Celestion Ditton 110 crossover re cap

I opted to re cap the Celestion Ditton 110's with Solen metal polyester caps, out with the old electrolytic 10% caps and in the 5% caps. Now they have opened up.

I have had a chance to let these caps burn in and now these speakers have really started to shine. The sound has really opened up in the mid range and high end. The imaging is spot on. Listening to Norah Jones, Come Away With Me and Norah might as well be in my room, that's how clear and precise these speakers turned out.

Braun L830

Along side of the current Braun L1030's I have had the pleasure of working on and auditioning, these Braun L830's came back with more work to be done. Yet another Deiter Rams design speaker, this version images across the mid range and treble region as well as the L1030 but the bass is not as full due to the cabinet size.

A full re cap with two Solen 47uf, 20uf, 5.1uf and a 4.3uf caps were upgraded, no cheap feat but worth every cent.

These speakers are singing along side the L1030's and with all four speakers being driven by my Myryad amp it is pure HiFi bliss, this audiophile has never heard sound this good except for once when I heard a massive Infinity system with ribbon tweeters ($10,000+) at A&B Sound as a young teenager.

Braun L1030 Speakers

I have had the pleasure in re capping a pair of Deiter Rams Braun L1030 speakers along side of a pair of L830's, probably two of the best vintage audio speakers available in terms of sound and styling.

The Braun L1030's are simply a beautiful speaker with deep tight bass, clear as a bell mid range and spot on sparkling highs.The cabinets are an absolute gorgeous walnut veneer with curved edges. The stereo imaging that comes out of these boxes needs to be experienced first hand, words alone can not describe the sound.

The crossover was re capped using Solen caps including a massive 47uf cap, 10uf cap, 5.1uf cap and a 3.3uf cap, by no means are these caps inexpensive.

Is it worth the investment into this speaker? 100% it is. I would pretty much stop at this speaker if it was a permanent part of my collection, I would be hard pressed to find a better sounding and visually appealing speaker than this model. The Solen caps open up the speaker to new heights with clarity and transparency, it really is amazing.

These speakers are scheduled to be picked up soon and I will cherish every moment that I have with them....

Tannoy Oxford Gold

Along the lines of the yesterdays British invasion was a pair of well regarded Tannoy Oxford Gold speakers.

This is the second pair of Tannoy's that I have owned and the first real pair of English real pair, as opposed to this Tannoy/API C-6 version that must have been made under license for the Canadian market.

Tannoy is famous for their dual concentric driver units and the Tannoy Stratford, Cambridge and Oxford were the first units to see the separation of the LF and HF units.

The Oxford speaker, according to many sources on the web were used as studio monitors across England and perhaps elsewhere.

I have already installed a new 2.2uf Solen 5% cap in the crossover of which it looks like the woofer is crossed over on a first order basis with the tweeter second order as there are two inductors and only one capacitor.

The cabinets are a little beat and will need some love when time permits. Also the foam grills were not to be found which indicates that they probably disintegrated over time.

So how do they sound? well at 93db efficiency and the amount of workmanship that went into these speakers they do sound pretty damn nice. Bass is solid with 10 inch ported woofer, mid range is present and forward and the highs spot on. Once again this is a speaker that puts you in with the musicians as they paly the music.

The original brochure can be found on this link.

Mission 700 Leading Edge upgraded again

I usually do not upgrade an already upgraded crossover....but the Mission 700 Leading Edge paired with the Rotel RX-830 receiver sounds pretty damn nice that I thought I would squeeze a bit more clarity out of the system by upping the caps to Solen polypropylene 5% caps.

Also I doubled the acoustic filling in the back of the speaker to take away a the small remnants of boominess, now this system is as clear as a bell. It is all that I have been listening to lately.