Refreshing my RTA 15TLs

So, I can't say that I've experienced the changes over time that I've read about here. Not that that's a bad thing, though. This capacitor/resistor/binding post upgrade started out surpassing my expectations and has stayed remarkably the same way over the past 125+ hours of burn-in. I did roll the stock JJ 12AU7 back into the center position of my CM3 today after @charley96 was over yesterday and questioned the bass response from the last time he'd been here. To my surprise, that did fill the bass out more, without sacrificing the midrange presence that the RCA 5814s (Ivan's recommendation) in the outboard 12AU7 positions provide. Does this combo jive better with the new crossovers or was the bass lacking all this time and I just never noticed it, who knows? Never hurts to get others' opinions and challenge your status quo.

Since the day-to-day has been so consistent, I've disconnected the Denon from 24/7 white noise duty and will just continue to enjoy as per normal from now on. Without a doubt, there is more punch and clarity, the soundstage is larger, the imaging is more accurate and stable and vocals are more lifelike and truer than before the cap and resistor upgrade.

Shoutout one more time to Ivan for breathing new life back into these 30 year-old antiques. Thanks, man!

pitdogg2 wrote: »

There is a ton of decently priced 12au7's out there. How many does that piece of gear take? Are there other tubes there as well?

There are three 12AU7s and two 12AX7s.

They guys on Steve Hoffman say Amperex and Telefunken are the way to go for the CM3, so I have eBay searches setup for those. The ones that are popping up are fooking pricey, though.

I'm liking those 5814 triple mica black plates in two of the three 12AU7 slots. Maybe I just need to find another single one to complete the trio.

Obviously open to any 12AX7 recommendations!

I just wanted to follow-up on the 12BZ7 convo above before I forgot, just to close the loop on it. Nick at Rogue responded to me promptly yesterday AM. For me, it’s a no-go since I’m still under warranty. Not saying it wouldn’t still be fine, but his response didn’t give me the warm fuzzies. I didn’t see any available on the common sites at the moment, so it’s not like I could’ve jumped on anything anyway. Was a good thought, though! Gotta think outside the box in these crazy times.

The Tung-Sol recommendation opened up some 12AX7 options I hadn’t seen earlier. 👍

92nd day of 2012? 🤷‍♂️😁

Did Westinghouse actually manufacture any of their own tubes? I did some research on what these could be yesterday morning and it sounds like a lot of Westinghouse is rebranded and may not always be reputable RCA, GE, Raytheon, etc.

Making Rob work hard here! 😝 Hopefully, he doesn’t mind. It’s all interesting!

Getting ready to do @xschop ’s tweeter plates and BH5 to complete these.

Ivan sent our plates off for black anodizing, but they came back a little iffy-looking. There were what looked like some fisheyes or water spots in the finish and some scratches from some evidently careless post-process handling.

It is what it is and we both agreed it wasn’t bad enough to send back since we keep our grills on practically all the time, but I still thought I’d see what I could do to improve them. I wanted to keep the bare anodized look, so didn’t want to cover them up with paint. These Adam’s automotive products accomplished what I was after. Didn’t do much for the scratches, but the funky-looking spots are gone.

I used one coat of the trim restorer and two coats of the graphene coating. Should last a good, long while since they won’t be seeing too many car washes. 😝

Before:


Trim restorer after application and after curing:



Coating: