FINALLY REBUILT MY 48" RIBBONS!!!

Had them sitting around for about 3 years, and had the Kapton for the last 2 years. With generous phone support from DaveS (THANKS!!) I was able to rebuild 2 ribbons that were damaged in shipping after I bought them. The seller refunded the price of the ribbons, so I ended up getting 2 48" ribbons and 2 Silver crossovers for about $75.00.

1 ribbon came out flawless, (the second one...) while the other has a couple of wrinkles around the bottom where the PCB is. No problems sonically/no buzzing so far, but I'll give them a few weeks before I determine if I will have to rebuild the wrinkled one.

I was prompted to get off my ass and do them after I purchased the ALIII+ speakers without the ribbons for $200.00 on Ebay. They were just 45 minutes from the house, so I went and picked them up (smelled like cat piss, had to clean them really well before the wife would let them inside...) Have them hooked up to a Sunfire 300 X 2, but was wondering if I would do better biamping them with my Cinema Grand 200 X 5. Figured there would be about 400 watts (4 ohm) to each woofer and ribbon, so it might sound better than just the 300 watts to each speaker in the current setup. Interested in anyone's opinion on that one...

SOOO, I have a couple of 60" ribbons (needing repair, of course) and a pair of Plat regular and Mk IV crossovers, as well as 8 new Plat woofers from Dynavox to upgrade my original ALS'. That will be my project for the next couple of weeks.

DaveS has been great with his patience in answering all of my questions and walking me through the first ribbon. I appreciate all of his time and knowledge that he generously shared with me.

fstik

CONGRATS! Why don't you TRY them both ways? What preamp are you using?

Hi Rabbit! Thanks for responding...

I am using a TGII for a preamp.

I had been a little disappointed at the sound of the ribbons initially, very muddy with no crisp highs like my ALS'. Had the Treble turned up to "10" with no real effect. Kept telling myself to just keep running them until they "break in". I searched for other's experiences with new/rebuilt ribbons on the forum, but nothing really looked promising for my rebuilds.

Was listening to them last night, still sounding muddy, and started thinking about using an equalizer to try and attenuate the mid-lower ends and boost the highs.

Turned them on this evening and WOW!!!! Had the phenomenal sound that is near and dear to my heart. Crisp highs, actually had to turn the Treble down to half. Still an eensey bit muddy, but I will continue to play them and wait.

fstik

I found the same thing with my AL-IIIs; it took about a month of mid to moderately high volume break-in before they began to get more transparent. When I bought them, they had been sitting unused for years and the original owner said they probably had less than 100 hours on them. I believe 200-300 was the recommended break-in period.