johnnycopy
Ex Member
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Completed the Alternate tuning kit and gelled driver upgrade last week. Thanks Bob, Steve and Devon for all your help in rectifying the shipping damage that unfortunately occured. I appreciate your quick efforts to resolve, and Bob I appreciated all the kind help you provided me to walk thro the mods. (I finally coaxed the fostex drivers out of their tacky home!!)
This mod definitely improves the speakers tonal balance, improves bass speed and articulation, the speakers do disappear more and soundstaging is better (I heard something outside my right speaker yesterday, that was cool).
The mod is fresh, so difficult to provide any full reports, but important to note that the above listening was done with a solid state belles amp and adcom pre. I had not enjoyed this combo with the stock HDT's for the last 2 months I've had them together. The fact is that the newly modded HDT's sound better than I ever expected them to with this SS combination (much more listenable and smooth than they did prior to upgrade).
I'm waiting for a new tube amp to arrive in the next few weeks, and I've bought some NOS bugle boys, mullards, and some cool rectifiers tubes to roll.
I originally had the stock HDT's with a Select and loved female vocals, loved its speed, but felt rock lacked bass foundation. I added an expensive / fast sub and it sounded pretty good.
Steve recommended the EX mod, which I completed and it did help the bass, however (as Steve said it would) it removed some of the air in the top end, and that was some magic I hated to lose.
Following the EX mod (and as the drivers burned in), I felt I started to enjoy the HDT's better without sub, so I began to run them more on their own.
I had plans to upgrade to Steve's new Torii Mk2 in anticipation of potentially increasing the choices of speaker models that I could audition and own, and I sold the EX to ready myself for the upgrade. At about the same time, however, the HDT Alternate tuning kit came out, so I decided to do that first to see if I had really heard the full potential of the HDT's, and am glad I did.
I had the Belles and Adcom on hand so have been using them in the interim, and again, am surprised how listenable (after such a short period of breakin) the system has become.
I will try to post again after new amp, new tubes, and some burnin has occured.
John
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