Helikon SL

The Benz trailed comfortably in the rear with a splashy and coloured sound, but quite exciting in its own way. The Troika had a beautiful lush and probably quite accurate midrange, but at expense of flabby LF control. The Archiv was more tuneful but lost some delicacy and poise. The Helikon, even brand new-out-of-the-box and quite unran in seemed to outdo all of the other contenders. Grace, poise, tune, detail, dynamics...all in spades. I look forward to it being fully run in,in all likelyhood sometime within the next couple weeks.

Yesterday I also had all of my inner walls reinforced with blown cellulose insulation- before that they were typical American-style hollow sheetrock and drywall with a very effective bass-trapping cavities in the center. I've not yet had the chance to play any music since that- but I most certainly will this evening. If the changes are quite significant, a report will be issued.

Ron
Dum spiro audio
Dum audio vivo

I've had the Helikon SL for about 2 months now. LP12/Aro/Prefix"k"/Hicap/52/135's. After two+ months I find myself still smitten with this cartridge. It's the best I've ever heard (haven't tried any in a higher price range tho) Seems to do everthing quite well. My prior cartridge was a Lydian (pre-Beta). A decided step up.

Seems like a perfect fit for an Aro. Great midrange, sweet highs, tight bass, & high resolution. It also seems to bring out that great "liquid" sound of the Aro. I suppose the bass could go a bit lower, but that might be my setup. As it is it seems to go to 30 Hz without complaint. No muddiness or overlap. It almost makes me forget I've got a ported speaker. I've heard of complaints about a certian edginess in the midrange of the standard Helikon, but I've not deteced any in the SL version.

I also had a problem with the Prefix "K" and RF, but seemed to have conquered most it with judicious cable placement ( I do get some CB noise every once in a while from someone who must have a CB with illegal amounts of gain).

Seems a keeper for me.

Arthur Bye

I noticed that same edgyness in the "red" Helikon as well. I could not understand what all the press hype was about. The SL is totally different. Its like a Troika with several layers of haze removed. All of that extra detail is fun.

When I was at CES this year, I heard a new prototype Lyra cartridge. It was one of the few things that impressed me at the show*.

Chris Bell

*CES was one of the most bizzar events in Hi-Fi I have ever experienced. Here was a typical system on display:

$25,000 ribbon and/or horn speakers
$20,000 mono amps w/ handles or 37 tubes
$17,000 garden hose thick (or bigger) speaker cable
$15,000 pre amp w/ blue glowing knobs
$695 AMC CD player

I wish I was kidding. The concept of source first was totally lost on these people.

How are the DBLs sounding now that you have insulated your walls?

Chris Bell

quote:

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Ron,
How are the DBLs sounding now that you have insulated your walls?

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Simply put... DBLs have entirely no business being in a room with flimsy and acoustically translucent walls...they act as a low pass filter to suck out all of the visceral heft the extra $10,000 is supposed to provide you with.

I approached this task in two phases. Firstly the room flooring was just plyboard on top of sheetrock with a nice hollow cavity between. In its native state the music was almost as loud in the room beneath (actually a 3 car garage) than in the main music room- and had far more bass as well. In comparison the music room had an emasculated unbalanced sound that could not be corrected with the Snaxo trim pots. There was also a peaky dysphonic tonal quality to the midrange. Oh, and no imaging whatsoever.
Following packing of this cavity with cellulose insulation things improved by greater a Hicaps worth... the long absent bass was back.. and tuneful to boot. There was a vast reduction in the hashy untimely sound with a far more natural and unforced presentation. The volume pot on the 52 also needed to be rotated 2-3 o'clocks less- a fact which cost me a pair of tweeters in the earlier days (listening at 3 oclock position with a sixpack the achieve the same volume levels that I can now have at 12 o'clock). All in all... well worth the $750-ish-bear in mind this is quite a large room with lots of sq. footage.

After several months of wondering what the effects of the internal walls would be (they too are uninsulated sheetrock/drywall with hollow central cavities)I had them blown with the same cellulose stuff as was in the flooring. This required 2 holes to be punched between every stud, and is somewhat of a messy chore. The insulator guy replaced those sheetrock divots with plugs of styrofoam which he then smoothed over with joint compound- they are yet to be repainted. Interenstingly enough during this process he found there WAS some in-wall insulation to the right of the right speaker (as this then became an outside wall), but none between the speakers and to the left of them. There was also none in the side walls or in the walls of the walk in closet in which I house all the electronics.
The immediately noticeable result is that the sound no longer has the right-side heavy skew.. before that I had to run the balance control in the 11 o-clock position to maintain a dead-center image. No doubt a result of inwall insulation existing only to the right of the right DBL. Further listening again shows an increase in clarity, tunefullness and purity- although it is no louder on any given volume setting. Given that this additional stage cost less than $300, it too was well worthwhile.

Finally the 20A circuit breaker was replaced with a 70A one, that straddles two of the circuits. This then allows me 4 duplex plugs all being fed of this high-current, common earthed feed- giving me the opportunity to electrically connect all 14 powered boxes into it (the Wiremould strip only allows 9). There was the expected improvement in bass extension and upper register articulation.

There is really only one final coup de grace left. When the floor insulation was installed, he had to cut a strip out of the sheetrock beneath.. about a food wide, and spanning the entire width of the room. This has not yet been patched and probably is letting some unwanted sound vent through instead of being contained internally. Eventually I will have that repaired and expect some additional incremental improvements.

To put it into perspective.. I am sure an 82 in the 'treated room' would handily outperform a 52 in the untreated one. That is the level of souring that uncomplimentary room acoustics can inject upon sound.

My ultimate tweak would be to maybe put the DBLs on granite blocks, and to screw sheets of 12-ply onto the walls directly behind each DBL, to further reinforce them. Those will eventually happen.

Any other DBL user out there with suspended wooden floors using masonry beneath the speakers??

Ron
Dum spiro audio
Dum audio vivo

This is due to the output voltage rating of the Grado cartridges being (in some instances) highly uprated.

I've seen similar "spitty" things before with "K"-type boards, including the Goldring Excel VX, which, oddly enough, sounded dull on "E"-type boards, yet a bit strident on "K"-type boards. (One's mileage with 32x-series boards may be different, as these tend to live in "softer" preamps.)

Dave Dever, NANA