y da esplendor

the Early Music podcast by CeeGee

A most amazing piece of art…

…in any home

Modesty
is a virtue.

I'm too sexy
for my grilles.

The side.

The back, at an angle.

This page is far from complete. After I launder the grilles, we'll take better pictures.
By the way, my set is Nº 2021.

Some more info: the crossover in my left speaker leaves much to be desired (no sound comes from the tweeter). It seems one of the fusistors got a little blown. So, I purchased a service manual and we'll see about rebuilding one or both the crossovers to the original specifications.

UPDATE October 19, 2005
I have gone over the crossover and I would like to replace many of the resistors. But I can't find the right ones on the Internet! Oh no! Here are the resistors I need: 4x 1 Ohm 25Watt, 4x 28 Ohm 25 Watt, 4x 6 Ohm 25 Watt.

Here's a picture of my left crossover. Ugly burn marks!

UPDATE October 25, 2005
As a mathematician, I really don't care that much about Ohm's Law and other various pertinent items to getting my crossovers to a full working situation. I've given the crossovers to a local speaker service professional who is going to rebuild them. The crossover frequency will probably go up a little, but I think that's fine. When it's all over and everyting is working well, I'll talk much more about that. Also, the speakers are now at my house, and updated photos are forthcoming.

UPDATE October 31, 2005
JimmyNeutron from Audiokarma.org has reposted my photos on an historical approach to his AL-III speakers.

UPDATE November 8, 2005
I have determined one tweeter (out of four) is bad. I will be sending it to Dave Sauter (see below) for repair, and I hope to have it back before Thanksgiving. Also, I have decided to replace all the cable on the chassis of each speaker (no, not the windings, you silly silly sadist). To satisfy my cheap desire for the very best in all things, I have decided to use Paul (& Judy?) Speltz's AntiCables, though when I finally do connect these to my amplifier for real I'm going to use romex. Until I feel the need to spend more money. One day I may decide to write an authoritative treatise on speaker cable, but I think I still enjoy life too much for that. (In the meantime, you should cozy up with Roger Russell's article.) Also, I'm still waiting on the rebuilt crossovers.

UDPATE November 12, 2005
The crossovers have come back, with minty new resistors and capacitors. They're nice from a technical standpoint, but just as ugly as ever. As promised, I've decided to move some cables around, too. The cable from the crossover to the ribbons is now AntiCables, the cable from the binding post to the crossover is what was used for the run from the crossover to the ribbons. Why not use more AntiCables? They're too stiff to work with nicely, and they're totally overkill for the woofers. So, since the ribbons are a 1.5 ohm load, and the cable from the binding posts to the crossover needs to be flexible, that's it. While listening to my newly patched back-together right speaker, the lower ribbond tweeter began rattling at specific frequencies. I emailed Dave Sauter:

Greetings!

I sent one 30" ribbon Thursday, Nov. 10. You should receive it next week.

As it happens, the lower 30" ribbon on the right speaker has suddenly started rattling at certain frequencies. When I blow softly on the good lower left and upper right ribbons, they are taught, and do not move. When I blow softly on the lower right ribbon, it moves, though only in the middlemost section. Will I have to send this one too?

His response was:

Listen to it when you get it back and see.
Dave

What the hell does that mean? Did he even read my question? Regardless, this kind of problem is indicative of ripping in the film. Although it's still conductive, it has been breached. So, we're two tweeters down.

UPDATE December 31, 2005
Humpty Dmupty lives. I recieved the tweeter from Mr. Sauter Dec. 23, though because the package was incorrectly addressed I spent an hour (with my sister in the car, having just retrieved her from the airport) in the very late evening waiting at the UPS warehouse way far away from anything. At long last the package was produced, and I went home unwilling to tell anyone I made them wait for an hour while I waited for a speaker. (The story about a mysterious Christmas present went over much better.) After everyone had retired for the evening, I stealthily pulled the soldering gun from the garage and set to work. Within 10 minutes all was good again in the world.

The sound is fantastic (even with one of four tweeters working at more-or-less 50%) and nothing ever sounded so wonderful. Photos of the Temple of the Rising Sun are now in order, but right now I'm still getting over everything Decembrish. Soon!

For the benefit of the entire world, I am posting a PDF of the Carver Amazing Loudspeaker Service Manual (silly pages excluded.)

In a similar vein, here's some information on sources for parts and service:
1. Woofers Can be purchased for cheap ($24 according to AudioKarma.org's Toasted Almond) from Orevox. Here's his post. A Google search also pulls up Dynavox Electronics which appears to sell the same woofer.
2. Tweeters The tweeters are where the music's at, and the Carver ribbon tweeter is the reason for the love. Dave Sauter from CarverAudio.com has a whole page dedicated to rebuilding these things. A search of the web only turns up positive reviews of his work.

And no, they haven't been placed yet. Sheesh! I promise to include placement information when all of that is good and done too.