Dreamer
Classified Forum Moderator
I received my set of 8 spikes from OregonDV on Saturday morning. They are the 1.5" gold spikes. We had a little mix-up with the delivery address, and despite the fact that the box they were mailed in looked like it was dragged here behind the truck all the way from Oregon, they got here in great condition, and look (and perform) very well.
Installation was a breeze. They come with threaded inserts (1/4x20) that you have to screw into the cones, and they also come with very nice gold-plated metal protector cups (to protect your floors) and threaded inserts. Since I was putting them on carpeted floors (under which is some VERY badly stained wood parquet) I don't care if the spikes dig in (in fact it's preferable!) and since MLs already have threaded inserts for spikes, the protectors and inserts got put in baggies, and tossed into my "Misc. Audio Junk" box...
I just tilted my Sequels back, unscrewed the factory spikes, and twisted these new cones right in. They are a LOT easier to get into the holes than the factory spikes--maybe it's because they are a LOT bigger (taller and wider). Anway, I got them intalled, and the speakers re-adjusted about a half-hour before Erik came over Saturday afternoon for our own little DC-Area ML Meet, so we were both pretty much hearing them for the first time.
I've had these speakers for over 10 years, and had them in several different houses. Wood floors, concrete slabs, walls of brick, sheetrock, and 100-year-old plaster and lath, ceilings at 12ft 10ft, and even vaulted ceilings. Rooms with lots of windows, and rooms with only one small pane. Rooms with ZERO acoustic treatment, and rooms with a full-blown tweaked out Michael Green RoomTunes setup. Invariably, I have always eventually got them to sound pretty good no matter where they are, but the current location has been pretty tricky. For the first time, I'm sharing the space with a woman (my fiance') so there is a whole new factor in the setup--SAF--which pretty much rules out hanign little acoustic pillows on the walls and putting panels and tubes stuffed with fiberglass in the corners.
My big issue with this current location (it's the living room of a 3br condo--concrete slab floors, ceiling fan, big U-shaped couch, and a side wall of sliding glass doors) has been taming the bass. Or rather, getting the bass to actually have any sort of impact. It's not too thuimpy--quite the opposite--it's been sort of soft and undefined, which is quite the opposite of what I'm used to.
The Sequels are notorious for having slightly fat bass at high volumes, and sometimes it can get just downright sloppy depending on the room and the recording. But not in this room. Now, I'll admit that my low-freq hearing is rolled off pretty high--my whole hearing range is shifted about 10% higher than most normal humans (I can hear ultrasonic alarms in jewelry stores and museums, but I can't really "hear" anything below about 28hz, just feel it) so i like my bass to be punchy and strong but sloppy bass just makes me twitchy because it feels REALLY funny in my tummy...
So, to make a long store longer, these OregonDV cones seem to have REALLY tightened up the bass on the Sequels. Combined with the 20lbs of mass I've added to the top of my cabinets (I added a second 10lb barbell wheel to teach speaker about a month ago) the bass is actually pretty darn tight and defined now. In fact on some recordings (Bob Marley, especially) the bass is a little TOO strong. It's still got that thinness in the ultra-low registers that Sequels are known for (I think they are only rated to go down to 24hz), but these little cones seem to have tightened things up quite a bit. Even the mids sound a little cleaner, and the crossover point (a notorious problem area for the Sequels) seems a little smoother too.
And they have the added advantage of being significantly higher than the tiny factory spikes, so the speakers are actually about 1/2" off the top of the carpet, so they're not as likely to get banged up by the vaccum cleaner!
These are NOT the OutRiggers, just the spikes/cones. Adjusting them is a little more tricky than the OutRiggers (they are, after all, still under the speakers) but they look great (well, you can't really see them unless you get down on the floor and look under the speakers) and they seem to bite through the carpet with a little more authority too. My Sequels seem to be a lot more stable too! I guess that's the point (LOL) of these cones--stability and sure-footed mass coupling with the floor), and they seem to be the ticket.
I was considering the Outriggers, but decided against them for 2 reasons. One, They are sort of speaker-specific, size-wise, so when I get new speakers, the ones that fit my Sequels might not be a good fit, and 2) they stick out about 2" on a side, which makes them a LOT easier to adjust and more stable, but doesn't look as SAF-clean, and they were almost certanly going to get banged up with traffic and vacuum cleaners. So I saved 75% and went with the plain cones. I think the work just fine. I paid about $58 (shipping included) for a set of 8. Well worth the money...
Included is a pic from OregonDV's site. More pics of my actual install will follow..
--Richard
Installation was a breeze. They come with threaded inserts (1/4x20) that you have to screw into the cones, and they also come with very nice gold-plated metal protector cups (to protect your floors) and threaded inserts. Since I was putting them on carpeted floors (under which is some VERY badly stained wood parquet) I don't care if the spikes dig in (in fact it's preferable!) and since MLs already have threaded inserts for spikes, the protectors and inserts got put in baggies, and tossed into my "Misc. Audio Junk" box...
I just tilted my Sequels back, unscrewed the factory spikes, and twisted these new cones right in. They are a LOT easier to get into the holes than the factory spikes--maybe it's because they are a LOT bigger (taller and wider). Anway, I got them intalled, and the speakers re-adjusted about a half-hour before Erik came over Saturday afternoon for our own little DC-Area ML Meet, so we were both pretty much hearing them for the first time.
I've had these speakers for over 10 years, and had them in several different houses. Wood floors, concrete slabs, walls of brick, sheetrock, and 100-year-old plaster and lath, ceilings at 12ft 10ft, and even vaulted ceilings. Rooms with lots of windows, and rooms with only one small pane. Rooms with ZERO acoustic treatment, and rooms with a full-blown tweaked out Michael Green RoomTunes setup. Invariably, I have always eventually got them to sound pretty good no matter where they are, but the current location has been pretty tricky. For the first time, I'm sharing the space with a woman (my fiance') so there is a whole new factor in the setup--SAF--which pretty much rules out hanign little acoustic pillows on the walls and putting panels and tubes stuffed with fiberglass in the corners.
My big issue with this current location (it's the living room of a 3br condo--concrete slab floors, ceiling fan, big U-shaped couch, and a side wall of sliding glass doors) has been taming the bass. Or rather, getting the bass to actually have any sort of impact. It's not too thuimpy--quite the opposite--it's been sort of soft and undefined, which is quite the opposite of what I'm used to.The Sequels are notorious for having slightly fat bass at high volumes, and sometimes it can get just downright sloppy depending on the room and the recording. But not in this room. Now, I'll admit that my low-freq hearing is rolled off pretty high--my whole hearing range is shifted about 10% higher than most normal humans (I can hear ultrasonic alarms in jewelry stores and museums, but I can't really "hear" anything below about 28hz, just feel it) so i like my bass to be punchy and strong but sloppy bass just makes me twitchy because it feels REALLY funny in my tummy...
So, to make a long store longer, these OregonDV cones seem to have REALLY tightened up the bass on the Sequels. Combined with the 20lbs of mass I've added to the top of my cabinets (I added a second 10lb barbell wheel to teach speaker about a month ago) the bass is actually pretty darn tight and defined now. In fact on some recordings (Bob Marley, especially) the bass is a little TOO strong. It's still got that thinness in the ultra-low registers that Sequels are known for (I think they are only rated to go down to 24hz), but these little cones seem to have tightened things up quite a bit. Even the mids sound a little cleaner, and the crossover point (a notorious problem area for the Sequels) seems a little smoother too.
And they have the added advantage of being significantly higher than the tiny factory spikes, so the speakers are actually about 1/2" off the top of the carpet, so they're not as likely to get banged up by the vaccum cleaner!
These are NOT the OutRiggers, just the spikes/cones. Adjusting them is a little more tricky than the OutRiggers (they are, after all, still under the speakers) but they look great (well, you can't really see them unless you get down on the floor and look under the speakers) and they seem to bite through the carpet with a little more authority too. My Sequels seem to be a lot more stable too! I guess that's the point (LOL) of these cones--stability and sure-footed mass coupling with the floor), and they seem to be the ticket.
I was considering the Outriggers, but decided against them for 2 reasons. One, They are sort of speaker-specific, size-wise, so when I get new speakers, the ones that fit my Sequels might not be a good fit, and 2) they stick out about 2" on a side, which makes them a LOT easier to adjust and more stable, but doesn't look as SAF-clean, and they were almost certanly going to get banged up with traffic and vacuum cleaners. So I saved 75% and went with the plain cones. I think the work just fine. I paid about $58 (shipping included) for a set of 8. Well worth the money...
Included is a pic from OregonDV's site. More pics of my actual install will follow..
--Richard
