NFD - New Floorstanders Day

[ToneMonkey]

Well not quite yet, I have to pick them up.

A while back my Celestions blew themselves up (in the same way that my car crashed itself, I was just holding onto the steering wheel  :lol: ).  After about 6 months of searching, I finally found the speakers that I was after within a reasonable distance, as all the ones on evilbay are either north of Manchester or somewhere near Southampton.

I'm now the proud owner of a pair of TDL RTL 2 floorstanders, sadly in black ash rather than the rosewood which I was after.  Not bad for a bargin £60.

Got a slightly blown pair of Celestion Impact 15 bookshelf speakers here if anyone wants to come and pick them up  (might cost you a pint up the local), only 1 bass driver has gone so could be an easy fix.

Here's what I've just got: http://www.tdl-loudspeakers.co.uk/rtl2.htm

One of my mates has a pair of these in his bedroom and they're awesome speakers.  Jammy git also has 2 pairs of RTL 4's in his front room (with 4 Arcam amps) which is rather loud, but that's a different story.

Hopefully pick them up over the next couple of days, I'm ver exited.

[_tom_]

How much do you reckon the Celestions would cost to fix?

[ToneMonkey]

Not too sure.  They're owned by Kef now so I'm not sure if you can get hold the exact drive unit anymore.  You could probably find some similar though and change them for anything from £10 to a couple of hundred, depends how far you want to go with these things.  They're 6 inch drivers bass/midrange I think.

With the knowledge on these boards, I'm sure someone with a lot more experience will pitch in.  I'm sure you can find teh profile of the sound the drivers produce and match it to something similar.

Here are the little beaties, I love them: 

http://sites.thestar.com.my/audio/story.asp?file=/1996/5/05cel
http://www.audioreview.com/mfr/celestion/floorstanding-speakers/impact-15/PRD_119294_1594crx.aspx

Speakers are yours if you want them.  Suppose I could even drive to Leicester and drop them off.

[Denim n Leather]

Nice score, I've read good things about TDL, but only heard them once at the Home Entertainment Expo here in NYC. I really couldn't get a bead on them in the room they had, however.

I would be surprised if KEF didn't have the replacement woofer available for the Impact 15. Their customer service is very good (I deal with KEF American on a daily basis) and if you email 'em I'm sure you will get a swift reply.

[ToneMonkey]

TDL were really good but I think that both of the directors died within a few months of each other and they were bought out by the people that own Richer Sounds.  Not great now so I hear.

[_tom_]

Those reviews sound pretty good, I'll give KEF an email and see how much it'll cost for the replacements. Then it should just be a case of hooking up spade connectors to the terminals shouldnt it?

I'm not in Leicester at the minute as I've finished uni for the year but could easily drive to yours/the pub :)

[ToneMonkey]

Bloody students, off already  :lol:

[ToneMonkey]

Serial Number is A212220 if it's any help when you call them.

[noodleplugerine]

CAN YOU FEEL THE LOVE! :D

[ToneMonkey]

I'm feeling the love for the new speakers.

Off to pick them up in bit.  Should be back home by 10pm, so time to air them out properly beore the neighbours go to bed  PDT_001

[juansolo]

TDL were really good but I think that both of the directors died within a few months of each other and they were bought out by the people that own Richer Sounds.  Not great now so I hear.

Yup, that's right. RS basically slapped the TDL badge on any old thing after that. But the RTL2/3/4 were all proper TDLs and all stonking speakers. I had a set of 2s and 3s. Proper rock'n'roll speakers. Not the last word in accuracy, but they party well.

[ToneMonkey]

Just hooked them up.  Fuggin lovely.

Anyone want to buy an amp?  Think I might have to upgrade to a bi-wirable one  :lol:

EDIT: The guy I bought them from was a sound engineer..... as was the guy that recomended them.  Say's it all really, it's criminal that you can pick them up for £60 now.

[Denim n Leather]

Bi amp 'em!

[juansolo]

They don't particularly need loads of power, but they like it. They best I head them was on the back of a Quad 606, though this might be a tad excessive. Something like one of the more grunty Marantz integrateds will probably go well with them and you'll be able to pick one up for peanuts.

I used to have a brace of Arcam Delta power amps at the time I had mine and tried them in just about every combination you can think of: integrated on it's own, integrated plus power - bi-amping using the integrated to drive the treble and the power to drive the bass, and finally integrated with the amp stage switched off (using it as a pre) and a stereo power on each speaker - bi-amping each speaker with it's own amp. In all honesty, though there were small improvements with the extra boxes, they weren't really worth the bother. I'd just stick with running some 79 strand to them (I've yet to be able to hear the difference between bi-wiring and a single run).

[juansolo]

Oddly I've just re-discovered decent hi-fi also. I sold up many years ago and just had a home cinema system, then I managed to pick up a pair of NOS Rogers LS2a speakers and it's really started me off again just wanting to sit down and listen to music.