thielrules wrote:
"Great posts. Just got lost with this statement. Not sure if there is a typo:
The CS3.5's equalizer was a gigantic improvement, which I found to sound just as good as no eq at all."
I meant to communicate that the CS3.5's equalizer was a gigantic sonic improvement over the O3a equalizer. Throwing away the O3a eq, and replacing it with subwoofers very much improved the sound of the O3a. But the CS3.5 crossover was so good, that using it didn't degrade the sound to my ears at all. So using it was "just as good" as not using it, in every sonic way except the obvious loss in low bass. And, except for power handling. So, for medium listening levels, I found no sonic reason to stop using the 3.5 equalizer. As Tom points out though, theoretically, using a subwoofer instead of the CS3.5 eq did have benefits to woofer excursion when playing louder. And when CDs came into being, playing louder became a problem for CS3.5 in many ways, not only the woofer excursion. Midranges and tweeters started to become over-driven too. In 20+ years of playing only records in a small bedroom through the CS3.5, I never had a problem. But when I started to use them again after 10 years of storage, well, then I was playing CDs too, and I had a much bigger room, so I burned out the midranges and noticed over-taxing the woofers.
"Great posts. Just got lost with this statement. Not sure if there is a typo:
The CS3.5's equalizer was a gigantic improvement, which I found to sound just as good as no eq at all."
I meant to communicate that the CS3.5's equalizer was a gigantic sonic improvement over the O3a equalizer. Throwing away the O3a eq, and replacing it with subwoofers very much improved the sound of the O3a. But the CS3.5 crossover was so good, that using it didn't degrade the sound to my ears at all. So using it was "just as good" as not using it, in every sonic way except the obvious loss in low bass. And, except for power handling. So, for medium listening levels, I found no sonic reason to stop using the 3.5 equalizer. As Tom points out though, theoretically, using a subwoofer instead of the CS3.5 eq did have benefits to woofer excursion when playing louder. And when CDs came into being, playing louder became a problem for CS3.5 in many ways, not only the woofer excursion. Midranges and tweeters started to become over-driven too. In 20+ years of playing only records in a small bedroom through the CS3.5, I never had a problem. But when I started to use them again after 10 years of storage, well, then I was playing CDs too, and I had a much bigger room, so I burned out the midranges and noticed over-taxing the woofers.