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Romy the Cat wrote:

I thought that the folks who are interesting where I am going with my Macondo should know that am still working with Vitavox S2

The S2’s “beneficial resonance” is quite interesting animal. Pretend that you can manage a subjective perception of “resolution” (whatever it is) of your system, along with dynamics (!) but….  WITHOUT AFFECTING ANYTHING ELSE and without adding any HF extension to your playback? Did you pretend it? I knew you couldn’t because it is impossible without “affecting anything else”. Here is where the “beneficial resonance” comes to the table – it actually does it all maintaining a perfect tonal balance, without taking music apart and without creating the “hi-fi”

The “beneficial resonance” is kind of alien superficial force that spreads across the S2 sound and that control a lot of things – the major dilemma is how to control the depth of this “alien superficial force”. This “beneficial resonance” is an engine that set the S2’s sound apart form anything else. I would depict verbally the “beneficial resonance” as a countless amount of micro-bubbles that are exploding within notes and this liberated bubbly rushing energy, mixed with the actual reproduces signal, create a very toxic and very sonically lethal signature that acts like a “listening catalysis”. Interesting that the amplitude of this catalyses might be higher then necessary and therefore to control the amplitude of the “catalysis” is the key to make the S2 to sing… When the amount of the “beneficial resonance” is perfectly matched to the “signal output” then S2 does something really extraordinary…

Well, the each and single S2 driver that I’ve played with (probably 12 drivers) had own “amplitude of catalysis” and therefore each driver should be individually “comforted” by whatever means you find suitable (acoustic, mechanical or electrical damping, in-channel or external diffusion or whatever else you use). There are many reasons why each driver behaves differently. There was different type of magnets used, different materials for phase-plug and some other critical parts, different diaphragms, different exposure to temperature, shaking, power overloading and so on. Only God knows how many times over the last 50 years the drunk Brit’s movie-technicians dropped those drivers from the top of the Telocom Tower, how many time the amps that droved them had tubes surge, and how many times the drivers were disassembled (bad for the gausses). The S2 has Alnico magnets and the Alnico prone to loose while time goes by. Even when you magnetized them and you shut down the magnetizing machine you instantaneously loose the gausses in the gap. So, the drivers that we use (well, I use, but I do not think that your driver would be different then mine) are totally unpredictable….

The common wisdom suggests that if a magnet were slightly demagnetized then the band-pass efficiently would go down and I have seen it. All my drivers have identical dB efficiency. However, the different type and brands of Alnico acts differently. Some of them when a magnet is loosing its magnetic force begin to act like a filed-coil driver when you drop voltage: the bass become bigger and puffy and the HF roll-off sooner. All of my drivers have the very different HF response and interestingly all of them have different default amplitude of “beneficial resonance”. I was trying to relate the “beneficial resonance” with the HF extension but the relation is not so apparent as I wish.

Anyhow, my six current S2 drivers show different HF response. Some of them roll off at 8kHz-9kHz and some of them go to –3dB at 12.5kHz. The only two drivers that I have and that go up to 12.5kHz have a strong “beneficial resonance”. Some of my drivers despite thier high HF output have no strong “beneficial resonance”. The S2 driver that has no “beneficial resonance” sounds like Altec/JBL – type of the drivers – means boring. I DO NOT KNOW why some of my S2 have diminished “beneficial resonance”, perhaps it is due to de demagnetization of because MANY OTHER REASONS (material and son on). The relationship between sound of the drivers and the technological elements is not well known or understood even by manufacturers. Also, I have no gauss-meter to measure the magnetic density in the gap…

Recently I decided for fun to see “how it might be”. I have one single brand new S2 driver. I is an early “none-ribbed” production probably form 60s; it still in the original paper-damped box, never was mounted, never was connected or used in anyway and it looks like it was manufactured yeastoday. I crewed this driver in my 400Hz horn and the driver measured efficiency-wise identical with all the rest of my drivers. However, to my surprised when I measured it response the drives suddenly pushed 0dB at 13kHz!!!!! Moreover, the driver has such a huge amount of the “beneficial resonance” and such a tremendous transient ability that it scare, and my system has a dificult time to handle it. I paired this new driver with my best “used driver” (that goes up to mild 11khz) but has the largest “beneficial resonance” amplitude and tuned the “beneficial resonance softening” for each driver. I “equalized” the HF differences of the driver by placing the “hotter” driver on right channel – farther from the first violins and sopranos. It works "soft of" fine for now and I will not be doing anything until the Super Melquiades will be built and then will see what I can do with a dedicated channel and with no speaker-level filter.

Manville, just for sake of an experiment, I’ve sent one of my “worst” performing S2 drivers to remagnetize it. I do not know if it affect the ‘beneficial resonance” and if it does I will report the results of its performance after it will be fully recharged.

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