13.02.2022 Selling all my audio and IB subwoofer drivers!

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After more than 60 years of intense interest I am selling all my audio gear: I am becoming increasingly deaf in my remaining ear and badly need the space.

Included are two sets of four x 15" Acoustic Elegance AEIB15 subwoofer drivers, my quiet fan modded, Behringer EP2500, my Behringer BFD and assorted other Behringer equipment. Active crossovers, mixers, etc. 

 https://www.dba.dk/linn-naim-classic-english-a/id-1087858993/

You would probably have to be living in Denmark to take advantage of my sale. These IB drivers are very heavy and international postage costs would exceed their value. 

The earlier set of four AEIB15 drivers has an Fs of 32Hz and vinyl cones. While the paper coned drivers have an Fs of 13Hz. All are specially designed for Home Theater infinite baffles. Best in sets of four minimum to avoid over-excursion. Not very suitable for car-audio Infinite Baffles.

I wish everybody well at the IB Cult specialist IB subwoofer forum.

Home | "Cult of the Infinitely Baffled" Hear The Bass, Not The Box The definitive online resource for Infinite Baffle subwoofer design Established 1999

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AEIB15 subwoofer drivers and Linn LP12 + Naim olive hifi system for sale.

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The years have passed and I have grown old and now almost deaf. My IB subwoofer has hardly been exercised for quite some time. My 40-year-old, Linn Sondek LP12 and olive Naim audio system just gather dust. We watch Netflix and YouTube. Never try to listen to any music any more. Loads of vinyl, CDs and film DVDs may well end up in a charity shop. 

It feels like the end of a very long journey. Starting in the 1950s with my father's purchase of an Armstrong, valve receiver and a 10" Whiteley, cambric driver in a reflex, speaker building kit in chipboard. 

The following items are for sale here in Denmark: Vest Fyn.

Infinite baffle subwoofer drivers: I have four of the first series of Audio Elegance AEIB15 with vinyl cones and an Fs of 32Hz. These 15" driver were mounted in a wall manifold but are presently, cardboard boxed individually. These are specialist, home theater IB drivers. NOT intended for car audio.

I have four more, second series, AEIB15 with an ultra-low Fs of about 13Hz and reinforced, paper cones. These are still mounted in a single manifold but can easily be dismounted. They are driven by a Behringer EP2500 power amp via a Behringer BFD. The BFD unit sets filters to flatten the frequency response to fix room modes. The EP2500 has a quiet fan fitted. Making it domestically acceptable. These drivers are well respected in IB building circles.

If you live in Denmark, make me a reasonable offer for either set of drivers. Or all of them. The manifold is doubled 18mm ply painted matt black and very heavy! This box is free to the buyer of the drivers if you want to save time and money making your own. Those outside Denmark should consider the very high cost of sending such heavy and potentially fragile equipment via insured parcel. Which is why I don't use eBay[UK]. Postage could easily exceed the perceived value!

If anyone is interested in a classical, olive, Naim pre-power amps then my NAC72 + Hi-Cap + NAP180 system may interest you. The NAC72 has an MC cartridge card fitted. Make me a reasonable offer and I will throw in a classical Marantz CD63SE CD player. Once much admired for its sound quality.

The Naim equipment has NOT been modified, "re-capped" or upgraded. The NAP180 offers 90wpc and was bought new 25 years ago from Radford Audio. The 72 pre-amp and HiCap were bought 2nd hand in England. Serial numbers are available to serious buyers. I would prefer to sell the system rather than individual units. Which would make them far more difficult to sell.

I have both NACA4 and NACA5 speaker cables and several, Naim connecting cables. Plus loads of other cables collected over the years. 

My Linn Sondek LP12 is about 40 years old. It has the early, Afrormosia plinth with horizontal grooves and smoked, dark Perspex, hinged lid. Valhalla PS. Black Ittok LVIII arm with a Denon DL304 MC cartridge fitted. 

Note: The Linn's outer platter is dull from old age and repeated cleaning. The arm, cartridge, main bearing and sub-chassis were upgraded and the Valhalla power supply fitted by Radford Hifi, in England about 25 years ago. 

I have a pair of Linn Kan compact speakers which are about 40 years old. These were frequently matched with Linn/Naim systems of the time. I made a matched pair of passive, stereo subwoofers for them using SEAS 10" drivers. These extended the response down to 20Hz. The subs are still sitting in the shed somewhere. You can have them if you buy the Kans.

A pair of Mission 753F 'Freedom" floor standing loudspeakers. Bought years ago from Expert here in Denmark. In black wood grain with bi-amp terminals. Cast iron bases with spiked feet for greater stability. The Freedom speakers had better drivers and silk, dome tweeters.

Everything worked normally the last time I used it. Images of my system appear throughout my blog. More specific images easily sent by email: Offers to: christryke at gmail.com

NO home demonstrations.[Covid] Sold as is. WYSIWYG. With natural wear and tear commensurate with age. NO refunds. Nor time wasters please. I am not greedy. Nor deluded as to the value of this older, well used equipment. Olive fascia, Naim equipment is still in demand for those who like the simplicity. How many Danes have heard of them and visit this blog is likely to be a vanishingly small number.

 

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The new TV and problems solved.

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Our old flat screen TV was a JVC "HD ready" 37". It lasted for 15 years until it eventually grew tired of being woken every morning. Probably just a simple component in the PS but retirement beckoned. 

I measured the space available and made cardboard mock-ups of potential candidates. It would be a 55" screen. Leaving just enough room on the AV "stage" for the floor standing Mission 753 Freedoms. These speakers must be nearly 30 years old by now, but have always pleased. A Mission 753C Freedom centre speaker sits in the simple steel shelf unit which supports the TV. These speakers were all bought secondhand having already been long discontinued.

OLEDs are the present best picture quality technology in most online reviews. The cost is high when newly released but drop as the different models reach the end of their sales year. A TV which lasts for years can have its purchase price divided by its lifetime. Inflation usually makes a mockery of the original purchase price. So why choose an inferior TV if you fully intend to keep it?

After extensive online research, our first choice was a 55" LG OLED TV. I collected it from a big shed, city chain store standing upright in its huge box in the car trailer. The picture quality was stunning but there was a pervasive stench of burning oil. The advice seemed to be that it was the fire protection coating on the circuit boards and it would stop smelling soon. It didn't, despite the technician who called saying it wasn't smelly in his opinion. So I returned the TV expecting to get a replacement. It just would not be an LG. Once bitten...

The Sony KD55-AF8 OLED was the next choice and I took advantage of the generous, end of model year discounts. This was duly taken home and dragged upstairs. The picture quality was even better than the LG and more importantly, much more natural. The LG picture had always looked as if it were "sharpened" with image handling software. Very unnatural it looked too on the cityscape screen saver. It would never look like that to the unaided human eye.

The experimental, manifold, 4x15" upper bass speaker was dismantled and the drivers put into storage to make more room on the AV stage. So it was back to the original AE 4x15" IB with more power from both channels of the EP2500. After weeks of TV watching we liked the picture but the SQ was demanding constant volume increases just to hear the dialogue. The Sony has a weird screen loudspeaker using rear actuators.

Netflix has never been very good on dialogue clarity from first hearing. The 4k Netflix subscription didn't help the sound. Much against my long suffering wife's strongest "advice" I brought the Linn Kans forwards from their former rear "surround" duties. They had been muted for years because they were irritating being so close to our sitting position whatever their relative sound level. The Kans were simply placed on top of the Mission floor standers and very silly they looked too!

There was an instant transformation in sound quality compared with the TV speakers. Or the big three Missions on AV system. Finally the dialogue could cut through the background garbage so beloved of modern film makers. Even YouTube videos now had stunning sound quality from the Sony's internal TV tuner. I listened to my favourite Voces8, Hauser, pipe organ and other classical music channels and was delighted. 

I had to make some changes to the speaker set up in my Onkyo TX-NR818 AVR menus. It took some fiddling to get it to send OSD onto the Sony TV. Then I eliminated the Mission Center and set the Kans as L&R full range despite their 120Hz lower limit. They then sounded so much better than using a 120Hz crossover. I have always used a Naim NAP180 to Bi-amp the front L&R rather than using the Onkyo. The Kans were happy to be driven by this old English amp. It too must be 30 years old by now. Where did all those years go?

Dialogue on the Netflix 4k series, which we watched last night, was much more intelligible. It did not require the volume be wound right up just to hear what was being said. I reduced the settings on the twin knobs of the big Behringer amp by a notch or two to better balance the bass. 

Age brings its problems. Not least with one's hearing. Particularly after a long lifetime of enjoying loud music, loud car and motorcycle engines and other "abnormal" abuse. The most obvious problem is "masking." Which means that background sounds easily swamp any dialogue. Daily exchanges with one's partner are apt to need almost constant repetition.

It matters not whether this is in real life or while watching or listening to TV/AV. It becomes almost impossible to hear well enough to maintain a normal conversation. With TV watching you get the deaf grandma/grandpa syndrome. The volume has to be raised constantly to cut through to the dialogue. One's ears have been filtered by age to a much narrower frequency response. The speakers must provide the inverse of that response to fill in the holes.

The Linn Kans are 40 year old, shoe-box sized speakers with a rather forward frequency response. Which nicely suited our immediate dialogue problems. I suppose the next step is to go for a commercial outlet, hearing test and start wearing hearing aids. The incredibly long waiting lists for hospital hearing consultants offers little chance of help from that direction. 

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