austingonzo

Something went sideways. They've been relisted. I now see mention that there is a crack in the bottom of one of the speakers. I don't recall that disclosure on the earlier listing.

I picked up a pair of Ohm Walsh 4XO's off of Craigslist this evening. I know this is the Allison forum, so let me make the post topical. I've seen a number of you mention that your Allisons have made the migration into your home theater setups. How has that worked? Is there some special magic to making them sound wonderful after YPAO, MCAC, Audessy or Dirac is finished doing their magic? Are you using them in a 5.1 setup? Are you dropping the subs and center channels? I'm asking because when I had first tried hooking the CD-7's to my Pioneer Elite (not rated for 4 ohms, by the way), ran MCAC with the designated mic, ensured that the speakers were set to small and crossover to my sub set at 80 Hz, the Allisons just sounded like they were drained of all life. In short, what's the best way to bring dispersion speakers into home theater and retain some quality of sound - especially for occasional 2 or 2.1 channel listening? austingonzo

I hope he did. I stopped bidding at $40, before I informed the group; because, with shipping, I thought they would be bid up too far. They went for ~$60. austingonzo

A month later: the Pioneer arrived, it was filthy on the inside and had no audio output. A can of Deoxit cleaned the boards. A trip to a tech revealed it was missing jumpers. In short, feeding the CD-7s more power did help them open up. Just as important, though, the receiver has loudness controls for lower volume output. I'm still keeping an eye out for better speakers, but I do enjoy the CD-7s. austingonzo

Another set. https://www.shopgoodwill.com/Item/72283175 austingonzo

Glad it all worked out. Now I need to find another road trip to burn off some vacation. Does anyone have any free Ones sitting around gathering moss. ;-) Please post updates and pics as you get them situated @AR_First. austingonzo

@Long Live Roy My offer was a last resort effort to ensure they went to someone who would appreciate them. I release my "squatter's rights" in favor of your getting them out of your mom's house asap. I am happy to go to the end of the line. Thanks for your consideration.

Not at all. Based upon the few hundred posts I read, your response was factual and tactfully put.

As befits a newbie, I underappreciated how thorny a simple question like the one I raised would be. I recently joined the Yahoo! group as well, which means there are years of conversations about these topics that I did not see or participate in at the time they were topical. I appreciate the response, @CAllyn. After reading a bunch of group postings about KY, I think the proper position for me to take is to not look a gift horse in the mouth. ;-)

Was browsing the forum and I think I found an earlier reference to this device and ephemera. Mention made of seeing at a flea market and picture in this thread.

I answered my own question:

@rnathans00, are the latter-day KY Threes considered in any way inferior to the original production run? For instance, were lower quality drivers employed with them?

I understand. I'll see if my wife commits me for being certifiable. If she doesn't, I'll start thinking about a road trip in late July. As it relates to the 3s, I don't know that I'd have much use for extra cabinets. I'm not that kind of audiophile. :-)

Yeah, I've been known to spend more than prudent when I'm determined to get something I really want; but that strikes me as more than a bit pricey as well.

Just FYI. I have no connection with the listing. I happened to be checking EB for "Allison Acoustics" out of boredom yesterday and saw this. There is a listing for this, along with shipping materials and signed RA ephemera. Seller is in MA. I have no frame of reference for price of the item. I won't post the direct link out of consideration for expiring links and cluttering the forum. austingonzo

@Long Live Roy what is the status of the remaining 3's? Did you dispose of them already or are you in a hurry to do so? I have plenty of unused vacation on the books, a 2018 Mazda 3 hatchback needing some highway miles and am just crazy enough to consider a cross-country drive for fun. I probably couldn't look at this until mid-July though, as I am vacationing in LA with my son at the top of the month. austingonzo

Quoting myself is poor form, right? Anyway: http://www.hifi-classic.net/review/pioneer-vsx-d1s-435.html Clipping noted at 210 watts @ 4 ohms.

It (VSX-D1S) has two modes of output via a switch: Mode A delivers 130 watts at 8 ohms to the fronts. Somewhere online I read that it doesn't double at 4 ohms, but I'll have to find the reference. Maybe it goes to 170 or 200??? https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1002196/Pioneer-Vsx-D1s.html?page=51#manual

Update: the Pioneer Elite AVR has no pre-outs, so I'm back to square one. I have noticed since then that the CD-7's sound best to my old ears when driven at a higher volume than the volume at which I typically listen. I have won on auction a different vintage AVR, the Pioneer VSX-D1S. It should take a week or so to arrive. I am curious whether the higher wattage, lower THD and voicing of this receiver will improve the details produced by the Allisons. I simply cannot afford to listen to them regularly at the volume at which they sounded the best with the Rotel. I would still appreciate suggestions for better/best pairings from more experienced users. Thanks.

I expect to be outbid, and a friend is supposed to be bringing me a relative's vinyl collection and equipment this weekend; so I thought I would pass this along. Maybe karma will catch up with me later. https://www.shopgoodwill.com/Item/69656422 austingonzo

Heya, Back for more pearls of wisdom, please. The CD-7s are back from Texasound after a recap. Supposedly they benched to spec, so now I'm trying to put them to use. I had them connected to my 90's Rotel RX950-AX for two-channel listening with my modern Denon turntable. I was wary of integrating them into the home theater setup in the same cabinet (Pioneer Elite VSX-LX301) due to their 4ohm profile. While the Pioneer should drive them, I was just being cautious. Yesterday I decided the growing speaker clutter was too much to handle, so I moved them over to the Pioneer AVR, rotated the other speakers around and ran Pioneer MCACC to perform room correction. (My sub is a PSB Subsonic 8.) I tried large and small settings, and crossover settings at 50, 80, and 100 Hz. When I listened to music in any configuration, the Allison's had lost their charm. This was regardless of whether I used 2.1 or (Pure Direct) stereo settings. The presence of the sub took over and the benefits of the acoustic suspension sound were completely lost. I'm now considering reconnecting the Allison's to the Rotel, running pre-out from the AVR to the Rotel and re-running MCACC in this configuration. This should give me the ability to revert to 2-channel listening when I desire, but I'll have no room correction in 2 channel mode. What recommendations can you offer here? Also, while I like the Rotel, I find myself watching Goodwill's online auctions for inexpensive (<$100) vintage NAD and Luxman receivers as replacements. I suspect those would really be lateral moves. What affordable vintage gear do you feel is a good pairing with these speakers? Thanks, austingonzo.

Indeed. It would appear this was not meant to be. I have a brother-in-law in the Twin Cities area, but I don't think he has the space to store them for me indefinitely. And, he has little ones. Sigh....

Okay, I've broken down and submitted a request to join the Yahoo group after retrieving my old profile. Down the rabbit hole I go!

Allison CD-7 The LG V30 has good microphones, but I did not really try to calibrate the recordings. Hopefully you can get some idea of their current performance. Again, I'm hoping to just get a little more out of them across more of the recordings and genres I listen to. Again, I appreciate this forum greatly. I sent TexaSound the crossover schematics and the product line driver specs, etc., last night. So I hope they have better information to use when testing them.

I'm trusting that TexaSound won't mess with them if they bench well, Bill. Let me see if I can figure out how to post links to videos or PM you a shared link. As I said, they could be fine and the issue is due to hearing loss on my part, room acoustics, source, performance of the Rotel, etc. It's sometimes hard to say with so many elements in the chain. My troubleshooting skills are better on computers than audio gear, unfortunately.