WD25T Vs Heybrook HB3 S2 modified

[hal55]

I heard the Heybrook range at the Sydney Hifi show in 1984. Running off a EAR509 amp, the HB3s made, to me, the best sounds at the show. My own pair have been upgraded with a Plessy leaf tweeter that is actually older than the speakers, they have been biwired and the SEAS MCA11FC midrange driver substituted for the original after my cat put his claws through one of them. Although I have head many speakers over the years that are more impressive than the HB3s, I actually haven't heard much that is more enjoyable. They have seen off a pair of Final 0.3 electrostatics (which blew up my amp in any case) and I'm now using the Jungson JA99C off a valve preamp. Although it all makes very nice music indeed, I'm wondering what improvements the luxury version of the WD25T would bring. David Price referred to a certain "coldness" of tonality in his review, which the HB3s certainly do not have, and I wonder if Peter Comeau agrees with his assessment and how he would describe his new speakers in comparison to mine. Also, I am a huge fan of ribbon speakers and love the spped and transparency of the Plessy driver, would Peter have an opinion on how the relatively new Aurum Cantus G3Si ribbon driver would go in place of the Excel tweeter in the kit. As is pretty obvious, the upgrades to my Hb3s were intended to mimic to a small degree Peters very successful Sextets, and I must say it worked, over twenty years later and the HB3s are still a brilliant act. I have both the Finals and a (damaged) pair of Meridian 556s to sell, so the funds are there to get the kit if the upgrade will be substantial.

Regards,

Hal Littlewood

[petercom]

Thanks for the plaudits! Nice to hear that your, much modified, HB3s are still going strong.

I always say that if you have a pair of speakers that you really, really like then don't change them unless you are absolutely convinced that the replacements are going to be better!

In your case I would therefore suggest improving your source components rather than taking a chance on new speakers.

As regards David Price he did listen to the speakers in the HFW office, not his normal listening room, so any suggestions as to 'coldness' could be based on the office acoustics. However I would say that we are now able to make speakers that are far more revealing, detailed and neutral than we could in the '80s - I've no doubt that the HB3s are more colored and have more 'character' than the WD25Ts.

As regards Aurum Cantus and other ribbons it is very difficult to integrate any of these ribbon types into 2 way speakers because they demand a high crossover frequency. The min crossover for the G3Si is 2.3kHz, and like most of the ilk really sounds better crossed over at 3.5kHz. The reason is that as the frequency lowers the ribbon excursion gets bigger and less controlled pushing up the distortion.

For the WD25 the treble unit really needs to extend below 2kHz to successfully match the 26cm bass/mid. So you would need to turn it into a 3 way to use a ribbon treble.

Why don't you leave the speakers alone and get a decent amplifier - like the WD88VA?

[hal55]

Well, you pretty much nailed it that though my HB3s are great, fun speakers to listen to, they are indeed coloured and lacking in detail compared to more modern designs. The Finals I used for a while highlighted this, the soundstage was huge and detailed, vocals had this almost eerie transparency about them and they were clearly pulling more information from CDs. In some ways they were the more "intimate" of the speakers but they absolutely sucked at doing the home theatre thing. Sad but true story, I went in to debt to my eyeballs to build a proper listening room/home theatre, finally finished it and set the gear up. It all sounded better than I expected, quite wonderful even before I started tuning the room, the next night we watched our first DVD, the Meridian 556 lasted 20mins and then had what the repair people refer to as "a catastophic failure" - every transister on one output board blown and the cost of a replacement board in Australia is criminal, it cost me less to land the Jungson from China, all 26 kls of it, direct to my door, for less than what Meridian were going to charge for ONE board. As I joke to people "Martians blew up my amplifier" Thank you Mr Speilberg.
I've had some limited experience listening to speakers using the Vifa ring radiator tweeter, how would you rate the Excel tweeter against it? Also, I certainly don't want a speaker that has more bass than the Heybrooks, deeper and more tuneful is fine, but not , overall, more bass heavy. Finally, Price stated that the WAD speakers had musicality in spades and that sounds exactly like my type of speaker, would you regard these as being equally or more musical to my HB3s?
As to the suggestion re upgrading amps, since 1985 I've gone thru a Luxman LV105u, Craft pre/power fom New Zealand (sort of a realtive to Plinius), a Vacuum State pre with the Craft power amp, then with modified Dynaco 111s, then back to the Craft, then your KAT88 valve amp (lovely little unit but couldn't drive the Finals, but then nearly nothing can), then the Meridian 556 which could drive them easily on music but blew up trying to do HT, and now the Jungson Ja99C, which is one hell of a great amp and the perfect solid stater for someone that really loves valves at heart, oh, and it doesn't have the transformer buzzing that the Meridian had!
I'm looking at the speakers as a last upgrade and then stop fiddling with equipment and just get back to enjoying music, despite the Aurum Cantus driver not being suitable I'm still hoping the WD25T is it,

Cheers, and CONGRATULATIONS ON THE ENGLAND CRICKET TEAM THRASHING AUSTRALIA, they've had a wretched tour and it's great to see them get a win at last,

Hal Littlewood

[petercom]

I don't understand why Meridian are not replacing the board under guarantee? All these amps should be self protecting. Unless the problem was due to a fault in the speaker then the amplifier design is at fault if it can't drive the speakers without blowing an output stage.

Anyway, back to the plot. The WD25T has always produced foot tapping, head nodding reactions from those who come here for dems. So I guess its musicality is up there with the HB3s. But, as I said, presentation will be very different. They are also highly transparent to the source, so your amp's character will show through.

For HT of course I would suggest WD25A for centre and rear!

[Cobblers]

Originally Posted by petercom

I
For HT of course I would suggest WD25A for centre and rear!

No immediate need for a sub either!

i've tried them set as large fronts on pre out (telling the amp to send all bass to front channels) driven from the tube amp. With or without the sub for HT they do a really superb job!

[hal55]

Sounds good enough for me! A bit more research to be done yet but these are sounding as though they will suit me fine

Thanks to Peter and Cobblers

Hal