Hi and thanks MLO

[Stratwing]

Name: Steve

Location ; Benoni, South Africa

ML products: ML Quest

Purchased: 2001 (manufactured June 1996)

Mods / changes: Rebuilt / refurbished. Custom made plinths (bolted to cabinet) Cabinets resprayed Indium grey (VW automotive colour). Passive Crossover removed, internal wiring & binding posts replaced. New panels.

Associated equipment:
Source: Playback Designs MPS8 cd / sacd / streamer
Pre amp: Audio Research Ref 10 (currently bypassed)
X over: DBX Venu 360
Power amps: Krell FPB350mc (Panels) & Krell FPB600 (LF drivers)
Power: Dedicated lines x 2. Shunyata Denali power conditioner. Triode Wire labs PC's
IC's & Speaker cables: Townshend Fractal F1
Rack; Symposium Osiris & B-fly audio powerbase
Extensive acoustic treatment throughout the room.

This is my first post to any online forum so greetings to all the MLO members! I have followed and admired this site for many years and I have learned from the members and the posts here, so thank you to everyone who has freely shared their advice and information. I decided it was time to become actively engaged. My hobbies all revolve around music - I am a guitarist / musician and songwriter and I have a small studio in my house. Unfortunately, music is only a hobby and I have to do other less exciting things to pay the bills and fund the hobbies.

As can be seen, I have owned the Quests for 22 years now and have enjoyed every minute spent with them. I would love to share my full story with all of the members - it has been a long and eventful journey., so I will follow this up with my story of the last 20 years or so and some pics.

In the meantime , here is a picture taken yesterday...

 

[JonFo]

Cool setup, thanks for sharing.

X over: DBX Venu 360

Great to see one of these deployed, as a musician, I bet you see these in the field as well. Tell us more about the XO setup. Are the passive elements in the MLs totally bypassed?

 

[Len44]

Welcome! Nice outfit. Please tell us more.

 

[Brad225]

Welcome Steve. Good to see another PlayBack Designs fan.

 

[Stratwing]

Cool setup, thanks for sharing.




Great to see one of these deployed, as a musician, I bet you see these in the field as well. Tell us more about the XO setup. Are the passive elements in the MLs totally bypassed?

Hi Jonfo. I'm not surprised that you're one of the first to respond to my post - I know you are a proponent of Active bi-amping and the Venu 360. You were one of the MLO members that inspired me to go the active X/O route and it is a great upgrade which I would highly recommend to anyone able to do it.
The passive crossovers have been removed entirely (I still have them) so the binding posts connect directly to the drive units. The Venu 360 is a great piece of kit and I have often seen them used for FOH PA systems in larger venues. Mine was supplied, programmed and modified by Roger Sanders, who as you know, is extremely helpful and a pleasure to deal with.

 

[Stratwing]

Welcome! Nice outfit. Please tell us more.

I will certainly do so. It is a long story but I will post some pictures of the sound room and the speakers etc. as they transformed over time.

 

[Stratwing]

Welcome Steve. Good to see another PlayBack Designs fan.

Thanks - I am new to the brand. There is no dealer / distributor in South Africa but I contacted Playback Designs and dealt directly with Andreas Koch who is the CEO and he was really great to deal with and arranged the shipping. I received mine mid March this year, so it's still settling in really. But it is an amazing digital player and I am certainly very pleased with it.

 

[Russr]

Aangename kennis! Great to see the Active approach being implement "down South"!

 

[DanR]

Welcome aboard Stratwing, beautiful rig Jonfo was a big influence and help to me when I went active on the bass drivers in my Odysseys what an improvement. I went as far as to change out both the 10” and 8” factory drivers to units of my choice. I also have new stat panels in the speakers, my pair was originally built in 2001 so they had 22 years on them. My panels are still using the factory passive crossover for the panels but I can see the day when I actively cross those over too. Enjoy your stay on the site

 

[Robert D]

Welcome aboard Stratwing, beautiful rig Jonfo was a big influence and help to me when I went active on the bass drivers in my Odysseys what an improvement. I went as far as to change out both the 10” and 8” factory drivers to units of my choice. I also have new stat panels in the speakers, my pair was originally built in 2001 so they had 22 years on them. My panels are still using the factory passive crossover for the panels but I can see the day when I actively cross those over too. Enjoy your stay on the site

Have many on here crossed over the panels too?

 

[Jazzman53]

Cool setup, thanks for sharing.




Great to see one of these deployed, as a musician, I bet you see these in the field as well. Tell us more about the XO setup. Are the passive elements in the MLs totally bypassed?

Hi Jonfo. I'm not surprised that you're one of the first to respond to my post - I know you are a proponent of Active bi-amping and the Venu 360. You were one of the MLO members that inspired me to go the active X/O route and it is a great upgrade which I would highly recommend to anyone able to do it.
The passive crossovers have been removed entirely (I still have them) so the binding posts connect directly to the drive units. The Venu 360 is a great piece of kit and I have often seen them used for FOH PA systems in larger venues. Mine was supplied, programmed and modified by Roger Sanders, who as you know, is extremely helpful and a pleasure to deal with.

I'm another proponent of the DBX Venu 360-- it's marvelous!

I would never go back to passive crossovers. Efficiency, tighter bass, phasing, tonal quality--all better with the passive crossover out of the way. And the tuning capabilities are practically infinite. The user interface (I-pad, tablet or smart phone) is intuitive and easy.

My initial setup is a follows:

I first time-align the woofer and panel using the microphone, RTA and a test tone matching the crossover frequency. I adjust the time delay until the RTA shows max output (i.e. max constructive interference), which for my speaker is a 0.33 millisecond delay on the panel.

I then set the crossover frequencies (70Hz @ 48db/octave for the woofer-to-sub and 260Hz @ 48db/octave for the panel-to-woofer).

Then I adjust and balance the channel gains using the mic/RTA with pink noise.

I then use the the auto-tune feature, which does a few frequency sweeps and automatically overlays parametric EQ's to smooth out the nasties in the frequency response.

I use the 31-band graphic for final tuning by ear.

ESLs can be a bit harsh in the upper midrange so I play the song "Holiday" by Erin Bode. Erin has a high voice that can cut diamond if the system is tuned hot, but if I can take the edge off her high notes, then nothing else I'm likely to play will sound harsh.

I then follow up with Dave Brubeck's "Take Five"-- and if Morello's hi-hat is still crisp, then I know I haven't taken too much off the upper-mids. Typically; a 3db dip at around 2.5kHz (i.e. the BBC dip) takes the edge off and gets the tuning perfect.

The DBX Venu 360, and it's little brother the PA2 model, both have a really good user interface and give almost infinite tuning capability in real time from the listening position. I opted for the higher priced Venu 360 because I needed its digital input in order to omit the analog preamp in my system and stream directly from a Logitech Transporter, using its digital volume control.

The DBX PA2 has basically the same features with balanced analog inputs (no digital input) at about half the price of the Venu 360. Both are excellent performers!

 

[JonFo]

Hi Jonfo. I'm not surprised that you're one of the first to respond to my post - I know you are a proponent of Active bi-amping and the Venu 360. You were one of the MLO members that inspired me to go the active X/O route and it is a great upgrade which I would highly recommend to anyone able to do it.
The passive crossovers have been removed entirely (I still have them) so the binding posts connect directly to the drive units. The Venu 360 is a great piece of kit and I have often seen them used for FOH PA systems in larger venues.

Great to hear that all the banging on about active XO is taking root in this community. Good to hear your setup is a pure active rig. This adds greatly to the enjoyment of these older models.

Mine was supplied, programmed and modified by Roger Sanders, who as you know, is extremely helpful and a pleasure to deal with.

Oh wow, from the great master himself. So cool, he is a great asset to the ESL community at large. I love his amps.

 

[JonFo]

My basic initial setup is a follows

Thanks for sharing this workflow and thoughts about the DBX line.

 

[Stratwing]

Aangename kennis! Great to see the Active approach being implement "down South"!

Baie dankie!! Pleasantly surprised to hear Afrikaans from the States!

 

[Stratwing]

Great to hear that all the banging on about active XO is taking root in this community. Good to hear your setup is a pure active rig. This adds greatly to the enjoyment of these older models.


Oh wow, from the great master himself. So cool, he is a great asset to the ESL community at large. I love his amps.

He is indeed. I was fortunate enough to hear his speakers and amps. All excellent. I have also tried his speaker cables but they didn't convince me.

 

[Stratwing]

I'm another proponent of the DBX Venu 360-- it's marvelous!

I would never go back to passive crossovers. Efficiency, tighter bass, phasing, tonal quality--all better with the passive crossover out of the way. And the tuning capabilities are practically infinite. The user interface (I-pad, tablet or smart phone) is intuitive and easy.

My initial setup is a follows:

I first time-align the woofer and panel using the microphone, RTA and a test tone matching the crossover frequency. I adjust the time delay until the RTA shows max output (i.e. max constructive interference), which for my speaker is a 0.33 millisecond delay on the panel.

I then set the crossover frequencies (70Hz @ 48db/octave for the woofer-to-sub and 260Hz @ 48db/octave for the panel-to-woofer).

Then I adjust and balance the channel gains using the mic/RTA with pink noise.

I then use the the auto-tune feature, which does a few frequency sweeps and automatically overlays parametric EQ's to smooth out the nasties in the frequency response.

I use the 31-band graphic for final tuning by ear.

ESLs can be a bit harsh in the upper midrange so I play the song "Holiday" by Erin Bode. Erin has a high voice that can cut diamond if the system is tuned hot, but if I can take the edge off her high notes, then nothing else I'm likely to play will sound harsh.

I then follow up with Dave Brubeck's "Take Five"-- and if Morello's hi-hat is still crisp, then I know I haven't taken too much off the upper-mids. Typically; a 3db dip at around 2.5kHz (i.e. the BBC dip) takes the edge off and gets the tuning perfect.

The DBX Venu 360, and it's little brother the PA2 model, both have a really good user interface and give almost infinite tuning capability in real time from the listening position. I opted for the higher priced Venu 360 because I needed its digital input in order to omit the analog preamp in my system and stream directly from a Logitech Transporter, using its digital volume control.

The DBX PA2 has basically the same features with balanced analog inputs (no digital input) at about half the price of the Venu 360. Both are excellent performers!

Thanks Jazzman, that's quite a comprehensive process - thanks for sharing! As I stated earlier, mine was set up by Roger Sanders, so other than the LF / panel level adjustment, I just run the room correction whenever I make any changes. It's really simple to do (within my limited capability!)
I fully agree with you regarding the improvements it brings.

 

[Russr]

Baie dankie!! Pleasantly surprised to hear Afrikaans from the States!

Ja, well, no fine, Boet. Been here a while... had to dig pretty deep to remember that greeting!

 

[Stratwing]

Ja, well, no fine, Boet. Been here a while... had to dig pretty deep to remember that greeting!

Thanks it is appreciated. How long have you been in the US?

 

[Russr]

Thanks it is appreciated. How long have you been in the US?

20+ years. Got my MLs (Aerius and SL3's within a year of getting here... had been dreaming about them for years!

 

[Stratwing]

Thanks - I am new to the brand. There is no dealer / distributor in South Africa but I contacted Playback Designs and dealt directly with Andreas Koch who is the CEO and he was really great to deal with and arranged the shipping. I received mine mid March this year, so it's still settling in really. But it is an amazing digital player and I am certainly very pleased with it.

Hi Brad. I would like to get your opinion on a couple of things. I see that you are using AR Ref 610T amps. I may have an opportunity to purchase some used (and possibly Ref 750's). I also see that at one point you were considering changing to other (smaller) AR amps but you obviously decided to stick with the 610t's. I have always been very happy with the Krell's driving my Quests and O have tried other amps - but at the same time we know that there is always something better out there! I don't know what other amps you've compared the AR to?

Also, I see you use the AR Ref 40th anniversary. Have you listened to the MPS 5 directly into the amps without the preamp? I preferred the sound of the MPS8 direct in my early listening comparisons but I want to do a lot more listening before I decide to let the REF 10 go!