Royd RR3

Spirit

Sorry - I posted this in the "Blog" section in error. Hey, I'm new!

Good evening.

I am thrilled to have stumbled onto this site.

I am a brand mew member.

I live in Toronto Canada.

I am also a very frustrated puppy!

I own a pair of - drum roll please - Royd RR3, for about 5 or 6 years.

I had bought them used and without auditioning them.  Why did I do this? Because I

have owned a pair of Royd Edens for about 20 years or longer and I still have them and I love them.

Unfortunately, I really do NOT like the RR3s.

Try as I might they just do not do anything for me.

They have been sitting uplugged in a corner for at least 4 or 5 years and only tonight did I decide to try them again.

Now, I have to admit I am not educated enough to know if I am doing something wrong but they are just not very "musical" at all.

I am using the following front end:

Exposure XVII Preamp and XVIII Power amp (non super) with Exposure speaker cables.

Internally, the wire connecting the 2 sets of binding posts have been snipped and I am using jumpers on the outside posts.

If one of you Royd experts would like to comment as to how I can get happier I would very much appreciate it.

Otherwise, I will probably have to sell them.

-

Docfoster

Spirit, welcome!
Sounds like you're hoping to get more from your Royds. I'm sure one of the fellas will be along presently....

Alan

Hi Spirit, welcome to you. Good to Canadia represented on 'Chews...

There are no Royd experts here, just a few enthusiastic amateurs. Being one myself, I am puzzled by your experience only because it doesn't match my own. Received wisdom is that Exposure & Royd work really well together, and I have no reason to doubt that.

I also have the internal jumpers cut, that shouldn't affect anything. I suppose the RR3 may not work well in your room, it could be as simple as that. Just use other speakers in that case.

I have found they are very power hungry, I don't know your particular amp but my RR3 made NVA 40 watt monoblocks clip on vocal peaks. They are ruthlessly revealing monitors, source, amp, cables, but that shouldn't render them unlistenable by any stretch, especially if Edens work well in your setup.

The worst case scenario is that you have a duff set, either from the factory, or a bodged repair. A large reservation I have about Royds, Spicas and other 'finessed' speakers is how easily ruined they are. Royds, for example, have an unusual crossover (so I am led to believe), which works in concert with a doped mid-bass driver (which is itself further customized). Replacing crossover components, repairing driver surrounds, or whatever, could have a deletrious affect on the whole package. Joe Ackroyd worked hard on preserving phase and critical damping all frequencies evenly, this work can be fluffed up even by messing even with just the internal wadding. Of course, this wouldn't matter so much on other speakers.

My advice at this point is to try a more powerful amplifier, if it doesn't help then sell the RR3s on (but with a demo, just to be sure the new owner is happy with them).

Yomanze

That Exposure amp is no slouch with 75 "British" Watts per channel & has a huge power supply.  Equivalent to a Naim NAP200 really...  However, if the Eden is anything like the Sapphire MK1s that I own then they'll be more "upfront" and "immediate" than the RR3s.  Maybe it's that quality of the Edens that you like the most about them?

You could try the recommending speaker positioning if you haven't already, which is as far apart as possible with minimal toe-in.  Also, what sources are you using?  The RR3s are much more sensitive to this sort of thing than the other Royds I own.

In any case, should you want to sell them, they'll fly on eBay!

uglymusic

Welcome Spirit

I would have thought the RR3s would have worked very well with the Exposures. I used to be an 'RR3s need a big amp' man, but I now run mine with a 12 wpc single-ended class A amp and they sound gorgeous! I think it's finding the right amp, rather than just raw grunt.

I wonder if bridging the terminals rather than reinstating the internal links is upsetting something? Can you try that?

Yomanze

SE class A is a bit different though as even low wattages can have tremendous real world power.  I would think that Exposure a good match too, but there's no denying how different Edens will be to the RR3s.

Alan

+1, to everything my esteemed colleagues have said... My RR3s are running quite satisfyingly on 10 watts of SECA power this very minute.

It is a puzzler this, I still think that maybe they don't like your room (they are far, far closer to 'full range' than other Royds). I just hope they aren't duff ones! I hope you find a solution somehow!