Anyone in the Seattle area build the Zaph Audio L18/27TBFCG project?

[owdi]

I'm nearing completion of my Vifa XG18 + Seas 27TBFC/G project, and I really don't like how it's turned out so far. It measures great, but does not appeal to my ears. I don't know why, but I'm tired of tweaking, and am ready to scrap it.

I want to build the Zaph Audio L18 27TBFC/G project, but before I dive in, I would really like to hear it. I live in Bellevue, WA.... is there anyone local who has built this project, and is willing to let me listen to it?

Dan

[owdi]

Unfortunately nobody replied, but I decided to build the project anyway.... with a few upgrades.

I'm using a 1.9" flared port instead of a 1.5" port.
I'm using a 16 awg Erse Super Q coil inductor instead of the 18 awg (guess), which has around .15 ohms DCR instead of .3 ohms.
Tweeter capacitor will be bypassed with a Dayton film and foil polypropylene cap.

These are minor changes and only added $10 to the price of the project. If anyone is interested in listening to these, I'll have them done in about two weeks.

Dan

[ABS]

So how did they turn out? When I built mine, I had originally tried the lower DCR Erse coils but then later reverted to the higher gauge coils as they were a lot easier to work with AND I feel they sounded better as well. I think I posted about this somewhere on the forum. I am interested in your results too.

Andrew

[owdi]

They are still a work in progress. Let's see...

Tuesday: installed drivers into PE .5 cu. ft. sealed enclosures. Assembled crossover outside of cabinet. Tweaked the notch filter by measuring impedance and unwinding coil until it was centered on the primary resonance peak of the L18.

Wednesday - Friday: Listened. Found some harshness.

Saturday: took some measurements, found second resonance at 8.7khz was 9db louder than the primary 7.1khz resonance. Unwound notch coil until the secondary was only 6db louder.

Sunday: Installed ports, measured tuning freq to be around 41hz. Also measured port resonances at 1khz,-20db and 2khz,-23db (my port is bigger and longer than zaph's, so this lower resonance is expected).

I'm going to listen for another week before changing anything. I need to relax and quit looking for problems. They definitely sound different from my previous XG18 & 27TBFC/G speaker.

Dan

[owdi]

The red line was my first notch filter, and the green line is after I unwound a few turns from the coil. This is an on-axis measurement. Off-axis it drops off very fast. Problem is that when I lay down on my couch, I am on-axis with one of the L18s. I'll probably try moving the speakers around before messing with the notch anymore.



Dan

[LNeilB2]

Wondering where you ended up....

[owdi]

Originally posted by LNeilB2
Wondering where you ended up....

Not much has changed recently, because I haven't had enough time for listening. They seemed a bit edgy at my regular listening position, so I've swapped the Solen 6.8uf series capacitor on the tweeter with a 5.6uf Dayton. That has helped a little, but the real solution is to get my head away from the nearest wall.

I'm really impressed with the low end performance of the Seas L18. Below is a link to video of a 20hz tone near xmax. Subjectively, I heard almost nothing, which means HD was low. There was some port noise, which I will fix by flaring the inside end of the port.

Movie of Seas L18 at around linear xmax

*The L18 did not sound distressed at all at this excursion.

Dan