Sreten
I agree 100% about getting maximum results from lower cost design and not seeking best or ultimate etc. My current use of the 206E in 20L BR with an Eton 10" active sub fits this objective very well and is very practical and simple for me with max results. I can carry the 20L BR all over the house in both HT mode and hifi mode in 2 rooms, and the separate base box can be re-used for different mid/tweeter modules that can be built in future.
By removing the tweeter whizzer what frequency point do you think would reduce? Also what do you think of Lowther UK statement below about the latest EX range of drivers having inner cone isolated from outer? This would appear to fit in with the idea of surgically removing the whizzer, although without any experience I must admit this sounds like a drastic measure to take. I would be afraid to lose a lot of that mid to high frequency sparkle and magic the 206E seems to have in spades.
Hifinut
Thanks for those pictures, very useful. Apart from changing the fabric on those chairs, which will have absolutely no audible effect, perhaps for double torture & big $ you could replace those Peerless drivers with others like Scanspeak, Accuton, Eton etc.
The tower WWMTMWW looks awesome otherwise. I understand why maybe you are looking for better sound. Peerless drivers are supposed to be good bang for the buck, but not in the same league as others. Compared to the Fostex & Eton sound I have I would imagine my sound is much more focused, immediate, alive and images really well with deep deep Eton 11" Hexacone bass. When I get some proper high efficiency 15" woofers (keen on BD 15 drivers at the moment for US$359 a pair or FW405s) it will be interesting which I prefer for bass.
In my room the 206Es sound very loud as I always listen nearfield about 2-3m away, so they may not be as robust for your application expecting to hear them in another room upstairs with such force like your current towers.
One other listening observation with the 206E is that in my modest HT room on a cheap Pioneer AV amp and DIY Focal 10"kevlar sub (JayCar 65W plate amp) they are amazing at bring out every small detail on everything from TV commercials/movies, DVDs, nature documentaries with birds chirping away, bells, gun shots etc, all with amazing treble and midrange performance, human speech, with electrostatic type imaging, detail and coherence - it really spoils one so much that often I prefer this to listening to repetitive music CDs. The 206E seem to make the most out of any amp but can still show differences in quality among better amps. Only ELS have this ability and they are often useless on tube amps.
🙂
I agree 100% about getting maximum results from lower cost design and not seeking best or ultimate etc. My current use of the 206E in 20L BR with an Eton 10" active sub fits this objective very well and is very practical and simple for me with max results. I can carry the 20L BR all over the house in both HT mode and hifi mode in 2 rooms, and the separate base box can be re-used for different mid/tweeter modules that can be built in future.
By removing the tweeter whizzer what frequency point do you think would reduce? Also what do you think of Lowther UK statement below about the latest EX range of drivers having inner cone isolated from outer? This would appear to fit in with the idea of surgically removing the whizzer, although without any experience I must admit this sounds like a drastic measure to take. I would be afraid to lose a lot of that mid to high frequency sparkle and magic the 206E seems to have in spades.
ref: http://www.lowtherloudspeakers.co.uk/homeindex.html
Hifinut
Thanks for those pictures, very useful. Apart from changing the fabric on those chairs, which will have absolutely no audible effect, perhaps for double torture & big $ you could replace those Peerless drivers with others like Scanspeak, Accuton, Eton etc.
The tower WWMTMWW looks awesome otherwise. I understand why maybe you are looking for better sound. Peerless drivers are supposed to be good bang for the buck, but not in the same league as others. Compared to the Fostex & Eton sound I have I would imagine my sound is much more focused, immediate, alive and images really well with deep deep Eton 11" Hexacone bass. When I get some proper high efficiency 15" woofers (keen on BD 15 drivers at the moment for US$359 a pair or FW405s) it will be interesting which I prefer for bass.
In my room the 206Es sound very loud as I always listen nearfield about 2-3m away, so they may not be as robust for your application expecting to hear them in another room upstairs with such force like your current towers.
One other listening observation with the 206E is that in my modest HT room on a cheap Pioneer AV amp and DIY Focal 10"kevlar sub (JayCar 65W plate amp) they are amazing at bring out every small detail on everything from TV commercials/movies, DVDs, nature documentaries with birds chirping away, bells, gun shots etc, all with amazing treble and midrange performance, human speech, with electrostatic type imaging, detail and coherence - it really spoils one so much that often I prefer this to listening to repetitive music CDs. The 206E seem to make the most out of any amp but can still show differences in quality among better amps. Only ELS have this ability and they are often useless on tube amps.
🙂
Certainly not most obvious solution.... Can I ask what led you to use two different fullrange drivers (both capable of covering at least 400hz on up on an open baffle by themselves) along with a ribbon tweeter? What frequencies do you have these drivers covering? Obviously I'm of the mind set of keeping it simple, but that is most likely just to keep me from getting confused
. I would be interested in more details on how you came about to this, and how you would compare the sound to... say a fostex 206 on it's own.Thanks
Joe
Steve,
An interesting choice not to place the drivers on the same vertical axis. I suspect designers sometimes skew the time/phase alignment by this method the achieve a pronounced holographic imaging effect. Was this your intent?
What is the cost/PN of the yamaha drivers?
Regards,
Gaucho
An interesting choice not to place the drivers on the same vertical axis. I suspect designers sometimes skew the time/phase alignment by this method the achieve a pronounced holographic imaging effect. Was this your intent?
What is the cost/PN of the yamaha drivers?
Regards,
Gaucho
This project is just a 'test mule' and came about as a concept to marry the Fostex 206E fullrange driver into a 'truly' full range system with uncompromised powerful bass and extended treble to 45kHz. Also, I just wanted to see what an open baffle design would sound like.
The biggest surprise is the bass, I'm quite amazed how even in an OB configuration the dual 12" Yamaha drivers are rattling all the windows like a subwoofer. I have heard better bass depth and would guess that the OB is only going down to about 35-40 Hz, but overall the bass sounds accurate and has very good speed.
Joseph: the second smaller Fostex 103E is just an alternative driver mounted in the baffle as an experiment, it is not running together with the 206E. I just switch from one to other to see what they sound like. I much prefer the 206E overall, it has that tight imaging and point source character in spades!
The jarrah timber frame and electronics you see in the pic are from my favourite electrostatic speaker, the ER Audio ESL-3, designed and built by Rob Mackinlay, see: www.eraudio.com.au .
The Fostex 206E is a bit of an enigma, it sounds like an electrostatic speaker and does some things really well while at other times I feel it does not quite have the sophistication and refinement of my reference ESL; three inch dome mids or Accuton ceramic C79 mids that I have used. Overall though the 206E is unbeatable for the money (@ $84USD each) and is a plug-n-play speaker, just stick it in a 20L BR box with no crossover etc. and you are immediately transported to hi-end sound. The 206E is best listened to on it's own (without the Raven), where it's point source/single driver attributes come to the fore, and treble is more than satisfactory. That said, it has a certain roughness which I am trying to come to terms with at the moment (and this may disappear in time as it runs in, mine has only done about 80 hrs). I am finding that the Raven R-1 ribbon tweeter added into the mix somehow makes the Fostex sound smoother, more airy and extended. I have a 4 ohm Mk I Raven, crossed over at 14 kHz with First Order x-o using expensive tinfoil capacitors. At this stage overall I prefer it with the Raven.
Gaucho: I have purposely offset the 206E & Raven R-1 from centre by a ratio of 1:0.8/0.6 as recommended by other OB experts on this site. The dual 12" bass drivers are out of a threeway domestic speaker model called the Yamaha NS1200. This 50kg acoustic suspension speaker has uncompromised build quality selling in it's day in 1992 @ ~$6,990AUD, twice the cost of the deservedly famous Yamaha NS1000 (the beryllium jobbie). The NS1200 carbon impreganated paper bass units are available from Yamaha Music Inc and has a Part No. JA3120, but they are prohibitively priced at $800AUD each! In any event, you are still better off with bass drivers like the 11" Eton or Fostex FW405 from Madisound which probably have better specs on paper.
Regards,
Steve M.
The biggest surprise is the bass, I'm quite amazed how even in an OB configuration the dual 12" Yamaha drivers are rattling all the windows like a subwoofer. I have heard better bass depth and would guess that the OB is only going down to about 35-40 Hz, but overall the bass sounds accurate and has very good speed.
Joseph: the second smaller Fostex 103E is just an alternative driver mounted in the baffle as an experiment, it is not running together with the 206E. I just switch from one to other to see what they sound like. I much prefer the 206E overall, it has that tight imaging and point source character in spades!
The jarrah timber frame and electronics you see in the pic are from my favourite electrostatic speaker, the ER Audio ESL-3, designed and built by Rob Mackinlay, see: www.eraudio.com.au .
The Fostex 206E is a bit of an enigma, it sounds like an electrostatic speaker and does some things really well while at other times I feel it does not quite have the sophistication and refinement of my reference ESL; three inch dome mids or Accuton ceramic C79 mids that I have used. Overall though the 206E is unbeatable for the money (@ $84USD each) and is a plug-n-play speaker, just stick it in a 20L BR box with no crossover etc. and you are immediately transported to hi-end sound. The 206E is best listened to on it's own (without the Raven), where it's point source/single driver attributes come to the fore, and treble is more than satisfactory. That said, it has a certain roughness which I am trying to come to terms with at the moment (and this may disappear in time as it runs in, mine has only done about 80 hrs). I am finding that the Raven R-1 ribbon tweeter added into the mix somehow makes the Fostex sound smoother, more airy and extended. I have a 4 ohm Mk I Raven, crossed over at 14 kHz with First Order x-o using expensive tinfoil capacitors. At this stage overall I prefer it with the Raven.
Gaucho: I have purposely offset the 206E & Raven R-1 from centre by a ratio of 1:0.8/0.6 as recommended by other OB experts on this site. The dual 12" bass drivers are out of a threeway domestic speaker model called the Yamaha NS1200. This 50kg acoustic suspension speaker has uncompromised build quality selling in it's day in 1992 @ ~$6,990AUD, twice the cost of the deservedly famous Yamaha NS1000 (the beryllium jobbie). The NS1200 carbon impreganated paper bass units are available from Yamaha Music Inc and has a Part No. JA3120, but they are prohibitively priced at $800AUD each! In any event, you are still better off with bass drivers like the 11" Eton or Fostex FW405 from Madisound which probably have better specs on paper.
Regards,
Steve M.
Attachments
Hi,
I have been playing around with open baffle speakers for a few years and learned the hard way a few things. As some back ground ,I have owned a lot of different ESLs and panels and they all have major problems. I own Lowther PM7A in Big Fun Horns that do work well but still have problems. The open baffles are the best that I have had for playing most music that is quite listenable.My actual experiences do not agree with alot of arm chair critics out there but I can assure you that it works well. 1-You need surface area ,lots of it, I use two 18" Pro woofs in a 6'xabout 26"wide baffle with side wings slopeing to the floor.A 10" wide range driver and a ribbon tweeter.2- Get your wide range driver that has a flat response to start with.3- Use high QTS drivers.I am still playing around with this speaker but so far the Aurum Cantus G2Si comes in at 10K 2nd order.The Ciare CH250 modded to QTS of .8 is lifted at 150Hz. Zobel on the Ciare.The Pyramid drivers are QTS of .82 driven with a 150watt plate amp.Now Xmax...I have never run out of it.Yes I play loud rock.The Ciare.5mm. Yes 1/2 a mm, and the Woofers is 4mm. Works well. One 18" does not cut the mustard ,you need two. The Ciare is surprizingly good for such a cheap driver. It is made for OB.I get the coherancy of a full range driver and some decent bass and treble. Thorsten is right .OB's rock.Thanks to him for his ideas. Try them you will like them.Costs are small and woodwork a doodle.
Cheers.
I have been playing around with open baffle speakers for a few years and learned the hard way a few things. As some back ground ,I have owned a lot of different ESLs and panels and they all have major problems. I own Lowther PM7A in Big Fun Horns that do work well but still have problems. The open baffles are the best that I have had for playing most music that is quite listenable.My actual experiences do not agree with alot of arm chair critics out there but I can assure you that it works well. 1-You need surface area ,lots of it, I use two 18" Pro woofs in a 6'xabout 26"wide baffle with side wings slopeing to the floor.A 10" wide range driver and a ribbon tweeter.2- Get your wide range driver that has a flat response to start with.3- Use high QTS drivers.I am still playing around with this speaker but so far the Aurum Cantus G2Si comes in at 10K 2nd order.The Ciare CH250 modded to QTS of .8 is lifted at 150Hz. Zobel on the Ciare.The Pyramid drivers are QTS of .82 driven with a 150watt plate amp.Now Xmax...I have never run out of it.Yes I play loud rock.The Ciare.5mm. Yes 1/2 a mm, and the Woofers is 4mm. Works well. One 18" does not cut the mustard ,you need two. The Ciare is surprizingly good for such a cheap driver. It is made for OB.I get the coherancy of a full range driver and some decent bass and treble. Thorsten is right .OB's rock.Thanks to him for his ideas. Try them you will like them.Costs are small and woodwork a doodle.
Cheers.
Attachments
Peter, can you elaborate on the sides? How wide are they? On the woofers, do you use any kind of equalization? If so, can you explain what you're doing there? Looks like a very interesting project. Thanks for sharing.
Steve
Steve
Konnichwa Clements San,
I agree. Open Baffles are still not "perfect" (nothing is), but sensibly implemented they seem to combine fairly inoffensive faults with exceptional Strength and Quality, especially in the light of the work/cost required.
Sayonara
Peter Clements said:
I agree. Open Baffles are still not "perfect" (nothing is), but sensibly implemented they seem to combine fairly inoffensive faults with exceptional Strength and Quality, especially in the light of the work/cost required.
Sayonara
Yes Peter/Thorsten, I agree OB's are quite easy to implement and sound good, made easier still if you use a fullrange single driver like a Fostex/Lowther which requires no fiddling with crossovers.
In the end whether I sit with my OB depends largely on how the room accomodates such a large surface area. Door sized OBs *do* block out the sunlight and the view to my swimming pool, which is a negative! IMO, having heard both OB and BR the quite magical 206E sounds just as good in a small 20L bass reflex box.
Regards,
Steve M.
In the end whether I sit with my OB depends largely on how the room accomodates such a large surface area. Door sized OBs *do* block out the sunlight and the view to my swimming pool, which is a negative! IMO, having heard both OB and BR the quite magical 206E sounds just as good in a small 20L bass reflex box.
Regards,
Steve M.
Hi,
The sides of my OBs are 15" at the bottom 14" at tweeter level and 2" near the top.Very little EQ is necessary. I started with 10k series resistor 4uf parallel off the 2A3 output into a 20wpc Chip amp. This worked OK. However the AC on the 2A3 filaments has hum that is low on the Lowthers but once amplified by the bass amp is not good enough. I am now EQing off the pre into a 150w plate amp.
Pro Audio drivers are perfect for this application if you think it through. The high Q means less EQ,no xmax problems,and less doppler distortion. They have a wide range for a big driver and I think this is important. At 6db 150hz crossover they need to work past 1K. Most Hi Fi drivers this size don't.The light stiff cone is great. And as they do not have to work as an air commpessor or by design have huge magnets,so do not need an expensive cast basket.I paid US $25 each a while ago for them on special. They should be flat to 24 Hz and sound like it.
Don't be put off with the crossover on something like this as intergration is neatly side stepped. 150hz and above 10k are not in the ears critical area. This is also a huge preformance advantage in the fact that you can have your cake and eat it too. The advantages of full range with out the disadvantages.
As has been said before, the bass is null to the sides so room problems are diminished. I could not use big boxes in my room as they boom,the OBs are fine.Tight fast accurate bass. The other thig I like is the dispertion of the ribbon. No domes spraying the room making early refections.
One other thing is important IMHO, that is the sound staging. To me a double bass is 10' high on Wilson Grand Slams or huge stats, and 1' high on those little stand mounted things. The OBs are about right. Airy depth and natural not etched staging.
Too big? Do as Thorten and others have done, make them transparent , well the baffle anyway. They say glass or Perspex works well.
Cheers,
Peter
The sides of my OBs are 15" at the bottom 14" at tweeter level and 2" near the top.Very little EQ is necessary. I started with 10k series resistor 4uf parallel off the 2A3 output into a 20wpc Chip amp. This worked OK. However the AC on the 2A3 filaments has hum that is low on the Lowthers but once amplified by the bass amp is not good enough. I am now EQing off the pre into a 150w plate amp.
Pro Audio drivers are perfect for this application if you think it through. The high Q means less EQ,no xmax problems,and less doppler distortion. They have a wide range for a big driver and I think this is important. At 6db 150hz crossover they need to work past 1K. Most Hi Fi drivers this size don't.The light stiff cone is great. And as they do not have to work as an air commpessor or by design have huge magnets,so do not need an expensive cast basket.I paid US $25 each a while ago for them on special. They should be flat to 24 Hz and sound like it.
Don't be put off with the crossover on something like this as intergration is neatly side stepped. 150hz and above 10k are not in the ears critical area. This is also a huge preformance advantage in the fact that you can have your cake and eat it too. The advantages of full range with out the disadvantages.
As has been said before, the bass is null to the sides so room problems are diminished. I could not use big boxes in my room as they boom,the OBs are fine.Tight fast accurate bass. The other thig I like is the dispertion of the ribbon. No domes spraying the room making early refections.
One other thing is important IMHO, that is the sound staging. To me a double bass is 10' high on Wilson Grand Slams or huge stats, and 1' high on those little stand mounted things. The OBs are about right. Airy depth and natural not etched staging.
Too big? Do as Thorten and others have done, make them transparent , well the baffle anyway. They say glass or Perspex works well.
Cheers,
Peter
Thanks, Peter. That is essentially the same approach I've been taking, so I was curious what others are doing. I have been using the 15" Dayton IB speakers in an open box, 15" deep, and a line level cross over similar to what you've implemented. The IB speakers have a Qt of 0.65 and an xmax of 14.3!
I'd agree, the bass is fantastic and I do use a SS amp for the bass amplification. Actually in that regard I also turned to pro sound stuff and used a Crown DJ amp. Very inexpensive per watt.
I'd agree, the bass is fantastic and I do use a SS amp for the bass amplification. Actually in that regard I also turned to pro sound stuff and used a Crown DJ amp. Very inexpensive per watt.
Hi smbrown,
I fully agree with the pro stuff being good vaue, no exellent value for money. This stuff has to work well and those guys unlike a lot of audiophools will not pay mega bucks for rubbish. It is not all suitable for us, but a lot is. I also was looking at a pro amp, $700 here for a powerfull pro amp or $7000 for a "Sterophile" one. Looking at the circuits of both there "aint nothing in it'.
The local Audio Note Dealer here is a closet listener to pro speakers. He sells Audio Note Speakers at mega bucks, but listens himself to some coax pros worth peanuts, as he prefers them for their clarity and punch.
One other thing a do not know why there is that impression that OBs are as big as doors. Mine are about the same dimentions as Bassillia. A coule of inches taller and not as deep. mine work fine in corners a few feet from the back wall.
I fully agree with the pro stuff being good vaue, no exellent value for money. This stuff has to work well and those guys unlike a lot of audiophools will not pay mega bucks for rubbish. It is not all suitable for us, but a lot is. I also was looking at a pro amp, $700 here for a powerfull pro amp or $7000 for a "Sterophile" one. Looking at the circuits of both there "aint nothing in it'.
The local Audio Note Dealer here is a closet listener to pro speakers. He sells Audio Note Speakers at mega bucks, but listens himself to some coax pros worth peanuts, as he prefers them for their clarity and punch.
One other thing a do not know why there is that impression that OBs are as big as doors. Mine are about the same dimentions as Bassillia. A coule of inches taller and not as deep. mine work fine in corners a few feet from the back wall.
Hi, I Googled Ciare CH250 and I can not find a north american dealer...perhaps because there isn't one? Any help locating these drivers is appreciated.
Hi Gaucho,
I purchased my Ciare Ch250's from www.spectrumaudio.de . Look under Breitbandlautsprecher.
One thing, if you do a translation of the site, DB ( decibels ) comes up as railways. Translation for Deutsche Bahnhof they shorten to BD, which is the German Railway.
You can change the QTS quite a bit by glueing on extra magnets. I glued one extra on to lower the Q.They shipped fast and communicated well in English. They are cheap drivers at about US$50 each.
Cheers.
I purchased my Ciare Ch250's from www.spectrumaudio.de . Look under Breitbandlautsprecher.
One thing, if you do a translation of the site, DB ( decibels ) comes up as railways. Translation for Deutsche Bahnhof they shorten to BD, which is the German Railway.
You can change the QTS quite a bit by glueing on extra magnets. I glued one extra on to lower the Q.They shipped fast and communicated well in English. They are cheap drivers at about US$50 each.
Cheers.
http://www.arduman.com/aa/Sayfalar/peder/peder.htm
as nice as they are.. the real eye candy is the amp with that gorgeous power supply.
as nice as they are.. the real eye candy is the amp with that gorgeous power supply.
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