'Vista'

[ShinOBIWAN]

Another project underway, whew thats 3 in one month!

Addictive stuff this DIY business and the simple fact is that the more you do the more you learn. Anybody can do it.

Well after being left in limbo mid build on my XXX subwoofer project, I decided to keep my spare time filled with some thing I've wanted to do for a long time, yes thats right, build a full range speaker or more specifically a 2 way floor standing design.

Like most people I wanted to build something special, something that did things a little differently to the run of the mill DIY stuff and so the 'Vista' was born. I always name my projects since it tends to give them a personality as they develop - call me mad but it just makes sense to me.

I knew what cabinet shape I wanted and the fact that I wanted a 2-way Transmission Line design featuring a HF unit alongside a mid/bass unit. But driver selection was everything but simple with so many designs available. To cut a long story short I choose 2 drive units from the same manufacturer and both with the same nominal impedance or Z, this was done in the hope that it may bring better integration between the two units when designing the crossover.

Heres the two I eventually went for:


The MHT-12 from Visaton is a Ribbon Treble unit and clearly fitted my design ideology of 'special'. It was mainly influenced by a demo of a design featuring the Raven R-1 Ribbon Tweeter and it was simple in another league to anything I have *ever* heard. Beautiful imaging, masses of 'air' and 'space' to the whole sound, very involving - even at low levels and revealing. The MHT is very similar to the Raven and has plenty of acclaim in real hi-end audiophile circles. Not cheap at £130 each but is quality ever?

Heres the ideal partner to the Visaton Ribbon:


The £120(each) TI-100 Mid/Bass unit, again from Visaton. Its only 10cm or 4" in diameter so this clearly isn't going to shake any houses down but then thats were the XXX comes in. With some careful cabinet design and the help of Transmission Line loading, something special - there's that word again , can be achieved.

Well onto the pictures of the cabinet, which features gently contoured sides, I let the pictures speak for themselves and I'll post more as construction progresses.

[ShinOBIWAN]

More pictures of the progress:

Drive units have arrived, both are nice units with a high degree of build, have just done a test fire up with no crossovers in place and all is OK. Even with just this wet test its clear that these are very nice sounding units and I can't wait to hear them combined in cabinet and with the crossovers in place.


Picture of the cabinet from the side


The rear end with copious amounts of filler where the screws have been countersunk, that will be sanded smooth later.


View from the front, note the holes down the sides were the plyboard has been curved, this entire area will be filled with sand to add mass and stop the plyboard resonating with the music.


Thanks to the kind words and there still lots to do not to mention start on the other cabinet

[ShinOBIWAN]

Its now starting to take shape and heres a couple more pictures:

Here you can clearly see the Transmission Line and the internal wadding.


And one with the front baffle in a dry test fixing.

[blank527]

Verrry nice..

Looks like the Topas from visaton

Interesting idea with the sand.

Remco Blankesteijn.

[ShinOBIWAN]

It is the essentially a dressed up version of the Topas. All the internal dimensions are exactly as laid out by Visaton and the crossovers are prebuilt, again by Visaton. The inspiration for the shape of the cabinet is based on designs by Wilson Benesch and B&W. I'd love to own a pair of these two manufacturers top end designs but I'd never spend £5000+ on a pair of speakers, so I've gone and built my own.

I'm new to building full range boxes and didn't fancy making something that was middle of the road because of my inexperience with crossover design and driver selection. I am however no stranger to sub design and joinery in general so I can build a good sturdy box.

Its still a DIY job but I've had all the headaches removed in terms of electronics.

[ShinOBIWAN]

Well I've managed to finish one cabinet, not bad for a weeks or so's work. I'm very pleased with the finished product and the pictures do it no justice whatsoever no thanks to my cheap digital camera. This really does look beautiful in the flesh.



I've put the crossovers into the plinth so as to keep them away from the drivers magnetic fields and resonances, the binding posts are also on there too.


It was a hell of a job lifting 60kg of speaker up into the HT room! Thank god my brother was on hand to help!






When I rigged the speaker up I was astonished at the improvement over my £500 KEF RDM Ones, frankly it made them sound very silly indeed.
I did a little test whereby I rigged the Vista upto the right channel and the RDM One to the left then simply switched back and forth between the two whilst listening.

I cannot begin to describe the total night and day difference. I can tell you that I now realise what I've been missing all this time - a decent and realistic sound stage. The KEF's sound very 'boxy' in comparison to the Vista's and the midrange on the KEF's is unatural and overly bright with no space between the various sounds, it all just seemed mashed together as a wash of sound.

For me the highlight and biggest surprise is the quality of bass from the Vista. Its deep, dynamic and textured, possibly the highest calibre bass (not quantity!) I've ever heard and I'm talking about a design featuring a single 4" mid-bass driver.

I could go on about the amazing treble and midrange which is again the best I've ever heard. So natural and everything just comes to you without you even needing to listen, something I've never experienced before.

One area that is dissappointing is ultimate loudness, to put simply these will never do for a serious HT setup but for moderate volumes they are the business. I like them so much that after I'm finished with the pair I'm making a matching center and surrounds for HT and multichannel duties.

[planet10]

Originally posted by ShinOBIWAN
For me the highlight and biggest surprise is the quality of bass from the Vista. Its deep, dynamic and textured, possibly the highest calibre bass (not quantity!) I've ever heard and I'm talking about a design featuring a single 4" mid-bass driver.

It is always very pleasing when you hear how good the bass can be from such a small bass driver... everytime i go listen to ChrisB's buschorns with the 4" FE103A it strikes me.

dave

[ShinOBIWAN]

Just had to post back here again with some more thoughts after a more serious listening session. Before I go on I should add that I am listening to only one speaker so effectively I'm reviewing in mono.

In the last couple of hours I've been going through all my collection from traditional chinese/Japanese to classical, pop, trance and breakbeat, everything really.

And I've been noticing things that I'd never heard before, even with a few pieces that I'm famaliar with from listening to on a friends system featuring B&W N804's. Tiny things like subtle sound reflections and reverbs that have been recorded at the mixing stage, these were lost before but now I can clearly hear them now. Its also so easy to 'see' the layers in the soundstage now. I good example is the third track from the 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' soundtrack. Basically they make the room seem larger than it is, with sounds comming from beyond the boundaries of the room. One thing that I find really strange is that how does a single speaker create a soundstage but believe me this does.

It would be very difficult to go back to a convention dome tweeter, especially the horrible ferrofluid ones which kill every micro detail in the music. Everybody who loves music should hear a good ribbon, there isn't a sound like it to be had anywhere and at any price.

I have also feel in love with the bass that this design produces, definitely the best bass I have heard, so very, very textured with masses of detail and there is no boom so everything has razor sharp definition. The bass is definitely my favourite part of this design. Transmission Lines are amazing when used correctly.

I personally find it amusing that £800 worth of drivers, crossover bits and MDF can shame £3000 speakers. Of course I haven't included all the man hours for construction but we do this out of love so that doesn't count

Another downside I have discovered is that the ribbon tweeter is very directional! You have to be seated in a very small sweet spot so this speaker is clearly for solo listening enjoyment but its not really a problem for more as most of my serious listening is done in solitude where I can have the best seat in the house

[ShinOBIWAN]

Hehe,

The perfectionist has gotten the better of me!

I'm going to scrap the one cabinet that I've made in favour of a more streamlined design, the front baffle is just to big for the size of speakers I'm using in there at the minute and consequently it looks stupid. Also it was stupidly heavy at around 60kg because of the amount of sand in the outer cavity so I plan to cut that back drastically to a more realistic ~30kg.

I'll put this one down to experience and busy myself on the streamlined version.

[blank527]

Hi,

Maybe it is though, but you've learned from it
Maybe you could post after you're done, the changes in sound or whatsoever.

Remco Blankesteijn.