As I mentioned in Part 1 of this series of posts, 2019 has been a rather unprecedented year in writing about audio and music, with the year-end number of blog posts published at Jeff's Place coming in at 210, and 5 feature reviews for Positive Feedback. I feel really fortunate to have had so much... Read More »
It's been a long road from the conception of the idea of building custom state-of-art Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers with Frederik Carøe of Duelund Coherent Audio for the historically important vintage - and state-of-art for their time period - "Stokowski" Altec loudspeakers that were custom built for conductor Leopold Stokowski back in the early 1960s... Read More »
It's been a nice couple of weeks here at Jeff's Place, first with the solid walnut "cutting board" plinths arriving for the Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers, and my buddy David helping me getting them ready to mount the Duelund CAST tinned-copper components on them, but the real treat this last week was a visit from my... Read More »
I've gone completely bonkers over vintage Altec loudspeakers, which comes as no surprise to you if you're a regular reader of Jeff's Place. It's not that there aren't other speakers I enjoy listening to, like my Westminster's, for example, but there's just something really special about the way Altec loudspeakers play the music. Ok, so... Read More »
It's time for another update on the Duelund-Altec Project. In my most recent updates of the Duelund-Altec Project I discussed the overall project context HERE, the selection of speaker cables for the most complementary voicing HERE, and I wrote a just-for-fun post about the musicality magic of vintage Altec's HERE. I've never been enamored of... Read More »
I've really been enjoying listening to the "Stokowski" Altec's with their Duelund-Altec Project Duelund CAST Sn-Cu crossovers over the last week or so since my last update. For those who are just finding out about the Duelund-Altec Project, I thought I'd include an overview of the project for you, as well as an update for... Read More »
The fifth week of listening to the Duelund-Altec Project's state-of-art Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers with the vintage "Stokowski" Altec's brought momentous changes in what I was hearing, and in a very satisfying way both musically and sonically. In fact, I posted to my Facebook pals, "OMG! The Duelund-Altec Project's exotic Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers are sounding so good... Read More »
In my last post about the Duelund-Altec Project crossovers, I reported on the changes in performance I've heard from the "Stokowski" Altec's Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers as they accumulated two weeks worth of run-in time. Over the first two weeks I've noted that the high-frequency (HF) and low-frequency (LF) circuits of the crossovers were running... Read More »
Today marks two weeks of run-in time for the new Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers in the "Stokowski" Altec's. I've been running the Seattle Jazz24 stream whenever there's not an LP spinning on my CTC Garrard 301. If you love jazz be sure to check out Jazz24. The Jazz24 stream sounds great, plays 24/7, has a great selection of jazz,... Read More »
Today marks a week of listening to the impressive Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers on the "Stokowski" Altec's as they've been getting some run-in time on them. I've been getting about 6 to 8 hours of music-playing time on them a day over the last week, so I'm somewhere in the range of 42 to 56... Read More »
I finished wiring up the Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossovers on Thursday last week, and they probably have about 12 hours of run-in time on them now. It's probably still a little early to say too much about what to expect during the run-in process with the Duelund CAST Sn-Cu crossovers, but I thought I'd go... Read More »
Yesterday when I signed off, I had just finished connecting the Duelund CAST tinned-copper crossover in the right "Stokowski" Altec loudspeaker, and did a little listening to compare it to the Altec N-500-D crossover in the left loudspeaker. The "Stokowski" Altec's actually sounded really good with their original Altec N-500-D crossovers, so I wasn't sure... Read More »
It's been a busy couple of weeks on the personal side of things, but I thought I'd report on what's going on at chez Jeff on the audio side of things at the moment, and what's coming up in the near term. Turntable Musical Chairs My Classic Turntable Company 301 (above) is on it's way... Read More »
First of all I want to thank you for being patient with me. As some of you know, my Mom, almost 94 years of age now, has been going through some rough times health-wise. Getting her to and from doctors, hospitals, trying to help her out generally, and spending quality time with her has been... Read More »
Originally I had planned on building external crossovers for the vintage Stokowski Altec's on the beautifully made Hammond HWCHAS Series Heavy Duty Walnut Chassis With Aluminum Top (HERE). I thought the Hammond's aluminum top plate painted in Altec green like the 511-B horns would make for an attractive nod to Altec tradition. However, the large... Read More »
I really want to thank Frederik Carøe for being so generous as to indulge a resistor idea of mine, and then going way beyond what I imagined to handcraft a truly amazing resistor, which Frederik has humorously dubbed the "Jeffistor". The idea behind this resistor was a result of my listening impressions while doing trials with... Read More »
After my buddy Chad helped me move the big Stokowski Altec's into the position normally occupied by my Westminster Royal SE's last weekend (thanks Chad!), we did a fair amount of listening, mostly to a lot of classic rock (Chad's fave), but also some jazz. I was a bit surprised how good the Stokowski Altec's... Read More »
I want to share every step of the way with you about the Duelund-Altec crossover project that Frederik and I are embarking on, so that you can come as close to possible to experiencing the project as if you were doing the project for yourself. A 32.30 kilogram parcel from Frederik (Duelund) arrived at 10:30AM... Read More »