The secret weapon turned out to be DML tweeters. In the pic below, that's the pink foam resting on the c5s. I didn't just build them today as a solution, I've had these for months, and didn't occur to me until this morning to try them. I didn't build them as tweeters, but upon measuring the HF pouring off of them as compared to a tweeter I powered separately (bi-amp monitor) months ago, it seemed like that's what they were meant to do in life.
In the pic one has a frame and the other doesn't. The frame made no difference to sound that I could tell. These are the Dayton daex19ct-4 coin exciters (6$). They are advertised as "full-range exciter", and that's what I bought them for as my foray into DML. They were really messing me up, even with the cardboard, due to the intense HF. But the worst was the day I made the two pink speakers in the pic. That's 1/4" foamular resawed with my bandsaw. I listened to an entire CD with them cranked, and with sub support, and they really scream. Made me dizzy and sick and ears ringing and it was awful. I set the coins aside for good after that, except it occurred to me they could be tweeters.
So I tried to mix them with my panels one day, just at my desk, and it seemed pointless as I failed to find a mix that sounded right, and the panels sounded just fine without them. Embarrassingly, I'm even on record earlier in this thread saying DML should never need a tweeter and now here I am basically saying the hours of A-B switching I did yesterday resulted in the need for a tweeter! Not that this is what I thought the problem was yesterday or even this morning.
I think the guys on the main dml thread who really know what they are doing may not have an issue. For one, I seem to be the only one using the thrusters, the DAEX25FHE-4 which get referenced frequently are a lot are smaller. Of course, I've done no signal sweeps or serious testing, either, but that's more out of making the most of my time; I don't think I know enough yet that the results will help me.
After failing that tweeter exercise, they went to the shelf, and almost threw them all away; because of the ear damage I didn't see a point to keeping them. But I thought of them this morning. I reported yesterday that the C5s had crisper highs and that when switching back to the panels, the panels often sounded flat. Wondered if I could get some additional crisp, but I was so unsure about it that I almost didn't do it, because it required removing banana plug ends and then disconnecting the top panels to use that amp and wire for the "tweeters". But, as I won't have the c5s in here much longer, I'm not going to get the chance again for a while so I did it. And yeah, it fixed both problems. Most importantly and unexpected was fixing the "flat sound" when switching to panel.
It turns out the C5s basically helped me calibrate the panels. I failed to integrate the coins as tweeters in the past because I had no reference point; I was just mixing them in and seeing what I came up with. In retrospect, I was giving the "tweeters" way too much juice. What's so mind blowing is that they are barely doing anything. At moderate overall sound levels, as I set the main panel, sub, and coins to approximate the balance of the c5s, and then turn off everything but the amp powering the coins, it's barely anything. And, in fact, as I said, I think the C5s are a bit harsh, and so from that reference point, I actually turn down the coins a bit. At the levels I was listening to the coin speakers on the day I created them, I would need the rest of the system shaking the house foundation before the levels matched properly.
So today my A-B testing has been multi-dimensional. I'm switching between the panels and the c5s, but then also switching the DML "tweeters" off. And yes, I've reproduced the "flatness", and eliminate it over and over and over again. And so now, in every case, switching to the panels results in a superior sound. When all is balanced to approximate the C5 and I switch to the panels, it's like the sound from the c5s jumps out of the box and exists freely in space. And now with the sound freed, I touch down the the tweeter volume a tad, and then turn on the "big" sub, the Dayton rss210hf-4 8", it's epic.
I guess to take the innovation the next level, I'd need some high end conventional speakers to baseline with.
In the pic one has a frame and the other doesn't. The frame made no difference to sound that I could tell. These are the Dayton daex19ct-4 coin exciters (6$). They are advertised as "full-range exciter", and that's what I bought them for as my foray into DML. They were really messing me up, even with the cardboard, due to the intense HF. But the worst was the day I made the two pink speakers in the pic. That's 1/4" foamular resawed with my bandsaw. I listened to an entire CD with them cranked, and with sub support, and they really scream. Made me dizzy and sick and ears ringing and it was awful. I set the coins aside for good after that, except it occurred to me they could be tweeters.
So I tried to mix them with my panels one day, just at my desk, and it seemed pointless as I failed to find a mix that sounded right, and the panels sounded just fine without them. Embarrassingly, I'm even on record earlier in this thread saying DML should never need a tweeter and now here I am basically saying the hours of A-B switching I did yesterday resulted in the need for a tweeter! Not that this is what I thought the problem was yesterday or even this morning.
I think the guys on the main dml thread who really know what they are doing may not have an issue. For one, I seem to be the only one using the thrusters, the DAEX25FHE-4 which get referenced frequently are a lot are smaller. Of course, I've done no signal sweeps or serious testing, either, but that's more out of making the most of my time; I don't think I know enough yet that the results will help me.
After failing that tweeter exercise, they went to the shelf, and almost threw them all away; because of the ear damage I didn't see a point to keeping them. But I thought of them this morning. I reported yesterday that the C5s had crisper highs and that when switching back to the panels, the panels often sounded flat. Wondered if I could get some additional crisp, but I was so unsure about it that I almost didn't do it, because it required removing banana plug ends and then disconnecting the top panels to use that amp and wire for the "tweeters". But, as I won't have the c5s in here much longer, I'm not going to get the chance again for a while so I did it. And yeah, it fixed both problems. Most importantly and unexpected was fixing the "flat sound" when switching to panel.
It turns out the C5s basically helped me calibrate the panels. I failed to integrate the coins as tweeters in the past because I had no reference point; I was just mixing them in and seeing what I came up with. In retrospect, I was giving the "tweeters" way too much juice. What's so mind blowing is that they are barely doing anything. At moderate overall sound levels, as I set the main panel, sub, and coins to approximate the balance of the c5s, and then turn off everything but the amp powering the coins, it's barely anything. And, in fact, as I said, I think the C5s are a bit harsh, and so from that reference point, I actually turn down the coins a bit. At the levels I was listening to the coin speakers on the day I created them, I would need the rest of the system shaking the house foundation before the levels matched properly.
So today my A-B testing has been multi-dimensional. I'm switching between the panels and the c5s, but then also switching the DML "tweeters" off. And yes, I've reproduced the "flatness", and eliminate it over and over and over again. And so now, in every case, switching to the panels results in a superior sound. When all is balanced to approximate the C5 and I switch to the panels, it's like the sound from the c5s jumps out of the box and exists freely in space. And now with the sound freed, I touch down the the tweeter volume a tad, and then turn on the "big" sub, the Dayton rss210hf-4 8", it's epic.
I guess to take the innovation the next level, I'd need some high end conventional speakers to baseline with.
Hi JM, I haven't read all this thread so maybe you've done this, but before you put your c5s away, can you try running your c5s and the panels together at once. If you can change the volume on one of them separately to find your preferred mix ratio of c5s/dml. And if you switch off or volume down the dml's you will judge what they are adding to the sound field.
Another test is to turn the dml panels 90 degrees, so that the edge (not the face) is pointed to the listening position.
No EQ or crossovers or delays are really necessary to hear what magic (or not) they produce.
Another test is to turn the dml panels 90 degrees, so that the edge (not the face) is pointed to the listening position.
No EQ or crossovers or delays are really necessary to hear what magic (or not) they produce.
Thanks for the suggestions, deanznz. Unfortunately, I've already disconnected them. However, I found a home for the Denon amplifier under my desk and so when I want to try this again (I'm going to make some more DMLs), a big part of the effort is solved for.
The first test you suggest is intuitive and I really wish I'd tried that. Will definitely catch it next round. The second test I don't understand. What does turning the edge toward me do? I'm going to try it without the c5s to see, but the explanation might help me identify what I'm looking for.
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For the last tests I did in the morning, I wired my panels in series so I could keep the tweeters and have all panels going. Not sure why I didn't do that last night. The top panels are the DAEX32EP-4 (left out yesterday) and the bottoms EX32EP2-4 (interchangeable); the two varieties of thrusters. The interchangables sound deeper and bigger, the others have really intense mids and are louder. So adding those to the mix this morning really put a shine on symphonic brass and increased the DML victory, but, the missing HF from the tweeters was definitely the weak spot that left the question mark on the superiority of DML in my mind. I was so blown away by how much difference that makes, I continued to try different music this morning, turning off everything but the tweeters and marveling at that tiny bit of sound making such a difference.
I did test the viability of the coin tweeters keeping up with the rest of the system, being 5 watts and all. I know I said yesterday shouldn't be a problem but nice to check. So I cranked up some techno, bottomed out my Tang band (it was okay thankfully), so shut that guy off and let the Dayton 8" HF take over; the hugest sound I've had going so far, like I'm at a dance club, turned everything off but the tweeters and definitely loud enough to hear the music and it's a tad shrill, it's a little bit of volume now, but should have plenty of overhead. So seems viable.
The first test you suggest is intuitive and I really wish I'd tried that. Will definitely catch it next round. The second test I don't understand. What does turning the edge toward me do? I'm going to try it without the c5s to see, but the explanation might help me identify what I'm looking for.
---
For the last tests I did in the morning, I wired my panels in series so I could keep the tweeters and have all panels going. Not sure why I didn't do that last night. The top panels are the DAEX32EP-4 (left out yesterday) and the bottoms EX32EP2-4 (interchangeable); the two varieties of thrusters. The interchangables sound deeper and bigger, the others have really intense mids and are louder. So adding those to the mix this morning really put a shine on symphonic brass and increased the DML victory, but, the missing HF from the tweeters was definitely the weak spot that left the question mark on the superiority of DML in my mind. I was so blown away by how much difference that makes, I continued to try different music this morning, turning off everything but the tweeters and marveling at that tiny bit of sound making such a difference.
I did test the viability of the coin tweeters keeping up with the rest of the system, being 5 watts and all. I know I said yesterday shouldn't be a problem but nice to check. So I cranked up some techno, bottomed out my Tang band (it was okay thankfully), so shut that guy off and let the Dayton 8" HF take over; the hugest sound I've had going so far, like I'm at a dance club, turned everything off but the tweeters and definitely loud enough to hear the music and it's a tad shrill, it's a little bit of volume now, but should have plenty of overhead. So seems viable.
For me..... when using cone driver speakers only, I can sense the wall behind the speakers, when I add the dml panels (out from the wall about 1 meter, which is the same distance the cone drivers are from the wall too) the wall behind the speakers and dml's seems to disappear, meaning I can no longer sense a wall behind them. When I rotate the dml panels 90 degrees so they are edge on to me, the wall behind the speakers still disappears but also the first 1/3 of the side walls disappear and about the same amount of the ceiling also disappears too.
The centre (phantom) image does degrade with edge on, dml's. And if I move the dml's to behind me, edge on, then most/all of the side walls and ceiling disappear, but the centre/phantom image is more degraded.
Any cone driver speakers up front will work to hear this effect, they don't need to be high quality, small cheap bookshelf's will do it.
I would also be interested in your findings as I am planning on running DML panels together with my current Full Range TL speakers one day. It does make amplification a bit of a challenge.
May be a few weeks before I can swing that again. Where those speakers are stowed away, they serve as stands for candles and plants, and I don't dare steal them away from their primary function too often.
Though I will definitely do the test explicitly next time, having A-B'd them so many times, I believe I can anticipate the outcome. So lets say I first calibrate the setup by getting the main panels set to the db level of the c5s, then add tweeter and sub a little at a time until I get to the point when switching back and forth, I can barely tell a difference -- at low volume levels. At this low volume level, the main difference I can hear when switching is in the bass, because the sub is fuller.
From here, I turn up the volume on the c5s to a modest level where they get going a bit. Now switching to DML, the most distinctive difference is the boom from the box disappears. Yes, certain airy tracks sound more magical, and the panels sound bigger, but the #1 difference is the boom from the speaker boxes. When switching back to the c5s, you regain that boom, plus, the sounds shrinks substantially to a smaller sound field.
Though I will definitely do the test explicitly next time, having A-B'd them so many times, I believe I can anticipate the outcome. So lets say I first calibrate the setup by getting the main panels set to the db level of the c5s, then add tweeter and sub a little at a time until I get to the point when switching back and forth, I can barely tell a difference -- at low volume levels. At this low volume level, the main difference I can hear when switching is in the bass, because the sub is fuller.
From here, I turn up the volume on the c5s to a modest level where they get going a bit. Now switching to DML, the most distinctive difference is the boom from the box disappears. Yes, certain airy tracks sound more magical, and the panels sound bigger, but the #1 difference is the boom from the speaker boxes. When switching back to the c5s, you regain that boom, plus, the sounds shrinks substantially to a smaller sound field.
An RCA Y cable and any spare/cheap amp can be used to hear the effect. Don't fuss over making it high quality (unless you like fussing ;-) ) The effect can be heard with 1 way cheap second hand bookshelf speakers from the Opportunity shop and a noisy class D amp, and un EQ'ed polystyrene fish bin lids as DML's....... lol
Once you hear the effect you'll know if it's something you like, and maybe want to refine, or not like at all.
I also tried and liked adding small dml panels over bookshelf speakers, they really seemed to improve the soundstage and spaciousness. Instead of a seperate amp I just used a simple first order crossover with a capacitor to cross over about 1500hz up. The panels can be small if they don't need to handle bass. I used 3mm ply so the sensitivity would be similar or lower than the bookshelf speakers.
I did it as a proof of concept and have been meaning to make nicer looking panels to keep in the living room, either ply or clear perspex with some kind of stand to sit on top of the other speakers.
I did it as a proof of concept and have been meaning to make nicer looking panels to keep in the living room, either ply or clear perspex with some kind of stand to sit on top of the other speakers.
Well I successfully built a pair of working DML speakers and they're surprisingly decent. They're a bit "chesty" sounding and took a bunch of EQ just using Spotify on my phone to get decent highs. I sanded the back side and applied 50/50 water and wood glue with a roller to both sides, I have not rounded the corners yet. I feel these have a bunch of performance still left on the table, cool project though.
I'm tempted to build some smaller "tweeter" panels using the coin exciters and mount them on top of the panels.
I'm tempted to build some smaller "tweeter" panels using the coin exciters and mount them on top of the panels.
