Let's have a shootout.

DaveHo · November 22

Shop system choices. All stock other than refoam to the Advent Heritage. My ranking. Advent first, 10s dead last. 7s and Lsi 9s tied.

treitz3 · November 22

Stock? Awe shoot....I'm out. Not much in my rig is. Love the thread though!!!

Tom

gudnoyez · November 22

Due to the upcoming winter months I just finished putting away two Garage rigs until spring. One consisted of a Technics SUV 909 integrated amp with a pair of Acoustic Reseach AR 18s (refoamed) a Technics CD player and a Denon Cassette Deck. I believe I hooked up Lightman with this very rig to put in his motel room when he was working in the area.

The other Garage rig consisted of a Onkyo reciever with a Pioneer Turntable and a Marantz Tape Deck a Phillip's 5 disc cd player with a pair of klipsch bookies. Pictures to come next spring it's all boxed up currently.

Nice shop rig ya got there Dave.

gudnoyez · November 22

The AR18s are not boxed up yet 40 year old speakers with the grills off the crossovers were redone around 10 years ago, I bought them in the PX when I was stationed in Germany

Conradicles · November 22

Advent, brought back some memories!

billbillw · November 22

My dad had a pair of those Advent Heritage back in the day. I always thought they sounded good.

mhardy6647 · November 23

No Altecs?
Looks like a no fire zone for a shootout to me.

Actually, the AR-18 family were and still are among the best small, inexpensive loudspeakers I've ever encountered. I guess they were more or less a gentle update on the AR-4 family. Both demonstrated fairly amply that there's nothing wrong with a good cone tweeter!

source: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/Lafayette-Catalogs/Lafayette-1968-680.pdf pg. 96

smglbrth · November 23

Here I was thinking of a different kind of "shoot out". Anyways, like those Advents. Still rocking a B&K I see!

WilliamM2 · November 23

Is this going in an unconditioned space? I never box up my garage rig for winter. It all runs off the main system in the house (zone3), so no issue with electronics.

There is moisture if I run the gas heater in the winter, so for speakers I just choose no paper cones, and rubber surrounds. No issues after 18 years of use, in 20f to 80f degree (inside) weather. And now that I think about it, the sub has a paper cone...

But if your shop is in the basement, just go with what sounds the best.

jdjohn · November 24

I have a pair of AR-18s as well, in yet another design.

And here, comparing to some ADS L400.

I prefer the ADS

DaveHo · November 24

Shop is in the basement. Pay no attention to the Adcom switcher. That is connected to my Outlaw amp which is in the main rig directly above on the 1st floor. Used for garage, deck, kitchen, and other basement speakers.

B&K is courtesy of @scubalab. Bought it from him probably more than 5 years ago now. Sounds great and meshes well with a wide variety of speakers.

Original post wasn't quite accurate. As you can see the 10s have RDO-194s. Plus I replaced the old crusty ferrofluid in the Advent tweeters. Did the same ferrofluid swap on the monitor 7s today. Wasn't as dried out as the Advents, but maybe a noticeable improvement. Highs seem smoother and less grainy now. Definitely recommended.

msg · November 24

DaveHo wrote: »

Shop system choices. All stock other than refoam to the Advent Heritage. My ranking. Advent first, 10s dead last. 7s and Lsi 9s tied.

That keyboard is gigantic.
Makes your system look miniature.

msg · November 24

Nice, Dave. Is that where you have the system set up, or just for this showing/test? Just curious. Pretty nice gear for a shop setup.

I'm just using a set of Boston Acoustic 2.1 computer speakers that came with my old 1990-something Gateway 2000 computer system, but my space is much smaller.

I considered putting up some bookshelf speakers and using some of the spare separates and a sub, but the BA setup mounted inside the walls of my work bench with one of the SBTs is more efficient use of space, and does the job of background music/atmosphere.

DaveHo · November 24

msg wrote: »

DaveHo wrote: »

Shop system choices. All stock other than refoam to the Advent Heritage. My ranking. Advent first, 10s dead last. 7s and Lsi 9s tied.

That keyboard is gigantic.
Makes your system look miniature.

I think your arrow is pointing to my woodworking downdraft table. Yeah, that's not doing anything for the system!

DaveHo · November 24

@msg, yes, that is where it's set up. I'm rarely sitting when doing stuff down there or I'm on a stool that's out of the pic which puts me close to the ideal height.

It's tough having a multi use space. My son was working on building a table. As you can imagine, lots of dust. In this situation, I cover all the electronics. Also have a Jet air filtration system.

DaveHo · November 24

To ad, my shop, other than times when woodworking is happening, is easily the least dusty space in the house. No HVAC to this area. That is intentional to limit dust making it's way to other areas.

mhardy6647 · November 24

jdjohn wrote: »

I have a pair of AR-18s as well, in yet another design.

And here, comparing to some ADS L400.

I prefer the ADS

The ads L400s are quite nice indeed... they were relatively inexpensive for ads, but rather more expensive than the AR-18s would've been.

jdjohn · November 24

I don't want to hijack this thread with other 'shootouts', unless the OP is okay with that, but I must say it is a bit sad that the stock Polk 10 fared so poorly.

I've recently been comparing several vintage bookshelf speakers inherited from my dad. Unfortunately, several of them are 'muts', with non-OEM replacement drivers. I have been fortunate to find OEM replacement drivers for many of them, but have probably invested more money in them than they are worth. But, that's okay. I think my dad may have valued the wooden cabinets more than the drivers, and that is why he bought them.

During the process of replacing drivers, I also replaced some of the high-pass crossover capacitors, which was actually rather easy, and quite beneficial in the resulting sound.

Besides the AR-18s and ADS-L400, I have a pair of Epicure 5 (from the late 80s) that I'm trying to restore. The woofers are original, but the tweeters are adulterated Radio Shack tweeters. HumanSpeakers.com has very good Epicure replacement tweeters, so I am going to try what they have.

DaveHo · November 26

Hijack away. I don't mind.

Jstas · November 28

I wouldn't put any of those in my garage. Far too fancy and valuable. I wouldn't want to risk destroying them
.
My garage rig right now is an old Kenwood receiver from the early 90s. Weighs like 25 pounds and puts out 100 wats per channel driving a pair of KLH Model 20's.

jdjohn · November 30

I got my pair of (late '80s) Epicure Model 5 speakers updated with newly designed tweeters from Human Speakers, and new Audyn Q4 high-pass foil capacitors from Parts Express (on sale for cheap!).

The Human Speakers replacement tweeters have an inverted Aluminum dome, and are drop-in replacements. They are head-and-shoulders better than the make-shift RatShack tweeters that had been installed in this particular pair of speakers.

The woofers in the Epicure speakers from this series (late '80s with tapered cabinets) have faux Carbon-fiber cones, which are actually molded plastic, made to look like Carbon-fiber. But IME, they are still very quick and agile.

These are (perhaps obviously) vented bass reflex speakers, which clearly have a limitation on low-frequency response, so a sub is practically a pre-requisite. Other than that, these speakers have a lot of potential, if in good condition.

In summary, this pair of updated Epicure 5 sound better than the AR-18s, IMO. It really comes down to tweeter materials and design. The AR-18s has a paper-cone tweeter, albeit in a good implementation.
But basically, I think anything with a more advanced tweeter design will likely come out on top. The AR TSW series has a more advanced tweeter design, so that might be an interesting comparison.

msg · December 1

^^^ awesome Jody.
Dump those isolators and get some Sound Addicted acoustic foam pads. They have all kinds of different types and designs. I swear by these pads, though. One of the best mods/accessories, regardless of cost, and these are relatively cheap.

They have the added feature of angle control. Each pad is comprised it two pieces, sliced on a diagonal. You flip, stack, and orient the pad set for various angle orientation of the speaker/monitor. Pretty handy.

Stiff enough to not bleed off sound life, soft enough to thoroughly decouple.

I have those Wagner/Diversitech sandwiches for some stuff, but they're too stiff and act more like couplers. (originally designed to be used under heavy equipment to damp vibration or motion. think pumps, compressors, and motors)

https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Addicted-Isolation-Monitors-Acoustic/dp/B0757LTZJJ

jdjohn · December 2

Thanks, Scott. Yeah, I normally only use those sandwich pads under electronic components, but they come in handy when temporarily testing speakers, etc.

msg · December 2

Yeah, I've done the same and figured that's what you were doing here.

Try a set or two of those pads, though. They'll become favorites. They come in different sizes, for different bookshelf footprints.

I've been meaning to get the 4 corner pad version ones for my LSiM706c, which is currently just sitting on 4 hard bumpers.

jdjohn · December 17

Continuing on, the AR-18s again, up against one of its younger brothers - the AR TSW-110.

Perhaps nothing unexpected here: the AR-18s has a fuller, warmer sound, with the AR TSW-110 sounding brighter. The Titanium tweeter in the TSW-110 is more detailed, and perhaps better for a near-field, low-volume setup, and the AR-18s better for filling a small room with bass, and smoother highs. Both are quite acceptable IMO for most non-audiophile applications.

Let's have a shootout.

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