I can listen to either the modified or unmodified pairs of LX55's now in my surround sound by selecting "7 channel stereo" mode, turning off the Hafler 9300, and disconnecting the other pair at the quite accessible rear to my Yahamah HTR-5790.
Notwithstanding he sonic differences may have something unavoidably to do with location and orientation, the modified units being in back atop the cabinets, and the unmodified units being to the sides just over 90 degrees and with the left atop a cabinet, and the right on a wall bracket at the same distance from the ceiling and pointed downwards to help compensate it being a much sharper angle down to the main listening position, ..., I believe these differences I'm hearing are there in themselves as I hear them anyway, with some qualifications.
The modified rears have a somewhat beguiling quality in some ways. They "don't sound hifi." There's no electronic sound whatsoever, perhaps in part because there seem to be no highs above 5kHz. (BTW, this is NOT what the measurements show...even in relative terms they are only slightly down from the unmodified sides at any particular frequency, with the exception of to the stellar Unit #6.)
They don't actually have a honky sound, merely kind of rolled off, exactly like a one driver car speaker. And in fact that's about a similar grade 5" speaker. Somehow, the lineaum tweeter just seems to disappear entirely, masked by the now extended range woofer.
That being said, I had to listen very carefully to be sure it wasn't just my previous attachment to what you could call Hi Fi, full frequency range reproduction, that was unfairly coloring my opinions.
And on careful listening, there did indeed seem to be ... added ... coloration of various kinds. Listening to Dusty Springfield singing Look of Love, she takes on the sound of a 300 pound 4 foot 8 black singer. As much as Dusty does unbelievably good Black Woman sound--her trademark--she doesn't sound quite like that, I have to believe. Beguiling in some ways, but not real, not high fidelity.
I similarly didn't find the reproduction of Rebecca Pigeon to be quite on. But then you could say I've never heard either woman in person, etc., I'm just imagining what they sound like, and that's true.
But really I find that instrumental music really lights up the differences better. All the high register orchestral instruments sound wrong, along with the David Sanborn playing sax right after Dusty sings. On the modified speakers, the sax sounds like an unidentifiable instrument I've never heard before. On the unmodified speakers, it's the one I've always heard David Sanborn play.
Everything is way back, too, as if in another room.
Now, all this being said, I could raise complaints about the unmodified sides...starting with that "hifi" sound. Perhaps things are too close up. And there is far more metallic sound...but then that's what comes from reproducing metallic instruments including strings, winds, and percussion!
I could possibly even find the unmodified sides harsh at times, moreso than the backs. But a lot of this may simply come from the side mounted position. Overall, I just don't think I could live with the rolled off sounding backs. The unmodified sides light up THIS room with symphonic music, the modified speakers seem to light up some distant room, with a lot of clarity lost in between. If I wasn't listening to my stellar M20's (now with appropriate sub setup...a long neglected detail in the kitchen) I might occasionally confuse the unmodified speakers with them...when walking in from another room. No such chance with the modified speakers, they are just different, like speakers from the 30's which were in fact designed like that (no crossover chokes), the classic chokeless sound.
This is a pretty good synopsis of what I heard 15 years ago after bringing these speakers home. Somehow the AudioGeorge mods didn't seem to have the same magic they had at his house. They seemed like a step backwards into car radio mid fi. Was it has magnetic personality, or his anti-magnetic house, that made them sound so good there???
So now that I've made my mind up about that again, I think I am going to separate the two modifications and see how they pan out. Perhaps just reversing (correcting) the tweeter phase by itself is a good mod, for example.
I'm considering units 2,3,4,5 having essentlially the same driver quality, only differing in crossover. But anyway I now and finally again (since the death of the fiji card in my Win 95 LAUD setup, thank you planned obsolescence) I have a consistent way of measuring speakers, and can even plot on the same graphy (I finally figured out how to do that) so I can see the change wrought by each difference.
Notwithstanding he sonic differences may have something unavoidably to do with location and orientation, the modified units being in back atop the cabinets, and the unmodified units being to the sides just over 90 degrees and with the left atop a cabinet, and the right on a wall bracket at the same distance from the ceiling and pointed downwards to help compensate it being a much sharper angle down to the main listening position, ..., I believe these differences I'm hearing are there in themselves as I hear them anyway, with some qualifications.
The modified rears have a somewhat beguiling quality in some ways. They "don't sound hifi." There's no electronic sound whatsoever, perhaps in part because there seem to be no highs above 5kHz. (BTW, this is NOT what the measurements show...even in relative terms they are only slightly down from the unmodified sides at any particular frequency, with the exception of to the stellar Unit #6.)
They don't actually have a honky sound, merely kind of rolled off, exactly like a one driver car speaker. And in fact that's about a similar grade 5" speaker. Somehow, the lineaum tweeter just seems to disappear entirely, masked by the now extended range woofer.
That being said, I had to listen very carefully to be sure it wasn't just my previous attachment to what you could call Hi Fi, full frequency range reproduction, that was unfairly coloring my opinions.
And on careful listening, there did indeed seem to be ... added ... coloration of various kinds. Listening to Dusty Springfield singing Look of Love, she takes on the sound of a 300 pound 4 foot 8 black singer. As much as Dusty does unbelievably good Black Woman sound--her trademark--she doesn't sound quite like that, I have to believe. Beguiling in some ways, but not real, not high fidelity.
I similarly didn't find the reproduction of Rebecca Pigeon to be quite on. But then you could say I've never heard either woman in person, etc., I'm just imagining what they sound like, and that's true.
But really I find that instrumental music really lights up the differences better. All the high register orchestral instruments sound wrong, along with the David Sanborn playing sax right after Dusty sings. On the modified speakers, the sax sounds like an unidentifiable instrument I've never heard before. On the unmodified speakers, it's the one I've always heard David Sanborn play.
Everything is way back, too, as if in another room.
Now, all this being said, I could raise complaints about the unmodified sides...starting with that "hifi" sound. Perhaps things are too close up. And there is far more metallic sound...but then that's what comes from reproducing metallic instruments including strings, winds, and percussion!
I could possibly even find the unmodified sides harsh at times, moreso than the backs. But a lot of this may simply come from the side mounted position. Overall, I just don't think I could live with the rolled off sounding backs. The unmodified sides light up THIS room with symphonic music, the modified speakers seem to light up some distant room, with a lot of clarity lost in between. If I wasn't listening to my stellar M20's (now with appropriate sub setup...a long neglected detail in the kitchen) I might occasionally confuse the unmodified speakers with them...when walking in from another room. No such chance with the modified speakers, they are just different, like speakers from the 30's which were in fact designed like that (no crossover chokes), the classic chokeless sound.
This is a pretty good synopsis of what I heard 15 years ago after bringing these speakers home. Somehow the AudioGeorge mods didn't seem to have the same magic they had at his house. They seemed like a step backwards into car radio mid fi. Was it has magnetic personality, or his anti-magnetic house, that made them sound so good there???
So now that I've made my mind up about that again, I think I am going to separate the two modifications and see how they pan out. Perhaps just reversing (correcting) the tweeter phase by itself is a good mod, for example.
I'm considering units 2,3,4,5 having essentlially the same driver quality, only differing in crossover. But anyway I now and finally again (since the death of the fiji card in my Win 95 LAUD setup, thank you planned obsolescence) I have a consistent way of measuring speakers, and can even plot on the same graphy (I finally figured out how to do that) so I can see the change wrought by each difference.
No comments:
Post a Comment