Modifying Dayton Audio B652 Speakers

I am going to buy a pair of these speakers today. I would like to hear what kind of modifications can be made to improve the quality of the sound. Michael has told me that just a couple of tweeks will make them sound noticeably better than stock.

I prefer a neutral sounding speaker to slightly warm. Don't need a lot of bass but require a smooth midrange and high end. I can still hear about 20khz and can't stand any harsh or bright speakers. I have Jamo C601's that sound great and also Mirage OM 10's that work fine for me. So any mod's I make should result in a similar sound to either of these speakers.

I use a Qinpu A3 hybrid tube/solid state integrated amp. Got rid of the stock tubes which sound harsh to my ears and replaced them with GE 5670 NOS. Sound great and non fatiguing to my ears.

Using a Cambridge Audio C300 CD player. 13 years old and in need of replacement. Any suggestions in the sub $500 category will be appreciated.

Greetings Billiam

Welcome to the Tune!

The Daytons can be improved through the wonderful things Michael does. I have heard them in a friend's home-office computer system and bog standard they are good for the price but thin and squeaky.

Mr Green can turn things around.

From discussions I had with Michael, the Daytons can be improved by removing the damping foam/felt from inside the cabinets/boxes. Then remove the gaskets behind the drivers. Sanding of the interior of the cabinets need to be done.

After that, Michael can supply special wood brace bars to tune the Daytons' cabinets. I don't remember if Michael has tunes for the crossovers and connectors. Certainly hardwiring and the use of Michael's T2 or T1 speaker cables as internal wiring will make a difference.

Then there are wooden stands and a front baffle of good wood Michael is able to make for you.

A thought -- as you enter the tune, both your system, room and your hearing will be works in progress. Your sense of what makes for the best tonal balance in your equipment will change.

In your post, you prefer a neutral balance to warm. Sonic started that way too. Now I am looking for girth and weight to my sound -- and my recent experiences with the LT redwood is good. Your taste in balance will grow and change. And congratulations that you can hear up to 20kHz!

For tubes you might want to consider PSVane or TJ Full music tubes for your pre/amp.

Sonic

Hi Billiam & Sonic & other listeners

Welcome to TuneLand Billiam  

If I may, I'd like to give some background. Recently I've been posting on the Stereophile forum in an attempt to share the tune on a bigger stage. As you guys know Stereophile has reviewed my products in the past favorably and was a part of what put the tune on the map years ago. I had a lot of fun tuning up the high end audio reviewers from the many magazines and at one time thought "tuning" would be able to make it's way into the industry as a standard. My belief is a simple one, all things in audio are tunable, and everyone should be able to tune in the sound they want. The problem I see in our hobby today is we are buying other's taste when there is no reason why we can't have our own. TuneLand is all about the design and art of creating a listening hobby that is variable, fashioned after the musical instruments we listen to. We have found that everything in the audio chain is indeed tunable and when tuned together the performance of the recordings come a lot closer to the original recording and a lot easier to dial in our own personal desires of sound. The high end audio industry still is in the "fix" sounding world, telling us that we only have choice ABC and D, and we have to play in that narrow world of plug and play that most times never allows the music to truly develop. My hope has always been that we as a hobby can grow beyond this thinking creating a hobby that goes much further.

As I was posting on the Stereophile forum when I saw Billiam's thread http://www.stereophile.com/content/speaker-placement-2 . I was struck by the fact that there were hardly any responses to the thread and the advice was minimal. In fact after looking at the forum itself I realized that it was not nearly as active as I thought it would be    , this is Stereophile   . I'll have to get back to this part on another thread, but it did strike me very odd.

Billiam has a room that is a living room and the listening according to him is to be livingroom/listening. Meaning the room will be filled with funiture and the wall with the fireplace will host the stereo. Billiam could you supply a picture of this area for the Tunees to see? Also Tunee's I invite you to take a look at Billiam's thread on the other forum.

What I would like to propose is that we help Billiam tune in that area with a tunable speaker and using the speaker together with the area and perhaps some acoustical help to create a great sound.

Yes, I can get a photo of it the next time I get to the house. Should be this weekend as long as weather permits. I will post it here for everyone to get an idea of the layout.

Great, I think your really going to enjoy this journey. I got your PM, but lets get into the system a little more and make a plan then decide what route might work best for the speaker/room end.

Also if you get a chance pick up this DVD player for your CD's. We'll also turn it into your front end. Once tuned it's a killer.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Funai-DVD-Player/27584750

the audio part to this player is outstanding for tuning

OK. As luck would have it this DVD/CD player is available at my local Wal Wart. I will stop in this week and pick up a couple. Even if it only lasts a couple of years it will be more cost effective than using a CD player that costs $400 and lasts 13 years.

Absolutely, and be sure to read some of the threads where people are using it. One I would recommend is GARP with his tube setup.

https://tuneland.forumotion.com/t35-old-tunee-newer-system

When you hear us refer to the maggie (magnavox) player, it's the same one as the one you are picking up only now it has a new name Funai.

I bought this DVD player and hooked it up to my amp. It does not match well at all with my amp. I heard a lot of scratchy noise on guitars and the overall sound was not full compared to when I use the Cambridge Audio amp. I pried the cover up and it only served to make the sound a little brighter but not clean audio at all. My guess is that mod's to the internal components must be done to make this sound decent. In its present form it is best used as a DVD player.

Hi Billiam

This is great, now how long have you had it plugged in and playing? The sound of the system doesn't shock me at all, however if we want something more open and full range and full signal there might be a few things that I say at first that I hope doesn't rub wrong but once you get past that you will hear something pretty surprising.

I looked up the CD player you have and I had one a while ago (not sure it was the 300). There is a big difference going from the CA to the maggie. The Cambridge is based on a fixed sound and the Maggie is wherever you take it.

Also can you tell me what the maggie is sitting on when you play it?

With the cover off you will see some screws on the board, losen them. They should be barely touching the board (pretty loose). See the power cord? This will be replaced but for now pull it out of the slot. What is the player plugged into?

The key to this player is it sounds like what it is plugged into and what it is sitting on and the interconnect and so on. Pictures would be great so I could see the conditions it is being used in.

The maggie player can be used to tell me how your system is doing so if you don't mind bear with me while we walk through some things.

Also see the little tabs put on the bottom of the player? Get rid of them.

What interconnect are you using on the player? Does it pull on the back plate, or is it tight on the RCA's. This player will not work with heavy interconnects and the RCA's shole be barely touching the jacks.

Once I get a picture of the conditions and surrounding equipment power and acoustics this will tell me what is going on.

the Qinpu A3

One thing you will notice in general about the A3 is it will work well with certain setups and completely fall apart with others. It, like the Cambridge, is built to do "their sound" and many times when you introduce something that is more open as far as actual signal goes there is a clash that can happen. The Maggie will work around it but as you listen in time you are going to hear something that isn't quite right with the amp. It usually happens in the dynamics and a particular high frequency oddness. The A3 itself is a pretty cool design but the reason why it has these problems with some tubes and other components is because of it's chassis and Transformer housing. With both the Cambridge and A3 being rolled and missing some signal when you put things in that have more it will sound weird.

What do you have it sitting on?

My IC is the Audio Art IC3. Yes it is a very heavy cable.

I don't have a rack for my system right now. The CD player is on top of a tape deck which is on top of a tuner which sits on the floor. Both components are not turned on or used right now.

How do you slide the cover off from the Funai DVD player? I was able to open it but could not figure out how to get the cover off completely. Don't want to force it.

I will get pictures of the room this weekend. As it turns out I may not be living there very long as it is. A bridge project in the area is going to create headaches for my road which is going to lead to more traffic. Toll bridge they want to build about a mile from my house. My house is on a street that has a convenient bypass in the form of another bridge. I may be shopping for another house to live in which means I will look for a home that has a better acoustical environment for stereo listening.

Hi Billiam

Thanks for the info and the open mindedness. This stuff must sound strange sometimes because it is the opposite from what we get told in the hobby.

Once you remove the screws it is fairly easy to lift the back of the player's top and will snap loose from the front. When opened you will see the board screws to losen. The board has a clip support on the bottom and when the screws are tight they shift the sound up, when lose it goes down. There are a lot of mechanical things to make the player go down in pitch.

See how light weight the player is? Well because of this it vibrates great and it doesn't take much to influence the signal. With the IC's pulling on it and the fact that it is sitting on another componant it is no doubt taking on the sound of these two conditions. Once we get settled in a place we will want to look at what to place the unit on and maybe even top tune and this beast will become something alltogether different than it is raw. Everyone who first gets this player before learning what it can do goes through the same thoughts so no biggie about first impressions. Once you get a little more use to the tune it will be a lot more fun and make more sense.

As you look for a new place to live think about wood studs and drywall, also having floor joists is huge with wood floors. Maybe through you starting to tune you will learn what to look for in the next place.

Also since we are posting back and forth why don't you go ahead and start your thread in the "home audio systems" https://tuneland.forumotion.com/f3-home-audio-systems part of tuneland, so you can join in with the rest of us. You could call the thread Billiam's System. Be nice to have you up with the guys.

You're welcome. Yes, I try to keep an open mind about most things. I am not adverse to trying something new with stereo just as long as it won't cost me much money. Since I have some work to do to my house and have a few irons in the fire for other things (time constraints) I will be somewhat limited in what I can do right now.

I will start the new thread after I get the photos of the room. That should make it easier on the people that have suggestions on how to improve the sound of the room and ultimately the gear I have.

Since it is very likely that I will be shopping for a second home I will not want to go overboard with "tuning" at the current home. I won't wall mount speakers into plaster for example since it is likely to crack and will require repairs to make it presentable if I sell the house. Will have to stick with stands of some type.

Hi Michael

I got a question which might also be relevant to Billiam -- what does it tell you if the sound goes thin when the interconnect RCA jacks are just touching to make contact instead of being pushed all the way in?

Sonic

Hi Sonic

I would almost have to play with the system to answer that. In my system when the interconnect is barely touching the stage gets bigger, more dynamic and full. My guess would be that you have exposed blockage somewhere in the system.

When my system settles up instead of down two things come into my thinking. One is that I have not let the system settle and second I have created a bottle neck somewhere in the chain. Lately my system has been only in the small room cause I'm using the other space to cure. Hopefully that won't last forever but it is the way it is for now. Somehow I feel naked if I have less than three systems going, rats. Being that as it may, I have to use this system to see if things are going to settle up or down. Most of the time in that system the music heads in the direction of down and then eventually to wooly. When it hits wooly is when I start thinking top tuning. I have not had the system head up and stay there in a while.

Now if the cable is barely touching the RCA female you have to make sure that it is not pulling down by the weight of the cable. I have been using type one for that reason. It's a lot easier to make the cable behave and not cause tension. Because I only have two components it is so much easier to tweak.

Earlier this week I got in the mood for some live rock, so I grabbed some REO Speedwagon and laughed when I put it on cause it sounded so thin and sick    I fell into my audiophile thinking and started blaming "recording". Usually I wouldn't but it was a live recording. I know you guys aren't going to live with one recording for a whole week but it's different with me. It has changed so much in one week that now the highs sound almost rolled, they are so mellow and the bass that was not there in the beginning of the week is not only full but heading toward wooly. I was about ready to change the recording today when I went in for a quick listen. I was glad I did. When I walk in the room it's almost weird, and when sitting down the flow of the music is all around me. Tuesday it was, I thought stuck in the middle, today completely different story. I totally believe the concert. I have to think a minute and ask myself the question "was it worth it"    For me, yes cause I now have another live recording to add to my "nice" list.

for me

For me it's about finding the magic in each recording. I know that most of the world likes to play their playlist, I get it. I do too sometimes, but I also like uncovering things and letting the music grow, and if it grows in the right direction I become saticfied hearing where it might want to go and also I enjoy hearing my system get to the point where I can't tell what it is anymore. Could I stop right now and tweak? Yes, there are things I would like to do to the recording, but not without my other systems. Tweaking for the sake of listening survival is one thing, but tweaking without having a reference to guide or pingpong can get crazy even for me. If there is one thing I have learned and have to relearn everytime I put on a piece of music is the fact that "every recording has it's own signature". Because of this we can so easily tweak to that signature and get lost. Not me, I'm not up for spending my time lost unless I'm doing it on purpose.

think simple   

Also let me add,

When I hear the vocals on this well broken in system on this recording it's like butter, and it started in nastiness. I didn't touch anything but the volume control through the week.

Hi Michael

A good piece!

There have been several times that I have got a shift down in tone to wooly and dull. Each time I recorded in my Tunebook that a failed tune occurred. Instead I could have pushed ahead and top tuned....

A couple of questions arise from your answer:

a. should someone going for "RCAs just in contact" do this all at once, or start from the front end and work down the chain? Eg: CD player, then amp, then speakers?

b. will moving in steps indicate where the blockages might be

c. it will be useful if you could list out examples of blockages to look for in a system so a kind of checklist can be made of things to look for -- Sonic knows the basics (too tight mounting screws, cable ties, rubber feet) but a comprehensive list will be helpful to me

Sonic

Hi Sonic

Very good!

I think what I will want to do is start a thread on "checking for blockage".

I got your PM, but lets get into the system a little more and make a plan then decide what route might work best for the speaker/room end???



waleeed

Hi Alfred, welcome to TuneLand

I looked back through my PM's and didn't find any from alfredalfred.



Sorry, maybe you could refresh my memory.