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  1. #1
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    TAD Mod revelatory!!

    Got invited by a very bright and experienced local dealer I have known for over 15years to hear his TAD cr-1 setup prior to shipping speakers to Boston. They were going to be part of a 7.1 setup. He sat me down in his warehouse and said these are just non hirez cds that were ripped. Setup included Constellation 250 watt/channel amp, Berkeley audio reference dac, MIT cables, Aurender media player, and no preamp. He also had a neat digital spl meter that sat in front of the speakers. He said just listen and tell me how these compare to your cr-1 speakers. He played a variety of jazz, soundtracks, and classical. Speakers were slightly less toed in than my setup.

    My initial impression was very wide and deep sound stage, less harsh and more air and nuance than what I was used to. I still did not think speakers disappeared but he then put on a Diana Krall and Cat Stevens cuts I was very familiar with, I realized vocals were dead center but soundstage was just very very wide and a wall of sound was coming to my ears. He was a little cagey about the setup but ultimately admitted he had modified the speakers xover and speaker terminals. He lastly played a cut from Roger Waters -Amused to Death and its was just outrageous. I was sure some type of tricks might of been involved but it truly sound like a truely advanced 5.1 home theater presentation. I for sure heard things that sounded like they were coming from both sidewalls perpendicular to both of my ears. It was very neat. I hope to go back with some of my own music and try to do a more concrete side to side comparison with my unmodified speakers.
    Tidbits of modification he mention included the following. Testing of individual drivers, reveled Existing Woofer or tweeter had leaked distortion onto the other driver. I think he said bass hum distortion. Duel speaker terminals were eliminated so no jumpers or biwiring needed. New xover sends correct info to each driver. He said he was somewhat surprised how some of the xover and associated components were not truly top of line. He did not change any of the internal wiring yet. He also mentioned he hopes to hopefully do an external xover down the road. When I asked how this would impact warranty by TAD he simply replied that they would not b happy. When I mention does Andrew Jones know about this he said yes but it would add too much to the cost to add to existing TAD pricing. He said the xover mod might b around 5000-6000. It was a really interesting and fun evening.

    Nick
    Nick



    Main system :TAD CR1 speakers, Viola Labs Symphony amp,Pass XP-20 preamp., MSB Discrete DAC with twin power supplies and V2 Renderer module, Gigafoil V4 inline ethernet filter with uptone LPS-1 power supply with Ghent audio Gotham 2.1mm to 2.5mm cable and AG diamond ethernet cable, Sonicorbitor Roon Audiophile 6 TB network server-player , MG Audio Design Planus III jumpers & speaker cables, Zitron Cobra power cords, Shunyata Hydra AV, and acoustic zen absolute copper IC,. Room treatment ASC tower traps, Vicoustic absorber premium cinema wall and ceiling panels, and MSR acoustic trifusser side wall panel

  2. #2
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    Re: TAD Mod revelatory!!

    nice Nick. i was also thinking of upgrading a pair of speakers recently and some very smart speaker people told me it would ruin any resale value. and the same people told me to not do it. its a fine line, if your going to keep them forever, id say do it. but if your not 100% sure your keeping them i would not do it. for the resale price on those cr1's im sure you can find a pair of speakers that has everything you are looking for with out opening them up.
    good luck.
    Steve

    TUBES & VINYL
    Is there anything else?

    Rega/Ortofon/Viva 300b/KR

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  3. #3
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    Re: TAD Mod revelatory!!

    Quote Originally Posted by veindoc View Post
    Got invited by a very bright and experienced local dealer I have known for over 15years to hear his TAD cr-1 setup prior to shipping speakers to Boston. They were going to be part of a 7.1 setup. He sat me down in his warehouse and said these are just non hirez cds that were ripped. Setup included Constellation 250 watt/channel amp, Berkeley audio reference dac, MIT cables, Aurender media player, and no preamp. He also had a neat digital spl meter that sat in front of the speakers. He said just listen and tell me how these compare to your cr-1 speakers. He played a variety of jazz, soundtracks, and classical. Speakers were slightly less toed in than my setup.

    My initial impression was very wide and deep sound stage, less harsh and more air and nuance than what I was used to. I still did not think speakers disappeared but he then put on a Diana Krall and Cat Stevens cuts I was very familiar with, I realized vocals were dead center but soundstage was just very very wide and a wall of sound was coming to my ears. He was a little cagey about the setup but ultimately admitted he had modified the speakers xover and speaker terminals. He lastly played a cut from Roger Waters -Amused to Death and its was just outrageous. I was sure some type of tricks might of been involved but it truly sound like a truely advanced 5.1 home theater presentation. I for sure heard things that sounded like they were coming from both sidewalls perpendicular to both of my ears. It was very neat. I hope to go back with some of my own music and try to do a more concrete side to side comparison with my unmodified speakers.

    Tidbits of modification he mention included the following. Testing of individual drivers, reveled Existing Woofer or tweeter had leaked distortion onto the other driver. I think he said bass hum distortion. Duel speaker terminals were eliminated so no jumpers or biwiring needed. New xover sends correct info to each driver. He said he was somewhat surprised how some of the xover and associated components were not truly top of line. He did not change any of the internal wiring yet. He also mentioned he hopes to hopefully do an external xover down the road. When I asked how this would impact warranty by TAD he simply replied that they would not b happy. When I mention does Andrew Jones know about this he said yes but it would add too much to the cost to add to existing TAD pricing. He said the xover mod might b around 5000-6000. It was a really interesting and fun evening.

    Nick
    Nick - this is very interesting....but to be honest, I'm kind of speechless. Were talking about a ~$40,000 stand mount speaker (one of the most expensive on the market) that has woofer and tweeter distortion leakage, bass hum distortion and less than stellar parts according to this dealer.

    Glad you had a fun evening. I guess it was a real eye (and ear) opener.
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  4. #4
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    Re: TAD Mod revelatory!!

    Just to clarify these mods were impressive and wheather or not human ears or test equipment hear woofer leakage is probably just not unique to just TAD. What was relevant to me is that to get the last .1 to .2% improvement in sound is achievable and noticeable by my ears. So many great speakers are very close to greatness but have some subtle flaw on certain recordings or room setups. I admire this gentlemen's desire to reach for that final improvement. Certainly when I have seen a comparison of the inner parts of Wilson speakers compared to lets say Magico I was shocked how much better the Wilsons sounded even though their parts,( magnets, xover and resisters etc.) were very pedestrian compared to Magicos components. Critical analysis of leakage or distortion with subtle measurements may be extremely small compared to other speakers as I have no reference. I think it is overly flippant as I have no true comparative reference to know how these measurements compare to other high end speakers manufacturers. Certainly as few of us have opened up and analyzed our speaker's guts, I don't think we know exactly how other speakers compare. I know I love many of the mbl setups I have heard but many of the objective measurements in critical reviews are often quite unimpressive but the sound is great to my ears. Anyway I am still very glad to hear what I experienced. Voiding warranty is certainly not my desire unless mods could be reversed down the road.
    cheers,
    Nick
    Nick



    Main system :TAD CR1 speakers, Viola Labs Symphony amp,Pass XP-20 preamp., MSB Discrete DAC with twin power supplies and V2 Renderer module, Gigafoil V4 inline ethernet filter with uptone LPS-1 power supply with Ghent audio Gotham 2.1mm to 2.5mm cable and AG diamond ethernet cable, Sonicorbitor Roon Audiophile 6 TB network server-player , MG Audio Design Planus III jumpers & speaker cables, Zitron Cobra power cords, Shunyata Hydra AV, and acoustic zen absolute copper IC,. Room treatment ASC tower traps, Vicoustic absorber premium cinema wall and ceiling panels, and MSR acoustic trifusser side wall panel

  5. #5

    Re: TAD Mod revelatory!!

    I have heard of someone else doing mods on the CR1 crossover also, below a copy and paste:

    Here you can see the whole crossover of the R1 (cr1 is similar). on the right the part for the tweeter, on the left the part for the midrange.
    in the middle, you can see the infamed heavy duty resistor, 5,1 Ohm, in serial mode.

    xover_00.jpg

    Trough this part, how you can see clearly. the entire music signal pass trough!
    I simply changed this (NOT audiograde part) resistor, with a couple of Mundorf Supreme M Resist 10ohm 20W (two to 10 ohm in parallel equals 5,0 Ohm).
    One end of the resistors is screwed in the plu termina of the high's,
    the other is soldered on the cross for the middle. (Very simple, completely retrofittable for eventual resale.. no risk)
    The quality gap is incredible, not to believe.. focus , treble and mid quality... DEEP of the image.. Wow.
    The femal voice loses the slighty grain and "edgeness".

    Ps. I tried also Path Audio graphite resistor ( construction like Dueleund) but the souns was dull and slow)
    The Mundorf M Resists Supreme resistors are actually, probably, the best resistors on the world for audio.
    Mundorf M-Resist Supreme Resistors homepage

    Pss. Probably rebuilding this cross with ultra high quality parts in an external box is the right way.. not an easy task, indeed.
    Very big, very heavy and costly.. about 3-5000 Usd..
    The other possibility is, the second step, for even better HF, to exchange on the HF Xover (right in the pic) the two resiistors (4,7 and 3,0 Ohm with M Resist Supremes, the two caps (4,7+5,6 mF with Mundorf Silver Gold Oil), the other cap ( 18,0mF) with the Mundorf EVO Silver Gold /they are a little smaller than the Mundorf SGO).


    Seems interesting since its such a small tweak and easily reversible.

    Official tad-labs pics of the CR1 crossovers:

    TAD-CR1_Crossover network.jpg
    TAD-CR1_Network - B.jpg

    Questions that come to mind:

    - does anyone know why one of the speaker terminals does not seem to be connected internally? are these not actually bi-wireable speakers?
    - are the two cross overs mounted to the aluminium back plate for the tweeter and midrange, and the smaller separate crossover with all the
    copper winding for the LW bass driver?
    - is there any merit to the above mod as described?
    - am I right in assuming that the mod would only have an effect on the midrange (and possibly LF) driver, not the tweeter?

  6. #6
    Senior Member
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    Apr 2013
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    662

    Re: TAD Mod revelatory!!

    the mod I heard was very similar except he had test equipment to test before and after levels of each individual driver and yhen tweak them.. Your last comment does perhaps confirm why the speaker hookups r no longer biwirable on the pair I saw.
    Nick
    Quote Originally Posted by AudioExplorations View Post
    I have heard of someone else doing mods on the CR1 crossover also, below a copy and paste:

    Here you can see the whole crossover of the R1 (cr1 is similar). on the right the part for the tweeter, on the left the part for the midrange.
    in the middle, you can see the infamed heavy duty resistor, 5,1 Ohm, in serial mode.

    xover_00.jpg

    Trough this part, how you can see clearly. the entire music signal pass trough!
    I simply changed this (NOT audiograde part) resistor, with a couple of Mundorf Supreme M Resist 10ohm 20W (two to 10 ohm in parallel equals 5,0 Ohm).
    One end of the resistors is screwed in the plu termina of the high's,
    the other is soldered on the cross for the middle. (Very simple, completely retrofittable for eventual resale.. no risk)
    The quality gap is incredible, not to believe.. focus , treble and mid quality... DEEP of the image.. Wow.
    The femal voice loses the slighty grain and "edgeness".

    Ps. I tried also Path Audio graphite resistor ( construction like Dueleund) but the souns was dull and slow)
    The Mundorf M Resists Supreme resistors are actually, probably, the best resistors on the world for audio.
    Mundorf M-Resist Supreme Resistors homepage

    Pss. Probably rebuilding this cross with ultra high quality parts in an external box is the right way.. not an easy task, indeed.
    Very big, very heavy and costly.. about 3-5000 Usd..
    The other possibility is, the second step, for even better HF, to exchange on the HF Xover (right in the pic) the two resiistors (4,7 and 3,0 Ohm with M Resist Supremes, the two caps (4,7+5,6 mF with Mundorf Silver Gold Oil), the other cap ( 18,0mF) with the Mundorf EVO Silver Gold /they are a little smaller than the Mundorf SGO).


    Seems interesting since its such a small tweak and easily reversible.

    Official tad-labs pics of the CR1 crossovers:

    TAD-CR1_Crossover network.jpg
    TAD-CR1_Network - B.jpg

    Questions that come to mind:

    - does anyone know why one of the speaker terminals does not seem to be connected internally? are these not actually bi-wireable speakers?
    - are the two cross overs mounted to the aluminium back plate for the tweeter and midrange, and the smaller separate crossover with all the
    copper winding for the LW bass driver?
    - is there any merit to the above mod as described?
    - am I right in assuming that the mod would only have an effect on the midrange (and possibly LF) driver, not the tweeter?
    Nick



    Main system :TAD CR1 speakers, Viola Labs Symphony amp,Pass XP-20 preamp., MSB Discrete DAC with twin power supplies and V2 Renderer module, Gigafoil V4 inline ethernet filter with uptone LPS-1 power supply with Ghent audio Gotham 2.1mm to 2.5mm cable and AG diamond ethernet cable, Sonicorbitor Roon Audiophile 6 TB network server-player , MG Audio Design Planus III jumpers & speaker cables, Zitron Cobra power cords, Shunyata Hydra AV, and acoustic zen absolute copper IC,. Room treatment ASC tower traps, Vicoustic absorber premium cinema wall and ceiling panels, and MSR acoustic trifusser side wall panel

  7. #7

    Re: TAD Mod revelatory!!

    To answer my own first 2 questions:

    - does anyone know why one of the speaker terminals does not seem to be connected internally? are these not actually bi-wireable speakers? the left speaker terminal on the crossover (that is shown unconnected) is wired to the separate LF crossover, so they are in fact biwirable. duh
    - are the two cross overs mounted to the aluminium back plate for the tweeter and midrange, and the smaller separate crossover with all the
    copper winding for the LW bass driver? yep

    just confirmed on my cr1's via hooking up bass terminals only.

    so now i'm pretty sure mod has an effect on the midrange driver only.

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