First Post. RTi8 Tweeter L-Pad

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Luicas
Luicas Posts: 5
edited February 2017 in DIY, Mods & Tweaks
Hello everyone. Have had my RTi8's as front stereo speakers for a while now. Powered them up with a Kenwood C1 Preamp and an Adcom GFA5400 amp. Everything was cool. The Kenwood has very good tone control. Used it to tame down the treble by aprox 3-5dB. Then the HT bug bit me and sold my analog pre/amp, bought an Onkyo RZ800 AVR. First thing I noted is loosing analog tone control. So my RTi8's became the weak link, by being too bright. Didn't want to digitize my analog sources in order to do tone control in the AVR. So, I did what every man has to do... cracked open my speakers, and soldered an L-Pad between the XO and the Tweeter driver. Went for a -3.2dB setup, with a 1.2 ohm mills resistor in series and a 9.1 ohm dayton in parallel. Beautiful results. Using my CD Player's analog out, into the Onkyo AVR, in Pure Audio mode, very nice results. And as for the bass, I play a little bit with speaker placement (a bit corner loading, and distance from wall) until I get a decent response. Jazz music, mainly. So there it is. Cheers.

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  • K_M
    K_M Posts: 1,627
    edited February 2017
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    Luicas wrote: »
    Hello everyone. Have had my RTi8's as front stereo speakers for a while now. Powered them up with a Kenwood C1 Preamp and an Adcom GFA5400 amp. Everything was cool. The Kenwood has very good tone control. Used it to tame down the treble by aprox 3-5dB. Then the HT bug bit me and sold my analog pre/amp, bought an Onkyo RZ800 AVR. First thing I noted is loosing analog tone control. So my RTi8's became the weak link, by being too bright. Didn't want to digitize my analog sources in order to do tone control in the AVR. So, I did what every man has to do... cracked open my speakers, and soldered an L-Pad between the XO and the Tweeter driver. Went for a -3.2dB setup, with a 1.2 ohm mills resistor in series and a 9.1 ohm dayton in parallel. Beautiful results. Using my CD Player's analog out, into the Onkyo AVR, in Pure Audio mode, very nice results. And as for the bass, I play a little bit with speaker placement (a bit corner loading, and distance from wall) until I get a decent response. Jazz music, mainly. So there it is. Cheers.

    Lost me a bit with that part.

    Not sure why you would want analog out from CD. But whatever works for you, sounds good!
  • mdaudioguy
    mdaudioguy Posts: 5,165
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    K_M wrote: »
    Lost me a bit with that part.

    Not sure why you would want analog out from CD. But whatever works for you, sounds good!
    Maybe he likes the DAC in his CDP better than the DAC in his AVR, or he prefers RCA to TOSLINK, FWIW!
  • Luicas
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    Indeed, I like the analog out of my CDP, much better than the AVR's DAC. B)
  • Luicas
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    K_M, afaik, the onkyo avr uses analog to digital conversion for analog sources when using any Listening Mode other than Pure Audio or Direct. As all processing (DSP, Eq, etc) is done in the digital domain. That's why you loose tone controls in pure audio and direct modes. You even loose crossover settings.
  • K_M
    K_M Posts: 1,627
    edited February 2017
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    Luicas wrote: »
    K_M, afaik, the onkyo avr uses analog to digital conversion for analog sources when using any Listening Mode other than Pure Audio or Direct. As all processing (DSP, Eq, etc) is done in the digital domain. That's why you loose tone controls in pure audio and direct modes. You even loose crossover settings.

    Gotcha. I was thinking all sources are converted no matter what.
    I am a "less analog is better" person. So I would send the digital signal from CD, to receiver, and avoid the cable and so on.

    Hard to keep up with all this stuff.
  • tonyb
    tonyb Posts: 32,906
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    There is no right or wrong way, but typically you want to use whats available in the better piece of gear. You buy a 1000 buck cdp, plug it into a 400 buck receiver, the cdp is going to have better dacs and analog output stages that that receiver. Extreme example I know, just to make the point.
    HT SYSTEM-
    Sony 850c 4k
    Pioneer elite vhx 21
    Sony 4k BRP
    SVS SB-2000
    Polk Sig. 20's
    Polk FX500 surrounds

    Cables-
    Acoustic zen Satori speaker cables
    Acoustic zen Matrix 2 IC's
    Wireworld eclipse 7 ic's
    Audio metallurgy ga-o digital cable

    Kitchen

    Sonos zp90
    Grant Fidelity tube dac
    B&k 1420
    lsi 9's