As I queued up some music to play, I wondered if I would hear much difference between the Luxman AS-10s in the circuit and the L-pads. 

When the music started to play, I was absolutely floored by how much more musical information was coming through, and how real and natural it sounded. 

The difference was not at all subtle between the Luxman AS-10s and the L-pads; the Luxman AS-10s absolutely stomped on the L-pads.

The difference between the Luxman AS-10s and the L-pads was revelatory, and I was really taken by surprise by the magnitude of the improvement. 

The Luxman AS-10s allowed the exceptional clarity, resolution, natural tonal balance, and emotional engagement of the Duelund CAST pure copper capacitors and inductors to come through as clearly in the high-frequency circuit as I was hearing in the low-frequency circuit, and resulted in a remarkable transformation of high-frequency performance. Serendipity strikes again. 

The Corona 832As using the original Altec N800E crossover circuit layout, but with the Duelund CAST pure copper capacitors and inductors, and the Luxman AS-10s replacing the resistor network, sounded so real, so musical, so tonally correct, so dynamic, so beautiful, and felt so emotionally engaging that it just sent chills down my spine. 

The one word that kept coming to mind as I listened was "purity." There was a tonal purity to the sound quality that made the music feel very real and live, or as Yazaki-san would say, "real sound."

In addition to sounding superb, I also think it's a cool touch to have a little vintage-on-vintage action with the vintage Luxman AS-10s providing attenuation for the vintage Altec Coronas. It's a good vibe all around.

It never ceases to amaze me how astute those Altec engineers were in delivering designs that communicated the essence of the live music listening experience so well. 

The key to unlocking the full magic of those vintage Altec loudspeaker designs lies within their crossovers, which is why we vintage Altec aficionados go to such lengths in building fine-quality crossovers for them. Duelund CAST crossovers sets the magic free.

I had no idea that my vintage Altec Corona 832A loudspeakers were capable of such a lofty level of performance, both in terms of sound quality and, more importantly, their ability to deliver that Midas touch of intense emotional engagement from the music. I am completely gobsmacked.

I like to take components apart and have a look inside, so I removed the outer casework of the AS-10s to take a look inside. It’s a little hard to tell in the photo, but the Luxman AS-10s are built to an impressive level of quality. You can see the transformer towards the left of the photo. The area to the right with all the black wires is the rotary switch that selects different transformer taps for attenuation. 

While I had the Luxman AS-10s open, given that these are vintage products that came from a humid environment, I went ahead and applied a tiny amount of Caig DeoxiT to each of the contact points for the transformer taps, one by one. 

The contact points on the transformer taps can get noisy over time, particularly if they have been set at one attenuation setting for a long time, so a little DeoxiT cleans up the contact points, improves the connection's conductivity, and makes for a nice improvement in the action of the selector switch, but importantly, the sound quality improves.  

Caig says about DeoxiT, "... contact/connector treatment dissolves oxides and sulfides that form on metal surfaces. This restores the contact’s integrity and leaves a thin microscopic layer that protects the metal. Special additives improve conductivity and prevent dissolved oxides from re-attaching, keeping them in suspension and allowing them to be easily dispersed by the mechanical action of the contact." 

After applying the Caig DeoxiT treatment, I rotated the selector dial through all the attenuation settings a dozen or so times and noticed that the action became buttery smooth. After installing the Luxman AS-10s back into the crossovers, I noticed that each attenuation setting was dead quiet and provided a small but noticeable improvement in sound quality across their range. 

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