Anything new to report on your project? Let us know how your adventure is going.
Hi Perry, thanks for asking! I just happened to log back in to check this thread - I haven't been receiving notifications like normal. I haven't had too much time to play with the speakers as I'm in the middle of a big cross-country move.
What I can say is that I have had the chance to work on the digital crossover stuff and I did get the speakers sounding excellent. I had my friends over for a listening weekend, and the first 2 days we spent listening to the BB's, and the last day listening to my GR NX-treme's. We all 3 agreed that the nx-treme's were better speakers, but the BB's were 90% as good. Definitely the 2nd best speakers I've had in my space, and I've had some good ones. I strongly feel that the minidsp is holding them back quite a bit. I wish there was another manufacturer which made a suitable device in the 3-5k range which would be a significant upgrade over the minidsp. It seems active crossovers are only becoming more popular, so hopefully someday we have more options. In the meantime, I'm very pleased with them!
What I can say is that I have had the chance to work on the digital crossover stuff and I did get the speakers sounding excellent. I had my friends over for a listening weekend, and the first 2 days we spent listening to the BB's, and the last day listening to my GR NX-treme's. We all 3 agreed that the nx-treme's were better speakers, but the BB's were 90% as good. Definitely the 2nd best speakers I've had in my space, and I've had some good ones. I strongly feel that the minidsp is holding them back quite a bit. I wish there was another manufacturer which made a suitable device in the 3-5k range which would be a significant upgrade over the minidsp. It seems active crossovers are only becoming more popular, so hopefully someday we have more options. In the meantime, I'm very pleased with them!
My friend Tom Perazella, a razor sharp audio guy who's been a judge at Parts Express speaker design competition, also written tons of articles in AudioXpress, emailed me yesterday and encouraged me to visit Danville Signal at AXPONA.
https://danvillesignal.com/audio
It looks to me like they're in the ballpark of what we're after.
https://danvillesignal.com/audio
It looks to me like they're in the ballpark of what we're after.
Wow, that's very intriguing! I'm actually planning to pop in at Axpona Friday night and Saturday morning. I have an engagement on Saturday night, but if I'm able to make it I'll be sure to stop by his room. Any idea on pricing? I was poking around on the site and couldn't find any way to actually purchase his equipment.
This is exactly the kind of thing we need - the BB's are brilliant, but honestly I feel a little ahead of their time. Without spending tons of money on a custom DSP solution we're left with the MiniDSP as the only option. I've used the MiniDSP on my NX-Treme's for room correction, and while it did clean up some things it ended up tainting others. And that's using a separate, standalone DAC. I think that's the biggest problem with the current setup - using the MinidSP for the conversion. The DAC in the MiniDSP is fairly poor in my experience - good for the price - but far from achieving the true potential of the BB's. Which is actually quite exciting, because these speakers will be able to significantly improve over time as new innovations come out - and the baseline is already fantastic!
This is exactly the kind of thing we need - the BB's are brilliant, but honestly I feel a little ahead of their time. Without spending tons of money on a custom DSP solution we're left with the MiniDSP as the only option. I've used the MiniDSP on my NX-Treme's for room correction, and while it did clean up some things it ended up tainting others. And that's using a separate, standalone DAC. I think that's the biggest problem with the current setup - using the MinidSP for the conversion. The DAC in the MiniDSP is fairly poor in my experience - good for the price - but far from achieving the true potential of the BB's. Which is actually quite exciting, because these speakers will be able to significantly improve over time as new innovations come out - and the baseline is already fantastic!
As Perry mentioned I would suggest you stop by the Danville Signal booth and speak with Al Clark, the owner. He is one of the most knowledgeable guys I know and my dspNexus 2/8 from them is way ahead of all the DSP equipment I have used in the last 20 years including miniDSP. The price of the 8 channel version was $3,000 which is a bargain considering the high performance SHARC processor and AKM ADCs and DACs included.
But there ARE many quality options for DSP of multiway audio systems, you've just got to look at the pro sound market. I know often times audiophiles think that they must be of poor quality (Thx Berhringer), but the better brands use very good conversion and sound very good. I've been working with BSS Soundweb processors for the last 15 years and they sound very good. You can pick up second-hand BLU-100 processors for around $1,000USD all day long. Symtrix also makes VERY high quality products with good A/D and D/A conversion. Many recording studios use products such as these for X-over and room tuning of monitoring systems.
That's great if there are other products on the market! I have not looked at any of the equipment you listed, so I checked them all out. I don't doubt that these will accomplish the requisite crossover and DA conversion tasks, but do they really provide truly audiophile quality? I have heard very good quality pro-audio equipment before, I owned a Dangerous Source DAC for a short while and was impressed for the price. However, entering the realm of what I believe the BB's are capable of, off the shelf designs don't cut it anymore. Especially in the DAC side of things. I'm genuinely interested and wondering what your experience with any of this equipment is, and how you would compare the sound quality to products more familiar to the audiophile world?
Today I stopped by @jrhilgers John Hilgers' place and listened to his incarnation of the Bitches Brews. Reinhard Metz, who's written articles for AudioXpress and has built speakers, tube amps, solid state amps AND an airplane, came along, and we had a great time. John, nice tube amps you built and excellent job executing the design!
We also REALLY enjoyed John's Martin-Logan electrostatic Home Theater setup.
We also REALLY enjoyed John's Martin-Logan electrostatic Home Theater setup.
HI Pery, THank you for sharing your designs. I have learned alot! I am in the planning stage of my version of the live edge dipole and I am considering some baffle changes to in prove my WAF. I plan to use the MiniDSP flex 8 for primary crossover duties. I would like to reduce the overall height to approx 40 in and possibly move the mid/tweet closer to the woofer with the mid/tweeter 1-2 in from the top baffle edge. Would these changes effect sound quality/response?
Those changes will have small effects, but nothing you can't deal with via tweaks of the DSP.
Moving the Radian closer to the edge (or making the baffle narrower near the top - reference @CharlieLaub's work on "minimally baffled dipoles") will taper the lower midrange down by a few dB. So you'll probably need to boost that region by a few dB in the DSP.
I don't think any of this is detrimental. If you like to play music super loud, it might strain the 8" radian a bit. It won't cause a problem for most audiophiles I know. IF you think that's a problem, you can just increase the crossover frequency from 200Hz to 300Hz.
MiniDSP Flex 8 is great. An improvement over 2x4hd.
Moving the Radian closer to the edge (or making the baffle narrower near the top - reference @CharlieLaub's work on "minimally baffled dipoles") will taper the lower midrange down by a few dB. So you'll probably need to boost that region by a few dB in the DSP.
I don't think any of this is detrimental. If you like to play music super loud, it might strain the 8" radian a bit. It won't cause a problem for most audiophiles I know. IF you think that's a problem, you can just increase the crossover frequency from 200Hz to 300Hz.
MiniDSP Flex 8 is great. An improvement over 2x4hd.
I very much like your designs and greatly appreciate taking so much time to show others how to achieve great results that look and sound great as well.
I am fortunate to have a very open minded music loving wife, indeed! I showed here your designs and now she wants something similar, walnut being her favorite wood which we had already been looking into for whatever we end up using in our full time RV.
We have a tough space to work in, 95" wide by 5 ft with a 54x24" desk in the middle so not much room on each side for speaker. I added 1.5 ft to the length to help as much as I could so I can move them out a bit, up to 30" from back wall. I have most of the parts to build the XRK designed XDS OB/SLOB speakers and do know OB just might not work in our situation but love them and really like almost all alternative designs compared to box speakers so I might end up building several types to listen to unless get lucky early on. The sofa will face the audio system and can be anywhere from 8-12 ft back and more into the center for serious listening periods.
The space opens up on each side past 5 ft out but different on each slide out , one being living room, other kitchen and wife's stand up desk that looks like part of the kitchen. I can use some treatments to see if I can balance things out if needed.
There will be lots of book, etc, shelves behind and above the desk and living, dining areas and I plan on a fabric covered ceiling with a later of foam under it.
I have plans to build dual 15" subs into the corners, very shallow depth, 27" T x18" W, 9" D...and own great drivers I can port or go sealed in smaller enclosures. Not the best place in some regards but the only place I can do this. At least I am good at tuning being I used to by a sound quality car audio competitor and did quite well at it.
That said, your hybrid dual 12" system is very interesting to me, I could do that and skip the 15's or use the 15's and build something like dual 8 or 10 OB, etc....or if best just build like yours and live see how it goes. I could try the XRK design in MDF baffles and if worked out redo the fronts in live edge, etc.. The main thing I have to keep in mind is only approx 19-20" of space on each side of the desk.
I have a lot of time to consider all possibilities as only half done with probably a 2,000 hour remodel of the RV.
Please let me know if you have any advice on any of this if you have the time to do so.
Sincerely,
Rick
I am fortunate to have a very open minded music loving wife, indeed! I showed here your designs and now she wants something similar, walnut being her favorite wood which we had already been looking into for whatever we end up using in our full time RV.
We have a tough space to work in, 95" wide by 5 ft with a 54x24" desk in the middle so not much room on each side for speaker. I added 1.5 ft to the length to help as much as I could so I can move them out a bit, up to 30" from back wall. I have most of the parts to build the XRK designed XDS OB/SLOB speakers and do know OB just might not work in our situation but love them and really like almost all alternative designs compared to box speakers so I might end up building several types to listen to unless get lucky early on. The sofa will face the audio system and can be anywhere from 8-12 ft back and more into the center for serious listening periods.
The space opens up on each side past 5 ft out but different on each slide out , one being living room, other kitchen and wife's stand up desk that looks like part of the kitchen. I can use some treatments to see if I can balance things out if needed.
There will be lots of book, etc, shelves behind and above the desk and living, dining areas and I plan on a fabric covered ceiling with a later of foam under it.
I have plans to build dual 15" subs into the corners, very shallow depth, 27" T x18" W, 9" D...and own great drivers I can port or go sealed in smaller enclosures. Not the best place in some regards but the only place I can do this. At least I am good at tuning being I used to by a sound quality car audio competitor and did quite well at it.
That said, your hybrid dual 12" system is very interesting to me, I could do that and skip the 15's or use the 15's and build something like dual 8 or 10 OB, etc....or if best just build like yours and live see how it goes. I could try the XRK design in MDF baffles and if worked out redo the fronts in live edge, etc.. The main thing I have to keep in mind is only approx 19-20" of space on each side of the desk.
I have a lot of time to consider all possibilities as only half done with probably a 2,000 hour remodel of the RV.
Please let me know if you have any advice on any of this if you have the time to do so.
Sincerely,
Rick
I'm having a hard time imagining how anything resembling the Flanagangster OB+Reflex Hybrid would fit into that tiny space.
Here's what I can more easily imagine:
I can picture a Faital 12HX230 12" coax like I used in my very first Dipole design on a very minimal baffle (or even no baffle at all) suspended at a position that you choose.
That particular driver, with no baffle at all, could probably go down to 100Hz and still play loud enough without strain. That is IF you EQ'd with DSP. It would probably require a 5-10dB boost at 150Hz. I would roll it off immediately below 100, 12dB/octave should be sufficient.
You can assign bass to your 15s which you can install and cross over however you like.
If it were my RV, I might even try a 10" or 8" coax like the Radian 5210 or 5208. The tricky issue is how low you can get away with crossing it over. I think the 12" could handle the power and the extra EQ boost. Not as sure about the 10" or 8". I don't know how loud you like it. I also think the Radian 5212B beryllium is a strong contender. Likely better than the 12HX230 which I was very happy with BTW.
I don't so much like "dome tweeter in middle of woofer" coaxes. I very much prefer coaxes where the tweeter is a compression horn with the woofer cone functioning as part of the horn, I feel it's an elegant approach. Tannoy had a great concept with that back in the day.
Here's what I can more easily imagine:
I can picture a Faital 12HX230 12" coax like I used in my very first Dipole design on a very minimal baffle (or even no baffle at all) suspended at a position that you choose.
That particular driver, with no baffle at all, could probably go down to 100Hz and still play loud enough without strain. That is IF you EQ'd with DSP. It would probably require a 5-10dB boost at 150Hz. I would roll it off immediately below 100, 12dB/octave should be sufficient.
You can assign bass to your 15s which you can install and cross over however you like.
If it were my RV, I might even try a 10" or 8" coax like the Radian 5210 or 5208. The tricky issue is how low you can get away with crossing it over. I think the 12" could handle the power and the extra EQ boost. Not as sure about the 10" or 8". I don't know how loud you like it. I also think the Radian 5212B beryllium is a strong contender. Likely better than the 12HX230 which I was very happy with BTW.
I don't so much like "dome tweeter in middle of woofer" coaxes. I very much prefer coaxes where the tweeter is a compression horn with the woofer cone functioning as part of the horn, I feel it's an elegant approach. Tannoy had a great concept with that back in the day.
Thank you very much, given me some fun things to think about, and try
I love horns, wish I could use the beat up old set I bought from Dr Edgar, Slimlines with huge mil spec caps, foil inductors, upgraded horn tweeters, etc...just not the right space for them. I would have to have subs and build new woofer sections and still not likely work out, just to small a space for them.
That said, a horn loaded tweeter coax in a 12, etc would be fun to try out. I do want a baffle, to keep my wonderful wife happy, she let me get by for a couple of years with a dual 15 massive folded horn sub that looked like crap but was incredible performing setup with the Slimlines. I swapped that out with 4 sealed 15's and massive power and still just not as good though it was great.
I could build something like a slim, a bit tall as I want the center of the driver to be a bit below ear height and not leaned back very far as I think when sitting at my desk with the system on it might work the best but of course I might have to do otherwise. I will have some old very fine mini speakers on the desk for just me listening and the fold down from ceiling TV will have the Martin Logan Vision X sound bar above it for that use...
I like the looks of the Radian drivers with the compression tweeters mounted on them...and will check the Beryllium versions out as well as the aluminum.
We do like to play it loud on occasion so the 12's might be better to try out first. With very musical subs right behind them on each side I may be able to run a higher crossover frequency as well. Seems I need a DSP but not sure what I would want to use as have what I feel is a very good DAC, good enough for my needs, Topping E70 Velvet and want to use it but realize the added conversions are not something I want to deal with. The DAC has balanced and single RCA outs which can be used at the same time so I could at least just use the DSP on the subs.....and hope for the best on mains.....I had great success in my car audio comp days using Yamaha built to Image Dynamics specs then upgraded EQ and crossovers but they were far to big for space I want to use there.....
I did see the post about the higher end DSP on this thread and looked it over, very nice indeed but beyond my budget for some time to come due to the remodel....but also have looked at the Mini DSP higher end units. I might just get one of those so I can at least go all active, or active/passive as needed, for whatever designs I work with and sell the DAC I have now and maybe later get the higher end DSP.
I have a bunch of 30x6, bridgeable to 60x3, etc...amps designed by Robert Zeff, founder and head engineer at Zapco, 110v, I could use for testing at least, they are pretty darn good amps.
Lots to think about, will be great fun when I can finally start building speakers!
Rick
I love horns, wish I could use the beat up old set I bought from Dr Edgar, Slimlines with huge mil spec caps, foil inductors, upgraded horn tweeters, etc...just not the right space for them. I would have to have subs and build new woofer sections and still not likely work out, just to small a space for them.
That said, a horn loaded tweeter coax in a 12, etc would be fun to try out. I do want a baffle, to keep my wonderful wife happy, she let me get by for a couple of years with a dual 15 massive folded horn sub that looked like crap but was incredible performing setup with the Slimlines. I swapped that out with 4 sealed 15's and massive power and still just not as good though it was great.
I could build something like a slim, a bit tall as I want the center of the driver to be a bit below ear height and not leaned back very far as I think when sitting at my desk with the system on it might work the best but of course I might have to do otherwise. I will have some old very fine mini speakers on the desk for just me listening and the fold down from ceiling TV will have the Martin Logan Vision X sound bar above it for that use...
I like the looks of the Radian drivers with the compression tweeters mounted on them...and will check the Beryllium versions out as well as the aluminum.
We do like to play it loud on occasion so the 12's might be better to try out first. With very musical subs right behind them on each side I may be able to run a higher crossover frequency as well. Seems I need a DSP but not sure what I would want to use as have what I feel is a very good DAC, good enough for my needs, Topping E70 Velvet and want to use it but realize the added conversions are not something I want to deal with. The DAC has balanced and single RCA outs which can be used at the same time so I could at least just use the DSP on the subs.....and hope for the best on mains.....I had great success in my car audio comp days using Yamaha built to Image Dynamics specs then upgraded EQ and crossovers but they were far to big for space I want to use there.....
I did see the post about the higher end DSP on this thread and looked it over, very nice indeed but beyond my budget for some time to come due to the remodel....but also have looked at the Mini DSP higher end units. I might just get one of those so I can at least go all active, or active/passive as needed, for whatever designs I work with and sell the DAC I have now and maybe later get the higher end DSP.
I have a bunch of 30x6, bridgeable to 60x3, etc...amps designed by Robert Zeff, founder and head engineer at Zapco, 110v, I could use for testing at least, they are pretty darn good amps.
Lots to think about, will be great fun when I can finally start building speakers!
Rick
What is your opinion of the MiniDSP Flex 8 or HT? Looks like the HT could do the job and also have the TV plugged into it and I only run wired systems of any sort in our place, never BT, wifi, etc....so the HT looks like the better choice and if liked well enough I could sell the DAC.
I like the results you got from the single coax 12, very impressive.
I like the results you got from the single coax 12, very impressive.
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The MiniDSP FLEX products are great, I discuss them earlier in this thread. That's an awfully small space, consistent with what I had in mind when I my suggestions.
The single 12 coax with a fair bit of baffling makes it down to 40, so I have to think even with very little baffling will reach to 100 easy. Will need EQ.
The single 12 coax with a fair bit of baffling makes it down to 40, so I have to think even with very little baffling will reach to 100 easy. Will need EQ.
Thank you, I am very interested in this, do have to wait until more funds available but once the remodeling is done it will be audio time, big time but low bucks of course, compared to what some of the crazy gear costs!
How about building a 12" ported sub into the bottom of each speaker?
I have looked at the Flex products a few times, just might have to give one a go when I can finally get back into the audio part of this great life I live)
Rick
How about building a 12" ported sub into the bottom of each speaker?
I have looked at the Flex products a few times, just might have to give one a go when I can finally get back into the audio part of this great life I live)
Rick
I stopped by the Danville Signal room at AXPONA today.
Al Clark, founder, was demonstrating their ~$4000 2in 8out DSP processor with built in DAC's by doing an A/B relay switch:
Magnepan MG1.7 stock passive crossover vs. MG1.7 active DSP crossover and EQ.
The DSP version was unquestionably better.
Al said they use the AKM4499 DAC chip which in his opinion is the best currently on the market. Their DSP is designed to be upgradable as better chips become available. He said he's the most experienced SHARC DSP chip integrator in Analog Devices' network.
He also demonstrated a pretty capable software package that their products use to configure the DSP. It has both IIR and FIR filters and something like 10,000 taps for the FIR section.
Danville's assertion that their DAC is better than MiniDSP Flex Eight seems reasonable.
@Subsonic1050 Looks like it is worth a try.
In other words a Flanagangster with a 12HX230 on top instead of a PA310 and a TW034 waveguide tweeter. Yes, that would be a fantastic combo.