Just ordered the MCM woofers.
With the discount on 4+, and a special on shipping for $4 it was too hard to resist. Total with shipping was $31.
Will come back and post results when the speakers are up and running.
PS, I have also found a different sensitivity rating for the K010DT @ 89db. Which one is right? We'll see if I have to pad it down at all.
With the discount on 4+, and a special on shipping for $4 it was too hard to resist. Total with shipping was $31.
Will come back and post results when the speakers are up and running.
PS, I have also found a different sensitivity rating for the K010DT @ 89db. Which one is right? We'll see if I have to pad it down at all.
Reporting back...
Got the cheap MCM drivers last week and got them installed over the weekend.
Preliminary results are pretty promising.
1st off, the packaging had different specs than advertised. Box said 200 watts max vs. 70 watts RMS. Probably not significant. But, the box also said 1.5" voice coil and they are advertised as 1" VC's. Oh well.
Took a while to install them because the cutout was 7.17" and the original drivers used a 7"cutout with a 8.25" flush mount rabbet. This presented a tricky problem as the baffle is recessed 3/4" from the face of the speaker. So, there was no easy way to drop a rabbeting router bit in and finish with a flush trimmer. And, with 4 openings to do, I did not want to try and do it by hand. Finally ended up using my laminate trimmer mounted in it's offset base and using an appropriate sized bit, running it nose 1st around the existing flush mount rabbet. (I'm sure that's hard to visualize) Luckily I'm an 18 year woodworking veteran and this balancing act went off without a hitch.
I also took the opportunity to replace all the crappy small gauge tinned internal wire with some nice 18ga. OFC speaker wire that I had laying around.
And, I violated my own cardinal rule of "one major change at a time" and replaced the teeny 8uf "Minerva Hong Kong" capacitor with Jantzen Cross-Cap's. However, I never truly got to listen to them in stock condition because of the missing woofer.
At first I tried to use 2 of the original woofers in the upper position with the MCM replacement only in the lower (500hz and below) position. Sound was very honky and tinny.
Next I tried with all 4 woofers replaced with the MCM's and sound was much better, but bass was kind of boomy with a pronounced mid-range suck-out. Now, I've been reading with some interest debates about the merits of spikes on speaker and whether they can raise the resonance peaks of cabinets. So, removed the spikes I had installed on the new non-rotating bases I had made for them. WOW, what a difference. Every time I have installed spikes I've heard positive results. THis was the first time I could actually hear such a pronounced resonance introduced into a cabinet from spikes. Just setting the speakers on the carpet and the sound got much more balanced.
This is the way I've been listening the last couple days letting everything break in. They are actually sounding pretty decent. I really like what I'm hearing from the Peerless tweeter. Highs have a nice shimmer while remaining very smooth. The output seems to be pretty well balanced between the tweeter and the woofers. Bass is pretty tight, maybe just a touch stronger than I would like, but still articulate.
However, there is still a detectable mid-range suck-out. My very crude measurements using a frequency sweep generated by Audacity and measured with a frequency analyzer on my MacBook via built-in mic's tells me I'm getting some pretty big dips between 950 and 1200 hz or so. Actually it looks like it's bouncing a bit. So maybe it's a comb filtering?
Others with the same speakers have mentioned a noticeable discrepancy in the mids. So maybe it's not the drivers, but the square cabinets (9" x 9" x 28" internal)? Also, I reused the existing fiberglass fill. But, it's only enough to line the walls and a couple loose folds behind the drivers. I suspect that I need more stuffing than that. Hopefully that will alleviate what I'm hearing in the mids and take the bass that last step to better integration.
So in short, I think so far I did pretty good for cheap-*** drivers! Imaging is really good as well as separation. Just need to tweak them a little flatter.
Will post pictures when I get more stuffing and have them back down in the garage.
Got the cheap MCM drivers last week and got them installed over the weekend.
Preliminary results are pretty promising.
1st off, the packaging had different specs than advertised. Box said 200 watts max vs. 70 watts RMS. Probably not significant. But, the box also said 1.5" voice coil and they are advertised as 1" VC's. Oh well.
Took a while to install them because the cutout was 7.17" and the original drivers used a 7"cutout with a 8.25" flush mount rabbet. This presented a tricky problem as the baffle is recessed 3/4" from the face of the speaker. So, there was no easy way to drop a rabbeting router bit in and finish with a flush trimmer. And, with 4 openings to do, I did not want to try and do it by hand. Finally ended up using my laminate trimmer mounted in it's offset base and using an appropriate sized bit, running it nose 1st around the existing flush mount rabbet. (I'm sure that's hard to visualize) Luckily I'm an 18 year woodworking veteran and this balancing act went off without a hitch.
I also took the opportunity to replace all the crappy small gauge tinned internal wire with some nice 18ga. OFC speaker wire that I had laying around.
And, I violated my own cardinal rule of "one major change at a time" and replaced the teeny 8uf "Minerva Hong Kong" capacitor with Jantzen Cross-Cap's. However, I never truly got to listen to them in stock condition because of the missing woofer.
At first I tried to use 2 of the original woofers in the upper position with the MCM replacement only in the lower (500hz and below) position. Sound was very honky and tinny.
Next I tried with all 4 woofers replaced with the MCM's and sound was much better, but bass was kind of boomy with a pronounced mid-range suck-out. Now, I've been reading with some interest debates about the merits of spikes on speaker and whether they can raise the resonance peaks of cabinets. So, removed the spikes I had installed on the new non-rotating bases I had made for them. WOW, what a difference. Every time I have installed spikes I've heard positive results. THis was the first time I could actually hear such a pronounced resonance introduced into a cabinet from spikes. Just setting the speakers on the carpet and the sound got much more balanced.
This is the way I've been listening the last couple days letting everything break in. They are actually sounding pretty decent. I really like what I'm hearing from the Peerless tweeter. Highs have a nice shimmer while remaining very smooth. The output seems to be pretty well balanced between the tweeter and the woofers. Bass is pretty tight, maybe just a touch stronger than I would like, but still articulate.
However, there is still a detectable mid-range suck-out. My very crude measurements using a frequency sweep generated by Audacity and measured with a frequency analyzer on my MacBook via built-in mic's tells me I'm getting some pretty big dips between 950 and 1200 hz or so. Actually it looks like it's bouncing a bit. So maybe it's a comb filtering?
Others with the same speakers have mentioned a noticeable discrepancy in the mids. So maybe it's not the drivers, but the square cabinets (9" x 9" x 28" internal)? Also, I reused the existing fiberglass fill. But, it's only enough to line the walls and a couple loose folds behind the drivers. I suspect that I need more stuffing than that. Hopefully that will alleviate what I'm hearing in the mids and take the bass that last step to better integration.
So in short, I think so far I did pretty good for cheap-*** drivers! Imaging is really good as well as separation. Just need to tweak them a little flatter.
Will post pictures when I get more stuffing and have them back down in the garage.
Here's a measurement using FuzzMeasure with just the mic's on my MacBookPro.
Plan on picking up more fiberglass this weekend. Hopefully that will further smooth out the bass and cut down on internal reflections in the mid's.
Not expecting miracles. If I wasn't a tweaker at heart, I could probably be happy with them the way they are now. My friend who's a sound and lighting guy was over the other night and thought they sounded great. But, he does sound for rock bands.
Plan on picking up more fiberglass this weekend. Hopefully that will further smooth out the bass and cut down on internal reflections in the mid's.
Not expecting miracles. If I wasn't a tweaker at heart, I could probably be happy with them the way they are now. My friend who's a sound and lighting guy was over the other night and thought they sounded great. But, he does sound for rock bands.
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