Madisounds Thor TL - you thoughts

[greenie512]

I’m seriously thinking about buying the Seas Thor Kit from Madisound, however I’m in Australia which means all the import hassle!. I’ve heard an almost identical TL designed cabinet with Vifa drivers which were okay but I’m assuming the Seas will be a major improvement.

Can any Thor owners/kit builders leave their thoughts on:-

1. Madisounds quality of cabinet – build/finish etc
2. General sound quality of built kit
3. Bass quality/quantity of speakers
4. Positioning of speakers from walls

I’m running Musical Fidelity electronics and bi-amping a pair of Mission 753’s at the moment. I’ve asked about bass as I’ve found I really need a subwoofer with the Missions.

[BillFitzmaurice]

The Thor is a great design, and you don't need the Seas drivers to build it. You can substitute other quailty drivers with the same specs with good result. If you want to use the same crossover it is critical that you take the time to find drivers with very close to identical specs and responses. Room loaded the Thor does not need a sub.

[tktran]

you're such a kidder Bill.
:-)

I strongly advise against building the "Thor" without using the exact same mid-woofers.

Take out those Seas Excel drivers and good luck to anybody who goes looking for a drivers that suit the filter functions of that XO. You'll need drivers of exact sensitivity, frequency and impedance response when installed into the cabinet.

Which means having some hard/software to take measurements after building cabinets and installing your drivers. Why not build a design crossover if you've gone this far?

[greenie512]

Guy's

I'm looking to build a quality pair of TL - whats the point otherwise?

I've decided to build the cabinets locally myself. The source I know in Australia for Seas drivers are quite expensive and for the same price I can get the Madisound kit with crossover/damping material etc (although I'll cop - frieght and any tax).

I am crap with a soldering iron so the Madisounf kit sounds good to me.

Cheers - Phil

[BillFitzmaurice]

You'll need drivers of exact sensitivity, frequency and impedance response when installed into the cabinet.

That's pretty much true, and is one reason why the T/S specs exist: so that one can accurately predict the performance of various drivers. Since we're talking a relative newbie project here it's a very safe bet that both the measuring equipment and expertise required to roll his own crossovers isn't there, so he needs a method of finding drivers that will work with Joe's design, both with respect to the crossover and the box. Mssrs.Theile and Small were kind enough to provide a method of doing so. Why not use it?

[stokessd]

Originally posted by BillFitzmaurice


That's pretty much true, and is one reason why the T/S specs exist: so that one can accurately predict the performance of various drivers. Since we're talking a relative newbie project here it's a very safe bet that both the measuring equipment and expertise required to roll his own crossovers isn't there, so he needs a method of finding drivers that will work with Joe's design, both with respect to the crossover and the box. Mssrs.Theile and Small were kind enough to provide a method of doing so. Why not use it?

If that's true, and if he doesn't want to use this speaker as a learning experience, then why wouldn't he want to use the seas drivers? It strikes me that a bit of extra money for the piece of mind that his speaker is working the way the designer intended it to is money well spent. Plus it's not like those seas drivers are a rip-off, they are amazingly good drivers (my experience with them is from 300 Hz down).


Sheldon

[5th element]

Yes the excels are amazing drivers and you could argue that you can get 90% of the performace from the standard lines aluminium range. But in this here situtation I also agree with everyone else in saying DONT try to use any other drivers.

Although the Mission 753s should be good (I owned the 752F's) the SEAS excel kit is about 10x better, you will be blown away with the difference in quality. Aslong as the rest of your kit can keep up.

If you build the SEAS kit you wont need to upgrade your speakers for a very long time, unless you get the DIY bug and want to design your own.

[greenie512]

Thanks - 5th element - thats wat I was after by mentioning my old Missions. I built a TL system many years ago with a kit from Wimslow Audio (UK) which was a real steamer - part of which was Seas drivers.

Considering budgets - I'm a bit of a Musical Fidelity fan so my current sytem is: -

CD - X-Ray
Preamp - X-P100
Power - X-AS100 - two to bi-amp/bi wire
Tuner - X-Plora

How'd do you think that'll drive the new Thors.

Cheers - Phil