To Fuse or not to Fuse?

[frankmarsi]

10-27-09, 9P.M. EST, CSP

I’ll get to the point and not talk about the current rash of vcr’s, or AR smaller whatever speakers, I like minimalist stuff at times, but come-on already, this site is going ‘budget- kit’. Let’s get back to ‘real’ AR stuff already and keep the ‘highest’ in the realm of ‘high’ as in 'Hi-Fi'!

For a while now one of my LST’s has been out, I re-traced speaker wires, patch cords, play back sources, even sprayed de-ox everywhere, etc. but found nothing brought back my tunes. I know, I should have tested with a meter for 'opens', but I'm getting stupid and old and lazy and didn't want to have to go through all that stuff.

‘Reverse the tape’, months ago I blew a fuse and still heard the mid’s and tweets working, I replaced the fuse and all was well. Others on this site said that’s normal, fine I learned my lesson.

This time nothing seemed to work, the speakers were dead as a door-nail, even the micro-statics were out, so strange, such sadness.

O.K. more facts about the driving amps, rebuilt PL700 two’s and I push like a MF.

No answers, days went by, no answers still, just sadness, I didn’t even want to look at those mothers.

Tonite after I finally took a chance I used a hard to come by brand new 2amp fuse, life sprung eternal suddenly.

I’m back to the human race and happy as a young kid once more.

Does any one have an explanation? Again, the last time this happened the mid’s kept working even with a blown fuse, however this time I had no sound at all, even the micro’s were dead.

I know, I know, I’m pushing my speakers with high power a lot, but this case was never experienced before. Anyone with a similar case?

Ah, live and learn and listen to music always.

FM

[Tekker]

Sounds kinda like you've got an intermittent connection somewhere. Cold solder joint, corrosion in the fuse holder, maybe broken wire. May be time to take a peek in that big woofer hole.

Good luck,

Bill

[frankmarsi]

Sounds kinda like you've got an intermittent connection somewhere. Cold solder joint, corrosion in the fuse holder, maybe broken wire. May be time to take a peek in that big woofer hole.

Good luck,

Bill

Hi Bill. This involves an earlier post, not the last one about no sound at all, that was a blown original 1972 fuse. This other no-sound problem on another out of the four running was a gradual lost of sound which I presumed was a burnt voice coil because sound disappeared over time and included 'crackling' noises before it went out entirely.

Upon removing the woofer in question, I installed a newly 're-foamed' baby. I realized after checking the one in question and after already anxiously installing the 're-foamed' one I inspected the bad-guy. Sure enough the voice coil lead was disconnected from the terminal strip. With further inspection I noticed the terminal strip was bent too far away from the cone, and I believe with crazy-high power bass passages the cone simply ripped loose the VC wire. That must of involved a lot of heat and cone 'pulling' caused by high current from the amp. I bent back the terminal closer to the cone after re-soldering the wire to the terminal and did the usual battery test, it worked fine. Damn, my fault again.

I must state that ever since I first bought my very first AR speakers in 1972, I've always been anxious to get 'a-listening', it seems I never lost the great desire to anxiously listen to AR's ever since. They've always been speakers that just have to be listened to immediately because as we all know as members on this site that their great sound quality has that inexplicable attraction.

FM, a man distracted.

P.S. Anyone see these on the bay? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...e=STRK:MEWAX:IT

Funny, when I first saw a pair of "Amati's" for sale in the window of 'Stereo-Exchange' here on Broadway in NYC back in 1991, Bernie wanted 4 grand each, 8 grand the pair.

The ones shown on bay have what appears to be what I saw in '91, a simple window screen made of dark grey plastic screen. I made the same for mine back then and I measured and with using great cutting precision, mine turned out really nice looking, except mine are LST's. Recently I bought a set of four complete cloths with frames from "Vintage-AR" just to have for the future should I want to change the appearance to original. I'm still tempted to hook up the third pair I have, except I'll need some one to assist me in placing them on top of the first two pair, (used to cleanly, 3 times,press over 170, bench even more)- I know, I'm crazy, so, I don't feel bad about it, just a little nuts. And the guys on this site thought they were obsessed.

P.S.2 I'm getting into vinyl very heavily lately, with the help of a VPI 16.5 record cleaner to help, I actually never left it. Tack-on a Denon DL-160, a AT150MLX, a AT-440MLA, a Shure Type 4 with S.A.S. stylus, a Shure Type 3, with Ed Saunders' better stylus, heaven for my ears, you must understand. I even in the past year bought over 350 used records that are in 'personally-inspected' great condition (at .89 cents each), which bring my collection to over 750 vinyl records, over 400 CD's, and countless footage of 10 inch (Revox A-77 Type 3) and countless better-quality cassette tapes.

FM, a 'throw-back', a cave man, and even I can do it!

FM

[kkantor]

Frank,

This used to happen sometimes with my LST's. The fuse is in an atypical place in the circuit, and you should still be able to hear some sound when the fuse is completely open. (There's kind of a backwards path through the autotransformer.)

The only thing I could think of to explain the occasional silence was that the load that the amp sees when the fuse goes out is really strange, and might sometimes trip the amp's protection circuit as the fuse blows?

Actually, now I am thinking that it also might depend on where the autotransformer taps are set. So, if the fuse blows with one knob setting, silence. With a different knob setting, you hear leakage signal. I need to go ponder the LST schematic...

-k

[Carlspeak]

P.S. Anyone see these on the bay? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...e=STRK:MEWAX:IT

Funny, when I first saw a pair of "Amati's" for sale in the window of 'Stereo-Exchange' here on Broadway in NYC back in 1991, Bernie wanted 4 grand each, 8 grand the pair.

The ones shown on bay have what appears to be what I saw in '91, a simple window screen made of dark grey plastic screen. I made the same for mine back then and I measured and with using great cutting precision, mine turned out really nice looking, except mine are LST's. Recently I bought a set of four complete cloths with frames from "Vintage-AR" just to have for the future should I want to change the appearance to original. I'm still tempted to hook up the third pair I have, except I'll need some one to assist me in placing them on top of the first two pair, (used to cleanly, 3 times,press over 170, bench even more)- I know, I'm crazy, so, I don't feel bad about it, just a little nuts. And the guys on this site thought they were obsessed.

FM

I wouldn't recommend buying those way overpriced speakers. They have Dynaudio drivers in them. In fact, I met the guy recently who was working for Cello when the Amati's were developed. He said he spec'd the drivers and Mark Levinson did the xover. He now owns his own hi-end audio co.

The bad news is Dynaudio stopped selling drivers to DIY'rs years ago. So, if you blow one or more, good luck.

Here's a link to a website with lots of details on the drivers

http://www.gattiweb.com/dynaudio.html

[frankmarsi]

Frank,

This used to happen sometimes with my LST's. The fuse is in an atypical place in the circuit, and you should still be able to hear some sound when the fuse is completely open. (There's kind of a backwards path through the autotransformer.)

The only thing I could think of to explain the occasional silence was that the load that the amp sees when the fuse goes out is really strange, and might sometimes trip the amp's protection circuit as the fuse blows?

Actually, now I am thinking that it also might depend on where the autotransformer taps are set. So, if the fuse blows with one knob setting, silence. With a different knob setting, you hear leakage signal. I need to go ponder the LST schematic...

-k

10-30-09

Title: "Getting old with old speakers" **

** Read at you own risk! Contains street language and crude references.

Thanks for replying Ken, always a pleasure that you do. Carl, I feel all fuzzy when you do cause you have proof and knowledge that only you and minh, KK, TT and RoyC, and Bret and Soundminded and a host of others do and it makes me feel safe and secure knowing that I hold some credence wit yas all. I also hold a great collection of AR stuff and I'm so proud and happy that I do. I'm gushing right now at my collection, but, ever the numb-skull that I've become, I still like a wolf, surf the bay side looking for spare woofers, mids and cabinets-stupid I know. I have enough already! I don't go looking for older tweets as they are a lost cause unless they're '78 to '92 vintages.

You go check the schematic Ken, I'll go see if I have any proper ph left over. I'll be right back, gotta go flip the side over, record I mean.

Yeah, just kidding, it sometimes seems my oldie but goodie AR's can be almost as dreadful and uncomfortable as my roids, the roids being more so. But as usual it's always about me, isn't it? Well cut me some slack, if I wasn't I wouldn't have nor love my system as much as I do, at least I'm in touch with my feelings.

Sometimes I wish, well ba-geebers, wish I could pay people to do my work, but much like my roids, I'd rather touch them than let any one else do so, my AR's are very special to me, sometimes more so than any of the many women I've been with, sick, I know.., O.K. I'm lying.

If I wasn't so distracted with 'other-matters' I swear I'd re-foam all of my 13-15 spare woofers and simply do a 'drop-in' when ever a problem arises.

Gee, those mids hold-up through thick and thin don't they, strong bastards aren't they. But when a 'woofer-moment' occurs, it's almost like a sacred ritual for me to do the operation. How's Vern, anyone heard from him lately? Because of him I actually thought the more fuses I had on hand, it would allow me to be less 'con-fused'. I found out after stock-piling fuses that it doesn't work that way.

But I digress, there's more than one member on this site and he's one of the best here that is sore at me for being so lazy about installing my replacement Hi-Vi, or ABtech tweeters, I have a stock-pile of both, you know in case there's a war or depression coming. In 'major-lazy' fashion I rely upon my 'microstatics' to handle the top-end, and to this day they do a surprisingly good job.

I am so wrong, does my craziness unsettle others?

Anyway, soon I will do the tweeter thing, but I tend to drag things out, maybe because it heightens the pleasure, I don't know go talk to all those women I mentioned, they liked taking extra time also. I'm so easily influenced. The new listening abode is taking longer due to untold set-backs, but the luncheon is still on the roster.

Oh, gees, I'm sounding too 'off-point' here ain't I.

Like most individuals I have more questions than answers, but the mere fact that I enjoy my system so much is satisfaction enough for me, sorry I tend to be greedy with my few worldly possessions and verbose in my dialog. But if you loved as much and had AR's as long as I have, you'd be dribbling too.

I guess that's what vintage stuff like AR's and vinyl are all about, of course the music is the main object here, let's not forget.

FM, still a man distracted. Can dementia set in at sixty?

P.S. I thought about buying the new "Beatle" CD collection in mono or stereo, but my original copies since new simply sound great over-all and the older disks are mono anyway. The later '60s ones are stereo as bought back then. I think I have more pleasure in playing my original vinyls than buying remastered discs, but the that's debatable too.

FM, still crazy after all these years. Got that Paul Simon original disk too, I bought when it first came out.

P.S. just thought I'd throw some 'filler' into the site, the place has been boring me lately, I hope I haven't offended anyone.

P.S. wop-tie-do!

[soundminded]

10-30-09

Title: "Getting old with old speakers" **

** Read at you own risk! Contains street language and crude references.

Thanks for replying Ken, always a pleasure that you do. Carl, I feel all fuzzy when you do cause you have proof and knowledge that only you and minh, KK, TT and RoyC, and Bret and Soundminded and a host of others do and it makes me feel safe and secure knowing that I hold some credence wit yas all. I also hold a great collection of AR stuff and I'm so proud and happy that I do. I'm gushing right now at my collection, but, ever the numb-skull that I've become, I still like a wolf, surf the bay side looking for spare woofers, mids and cabinets-stupid I know. I have enough already! I don't go looking for older tweets as they are a lost cause unless they're '78 to '92 vintages.

You go check the schematic Ken, I'll go see if I have any proper ph left over. I'll be right back, gotta go flip the side over, record I mean.

Yeah, just kidding, it sometimes seems my oldie but goodie AR's can be almost as dreadful and uncomfortable as my roids, the roids being more so. But as usual it's always about me, isn't it? Well cut me some slack, if I wasn't I wouldn't have nor love my system as much as I do, at least I'm in touch with my feelings.

Sometimes I wish, well ba-geebers, wish I could pay people to do my work, but much like my roids, I'd rather touch them than let any one else do so, my AR's are very special to me, sometimes more so than any of the many women I've been with, sick, I know.., O.K. I'm lying.

If I wasn't so distracted with 'other-matters' I swear I'd re-foam all of my 13-15 spare woofers and simply do a 'drop-in' when ever a problem arises.

Gee, those mids hold-up through thick and thin don't they, strong bastards aren't they. But when a 'woofer-moment' occurs, it's almost like a sacred ritual for me to do the operation. How's Vern, anyone heard from him lately? Because of him I actually thought the more fuses I had on hand, it would allow me to be less 'con-fused'. I found out after stock-piling fuses that it doesn't work that way.

But I digress, there's more than one member on this site and he's one of the best here that is sore at me for being so lazy about installing my replacement Hi-Vi, or ABtech tweeters, I have a stock-pile of both, you know in case there's a war or depression coming. In 'major-lazy' fashion I rely upon my 'microstatics' to handle the top-end, and to this day they do a surprisingly good job.

I am so wrong, does my craziness unsettle others?

Anyway, soon I will do the tweeter thing, but I tend to drag things out, maybe because it heightens the pleasure, I don't know go talk to all those women I mentioned, they liked taking extra time also. I'm so easily influenced. The new listening abode is taking longer due to untold set-backs, but the luncheon is still on the roster.

Oh, gees, I'm sounding too 'off-point' here ain't I.

Like most individuals I have more questions than answers, but the mere fact that I enjoy my system so much is satisfaction enough for me, sorry I tend to be greedy with my few worldly possessions and verbose in my dialog. But if you loved as much and had AR's as long as I have, you'd be dribbling too.

I guess that's what vintage stuff like AR's and vinyl are all about, of course the music is the main object here, let's not forget.

FM, still a man distracted. Can dementia set in at sixty?

P.S. I thought about buying the new "Beatle" CD collection in mono or stereo, but my original copies since new simply sound great over-all and the older disks are mono anyway. The later '60s ones are stereo as bought back then. I think I have more pleasure in playing my original vinyls than buying remastered discs, but the that's debatable too.

FM, still crazy after all these years. Got that Paul Simon original disk too, I bought when it first came out.

P.S. just thought I'd throw some 'filler' into the site, the place has been boring me lately, I hope I haven't offended anyone.

P.S. wop-tie-do!

"Gee, those mids hold-up through thick and thin don't they"

The ones in the AR2as and AR2axs I rescued from the curb didn't. One AR2ax midrange had a buzz. I bought a replacement on e-bay and 2 more to convert the AR2as halfway to AR2axs. Don't know what I'm going to do about the AR2a tweeters yet. I had Bill Degall at Millersound refoam the AR2ax woofers, repair one AR2a woofer, refoam the woofers out of two Advent/2s and all 4 woofers and the 2 LMRs in my AR9s. He did an outstanding job on every one. One day I'll drive down and give him the woofers and LMRs from my McIntosh ML-1Cs that need refoaming too. Those 12"woofers seem pretty sturdy. He had a pair of AR2as in for repair while I was there. Same problem as the pair I have, the midrange driver cones were warped, all of them. His customer wanted an authentic restoration so he actually rebuilt the cones. Remarkable.

The AR2axs are much better performers than I expected. Best performance I found is with the midrange setting slightly below the indicated normal setting, the tweeter at full setting and a 10 db treble boost on the amplifier. With those settings sound is remarkably accurate on most of the few CDs I tried...for a conventional forward firing box speaker. Now for the fun of re-engineering them into something hopefully even better. BTW, looking carefully at the AR2ax tweeters which seem to work identically to each other and I presume are functioning properly, it occurred to me that I might experiment with cutting away some of the plastic on 5/8" neodymium dome tweeters from Dayton to see if I can achieve comparable dispersion. It is the size and geometry of the dome and the fact that it is not recessed that makes the the AR2ax/AR3/AR5 tweeter such a wide dispersion unit. Wider even than AR9s for instance which have a recess notch around the domes.

I've decided to stop pursuing speakers on e-bay. Just passed up a chance at Rectilinear IIIs. Often it's not the price of the merchandise but the shipping cost that's the killer. So many recordings, so little time. Expecting delivery of a replacement stylus for my Empire 999VE in the next day or two. Took 3 years to find one. Now every time the maid comes, all vulnerable phonograph cartridges get hidden away. No dust cover on the 398.

BTW, the restoration of the AR9s using NPEs was excellent, better than I'd hoped for. Bass is thunderous, treble is crystal clear. In discussing this with Bill Degall we agreed that restoring the woofers and LMRs removes spurious resonances that affects even the treble adversely.

[roundhome]

Frank a ??? for You it will takes a while to get the answer ready so will let you think about it.

What (other then live or some other way the band would play it) would be the best way to listen to Pink Floyd the Wall

[frankmarsi]

Frank a ??? for You it will takes a while to get the answer ready so will let you think about it.

What (other then live or some other way the band would play it) would be the best way to listen to Pink Floyd the Wall

Eh, "roundhome" I'm not sure how to answer, however I'll go put on my original LP version from the very same week it came out in NYC and try to see if I can offer any sort of possible answer to you. My first AR-3a's always did paid tribute to any program material they served up nonetheless at that time.

I can say to you that when it did I certainly did play it on my originally bought '72 AR-3a's and '74 PL400 and that although I was happy the 'Floyd' came out with a new record as I anxiously awaited it, just as I did with every "Beatle" record because for me and my generation that 'hung-on-their-every-word' as to what I should feel, think, and do next, and for all the possible unknowledgable peeps out there, I gotta say that's how it was in the sixties and that I was extremely disappointed when the Beatles ended with "Let It Be" and "Floyd" after "Dark-Side".

In fact it wasn't until "Gilmour's"- "There's No Way Out of Here" cut in the mid eigthies put a finally cap on my "Floyds" love and ended my looking forward to anything new from them and the "Beatles" or in any new music from either group! The only group to pick up the whole idea from that point must admitted to to, I was the over looked "Super-Tramp", the only truly worthy successors! "Yes" and others may have attempted, but few came close to the "Fab-Four" in terms of lyric and verse. Speaking of course in my own opinion, but nonetheless a qualified one!.

Of course I remained and hoped for more to answer my need of more music from the former greats. I have to admit, thankfully, others came, but only from 'new-comers', although and only as 'seconds' in the over-all scheme of things in rock history. Again, life and hope springs eternal. Of course, I'm not better than anyone else in this world I must say but, things did taper off in quality-material in so far as 'mind-ventures' as it happened.

So, I buy old used vinyl to in a way of listening and stay in my little world as I'm left to do before the world changed to what we all hear in the news today that it may be a little dicey in its 'new-times' especially in the musical world and certainly political one. Just look at the 'rock-music' reviews in magazines, there's not many of them to report on and even it's music made by musicians who seem to be pretty much uninformed of their unknown and whence it came roots .

I still have my original "Dane-Electro" single pick-up six string that I learned on in 1964 and my 1969 "Hofner" "Beatle" bass violin bass guitar. Funny, every time I type in the name 'Beatle', I get and error message from my cpu.

This is one of my reasons of staying on this wonderfully and hopefully satisfying site called "CSP" is to be 'in-touch' of great musical-transducers known as old AR speakers from another 'era'. Bless us old 'farts' and America too, who understand the past of these old speaker boxes that reproduced music when it was still 'music' and not some regurgitated reproduction there of. I find peeps 30 to 40 yrs. younger than I don't have a clue of what I speak of in these terms and that too is very sad. Thanks to the few who might! How do it go " To not know history is to........

FM, a man lost in a period of time that to many is lost, just as its always been. Of course in my own opinion certainly.

P.S. I remain somewhere in time, I at least feel with hope, and 'hope' being merely a word and human perception. I sure hope my AR's last in my world.

P.S.2 Good-Night, where ever you are Mrs. Galabash