Stupid Cheap Line Array

[maxmercy]

18Hurts,

Pics? Measurements?

JSS

[Mitch311]

I am actually considering using these guys: Tang Band W3-881SI





Which I can get delivered for $10ea. Which is a thoroughly decent price here in Aus. I have read a few posts saying that the very low xmax is a bit misleading. They have been used in TABAQ builds and run hard at 50Hz with 3-4mm of excursion and performed admirably. High Passed at 90Hz and not needing much power, do you guys think these might work well up to 7-8k Hz?

[njoak]

Originally Posted by opc

Hi Guys,

I just thought I would chime in here since I've built and have been living with a full range line array for the past year and a half.

...

I've attached a few pictures of the finished arrays, and hopefully someday I'll get around to properly documenting these in a proper project thread.

Cheers,
Owen

Owen,

Hope you are still following this thread. I liked the look of your grills! How did you make them, is it fabric wrapped around the whole cabinet?

[wesayso]

Originally Posted by koldby

Mounting from behind is a very good solution with the Vifas.
It looks very neat and clean and it is the best way to avoid reflections and refractions from the baffle.
Sounds like a good solution to make the baffle only out of alu - especially as a sandwich. That could be a very dead mountingplatform for the drivers.
Do not forget to post pictures of the result, though!!!
A freind of my uses 16 of these Vifas in a corner line array much like the Murphy Corner Array in a smallish room and he has compensated them all the way down.
He has used them with 50 Watts and even 25 Watts and sayes that he is not missing anything in the bottom. Actually he is very surprised how well the play bass and how small the movement of the drivers are even when playing loud. Of course you get a helping hand from the room whith corner loaded line arrays.
I havent heard his system yet, though.

Klodby

I haven't even started my build yet... life keeps getting in my way. I was wondering how these speakers hold up after a few weeks, are you still as excited as when you first played them?
I'm planning on starting soon, still not sure about the baffle material though, I'll likely first make the rest and decide later on.

[koldby]

Well I don´t think I have unleashed the full potential yet, but I have also found some limiting factors in the alu-tube enclosure.
I guess the internal volumen is a little too small for the Vifas and at the same time I am playing them in a large room and I like big late romantic symphonic music and big psykadelic rock.
My current setup with a single 18" bag-end type subwoofer dosent quite fill the bill and I am now planning a pair of open baffle , slot loaded a la Forsmann, 3x 10" crossed over @ 200 Hz. This I think will take all the stress and a little boomines around 100Hz out of the vifas.
I also want to experiment with a long ribbon tweeter over 5-8 khz.
My freind with the 16 vifa lines, uses a single tweeter crossed over @ 6 Khz and he claims a liitle more air in the top.

I am using the Audiolense digital x-over and room correction . Higly recomended!

Otherwise I am as enthusiastic about the tonality, the dynamics, the naturalness and the perspective these line sources can put up...!

Good luck with your future development.

Koldby

[wesayso]

First of all, thanks for replying this quick. I should get off my butt and start working!
But you made me wonder about the tweeter... I have thought about mounting a tweeter somewhere in the middle of the array....
My current preference beeing ring radiators it could be a Vifa or Scan Speak ring radiator crossed with a single cap at 6 Khz... maybe even in a little wave guide...

[koldby]

Ringradiator is excatly what my freind is using.
But you can always start up with only the vifas to get an idea of how the line source is sounding. It is very good sounding even without a tweeter. Remember you have to use some sort of EQ to get a flat response anyway.

Koldby

[18Hurts]

It's alive!

I just finished my three-way line arrays, 12 Sony 5" woofers, 20 Aurasound NS3 16 ohm full ranges and 48 Apex Jr. Audax 10mm tweeters. The Q of the sealed box is 0.83 so it blends well with a quick and dirty 10" sub.

The screaming rising response of the NS3 full-ranges have been tamed and I run them at 13 ohms nominal into the 5.6 ohms nominal tweeter lines. They make it out to 12.5 KHz smoothly then start falling in output--close enough for a garage speaker. The F3 of the sealed box is 88Hz which blends well with the 10" sub tuned to 32 Hz and high passed at 80Hz. The arrays don't have a filter since the 1981 Pioneer silver faced receiver does not offer that--it does have an AUX in though! In DIY terms, it now becomes a 3.5 way but since the arrays are another source for bass, it blends better.

Had my sound engineer recording buddy come over, he was obviously not expecting much but heard the sparkle of the highs, the clear vocals of the mids and the smooth response of piano scales as he listened to classical music for around 30 minutes. Since line arrays can't work without DSP, he checked the bass/treble/loudness controls on the old receiver and they were flat at 0dB. He then looked at the inputs of the tape loop for a DSP box--empty. He smiled, gave me the thumbs up and said "You can make a passive line array, just use a pile of TV speakers for wide-band mids--I like these" Just as a parting shot, he mentioned the sub can't keep up with the clarity of the arrays (his way to nag me about building the tapped horn)

Only took 13 months and 3 revisions but they are done. What started as some speakers in the garage to play rock and party music has ended up being preferred for classical and symphonic music because of the clarity/low distortion of the mid range and the huge sound stage. The tremendous SPL helps with the dynamics of classical even with a 45 watt per channel Pioneer. Jimmy Carter was president when that thing was forged.

The lessons I've learned is to cross the tweeter lines at 6KHz and run them as hard as possible to get the output. Keep them packed together close (mine are at 1.4 inches or 35mm C to C) I installed the mids from the back of the bezel firing out with a 3.25 (82mm) C to C. The woofers were done the same way as I used two 1/2" plywood front panels and sandwiched them together. The inner panel has the mid range sealed enclosure attached to it. No problems with front bezel vibration, the 1" (25mm) thick front panel takes care of that and the enclosure for the mids adds stiffness.

It was quite simple to get the mids to work to 6KHz--they screamed with a 10dB rising response by themselves--just keep stacking them to naturally let the array phasing boost the low/mids until even. 20 of them did it, I was surprised. Used a Bessel filter to create a mild bump at 6KHz for smoothing purposes and done.

The enclosure for the full-ranges was too small with a very high Q and a large bump in output in the 200 to 400Hz range. Linkwitz-Riley -6dB filter underlapped to the woofers at 360 woofer/390 mids used the bump to smooth it out. Mr. Barry White on the CD player to test and it blended perfectly...done.

This would be the traditional specs

3-way vertical line array

Freq response 88 - 15KHz +/-3dB
70Hz F6
55Hz F10

Power Handling 250 watts program
Sensitivity 96dB
XO 5" woofer 360Hz 2nd order LR
3" mid 390Hz 2nd order LR
10mm tweeter 6KHz 2nd order Bessel
Box Q 0.828
Size 6'3"H x 13"W x 8"D (1905 x 330 x 200mm)
Weight 102 pounds (46.25 KG)
Nominal impedance 6 ohms

If the garage burned down and I had to build another set of arrays--I'd use 24 Vifas with DSP crossing to bass bins at 150Hz on either side. Throw in a super tweeter at 12KHz and done. Very educational building/rebuilding the 3-way passive arrays 3 times over the past year--but I won't do it again! I'd gladly lose the cool factor of 80 drivers in each box pointing at me, tweeter lines are not something I want to do again.

[wesayso]

Originally Posted by koldby

Ringradiator is excatly what my freind is using.
But you can always start up with only the vifas to get an idea of how the line source is sounding. It is very good sounding even without a tweeter. Remember you have to use some sort of EQ to get a flat response anyway.

Koldby

I'd like to include it in the build so I'd have to save room upfront. If I use a 4" waveguide I guess I could first try the array with 26 holes in the baffle and close up the bottom hole. That way I could create a:
MMMMMMMMMMMMTMMMMMMMMMMMMM (lol) later on...
Did your friend do it passive? I mean the tweeter? The array with 25 vifa's act like one 8 ohm woofer. If I don't filter the top end could I just add a cap and for example a vifa XT25 crossed at ~ 6 Khz?

[wesayso]

Originally Posted by 18Hurts

It's alive!

I just finished my three-way line arrays, 12 Sony 5" woofers, 20 Aurasound NS3 16 ohm full ranges and 48 Apex Jr. Audax 10mm tweeters. The Q of the sealed box is 0.83 so it blends well with a quick and dirty 10" sub.

The screaming rising response of the NS3 full-ranges have been tamed and I run them at 13 ohms nominal into the 5.6 ohms nominal tweeter lines. They make it out to 12.5 KHz smoothly then start falling in output--close enough for a garage speaker. The F3 of the sealed box is 88Hz which blends well with the 10" sub tuned to 32 Hz and high passed at 80Hz. The arrays don't have a filter since the 1981 Pioneer silver faced receiver does not offer that--it does have an AUX in though! In DIY terms, it now becomes a 3.5 way but since the arrays are another source for bass, it blends better.

Had my sound engineer recording buddy come over, he was obviously not expecting much but heard the sparkle of the highs, the clear vocals of the mids and the smooth response of piano scales as he listened to classical music for around 30 minutes. Since line arrays can't work without DSP, he checked the bass/treble/loudness controls on the old receiver and they were flat at 0dB. He then looked at the inputs of the tape loop for a DSP box--empty. He smiled, gave me the thumbs up and said "You can make a passive line array, just use a pile of TV speakers for wide-band mids--I like these" Just as a parting shot, he mentioned the sub can't keep up with the clarity of the arrays (his way to nag me about building the tapped horn)

Only took 13 months and 3 revisions but they are done. What started as some speakers in the garage to play rock and party music has ended up being preferred for classical and symphonic music because of the clarity/low distortion of the mid range and the huge sound stage. The tremendous SPL helps with the dynamics of classical even with a 45 watt per channel Pioneer. Jimmy Carter was president when that thing was forged.

The lessons I've learned is to cross the tweeter lines at 6KHz and run them as hard as possible to get the output. Keep them packed together close (mine are at 1.4 inches or 35mm C to C) I installed the mids from the back of the bezel firing out with a 3.25 (82mm) C to C. The woofers were done the same way as I used two 1/2" plywood front panels and sandwiched them together. The inner panel has the mid range sealed enclosure attached to it. No problems with front bezel vibration, the 1" (25mm) thick front panel takes care of that and the enclosure for the mids adds stiffness.

It was quite simple to get the mids to work to 6KHz--they screamed with a 10dB rising response by themselves--just keep stacking them to naturally let the array phasing boost the low/mids until even. 20 of them did it, I was surprised. Used a Bessel filter to create a mild bump at 6KHz for smoothing purposes and done.

The enclosure for the full-ranges was too small with a very high Q and a large bump in output in the 200 to 400Hz range. Linkwitz-Riley -6dB filter underlapped to the woofers at 360 woofer/390 mids used the bump to smooth it out. Mr. Barry White on the CD player to test and it blended perfectly...done.

This would be the traditional specs

3-way vertical line array

Freq response 88 - 15KHz +/-3dB
70Hz F6
55Hz F10

Power Handling 250 watts program
Sensitivity 96dB
XO 5" woofer 360Hz 2nd order LR
3" mid 390Hz 2nd order LR
10mm tweeter 6KHz 2nd order Bessel
Box Q 0.828
Size 6'3"H x 13"W x 8"D (1905 x 330 x 200mm)
Weight 102 pounds (46.25 KG)
Nominal impedance 6 ohms

If the garage burned down and I had to build another set of arrays--I'd use 24 Vifas with DSP crossing to bass bins at 150Hz on either side. Throw in a super tweeter at 12KHz and done. Very educational building/rebuilding the 3-way passive arrays 3 times over the past year--but I won't do it again! I'd gladly lose the cool factor of 80 drivers in each box pointing at me, tweeter lines are not something I want to do again.

Go back to the garage and get us the pictures .
I'd sure want to see what you ended up with!