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Post binding for crude tone control

I have a newish pair of ATC SCM40 passive speakers.  They're 3-way, notoriously revealing and have triple binding posts*.  The posts are connected by metal plates (steel?).   The dealer advised, and I believe it's common practice, that I bind my cables to one of the bass driver's posts, and to one of the tweeter's posts.  I expect this setup treats all 3 drivers the same, with an equal amount of plate in each's circuit.

Recently, I've upgraded cables, fuses, USB cables etc, and resolution of the system has increased along with a little digital glare.  Female vocals are too often sibilant.  The probable cause is the ethernet stage and I am working on improving it, but to "tame the treble" I thought I'd try playing around with the binding setup.  It occurred to me by binding across the bass or mid-range posts I might be "favouring" those drivers, and attenuating the others.  I'm assuming the plates have a slightly higher resistance than my TelluriumQ Ultra Black II cable.

So, I unplugged from the tweeter's terminal and moved the cable's plug to the mid-range's.  Each cable is now bound to both the bass and mid-range posts.  The tweeter's posts are connected by only the plates.

And, hey presto, the system is now exhibiting a slightly warmer, darker sound.   I might be wrong, of course;  wouldn't be the first time the Emperor's new clothes are warmer and more musical. 

Has anyone else done the same?  

It did occur to me that strategic use of resistors might attenuate a driver even further, though I doubt this could improve resolution.

 

* - has anyone ever tri-wired their speakers?

128x128lollipopguild
lcherepkai
280 posts
 

I've had several sets of speakers which were bi-wire/bi-ampable and my experience is that pretty much all those supplied metal plates connecting the bass and satellite sections of the speaker binding post SUCK.  Even those with a nice shiny gold plating sound lousy.  If you don't want to tri-wire then I recommend using quality wire jumpers or make your own.  And yes, in my opinion, you can use anything in your system as a tone control.  I don't know why some audiophiles are so opposed to that notion.  Good luck!

 

4krowme's avatar
4krowme
542 posts
 

I agree with finding another source for connecting the binding posts. The idea of tweaking things as a substitute for tone control(s), is a bit more vague in that you may get better music through a certain range, but not so much in other frequency rages, such as deep bass. I'm not crazy about the idea of actual tone controls either because some else has chosen the high or low pass frequency to start with. Some of the older gear used to have selectable turnover frequencies for the bass and treble controls, giving a better chance at hitting the target.  

bojack
650 posts
 

I hate to break it to you, but if a speaker is inherently too hot on top, it is a losing battle trying to change that, as you are attempting to change its core voicing. No amount of cable swapping, binding post configurations, or EQing will solve this. Your best bet is to find speakers that sound more balanced to your ears... you'll save yourself a lot of grief, believe me.

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