I would like to re-focus on the matter of the thread, being the other issue either an internal affair or, as all of you have intended, a very little thing.
Last Sunday, after all the chattering this thread produced, I was finally invited to listen to these loudspeakers.
Needless to say I was very curious, because in 1994 I already had the chance to listen to the CS5 without modifications. Take these only as a preliminary impressions.
Seeing this big loudspeaker move slightly when touched on its heavy air base is something that commands respect only for the efforts employed.
Since the first notes the sound seems free from any constriction and the acoustic image floats between and around the loudspeakers. Ummh fantastic! I thought, this is a good sign that all the micro details of phase and time are correctly preserved also after the mods.
The bass frequencies are clearly audible and very well integrated and coherent with the rest of the spectrum as I remembered since the first audition of '94, no change in this respect. And I can assure that the CS5 can really reproduce the first octave of bass.
The thing that my memory reports as a positive changement this time is a lack of excessive darkness (not weight) that the original CS5 had in the mid-bass region. Maybe I remember this particular because that system ('94) was amplified using a solid state that had a big dose of feedback in its circuit, that could only worsen any slight tendence of the speakers.
No here there's air and bloom in some recordings with a well centered voice between the loudspeakers with the orchestra around and back to the singer, reproducing the room ambience of the recording: very convincing!
Another point is clear, Stef23 has a huge musical collection in CDs and LPs that covers the walls of the listening room: he is indeed an experienced audiophile and has ordered the mods knowing what he was doing and the stack where to arrive.
This listening session has been very convincing and raised in me the desire of listen to some more!