More Veneer in 'Ere

[Ali Tait]

Not being entirely happy with how the Bastanis have sounded since moving into my new place, I came across a pair of IPL Acoustics S5TL online a while back that I fancied trying, having read a lot of good things about them, so decided to have a punt. Very much like how they sound, but less so how they looked-






Cosmetically rather challenged (they look better in the pictures than they did in person), although the cabinets are very solid and well made.

The obvious thing to do then was ask Colin if he'd be willing to re-veneer them, thankfully he was. This is the result-





What a fantastic job he did, I could not be happier. Superb job.

[Ali Tait]

He also did new crossovers, which are in the boxes on the top.

[IslandPink]

Nice !
I always wondered how the 5's would sound - especially because in recent years the driver range has been completely revamped.
I started with the S4tl's back in 2001/2002.

[ed]

shoddy!

[Cressy Snr]

Shoddy indeed!

[Dave the bass]

Giga-shoddy!

[Ali Tait]

Nice !
I always wondered how the 5's would sound - especially because in recent years the driver range has been completely revamped.
I started with the S4tl's back in 2001/2002.

Shame Ivan has retired now, very happy with how these sound at home Mark, bass isn't shy!

[chris661]

Had a listen to one of these in their "before" (the other was acting up - possibly transport-related) and they're not bad at all. I can see why Ali likes them.

Chris

[IslandPink]

Shame Ivan has retired now, very happy with how these sound at home Mark, bass isn't shy!

I just had a look at the website - or rather the front page. I get the impression his retirement was sudden and unplanned.
That is a shame indeed.
I will try to look up the site on Internet Archive, the 10" bass units were interesting, quite low Rms ( high Qms ) if I remember correctly.

( yes - 8.3 Qms.
https://web.archive.org/web/20181123214 ... units_.htm )

[IslandPink]

This was the comment in late June 21 :

IMPORTANT NOTICE , WE ARE NOW CLOSED FROM 03/06/21, AS WE ARE MOVING PREMISES, PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CONTACT US AS OUR CONTACT DETAILS MAY CHANGE,

AS SOON AS WE KNOW FURTHER WE WILL LET YOU KNOW . I AM SO SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE CAUSED.

[Greg]

Re: Retirement.

https://iplacoustics.co.uk/

[Nick]

Did Colin find what the driver problem was?

[Ali Tait]

Nope, still a mystery. A strange one.

Works fine with the new crossovers though.

[Toppsy]

Did Colin find what the driver problem was?

As Ali posted I didn't find the actual fault with the problem speaker. I did some investigations by removing the midrange and tweeter from that speaker and from the OK working speaker and swapping the drivers over. This confirmed there was nothing wrong from both the midrange and tweeter drivers and that the issue was likely a malfunction somewhere within the XO of the acting up speaker - probably a dry joint or broken connection somewhere in the midrange or treble circuit that manifested during transit.

Since we were rebuilding the existing XO'ers into external boxes by replacing the cheapo electrolytic caps with same value Mundorf EVO and EVO oil caps and similarly replacing the ceramic coffin resistors with quality Mills MRA12 types I didn't do any further investigations. The existing XO components were removed from the internal cheese wedge space on the rear of the speakers and I only reused the existing inductors. I did measure the inductors to check these were OK before I rebuilt the filters.

As Ali said they worked perfectly after the rebuild.

EDIT.
I should mention the reason for making the new XO'ers external had nothing to do with the misconception that external XO'ers yield better sonics (we (i.e. me) from experimenting in the past with external and internal XO'ers, this is pure snake oil probably dreamt up by cable makers and the like to sell more wires and pure copper gold plated connectors), but that there was not enough space in the existing wedge shaped compartment within the existing speakers to accommodate the large sized polyprop caps. However, I realise having said this it is rather contraversal to some and I know there are folk out there who are convinced they can hear a sonic improvement removing the XO from inside the speaker box. Me and those party to my experiments couldn't hear any difference. I'll leave it there.

[IslandPink]

I'd tend to agree with you, Colin. Extra connectors are likely to cause more trouble - were you able just to hard-wire from that crossover box, into the cabinet and drivers ?