WLM Stella clone

Here is a little project I have been working on over the past few weeks. Its a "clone" of the WLM Stella bookshelf speaker.

It uses the Visaton drivers W130S 5" mid-woofer and TW70 paper cone tweeter.

The tweeter has a fast rolloff below 1.4khz and 4th order acoustic slope can be achieved with just a capacitor. The W130S sounds very smooth and has good bass response for such a small woofer.

Some measurements to come shortly.

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
 
very interesting! I dont much like the look of the tw70 plots though. Ive just finished sim of w130s8 and frs5x, and in the last 2 octaves it looks much flatter than tw70. I am very impressed by the frs5x. Instead of the w130s8 i have mission cp134 and cp168 to mate with the frs5x. Id be interested to see how those tweeters measure in room, since the frs5x performed better than a 9euro speaker should!
 
The TW70 has a few warts but it sounds better to me than measurements would suggest. It might have something to do with the forgiving nature of a paper tweeter?

I’ll take some off-axis measurements to see what happens to the dip at 10k.
 

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That's marvellous, samadhi! :D

I really didn't fancy the Stella with a simple crossover. FWIW, I think WLM use the 170S bass unit, but all is not lost...;)

I found the W130S had some serious issues that needed the full BBC monitor treatment for 7L closed box bookshelf.

I was quite pleased with this modelled result:
 

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Thanks System 7,

The WLM site lists a 5" woofer for the Stella so i'm assuming the W130S is the one. The La Scala uses the larger 8" model. I dont think they have the 170S in their line up, but i could be wrong.

The response of the W130S is a bit ragged (Visaton's plot doesn't tell the whole story) but they sound smooth to my ears, even run full range they are not so offensive despite the bumps and breakup at 6khz. But you are right, they are best served with notch filters and some response shaping.

Its a different kind of speaker I guess, fun and "musical" and there's some magic in that tweeter, especially crossed low. I have a pair of ER18DXT as a reference which I really like, but I enjoy the flavour of these as well.
 
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It does seem that the standmounter approach is the key to getting this to work on first order. :)

I just fiddled about with 30x20 12L reflex (same with closed box), which allows for a much bigger bafflestep coil than the bookshelf which interested me. That seems to get some rolloff on the bass, and reduce the bass breakup rubbish to acceptable levels, especially at 4 and 6 kHz. It's much smoother slightly off-axis too. :cool:

The Zobel is just harmless fun, and not really necessary here of course. ;)
 

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I must say I hadnt simmed the TW70 in Boxsim, but it looks very reasonable, only that rise before LF cutoff bothers me, which is why I hadnt considered it before.

The FRS5X sims a little better, BUT im sure the TW70 has a far greater dynamic capacity, and Im sure the FRS5X would run out of headroom far quicker. I should try and post my plots if not to OT or annoying lol.
 
How does the tweeter sound, samadhi? Like a soft dome? I couldn't help noticing that keeping all the drivers paper seems to produce a nice synergy on some of the resonances. Interesting. :)

mondogenerator's FRSX 2" fullranger does look extremely useful as a tweeter/midrange with the W130S bass/mid. This nice overlap seemed to me to be saying series crossover! ;)

Visaton - Lautsprecher und Zubehör, Loudspeakers and Accessories
Visaton - Lautsprecher und Zubehör, Loudspeakers and Accessories

It SIMS VERY nicely on second order. I've done a tiny bookshelf 7L + 1L closed box here, but you can do reflex with bigger bafflestep coils. Notice I've used the W130S 0.6mH voicecoil inductance as a component to make up to 1mH total, and given the tweeter an 8.2 ohm parallel resistor to keep it happy at Fs since it has high efficiency. :cool:
 

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How does the tweeter sound, samadhi? Like a soft dome? I couldn't help noticing that keeping all the drivers paper seems to produce a nice synergy on some of the resonances. Interesting. :)

Its sounds better than a soft dome to me in the lower treble frequencies, and the sound is cohesive, easy to blend with the woofer without much tweaking of the crossover. Though the upper end is less detailed and fairly directional. A tiny neo tweeter on top might make for an unusal but nice sounding little 3-way.
 
Well, I've got some good news on crossovers, samadhi. The FRS5X8 is slightly superior on directivity due to it's little hard dome at the centre, but actually doesn't sim as well on the simple series crossover here, though it works without component changes. And series is what WLM must be using on the Stella since nothing else works as well! :cool:

Here it is for mounting against a wall. No standmounters from me! But I suspect it'll be VERY GOOD!

FWIW, I found the bigger La Scala worked very well with an AR-SXO crossover. A mere 3 components including the resistor across the bass. But then the W200S is a different animal from the trickier W130S with its horrible 1400Hz peak, which kinda gets cancelled out her in phaseyness.
 

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Well, I've got some good news on crossovers, samadhi. The FRS5X8 is slightly superior on directivity
If, as I suspect, you mean that it is wide up to a higher frequency then I might throw my 2c in to the other ring. A narrowing dispersion will help with clarity, with the tradeoff being a narrow sweet spot. To me this is the benefit of using a cone tweeter.
 
Here is a little project I have been working on over the past few weeks. Its a "clone" of the WLM Stella bookshelf speaker.

It uses the Visaton drivers W130S 5" mid-woofer and TW70 paper cone tweeter.

The tweeter has a fast rolloff below 1.4khz and 4th order acoustic slope can be achieved with just a capacitor. The W130S sounds very smooth and has good bass response for such a small woofer.

Some measurements to come shortly.


Good approach for a good sounded loudspeaker and cheap to build loudspeaker at the same time.
Here a small listening report in German from a similar version:
http://www.lautsprechershop.de/index_hifi_de.htm?http://www.lautsprechershop.de/hifi/ct246.htm
I don't understand this term:
It uses the Visaton drivers W130S 5" mid-woofer and TW70 paper cone tweeter.
Mean you the genuine device or the clone ?

In this case this threads could be of interest:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/mult...eeter-overview-without-ferrofluid-wanted.html
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/40548-does-anyone-know-good-paper-tweeter.html
 
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Having modelled the WLM clones in Boxsim, I can add that the Visaton 4" W100S and 6" W170S bass drivers are far easier than the W130S and W200S.

They don't have the peaks in frequency response that the WLM choices give when you filter them. A simple 2nd order bass, third order treble and padding for level on the TW70 just works nicely.

That's where I would go on a smallish speaker in this style. :)