity Loudspeaker. The ones played infinitely louder and clearer, no doubt going from six to twelve drivers had all to do with that. In the 35 years that I drove them, from records (no such thing yet as a CD 💿 player,) right up to being part of a full blown “Allison” home theater system, I never seriously considered replacing them with anything else. That was no easy task with the company gone belly up, but I got it done.
Regarding moving heavy speakers around; I took a ride up to Sears (now gone) over 9 years ago and bought a neat little folding hand truck. A savior, to be sure!
Bill
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1 hour ago, SC.SimiValley said:
You may be right. I’ve only had these woofers for a week, so time will tell. They still sound good to my non-audiophile ear. I recently retired and was horrified to discover the deterioration in the Allison woofers that hadn’t been played for awhile. Rebuilding did not seem to be an option that I wanted to get into so I looked for the simple solution of just replacing the woofers with something I could put in myself. I made some charts and compared available woofers with the Allison specs posted online. It was immediately apparent that I would not be able to duplicate the originals. This meant I would have to be satisfied with something that was different. Not wanting to do any cabinet work, my first criteria was fit. It seems many 10” woofers are too large for the Allison grill boards. That narrowed my choices considerably. The Hertz were not in my price range, but as luck would have it, a pair popped up on Ebay and then Amazon for about 1/3 of retail. The specs don’t seem to be that far off, even exceeding the originals in some areas. I’m not a speaker builder so I can only relate to what I’ve read online as to what is important. They are different but that may not be a bad thing. At any rate, they work, so I feel successful. Of course, ignorance is bliss. Thanks for your input.
It sounds like you’re “OK” then….
From my experience with the 10” Allison drivers, I can tell you that obtaining originals became problematic as far back as 1995. Between then and 2000 the company made the I’ll fated relaunch attempt and failed again.
Right now I continue to run the IC20, which has woofers very similar to your original A1, (I had them also, bought new in 77.)I bit the bullet over 9 years ago and had those woofers professionally redone.
Allison IC-20'S (in original boxes for 20 years!)
in Allison
Posted
Any discussion there about the IC20 Loudspeaker?