Peerless pipes

[Bylie]

Hey,

After reading BrianGT's comment on the Peerless pipes :

I heard them at the DIY2002 Atlanta event, and they were one of the best sounding speakers at the event. The only fault was that the tweeter was a bit harsh, but the bass was there quite nicely, and it was pretty flat. The series crossover that he uses works quite nicely.

I've decided to go for the Peerless pipes as my new project. I've been looking at the HDS182 as a replacement for the CSX176 but, after doing some research, I don't think the higher price is justified. The speakers are basically the same but the HDS costs about 40% more .
Bob Brines told me the same thing about the tweeter, that it gets harsh sounding when pushed to higher spl's. He suggested the Seas 27TFFC is a better alternative for the Peerless WA10. But would this be a dropin solution or would it require quite some redesign from the crossover and the baffleplacement?

I've also been looking at the Scan speak events which is also a TL design, but the much higher cost is just redicoulous. For example : the Peerless pipes will cost me 200€/$ for all the speakers while the Scan speak events would cost me 550€/$ for all the speakers. Maybe they sound a tad better but it's just to much to for me to enjoy DIY, this also gives me a bit more money to play with for the crossover components.

Anyway , I'll begin building the speakers in about 2 to 3 months (don't have the time atm: work, website building, moving in to a new home ). But I'm glad that I still have some time to think things over and I hope that, this way, I'll do things right from the start.

Feel free to give any advice or tips. I'm a novice and can use it .
When I start building I'll give you guys a complete review on them including the "much wanted" construction pics .

[kelticwizard]

We went through a whole thread on the difference between the HDS and the CSX lines. Basically, there is little. The HDS line has a slight flattening to the roundness of the basket, as if it were going into an array.

The main difference is that the HDS has a cast frame, the CSX has not. Hence, the extra price.

I used to work in a forging factory, and after seeing the utterly immense pressure necessary for those big dies to stamp steel, I am convinced that a well-designed stamped frame can be every bit as strong as a speaker could possibly need.

Still, a cast frame costs extra, so it is unlikely a speaker manufacturer who goes through the effort and expense to use cast frames is going to skimp on other aspects of the design. Of course, Peerless has a reputation that does not rely on cast frames.

The choice is yours.

[Bylie]

Hey Kelticwizard,

I know we went through it, and that thread led me back to the CSX176. I thought the HDS182 was somehow significant better than it's nephew, but when searching on the internet I found that most like the HDS but some also dislike them.
I've read the page about "HDS pain" and I also got an email from somebody who also found them "dark souding", uninvolving and not so good for rockmusic etc.

These reasons were enough for me to steer away from the HDS.

[Doug]

Do you have a link for the Peerless Pipes?

Thanks;

Doug

[Bylie]

Link to Bob Brines homepage where you can find the Peerless pipe design :
http://www.geocities.com/rbrines1/

[BrianGT]

Originally posted by Bylie
I've decided to go for the Peerless pipes as my new project. I've been looking at the HDS182 as a replacement for the CSX176 but, after doing some research, I don't think the higher price is justified. The speakers are basically the same but the HDS costs about 40% more .
Bob Brines told me the same thing about the tweeter, that it gets harsh sounding when pushed to higher spl's. He suggested the Seas 27TFFC is a better alternative for the Peerless WA10. But would this be a dropin solution or would it require quite some redesign from the crossover and the baffleplacement?

Anyway , I'll begin building the speakers in about 2 to 3 months (don't have the time atm: work, website building, moving in to a new home ). But I'm glad that I still have some time to think things over and I hope that, this way, I'll do things right from the start.

The price of this project is great. I was thinking of modifying it with a better tweeter, but I want to build it with the same components first and give it another listen. One thing about the DIY2002 event was that it was quite a large room, and we had the speaker turned up quite loud. I have heard that they don't sound nearly as loud at lower volumes.

Of all the tweeters that I have listened to, I liked the Seas Millennium tweeter the best that I used in my Seas Thor TL speakers. A pretty close second was the Scanspeak 9500 tweeter. I have heard this one a couple of times, and I like it almost as much as the Seas one, and it is half the cost. I was very close to choosing this instead of the Peerless tweeter, then I realized that it would add an extra $132 to the project... ($84 each compared to $18). The mounting for the SS9500 tweeter is just a little big bigger, so I figure that I can fit it in later if I change my mind.

I cut all the wood for this project today. It took a couple of hours after planning. I made the top, bottom and front double thickness 3/4" mdf for greater rigidity, and also allowing me to do a 1 1/2" roundover without putting the stringers in the corners. I am also using baltic birch plywood for the internal braces for more rigidity.

The mdf is quite heavy, and it will be a bit of a hassle moving around the finished speakers, but they should still weigh less then my Thor TL speakers, which are 3/4" mdf covered in 3/4" solid oak on both sides.

I forgot to bring my camera to my roommate's garage when we were cutting the wood. I will try to take pictures the next time we go to cut wood. It fits together quite nicely.

We also cut the wood for my roommate'sMJK's ML TQWT FE-164 based speakers, and it was quite a challenge getting the large non-rectangular pieces cut and organized to work together. We are doing double sides on this project also, in order to make it more solid, and allow for a 1 1/2" roundover. It took us 3 hours to cut the wood for this project, including the time planning the cuts, and trying to remember geometry lessons from long ago to calculate the angle to cut the side panels.

Good luck with your project. I will post pictures to my gallery ( http://brian.darg.net/audio ), once I take them. I am still awaiting my biscuit cutter (plate joiner). I ordered it from amazon at the end of december, and it has been delayed 3 times, so I cancelled it and will get from another vendor next week, then I can begin assembly hopefully soon

--
Brian

[Bylie]

I wonder if it's possible to make any improvements to the original design?
Bare with me for a moment :

According to everything I've heard the Peerless pipes put out a very beautiful and natural bass because of it's TL design.
The thing that most people "dislike" about them is the harshness of the tweeters when pushing them to higher spl's. Another thing that might be a problem is the clarity of the mids when pushed to higher spl's because of the 2-way concept.

Ok so now we have 2 points that could be improved while still being faithfull to the original design of a TL. First of all the harshness of the tweeters could be taken care off simply by replacing it with a better one.
The clarity of the mids might get a prob when demanding bass and mid response of a single driver. Maybe this could be overcome by making it a 2.5-way or a 3-way? For example I could use another CSX176 to make a 2.5-way or I could use a CSX145 to make it a 3-way. Should "improvements" like this be possible and would they be a real improvement or would they do more harm than good? I can imagine that the filter would be more complex which means : more room for errors.

Oh well just a thought.

[BrianGT]

Originally posted by Bylie
I wonder if it's possible to make any improvements to the original design?
Bare with me for a moment :

According to everything I've heard the Peerless pipes put out a very beautiful and natural bass because of it's TL design.
The thing that most people "dislike" about them is the harshness of the tweeters when pushing them to higher spl's. Another thing that might be a problem is the clarity of the mids when pushed to higher spl's because of the 2-way concept.

Ok so now we have 2 points that could be improved while still being faithfull to the original design of a TL. First of all the harshness of the tweeters could be taken care off simply by replacing it with a better one.
The clarity of the mids might get a prob when demanding bass and mid response of a single driver. Maybe this could be overcome by making it a 2.5-way or a 3-way? For example I could use another CSX176 to make a 2.5-way or I could use a CSX145 to make it a 3-way. Should "improvements" like this be possible and would they be a real improvement or would they do more harm than good? I can imagine that the filter would be more complex which means : more room for errors.

Oh well just a thought.

It isn't too hard to just start from scratch with MJK's mathcad sheets, which Bob used to model the Peerless Pipes. If the bass driver is changed for this design, the TL should be redesigned. If only the tweeter is swapped, then just the crossover needs to be changed.

I have played around with mathcad with the worksheets ( from www.quarter-wave.com ) and haven't found a driver that I like, that would also be good in a similarly sized TL. I was thinking of making a 2 way with the seas drivers, maybe the L18RNXP and the SS 9300/9500 tweeter. The response of the seas woofer is a bit jagged, and I never had time to look for a different one.

If you are modeling a TL, just start with Bob's design and go for the same settings and see how it works, then swap out drivers and change the parameters to get the best response. Bob has some good information on using the sheets on his website:
http://www.geocities.com/rbrines1

--
Brian

[MJK]

Hi Brian,

We also cut the wood for my roommate'sMJK's ML TQWT FE-164 based speakers, and it was quite a challenge getting the large non-rectangular pieces cut and organized to work together. We are doing double sides on this project also, in order to make it more solid, and allow for a 1 1/2" roundover. It took us 3 hours to cut the wood for this project, including the time planning the cuts, and trying to remember geometry lessons from long ago to calculate the angle to cut the side panels.

Three hours is not so bad, I bet I worked on those cuts for a week.

I have recently added a gallery to my site for speakers people build based on one of my designs or their own design using my MathCad worksheets. When you finish the ML TQWT's I would love to include them in this gallery.

If anybody has built a quarter wave design using my MathCad worksheets, and would like to see their project in this gallery, please feel free to send along a "jpeg" image and I will add it. I would also be happy to include your e-mail or website along with the picture.

Thanks in advance,

[BrianGT]

Originally posted by MJK
Hi Brian,

Three hours is not so bad, I bet I worked on those cuts for a week.

I have recently added a gallery to my site for speakers people build based on one of my designs or their own design using my MathCad worksheets. When you finish the ML TQWT's I would love to include them in this gallery.

If anybody has built a quarter wave design using my MathCad worksheets, and would like to see their project in this gallery, please feel free to send along a "jpeg" image and I will add it. I would also be happy to include your e-mail or website along with the picture.

Thanks in advance,

Well, we had 2 of us to do the cuts and planning. I will let you know when I get done building it. I will post all the pictures in my gallery of my construction progress and finished speakers, as I progress through this project.

As for cutting the wood, I had to fit all the wood for this project in the back of my Honda civic hatchback... We went to home depot in the morning and bought 1 - 4'x8' sheet and 8 - 1'x8' sheet. We had home depot cut all the pieces down to 64" so that they would fit in the car, and cut the 64"x4' piece in half. It all fit in my car. Cutting wasn't too hard with two of us to guide the wood. I will try to take some pictures of how the pieces that we cut, dryfit it all together when I have a chance. One thing that you might want to add to the drawing is the angle of the side piece. I calculated it to 11.36 degrees ( acos(60/61.2) * 180/pi ). We set the table saw to as close as possible and did a test cut and measured it to 11.4 degress. We cut the required pieces to this angle, and it works perfectly. As for cutting the diagonal side on the front and back, we just cut it to about 3/4" over with a table saw, and once the side is glued to it, a trimbit on the router will make this edge nice and flush, and another side piece will be glued covering the entire 11.5" edge.

Thanks for making your project available to others! I can't wait to finish and listen to it.

--
Brian