166es-r in a austin a166 & construction ?

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--In my experience, (and concensus @ the last listening party)
A (good quality, Eddie Vaughn designed) 6C45 spud is great for acoustic small work, but loses it on the dynamics on rock and symphonic pieces.
A 6C45 PP has just enough more power as to not "run out of steam" at normal listening levals.
A 2A3 or EL84 SET provide plenty of power for anything.
A PP ultralinear EL84 can run you out of the room in short order (or produce long-term hearing damage), but has the most detail, and dynamics.
My favorite, warmest, smoothest, what I listen to most, is the Eddie Vaughn designed EF86 - EL84 SET; about 1.5 wpc.
Robert
 
mp9 said:
any progress?

Sorry folks, things got a bit outta control at work... 75hrs/wk... had to set the AutoCAD aside for a while. In any case, the plans are semi- 'complete', that is, the important side view cutaway part is done (as it was the last time I posted!). No dimensions shown yet, and it still needs to be checked against the original plans to verify that the horn profile came out right. This is the part I am not sure of, it doesn't look quite right to me. I emailed the AutoCAD file off to Dave in it's current state. If anyone else wants a copy, let me know. I will continue to plug away at it.

Does anyone out there have the original plans, or is the pdf from Dave's site as close as it gets? I had some trouble reconciling the dimensions in the pdf.

I am thinking that if the price is within reason, I'll have a CNC shop cut the panels for me, since I really don't have the tools or space (apartment dweller) to do the cutting at home. Routed slots in the side panels (like the Madisound BK16 kit) are a nice addition too, taking a lot of the hard work out of lining up the interior angles during assembly. If there are others who would be interested in a set of CNC cut panels, maybe we can pool a few orders.


paba said:
A166 is an option but the specific changes for this driver don't seem well documented..

I think there were 300 pairs sold in North America... so maybe we can take attendance here and if all are willing to pay 20$ via paypal for a proper set of autocad drawings maybe some nice horn developer will put a few hours into this.

mp9 said:

you could count me in.

Ditto that. I would happily chip in $50 towards a 166es-r optimized design, plus as much AutoCAD work as I am able to manage in my spare time (admittedly limited sometimes due to the demands of work). Although I would not presume to impose upon said horn designer, if the pot is sweet enough to make it worth his time... :angel:

BTW - I have finally got set up with SoundEasy. Still wrestling a bit with getting sound input under Windows XP / vmware, but hopefully I'll sort that out soon and capture some accurate measurements of the 166es-r T/S params.
 
frugal-phile™
Joined 2001
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hifiZen said:
I emailed the AutoCAD file off to Dave in it's current state.

I have used that file to create my own (thanx, made it a 10 min job instead of a couple hours) and have added a few dimensions.

Does anyone out there have the original plans, or is the pdf from Dave's site as close as it gets? I had some trouble reconciling the dimensions in the pdf.

Windows ate Ron's originals, what is in the pdfs are all the files i could find gathered together.

I'll have a CNC shop cut the panels for me

I have some input into that from the beta run of Frugel-Horns we did.

dave
 
Naturally I got all interested (and jealous) of the rare and vaunted FE166es-r while reading, and I hope it'll be nirvana for those that have em.

Sorry to sidetrack the thread, but wanted to tell Ron how INCREDIBLE the Austins sound with the non-esr version of the FE166 (Decware modded). The mid-bass transparency is to DIE for and unmatched by anything I've heard.

Just for fun, though, I thought I'd rock out when the wife wasn't home and put on some CSO vinyl of "L'Sacre" at full tilt boogie. The FE166 does have its limits and I found them. There was some buzzing due to overexcursion during really hard core bass drum transients at certain points at higher volume. At least I think that was the reason, as the voice coils aren't scraping and everything seems very nicely centered and sounding terrific, otherwise.

Mostly, though, this is at a level that threatens the health of your hearing. These Austins are a really really special speaker, Ron!

Nice to hear fr ya Dave. Yes, these dudes were worth the wait!

Cheers,
Karl
 
am i reading this correct in thinking that a square deflector in the corner will place the horns at 45º angles to each other and what distance would be to close or to far apart relative to this horn/listening position triangle? also, how compromised would the austin166 be if in a room with sliding closet doors beginning along the side of one of the corner walls?
 
Mostly, though, this is at a level that threatens the health of your hearing.

Please dont do that. The distortion is caused by a lack of loading at a given frequency. I believe i designed ,initially, for around a 94 Db 1 watt/meter for the TL/horn action corner loaded, if this is exceeded then damage to the driver (and hearing) can occur.

I recently had a hearing test, the results were dismal. From around 2Khz to 8 Khz in one ear i had a 24 db loss and near that in the other ear. So ,to me, a rising response speaker would sound better than a flat FR. This is why its so hard to establish a "one size fits all" in audio.

am i reading this correct in thinking that a square deflector in the corner will place the horns at 45º angles to each other and what distance would be to close or to far apart relative to this horn/listening position triangle?

That is a trig question. Add the inverse square law to the length of the leg (distance from the speaker to the listening position) given I1 is established and you have the SPL at the listening position. Then calculate the energy loss at a given frequency, the air pressure ,temperature ect ect. Or say to hell with it and adjust to your personal requirements.

ron
 
REC1 said:
That is a trig question. Add the inverse square law to the length of the leg (distance from the speaker to the listening position) given I1 is established and you have the SPL at the listening position. Then calculate the energy loss at a given frequency, the air pressure ,temperature ect ect. Or say to hell with it and adjust to your personal requirements.

ron



:)
 
...ha ha.
alright let me put this another way, approx. how far apart do the A166's need to be to maintain a stereo image and so they don't potentially cancel each other out?
also that the corner wall is a part of the design, how far from 45º to the corners can they deviate before ruining the resultant front loading action provided by the walls?
 
alright let me put this another way, approx. how far apart do the A166's need to be to maintain a stereo image and so they don't potentially cancel each other out?


1/2 wavelength at the frequency which starts to become directional. Just SWAG of approx 75 Hz (?) lets say 7'.

ron

Some may know the exact frequency, i dont. Now some may give flack on the above and state earphones and such or desktop speakers ect. but to be most effective a minimum of 1/2 lamda. Thats my suggestion.

Let the flame begin.
 
than my WAG calls for a 12'x14'or16' min. listening room for them to perform as designed. unfortunately the larger rooms in my house are out so i'm thinking that'll put me back to the small footprint of the iris/166es-r or another design better suited for a smaller room.
 
Or say to hell with it and adjust to your personal requirements.

Hmm, well that sits pretty well with my mo, Ron!

Actually, I'm not dead certain the transient distortion I've experience is because the speaker itself is unloaded. It could be a defect as it happens on one side only, which WILL be investigated.

Anywho, these Austins are terrific! WORLD class, imo. They play with a sense of authority infrequently heard (in any speaker).

Cheers,
Karl
 
veryoldcat said:
Anywho, these Austins are terrific! WORLD class, imo. They play with a sense of authority infrequently heard (in any speaker).
yes but in getting back to the ?? in my org. post and from what i'm learning here, i don't think i'll be able to set them up as intended. my room would dictate ≤ 25º angle and i'm under the impression they need to be placed in a corner at 45º. please correct me if i'm wrong. during the past week i had described the austins corner loading, last fold, smaller size concept to a engineer friend and she loved it. so by all means veryoldcat let us know when you work out the quirks and to all others please keep the thread alive.
 
Hi mp9,

I hadn't seen your post (b4 posting mine). Sorry for just gushing on in an unhelpful way; I didn't mean it come out like that...

OK; well I can't describe the mathematics of fluid dynamics and what might happen with cancellation from one speaker to the other at a specified distance, and all. You may dismiss my observations if they're of no help, as you consider your own possibilities (ymmv) :~).

The corners of the listening room into which my Austins are loaded are 9'4" apart. The ceiling is pretty low (7 1/2') and lined with sound board tile. They are not quite but almost pointed 45º into the corner. The corner to corner dimension of the room puts the centers of the A166's cones at almost exactly 6' apart.

The image coherence and overall effect is VERY good under these conditions. The fe126/frugelhorns/planet10 modded blh's also sound terrific in these same corners, but not in the same league as the Austins. It was a leap of faith that the Austins would sound so good, here, incidentally.

There are many windows in the room, which hasn't been as much of a drawback as originally imagined. One very helpful feature of the listening area is there is NO wall to the front of the speakers, with the room open to the rest of the house, which (I think) helps mid-bass and low-bass separation and transparence.

Karl
 
MP9,

I found that my Austin's needed to be spaced out from the corner deflector slightly ( 6-12 inches IIRc) to achieve flat response --> there was too much gain from corner loading. With this extra spacing there was less need to maintain a 45 degree angle... IIRC I think 30 was fine for me.

The point is -- Ron's guidelines are ideal to maintain maximum horn lading and maximum gain - generally I find that is not necessary, and not actually preferred, in order to achieve flat response to 40hz.

Sean
 
mp9 said:
...ha ha.
alright let me put this another way, approx. how far apart do the A166's need to be to maintain a stereo image and so they don't potentially cancel each other out?
also that the corner wall is a part of the design, how far from 45º to the corners can they deviate before ruining the resultant front loading action provided by the walls?

I don't know about min/max requirements, but mine are in an 11' x 13' room, a clone of http://www.decware.com/paper36.htm
I've played around with moving the cabinets around, and agree with seanzozo, that you can vary the FR with placement, and that they don't have to be @ 45 degrees to sound good.
What I prefer is using a square box sub sometimes, and either setting the austins on top of them, or substituting the square, downfiring, sub cabs for the square deflector boxes.
Robert
 
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