Yet another planar mid/ribbon tweeter Frankenspeaker

[audiomagnate]

These six foot monsters started life as VMPS FF1's many many years ago. The Dynapleat mids and EMIT-R tweeters have been replaced with a line of six Monsoons and a pair of Aurum Cantus G3SI's. All that's left of Brian Cheney's minimalist passive crossover is a single 25uf Auricap in series with the AC ribbons. The bottom firing passive radiator is gone now and the extreme bottom is handled by my infinite baffle JBL 2245 fireplace sub. The original modified carbon fiber woofers and the 325 pound cabinets are all that's left of the original design. I use a DCX2496 for crossover and room tuning.

After months of fiddling and room treatment and repositioning I'm pretty happy with them. I wish the mid and tweet were closer together, so that's probably in my future. I cross to the ribbons at 2.3K (LR4) and to the woofers at 280, and to the sub at 50. They don't sound right until you get about 11 feet away, but at that distance they are about as satisfying as anything I've owned and I've owned (and built) hundreds of "high end" designs over the past decades. They measure pretty good too, but I'm sure they have room to improve.

 

[audiomagnate]

Someone asked (in a PM) about the mounting of the Monsoons, so here's a pic.

 

[studiotech]

Where'd you get so many Monsoon drivers? Are they the modified ones or stock from the computer speakers?

Looks like a fun project. Are you using the series cap to the tweeters as well as crossing over digital in the DCX?

Greg

 

[audiomagnate]

Where'd you get so many Monsoon drivers? Are they the modified ones or stock from the computer speakers?

Looks like a fun project. Are you using the series cap to the tweeters as well as crossing over digital in the DCX?

Greg

Monsoons are stock AFAIK. They have rivets not screws holding them together. I have a 25 mf cap in series with the tweeters. Everything else is active. Active four way with the subs.