Tweakin' Two's


Hi Guys!

Works been very slow so I've had some time to play with the 2's a little. I wanted to work on the big speakers, but can't until works better. Then I have no time to play! Anyway, I had various materials around the house and decided to put them to use. I started with a roll of plenum rated cat 5 network cable I had. That became braided speaker cable. I ran a run directly to the tweeter and terminated the amp end. I then braided up a nifty little harness that runs from the tweeter to woofer with a break in the positve side to wire in the inductor. The negative side runs continuous without any break in the wire. While I had all the drivers out I decided to damp the exponential horn with mortite. I probably tripled the mass of these lightweights. I decided to carry on that same agenda and damped the Alpha baskets with some dynamat I'd had in the parts box for ten years. To be honest I've never been a big tweaker. Well, I should rephrase... I've tweaked but rarely heard a lot of difference. This time I do. The speakers are noticeably different. Cleaner and more defined comes to mind. Different instruments seem to really stand apart more where they used to be glossed over just a bit. The high frequencies sound much cleaner and more extended. The low frequencies even appear to have a more controlled sound with greater pitch definition and a more taut sound. It's a bit hard to explain the difference but I think you get the idea. For the record I replaced some AR flat 16 gauge cable that I had biwired with. Obviously I changed to many things at once to tell exactely what contributed to the change in sound. I think the damping of the horn was a good move and I feel the single run of cable could have contributed to the increased coherency perhaps more so than the particular materials or geometry of the cable itself. And I suppose that damping the speaker basket could have reduced some resonance in the driver. Or maybe I just wanted them to sound better so they do. :) Whatever it is I don't have that same desire to try a different tweeter anymore. Now I'm just enjoying music! Have fun!
Jerrod


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