The Duelund-WRSE Project has been truly exciting, both in working through developing the external Duelund crossovers, and also hearing from those of you who are working on your own projects.
Frank just finished up his Duelund-WRSE Project, took some great photos, and wrote it all up to share with all of us. Thank you Frank!
Here's Frank:
"The Tannoy Westminister Royal/Duelund Crossover project talked about in recent months on Jeff's blog has been interesting, exciting and insightful. My Tannoy listening experience and enjoyment goes back 42 years and it reached a pinnacle recently when I listened to my system for the first time with an all Duelund external crossover for my Westminister speakers. My upgrade is now completed and after only 5 hours of listening to excerpts from Wagner's Tannhauser, Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, and Frank Sinatra at the Sands, I'm surprised of the amount of dopamine in my brain.
Without spending any time on talking about timbre, depth, soundstage, harmony, and rhythm, etc., I can attest to the fact that the Duelund inductors, capacitors, and resistors have made not only a better Tannoy Westminster speaker, but also a better KR Kronzilla DX amplifier and a better Linn LP12 Sondek SE turntable. In other words, to use Harvey "Gizmo" Rosenberg's words,"The crossover fog has been lifted." Consequently, I would challenge any speaker in the world to compete because the musical pleasure and the induced chills coming from the sound of my Tannoy Dual Concentric driver is part of the mystery of music and undoubtedly a tribute to Duelund.
In 2012, David King's article on Jeff's Blog about his Westminister modifications, allowed me to venture inside my Westminister cabinets, and do some modifications by removing the Molex LF Driver connector as well as add new supports for the speaker cabinet. This experience allowed the Duelund upgrade to be less daunting when I replaced the Tannoy internal wiring with the Mark Coles special Panatela wiring harness, soldered at the HF driver and crimped to the LF driver leads.
I have left the stock wiring connected to the stock crossover and stored inside the cabinet. To return to the stock arrangement, which I cannot imagine doing, one only has to re-connect the LF and HF wires to the driver and the binding posts. With the Panatela wiring direct from the driver to the "out" side of the Duelund crossover box, I replaced the Tannoy binding post plate with a Lexan cover which allowed the Panatela wire to remain twisted all way from the driver to the box, with Blue-Tac as a seal around the wire coming through the Lexan cover.
My crossover box containing the Duelund components is made of Birch Ply which by the way, Tannoy finds good enough for their cabinets.
Also, if leather strips are part of the enhancement for the Tannoy Kingdom Royal cabinets, I thought my beautiful Duelund crossover box should be covered with leather as well. (Wow! Great idea Frank! - Jeff)
I have used the Dayton binding posts as clamps and to avoid any soldering, all the connections in the crossover box are made with the McMaster-Carr copper set screw lugs. This makes it very easy to replace parts, especially if at some time in the future Jeff and Pambos can convince Tannoy to make an autoformer with silver windings for the high frequencies.
The needed wiring in the box is the Neotech 20 AWG for the HF section and 14 AWG for the LF section. In my case I used about 8 feet of the 20 AWG and 10 feet of 14 AGW.
From the box to the amplifier I use another 5 feet of Mark Coles' Panatela component wire. The Panatela ground wire is 8 feet and runs from the amplifier to the ground binding post at the Lexan plate. The cover for the box is Lexan. The crossover box sits on a Birch-ply shelf supported by 3 Tenderfeet, and the crossover box is supported by 3 large Isobearings.
For help in various ways, I offer sincere thanks to Pambos, Jeff Day, Mark Coles and David King. Their enthusiasm and interest is infectious and without them this new level of musical enjoyment in my life would not have been uncovered and released for my pleasure for years to come."
I ask all of you to join in with me to say, "Thank you Frank!". What a great write-up! I'll tell you what, I really enjoyed conversing with Frank over the course of his project.
I am constantly inspired by all of you - what an amazing group of music lovers you are! I consider it a privilege to be able to share all of this with you, and please be sure to let me know how your projects are going, as it is a true delight to hear from you!
From my home to yours, may the music be playing sweetly! Thank you for stopping by! 🙂
