Interesting that his son carried on the work of his father. Somewhat rare in vintage audio...
He did take over the business, well not like handed it over, my understanding is the business was rekindled by David after it was close for a while. David makes his own creations that are vastly different from what his dad made.
His are incorporating DSP and the focus has shifted to a less panel dependanr style system where they also incorporate side super tweeters and other things. Can be passive or come with amps built in and DSP, s basic model will cost several thousand and a full blown with amps will put you over $10K.
I have not heard them but I have emailed David a few times and he's always responded quickly and gave info I needed. I rounded up 28 of the old panels collected from 1959, 1967 and 1971. They were removed from various models including the toppers with 4 panels mounted at 7 (or so) degree angles (c-300 or c-30). Z-400 with 2 panels set into the front panel at 45 degree angles running in a slot with the panels touching inside the hole. I also used 8 - 2.5" x 5" panels removed from Infinitys odd speakers that were never made in mirrored sets. I think there was a error made during the start of production where they forgot to flip the motor board to make them mirrored and never bothered to change them.
I put them all around a 10 monitor audio sub and below I used a 12" woofer from a kappa 7's. They sounded fantastic but looked ugly. Sadly they are victims of a small fire and melted.
I have wire diagrams for the early models power supplies because they were not all the same. Early serial numbers were made different than later ones. The transformers typically have the wires rotted off at the solder joint inside the transformer and can be easily fixed by removing a few wraps of the tape they use to cover the windings. You'll see the paper will have green spots and grey smudges where they were soldered onto the fine winding wires.
I cleaned off 0.25" on the winding wires and tied new output and input wires long enough to run them up and back through the layers of tape as I wrapped them to make sure there's no tension on them.
The other things that go wrong are the ceramic resistors will have readings 10x the spec. Diodes tend to be really old school looking like huge and long. Replace with typical high voltage diodes, since JansZen uses a much lower voltage than others they stayed under 1000 volts , mine varied between 400 and 800 volts. 1000v diodes work fine. I bypassed the crossover on mine and went active with just 2 amps. Both the subs and woofers had excellent flat test results that went far beyond the 600 to 800Hz limit needed to pass off the signal to the panels.
One thing I found through my tests was the best way to hide the timber mismatch in transitioning was to allow an octave of overlap, I found where the panels naturally rolled off and used a simple 6db crossover setting on the woofers ending at 800Hz while the panels naturally had a very hard drop to zero after 600Hz but started at 800Hz.
The overlap was key to the smooth transition and the set up sounded amazing. I've had a difficult time finding the same sound until I found a few sets of Martin Logans for cheap. Modded Aerius with s second woofer and brought them up to a listenable level, they tested great. A set of Prodigy's unexpectedly popped up locally at s steal with one having issues. I repaired it in an afternoon with no money spent.
The Prodigy's we missing something even after repairs , the bass was weak. Bypassing the woofer crossover made them come to life. Both sets of MLs used active crossovers and 2 amps.
This is my first visit here and I'm not sure exactly how to upload pictures. I always try to present a visual of what I'm talking about so others can get a feel of what I'm saying and how it represents what I'm saying for others to gauge for future posts. You may love my ideas or work I've done or you may hate it and want to block me but at least you'll know. I don't like changing things unless I'm sure I can improve it and not spend a fortune to do it.
I will include what I felt was wrong and my mods are pretty straight forward anyone with any cabinet skills should be able to do the same. I'll never promote any products and I'm not affiliated. If I have owned something , I may give my opinion based directly on my personal experience and never anything that a friend owns or did unless it's worth the lesson or funny.
I try to do testing prior and after mods to show the difference and sometimes there's not much gain with first revisions. Not everything can be improved due to physical limitations in dimensions. I've found the shape of a cabinet can limit the Frequency allowed in the lowest frequency more than the internal volume (within limitations) even while hitting spec parameters per driver.
I have tests that suggest this, I wouldn't say it without proof. Although my tests are not conducted in ideal settings the outcome will be simple enough to show without much explanation. I'm not a professional by any means and I do this as an old retired guy who gets bored and owns just enough tools to do what I do.
After reading through a bit on the site I see there's discussion about lots of model numbers that are understood by everyone but me. I live in Peoria Az so my exposure to different things is limited to what's available locally and some research on line. I'm not a huge fan of buying expensive gear without first touching and hearing it, so that limits my availability. I learned not to listen too much to recommendations unless I get an idea who's saying it and we see things the same way.
I've been steared wrong I'm the past but my own fault.
I'll try and post my diy build before and after fire.
I'll keep my fingers crossed that my long post doesn't vanish
This was still in the test phase with no final plan for cabinet yet, it never made it that far before it looked like this.....
The woofers still work, those 2 blue panels were unmelted in both speakers but I have yet to test them. Only 4 didn't melt.
If you made it this far I thank you for reading and I'm including a shot of my last creation so you understand how things I make can look.
