I want to thank everyone here for all there input, time, help, opinions, and the many links. I have felt that each one of you were truly invested in helping me - and I really appreciate that. I recently spoke with the gentleman who was trying to help me localy and he recomended someone in Chicago who he says in an expert in speaker repair and building. The gentleman I went to first had thought it would be cheaper to replace the speaker, even after I had voiced concern about loosing the imaging quality of the speakers. Well, after speaking with him today he came clean and told me that he was more of an electronics guy than a speaker guy. I wish he would have been a little more honest up front (would have saved the people on this site helping me a lot of time) but he did mention someone who he says has won awards in speaker and cabinet design. The name of the company is VanL Speakerworks on Western Ave. in Chicago. Let me just say that I feel really good after talking with John Van (Speakerworks) about my problem. He has reasured me that my speakers can be fixed and they will not loose the imaging - he even thinks that I will be happier with them once they are done - something about loosing sound through the old paper style cone that is used on there now - I am guessing right now, truth is I forgot what he said exactly, but I know it had to do with sound leaking through something. HeHe. I could be completely wrong, it's late here and I just got done snowplowing.

Anyways, I really can't think you all enough. I feel like I have really taken a first step in understanding the construction of speakers and am please right now with the level of confidence I am hearing about the sound I will obtain with my original speakers through Soundworks, Chicago, IL.

I am taking them in tomorrow and will have them back in about two weeks. There are a total of 6 speakers I am having done for the first round. I have to do it in rounds and the first 6 are in desperate need. Once these are done I will have 14 more to do. The other 14 however are in perfect condition and hopefully they will last till summer.

I will post the outcome here once they are done in case anyone is interested.

Thanks again, you all have been a real help.
Kuleaze

emaidel, I think this statement kind of supports the idea I had. In which I said highend speakers use run of the mill drivers. It is actually the design of the cabinet and the crossover that takes those drivers, mids, and tweeters and makes them deliver great sound.

I am not saying that there aren't good quality cabinet makers out there using really kick butt drivers, mids and tweeter, I am sure there are, but it seems to me if they can take a cabinet and crossover and make relatively cheap drivers sound great, what is the point of spending so much money on drivers?

You might, and it sounds like it in your response, think that my SF-50's aren't high end. I think $3000 dollars for a set of home speakers 17 years ago would be considered high end, and I'm glad I didn't have to pay that. All I know is that the sound is amazing, and coming from not so spectacular drivers, which again proves my point.

Anyway, I want to think you for supporting my idea by telling me you to have speakers that use un-spactacular drivers and that it is the crossover that makes them great.

Kuleaze

I know a good deal about the SF-50, as I was part of the marketing team to determine that speaker's price tag. It was originally designed to retail for $1,000 per speaker, as that seemed a comfortable fit within the Soundfield speaker line. At a particular meeting with all of us working at dbx at the time, as well as our national representatives, we, somewhat foolishly, said that $1,500 per speaker would be OK, since, by itself, the SF-50 sounded pretty good. I emphasized "by itself" since we weren't making any comparisons to other speakers at the time, and had only the SF-50 to listen to. Certainly, the SF-50 is a terrific looking speaker with a super-expensive grille and wooden stand. I hope, for your sake, that your models weren't of the early manufacture, as all of the grilles on those constantly fell off!

The choice of $1,500 per speaker proved to be a marketing disaster. Very, very few of these speakers sold, and we lived to regret our decision.

I'm glad you found someone who knows what he's talking about to fix your SF-50's. It also sounds that whatever he'll do for you will improve their sound, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that!

Lastly, while dbx and Dahlquist used ho-hum drivers and had crossover networks that made these drivers sound very good, they are the exception to the rule, and not the standard.

Good luck with your repair, and I look forward to hearing from you as to how they sound afterwards.

I am acquiring a pair of Soundfield 10's this week...apparently, the only repair I have to execute is fresh surrounds on the woofers.

I find the topic of drivers (ordinary vs. exotic) interesting. I think that since the primary technology behind all moving coil drivers is identical, the real issue is the synergy achieved by the specific choice of drivers and the crossover/cabinet design. Fibre/paper cones still have characteristics that many designers find attractive. Exotic materials may solve problems in one area, and create difficulties in other areas. The legitimate Soundfield designs had some interesting and attractive performance benefits, and provided some genuine improvements on what were far more unattractive performance characteristics of the Bose range of speakers.
Generally, people find a diffuse radiation from a loudspeaker more attractive somehow. As resolute as a pair of top tier Dynaudio, B&W, or similarly designed tranducers are, there is something beguiling about sound that seems to emanate from around the source, regardless of your position in the room. I'm a recording engineer, and I usually mix on products ranging from the aforementioned Dynaudio, to Genelec, to KRK, to little Mission M71's that I use at home. The resolution of these speakers is indispensable for this kind of task. Listening to music for pleasure taps into a different set of esthetic needs (for me anyhow). I have a pair of DCM Timeframe V6, and they exploit diffuse output by providing a pair of angled tweeters on each cabinet facing backwards. They are a very involving pair of speakers to listen to. Their spectral balance may not be as accurate as the studio monitors I work with, but they are satisfing emotionally. I'm only investing $95 into the Soundfields, so I'm curious to see how they bring me along.
Nice forum you've got here...I hope I can make some constructive contributions...

Tony[I]

You already have with this first post of yours.

Being what you are, I´m sure we´ll all benefit from your input.

Jorge

I hope you'll be happy with your SF-10's. While considered the 1a's "little brother," many actually preferred the sound of the less expensive 10's to the 1a's. I just hope you got the electronic crossover/equalizer along with them, or you're up sh**'s creek. The speakers sound awful without it.

The 10 has a 360 degree dispersion pattern, and for the best results, needs to be several feet away from any wall, or reflecting surface. the electronic crossover/equalizer has a position for changing the dispersion pattern so that the 10's can be placed close to a wall, and with the crossover/EQ set in that position, little or no sound emanates from the rear of the speaker.

Shortly before dbx's demise, John Kelly (from Allison, and now founder of Aerial Acoustics) was the president, and designed some outstanding "Soundfield Imaging" speakers for dbx, using quality drivers, and also provided a switch to change from "Soundfield Imaging" to "ordinary" imaging. Unfortunately, these never came to frution as John resigned in pro-*test*-('") to the outrageous business practices of the company's then owner, Carillon Technology Inc. (CTI). John is a very honorable and intelligent man. One will never know what he could have done for dbx.

Yes, the controller comes with them. I would not have purchased at any price if it was absent, as it's inclusion is central to the specified performance of the speakers.

As a postscript to my earlier observation about drivers, I'm personally uncomfortable with upgrading legacy products with different drivers, largely for ideological reasons. A speaker was designed a certain way, and voiced specifically. The sound of a speaker may actually improve, but in my book, it ceases to be whatever the brand/model# is. As a collector, I find this counter-productive. I actually wonder why I feel this way sometimes...perhaps I should be more pragmatic, but it's just my thing. Maybe it's the cookie cutter way everything is manufactured now (at the mass market level anyways) that has me emotionally tied to the way it used to be. Engineers/designers working from a place of passion, voicing speakers by ear and then doing the math...coming up with inventive ways for speakers to interact with room boundaries (thank you Roy Allison!), all things that I found fascinating and compelling in my younger years. I like preserving the legacy of these original thinkers...I get a little piece of their soul when I listen to music through their designs.

If you want to see my current musical/artistic project, visit www.thecocktailparty.ca

i see i am in good company. i'm not a collector but i feel exactly the same way.

i also became an instant fan or Roy Allison when i heard a vintage pair of Allison I's. sadly this was a one time event, but i wouldnt hesitate to snag a pair if the opportunity should ever present itself.

I too agree with you 100%. My personal favorite, the Dahlquist DQ-10, underwent numerous "upgrades" from outside sources, mostly in the replacement of the tweeter and super tweeter while the speaker was current on the market. Nowadays, more folks have come to realize that the speaker works best as originally designed.

The fact that the 10's use piezo supertweeters was anathema to many, but as they crossed over at 12,000HZ, according to Jon Dahlquist, "no one will notice anyway." The "spitting" and overly bright characteristic of piezo tweeters was noticeable only on much cheaper speakers who used them as regular tweeters, crossed over at much lower frequencies. In the 10's, they provide just the right amount of sparkle and clarity Jon Dahlquist intended.

Also, as the DQ-10 was the industry's first "time-aligned" loudspeaker, with the voice coils of all the drivers on the same plane, replacing the drivers with other than the originals had an adverse affect on that too.

Insofar as a dbx speaker goes, the sound may well be improved with better drivers, but the imaging characteristics (which are unique among speakers anywhere) are adversely affected. Even though the drivers used in dbx speakers were nothing special in and of themselves, all were selected after hours and hours of careful evaluation and -*test*-('")ing. It wasn't just because because of their relatively low price.

Taking it one step further, (and I appreciate you citing the DQ10 example, as I could cite all the great speakers that used those little $1 Audax polycarbonate tweeters) I don't think any driver is anything special outside of the context of a great design that they are utilized in.
Now, don't get me wrong....there have been, and there will continue to be, bad designs. The difference with bad designs from the past and present is this: in the early days, a bad design (from a legit manufacturer) occurred because somebody had an unorthodox way of interpreting how recorded music ought to be heard. I would slot Amar Bose in this category. It's a human issue, and has been the catalyst for many an entertaining debate. I've changed my mind over designs I thought were bad...I've come to appreciate classic Klipsch speakers in a different light. Bad designs from today are far more evil in my book, because they occur behind the veil of computer mismanagement, cosmetic appeal, and disproportionate budget allocations to marketing. I still despise Bose 901's of any series, but I still credit them with being one man's vision, and these visions need to be forwarded and argued.
Consequently, today all we see in the mass market are me too skinny towers of similar driver size and configuration. I know this form factor has a high WAF (are we men or mice?) and the marketing departments know this, but the very best technical designs pioneered in the increasingly distant past (I sit here listening to a pair of RDL S1, which are a later version of an Allison CD6) are not referenced in popularly priced modern products. We have descended holus bolus into that hell known as market driven mediocrity.

My kind of thread.

I'm amazed t the number of people who tell me that all I have to do to make my Klipsch Cornwall speakers really perform is to change this or change that or replace those with these.

Bullparts! I'm completely satisfied with the way they sound, just the way they were built, as well as my KG4s or HPM100s. I don't mind positioning, raising, lowering, etc. to get the "best" out of them, but it ends there. I like them for what they are, no more, no less.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

I want to clarify something. If a person wants to tinker with their product, they are completely free to...and they very well could come up with something that is subjectively more attractive on every level performance-wise. My only caveat is this...tear off the badge. The speaker has become something else, and should be represented as such. Someone may think I'm splitting hairs, but I don't think so. Just because I might perceive an improvement, the designer whose name is affixed to the product may view the modification as a perversion. In other words, if he wanted it to sound like the modification, he would have designed it that way. The issue is not the materials, but the intellectual capital. Capiche?

I agree 100%.

I just get tired of the people that keep saying that it will sound "better" if you modify it. Agreed, it may sound different, and , to some, better. However, it is no longer what it originally was. I bought what I have because I liked the sound of it, as it is.

Well...just got my Soundfield 10's back from Dave Lee at Vancouver Audio Clinic. (fresh surrounds on all 4 woofers). I was reluctant to set them up, because my little basement suite doesn't allow me to set them up strictly according to the manufacturers specs....but I went ahead. They are flanking my stereo stand with a 32" flat screen on top...the biggest problem is that the right speaker is elevated about two feet off the floor, thanks to this box built into the corner of the room! In spite of this obvious compromise, the speakers sound very impressive. They are very involving, and reproduce ambience with an obvious intent to distribute a deep cohesive imaging presentation. These designers have engineered the crap out of this system! In the owners manual, they make some references to other manufacturers attempts to improve the sound of their products by specific attentions to the performance of the drivers themselves...and are confidently (or arrogantly) dismissive of that approach. It would seem they had good reason to push their chests out. The performance of these beasts is prodigious.
What I like the most, and what contributes to their elevated fidelity, is there appears to be none of that lower midrange bloom that just fogs up the sound of so many products...
This is a characteristic of some of my favourite designs, particularly Roy Allison's.

I'm going to keep these. If they can sound this good under these compromised conditions, I'm left to wonder what they will sound like in a more compatible room!

Tony (currently listening to Lyle Lovett's "Pontiac")

The correct word here would indeed be "arrogant." I knew the individual who wrote most of dbx's instruction manuals, and he, as well as most of the company's engineers all seemed to feel that they were right about just about everything, and everyone else was wrong. When the VP of Engineering initially discussed the original SF-1 to a major retailer in New England, he actually began his presentation with, "Forget everything you ever knew about drivers."