Recap / LSI Conversion - AR98ls

[SamC13]

This is the AR fuse recommendation:

View attachment 2272389

And I've used dynamat on driver frames and cabinet walls. It works...!

Thank you for that. I’m going to install the protection circuit ASAP.

so I did make it home, and spent all afternoon listening to the AR’s. This is where I’m at.

The Phase Linear 2000 preamp I got wasn’t near as rough off as the guy made out sound, in fact it is functioning very nicely. We tried it on my dads cheap Klipsh KG4’s to make sure it was safe first, seems to be fine.

so this is what I did.

AR’s and Hafler P3000: terrible. Same as before. No clarity, very hazy sound and lacking in midrange.

AR’s, P3k and PL2k: about the same, slightly more clarity and range, slightly more tolerable to listen to. Still bad.

AR’s and NAD 3155: significant improvements over the P3k. More clarity, depth, range, but still lacking significant in vocals. Sounds like holding a shirt over the mids.

AR’s, NAD 3155, PL2000: yet even more improvement. Much the same improvements as with the P3k and PL2000. More clarity and range, but still lacking in vocals. Still sounds ‘foggy’.

AR’s, NEC A10ii, PL2000: well, no surprise this blows all the other ones out of the water. Significant improvements over both other amps. Actually sounding pretty good on some songs and recordings.

but alas, my issues remain. Any kind of instrumentation sounds pretty damn good, but as soon as the vocals come in I’m disappointed. They lack the crisp definition and air’y overhead I’m looking for.

I’m at a loss of what to do now. Probably going to replace the 4- 22uF’s with one 82uF and film bypass. Also not sure that I want to keep the Dayton’s on the crossover, at the least I’ll probably add a bypass to those as well.

Feel like I made big mistake overall. Pretty damn disappointed and now I feel like I’m chasing my tail trying to get back to a sound I like.

Will update if I make any progress. Any suggestions are welcome

 

[SamC13]

I’m back at it. Tonight I pulled out the LSI conversion in each and took it back to LS. I also identified a connection I had wrong. On the line for the 5uF to the tweeter I had ran it to the post the 350uF for the sub was on instead of to the post with the inductor it was supposed to go to that was above it. If that makes sense. They sound much better now. I have some old crappy 4uF caps in place for the tweeter now until I can get some new ones.

At this point they sound listenable, so I’m still treading water and doing okay.

They still sound flat in the midrange, which I suspect is my poor initial selection of caps. The 4 NPE’s paired together etc. probably not ideal.

So looking at the schematic, I want to replace that 4 22uf bundle with the one nicer cap as suggested, probably the same for the pair of 8uF’s too.

what do y’all suggest?