An update on my equipment tinkering and such:

I've done a bit of tinkering and tweaking over the summer months, some caused by misadventure.

First, I ripped a nice size tear in the cone of one of my PHY-HP drivers - just a really stupid, freak accident that should never have happened. Of course, a tear in the cone simply ruins the driver, even more so a full range driver, Even my crude attempt at temporary repair proved useless - some pretty wild excursions were happening, pretty ugly stuff when it hit just the right (wrong) frequency range. Repairing a PHY-HP driver is not easy - they have to be shipped back to France, and in fact both have to be shipped back as they come from the factory as a matched pair, so both have to be re-coned, not just the damaged one. These are bulky and very heavy - big brass housing. Expensive to ship to France, expensive to recone, and time consuming - ever try getting anything done in France between June and September (especially July)?  Forget it. But... the guys at PHY-HP in France were beyond superb. They arranged with the Canadian dealer, the wonderful Samuel Furon at L'Atelier Audio in Montreal, to swap my driver for a pair he had in stock, for simply the price of the recone. And Samuel is such a class guy he drove to Toronto with them on a long weekend as part of a social trip. So my KM30SAG drivers were back in action in relatively short order - a month or so, which in high end audio terms is very quick.

I did not repeat the C37  Lack that had been on the previous drivers, which I may do again at some point. So it has been a period of re-acclimatizing my aging ears to the drivers in their natural state again. These are without question the best drivers in the world, when properly implemented.

Since my vinyl rig is part of the PHY-HP based system in my basement, I had an opportunity to get more deeply reacquainted with my digital 'upstairs' system, with my Tannoy Turnberrys - already heavily modified with Duelund resistors and caps in the modified crossovers, C37 Lack on the cones, Nordost jumpers in shotgun configuration (which really radically reduced hum) - and the no digital filter 47 Labs Flatfish digital through my Komuro based 300B amp.

In the course of getting reacquainted, I was reminded of lingering dissatisfaction with this system that really stemmed from the Tannoys in comparison to the PHY-HP - never will be a fair contest, but still, I felt there was room to grow here.

So I embarked on program to tweak the Tannoys.

In high end speakers, even speakers costing $10k, $20k, $30k - opening them up reveals a rather discouraging collection of cheap parts, like cheap resistors, cheap wire, cheap crossover components - and worst of all, in virtually every case a lining of cheap eggcrate foam to dampen vibration in a rather crude way. I have felt that after upgrading the crossover parts and wire (in the case of theTannoys, they came with excellent VanDenHul wire stock) the last frontier was the eggcrate foam.

I ripped it all out, going back to bare walls inside. I wanted to not dampen and kill all vibration, but to let the music sing - eggcrate heavily applied may kill vibration, but it deadens the sound too.

Looking into alternatives, I came upon Twaron Angel Hair, and what I read about it made sense intuitively (http://www.eltim.eu/index.php?item=&action=page&group_id=10000062&lang=EN) so I ordered some (more than I needed it turns out) and began the process of installing it bit by bit, fine tuning by ear to get the music out.Using spray glue to coat the walls and corners, I applied about half inch thich sheets of Twaron to virtually every surface that previously had eggcrate, using Twaron Unicorn Tail at every 90 degree angle. It took a bit of tuning via adding here and subtracting there, but in short order, the Tannoys were transformed - the bass became huge, and powerful, projecting deeply - so powerful it can rattle the glass in the china cabinet. The mid range became glorious and full of color, and the highs opened up and became super sweet. Overall, the sound became more organic - more tonally integrated, with more natural spatial cues, and certainly there is less dampening to the bottom end, but this is actually more natural - the bass moves as it would in real life, it is felt in the body, rather than just heard in the mind.

So for rather little cost and a bit of work, the Tannoy based system is transformed, and once again, I am reminded of what the audio passion is all about, as I am rediscovering the old as new again, and this digital system proves to be very musically satisfying.

And before I forget - I have taken my first steps into true High Resolution digital audio. More on that soon...the Chord QuteHd....