Apogee Centaurs- going active

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A little Added damping can make a Big diff....in my room to day 18'X25'...all I have to do is put two bath towels....in the room an the Minors An Stages pull togather a tighter sound stage....but got be ezey are in a small room the topend can be pulled way down.....but my Ribbons are not new...great info
 
After considerable modding, evaluating etc all in an effort to improve on the stodgy overstuffed bass performance of my long lived Centaurs, I built a new 1.3 cu ft ported cabinet and a new baffle with ribbon faceplate made from solid cherry and rehoused the original drivers. What a difference!
My listening room is fairly small(15' x 13' or so with sloped ceiling) and I have never had success trying to blend a subwoofer into any speaker in this room. Now I don't need one.
The bass is more relaxed, very deep and dynamic with dual Symasym amps located in the original Centaur stands. Now crossing over at 500Hz LR4 with a minidsp. These are again my reference for my speaker building hobby. Over the past couple of years, I have had(and still have them), Royds, Frugalhorns, ZD5, 8" vifa/xt25 waveguide concoction using this same cabinet all in an attempt to build a satisfactory replacement for the Apogees. The waveguide came closest and I am currently building a TMM waveguide using 6.5" peerless nomex woofers with the xt25.
After living with the transparency of the ribbons for 22 years, it may be nigh impossible to find a suitable alternative.
Hi All, would you classify this is a point source or a line source now as the ribbon is not directly under the Bass driver. I currently build a similar speaker to this but the ribbon sits in line with the centre of the bass driver perhaps I should move the ribbon slightly inside to where Peter has put his ribbon? I believe Apogee,s thinking with the point source was to keep the driver away from the floor to not encourage floor reflections. Soul sonic beat speakers have a line source method but the driver is angled substantial upwards.
 
Hi Bill, yes its certainly an interesting question I am going to try and simulate the offset ribbon shortly. I experimented today with the Soul sonic Beat angled bass driver and upright ribbon and can say that it sounds incredible really detailed in the midrange and not smeared by the bass. I know Miro the manufacturer of Soul Sonic speakers has literally built hundreds of speakers and if that is his answer to a 2 way ribbon hybrid you better believe there is valid reason in theory behind this design. I have attached a few images of what the angle I used.
 
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Hi Bill, yes its certainly an interesting question I am going to try and simulate the offset ribbon shortly. I experimented today with the Soul sonic Beat angled bass driver and upright ribbon and can say that it sounds incredible really detailed in the midrange and not smeared by the bass. I know Miro the manufacturer of Soul Sonic speakers has literally built hundreds of speakers and if that is his answer to a 2 way ribbon hybrid you better believe there is valid reason in theory behind this design. I have attached a few images of what the angle I used.
 
Hi Africa
What is the crossover point for the ribbon?
Dose your ribbon move, twist?
Apogee did use a suspension peace for some of there ribbons.
looks vary cool....... thanks for pic....
Hi my ribbons are crossed at 360hz iv got little movement on the ribbons i use a 3rd order xo and I attach my ribbons every 140mm to a soft rubber glued with 3m 90 adhesive. IV built many ribbon prototype,s and this I find works the best. Thanks
 
my gut reaction is that, with the smaller hybrids it is to prevent vertical lobing problems at a 750-1000Hz crossover. If you can get the ribbon down under 500Hz then I suspect it is less of a problem. But all total conjecture
Bill, what's your thoughts on a side firing bass driver crossed at say 350hz as opposed to front firing? Has anybody listened to a Apogee hybrid and a carver AL lll I would have liked to hear the carver to see how the bass and ribbon integrated compared to the Centaur.
 
I sold an owned the Carver AL3 in the 90s...........Bass an ribbon never match!
look vary cool, thankfuly....people lov the look...on paper looket right....but sound wize...Nogo maybe if the AL3s bass was ran with active crossover ....it was the box I think.....look like a 1/2" port....
Apogee Centaur ..... MT/bass were much better match...

Do you fell you lose any output from the ribbon with your 3m attachment of the ribbon?
 
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I have Carver Platinum Oaks with the 60" ribbon, I found bi-amped direct hookup with dsp worked really well, Driverack 482.

PS: as a side note my krell ksa 100 smoked my diva mid ribbons the other nite, wasn't even playing loud, none of my other amps even moved the ribbon at far louder levels,
 
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I have Carver Platinum Oaks with the 60" ribbon, I found bi-amped direct hookup with dsp worked really well, Driverack 482.

PS: as a side note my krell ksa 100 smoked my diva mid ribbons the other nite, wasn't even playing loud, none of my other amps even moved the ribbon at far louder levels,

Al,

More detail on this please. Some sort of malfunction with your Krell amp??

Dave.
 
I think it was the dc offset as it was hooked direct to the mid ribbons, tweet is ok ,protected by passive, dc average was around 60mv at teminals. other amps are below 10mv, only reason I put it on was my Threshold S300 thumps on turn on, can't believe how twisted up they are and sagged out.
Al
 

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