Hey guys, glad I found this board, you guys really know your dipoles.
I built a pair of the phoenix subs back in march '01. Active crossover per the instructions, with the 6100 woofers. Powered by an Adcom GFA-555. I built them with a length of 24" instaid of 19", with the drivers a little forward of center. I tweaked the crossover point and volume control to integrate with my mains, Coincident Triumph Signatures, which I plugged the ports on (start rolling off around 100 hz). The signal to the crossover is fed off my Musical Fidelity A2's pre-amp output. CD player is a SACD-C333es.
They sound pretty darn good, very neutral, clean and flat response, and integrate seemlessly with the mains. However, I feel like they lack any sort of punch and real visceral presence to the bass. Is this the best I can do with the subs? I'm wondering if I should rebuild them with a sort of H baffle instaid of the current baffle. It seems like the folded baffle could "smear" the dynamic attack of something like a kick drum, because the sound reflects and bounces around in there, before coming out the front of the cabnet......any truth to this theory? Or pehaps there is just too much dipole cancellation on the large excursion events? Also, when I run test tones, I get a considerable amount of noise from the back of the drivers, unfortunately.
So here's what I was thinking about doing. I want to build an H baffle, but use 12" sonotube for the baffle. Imagine an upright board, with the drivers mounted in it, but sonotube extending out from the drivers, front and rear. I would be able to try different lengths of sonotube to see what effect that had on efficiency and dynamics, but I think I would experiment with a 36" or longer baffle. Any thoughts on what having the drivers fire straight out the tubes would do for dynamics and if there would be any bad resonances....or would it send clean pressure waves out the tube? Also, I would like to do someting with the driver baskets to cut down on air noise - how about adding properly shaped peices of wood on the inside and outside of each basket, for aerodynamic smoothing?
Well, let's hear your input folks!
Thanks,
Kevin
I built a pair of the phoenix subs back in march '01. Active crossover per the instructions, with the 6100 woofers. Powered by an Adcom GFA-555. I built them with a length of 24" instaid of 19", with the drivers a little forward of center. I tweaked the crossover point and volume control to integrate with my mains, Coincident Triumph Signatures, which I plugged the ports on (start rolling off around 100 hz). The signal to the crossover is fed off my Musical Fidelity A2's pre-amp output. CD player is a SACD-C333es.
They sound pretty darn good, very neutral, clean and flat response, and integrate seemlessly with the mains. However, I feel like they lack any sort of punch and real visceral presence to the bass. Is this the best I can do with the subs? I'm wondering if I should rebuild them with a sort of H baffle instaid of the current baffle. It seems like the folded baffle could "smear" the dynamic attack of something like a kick drum, because the sound reflects and bounces around in there, before coming out the front of the cabnet......any truth to this theory? Or pehaps there is just too much dipole cancellation on the large excursion events? Also, when I run test tones, I get a considerable amount of noise from the back of the drivers, unfortunately.
So here's what I was thinking about doing. I want to build an H baffle, but use 12" sonotube for the baffle. Imagine an upright board, with the drivers mounted in it, but sonotube extending out from the drivers, front and rear. I would be able to try different lengths of sonotube to see what effect that had on efficiency and dynamics, but I think I would experiment with a 36" or longer baffle. Any thoughts on what having the drivers fire straight out the tubes would do for dynamics and if there would be any bad resonances....or would it send clean pressure waves out the tube? Also, I would like to do someting with the driver baskets to cut down on air noise - how about adding properly shaped peices of wood on the inside and outside of each basket, for aerodynamic smoothing?
Well, let's hear your input folks!
Thanks,
Kevin
Missing the kick in the kick drum????
Sounds like you are missing some of the kick in the drum. The dipole woofers will make things sound more real and not as over blown as most subs. It is a real problem to get them to reproduce bass with authority depending on the drivers that you used. But given the long throw versions they are quite inpressive. The answer may be that you are used to the sound of a distorted ported sytem that has a high Q value ( over blown mid bass that most people confuse with low bass ) If that is the sound that you like then you may need to make yourself a box rather than use an open dipole.
Mark
Sounds like you are missing some of the kick in the drum. The dipole woofers will make things sound more real and not as over blown as most subs. It is a real problem to get them to reproduce bass with authority depending on the drivers that you used. But given the long throw versions they are quite inpressive. The answer may be that you are used to the sound of a distorted ported sytem that has a high Q value ( over blown mid bass that most people confuse with low bass ) If that is the sound that you like then you may need to make yourself a box rather than use an open dipole.
Mark
Re: Missing the kick in the kick drum????
Nahhhhhh........
I've seen plenty of non-PA'ed live rock and jazz - bass guitar amps and kick drums have plenty of viceral impact. Not that I listen at those levels at home.
However, my previous speakers were Klipsch CF-1's...now my parents have them. I would not consider them boomy or a-tonal by a long shot - they produce pretty clean fast impactful bass but musical too. Two long throw 6-1/2" in a very large ported box, good down to about 35 hz, even in a large room. I borrowed them back from my parents once and used them with the GFA-555 when we had a DJ play at one of our college parties.....never saw those woofers dance like that before.
Kevin
mwmkravchenko said:
Nahhhhhh........
I've seen plenty of non-PA'ed live rock and jazz - bass guitar amps and kick drums have plenty of viceral impact. Not that I listen at those levels at home.
However, my previous speakers were Klipsch CF-1's...now my parents have them. I would not consider them boomy or a-tonal by a long shot - they produce pretty clean fast impactful bass but musical too. Two long throw 6-1/2" in a very large ported box, good down to about 35 hz, even in a large room. I borrowed them back from my parents once and used them with the GFA-555 when we had a DJ play at one of our college parties.....never saw those woofers dance like that before.
Kevin
Re: Re: Missing the kick in the kick drum????
Bass amps all have a peak at around 60-80k FYI, and the dynamic range of a kick drum is huge, you may want to look at a bigger amp on your subs.
Other tyhan that, I agree with the other posters, you are probably just getting used to the sound of dipoles. I had the same experience when I first went to TLs, you get so used to innacurate bass from BR and IB boxes that the more accurate response takes some getting used to.
kjc said:
Bass amps all have a peak at around 60-80k FYI, and the dynamic range of a kick drum is huge, you may want to look at a bigger amp on your subs.
Other tyhan that, I agree with the other posters, you are probably just getting used to the sound of dipoles. I had the same experience when I first went to TLs, you get so used to innacurate bass from BR and IB boxes that the more accurate response takes some getting used to.
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