Hi everyone,
I am contemplating a new speaker build but am undecided about the direction. I am fairly new to this, especially compared to the caliber present on this forum. Maybe someone could share his or her perspective?
I am looking to build a two or three way design with a 15inch driver plus waveguide. If I was buying new, Klipsch Cornwall Four would be nice. However, this is over budget and would not be as fun.
The speaker should be very efficient and pair well with my diy Firstwatt Amps (M2X & Alpeh J). The listening room will vary depending on speaker size but could go up to 380 square feet (36m2).
My current favourites are
four pi speaker (Pi Speakers, four Pi speaker)
People say good things about the performance as well as the owner! Big plus!
the Crites speakers (
Crites Speaker Style A | Critesspeakers.com)
Are you familiar with either of them or both? If you are familiar with both, how do they differ in sound? Do you have a clear favourite or an alternative suggestion?
Looking for an established, working design.
Your advice will eventuall be repaid with speaker porn.
Thank you for your kind consideration.
All the best
I am contemplating a new speaker build but am undecided about the direction. I am fairly new to this, especially compared to the caliber present on this forum. Maybe someone could share his or her perspective?
I am looking to build a two or three way design with a 15inch driver plus waveguide. If I was buying new, Klipsch Cornwall Four would be nice. However, this is over budget and would not be as fun.
The speaker should be very efficient and pair well with my diy Firstwatt Amps (M2X & Alpeh J). The listening room will vary depending on speaker size but could go up to 380 square feet (36m2).
My current favourites are
four pi speaker (Pi Speakers, four Pi speaker)
People say good things about the performance as well as the owner! Big plus!
the Crites speakers (
Crites Speaker Style A | Critesspeakers.com)
Are you familiar with either of them or both? If you are familiar with both, how do they differ in sound? Do you have a clear favourite or an alternative suggestion?
Looking for an established, working design.
Your advice will eventuall be repaid with speaker porn.
Thank you for your kind consideration.
All the best
Hi Freiheit,
I've no experience with Crites speakers although they tend to be well received. Same with the Klipsch.
I do currently have a pair of 4 Pi's with the JBL 2226 woofer and B&C tweeter. Wayne shows them off at the Lone Star Audio Fest every year and the thing that held me back from getting a pair was no woodworking skills or tools. Last year somebody about 2 hours from me was selling his 4 pi cabinets simply because he was building 7 pi corner horns. We made a deal.
They get run with two stereo flanking subs up front and a mono sub in the rear. They are toed in so the tweeters cross in front of the listening position and there's a wide and pretty deep soundstage if it exists in the recording.
One of the things the Pi's have going for them is constant directivity. The wave guide is designed to sound pretty much the same over it's coverage area. In practical terms it means you can set them up to have a good sweet spot over the entire length of the couch. The sweet spot is measured in feet, not in inches.
The flanking subs and the rear sub make a substantial improvement in the system. It's more than just adding bass extension, it adds detail, nuance and texture to the bass and the lower midrange. Improves imaging, too, and it's a really big deal. It's worth doing with whatever speaker you choose if you have room for the subs in your room.
The 4's are not shouty like mid century horn speakers but it's definitely lively and dynamic. Great transient response. Great textures.
The way Wayne demos them at the show they sound pretty low key and laid back. In my room they've been setup to sound laid back and they've also been setup to sound pretty clean and clear. It's absolutely dependent on what electronics you are feeding them.
I like them. I can't tell you if you'd like them more or less than the Klipsch or Crites speakers but it's likely all these speakers fall in the category of really fine wave guide speakers.
Others can chime in on the strengths of the Crites and Klipsch.
Good luck with your search.
Barry
I've no experience with Crites speakers although they tend to be well received. Same with the Klipsch.
I do currently have a pair of 4 Pi's with the JBL 2226 woofer and B&C tweeter. Wayne shows them off at the Lone Star Audio Fest every year and the thing that held me back from getting a pair was no woodworking skills or tools. Last year somebody about 2 hours from me was selling his 4 pi cabinets simply because he was building 7 pi corner horns. We made a deal.
They get run with two stereo flanking subs up front and a mono sub in the rear. They are toed in so the tweeters cross in front of the listening position and there's a wide and pretty deep soundstage if it exists in the recording.
One of the things the Pi's have going for them is constant directivity. The wave guide is designed to sound pretty much the same over it's coverage area. In practical terms it means you can set them up to have a good sweet spot over the entire length of the couch. The sweet spot is measured in feet, not in inches.
The flanking subs and the rear sub make a substantial improvement in the system. It's more than just adding bass extension, it adds detail, nuance and texture to the bass and the lower midrange. Improves imaging, too, and it's a really big deal. It's worth doing with whatever speaker you choose if you have room for the subs in your room.
The 4's are not shouty like mid century horn speakers but it's definitely lively and dynamic. Great transient response. Great textures.
The way Wayne demos them at the show they sound pretty low key and laid back. In my room they've been setup to sound laid back and they've also been setup to sound pretty clean and clear. It's absolutely dependent on what electronics you are feeding them.
I like them. I can't tell you if you'd like them more or less than the Klipsch or Crites speakers but it's likely all these speakers fall in the category of really fine wave guide speakers.
Others can chime in on the strengths of the Crites and Klipsch.
Good luck with your search.
Barry
Do you use a crossover between the 4pi and the subs, OR...
Do you simply augment the 4pi with the subs; hence letting the 4pi run full range (?)
Do you simply augment the 4pi with the subs; hence letting the 4pi run full range (?)
The Klipsch Chorus or Chorus ll could easily be turned into a Cornscala D two way well worth putting on your short (remember the Chorus was the successor to the Cornwall) list, Bob Crites can help you with the crossover.
The 4's are run full range. The premise is to get as many drivers in the low frequencies as possible to help even out the bass response in the room. It's a slight variation of multiple subs.
The front subs are run with a stereo amp and an electronic crossover. If the crossover wasn't already in the house I'd probably have picked up a minidsp for the job. The rear sub is a REL that has an amp and crossover built into the box.
Here are a few links about setting up stereo flanking subs and mono rear subs. It's a bit of a read but the setup does work well.
Every audio person who's heard this sub setup has gone home and done the same setup in their own system. It really is good.
AudioRoundTable.com: Speaker >> The Subwoofer thing
AudioRoundTable.com: Pi Speakers >> Flanking Subs vs Helper Woofers
Hi barryso!
Could you describe/draw the actual room and speaker distance from listening position,side/behind/front (and subs) wall, please?
Could you describe/draw the actual room and speaker distance from listening position,side/behind/front (and subs) wall, please?
That CAN work well, but if and only if the low pass matched the native hi-pass function of the mains. But then again I often ask myself if it could be considered *quibbling* because often times the room swamps the theory. p.s. I use 16 sub drivers.
loving how this thread evolves. I hope someone who has built or heard the crites can chime in.
@barryso Thank you very much for your two cents. This is very much appreciated and congruent with other posts on the speakers. Apperently Wayne also suggests subs with the speakers. I find that kind of nice also because it means that my project will not end after the speakers are built.
I have got two questions for you:
1) The fours are of course in a smaller cabinet than cornwalls and crites. I want my speakers to unbox the music and move air with ease. I guess that is why I am looking for a 15 inch driver and a bigger cabinet (please note: not looking for open baffle). How do you think the fours perform in that regard? I understand that this is entierly subjective and may not be resolved on this thread. Just for the pleasure of the exchange.
2) Out of curiousity: you mentioned you have a rel in the back. What make are your other subs and how do they compare? There seems to be a camp swearing on servo subs and another on rel.
@moray james, thank you for putting that on the list! I dont see any local offers for this. But it is the crites speaker type c, right? Do you have personal experience with cornscalas?
@barryso Thank you very much for your two cents. This is very much appreciated and congruent with other posts on the speakers. Apperently Wayne also suggests subs with the speakers. I find that kind of nice also because it means that my project will not end after the speakers are built.
I have got two questions for you:
1) The fours are of course in a smaller cabinet than cornwalls and crites. I want my speakers to unbox the music and move air with ease. I guess that is why I am looking for a 15 inch driver and a bigger cabinet (please note: not looking for open baffle). How do you think the fours perform in that regard? I understand that this is entierly subjective and may not be resolved on this thread. Just for the pleasure of the exchange.
2) Out of curiousity: you mentioned you have a rel in the back. What make are your other subs and how do they compare? There seems to be a camp swearing on servo subs and another on rel.
@moray james, thank you for putting that on the list! I dont see any local offers for this. But it is the crites speaker type c, right? Do you have personal experience with cornscalas?
If you don't have a big room (like most of us) there are usually only a few places you can realistically put a sub. These locations are usually not ideal. So my solution is to put a sub EVERYWHERE you can practically do so. In my case I have a fireplace we never use - it's filled with sub. I have another near the main sofa and another sub in another (almost) corner in the room. A little DSP and the low frequency part of the room is mostly tamed. I'm thinking of putting a bookshelf on a riser that is actually a sub in disguise just because...
I high-pass the mains (XO to the subs is at 50Hz) mainly to limit intermodulation distortion on the mains. I think is sounds better like that.
I high-pass the mains (XO to the subs is at 50Hz) mainly to limit intermodulation distortion on the mains. I think is sounds better like that.
@barryso, just to add, thank you for highlighting the large sweet spot. This is a very good speaker quality in my mind.
I'm not going to draw out the room as what works in my room is likely not going to work in another. My room has all sorts of floor issues that include suspended wood floors, a crawl space under part of the room, and parts of the old cement foundation being under other areas. It's a mess. The setup in my room is very specific to the weirdness of the construction and likely wouldn't be setup this way in a similarly sized room that didn't have the same floor issues.
But there are a couple of things that should translate. The speakers are 2 or 3 feet from the wall behind them. They might come out more but they image nicely where they are.
They are about 7 feet apart and the listening position is just about 7.5 feet from the speakers. Nice center image, nice soundstage, good imaging. It might be worth trying them a bit further away from the wall but it really is fine right now.
The speakers are about 4.5 or 5 feet from the side walls. Again, weird setup but it overcomes the problems with the floor.
Stereo flanking subs are just outside the speakers and slightly behind. The 4 pi's are currently on the ground and tilted up towards, and crossed slightly in front of, the sweet spot. Will eventually try the speakers on milk crates just to hear what happens.
The back sub is along the rear wall but has been specifically placed to be on top of the old cement foundation to reduce reverberation. Even then, the bass cleaned up considerably by adding rubber feet between the sub and the floor. Really, wooden floors need to be tamed or the bass just gets rounded and woolly sounding.
After the rear sub got the new rubber feet the front subs got a similar treatment. No cement under those subs and the vibration control really helped tighten their sound up, too.
The isolation pieces were all cheap. The front subs are on carpet protectors and the rear sub is on the thick rubber cups they sell to prevent washing machines from walking. All available in the hardware store for little cash.
When you read the howto is doesn't seem like it would work. You get to feeling it'll overwhelm the 80 to 100 hz area yet that doesn't really happen if you set the volume control on the stereo subs correctly.
It took months to get one of my friends to let me setup his subs as Wayne suggests. He just didn't think it was a viable solution. When we finally got everything dialed in his jaw dropped.
I'm thinking 16 sub drivers should sound *VERY* good. 🙂
1) When setup aiming the tweeters in front of the sweet spot and away from the front wall the 4's do a great job of imaging and have a very large sound stage. No idea if it's class leading but one of my friends called the radiator in between the two speakers the best sounding radiator he's ever heard. Funny guy.
There have been open baffles in the same room that were soundstage champs, yet their overall presentation was different. The open baffle speakers reminded me a bit of headphones and the (homegrown) models I had were kind of lush and laid back.
The 4's are more direct. Yes, you can feed them with mellow electronics and get laid back sound. You can also go in the other direction and make them sound more like studio monitors. It's really hard to describe their sound when it's so pliable. They reflect what they are fed, for sure.
2. My REL was bought used about 22 years ago and I doubt it's using any servo technology. It likely was from the middle of their line, if that. It doesn't matter, turning it on adds more detail and texture to the bass from the front of the system and improves the imaging even more. Multiple subs do wonderful things.
The front subs are nothing but bookshelf speakers with Revelator drivers. Never meant for sub duties but will go down into the 30's just fine. I'd gladly replace them with "real" subs but they sound good and they don't take up much room. There's a space problem. So for now it's fine.
😀
I like your setup. Elsewhere it is reported, that the tweeter should be at ear level with these speakers, but that this is difficult as they need to be on the floor/near the wall for better base. I guess having two additional subs alleviates this issue and they can be put on stands or a cabinet.
I have discovered that there are a lot more Crites / Cornscala threads at the Klipsch forum. I will post over there to get some impressions., too.
