Janszen Valentina A8 Owner'S Manual Download Page 1

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2/11/2020

Valentina A8

Active Electrostatic Hybrid Loudspeaker

WNER

’

ANUAL

Summary of Contents for Valentina A8

Page 1: ...2 11 2020 Valentina A8 Active Electrostatic Hybrid Loudspeaker OWNER S MANUAL ...

Page 2: ...ina A8 Owner s Manual 2020 Janszen Loudspeaker Ltd 480 Trade Road Columbus Ohio 43204 USA Phone 1 614 448 1811 email support janszenloudspeaker com This Owner s Guide is available in printed form upon request ...

Page 3: ...N 1 WELCOME 5 UNPACKING 6 MOVING 8 CLEANING 9 QUICK START 10 REMOTE CONTROL 12 SETUP 15 CONNECTING AND POWERING 24 AIRLAYER 26 BACKWARD TILT 28 SETUP DETAILS 33 FUSE REPLACEMENT 36 SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES 37 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 42 TROUBLESHOOTING 47 WARRANTY 49 ...

Page 4: ... SPEAKERS THERE ARE NO USER SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE REFER SERVICING TO QUALIFIED PERSONNEL WARNING CHANGES OR MODIFICATIONS TO THESE SPEAKERS NOT AUTHORIZED BY JANSZEN LOUDSPEAKER LTD MAY INVALIDATE REGULATORY COMPLIANCE AND THUS RENDER THE SPEAKERS UNSUITABLE FOR HOME USE THIS INCLUDES KEEPING THE GRILLS INTACT WARNING JANSZEN SHALL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY PHYSICAL DAMAGES OR INJURY THAT OCCU...

Page 5: ...s of heat or flames such as fireplaces propane heaters stoves etc 8 Particulates Smoke from tobacco or cooking aerosol or splattered grease from cooking and air pollution over a long period of time can have a deleterious effect on any speakers including these In particular avoid spraying anything anywhere near the speakers 9 Power cords and interconnecting cables As with any power cords or cables ...

Page 6: ...ay or so of listening to loud music you have damaged your ears perhaps slightly but permanently It is also possible to damage your ears even without hearing ringing It is important to know No one notices the usual bits of hearing loss right away after each overexposure It adds up over time If you don t avoid exposure to loud sound then at a relatively young age music will sound dull or certain not...

Page 7: ... I O N 4 work as sound level meters and spectrum analyzers although they will probably miss the high frequency extremes due to microphone quality Follow the instructions for the device or app to make sure your readings are valid ...

Page 8: ...dvanced materials and techniques and are ready to bring you consistent unwavering performance for decades to come Please feel free to keep in touch with us letting us know anything you d like to tell us about your listening experiences or about great source gear or music that you have found suit you and the speakers particularly well We re also here to help with any setup challenges or other quest...

Page 9: ...th packages of spikes If you have ordered cables from us those will also be packed in the first carton Unpacking The following steps will get your new speakers out of their cartons and onto your floor without mishap 1 Move the carton marked 1 of 2 onto a carpeted area or lay a blanket bath towel or other soft material down onto the floor to use as an unpacking surface 2 Set the carton on its long ...

Page 10: ...t the bag in transit Feet If the speakers were fitted with rubber feet and you wish to switch over to carpet spikes 1 Lay the speaker onto its face on a carpeted or other soft surface 2 Using a 3 Philips screwdriver remove the screws holding the feet in place 3 Locate the studs in the package of spikes 4 Screw the studs into the inserts in the speaker base The studs have a slot at one end to facil...

Page 11: ...Lift using your knees Do not strain your back by lifting with your back 5 To get through doorways rotate the speaker onto your hip or up onto the hand that is grasping the foot Small movements When fitted with rubber feet the easiest way to move the speakers by small amounts is to tilt it onto two feet and walk it along by rocking it back and forth onto one foot at a time while rotating it on one ...

Page 12: ...n a soft cloth with your solvent or solution of choice and wipe gently with that Any aerosol that gets into or through the grills can cause electrostatic panel failure Grill cloth The grill cloth can be vacuumed directly with a brush attachment Warnings Do not spray anything near the grills Any sort of cleaner or water mist can cause electrostatic panel failure if it gets through the grill cloth T...

Page 13: ...t in biamplification and signal processing and the low mass woofers The amplifier unit is mounted to the inside of the black heat sinking plate at the back of the speaker enclosure The inputs and signal processing circuitry are mounted to the input output panel below the amplifier plate T ...

Page 14: ...peaker This will allow the remote control to affect both speakers The digital RCA cable must be connected at all times for the speakers to operate correctly Connect the power cords Insert the battery into the remote control Connect a source to one of the inputs Digital sources are connected to the right speaker and only the right speaker Analog sources are connected as usual one left and one right...

Page 15: ...ive enough to allow operation at odd angles but normally the remote has to be aimed right at the upper inboard side of the right speaker baffle to function reliably The remote can control all the speaker s main functions on standby mute volume preset and input The remote itself like most of the electronics is a product of Hypex which we modify only slightly Battery CR2023 3V Lithium button cell Pr...

Page 16: ...y 2 Volume up 3 Volume down 4 Previous input 5 Next input 6 Mute 7 Preset 1 8 Preset 2 9 Preset 3 10 Currently unassigned but hopefully a future firmware update will make this button Set auto detect 11 Superfluous all functions are immediate ...

Page 17: ...n Unit is on Green flashes once IR command received Green red random flashing Output clipping Green blinking slowly Output muted or input awaiting signal Steady red Fault condition or DC error Red blinking 1x sec High temperature output limited Red blinking 2x sec Over temperature output off Off Standby On early shipments a steady red indicator also meant standby and the indicator was never off ...

Page 18: ...as you take less than about 15 seconds to change media or select a track the sound will start playing immediately Its disadvantage is that if there s been no signal for more than about 15 seconds the sound will be muted for a second or two after the signal is first applied In that case this delay will cut off the first couple of seconds of the music This happens because after having no signal for ...

Page 19: ... jack that can be used as a feed through for daisy chaining to another piece of equipment or to another speaker The input impedance is quite high 44 kΩ balanced 54 kΩ single ended so the speaker s input will not significantly load down a line that s daisy chained to something else Please ignore the fact that one RCA jack s core is red and the other s is white The two jacks are connected together a...

Page 20: ... digital RCA cable must always interconnect the two speakers from the right speaker s digital S PDIF RCA output to the left speaker s digital input 3 If you special ordered your speakers with the left right roles reversed then reverse all handed instructions e g left and right And don t forget to keep the speakers interconnected with a digital RCA cable RCA coax S PDIF The yellow cored RCA jacks a...

Page 21: ...If you d like to drive the speakers by a wired connection from an iPhone there are adapter cables that convert Apple s Lightning output to HDMI Such cables can then be connected to an HDMI to S PDIF adapter as just above USB If you d like to connect the speakers to a computer that has only USB connectivity for audio you can obtain a USB to S PDIF converter for that purpose High resolution files wi...

Page 22: ...pressed the green indicator on the right speaker baffle will flash once and by the time it s done flashing your speakers should be done switching over to the newly selected preset The standard presets comprise three levels of bass reinforcement to complement the room size and wall proximity The depth of bass extension is reduced for higher degrees of bass boost to prevent risk of excessive woofer ...

Page 23: ...oax input and then you switch to another preset you ll find that whichever input had been most recently selected for the new preset will become active If it s the same input you were just using then you ll only hear a change in bass prominence If it s a different input there will be no sound Selection order When using the remote control s right arrow for input selection the inputs become active in...

Page 24: ...rd when so arranged The speaker with the even serial number should be placed to the right and the odd to the left The the side tweeter should be aimed outward namely toward each near side wall and not toward the center Arrange into an equilateral triangle setup that is an equal distance between the speakers and each other and between each speaker and you Of course some will prefer or be practicall...

Page 25: ...ps Too much bass Try a lower preset or moving the speakers away from walls and particularly out of corners Not enough bass Try a higher preset or moving them closer to walls or corners or changing the preset to a higher number Lumpy bass o Try making the side to side position asymmetrical e g moving the pair together off center In extreme cases such as square rooms adding wide bandwidth bass absor...

Page 26: ...ated at your listening position or shoulder height for pre 2014 models and watch for a reflection halfway up the speakers from the baffle next to the rectangular grillcloth o Affix a laser level to the center of the side of one speaker and make the beam strike a piece of paper suspended at the height mentioned just above When there is too much deep bass and the only solution is to deviate from an ...

Page 27: ...pro audio store or Amazon as you would do with something high priced If your equipment has RCA outputs then you can get perfectly good results using your existing RCA single ended cables Given the relatively short cable runs and small amounts of radio interference in a typical home setup balanced runs offer little or no advantage Digital Since digital cables carry just ones and zeros that is just ...

Page 28: ...m noticeably with each drum hit We supply cords that can carry the current sufficiently well The bias supply circuit is unrelated to the signal path and also has no susceptibility to airborne or power line borne electrical interference There is consequently no benefit to using a special power cord The bias supply and amplifier will work correctly with any mains voltage and if the speakers are move...

Page 29: ...at can be missing from directive speakers such as the Valentina when playing recordings that do not well represent hall ambiance It can also be used when turned up to higher levels to provide treble when standing moving about or listening from another room These tweeters are wired in phase with the sound coming directly from the front of the speaker and the point source sound that reflects from th...

Page 30: ...the side walls are different distances from the speakers or have different types of materials you can adjust the airLayer asymmetrically to match When determining the best settings it s helpful to turn down the electrostatic level all the way to 6 dB and wait a few minutes for the electrostatic output to decline This will make it easier to tell when the side tweeters are balanced i e giving a cent...

Page 31: ...ur usual listening position The speakers are shipped with the angle set for a listening distance of 8 ideal to 12 2 5 to 3 6 meters from each speaker with a nominal ear height of 38 1m Since listening heights and distances vary you might benefit from some experimentation with the angle You can prop the front or rear of the speakers with books tableware whatever until the vertical centers of the sp...

Page 32: ...ed height of the two panels would create a listening window that s only about a 1 2 5 cm tall An angle greater than 6 angle creates too much treble droop on axis The following pages present a series of diagrams showing what happens to the sound at different cabinet tilt settings In the diagrams the red line is the axis of the upper panel the green line is the axis of the lower panel and the yellow...

Page 33: ...onse droop in the top octave but otherwise the curve is pretty flat Because the droop is simply due to aperture effect there is no impact on phase so if you are someone without much hearing sensitivity above 15 kHz there would be little point in further adjustment if the speakers arrived this way which they generally won t because we ship them with a typically ideal amount of front foot elevation ...

Page 34: ...erate feature of the active version s equalization It creates a more natural presentation than an absolutely flat response considering the usual microphone placements when making recordings The passive version rolls up a bit in the treble which is corrected by reducing the toe in Too much tilt The last diagram illustrates what happens when the lower panel is aimed directly at the ears Interference...

Page 35: ...epted as an adequate 3 dB response flatness and the narrow bandwidth smoothness remains impeccable no peakiness While the effect of this degree of tilt will be undetectable to most people just possibly making the speakers sound slightly dark I consider it worth avoiding nonetheless ...

Page 36: ...tive carpet If you are not averse to the appearance of diffusors adding those instead of absorption to that area will help and do so without decreasing air Room Compensation In a moderately lively fairly large room you will probably get the best sound when the speakers are toed in so that they face directly toward you or toward a position a couple of feet behind you This will also give the widest ...

Page 37: ...ass notes to be greatly exaggerated and others to be nearly missing Properly tuned and positioned bass traps are the ultimate solution but no one will blame you if you don t want to bother or will be surprised if you suffer restrictions on décor You can make some headway against these effects with no additional hardware by decreasing the setup symmetry This is done by placing each speaker a differ...

Page 38: ...bly below 100 Hz and certainly below 120 Hz Take note of these frequencies Now set the RTA s signal generator to make a sine wave at the frequency with the tallest hump or if there are two humps closely spaced the average of the two frequencies Carry some items with you that can drop to mark the positions of the anti nodes Walk around the room with your head at about the same height as if you were...

Page 39: ... by liberating the fuse drawer located beneath the power inlet There are two tabs that can be easily piched and pulled outward There s a spare fuse at the front of the drawer along with the working fuse at the back Fuse drawer closed Fuse drawer open ...

Page 40: ...attern Unipolar enclosed cabinet eliminates backwave easy setup compared to other electrostatics Listening area o 20 horizontal dispersion at 15 kHz 6 5 wide at 13 2m wide at 4m 4 wide at 8 1 2m wide at 2 5m o Tight 5 vertical dispersion at 15 kHz o Controlled dispersion uniform frequency response over a known angle rolls off rapidly beyond conserves recorded ambience sharpens the soundstage reduc...

Page 41: ...condary partial crossover on electrostatics o Resistor only 1st order passive at 5 kHz o Limits the upper treble from half the width of ESL panel o Controls dispersion and flattens the electrostatic aperture effect roll up response without an electrical rolloff network Built in equalization o Idealizes the frequency response o Provides three room boundary reinforcement corrections selected with th...

Page 42: ...id temperature and humidity swings o Optimal sonic membrane material Thickness less than 1 15th of a sheet of 20 lb paper lighter than the air it is driving air load exceeds in band mass load Acts as a virtual air driver with force applied evenly over its whole surface no breakup no coloration Properly damped unlike see through electrostatics for most accurate transients No midrange or treble colo...

Page 43: ...o Solid hard maple painted to match cabinet o Choice of high durometer rubber feet or spikes Amplifiers o Two amplifiers in each cabinet one for the woofers and one for the electrostatics and airLayers o Input impedance analog XLR 44 kΩ balanced to ground RCA 54 kΩ o S N ratio 111 dBA Digital input 109 dB Analog input o Power each speaker 1000W RMS maximum o Damping factor 1500 o Distortion 0 001 ...

Page 44: ...materials and finishes used throughout for lifetime durability yet all are recyclable Designed engineered and built in the USA Warranty 5 years on speaker components 2 years on electronics against failures caused by defects in materials or manufacturing Modular construction field repairable 3 8 10 mm thick wool felt above and below electrostatic panels suppresses edge diffraction Appearance option...

Page 45: ... for Hypex Filter Designer In addition to creating presets you can control many functional aspects of the amplifier with this software WARNING JansZen will not be held responsible for and the warranty will not cover damage to the amplifiers signal circuitry or drivers that may have been the result of parameter changes made by way of HFD Any such damage that occurs after obtaining a speaker login p...

Page 46: ... are some general notes about each of those Digital cables Digital RCA coaxial S PDIF It s important to use cables meant for digital signals rather than trying to use audio RCA cables even though they look the same Audio cables are likely to work poorly or not at all This is because digital signals use high frequencies and fast waveform edges that require controlled impedance and transmission line...

Page 47: ...hodium plating Nickel eventually develops hard non conductive oxide and silver requires periodic removal and re insertion to stay clean connectors that you can really yank on hard without pulling them off the wire Don t be shy but if buying from a dealer it would be polite to let them know what you re planning to do to their demo cables or preferably to those you ll pay for if they pass the test f...

Page 48: ... that is Mogami Gold cables They re not cheap but neither are they very expensive Q My source has a volume control that I would prefer to use rather than the speakers own volume control What volume level should I set the speakers to A All the way up Simply keep pressing the button on the remote control until you stop hearing increases in the volume Q Is it better to use the remote volume control i...

Page 49: ...tioner or regenerator with these speakers A No The power supplies in these speakers can adapt instantly to aberrant power line conditions and will filter out line noise as well as anything that could be connected ahead of them Since they can draw up to 600W each an outboard power system will be quite expensive with no benefit Such devices can be beneficial however by supplying clean power to sourc...

Page 50: ...an connect both left and right signals to the right speaker given that there are two input jacks there and in the case of the RCA jacks one is red and the other is white You may thus expect the system will send the left signal over to the left speaker As it happens however this is not the case The digital cable that s required for interconnecting the two speakers carries only digital signals Solut...

Page 51: ...ut selection was made by way of the arrow buttons on the remote control This will hard select the input which isn t matching the current source Solution Press one of the arrow buttons until sound is heard There will be two input settings that produce sound one is auto detect and the other is hard selection of the current input If you want the speakers to auto detect which input has a signal then p...

Page 52: ...JansZen for inspection or inspected on site if this is in accordance with the shipping freight company s policies iv At JansZen s sole discretion the damaged goods may be repaired or replaced 3 Time frame We will make every effort to return the owner s speakers within a four week period This allows a week for the carrier to do its investigation a week in transit each way and a week under repair at...

Page 53: ...eptance for any reason they may be shipped to JansZen at the buyer s cost in their original condition and packing materials If there is no damage traceable to the owner the refund will be in full If there is such damage repair costs will be deducted Shipping damage will be handled in accordance with the carrier s rules and procedures and not affect the refund to the buyer V Entire agreement THE FO...

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