Contact Krix again he can get B&C products also. I ordered a 21" the other day. Never knew they could get BC. Just keeps getting better that Krix is giving us more options for us in OZ.
B&C in Aus.. Good on Krix for making the effort, their margin resseling drivers is gonna be tiny compared to there commercial products.
Cyclecamper. Wish I was at my PC for a day or two to research all this properly. Loving all the input and ideas, many things we can / need to consider. ...
Fin will have to answer the genni questions, I haven't seen the plans of spec yet. I thing we are looking a approx 5kva Honda silent unit.
The cart will not have people on it while mooving ala Burning Man. This is just big enough for a 2 man bar space and 6 person dance carts.
We started with horns knowing that for the power/weight nothing else gets close. We set 130 dB as a practical target, but I have never held an SPL meter in front of a system outdoors before. 2 x th18 should make 135db approx so it would be nice to match them for output with the tops.
What we really need is a completed diy synergy design and just build. I am in China at the moment and fin works full time so we just don't have time/experience to develop and test our own synergy design.
Back to work.
Chat soon.
Cyclecamper. Wish I was at my PC for a day or two to research all this properly. Loving all the input and ideas, many things we can / need to consider. ...
Fin will have to answer the genni questions, I haven't seen the plans of spec yet. I thing we are looking a approx 5kva Honda silent unit.
The cart will not have people on it while mooving ala Burning Man. This is just big enough for a 2 man bar space and 6 person dance carts.
We started with horns knowing that for the power/weight nothing else gets close. We set 130 dB as a practical target, but I have never held an SPL meter in front of a system outdoors before. 2 x th18 should make 135db approx so it would be nice to match them for output with the tops.
What we really need is a completed diy synergy design and just build. I am in China at the moment and fin works full time so we just don't have time/experience to develop and test our own synergy design.
Back to work.
Chat soon.
I haven't been able to keep up with JLH's latest work (or others) but I am hoping they have had some success finding a suitable mid. Even then, I assume we would need a 3 way synergy to cover 100 to 20k?
Our plans have always been an active multi way system using MiniDSP, which we have experience with and wil uncomplicate some issues using a synergy horn. But still, I would expect a few sim/build/test/repeate processes.
Advice welcome ;P
Our plans have always been an active multi way system using MiniDSP, which we have experience with and wil uncomplicate some issues using a synergy horn. But still, I would expect a few sim/build/test/repeate processes.
Advice welcome ;P
Hmmmmm...... Ideas, ideas.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/subwoofers/258706-study-dipole-cardioid-bass-horn-26.html
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/subwoofers/258706-study-dipole-cardioid-bass-horn-26.html
Hi my mate and I have some Cosyne synergies coming along.
Well, built but needing some tuning and crossover work.
90x60 dispersion
4x5" mids and BMS compression driver.
Woofers and subs in separate boxes.
the synergies are pretty small about 24" wide 10 high 10 deep.
weigh about 10kg (each) all up i guess.
really nice and clear, go fairly loud.. may just hit 130db but wouldn't suspect much over that.
the constant directivity and controlled dispersion may well be an advantage as it will allow you to focus your sound where you need it
depending on your chosen mids and subs you might be able to make do without the low mid woofer to save weight and power as in this vid where we ran the sub up to 500hz (because we didn't have low mid woofers yet).
https://vimeo.com/103047515
if you have a nice table saw you could knock out a pair in a day (especially if your using minidsp or other processor).
ive been to rainbow about 3 times. alot of fun.hope the build goes well
Well, built but needing some tuning and crossover work.
90x60 dispersion
4x5" mids and BMS compression driver.
Woofers and subs in separate boxes.
the synergies are pretty small about 24" wide 10 high 10 deep.
weigh about 10kg (each) all up i guess.
really nice and clear, go fairly loud.. may just hit 130db but wouldn't suspect much over that.
the constant directivity and controlled dispersion may well be an advantage as it will allow you to focus your sound where you need it
depending on your chosen mids and subs you might be able to make do without the low mid woofer to save weight and power as in this vid where we ran the sub up to 500hz (because we didn't have low mid woofers yet).
https://vimeo.com/103047515
if you have a nice table saw you could knock out a pair in a day (especially if your using minidsp or other processor).
ive been to rainbow about 3 times. alot of fun.hope the build goes well
Thanks mate. We are having funding issues atm but are looking for alternatives.
On the bright side it will give us more time to build and test some smaller and cheaper units for home use.
The project is about giving back to the music scene we love so we will eventually end up doing something there. Let us know the next time you go and we will see you in the dust pit.
Keep us up to date with your build either way. Do you have a thread for it?
On the bright side it will give us more time to build and test some smaller and cheaper units for home use.
The project is about giving back to the music scene we love so we will eventually end up doing something there. Let us know the next time you go and we will see you in the dust pit.
Keep us up to date with your build either way. Do you have a thread for it?
hi just a quick update on our synergy build.
Got our full system (minus two additional BFM T48 subs) set up last weekend.
The synergies really are something else. So clear and consistent throughout the coverage pattern. And we still have not got round to measuring, tuning or eq'ing.
Couple of videos
https://vimeo.com/104171610
https://vimeo.com/104174730
Got our full system (minus two additional BFM T48 subs) set up last weekend.
The synergies really are something else. So clear and consistent throughout the coverage pattern. And we still have not got round to measuring, tuning or eq'ing.
Couple of videos
https://vimeo.com/104171610
https://vimeo.com/104174730
Attachments
Cheers pretty happy with it so far but I feel there is much more potential to be unlocked with some time tunin. ATM we just want to kick back and soak it up over a few bevys.
You know Darren. Be great if you could flick the link to him. Really loved his first mote ep. One of my absolute favourites and great tune to test the system with. Hopefully once it's dialled in we can get him down to play on it.
Chrap - we used Pyle pdmr5s, seem to go ok. only playing from 400 -1000hz. Got your 18sounds 15nlw9300 in the w bins. Will move em to the next pair of titans we are building. Got some nd930s to put in the bins.
Here is another vid from Dslr rather than iPhone. Bit of miles Davis from 100m.
https://vimeo.com/104392004
Hi Guys,
Great to see some more DIY synergy horn top/tapped horn sub projects happening in Aus 🙂
Together with Phil and Monkey Marc, I'm part of D.I.Y. Hifi - a solar powered 4xss15, 2x3 way unity, 2x2 way unity rig out of Melb. It has evolved a bit over the last few years and has had quite a bit of tweaking to get it sounding great and working well as a touring rig. We're not to flash at documenting everything, but the you'll find the best info on Facebook under "D.I.Y. Hifi" or at our dodgy webpage diyhifi.biz 😉 There are lots of pics at least!!
Some random thoughts and info for this build and anyone else interested :
If you want a 2 way kit from someone who know's what they're doing, check out Paul Spencer of Red Spade Audio :
Red Spade Audio
Paul's a good guy, Melbourne based and has building and has been experimenting with 2 way hifi oriented synergy horns for a few years. Check out his Fiberglass 2 way DIY kits he was selling recently that look wild and no doubt sound great. We got our 4" sealed back Celestion drivers through a group buy he arranged a couple of years ago, so he probably has some good sealed back mid drivers kicking around too if you want to roll your own.
Keep in mind sealing the backs for weatherproofing DIY unitys and working out how to pole mount them is a project in itself!
On getting unitys integrated well sonically : Managing the crossovers points are key to getting things sounding right. Fitstly, you'll need a compression driver that can get down to around 1-1.2K at least. We initially used 1" B&C DE160s that we had lying about (2k cross recommended) that we swapped out for some great 1.4" RCFs that improved the mid-high cross no end because our 4" mids only made it to about 1.2k. You will be hard pressed to get the mids down below 250Hz, so you'll need a strategy to cover 100-300Hz range. Our 15" SS15s actually worked OK up to 250 and sounded passably good crossing to the mids, but for fussy ears, the 100-200hz midbass area was a bit vague and we missed nice snare whacks and the upper harmonics of a good kick. Knowing this may be an issue later, we left room in out horn throat to add a couple of 10" drivers on which we experimented with volumes and port sizes extensively so we can now cover 100hz and up in one box with a sealed rear. Our top boxes now sound awesome, but it has taken a lot of work to get there.
On amps, use class D's on the subs and midbass at least. The Behringer NU6000 will manage 4 x 15"'s but will lack headroom running high powered 18"s. We use an NU6000 on subs, a 4x1000 FFA class D on mids and some great sounding (switchmode but non class D) Pulse amps to drive the 4" mids and comp drivers. A behringer DCX2496 handles crossovers and eq, but we have a simple passive crossover for the the comp driver and 4" mids to save amp channels
With Class D amps, expect a rig with amps and drivers flat out to use about 1/2 the rated wattage on average. eg, a true 5k rig might average 2.5k of power use flat out, but it will need to handle peaks of maybe 4x that, so your genny will need to have some headroom over your rig capacity or surge capacity in its electronics if it's an inverter genny. We kinda get around that with our battery/inverter setup because it has great surge capacity which gennys do not usually.
I could go on for hours, but I'll leave it at that for now 🙂
Our next big gig coming up is for "Let Them Eat Cake" at Werribee Park Mansion New years day, but when summer starts there will be something happening sooner no doubt...
Any open listenings with other rigs, let us know!
cheers,
Richard
Great to see some more DIY synergy horn top/tapped horn sub projects happening in Aus 🙂
Together with Phil and Monkey Marc, I'm part of D.I.Y. Hifi - a solar powered 4xss15, 2x3 way unity, 2x2 way unity rig out of Melb. It has evolved a bit over the last few years and has had quite a bit of tweaking to get it sounding great and working well as a touring rig. We're not to flash at documenting everything, but the you'll find the best info on Facebook under "D.I.Y. Hifi" or at our dodgy webpage diyhifi.biz 😉 There are lots of pics at least!!
Some random thoughts and info for this build and anyone else interested :
If you want a 2 way kit from someone who know's what they're doing, check out Paul Spencer of Red Spade Audio :
Red Spade Audio
Paul's a good guy, Melbourne based and has building and has been experimenting with 2 way hifi oriented synergy horns for a few years. Check out his Fiberglass 2 way DIY kits he was selling recently that look wild and no doubt sound great. We got our 4" sealed back Celestion drivers through a group buy he arranged a couple of years ago, so he probably has some good sealed back mid drivers kicking around too if you want to roll your own.
Keep in mind sealing the backs for weatherproofing DIY unitys and working out how to pole mount them is a project in itself!
On getting unitys integrated well sonically : Managing the crossovers points are key to getting things sounding right. Fitstly, you'll need a compression driver that can get down to around 1-1.2K at least. We initially used 1" B&C DE160s that we had lying about (2k cross recommended) that we swapped out for some great 1.4" RCFs that improved the mid-high cross no end because our 4" mids only made it to about 1.2k. You will be hard pressed to get the mids down below 250Hz, so you'll need a strategy to cover 100-300Hz range. Our 15" SS15s actually worked OK up to 250 and sounded passably good crossing to the mids, but for fussy ears, the 100-200hz midbass area was a bit vague and we missed nice snare whacks and the upper harmonics of a good kick. Knowing this may be an issue later, we left room in out horn throat to add a couple of 10" drivers on which we experimented with volumes and port sizes extensively so we can now cover 100hz and up in one box with a sealed rear. Our top boxes now sound awesome, but it has taken a lot of work to get there.
On amps, use class D's on the subs and midbass at least. The Behringer NU6000 will manage 4 x 15"'s but will lack headroom running high powered 18"s. We use an NU6000 on subs, a 4x1000 FFA class D on mids and some great sounding (switchmode but non class D) Pulse amps to drive the 4" mids and comp drivers. A behringer DCX2496 handles crossovers and eq, but we have a simple passive crossover for the the comp driver and 4" mids to save amp channels
With Class D amps, expect a rig with amps and drivers flat out to use about 1/2 the rated wattage on average. eg, a true 5k rig might average 2.5k of power use flat out, but it will need to handle peaks of maybe 4x that, so your genny will need to have some headroom over your rig capacity or surge capacity in its electronics if it's an inverter genny. We kinda get around that with our battery/inverter setup because it has great surge capacity which gennys do not usually.
I could go on for hours, but I'll leave it at that for now 🙂
Our next big gig coming up is for "Let Them Eat Cake" at Werribee Park Mansion New years day, but when summer starts there will be something happening sooner no doubt...
Any open listenings with other rigs, let us know!
cheers,
Richard
Thanks Richard.
What sealed backs did you settle on?
I have four of the Visaton's ready to go, just working on the maths for the moment.
What sealed backs did you settle on?
I have four of the Visaton's ready to go, just working on the maths for the moment.
"So what," by Miles Davis. Great track. Almost bought some 930's before I bought my W750's. Great to see another DIY Synergy. And thanks for the videos.
I will be building my new sub in about 2 months.(Othorn) Then if the W750's are not sold I will be building a 3 way dual 15 PA L/R. Will hopefully try a SH closer to Xmas.
Hi all,
Richard - great to hear from you. Me and Marko, who built this system over winter spent a lot of time analysing your builds and marvelling over your inspiring setup.
Its awesome I remember the first time I stumbled upon your builds and saw the back of your unities with the scrap wood filling and all the drivers and thinking what the hell are these loose cannons doing?
Then after reading a bit more and seeing your sweet solar wind setup well I thought that's the path I want to follow down.
Not only the horn designs but the vibe you guys have is great. Hands on, self-sufficient and community conscious.
Best part about testing on the weekend was all the people who came up and said 'thanks for the music, sounds great, you should do this every weekend'. Families hanging out, little kids dancing along, and old folks walking the dog to some lush tunes. we even played pavarotti as the sun went down, and then switched the genny off and some guy across the street from the park started singing in italian. No joke!
Hopefully with our system, we can eventually take it to fully off grid, but I am only just starting to look into that side off things and funding is a bit tight. Plus i don't know how to weld yet.
Obviously its early days for us and we haven't really proved our chops but i think it would be great to have a little network of loosely affiliated sound systems with similar principles and similar aims.spreading sweet sweet sounds and positive message through community events. - a Communi-fi
There's the Grounded sound guys, up in sydney, who have a sweet Danley tapped horn system are looking to start a synergy build soon. They have a neat pedal powered setup as well.
Guy called Bitsmasher is building a system for march in August and reclaim the streets parties in Marrickville/Chippendale at the moment.
I mean we've got the doof culture and some great positive examples of forward -thinking, sustainable, crews and events - e.g Regrowth in Sydney/ SOS in Canberra but a bit lacking in the smaller experimental, Soundsystem culture.. That's what I hope to change here in Canberra at least.
Anyway just what Ive been vibing on during the build.
Sorry to hijack the thread Finbot and THunk303
Richard - great to hear from you. Me and Marko, who built this system over winter spent a lot of time analysing your builds and marvelling over your inspiring setup.
Its awesome I remember the first time I stumbled upon your builds and saw the back of your unities with the scrap wood filling and all the drivers and thinking what the hell are these loose cannons doing?
Then after reading a bit more and seeing your sweet solar wind setup well I thought that's the path I want to follow down.
Not only the horn designs but the vibe you guys have is great. Hands on, self-sufficient and community conscious.
Best part about testing on the weekend was all the people who came up and said 'thanks for the music, sounds great, you should do this every weekend'. Families hanging out, little kids dancing along, and old folks walking the dog to some lush tunes. we even played pavarotti as the sun went down, and then switched the genny off and some guy across the street from the park started singing in italian. No joke!
Hopefully with our system, we can eventually take it to fully off grid, but I am only just starting to look into that side off things and funding is a bit tight. Plus i don't know how to weld yet.
Obviously its early days for us and we haven't really proved our chops but i think it would be great to have a little network of loosely affiliated sound systems with similar principles and similar aims.spreading sweet sweet sounds and positive message through community events. - a Communi-fi
There's the Grounded sound guys, up in sydney, who have a sweet Danley tapped horn system are looking to start a synergy build soon. They have a neat pedal powered setup as well.
Guy called Bitsmasher is building a system for march in August and reclaim the streets parties in Marrickville/Chippendale at the moment.
I mean we've got the doof culture and some great positive examples of forward -thinking, sustainable, crews and events - e.g Regrowth in Sydney/ SOS in Canberra but a bit lacking in the smaller experimental, Soundsystem culture.. That's what I hope to change here in Canberra at least.
Anyway just what Ive been vibing on during the build.
Sorry to hijack the thread Finbot and THunk303
Heya Fin,
We used the tf0410mr 4" Celestion mids from Paul Spencer's group buy.
They worked really well for us in our horn using 4 drivers in a 40 degree vertical, 60 degree horizontal spread. Any more expansion and they loose low end. Paul made a 45x90 degree horn with these, but needed 6 drivers to get enough puff to keep the low end up accross that spread.
With a 40x60 setup and fitting the compression driver the way I did, I could get the mid drivers mounted really close to the compression driver making the distance from the mid ports to compression driver about 54mm from memory. Getting this distance short is critical to getting the highs and mids to blend and crossover high.
Ours could run down to 250Hz, but the drivers are much less stressed now there are 2 x 10" drivers covering 100-400Hz.
We ended up adding a foam spacer of about 1-2mm because we found the surrounds were cracking in high pressure zones away from the ports!
Rich
We used the tf0410mr 4" Celestion mids from Paul Spencer's group buy.
They worked really well for us in our horn using 4 drivers in a 40 degree vertical, 60 degree horizontal spread. Any more expansion and they loose low end. Paul made a 45x90 degree horn with these, but needed 6 drivers to get enough puff to keep the low end up accross that spread.
With a 40x60 setup and fitting the compression driver the way I did, I could get the mid drivers mounted really close to the compression driver making the distance from the mid ports to compression driver about 54mm from memory. Getting this distance short is critical to getting the highs and mids to blend and crossover high.
Ours could run down to 250Hz, but the drivers are much less stressed now there are 2 x 10" drivers covering 100-400Hz.
We ended up adding a foam spacer of about 1-2mm because we found the surrounds were cracking in high pressure zones away from the ports!
Rich
Hey Horizonize 🙂
Thanks for the compliments!
Yep, loose cannons, that's us! 😉
I like your clear covers there, it's such a mad scientist kinda speaker, I like the idea of people being able to see what's going on in there.
I find when people hear these things and see the horn with tiny ports and no visible drivers they really scratch their heads and are completely like WTF!?? Hilarious!
When you get around to measuring and tweaking, take a look at REW - Room EQ Wizard Room Acoustics Software for some awesome free frequency analysis software. Behriinger's ECM8000 is a great cheap measurement mic too you can pick up for under $100.
If you get short of amp channels, you may find a simple passive crossover might work for you to get the mids and highs onto one amp channel.
We set up a lot of fancy crossovers in the DCX2496, but found a very simple passive crossover ended up doing the job : I used 2-Way Crossover Designer / Calculator to get a circuit for a 2nd order L-R crossover, and ended up only using the HPF section on the compression driver (one inductor and one capacitor) because the ports on the mids actually are a very effective LPF already (and I wanted the upper response to be as little attenuated as possible to get the crossover high). Using only half the filter means the highs and mids are 180 degrees out of phase, but wiring the comp driver the opposite way fixes this nicely 🙂 If you need to balance the volume between mids and highs, use an "L-pad" circuit, or buy something like this : GA37946 AT 60H High Power L PAD Mono 100W | eBay
Go Canberra!
cheers, Richard
Thanks for the compliments!
Yep, loose cannons, that's us! 😉
I like your clear covers there, it's such a mad scientist kinda speaker, I like the idea of people being able to see what's going on in there.
I find when people hear these things and see the horn with tiny ports and no visible drivers they really scratch their heads and are completely like WTF!?? Hilarious!
When you get around to measuring and tweaking, take a look at REW - Room EQ Wizard Room Acoustics Software for some awesome free frequency analysis software. Behriinger's ECM8000 is a great cheap measurement mic too you can pick up for under $100.
If you get short of amp channels, you may find a simple passive crossover might work for you to get the mids and highs onto one amp channel.
We set up a lot of fancy crossovers in the DCX2496, but found a very simple passive crossover ended up doing the job : I used 2-Way Crossover Designer / Calculator to get a circuit for a 2nd order L-R crossover, and ended up only using the HPF section on the compression driver (one inductor and one capacitor) because the ports on the mids actually are a very effective LPF already (and I wanted the upper response to be as little attenuated as possible to get the crossover high). Using only half the filter means the highs and mids are 180 degrees out of phase, but wiring the comp driver the opposite way fixes this nicely 🙂 If you need to balance the volume between mids and highs, use an "L-pad" circuit, or buy something like this : GA37946 AT 60H High Power L PAD Mono 100W | eBay
Go Canberra!
cheers, Richard
PhilB has actually been keeping a great record of what we've been up to at DIY Hifi over on speakerplans 🙂 There are some good pics there of the development of our 2 way box into a 3 way system... Check it here : TH & Unity Horn 24v wind & solar system - Speakerplans.com Forums - Page 1
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