Quantum 2's are making music!

Kencat

Super Member
I have finally got my December purchased Q2's working. Finished them up Sunday and have been working them out since. I think the new foams are going to take a while to limber up, not that they lack in the bass department now.

I had to decide to put them together with only one replacement 2.7 Ohm 25 Watt resistor as the other one is back ordered. I just plain wanted to hear these puppies and wasn't going to wait any longer :music: I don't think I can tell the difference if there is any. I'll put the new one in anyway when I get it.

Inefficient. Maybe so, but there is way more sp available in my little "lively" living room than I'll ever need. The Adcom GFA555 II isn't breaking a sweat (I don't think anyway....the distortion indicators haven't blinked at me) with the massive cooling fins only get mildly warm. Preamp is a Nikko Beta II (loaner from a friend :thmbsp: )

The sound - unexciting. I have a hard time coming up with all the buzz-words and superlatives to describe them. High highs, nice clear voice. Low lows (bass like I've not heard before :yes: ). I think my expectations were so high, I'm so critically analysing every piece of music, and thinking I'm hearing something wrong still with the speakers, I'm not enjoying the music. I'm beginning to believe I'm hearing the faults in the recordings (or MP3's - ya I know, shame on me :sigh: ). As I say this, I'm resolving to stop that nonsense and enjoy the music!

The sound is good.Great. Pure. Even my wife when I ask her what she thinks, kind of just looks, thinking about what to say. Tonight she said "well balanced". Listening to Madonna's I'm Breathless, my wife said "she sounds like she is in the room singing". That's a pretty good compliment.

I've found a track of music that just shows off the bass response of these Q2's incredibally - U2 Zooropa, track 7, Some Days Are Better. There is content there that I can't hear, but I know it's there. Even at low levels, the bass pervades the room, hell, the house.

You have to learn to appreciate these speakers, because at first listen, you don't know what are you hearing. That sounds strange, but they don't kick you in the face, demanding to be noticed. If these did not do well in sales back in the day, then this would be the reason. JP - they may not fair well in that upcoming shootout because of this. But then, with astute, experienced listeners, their true nature may be detected.

Enough rambling for now. Here are some pics of my setup (Mach 2's and HPM-60 Series I's to the sides). I know.......I need a bigger TV. But, I'ld rather be listening to tunes for the most part.

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Ok, I'm listening to Sammy Hagar's Red Voodoo - This is awesome. I'm wanting to crank this big time. This is starting to approach what a live performance would be....Now, nothing can do that........but I'm hearing a range that more closely approximates it than I've heard before. If I dare to keep turning the volume dial, it may be damn near a concert in here.

Hey, good night all. Talk at you later.
 

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Me again. :wave:

This a track with some very subtle low frequency bass (all a sudden I'm noticing this ...wonder why? :scratch2: ) that is barely perceptable. Good test of a system. This is waaaaaayy down there stuff.

Sammy Hagar - Red Voodoo - track 11 - Returning of the Wish
 
Kencat,

Looking nice....

I am amazed at how the little QAs sound in my office.... I know that yours must sound sooooooo much better:) With some luck I may fall into a larger set of bigger Qs one fine day....

omi
 
You're reactions are about right for you're hearing accurate speakers, perhaps the first time in your system.

Such is the reason why you'll see so many people put down especially accurate speakers, particularly those with a very flat frequency response such as the Quantum 2s. Exempligratia, someone who's listened to kabuki type bookshelves for the last 30 years will come onto AK and complain about how boring a good pair of speakers at the local high-end store sound. The reason for this is that their ears are so adapted to the peaks and dips, mostly peaks, that when said person hears a speaker that is flat, it just doesn't sound right.

Then you also have the issue you nailed, these are revealing speakers that will show the warts along with the rest. The consequence? You'll be unable to listen to MP3s and compressed music on the Infinities (keep a pair of colored speakers on hand for that purpose), but well-recorded music will sound much, much better than you've heard before. Yes, it's unfortunate in many ways to find old favorites to now be unlistenable, but you'll quickly find new, good music that sounds much better and you'll find greater enjoyment in the end.

If after a while you still find the speakers to be a bit lacking, try pulling them out some so that there's nothing in between them, as with any speaker, the Q2s like space. I too still recommend trying to flip the polarity on the midbass driver. I've discovered with my Tannoys that the "body" range of ~300-500Hz is very important to impart musicality and richness that real instruments have. Unfortunately, this is right smack in the middle of the midbass driver's range, so if the inverted phase is causing a sound suckout here, you will find the result uninvolving. If you don't like the change, well, it's only four screws and two slide on connectors to revert to the previous arrangement. Of course, wait a while first before trying this to be sure of what you like.

Congrats on the Q2s!
- JP
 
Thanks Omi,

With your luck at coming across unreal deals, I'm sure you will :D Maybe even some QLS-1's eh? (talk sweet to negotiableterms and he might part with his ???).

The one thing that kind of scared me though, after getting these (which was an incredible Bolly actually...130 $ cdn local pickup, 9 or 10 out of 10 cabinet condition) was all the talk about how difficult it is to drive these because of the low impedence swings of the Watkins woofer. I sprung some big bucks (for me) on the Adcom Amp to drive them proper. Still need to find a nice pre-amp.

I think I'm hearing some mighty fine fidelity at the moment, with the 555 II and the Q2's. I need to pick up some mids for spares and maybe someother drivers to help keep these Q2's alive, and replacing all the caps in the crossover is probably needed as well to keep them 100%. Labour of love? :music:
 
Kencat said:
The one thing that kind of scared me ... was all the talk about how difficult it is to drive these because of the low impedence swings of the Watkins woofer. I sprung some big bucks (for me) on the Adcom Amp to drive them proper. Still need to find a nice pre-amp.

I think I'm hearing some mighty fine fidelity at the moment, with the 555 II and the Q2's. I need to pick up some mids for spares and maybe someother drivers to help keep these Q2's alive, and replacing all the caps in the crossover is probably needed as well to keep them 100%. Labour of love? :music:
When it comes to speakers that need power, it isn't exactly something you'll notice right away with power amp meters pegging with the faintest whisper of a signal (unless you're running the original Ohm Walshes or some electrostats). The need for power is something that you will come to notice over time, though it tends to be much more obvious when your amp isn't up to the task vs. your current position. Everything will seem fine and dandy when suddenly a particularly demanding music passage hits and your amp goes into protection if you're lucky or releases the magic blue smoke if you're not. If you listen to less demanding music with limited lower bass extension (that keeps away from where the second VC of the Watkins kicks in and drops the impedance down to ~1.8ohms), then it is possible to get away with limited power -- I ran my Quantum 2s with a 40wpc Pioneer SX-838 for some time and enjoyed it except for when it would go into protection too regularly with these speakers. However, with most music, the power is still needed, even if it's the improved transient response that you may not notice immediately, but would over the long term if the power wasn't there.

Ah, it's just one of those things. You don't know what you have until it's gone, sort of thing. The large amp was a good choice.

Oh and, some good polyprops on the midranges will be an improvement. Should be even more so on the revealing EMITs, but I've not gotten all the way there on mine just yet.

- JP
 
JP,

I'm liking these. More and more. It's like learning to appreciate fine Wine or Scotch....takes time to nurture and grow into it.

Room placement. Need to work on that. Kind of congested at the moment, but that can be worked on. :yes: Works for now though :D
 
Congrats Kenkat! Sometimes certain speakers have to grown on yu then you really
start to apprectaite them, unless you really hated them at first! LOL!

Yah with your adcom amp you had mentioned some strange noises from no speaker
relays and how that model is made with your infinity's, I have a simular problem with
some kefs that do it more then other speakers. When I first relized this was with an
adcom amp and after turning it off with my meter hooked up it would build up to like
allmost 2 volts (actually charging up the caps in the speakers) then when you'd turn
it back on you could get get some strange results but other speakers would not do
this and since then I've noticed this same type of reaction with the Kefs on other
amps with no speaker relays. Truly freaked me out when I first witnessed this!
 
Thats great news Ken, after all the hard work you put in to bring those beauties back to life!

So day two are you in love or not your cup tea?

I have so much more I'd like to add, JP and Kegger touched on a number of things you and I both noticed when we first fired up our speaks for the first time.

But alas I'm working on my Infinity representives for the fest.

New grill clothe all a round which equals six grills :sigh:

Hope to be done later tonight before I burn off my finger tips with the hot glue gun :)
 
Congradulations Ken.Glad you finally got em working.Now you will hear the real beauty of the Q's.You don't hear the speaker,only the music.Isn't that the way it is suposed to be?Many people will coment on the facte that these speakers are not "aweinspiring",but,that is their forte',they will not add colour to the sound.On an aside they will also show any weakness upstream in your system.
One word of advice,"Watch the clipping",those emits are very unforgiving,they will let you know with silence,only give 1 shot!!!

Regards
Mike
 
Congratulations!

A couple of random thoughts:

- Other speakers, placed close to the ones that are working, can tend to absorb bass in a way that muddies the sound. As an experiment, try removing them temporarily and see if you get better results.

- If you're not already using them, try larger speaker cables, 10 or 12 guage. That Watkins woofer sucks power, and the larger cables may help. The effect will not be large, but will likely be audible.

These are minor, but worth a try, and besides, they're another little way to have fun with your new toys!
 
Negotiable may have a point here with your speaker cables and that is the current
draw that those woofers demand may make you really NEED some heavy duty speaker
wire for them to perform correctly, and can benefit your amp!

Here is a suggestion to something that I have purchesed from lowes but looks to be
the same stuff at partsexpress and it is some awsome speaker wire, with very large
copper strands that sounds and works great for cheap! It's 12ga

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=109-240

Or you could just take a trip down to your local lowes/home depot and go to the
outdoor lighting area and grab the 12ga stuff.
 
Charivari said:
Oh and, some good polyprops on the midranges will be an improvement. Should be even more so on the revealing EMITs, but I've not gotten all the way there on mine just yet.

- JP

JP,

From what I can see, the only electrolytic cap (other than the two beer cans on the woofer) is the 40 mF on the Midbass Coupler. All the other caps are the yellow - what type are these ? - caps. Are they not polyprops? I didn't think these would need to be replaced :dunno:

Have read a few posts here about replacing electrolytics with other types, and that this can change the original "voicing" of the speaker. I think I will order new electrolytics for the midbass as replacements.
 
Army said:
So day two are you in love or not your cup tea?

:lmao:

Reserved love I guess. I'm blown away by some CD's and wonder at others. All the CDs are different from what I'm used to, it's like listening to them for the first time. Must be the "revealing" nature of them mentioned by others.

They aren't going anywhere soon though, and I plan on experimenting more with placement and altering room acoustics if I can, just for fun. The previous suggestions by others above sound good :thmbsp:

I think the pre-amp has a bearing on this as well. Compared to using my old HK AVR45 as pre-amp, the Nikko Beta II is harder hitting and does not throw as wide and deep a soundstage. I'm going to try the HK tomorrow and leave it on for a while. I need to buy a preamp, and have to do more research on what would be a good match.

Edit - Vinyl....wonder what some of the old albums would sound like? :scratch2: That's what existed when these were made. I'll have to dust off the old turntable. :yes:
 
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Kencat said:
From what I can see, the only electrolytic cap (other than the two beer cans on the woofer) is the 40 mF on the Midbass Coupler. All the other caps are the yellow - what type are these ? - caps. Are they not polyprops? I didn't think these would need to be replaced :dunno:
My old pair, that were original in the midbass and woofers sections had Callins non-polarized "computer grade" electrolytics. The midrange sections, however, were hacked beyond recognition with insufficient capacitance according to the newer cabinet and the schematics. With both my old pair and the newer cabinet, the caps on the EMITs were Southern Electronics metalized polyester +/- 10% (though there was a capacitance difference of 0.33uF between the old pair and the new cab and schematic.) The new cabinet did have its midrange capacitor intact, but there are no code markings on it to indicate material, just the manufacturer label of T.I., which I'm uncertain if it stands for Tecate Industries (crossover capacitor manufacturer) or someone else, and a marking indicated +/-10% tolerance. My guess is that it may be a film type capacitor, most likely metalized polyester as well, just by looking at it, but I can't say for certain.

Beyond that, I've read more than a few knowledgeable folks' mentions that even film caps can drift off value and otherwise age over a couple of decades or more. Supposedly, even 10 year old Solens can degrade. So, as I said, your speakers could likely benefit from upgrading to new polyprops.

Kencat said:
Have read a few posts here about replacing electrolytics with other types, and that this can change the original "voicing" of the speaker. I think I will order new electrolytics for the midbass as replacements.
Same here and that has worried me in the past. However, the issue with electrolytics being replaced with film caps is that the former have a bit more roll-off on the high end. So, replacing said caps can result in a much brighter speaker. However, as the Q2s do have adjustable levels on everything and an adjustable tweeter crossover point, I'd think any noticable change can dialed out. That said, I did find an improvement in the midrange even on the new cabinet with a new polyprop.

- JP
 
newoldguy said:
Congradulations Ken.Glad you finally got em working.Now you will hear the real beauty of the Q's.You don't hear the speaker,only the music.Isn't that the way it is suposed to be?Many people will coment on the facte that these speakers are not "aweinspiring",but,that is their forte',they will not add colour to the sound.On an aside they will also show any weakness upstream in your system.
One word of advice,"Watch the clipping",those emits are very unforgiving,they will let you know with silence,only give 1 shot!!!

Regards
Mike

Thanks Mike. It's almost anti-climatic to be finished (well sort of, still some refubing to do). So much of the fun is the challenge of getting these old speakers working. Once done, as nice as they sound, it's like, where's the next project? Of course, I've got a sick Nikko pre-amp that could be a real challenge. Just answered my own question :D


This next thought goes out to everyone, and is a bit speaker philosophical. All the comments about these Q2's being flat response and uncoloured makes me wonder...why do we say that? All electronics put their own colour on things. How do we know what any given recorded piece of music was meant to sound like? I agree that the Q2's sound like what uncoloured reproduction should sound like, or what we think it should sound like....but how do we know for sure? :scratch2:

Mike, If I clip these things with the Adcom, you can have em. I'm not spending 10,000 $ on an amp just to listen to quantums :eek:
 
Charivari said:
My old pair, that were original in the midbass and woofers sections had Callins non-polarized "computer grade" electrolytics. The midrange sections, however, were hacked beyond recognition with insufficient capacitance according to the newer cabinet and the schematics. With both my old pair and the newer cabinet, the caps on the EMITs were Southern Electronics metalized polyester +/- 10% (though there was a capacitance difference of 0.33uF between the old pair and the new cab and schematic.) The new cabinet did have its midrange capacitor intact, but there are no code markings on it to indicate material, just the manufacturer label of T.I., which I'm uncertain if it stands for Tecate Industries (crossover capacitor manufacturer) or someone else, and a marking indicated +/-10% tolerance. My guess is that it may be a film type capacitor, most likely metalized polyester as well, just by looking at it, but I can't say for certain.

Beyond that, I've read more than a few knowledgeable folks' mentions that even film caps can drift off value and otherwise age over a couple of decades or more. Supposedly, even 10 year old Solens can degrade. So, as I said, your speakers could likely benefit from upgrading to new polyprops. JP

Interesting. Well, I did say I wanted a new project :yes:
 
Changing your old electrolytics for newer poly's shouldn't do to much if anything in
changing the frequency of the speakers (Except posabbly giving the tweeters more extension)
but more to the point it may improve upon the graininess that electro's can project
where poly's are generally a little smoother and cleaner sounding. Overall new poly's
should just restore the speakers to there full extent of possable reproduction.

Bypassing with paper in oil caps or using them extensively can give a more euphoric
presentation in certain circumstancies.
 
Kencat said:
I think the pre-amp has a bearing on this as well. Compared to using my old HK AVR45 as pre-amp, the Nikko Beta II is harder hitting and does not throw as wide and deep a soundstage. I'm going to try the HK tomorrow and leave it on for a while. I need to buy a preamp, and have to do more research on what would be a good match.

:

Ken one to think about as far as pre-amps goes would be the Pioneer Spec 1

The Spec 1 can manage two amps, which makes it great for bi-amping. I heard my speaks for the first time with a Spec setup Retro brought down last summer and it was an excellent sounding setup IMO. As a matter of fact my next system for the basement will be bi-amped Spec 1 with two Spec 2's. :thmbsp:
 
I have no experience with Pioneer Spec gear, so no comment on that. However, I'd be letting CarlV down if I didn't mention that the combination of Infinity EMITs and McIntosh autoformers is magical.

I had the Beta's treble towers hooked up to a Threshold SA4e (a truly great amp), but was amazed at how much better they sound connected to a Mc MC-352.

Find someone in your area who is willing to let you try a 2-ch Mc amp (other than an MC-7200), and compare to the Adcom. One of the beauties is that the autoformers allow you to connect to the 2 or 4-ohm taps, and solve the low impedence problems.
 
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