Definitive Owners Thread - Page 680

But I would have to agree about the Trim, Your right should actuall be less of a Negative or even in the Positive if you are trying to boost it.

Something kinda stupid but could be making some of a difference. I see you have a plant behind that Right Tower. Keep in mind that anything behind your BiPolar speakers is going to refract sound. Just to grins try moving the potted plant and see if that helps.

The other thing is if you are looking to move the tower over to the right I would say the same you need something behind it to reflect the audio off of a wall. If you have the room you could try a Foldable Partition, that may help some.

Unfortunately you have your Gear in a really bad spot. Sure it looks cool setting on that small divider wall. But for HT, not the best set up for your speakers.[/quote]

Thanks for the input. I had a little concern about just increasing the Right channel level to compensate after the MultiXt calibration for fear of messing something up with the cal, but I will give it a shot. Being inexperienced, I was leaving the Audyssey as is.

I'll start with moving the plant first and then look at a partition. If I get to the point of needing a partition, does it need to be anything special or something found at a Staples or Office Depot?

I agree that the location is far from ideal. My first thought was to have the TV over the fireplace with the center under it- but that was shot down by the wife last year. Also, I was a little concerned about the heat and sports bar position of the TV- looking up.

I can see that if the speaker gets any closer to the center- no panning to the right really happens. It's already noticeable.

What I'm hoping to do is slowly take over the living room, one piece of diamond crusted jewelry at a time!

As a side note- I really appreciate the knowledge you guys have here. Not only that, but the manner of discussion is almost always productive. With your help, I was able to put together a bedroom set of 5 SM450s for a ridiculously good price when one store was just about giving them away. Not only that, but I will probably try to set the living room up as a good 5.1 rather than the crappy 7.1 I have now as the speakers in the back are way too high. Anyway, thanks.
- Jason

Sure...it's actually pretty easy. I used a plastic garbage bag to wrap it and leave only the work area exposed, so as to not get any shavings or oil on the speaker's electronics. I apologize in advance that several photos will make this a very long post. I didn't shrink the photos very much, so that you could still see detail in the pertinent parts. So with that, here ya go.

1. The back side of the backplate before disassembly.
Notice that whitish/clearish goop? DefTech seems to dip the whole electrical cable assembly in that, and removing it is probably the most tedious part of this whole process.

2. The power cable/fuse holder assembly removed.

3. Before cutting the new opening.
I made a template from the IEC inlet and drew the cutline in pencil. (The line's not shown in this photo.)

4. Cutting the opening.
The white garbage bag is taped on both sides to seal off the rest of the backplate and protect it from shavings and the oil I used when I drilled the corner holes.

5. The Fuse holder and IEC inlet in place.
The fuse holder has its own nut that secures it from the backside. I used two small machine screws to secure the inlet from the front side.

6. Connected and wrapped.
I used shrink tubing to separate the various parts of the assembly before binding them together with zip ties.

7. The finished product.
Now, I can use whatever type or length power cord I want. Makes for a cleaner installation, IMO.

Thanks, I tried something similar when I went to finish my custom bpvx caps but was unsuccessful. I bought the highest sheen black spray paint I could find (I think I was at Lowe's) and put something like 4 or 5 coats on (over primer) and it always looked flat. Do you remember which kind exactly you used?

Oh I did build a pair and they ROCK! It's just that when I built them I also ordered enough parts for a 3rd to make a direct radiating "bpvx" for a center channel. That didn't perform so well so I've still had it sitting around. Now I'll just turn it into 2 clr2000's!

Here's some pics of my successful vx's and my failed center channel!

I believe I might have gotten it at Lowes but it was a lacquer, not regular gloss. I'll check when get home.

prog , how the heck did you cut the iec hole that perfect!!!! did you use a drilling method?

Great work!!!!

Thank you! (Actually, that one looks a little sloppy to me. I've done several of these now, so I think I've gotten better. ) Once I've drawn the cutline, I drill holes at all the corners with a portable drill. Then I thread a coping saw blade through and saw my rough cuts just inside the lines. Finally, I clean them up with a Dremel.

hey prog, your towers AC cords are 3 prong now ?

Yes, but the ground is unused. When I was ordering a lot of IEC inlets, connectors, and raw cable (for making my own power cables), I figured it'd be simpler to just get them all in the grounded versions (C14 and C13 respectively), as I wanted a bunch on hand without knowing how many of each type I'd end up needing. The grounded version is "universal," since you make it ungrounded by simply not connecting the ground pin inside the component. The ungrounded versions, on the other hand, can only be used for ungrounded connections. This has proven to work really well.....I never have to worry about whether I have the right kind of cable or parts for my mod projects...they all use the same thing.

Would someone be willing to pop off your end caps on your CLR3000 and provide to me outside dimensions?

I have them from the web site but noticed the dimensions even for the CLR2500 are off.

I appreciate it! Thanks.

I see already I will have to find someone with computer software to recalculate the internal volume of my new center. As the BP7001SC caps are only 15" deep vs. the CLR3000 caps are I think it says 16" deep, so I have an 1" of volume I have to displace elsewhere meaning I have to drop the overall length from whatever it is probably another 2-3 inches... hummm

Which dimensions.....the length of the box itself?

EDIT: I'm shutting down to watch a movie in a few minutes, so if it was length you wanted, I get 23-11/16" with the sock on.

It is Rust Oleum brand Black Lacquer. I think I put about 4 coats on.

Sweet thanks!

So that means the internal Sealed 6.5"/1" tweet box is entire length of the cabinet 22.25" minus the 3/4" thickness of MDF on each end.... getting closer.

Now I have the height of the CLR3000 at 8 5/16" is this correct or is this off as well?

Yup...I get exactly 8-5/16"

That is an awesome project with awesome results. Thank you for sharing.

That is extremely helpful. Thank you so much for looking into that, I just didn't want to go out and try something else at the risk of ruining a perfectly good cherry finish! Now I can "ruin" it with confidence!

BadgerP and Sideofpotatos,

What you need is one maybe two coats of black (flat or gloss,,) then spray over that with about two or four coats of clear coat. Lacquer or enamel will work - just don't mix the two..... IE: use one type for both the black base-coat and clear topcoat.

You can sand in-between coats and/or scuff-n-buff the final coat of clear for a true professional finish. That's how it is done......

Prog , does it matter which pin is red or white. When i did mine i tried to make sure that i matched it correctly with what def tech had. But i have a feeling it doesnt matter since its alternating current.

What exactly is the benefit to this IEC mod?

True it is AC, yet you should always try to keep the "live" and "neutral" sides correct ("live" side/contact carries current from the source to the load. The neutral returns current to the source).

Basically look at the original cord from your towers - it only has two prongs yet are they the same size or will it only fit into a plug-in one way? Most have one prong larger than the other. This is to ensure you keep the "live" and "neutral" sides correct. If both are the same then it doesn't matter.

Cheers

If like my setup where my power cords do not plug directly into a wall socket rather go into the wall and are connected directly to a power distribution/regulator, it allows me to unplug all connections from the back of my towers vise pulling the cords/extensions out of the wall etc.

It also allows you to use different cords and/or lengths.

Thanks. I didn't use the clear coat on my BPX's, they looked great without. I'll use that tip though when I build some Rythmiks and match the finish to the rest of my def techs.

nice work. what's wrong with the center ?

Thanks! Well, to summarize a long story... When I decided to make the center as pictured below I wanted something that would really match the 7001 fronts. Most everyone I checked with on the design idea said not to waste my time, lobing this and lobing that. Chet told me that he thought it would be a great idea and that the only reason DT didn't offer a speaker like that was because of the size. The smallest box I could get all those speakers into was 36" wide. But I figured the drivers would not go to waste so it really would only cost me the time and materials to make the cabinet, which was minimal anyway as I already had the wood and paint shop fired up for the vx's.

Upon my first test directly against the clr3000 I already had (hooked A, B style to a 2 channel receiver so I could very quickly toggle back and forth between speakers to hear immediate differences). The test revealed the custom speaker to be VERY bassy, only did it sound normal if I turned the treble all the way up and the bass all the way down. Overall output was the same as the 3000. I just attributed it to the lobing idea put it aside.

Not too long after I was running some signal sweeps on a per channel basis for a little calibration. I accidentally ran an sweep from 80 to 10 hz on one of the vx's, which reproduced it shockingly well! Anyway, with the significant driver excursion involved with that bandwidth I could hear air going in and out of the speaker cabinet exactly like a port would sound. It didn't take me long to discover that the screws I had used were on the edge of being too finely threaded to pull into the mdf box enough to compress and seal the gasket on the back of the drivers. So it really was ported! So I went about tightening all the screws and finally got it sealed (sounded much better too by the way). So I went over and tried the same sweep on the other vx and found the same thing. Fixed that up and those babies are sweet now.

About a month after this it occurred to me that the reason the center channel might have sounded so bassy was for the same reason. So I brought it back out again and ran the 80 to 10 sweep on it and yes, in fact that was the case for it as well. I was not able to tighten the screws enough to seal it though and just let it go. I suppose I could just throw in some coarse thread drywall screws that I know will grab to test it again before I permanently decommission (i.e. turn it into 2 clr2000's) the center.

So maybe nothing is wrong with it but I have a perfectly functional 3000 and haven't had the push to tweak it yet.

I called a couple dealers on getting a pair of 7000sc but no luck. They are all gone.

But the good news is from what I was told by the dealer who called def tech a couple mins ago said , " when parts are available for the 7000sc they will continue to start the production assembly for them in min Jan of 2011.

So i guess ill have to wait unless one of you wants to sell yours?

hehe,
Chris

I kept the same orientation that DefTech used, with the live wire (black) going directly into the fuse holder. I don't actually recall whether the original power cord had a polarized plug, but I'm pretty sure it would have, since the live wire needs to run through the fuse while the neutral bypasses it.

Does anyone know if the tweeters in the bp2000tl are hard to install? I have changed tweeters and crossover in my BP 7004s but not the BP 7000TLs. My sound in that one speaker does not have the highs and sounds kind of muddy.

Not quire sure I understand what you have done. So are you saying you have swapped out your tweeters for the exact same replacements? Or have you upgraded to a different tweeter from a different Tower?

If you have changed them in your BP7004's then you already know what it is going to be like. It is exactly the same process. Each wire will have a small and large connector that will only fit one way on the tweeter. You can always take some masking tape and a pen and mark if it is positive or negative, this way you will know which way it goes back together.

On the tweeter, it should have a small red dot. This is the positive side of the tweeter. Hope that helps!

Is there a way to turn off those annoying red links that AVS adds to posts lately?

Hey prog.

They are annoying. Check here for how to disable los links.

Perfect! (Gee, I can't believe I didn't just stumble across that...) Thanks, Wabo.

If I daisy chain the LFE signal from one speaker to the next with splitters, will it degrade the signal? I would like to run LFE to all four of my 7002s by going around the room edge with lfe cables with a splitter in each of the first 3 speakers. What do you think?