Your attachments are 2 kilobytes. hard to seethis is how my sscs5 look now, but i plan on staining and epoxy coating them also.
Your attachments are 2 kilobytes. hard to see
Your attachments are 2 kilobytes. hard to see
Very nicecheck now
Time to bring closure to my rocky road to modding the Sony's. It was a perfectly good idea--take out the woofer and crossover board, add some inductance to the woofer coil to bring down the 1100 kHz peak that was obscuring lower treble detail, and put everything back together. The mod worked fine. It was the take out--put back together part that didn't. My problems are detailed in earlier posts. Sony obviously didn't want anyone poking around inside, and I will certainly never do it again. I did learn some things in the process:
Crossover topology: The woofer circuit consists of a 1.1 mH series coil followed by a 2.2 Ohm resistor and 10 uF cap to ground. So it's second order electrical, as are the other driver circuits. The main tweeter uses a high pass filter consisting of a 4.7 uF series cap followed by a .68 mH parallel coil. There is no low pass filter to roll the tweeter off at the top. It runs full range and the super tweeter is simply spliced on with a 2.2 Ohm series resister, a 86 uF series cap and a .27 mH parallel coil. The super tweeter has very little operating range. Here is the stock system response with and without the super tweeter.
View attachment 137934
View attachment 137942
The super tweeter itself has a fairly wide and smooth response. I tried rolling off the main tweeter to allow a greater operating range for the super, but there was no way to avoid a nasty peak in the lower treble using a reasonable number of components. Here's the raw super tweeter response:
View attachment 137943
Finally, here is the response with the woofer mod in place. I could have flattened things out more with trap circuits, but this wasn't that kind of project:
View attachment 137945
One result that surprised me was the stock Sony's extremely smooth horizontal off-axis response (except for the woofer peak). The on-axis response, both with and without the mod, has some pesky diffraction dips caused by the sharp edges on the tweeter-super tweeter sub baffle. But as soon as you move a little of axis, those go away completely. Here's the response at 20 Deg off axis :
View attachment 137958
And at 75 Degrees:
View attachment 137960
Finally, after spending a great deal of time listening to the stock version, I do feel the need to comment on Amir's headless panther rating. Although the treble doesn't really measure bright, I agree that the overall presentation can be a bit tizzy due to the lack of bass foundation. The above measurements were done with Praxis, which transitions from anechoic to a room measurement at around 300 Hz and below. Most speakers measured in my room show a 70 Hz peak that is close in level to the midrange response or a few dB higher. You can see how far down that 70 Hz peak is in the first plot I posted above. By comparison, here's the response for my Affordable Accuracy Plus kit made in the same room:
View attachment 137962
So, I certainly wouldn't award the Sony's a golf-swinging panther rating, but I preferred them to other budget entries I've heard, including the Pioneer BS-22. It's a clever design that works better than I would have thought, and could be easily modded into something exceptional if Sony hadn't glued everything in.
Time to bring closure to my rocky road to modding the Sony's. It was a perfectly good idea--take out the woofer and crossover board, add some inductance to the woofer coil to bring down the 1100 kHz peak that was obscuring lower treble detail, and put everything back together. The mod worked fine. It was the take out--put back together part that didn't. My problems are detailed in earlier posts. Sony obviously didn't want anyone poking around inside, and I will certainly never do it again. I did learn some things in the process:
Crossover topology: The woofer circuit consists of a 1.1 mH series coil followed by a 2.2 Ohm resistor and 10 uF cap to ground. So it's second order electrical, as are the other driver circuits. The main tweeter uses a high pass filter consisting of a 4.7 uF series cap followed by a .68 mH parallel coil. There is no low pass filter to roll the tweeter off at the top. It runs full range and the super tweeter is simply spliced on with a 2.2 Ohm series resister, a 86 uF series cap and a .27 mH parallel coil. The super tweeter has very little operating range. Here is the stock system response with and without the super tweeter.
View attachment 137934
View attachment 137942
The super tweeter itself has a fairly wide and smooth response. I tried rolling off the main tweeter to allow a greater operating range for the super, but there was no way to avoid a nasty peak in the lower treble using a reasonable number of components. Here's the raw super tweeter response:
View attachment 137943
Finally, here is the response with the woofer mod in place. I could have flattened things out more with trap circuits, but this wasn't that kind of project:
View attachment 137945
One result that surprised me was the stock Sony's extremely smooth horizontal off-axis response (except for the woofer peak). The on-axis response, both with and without the mod, has some pesky diffraction dips caused by the sharp edges on the tweeter-super tweeter sub baffle. But as soon as you move a little of axis, those go away completely. Here's the response at 20 Deg off axis :
View attachment 137958
And at 75 Degrees:
View attachment 137960
Finally, after spending a great deal of time listening to the stock version, I do feel the need to comment on Amir's headless panther rating. Although the treble doesn't really measure bright, I agree that the overall presentation can be a bit tizzy due to the lack of bass foundation. The above measurements were done with Praxis, which transitions from anechoic to a room measurement at around 300 Hz and below. Most speakers measured in my room show a 70 Hz peak that is close in level to the midrange response or a few dB higher. You can see how far down that 70 Hz peak is in the first plot I posted above. By comparison, here's the response for my Affordable Accuracy Plus kit made in the same room:
View attachment 137962
So, I certainly wouldn't award the Sony's a golf-swinging panther rating, but I preferred them to other budget entries I've heard, including the Pioneer BS-22. It's a clever design that works better than I would have thought, and could be easily modded into something exceptional if Sony hadn't glued everything in.
The super tweeter is adding output above 12,000 Hz. It probably does add some air to the upper treble. And it needs to because the main tweeter starts falling off there. A few extra dollars on a main tweeter would have been a better approach than throwing in an extra driver, but Sony has an active marketing department. The graph showing the full operating range of the super tweeter was made with no crossover in place. That's not the output once the tiny capacitor and ground coil are in place. You can see what that response curve looks like in the first graph--it's the green plot to the far right. Budget 3-ways are hard to find because they would be too expensive to implement properly. You would need a larger dedicated midrange that could operate low enough to avoid running the woofer to the point where it starts to beam, and a proper low pass filter on the mid to achieve an optimal blend with the tweeter. The Sony is basically a 2-way with an extra tweeter thrown in without a low-pass filter on the main tweeter. Sony didn't use a larger woofer because that would have required a larger cabinet and priced it out of the target market segment.Wow, thats a lot of work and I appreciate all the info.
I admit Im basically ignorant so Im trying to understand all these graphs.
From what I can see, in first two graphs, it seems the super tweeter contributes very little. Above 15Khz what can you find?
I actually wonder what is the contribution of the super tweeter? When you say it has a very wide and smooth response, what does that mean?
Do you think if you completely disconnect the super tweeter can you hear a difference?
I mean, taking out the super, would these speaker be the same?
Three way bookshelf speakers seem rare to find, I wonder why.
I wonder why Sony did not put a 6" or 6.5" woofer. I guess that would have been better. It might increase the cost but perhaps not much.
I have these speakers and love them.
I find myself wondering how much the super tweeter contributes to my liking of these speakers.
Thanks!
The super tweeter is adding output above 12,000 Hz. It probably does add some air to the upper treble. And it needs to because the main tweeter starts falling off there. A few extra dollars on a main tweeter would have been a better approach than throwing in an extra driver, but Sony has an active marketing department. The graph showing the full operating range of the super tweeter was made with no crossover in place. That's not the output once the tiny capacitor and ground coil are in place. You can see what that response curve looks like in the first graph--it's the green plot to the far right. Budget 3-ways are hard to find because they would be too expensive to implement properly. You would need a larger dedicated midrange that could operate low enough to avoid running the woofer to the point where it starts to beam, and a proper low pass filter on the mid to achieve an optimal blend with the tweeter. The Sony is basically a 2-way with an extra tweeter thrown in without a low-pass filter on the main tweeter. Sony didn't use a larger woofer because that would have required a larger cabinet and priced it out of the target market segment.
Howdy I apologize if I missed it, what is the change in the woofer crossover circuit post modification?Time to bring closure to my rocky road to modding the Sony's. It was a perfectly good idea--take out the woofer and crossover board, add some inductance to the woofer coil to bring down the 1100 kHz peak that was obscuring lower treble detail, and put everything back together. The mod worked fine. It was the take out--put back together part that didn't. My problems are detailed in earlier posts. Sony obviously didn't want anyone poking around inside, and I will certainly never do it again. I did learn some things in the process:
Crossover topology: The woofer circuit consists of a 1.1 mH series coil followed by a 2.2 Ohm resistor and 10 uF cap to ground. So it's second order electrical, as are the other driver circuits. The main tweeter uses a high pass filter consisting of a 4.7 uF series cap followed by a .68 mH parallel coil. There is no low pass filter to roll the tweeter off at the top. It runs full range and the super tweeter is simply spliced on with a 2.2 Ohm series resister, a 86 uF series cap and a .27 mH parallel coil. The super tweeter has very little operating range. Here is the stock system response with and without the super tweeter.
View attachment 137934
View attachment 137942
The super tweeter itself has a fairly wide and smooth response. I tried rolling off the main tweeter to allow a greater operating range for the super, but there was no way to avoid a nasty peak in the lower treble using a reasonable number of components. Here's the raw super tweeter response:
View attachment 137943
Finally, here is the response with the woofer mod in place. I could have flattened things out more with trap circuits, but this wasn't that kind of project:
View attachment 137945
One result that surprised me was the stock Sony's extremely smooth horizontal off-axis response (except for the woofer peak). The on-axis response, both with and without the mod, has some pesky diffraction dips caused by the sharp edges on the tweeter-super tweeter sub baffle. But as soon as you move a little of axis, those go away completely. Here's the response at 20 Deg off axis :
View attachment 137958
And at 75 Degrees:
View attachment 137960
Finally, after spending a great deal of time listening to the stock version, I do feel the need to comment on Amir's headless panther rating. Although the treble doesn't really measure bright, I agree that the overall presentation can be a bit tizzy due to the lack of bass foundation. The above measurements were done with Praxis, which transitions from anechoic to a room measurement at around 300 Hz and below. Most speakers measured in my room show a 70 Hz peak that is close in level to the midrange response or a few dB higher. You can see how far down that 70 Hz peak is in the first plot I posted above. By comparison, here's the response for my Affordable Accuracy Plus kit made in the same room:
View attachment 137962
So, I certainly wouldn't award the Sony's a golf-swinging panther rating, but I preferred them to other budget entries I've heard, including the Pioneer BS-22. It's a clever design that works better than I would have thought, and could be easily modded into something exceptional if Sony hadn't glued everything in.
Probably the most ignorant long drawn out statement I have ever heard. basically you have to be rich and old to be an audiophile? No!!I think we can say that Sony SSCS5 seem more oriented for teenagers/students or anyone who live with some space and time limitations.
Some photos above seem coming from student's rooms.
Audiophiles have dedicated rooms for music listening. Audiophiles have enough time to dedicate exclusively to music listening.
Audiophiles are people that have enough time and space to dedicate exclusively to music listening. In a way it means having more than enough money.
When you have enough time and space exclusively for music listening then it is reasonable that you are going to spend big on audio gear.
(This is not to say that every single millionaire is an audiophile.. My guess is that most of them are not audiophiles)
Testing budget speakers against high end ones would require an audiophile listening room.
If you visit a student's room who owns a pair of SSCS5 you will not be impressed at all mainly because such speakers are gonna be placed just anywhere around the room. There will be all kind of furniture and stuff here and there. The floor will be whatever. Its gonna be messy and careless placement of speakers and there won't be a chair specific for music listening. Under such circumstances, it is hard to have a great listening experience even with much better speakers than these Sonys.
hahaha, didn't say you must be rich. Having limited time/space is not helpful though.Probably the most ignorant long drawn out statement I have ever heard. basically you have to be rich and old to be an audiophile? No!!