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Any Fried model R fans??

Thank you ArchNot, always great to see fotos of the Fried back plates, nice post !

In common, we both had Bill work on our Frieds; he's the best ! I was there twice (Miller Sound is close to me) & he installed a new binding post on my model R/1. The 1st time he refoamed a woofer for my EPI 100 speakers. Bill & Loretta are wonderful folks. If you had the pleasure of hearing his best audio system it is mind blowing, & he built his house new to accommodate it. Arnie Nudell heard the set Bill owns & totally customized, Infinity IRS V, & said it is better than the ones that had sold from Infinity's factory. Bill put in very many hours reworking his IRS V, & that particular set has been called one of the few best loudspeaker systems ever made in the world.

There is a nice write up on it, interested folks can google "6 moons audio industry features: Forbidden Fruit Tour" (stop # 9 Millersound), a couple of pages to see. He owns 2 sets of IRS V, with the one he customized. There is also 1 or 2 other web articles about this special set.

We had some common friends so he let me hear them. My jaw dropped hearing these; best I ever heard recorded music played; once in a lifetime experience. If anyone has a dealer nearby for Genesis Advanced Technologies, the Genesis Prime model is the currently selling version of the former IRS V. Before the Prime, the versions were the Dragon, and 1.2 models. Uber costly, exotic luxury priced but a test listen may be allowed. Way past my meager means !

Apologies for digressing, but if anyone needs the absolute best refoaming or possibly related repair for their Fried speakers, Miller Sound is most highly recommended; he has worked on almost every brand made worldwide, with a fine global reputation from manufacturers & customers.
 
luvmusik said:
Thank you ArchNot, always great to see fotos of the Fried back plates, nice post !

In common, we both had Bill work on our Frieds; he's the best ! I was there twice (Miller Sound is close to me) & he installed a new binding post on my model R/1. The 1st time he refoamed a woofer for my EPI 100 speakers. Bill & Loretta are wonderful folks. If you had the pleasure of hearing his best audio system it is mind blowing, & he built his house new to accommodate it. Arnie Nudell heard the set Bill owns & totally customized, Infinity IRS V, & said it is better than the ones that had sold from Infinity's factory. Bill put in very many hours reworking his IRS V, & that particular set has been called one of the few best loudspeaker systems ever made in the world.

There is a nice write up on it, interested folks can google "6 moons audio industry features: Forbidden Fruit Tour" (stop # 9 Millersound), a couple of pages to see. He owns 2 sets of IRS V, with the one he customized. There is also 1 or 2 other web articles about this special set.

We had some common friends so he let me hear them. My jaw dropped hearing these; best I ever heard recorded music played; once in a lifetime experience. If anyone has a dealer nearby for Genesis Advanced Technologies, the Genesis Prime model is the currently selling version of the former IRS V. Before the Prime, the versions were the Dragon, and 1.2 models. Uber costly, exotic luxury priced but a test listen may be allowed. Way past my meager means !

Apologies for digressing, but if anyone needs the absolute best refoaming or possibly related repair for their Fried speakers, Miller Sound is most highly recommended; he has worked on almost every brand made worldwide, with a fine global reputation from manufacturers & customers.
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Bill and his wife are cool, I took them bagels from our local New York Bagelry when I dropped off my A2s in 2013. He went the extra mile by fixing (eliminated the problem circuit breaker) and somehow improving their sound. I had read about his Infinity system. My cousin and I demoed a four towered Infinity reference system( can't remember which numeral) at High C Stereo in Leesburg, VA in the early '80's. List price at the time was $24k. We followed that demo with a demo of some Rogers 3-ways which probably sounded great but seemed unimpressive after being awed by the Infinitys. This was my introduction to real hifi. We try to attend the Capitol AudioFest every year which is a blast . Thanks for the reply and Fried info.
 
Robint said:
With the round woofer would make them R lll's.
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The serial numbers are perplexing me. The original owner told me that he had gotten some sort of upgrade (woofers?) but it was so long ago that I can't recall. I paid about $300.00 when I purchased them.
 

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hifitommy said:
whoever the designer was (John Wright?) made a brilliant choice of drive units. the top two of which are the same as in the vaunted Rogers LS3/5a which i had owned before them. i mourn the fact that i wasn't able to keep more than one set of main speakers but the similarity of imaging was uncanny.
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That's the first thing i thought.

I wonder how it would sound with a LS3/5A crossover and the special felt around the tweeter (for controlling diffraction). A bass-extended LS3/5A should sound magnificent...
 
Fried R speakers made in the USA had the same serial numbers as they were handed. Those shipped from England the speakers were in a vertical array. Therefore they just shipped two boxes and the serial numbers had no relation to one another.
 
I remember reading (perhaps in Speaker Builder) that Fried used Charboneau (sp?) woofers in some of his speakers and HiQ phon (again, sp?) tweeters. I believe that the Qs I had, and the As I still have somewhere used those drivers.
 
I just got a pair of Fried R speakers. They are absolutely mint and sound lovely! I have been trying to figure out if they are R I or R II. They are serial number 7535. I took the woofer out this morning and had a look at the crossover. It looks like the crossover images posted in this thread - but those have been described as both R I and R II. Are they visually so similar that one needs to look at the capacitor values to see if they are R I or R II? I googled the KEF concerto crossover and it looks very different than the crossover I have, like I said, mine at a glance, look like the images posted in this thread.
 
I wonder about the claim that the Concerto crossover design was used in the Rs - I believe that many of Fried's own designs used series crossovers, which I don't think KEF did. But not having any relevant crossvers or diagrams to hand, I can't offer more than a query.
 
Nat said:
I wonder about the claim that the Concerto crossover design was used in the Rs - I believe that many of Fried's own designs used series crossovers, which I don't think KEF did. But not having any relevant crossvers or diagrams to hand, I can't offer more than a query.
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I had read in many places that Fried used a modified concerto crossover in the R I so that's why I mentioned it - with the thinking it would help me identify mine. But now I'm just confused between the R1 and R2. I definitely want to update the caps and do the tweeter mod.
 
I would guess that the crossover points and slopes for the KEF drivers are pretty standard, and any speaker using those drivers would use a relatively similar crossover (unless they decided they didn't care about blowing tweeters and lowered the crossover point or first order slopes, which an experienced manufacturer like Fried would not be likely to do).
If Bud Fried used a series crossover to achieve those crossover points and slopes, it would have rather different component values, and if my understanding is correct, one of the virtues of series crossovers is lower inductances for the coils, which means air coils may be affordable. And that would be a plus.
 
Air coils? Are you suggesting I updated these when I do the caps? I'm mostly concerned with figuring out if my Fried Model Rs are version 1 or 2. They only way to know is by the crossover and looking at the crossovers in my speakers shows them visually to be the same as the crossover images in this thread - which are described confusingly as both version 1 and 2. I am hoping someone knows with certainty if these are series 1 or 2. I would also like to know if the tweeter circuit mod can be performed only on version 2 or if it can be implement on version 1, too.
 
In post #48 in this thread is my series ll crossover modified according to the schematic posted by JimPA. In post #56 is picture of mccarty250 unmodified crossover. Both are series R ll.
 
I was suggesting that looking at the coil values might shed light on whether they were parallel or series crossovers, which might help identify which series they were. Emphasis on 'might' - I have no idea what the values of any of the various types were.
 
Robint said:
In post #48 in this thread is my series ll crossover modified according to the schematic posted by JimPA. In post #56 is picture of mccarty250 unmodified crossover. Both are series R ll.
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Thanks! #58 is described as a series R I which is what confused me. Mine have the same crossover as seen in these two images. I've learned to better read a schematic and I see mine conform to he one shown on the sheet above the tweeter mod. I'm absolutely stunned by how these speakers sound. I last rebuild a beautiful pair of KEF 104aB which were my daily drivers the past 3 years. I've had so rearrange my apartment a bit to accommodate the Frieds. They are mind bogglingly good at times. Can't fathom what they'll do with new capacitors. Anyone have an opinion between Alcaps for low/mid and a Solen poly for the tweeter circuit vs A Dayton 1% poly for tweeter circuit and Solen caps for the low/mid? These really are the only two viable options to Canada. I read the Solen poly is known to be bright and I think these speakers might benefit from some brightness. But the Dayton 1% poly is broadly well reviewed. I know a lot of people don't believe there is much if any audible difference between caps but both these sets come at the same price and I don't know which to get. For the record, I'd be buying the Solens/Dayton direct for Solen here in Canada. The other set would be coming from Falcon in the UK. Priced within $2 of one another after taxes and shipping.
 
From what I have read Bud Fried was constantly up-dating his crossovers. When he bought out the R ll's previous customers could install the series R ll crossover into their R l speaker. I reworked my pair according to the schematic and I stuck with NP electrolytic and mylars for the tweeter circuit. Fried would have used locally purchased caps. When I recapped my KEF 105.4 I went with Alcaps but with the Fried's I used Daytons.
 
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