I visited Frank yesterday for a listening experience. In his living room I heard the setup seen in post 41, last picture. The sound is amazing, the sound stage in all three dimensions is terrific as well as the naturalness of the sound. I could not resist immediately ordering a pair that I will get within the next fourteen days - they are hand made. I intend to copy Franks open baffle with two 15" Monacor, active crossover at 160hz 12db and bi-amplifying as I can see no reason to not start there after hearing his setup.
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Mr. Pass,
Is there a way that I can talk with you in private ? I tried to send you a PM but I can't seem to find that option in DIYaudio forum. Maybe, you can send me your email ? There is something and some ideas that I want to talk with you and ask for your opinions.
Hope to hear back from you soon Mr. Pass!
Thanks,
Tom
Is there a way that I can talk with you in private ? I tried to send you a PM but I can't seem to find that option in DIYaudio forum. Maybe, you can send me your email ? There is something and some ideas that I want to talk with you and ask for your opinions.
Hope to hear back from you soon Mr. Pass!
Thanks,
Tom
hi Frank, i did not. Would you be able to resend those to my email at tommydoan84@gmail.com ? I think my inbox might have some problem.
Thanks,
Tom
Thank you Frank and all that replied and helped me with my first OB speaker project.
Taking everyone's advice and suggestions. I started it all over again with different baffle model, sizes, thickness, center/offset location of FR and I think I finally hit the sweet spot where the SAL driver really comes alive!
The music now flows very naturally, airy and open filling up the whole listening room. The picture below showing a few of my OB iterations, I finally set my ears to the 32'' x 38'' x 1'' 1/2 solid wood thick with H frame sub 18''x18''x16''
A few things that I did to improve the sound quality and it is SIGNIFICANTLY better than I first started out with a project a month or so ago. I don't even need EQ and the super tweeter now for the high notes. The SAL driver sounds good with the entire spectrum of frequency
- Trying out different baffle size, thickness, different type of woods and MDF
- Tilted 10 degree back
- Edging a bit more on the back to let FR driver breathe better
- No EQ for FR driver.
- H frame for subwoofer
- Xover at 350 Hz LR -24 db/oct
- Adjust/tuning the output level of Sub and FR levels independently until they blend with just right amount.
One thing I notice in my experiment, the baffle thickness/size and material does tame quite alot with some of the peaking at the high frequency that I heard earlier with 3/4 in thick plywood baffle.
My plan to further improve my system is is to wait for B5 or B4 analog active crossover to come out to replace the miniDSP 2x4HD. For now i'm happy with my setup. Trying out F4 for Sub and ACA, Aleph J for FR. They both sound amazing and articulate. I have plans to build 300b SET tube amp and KT88 tube amps to try out for OB in the future as well.
Thanks all for the help. The struggle is real but I learn quite a few things along the way and I'm happy again with my hard work! That's all it matters!
Regards,
Tom
Taking everyone's advice and suggestions. I started it all over again with different baffle model, sizes, thickness, center/offset location of FR and I think I finally hit the sweet spot where the SAL driver really comes alive!
The music now flows very naturally, airy and open filling up the whole listening room. The picture below showing a few of my OB iterations, I finally set my ears to the 32'' x 38'' x 1'' 1/2 solid wood thick with H frame sub 18''x18''x16''
A few things that I did to improve the sound quality and it is SIGNIFICANTLY better than I first started out with a project a month or so ago. I don't even need EQ and the super tweeter now for the high notes. The SAL driver sounds good with the entire spectrum of frequency
- Trying out different baffle size, thickness, different type of woods and MDF
- Tilted 10 degree back
- Edging a bit more on the back to let FR driver breathe better
- No EQ for FR driver.
- H frame for subwoofer
- Xover at 350 Hz LR -24 db/oct
- Adjust/tuning the output level of Sub and FR levels independently until they blend with just right amount.
One thing I notice in my experiment, the baffle thickness/size and material does tame quite alot with some of the peaking at the high frequency that I heard earlier with 3/4 in thick plywood baffle.
My plan to further improve my system is is to wait for B5 or B4 analog active crossover to come out to replace the miniDSP 2x4HD. For now i'm happy with my setup. Trying out F4 for Sub and ACA, Aleph J for FR. They both sound amazing and articulate. I have plans to build 300b SET tube amp and KT88 tube amps to try out for OB in the future as well.
Thanks all for the help. The struggle is real but I learn quite a few things along the way and I'm happy again with my hard work! That's all it matters!
Regards,
Tom
Attachments
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My setup
I just finished my setup two days ago. I copied Frank's own current setup, with some modification. I also use two Monacor 15" units, but only one SAL per baffle.
Mine is 150 x 50 x 2.8 cm, made of glued beech for kitchen tables.
The system is a Soekris 1021 DAC, followed by a 12db active filter, 160 Hz, a class D amplifier for the bass units and a tube amp Eryk S (EL 84 tubes in SE) for the SAL's.
There is almost one meter to the wall behind. I use Roon, which makes it easy to make a lift below 50 Hz with the built in DSP.
To put it shortly - the sound is amazing. I find myself listening to well known recordings, because they sound so natural - with a deeper 3D dimension - the baffles seem to disappear, yet as you can see very visible
I just finished my setup two days ago. I copied Frank's own current setup, with some modification. I also use two Monacor 15" units, but only one SAL per baffle.
Mine is 150 x 50 x 2.8 cm, made of glued beech for kitchen tables.
The system is a Soekris 1021 DAC, followed by a 12db active filter, 160 Hz, a class D amplifier for the bass units and a tube amp Eryk S (EL 84 tubes in SE) for the SAL's.
There is almost one meter to the wall behind. I use Roon, which makes it easy to make a lift below 50 Hz with the built in DSP.
To put it shortly - the sound is amazing. I find myself listening to well known recordings, because they sound so natural - with a deeper 3D dimension - the baffles seem to disappear, yet as you can see very visible
Attachments
Did you repeat the acoustic measurements for comparison with the "before" situation?
It would be interesting to learn what caused that large dip at mid/high frequencies in your "before" installation.
As per engineering principle, i should have worked out all the numbers, plots, reasons, comparison before and after but i'm too busy enjoying "music" with every little tweak that I have made to improve the sound. It's addicting!
I have not made any measurements to compare just yet. I was tired of all the measurements, plots, curves after much frustration with the sonic results. Bad sound is bad sound. Plain and simple. There's nothing to make up for what I had experienced before. All will be out of the window if I cannot justify what I heard or experienced at the end. The sound that I listen now is majorly lifted to a large degree compared to a few months ago. The experience is like enjoying hi-fi music through super hi-end headphone. If you put the headphone around your eardrum, you'll hear all the details, depth, dynamic, soundstage of "hi fi" music (this is NOW) v.s. taking the headphone off your head, putting it on the table, cranking up the volume so that you can hear some sound coming off the headphone on the table and try to justify if the sound is good or not (This was my experience in the past)
Needless to say, I will find time to make the same measurement with FR driver to see if the new curve really reflect what I have experienced.
Regards,
-Tom
I have not made any measurements to compare just yet. I was tired of all the measurements, plots, curves after much frustration with the sonic results. Bad sound is bad sound. Plain and simple. There's nothing to make up for what I had experienced before. All will be out of the window if I cannot justify what I heard or experienced at the end. The sound that I listen now is majorly lifted to a large degree compared to a few months ago. The experience is like enjoying hi-fi music through super hi-end headphone. If you put the headphone around your eardrum, you'll hear all the details, depth, dynamic, soundstage of "hi fi" music (this is NOW) v.s. taking the headphone off your head, putting it on the table, cranking up the volume so that you can hear some sound coming off the headphone on the table and try to justify if the sound is good or not (This was my experience in the past)
Needless to say, I will find time to make the same measurement with FR driver to see if the new curve really reflect what I have experienced.
Regards,
-Tom
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Hi Tom,
I am so happy that you solved your issues. It really means a lot to me that customer are happy with the product.
Frank
Hi Henry,
You have been busy
I am glad that you are happy with the result, and may I add that they look nice too. Frank
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Hi Tom,
You are so welcome, I am just glad that you got a good result, and are happy now
.
Monacor-15" driver?
Hi there h: Project looks fabulous. What Monacor 15" drivers did you use? What are the T/S parameters? How would you characterize the bass response? ...regards, Michael
I just finished my setup two days ago. I copied Frank's own current setup, with some modification. I also use two Monacor 15" units, but only one SAL per baffle.
Mine is 150 x 50 x 2.8 cm, made of glued beech for kitchen tables.
The system is a Soekris 1021 DAC, followed by a 12db active filter, 160 Hz, a class D amplifier for the bass units and a tube amp Eryk S (EL 84 tubes in SE) for the SAL's.
There is almost one meter to the wall behind. I use Roon, which makes it easy to make a lift below 50 Hz with the built in DSP.
To put it shortly - the sound is amazing. I find myself listening to well known recordings, because they sound so natural - with a deeper 3D dimension - the baffles seem to disappear, yet as you can see very visible
Hi there h: Project looks fabulous. What Monacor 15" drivers did you use? What are the T/S parameters? How would you characterize the bass response? ...regards, Michael
Thank you for the kind words. With a router they are quite easy to make.
I use the same units as Frank in his setup: Monacor SP-382PA. Fs is 25 hz you find other data here:
MONACOR - Products - SP-382PA
The bass response is in a good way just there. It seems that 160 hz is a sweet spot - with 12db/ octave that said without having tried other options. The Monacors do of course need a lift below 50 hz as a result of the open baffle, I give them 6dB at 30 hz.
This setup gives me such a natural sound - I tend to forget testing and adjusting just for the sake of listening. As an example you should hear Zoë Keating with her cello on this. There are moments however where I get surprised - such as when hearing how much really deep bass they put into new recordings.
I found the Monacors quite cheap in UK - 210 pounds for four
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