gpa 604 8H II crossovers again, sorry

[mondonitro]

Hey everybody, see alot about the gpa crossovers. so here I go with my question. I have about 600 hours on my gpa 604's and gpa crossovers in a 6 ft cab with a 25inch baffle width. Still too forward for my taste with a pp 2a3 Melody amp. I asked this question, to Steph?n of 6 moons how I might lessen the forwardness thinking the stock crossovers are 2nd order butterworth. His first thought was try some ac motor run oil caps. I may try these, they are cheap. But after looking, I really do not know if the crossover is 2nd order or 2nd and 3rd or what. I am a newbie with this stuff. So maybe someone can send me a scematic, I have written Steven at GPA for one but no response and I have gotten the answering machine the last couple of days. Since the crossover is mounted on a board I may have to pull it apart to mod it either with oilers or change it to a 3rd or 4th order. Steph?n seems to really like the 4th order but indicated to me he may try the 3rd order again. So after my long winded wind up, if anyone has a scematic thanks a ton, if anyone has a good plan to lose the forward nature of this combo better yet. I can already see why people love these drivers, even now, not tweeked out they beat my old Druids for my listening tastes. I may even go as far as building some 9 ft MLTL cabs in the future. Thanks for any help.

[Tom Brennan]

This sounds like a frequency response problem.

Get an equalizer and experiment cutting midrange and upper midrange bands down, that may bring the response to your taste. Experiment.

I don't think changing caps will do a thing; wrong tool. Might be a good placebo though.

[Todd W. White]

How a speaker sounds is SO subjective - what do you mean by "too forward"?

<font color="#FFFFFF" size="1">[ August 06, 2008 09:59 AM: Message edited by: Todd W. White ]</font>

[mondonitro]

Too forward to me is.... I'm listening to some music and the intro is lets say bass and drums, the volume is fine then someone starts singing and their voice becomes piercingly loud and fatiquing, just can not listen for extended periods of time. It just sounds out of balance. Not super bright but , how else to say it but forward. Not sure if that helps.

[DNV47]

Lets assume you don't have a problem with any associated equipment and that your NOT one of the people that hear harsness through reveiling high efficiency speakers when listening to digital recordings,if that's what your source material is.
I have no doubt that the GPA drivers are fine but when I looked at the GPA website the xover looks to be fixed for the HF driver so you can't adjust the level.
While the fixed level may yield a "balanced" sound with test equipment or to some ears, maybe it doesn't sound balanced to you in your room?
I'd prefer to find my own balance with a potentiometer then replace it with fixed resistors once I was happy with a pot position that sounded right with the majority of my recordings.
I do believe that different caps can be used for final voicing of electronics and speakers but I wonder if it's not more of a level problem.

[Tom Brennan]

Originally posted by DNV47:
Lets assume you don't have a problem with any associated equipment and that your NOT one of the people that hear harsness through reveiling high efficiency speakers

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Reveiling. Interesting slip.

[DNV47]

You can always count on Tom! LOL
Are you just picking on my spelling or trying to read something into my opinion that wasn't there?
The point was that there are people, including myself, that don't like digital recordings and having a REVEALING speaker makes the listening experience even worse.
Now if you have a pair of AR3's I think CD's would probably sound OK.
By the way, I've been watching your posts around the Interent for years and 99% of the time I agree with your opinions but I'm surprised you don't think that caps in an xover can change sonics.

[Todd W. White]

Well, it's long been said that 604's make you hate some of your favorite recordings - but that's the fault of the RECORDING, and NOT the fault of the 604: it just lets you hear for the first time what is REALLY there!

For years, as an Altec Lansing Engineering Sound Contractor, I fought the problem of people becoming acclimated to what really amounted to BAD sound, and, upon hearing what a properly operating sound reinforcement system sounded like, they'd complain, and say there was something wrong with their (Altec) system.

I finally came up with a way to help get them past their preconceived idea of what good sound was that had been learned from listening to bad sound: I would lightheartedly tell them they were prejudiced!

"Prejudiced? I'm NOT prejudiced!", was the reply.

"Yes you are - you've been listening to BAD sound for SO long that your ears think it's GOOD, and now, when you hear what is REALLY good, you think it's BAD! You're prejudiced AGAINST good sound and FOR bad sound!"

That would go on for a while...

Then, I would demonstrate how I sounded without a microphone. Then I would bring the microphone up to my mouth slowly, and help them to hear that the Altec system made me sound THE SAME AS I DID WITHOUT IT, ONLY LOUDER.

It usually worked.

But not always...

Said all of that to say this: it may be your recordings, not the speakers/crossovers...

[LICORNE]

It can be best demontrated by listening to FM radio.
Some stations still play some MP3 and regular CD's.
With Altec speakers you can tell the difference between the 2 mediums.MP3 are bland and have to much compression.CD's come out with full top to bottom range. With small radio's it's less noticeable because they have small speakers that don't render the full spectrum of the recorded material.

..................

[gamalot]

Todd is completely right about the bad sound crowd.

Many of my friends who visit here don't like the way my system sounds and highly prefer their own home systems. When I get the opportunity to take a listen to what they have at home I can immediately understand what they have learned to like is junk and often even identify problems.

One friend who loves the way his system sounds has rotted foam on both of the woofers in his EPI speakers but swears they sound great when he cranks them up!

Clean sound often comes accross as too forward to those who learned to love dirt!

Gary