Wildly fluttering woofer

Ouch! Wishing you a quick recovery. Enjoy the music while you're stuck inside.

Dear Heyraz, I've enjoyed reading you so much that I've tracked you down via other threads. A worthwhile way to spend some of my downtime. I've never rolled a tube or changed a capacitor and I'm envious of you folks who get into the nitty-gritty of this hobby. At age 72( I'm too vain to use my hearing aids) I'm resisting my life long search for absolute musical realism with any further upgrades. I have to finally settle for good enough and stop the chase and enjoy the music and searching thrift stores in Los Angeles for the big score!
Regards, Katz1

Katz1,

Sometimes you don't have to do anything major to improve the sound. Changing stock speaker crossover capacitors is one thing that can be done easily and reversed if not satisfied.

My favorite thing about changing capacitors (any capacitor) is listening to them as they break in. At first, new capacitors usually sound horrible. After about 15 minutes they bloom as though someone opened up the door to make things clear, it's really dramatic for me, like someone raised the lights. After that, as they continue to stretch out and break in, the sound continues to get clearer, more subtle and detailed.

Rolling tubes is a little easier, no soldering involved. Different tubes have their own sound. My preamp uses three 12ax7 types in the line stage. I started out with three Telefunkens but it seemed like the sound was over-driven and sometimes too loud. So I changed the first tube to a 5751 (70% of the gain of a 12ax7) thinking I might be over-driving the second stage and the sound became less congested and more subtle. I left the tele in the second position and put a nice low distortion 7025 in the third position to smooth over and finish the sound. Kind of like finishing scotch in a sherry cask. The sound took on a different flavor. That's what rolling tubes is like for me.

I'm not as big of a tinkerer as you might think. Once I like what I hear, I'm done and just enjoy the music. It's only when I get no pleasure from listening that I wonder if it's my ears or the equipment. I can't do much about my ears, so I check the equipment or go to a friend's house to compare.

I do have an extra set of speakers that I might experiment with. They're an extra set of Large Advent's and I'm thinking of removing the internal capacitors and passing the wires to the outside of the cabinet to some terminal strips. That way I can practically change capacitors on the fly till I find my favorite. Then, using another amp, I might "stack" them to see what all the fuss is about.

How's the leg coming along? I can empathize with you're plight because I broke my neck 10 years ago and was stuck in a halo for 3 months. Thank God I had Star Trek recordings to watch, I was so bored. After that, I got hooked on The History and Discovery channels and made it a point to watch all of Clint Eastwood's movies that summer.

One day at a time..each day over is a day closer to getting the cast off.

Good luck.

Rich

I haven't checked my posting in a while hence the delayed response to your last post. Without sounding like a sycophant, your communication skills blow me away.
My left leg which has a Jones fracture of the fifth Metatarsal bone got another cast yesterday for another month. Don't know if I mentioned that I retired on April 17, bought a Honda Civic Si with six speed manual transmission two weeks later, and fractured the bone two weeks after that. So, the car sits!
According to Art Ferris at AI, my pre-amp checks out O.K. and will be returning soon. Meanwhile I can listen to music thru a Yamaha C-60 pre-amp with interestingly MM &MC(with variable loading).
Changing caps on my Thiel 7.2s is way beyond me and tube rolling sounds interesting but I'd still be hesitant to experiment. Maybe I'll run the idea past Art, although I can predict the answer. I will however engage the sub sonic filter om my 3B.
Since the pre-amp seems O.K., I have to consider that excessive tracking force may have caused the woofer flutter. Hope to hear from you again...
Thanks for taking the time to care, Katz1

That kind of fracture can take a while to heal, as you are coming to realize. Sucks about the car, I can relate. I broke my neck 7 days after purchasing a new Subaru Outback and wasn't allowed to drive it for 4 months. A couple of times I sat in it just to take in that "new car smell".

Check the capacitance setting that you're using for your cartridge, too much and it can boom. Wherever you moved your turntable may coincidentally happen to be the worst spot in the room for a turntable. Corners, for example can be boomy.

You'll figure it out. Now's the time to relax and be thankful for what you have and make the best of your situation. I felt like listening to Michael Jackson one night and recorded the playlist. I called that CD "The Halo Session". Good CD, very reflective of my mood that night.