Dear Music and Audio Friends,
Solen has simulated three different crossover options for my Purifi PTT5.25/Beyma TPL-75 Project.
#1: Both legs 2nd-Order Linkwitz-Riley, crossing over at 2400Hz.
#2: Both legs 3rd-Order Butterworth, crossing over at 2400Hz. The arrow points to the little bump at the 2400Hz crossover frequency. Which Solen would rather avoid, I take it.
#3: Low-Pass: 2nd-Order Butterworth, crossing over at 2400Hz; High-Pass 2nd-Order Linkwitz-Riley, crossing over at 2400Hz.
If anyone wants to see the complete workups (driver specs, parts lists, schematics), please let me know.
All thoughtful comments welcome.
john
Solen has simulated three different crossover options for my Purifi PTT5.25/Beyma TPL-75 Project.
#1: Both legs 2nd-Order Linkwitz-Riley, crossing over at 2400Hz.
#2: Both legs 3rd-Order Butterworth, crossing over at 2400Hz. The arrow points to the little bump at the 2400Hz crossover frequency. Which Solen would rather avoid, I take it.
#3: Low-Pass: 2nd-Order Butterworth, crossing over at 2400Hz; High-Pass 2nd-Order Linkwitz-Riley, crossing over at 2400Hz.
If anyone wants to see the complete workups (driver specs, parts lists, schematics), please let me know.
All thoughtful comments welcome.
john
None of those. No phase plots? Impedance?
The response isn't even flat. Yuck...
The response isn't even flat. Yuck...
That is laughably bad design for such expensive drivers. My cheap bookshelf speakers would sound better. My advice is to team up with someone that will actually model a proper crossover based on actual measurements of an actual speaker.
Do I take it that you would prefer that I post the entire documents?
Here's an Impedance plot for their favored option.
ciao,
john
To Augerpro:
I'd rather think of it as "Quick and Dirty." Seeing as we have already gotten very nice sound out of these drivers in two previous iterations where first one and then the other driver was "dropping in" to a crossover not at all designed for it, I think we will have good results with one of these.
We then will have the option of putting together drivers and passives in an unfancy cabinet and sending that off to what you would call a "real" crossover designer, for the lengthy process of designing a crossover from scratch and measurements.
john
I'd rather think of it as "Quick and Dirty." Seeing as we have already gotten very nice sound out of these drivers in two previous iterations where first one and then the other driver was "dropping in" to a crossover not at all designed for it, I think we will have good results with one of these.
We then will have the option of putting together drivers and passives in an unfancy cabinet and sending that off to what you would call a "real" crossover designer, for the lengthy process of designing a crossover from scratch and measurements.
john
Your hyperbolic exaggeration is totally out of control, which is why I invited only sane comments. You have not heard the drivers together with the networks I now have. I am sure that the Beyma AMT would sound lovely with just one capacitor on it. And, I have lots of experience running the Purifi "wild."
FURTHERMORE, my design colleague Jim Tuomy has six patents in electroacoustics, $20K in Audio Precision gear, and subscriptions to all the FineSounds suite of computer design aids. But... I cannot afford to buy him away full time from all his other commitments. Jim can bypass the analog capacitor and play to his heart's content with DSP.
I do wish that Solen's Preferred Embodiment resulted in a prediction that was more flat. But, at the end of the day, I want a loudspeaker (OK, I am ready for all the widows to sue me after their Hubbies die from a heart attack or a stroke!!!) more to FLATTER the music, than to be "flat." Chris Huston, John Lennon's friend from Art College whose band was called the Undertakers, once told me that "A loudspeaker without a 'personality' is like a song without a hook." Amen.
john
FURTHERMORE, my design colleague Jim Tuomy has six patents in electroacoustics, $20K in Audio Precision gear, and subscriptions to all the FineSounds suite of computer design aids. But... I cannot afford to buy him away full time from all his other commitments. Jim can bypass the analog capacitor and play to his heart's content with DSP.
I do wish that Solen's Preferred Embodiment resulted in a prediction that was more flat. But, at the end of the day, I want a loudspeaker (OK, I am ready for all the widows to sue me after their Hubbies die from a heart attack or a stroke!!!) more to FLATTER the music, than to be "flat." Chris Huston, John Lennon's friend from Art College whose band was called the Undertakers, once told me that "A loudspeaker without a 'personality' is like a song without a hook." Amen.
john
That's what Jim Tuomy wants to do.
The problem is that active speakers really have a hard time winning over high-end audiophiles, especially those who have spent $114,900 on a four-box Stack of dCS digital gear--they don't want their hard-won analog (or digital) signals at the mercy of an affordable ADC on an DSP amp board. They want their dCS gear to have the last word.
Thanks for your contribution, though!
john
so audiophiles are ok with poorly designed, poor performing speakers but the electronics must be just so?
Because he is too busy and because the project cannot afford to hire a lot of his time.
"Politics is the art of what is possible."
I was just looking at the website of a guitar maker who wanted a $2000 deposit when the waiting period is two years. I want results quicker than that.
I am putting together a "Proof of Concept." There is a real possibility of commercialization, but there a lot of moving parts to that machine.
Getting Solen to simulate crossovers on a 24-hour turnaround helps move the process along.
I have seen a guy work on crossovers by having dozens of parts on the rug in front of the speakers, all spread out and connected with alligator clip jumpers. That's a hobbyist approach, not a business approach.
john
"Politics is the art of what is possible."
I was just looking at the website of a guitar maker who wanted a $2000 deposit when the waiting period is two years. I want results quicker than that.
I am putting together a "Proof of Concept." There is a real possibility of commercialization, but there a lot of moving parts to that machine.
Getting Solen to simulate crossovers on a 24-hour turnaround helps move the process along.
I have seen a guy work on crossovers by having dozens of parts on the rug in front of the speakers, all spread out and connected with alligator clip jumpers. That's a hobbyist approach, not a business approach.
john
I was not speaking of ALL audiophiles, just dCS owners.
The Solen crossover designs are an intermediate step, and not the final destination. I have used Solen's crossover design services for more than 12 projects, perhaps 17 or 18. I don't think that any of them were "poorly performing." Some were closer to optimum than others, and on some important ones I asked them to re-do or tweak. If we hire a person to design from scratch, whatever they come up with for the first go-round will not be accepts as the Tablets from Mount Sinai... which, once you think about it, is a dumb thing to say. Because the Tablets did not and have not had a great Reception History. But I am sure you get my point. We will listen to and ask for tweaks if needed.
Is this you own private project? Who are "we"?
Is it a commercial endeavour? Do you intend to sell these?
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Is it a commercial endeavour? Do you intend to sell these?
//
Are you from the Federal Trade Commission?
(Obviously, not. I can tell.)
I am an individual with some entrepreneurial things going on. Right now, this pair is for one individual who fell in love with an earlier design of mine, and I told him I thought I could do better.
Once we reach the end of this road, we (meaning Jim Tuomy and me) will probably make a pair up in unfancy cabinets and send them to someone who has a thriving audio-related business, who might wish to commercialize the design and market the loudspeakers directly to his regular customers.
Or, perhaps not. I'd prefer to use only the best-quality parts and materials, and I would prefer to manufacture in the NAFTA Zone... but that does include Mexico, and there is an awful lot of activity in the Furniture sector in Mexico these days. Many of the IKEA products sold in North America now reportedlyy come from Mexico.
If the way I want to do it means that the price is too high or the profits are too low for my friend with the thriving related business (which is not audio equipment), then there will probably be a few pairs for family and friends.
ciao,
john
(Obviously, not. I can tell.)
I am an individual with some entrepreneurial things going on. Right now, this pair is for one individual who fell in love with an earlier design of mine, and I told him I thought I could do better.
Once we reach the end of this road, we (meaning Jim Tuomy and me) will probably make a pair up in unfancy cabinets and send them to someone who has a thriving audio-related business, who might wish to commercialize the design and market the loudspeakers directly to his regular customers.
Or, perhaps not. I'd prefer to use only the best-quality parts and materials, and I would prefer to manufacture in the NAFTA Zone... but that does include Mexico, and there is an awful lot of activity in the Furniture sector in Mexico these days. Many of the IKEA products sold in North America now reportedlyy come from Mexico.
If the way I want to do it means that the price is too high or the profits are too low for my friend with the thriving related business (which is not audio equipment), then there will probably be a few pairs for family and friends.
ciao,
john
@mtidge just a small comment on your quick and dirty crossover. If this is done in Vituixcad, iirc the z axis is positive away from the virtual measurement point.Therefore I would have expected the cone driver to have a positive offset from the ribbon driver. However, I stand to be corrected if I am wrong.
For the moment, and really, barring a Miracle, this is a one-off project for a friend.
I am not being paid for my design time, in that his buying the parts makes it possible for me to move a previous design of mine up some ways.
The problem is, for most of the market, you aren't competing with KEF, you are competing with Edifier.
Hey, I've got a little Edifier Bluetooth "Lifestyle Loudspeaker" and it is great value for the money.
And the people who are buying Wilson Audio (I once installed a pair of $170,000/pr. Wilsons) or Sonus Faber (I installed a $40,000 pair of SFs in the NYC co-op of a famous Broadway producer) or Rockport, or Magico, want to buy from those companies again. Coming into a very crowded market with a loudspeaker that has non-trivial LS3/5A DNA in it, but which costs $5500 a pair, is a very chancy proposition.
Thanks for clarifying,
john