Hi Pete,
I've just read your thread from a couple of months ago....
I bought a pair of Castle Howard S3's from Geoff at Acoustics in Chester (the older version made in Skipton, prior to the company being taken over by AEG). Having gotten over the excitement of wiring them up to my Cyrus set up, there was a problem with the speakers. I called Geoff and he instantly offered a refund and suggested that the transit could have damaged the drivers (a fair comment). Fortunately, another pair had come into his shop (quite amazinlgy considering how rare these speakers are now!). I sent the initial pair back to him and he sent me out the new pair.
Again, the excitement was too much to bare however, there was once again an issue where-by they just did not sound right.....Geoff at Acoustica was, second time around, fantastic and provided me with the contact details of Mike Laister in York (lovely chap) who was a chief engineer at Castle Acoustics for more than 30 years.
I dropped the Castles off with him at his home a couple of weeks ago, he has 're-collimated' all 4 main drivers and after a discussion with him, he has said the drivers needed 're-alignment so they are parallel with the magnets' - this was the issue which was causing the speakers to sound flat/un-responsive.
Geoff has paid for the work carried out (x4 driver repair - £192) and is a true gentleman who hold's his word. I will be collecting the speakers tomorrow and cannot wait to wire them up!
Ps the speakers sounded the worst of all when playing 'It could be sweet' by Portishead..
Cyrus Hark, Cyrus 7CD, Cyrus 7 Amp, Castle Howard S3's, Linn Bi-wires + War of the Worlds/Pink Floyd/Supertramp/Ravi Shankar/Royksopp/Goldfrapp = Audio heaven!