Fellow DIYers:
For a few years, I had been deliberating how to build an Orion, but with straighter lines and possibly less expensive drivers. (For some reason, I am uneasy with the SAAB 99 tail on the Orion, and Yes, I know every line and curve has its purpose.) I came up with the following basic shape that has the same hard points (H, W, D, relative driver positions, etc.) as the Orion but is somewhat distorted, although pretty close in the path lengths from front to rear. It also squeezes in two (not perfectly modeled) Peerless 12 inch XLS woofers rather than the 10 inch in the Orion for a not-insignificant 2dB potential bass increase.
In my search for cheaper drivers, I came up with these drivers: Peerless 810921 tweeter ($78) and Peerless mid-woofer 830884 ($75). (Cheaper Peerless plus Orion equals Poorion!) These cost about a third of the price of the awesome SEAS drivers specified in the Orion but are still pretty impressive on paper. The tweeter has 1mm Xmax, and the mid-woofer has a smooth useful response. At Madisound prices that were current several months ago, all the needed drivers cost about $1170 versus the $1833 Madisound package (10% discount) price, which is about $660 less. (Add $100 to the total cost for four 12 inch XLS woofers.)
Other drivers considered were the SEAS 27TBFCG (H1212) tweeter ($43, only 0.5mm Xmax, this is the tweeter actually shown in the model) and SEAS L22RNX/P (H1252) mid-woofer ($92).
At Burning Amp 2008 I discussed my 'findings' with Siegfried Linkwitz, and he said something to the effect that from his experience with the Pluto he has come around to the conclusion that today there are drivers that are 'good enough' for very high performance. Also, at the time he was designing Orion, he searched for currently available money-no-object, state-of-the art drivers and ended up with the SEAS.
I have heard Orion a couple of times, and I do think they are fantastic at any cost and would like to eventually make some. But after I created this model (which still needs much more refinement), I decided instead to get ESLs (ML SL3), so for now I thought I would leave my design and driver findings here on DIYAudio to gestate and possibly inspire others.
Ideas still left to explore:
Separate and isolate the woofer housing from the mid and tweeter housing (which might in effect straddle the woofer housing)
Mold the enclosure from something dense
Tosh
For a few years, I had been deliberating how to build an Orion, but with straighter lines and possibly less expensive drivers. (For some reason, I am uneasy with the SAAB 99 tail on the Orion, and Yes, I know every line and curve has its purpose.) I came up with the following basic shape that has the same hard points (H, W, D, relative driver positions, etc.) as the Orion but is somewhat distorted, although pretty close in the path lengths from front to rear. It also squeezes in two (not perfectly modeled) Peerless 12 inch XLS woofers rather than the 10 inch in the Orion for a not-insignificant 2dB potential bass increase.
In my search for cheaper drivers, I came up with these drivers: Peerless 810921 tweeter ($78) and Peerless mid-woofer 830884 ($75). (Cheaper Peerless plus Orion equals Poorion!) These cost about a third of the price of the awesome SEAS drivers specified in the Orion but are still pretty impressive on paper. The tweeter has 1mm Xmax, and the mid-woofer has a smooth useful response. At Madisound prices that were current several months ago, all the needed drivers cost about $1170 versus the $1833 Madisound package (10% discount) price, which is about $660 less. (Add $100 to the total cost for four 12 inch XLS woofers.)
Other drivers considered were the SEAS 27TBFCG (H1212) tweeter ($43, only 0.5mm Xmax, this is the tweeter actually shown in the model) and SEAS L22RNX/P (H1252) mid-woofer ($92).
At Burning Amp 2008 I discussed my 'findings' with Siegfried Linkwitz, and he said something to the effect that from his experience with the Pluto he has come around to the conclusion that today there are drivers that are 'good enough' for very high performance. Also, at the time he was designing Orion, he searched for currently available money-no-object, state-of-the art drivers and ended up with the SEAS.
I have heard Orion a couple of times, and I do think they are fantastic at any cost and would like to eventually make some. But after I created this model (which still needs much more refinement), I decided instead to get ESLs (ML SL3), so for now I thought I would leave my design and driver findings here on DIYAudio to gestate and possibly inspire others.
Ideas still left to explore:
Separate and isolate the woofer housing from the mid and tweeter housing (which might in effect straddle the woofer housing)
Mold the enclosure from something dense
Tosh
Attachments
Hmmm, well I hope you come back to the design. I've been working on something similar myself, I hope to show in a few months.
One of the things to consider for a mid-driver is whether it can handle the open baffle duty at lower frequencies. The peerless 8" HDS probably would, but most other drivers wouldnt (especially with smaller diameters). I'm using the Visaton B200 (8"), but cross higher because of its lower Xmax.
The SEAS 27TBFCG is a good tweeter choice, and I'll be trying it soon. Zaph's site has other good recommendations. In a couple of recent conversations with SL, he also said to me that there was a point of 'good enough', particularly with driver's nonlinear distortion - something that changed my design priorities some. I'd guess there are a number of equally good tweeters, rated by distortion.
It turns out the possibly the best woofer for OB is the Dayton Audio RS315HF - check out Monte Kay's measurements. Its also a good bit cheaper than the XLS's.
The other major aspect to this sort of a loud speaker is the line level crossover - doing that right, and having lots of measurements is key to this project. The software we have (cheaply) available to us today make that much easier and cheaper than when SL was doing his designs. Its pretty easy to set up the crossover/frequency response/phase correction in the computer, all you need is enough audio outputs and amps!
One of the things to consider for a mid-driver is whether it can handle the open baffle duty at lower frequencies. The peerless 8" HDS probably would, but most other drivers wouldnt (especially with smaller diameters). I'm using the Visaton B200 (8"), but cross higher because of its lower Xmax.
The SEAS 27TBFCG is a good tweeter choice, and I'll be trying it soon. Zaph's site has other good recommendations. In a couple of recent conversations with SL, he also said to me that there was a point of 'good enough', particularly with driver's nonlinear distortion - something that changed my design priorities some. I'd guess there are a number of equally good tweeters, rated by distortion.
It turns out the possibly the best woofer for OB is the Dayton Audio RS315HF - check out Monte Kay's measurements. Its also a good bit cheaper than the XLS's.
The other major aspect to this sort of a loud speaker is the line level crossover - doing that right, and having lots of measurements is key to this project. The software we have (cheaply) available to us today make that much easier and cheaper than when SL was doing his designs. Its pretty easy to set up the crossover/frequency response/phase correction in the computer, all you need is enough audio outputs and amps!
Tosh, I like your idea for magnet mounting the mid driver where the brackets land above corners in the H frame. This should reduce the the woofer vibration imparted to the mid compared with the "official" way of doing it. I am an Orion owner and had thought of this approach after noting the vibration in the top of the H frame around the centre.
Keith
Keith
Hi Tosh, I like your design ! ... did you by any chance compare Orion mid to Pluto mid sounds?
Do you know the Fo, Q, and notch depth of orion midrange? Without a plan I can only guess from the transfer function that it is 400Hz with Q of about 1.4 and depth -8db ?
I like the idea of using L22Rnx, they are available ini aussie for about $150 as compared to $500+ for the W22EX. There are plenty of options for tweeters eg. 27TDFC which is very reasonably priced.
Do you know the Fo, Q, and notch depth of orion midrange? Without a plan I can only guess from the transfer function that it is 400Hz with Q of about 1.4 and depth -8db ?
I like the idea of using L22Rnx, they are available ini aussie for about $150 as compared to $500+ for the W22EX. There are plenty of options for tweeters eg. 27TDFC which is very reasonably priced.
I don't have the knowledge to alter the Orion XO much, so I wanted drivers that might work with it as-is (except for small level adjustments). I also didn't want to deviate from the 8inch mid-woofer size.
Orion crosses the tweeter at 1440Hz, and I actually didn't find any tweeters that could go as low as the Peerless 810921 and had the same 1mm Xmax as the SEAS Millennium. But with two tweeters back to back, the 1mm Xmax may not be as important as the original Orion which had only one tweeter, making the SEAS 27TBFCG (H1212) a possible candidate, although it has a sharper knee at 2k which may have trouble crossing down at 1440Hz.
The SEAS L22RNX/P (H1252) mid-woofer is not flat above 1k so may need extra help in the XO, while the Peerless mid-woofer 830884 keeps going nicely to at least 2k (according to manf curves).
Keith, I also found the magnet mounting location on Orion to be less than ideal if one is trying to avoid vibrations from the woofer H-frame. And if you look from the side, the whole enclosure is just begging to be split apart at the plane of the woofer baffle.
Orion crosses the tweeter at 1440Hz, and I actually didn't find any tweeters that could go as low as the Peerless 810921 and had the same 1mm Xmax as the SEAS Millennium. But with two tweeters back to back, the 1mm Xmax may not be as important as the original Orion which had only one tweeter, making the SEAS 27TBFCG (H1212) a possible candidate, although it has a sharper knee at 2k which may have trouble crossing down at 1440Hz.
The SEAS L22RNX/P (H1252) mid-woofer is not flat above 1k so may need extra help in the XO, while the Peerless mid-woofer 830884 keeps going nicely to at least 2k (according to manf curves).
Keith, I also found the magnet mounting location on Orion to be less than ideal if one is trying to avoid vibrations from the woofer H-frame. And if you look from the side, the whole enclosure is just begging to be split apart at the plane of the woofer baffle.
Attachments
Thanks, Gainphile. I have heard the Pluto, although not with the Pluto+ 10 inch woofers unfortunately (except briefly at BA2008). It is good in the mids, very natural, perhaps better than anything else for the same money, but I think it would be better still with a better tweeter. Have you seen my design for the Plu-Tosh?gainphile said:
Tosh said:
I believe you rarely be able to find drivers which directly replace the drivers(in other words equivalent to Orion's drivers) used in Orion, hence the your X-over/equalizer will be different from Orion.
My suggestion is use a digital x-over, eg DCX2496 costs about US$250 plus $100 for cables, this way you can equalise quite easily, otherwise you need to redesign/mod Orion's equalizer for use in your system. The latter is much more difficult.
Once you are happy with the FR response/phase matching, you can design your own equalizer, at the same time be able to listen to and compare against the digital x-over, if it is superior sell your DCX, easy to resell. You would be able to recover some money.
THis way you can enjoy music along the way.
Cheers.
Gainphile: sorry to use this thread as a personal communications channel, but I can't find an email address for you! I'm in Melbourne, and am interested in hearing your OB speakers. I also have some DACs you may like to hear. Could you please get in touch via email? I'm at jeremy[AT]howard[DOT]name . I've sent you a PM via stereo.net.au with more info. Thanks!
(If anyone else in Melbourne has Plutos, Orions, or nice OB speakers, please drop me a line too!)
(If anyone else in Melbourne has Plutos, Orions, or nice OB speakers, please drop me a line too!)
If you go fully active, then you can open up a lot of possibilities for driver choices. Checkout the new tweeter from SB Acoustics...looks very promising for an OB design and should be able to cross low.
http://zaphaudio.com/tweetermishmash/compare.html
Indeed i'm not nearly as experienced as some of the guys here, but the Aluma-cone RSS315 may have some ringing at it's upper range. I've built a sub using it and the HO version and neither sound any good above 125hz. But on an open baffle, maybe the results are different. I'd stick with paper/poly if it were me. Doing this on the cheap, maybe a pair of Eminence 15" drivers would be the better option. I've seen a dipole/woofer build where the drivers were mounted on an angle, which would allow for a matching top baffle.
Saving some $$$ on the tweeters( with the SB i presume only one would be needed) and the woofers, you could allocate a few more $$$ towards the midrange.
http://zaphaudio.com/tweetermishmash/compare.html
Indeed i'm not nearly as experienced as some of the guys here, but the Aluma-cone RSS315 may have some ringing at it's upper range. I've built a sub using it and the HO version and neither sound any good above 125hz. But on an open baffle, maybe the results are different. I'd stick with paper/poly if it were me. Doing this on the cheap, maybe a pair of Eminence 15" drivers would be the better option. I've seen a dipole/woofer build where the drivers were mounted on an angle, which would allow for a matching top baffle.
Saving some $$$ on the tweeters( with the SB i presume only one would be needed) and the woofers, you could allocate a few more $$$ towards the midrange.
454Casull said:
jp_howard said:Thanks for the link - but I already saw that and there's no-one there in Melbourne. There's someone listed in Perth, but their website and email are both dead, and also Perth is a bit of a long way away - 3,400km...
Try The Official Seeking Orion Auditions Thread...
http://orion.quicksytes.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3
at the Orion Users Group web site.
I heard Gainphile's Pluto-clones yesterday, and I was absolutely blown away! I'll definitely be building these speakers - although I'll try to build the "real thing" rather than clones, just to see what (if any) difference that makes.gainphile said:
The astonishing thing was the imaging - except at very low volumes, the speakers disappeared and just left the sound stage. I've never heard speakers do that before. The bass was weak, but considering the drivers were $50 I think that's forgivable (especially since there was no woofer).
Apparently Zaph is going to post 8" driver tests. This will be exciting. Hopefully L22RNX is one of them
===
April 22, 2009
Testing, 1, 2, 3...
We're going to have a good selection of 8" drivers in this test grouping, enough to probably install a comparison application. We'll have the lowest of low end to highest of high end 8's and a few in between so it should be interesting. Boxes and drivers are starting to pile up and I'm keeping names, items and return addresses in a spreadsheet to not lose track. I'll keep accepting drivers for another week or so.
===
April 22, 2009
Testing, 1, 2, 3...
We're going to have a good selection of 8" drivers in this test grouping, enough to probably install a comparison application. We'll have the lowest of low end to highest of high end 8's and a few in between so it should be interesting. Boxes and drivers are starting to pile up and I'm keeping names, items and return addresses in a spreadsheet to not lose track. I'll keep accepting drivers for another week or so.
Hi Tosh,
As a matter of coincidence, I happen to have chosen the same drivers than you for my dipoles reencarnation. I already have the drivers and the peerless 8" and tweeter are really nice. There is only thing I will study additionally to my previous dipole, and that is a waveguide for the tweeter.
As a matter of coincidence, I happen to have chosen the same drivers than you for my dipoles reencarnation. I already have the drivers and the peerless 8" and tweeter are really nice. There is only thing I will study additionally to my previous dipole, and that is a waveguide for the tweeter.
Raka,
Maybe it's not such a coincidence after all: To help with my choices I confess I extrapolated Zaph's 6.5 inch results and applied it to the 8 inch drivers in a manf's series (so I'm looking forward to the new tests). How did you arrive at your choices? Can we keep up to date on your progress somewhere?
Maybe it's not such a coincidence after all: To help with my choices I confess I extrapolated Zaph's 6.5 inch results and applied it to the 8 inch drivers in a manf's series (so I'm looking forward to the new tests). How did you arrive at your choices? Can we keep up to date on your progress somewhere?
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