Danny Richie, GR Research, doesn't recommend a speaker he can't sell an "upgrade" kit for

[Flippin_55]

Danny Richie from GR Research doesn't recommend a speaker (KEF LS50 Meta) which he can't sell an "upgrade" kit, which costs "half the price" of the speaker. I know, "shocking".

Hey everybody! All speakers have “cheesy” parts, unless they’ve benefited from my upgrade. UH HUH.

 

[Sal1950]

Yea yea, Danny knows more than all the degree'd engineers working for the
best speaker manufacturers around. Maybe Revel, JBL, Genelec, KEF, Klispch, Wharfdale, etc
should all hire him to show them how to do it.

 

[thewas]

Yeah, he also criticises the legendary Yamaha NS-1000 from 1974 and sells a crossover which is based on his measurements of such a single old sample which even seem to quite differ from measurements of others.

Some past and probably more trustable measurements (and mods):

Yamaha NS-1000M loudspeaker Lab Report

Lab Report With speakers of this vintage – even a pair in such immaculate condition as these – there is always a question mark regarding ageing effects. So when I plotted the forward frequency responses of this pair of NS-1000Ms [Graph 1, below] measured at 1m on the tweeter axis and saw the...

www.hifinews.com

Yamaha-NS1000

https://de.yamaha.com/files/download/other_assets/5/333935/NS-1000M.pdf

 

[Sal1950]

Yeah, he also criticises the legendary Yamaha NS-1000 from 1974 and sells a crossover which is based on his measurements of such a single old sample which even seem to quite differ from measurements of others.

Of course, what does Yamaha know about music?

 

[DanielT]

Yeah, he also criticises the legendary Yamaha NS-1000 from 1974 and sells a crossover which is based on his measurements of such a single old sample which even seem to quite differ from measurements of others.

Some past and probably more trustable measurements (and mods):

Yamaha NS-1000M loudspeaker Lab Report

Lab Report With speakers of this vintage – even a pair in such immaculate condition as these – there is always a question mark regarding ageing effects. So when I plotted the forward frequency responses of this pair of NS-1000Ms [Graph 1, below] measured at 1m on the tweeter axis and saw the...

www.hifinews.com

Yamaha-NS1000

https://de.yamaha.com/files/download/other_assets/5/333935/NS-1000M.pdf

I fell for Danny's latest clickbait and checked out his video. It got me thinking. Such a lousy FR, had those classic Pioneer HPM-100s
really that?
Could it not be that the very copy of the HPM-100 that Danny has, the components of the passive crossover filter have simply stopped working properly? Maybe the capacitors have lost their original values, maybe some solder loosened a bit or something else. Ok Danny does a nice job must be added with the new passive crossover filter but it would have been interesting to see how the original filter with the exact same design but with new components would have looked like VS the old one that was in when Danny got the speakers VS the passive crossover Danny created.

Here a screenshot FR before and after Danny's modification with the new filter he created. The upper graph is after his modification. The bottom one is as it looked before with those speakers, 12:15 into the video. Danny also later shows the off -axis response and there is a big difference after his modification:

 

[DanielT]

Regarding the Pioneer HPM-100 Danny modified. Or the drivers themselves have become bad and therefore did not work with the original filter but with Danny's new filter? Perhaps more unlikely that it was the cause of the abysmal FR? Maybe a combination of various disintegrations that made FR in those Pioneer HPM-100 look so bad? What do I know.

One thing I know from experience, beware of really old speakers. The quality may have deteriorated due to long-term use and wear and tear.
(as everything else with electromechanics does by the way)

 

[Sal1950]

Here a screenshot FR before and after Danny's modification with the new filter he created.

Somewhere, there's a lot of fish in that story.

 

[thewas]

Regarding the Pioneer HPM-100 Danny modified. Or the drivers themselves have become bad and therefore did not work with the original filter but with Danny's new filter? Perhaps more unlikely that it was the cause of the abysmal FR? Maybe a combination of various disintegrations that made FR in those Pioneer HPM-100 look so bad? What do I know.

One thing I know from experience, beware of really old speakers. The quality may have deteriorated due to long-term use and wear and tear.
(as everything else with electromechanics does by the way)

Here are some more trustable measurements and mods of the Pioneer HPM-100:

Untamed Vintage: Pioneer HPM-100 - MV Audio Labs

This was quite a journey for me personally and I enjoyed every minute of it. Having HPM-100 was a very old craving of mine and finally it's over.

www.mvaudiolabs.com

 

[DanielT]

Here are some more trustable measurements and mods of the Pioneer HPM-100:

Untamed Vintage: Pioneer HPM-100 - MV Audio Labs

This was quite a journey for me personally and I enjoyed every minute of it. Having HPM-100 was a very old craving of mine and finally it's over.

www.mvaudiolabs.com

Interesting and talking about what might have happened to old speakers. Just take what is said in that link, first this measurement:

​

Wow. This looks really horrible. But if you ever designed crossover (and knew what you were doing) – this should look too familiar. Yes, it’s a “litmus” test. By reversing one driver’s polarity and looking at the depth of a newly formed dip, it’s easy to judge about driver integration quality at a crossover region. This is exactly what is visible above. Someone took out both mid-range drivers, reversed polarity and put them back for your enjoyment! Yeah, but why you may ask?

Well, actually it’s not that hard to mix wires when reconnecting mid’s. White wire goes to a positive terminal on mid-range, when on tweeter and woofer it goes to negative terminals. Go figure. This is what we get with correct mid polarity:

 

[thewas]

Exactly, most of those old "Kabuki style" loudspeakers don't have great crossovers but rather minimalistic ones but I have the feeling that Danny as a good snakeoil salesman measures the worst samples and angles (same also with the legendary NS-1000) to sell his "improvements", which is actually a problem as they won't work well on reasonable samples.

 

[DanielT]

Exactly, most of those old "Kabuki style" loudspeakers don't have great crossovers but rather minimalistic ones but I have the feeling that Danny as a good snakeoil salesman measures the worst samples and angles (same also with the legendary NS-1000) to sell his "improvements", which is actually a problem as they won't work well on reasonable samples.

Compare with someone restoring a vintage car, which has X problems. I have the same model of vintage car, but of course that does not automatically mean that I also have these X problems.

Okay, that analogy is not spot on because there are many more and different things that can be wrong with a car than a pair of speakers, but still .

 

[delta76]

Yea yea, Danny knows more than all the degree'd engineers working for the
best speaker manufacturers around. Maybe Revel, JBL, Genelec, KEF, Klispch, Wharfdale, etc
should all hire him to show them how to do it.

of course. have you heard about alternative medicine doctors - they know better - but big pharma try to censor them because their methods are way cheaper and way more effective?

Danny knows better but big manufacturers won't make money off his knowledge.

/s

 

[Jim Creek]

Danny‘s ‘high end’ power cords sell for $250-429. ‘We recommend 200 hours of burn-in before they sound their best’.

He insults our intelligence with a straight face then charges hundreds for a few feet of copper. What a grifter!

 

[Nitreb]

He seems to particularly take issue with steel core inductors in crossovers. Is this type of inductor really that bad?

 

[dfuller]

He seems to particularly take issue with steel core inductors in crossovers. Is this type of inductor really that bad?

All other things being equal, an air core inductor is better as it's lower distortion, but it's much bigger for the same inductance.

Better still is to just use active op amp or DSP filters that don't require inductors at all.

 

[ThatSoundsGood]

Better still is to just use active op amp or DSP filters that don't require inductors at all.

Not all DSP is created equally. A lot of the science is over my head, but there is a good amount of it on how the active crossover filters work. Some are good but many are still plagued with phase problems. I still like the sound of a passive crossover a lot more than a mini DSP, which I understand is a cheaper active crossover.

 

[CarbonMakerU]

Danny‘s ‘high end’ power cords sell for $250-429. ‘We recommend 200 hours of burn-in before they sound their best’.

He insults our intelligence with a straight face then charges hundreds for a few feet of copper. What a grifter!

This is literally everything you need to know about this guy. If you fake physics for profit your obviously just taking a dump on your customers.

 

[dfuller]

Not all DSP is created equally. A lot of the science is over my head, but there is a good amount of it on how the active crossover filters work. Some are good but many are still plagued with phase problems. I still like the sound of a passive crossover a lot more than a mini DSP, which I understand is a cheaper active crossover.

That's more user error than anything else. If you replicate the filters from the passive crossover it should behave the same, but the speakers will be more sensitive.

 

[ThatSoundsGood]

That's more user error than anything else. If you replicate the filters from the passive crossover it should behave the same, but the speakers will be more sensitive.

But there's an extra A/D and D/A conversion plus there are several different ways that digital crossover filters are made. It's not difficult to hear the difference and I bet it's quite measurable (though I have never measured it). There are differences between linear phase and minimum phase crossovers. Cheap DSP always sounds so.....cheap. There is a good amount of documentation and debate on it. Not sure what is "user error" about it. Replicating the filters from a passive and active crossover will definitely sound different. My only point here is that DSP is not always the best answer, especially when the DSP is cheap.

Minimum Phase and Linear Phase Filters

We have two basic filter designs, minimum phase available both with hardware and software designs, and linear phase available only in software. DynOne 3 use specially designed linear phase filters that minimize pre-ringing and eliminate any phase cancellation issues.

www.leapwingaudio.com

 

[Adaboy4z]

He quoted a price for the crossover parts ranging from $750 -1000 depending on the quality of the caps you select!?