thylantyr said:
Absolutely.
I'm just speaking out of personal experience and opinion. Systems benefit from room treatments. In problematic rooms such as mine its equally as important as the speakers.
Of course not. You'd think something like the B&W 800D would display something worthy of its £13k price tag though. I refuse to believe that the design was poor. No way would anyone review those and gush as so many have to done. The likely culprit was the room.
There are some really good commercial designs. I particularly like the stuff from JBL and Focal. A lot of the rest are way overpriced for what they are.
How would they know where the treatments were needed without first analysing the room, either through trial and error or measurements, with the speakers in their intended position?
No wonder it didn't work out. The speaker and the room inter-related. You'll often see speakers designed around rooms and vice versa.
Depends how bad the room is. My own preference is room makes or breaks a speaker. Based on that, its pretty important 😉
No magic required, just research for best deployment of this stuff. It can do harm as well as good otherwise.
If audio wasn't subjective there'd be few forums, so carry on regardless anyway, we all have our choices and you know mine.
That's something I don't want to go through again. I used the 8 pole connectors and soldered 8 core cable to it the other day with a lot of solder burn marks on my hands to prove it. Nice feeling connectors though.ShinOBIWAN said:
I was looking for the pics you took of the cables and connectors that are now gone from the earlier posts Ant. Do you still have them? You need to invest in some web space so that your images don't keep disappearing 😉
m0tion said:
I did consider using a few of these drivers (8 actually) when I first starting playing around with the sub idea last year - nothing ever came of it though.
I have experience with the XLS10 and overall I'd say it was a good driver. I can only assume the XLS12 is more of the same.
If you look at the driver choices for the sub you'll see that I was heading in a different direction. I was looking at higher efficiency drivers 92dB+ and strongly believe that these kinds of drivers in a decent design have more to offer than the large xmax ones.
Just something that worked for me I guess. I doubt everyone will agree and especially the HT and sub 20hz performance crowd. 🙂
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Joined 2002
Vikash said:
Brave man tackling the 8 pole. The 4 pole was fairly tricky. I had a problem with the metal types I originally used since the large diameter wires would keep shorting against the body(testing with multimeter comfirmed this before using them thankfully). I tried a couple of fixes but just decided to be safe and swapped them over to the plastic non conductive types with screw and solder terminal. These ones are really easy to do once you've removed the clamps that hold the cable, with those gone you can literally secure large diameter cables by screwing the screw into them. I found that thoroughly tinning the exposed cable helped no end here. After the cable was screwed down I simply filled the cup with solder and had an extremely secure connection althought non-reversible.
Yeah I use one of those free image hosting things. Its got a cap of 50 images though and I keep filling it up and having to delete the older pics. Still have all the originals so I'll dig those out.
You'd think something like the B&W 800D
I auditioned this with McIntosh monoblock high powered amps
and tube preamps using my Jazz music I'm familar with. The high end store had room treatments, etc.
What I heard made me fall asleep.
I went home and did the same music audition on my
DIY $2k budget line array with proamp/digital crossover,
no extraordinary room treatments {just furniture, rug, etc.}
and the sound blew away anything I heard from that high end store.
I understand your point about rooms, etc., when I first
fired up the line array in the garage, pointing outward and
when I walked across the street to audition, the sound was amazing as there is no room interactions, but the sound is
also amazing and far superior in a room vs. other loudspeakers,
therefore I don't consider the line array 'broken' because it is in the room. It's a matter of reference.
I auditioned this with McIntosh monoblock high powered amps
and tube preamps using my Jazz music I'm familar with. The high end store had room treatments, etc.
What I heard made me fall asleep.
I went home and did the same music audition on my
DIY $2k budget line array with proamp/digital crossover,
no extraordinary room treatments {just furniture, rug, etc.}
and the sound blew away anything I heard from that high end store.
I understand your point about rooms, etc., when I first
fired up the line array in the garage, pointing outward and
when I walked across the street to audition, the sound was amazing as there is no room interactions, but the sound is
also amazing and far superior in a room vs. other loudspeakers,
therefore I don't consider the line array 'broken' because it is in the room. It's a matter of reference.
We run the B&W 801 Nautilus at work, I like them, very vanilla speakers if you like, they play everything very competantly (apart from the very low sub 30Hz stuff), but nothing ever strikes me as amazing or ever poor, they do everything competantly and I do not tire of them like you do with some speakers. The one thing they NEED is power though, feed them 600W or so and they give a somewhat lack-lustre performance, we have settled to large Chord power amps bridged one per side (about 1250Watts per side) once you have some real balls behind them they start to have some dynamic impact, I think they need an amp capable of delivering its power into low impedance loads, I don;t know if their impedance varies more than most but they do seem to need careful partnering with good amps, it makes a big difference.
Tenson said:
WOW!
That is virtually a "180" from what I heard. Based on your description though I'd have the same problems as well. I'm betting this was a result of having to much speaker "spread". I think I heard them with about 8 feet of seperation (max) and did not hear that imaging problem.I wonder if Shin heard the same sort of "amorphous" imaging?
btw, I also thought the bandpass sub was cheesy looking (..at least in comparison to the "pods").
ScottG said:WOW!
I wonder if Shin heard the same sort of "amorphous" imaging?
It was different put it that way, the presentation was unlike any monopole I've heard, infact it didn't sound like dipole either and that's what kept me listening for a half hour.
I'm guessing Simon has heard the MBL setup as I did at this years Northern Hifi Show at the Manchester Raddison hotel. Very poor show this year I thought with a lot of expensive equipment and not much in the way of decent sound. The only ones I rated were the Dali Linearrays, NHT DEQX system, JBL K2 hybrids, Focal (can't remember the model) and MBL. And the surprise was a 5.1 Monitor Audio RS setup with megabuck Chord frontend and amplification, man those speakers sounded good for £1k. The rest were a waste of room space IMO.
MBL also had one of the largest rooms at the show. They did have the standmount version of the omni's on show at the back of room, would have been nice to have heard those too. The setup I heard had the speakers around 3 meters apart and about 2 to 3 meters from all boudaries including the ceiling.
The imaging wasn't particularly sharp and I can see where Simon is comming from. I also agree that whilst different it wasn't in anyway bad. I prefer a more studio monitor sort of sound - dynamic, spot-on imaging with lots of detail. I find these qualities best fit the music I listen to and above all, sound most natural and realistic to me. I'd have to say the bass was probably the worst part of the sound and even then it was enjoyable, if somewhat flat.
Whilst I remember; any thoughts on creating port flares?
The 1/2" roundover bit methods is inadequate and I need to come up with some thing that allows an inch preferably 2". I was thinking of building up MDF rings and filling the gaps to create the required contour and then sand smooth.
I've also had some success in molding that 4" port tubing around the driver by using a hot air gun and gentle bending. I'm wondering if its possible to make a male mold and then push and heat the pipe simultaneously to create the flare? Never seen it done that way before though so I'm guessing its not particularly viable. The advantage would be a single piece of pipe that also incorporated a flare, actually it would be very easy to do both ends if this worked.
Since I've never seen it done, I'm guessing I'll just have to give that one a go. If all else fails there's the MDF rings + filler method that would be easy to do.
Any other suggestions?
The 1/2" roundover bit methods is inadequate and I need to come up with some thing that allows an inch preferably 2". I was thinking of building up MDF rings and filling the gaps to create the required contour and then sand smooth.
I've also had some success in molding that 4" port tubing around the driver by using a hot air gun and gentle bending. I'm wondering if its possible to make a male mold and then push and heat the pipe simultaneously to create the flare? Never seen it done that way before though so I'm guessing its not particularly viable. The advantage would be a single piece of pipe that also incorporated a flare, actually it would be very easy to do both ends if this worked.
Since I've never seen it done, I'm guessing I'll just have to give that one a go. If all else fails there's the MDF rings + filler method that would be easy to do.
Any other suggestions?
Just googled port flare molding and found this:
http://www.users.bigpond.com/bcolliso/flares-25mm.htm
What an excellent site. By the looks of it its entirely possible with something very similar to what I had in mind. Apparently its only safe to 25-30mm flare without risking damage to the pipe but that still way better than 1/2" roundover rubbish and that guy has done both ends out of a single piece of pipe - looks superb IMO.
Definitely giving this a go.
http://www.users.bigpond.com/bcolliso/flares-25mm.htm
What an excellent site. By the looks of it its entirely possible with something very similar to what I had in mind. Apparently its only safe to 25-30mm flare without risking damage to the pipe but that still way better than 1/2" roundover rubbish and that guy has done both ends out of a single piece of pipe - looks superb IMO.
Definitely giving this a go.
re: port flares.
I made some for my future project a while back.
It's MDF rings laminated to allow ordinary 6" PVC pipe to be inserted.
I used a big router bit, 1.5" roundover to create a 9" flare. The flange is 12" diameter.
http://home.pacbell.net/lordpk/port/
The black port is a store bought 4" flared port for reference.
***
Acoupower ports;
http://www.acoupower.com/products.php
Pretty cool.
Re: molded pvc
It's cool, but seems harder to install. 🙂
I made some for my future project a while back.
It's MDF rings laminated to allow ordinary 6" PVC pipe to be inserted.
I used a big router bit, 1.5" roundover to create a 9" flare. The flange is 12" diameter.
http://home.pacbell.net/lordpk/port/
The black port is a store bought 4" flared port for reference.
***
Acoupower ports;
http://www.acoupower.com/products.php
Pretty cool.
Re: molded pvc
It's cool, but seems harder to install. 🙂
thylantyr said:
I was thinking about that and I'll cut a ring that slides over the pipe. This ring will then be epoxied in to place on the rear of the tube and then bolted to the inside. I'll seal the front up with silicone.
Nice job on the ports. How much did the 1.5" roundover cost? I looked but they're around £50 for a single bit over here.
Uncle can't get to plaster the room until after bank holiday now which is 2 weeks away. So I've dragged all the stuff back in and set it up properly this time, including a mild DRC profile and 3 layers of 2" tiles to build up 6" of side wall absorbtion - I prefer this and gives back most of the imaging.
The real reason for this post is that I've measured the speakers bass performance and its very strong down to 30hz and a tiny bit of EQ gives me a flat inroom response to 26hz and a -3dB of 20hz.
I rigged the sub up and setup to blend with the mains and TBH perfectly honest, they don't need the sub(s) for music at all. I actually think it sounds better without for this room orientation.
Since I've ditched 5.1 and now have a music only setup I've decided that I'm not bothering with sub or if I do they'll have to be ones the work from something like 10hz-30hz range and at decent SPL but I'm thinking why even bother?!?
The bonus is that I don't have to mess around spraying now 😀 Expect the subs for sale in the classifieds, I'll also throw in one *really* well built enclosure if anyone's willing to pick up.
The real reason for this post is that I've measured the speakers bass performance and its very strong down to 30hz and a tiny bit of EQ gives me a flat inroom response to 26hz and a -3dB of 20hz.
I rigged the sub up and setup to blend with the mains and TBH perfectly honest, they don't need the sub(s) for music at all. I actually think it sounds better without for this room orientation.
Since I've ditched 5.1 and now have a music only setup I've decided that I'm not bothering with sub or if I do they'll have to be ones the work from something like 10hz-30hz range and at decent SPL but I'm thinking why even bother?!?
The bonus is that I don't have to mess around spraying now 😀 Expect the subs for sale in the classifieds, I'll also throw in one *really* well built enclosure if anyone's willing to pick up.
I somehow find it very difficult to believe you get in-room F3 of 20Hz at decent SPLs from an 8" driver... Does this seem counter intuative to anyone else? Must be one HECK of a driver.
m0tion said:
Two 9" inch drivers corner loaded. I never said anything about big SPL's either although they go louder than I find comfortable for long periods.
If I was talking HT then I'd certainly be worried but since I've slimmed the system down for music only, I'm not. You also must remember that I've got a small listening room thats easily filled with sound as well as a short distance between me and the speakers. Removing the HT out of the equation liberates the system to concentrate on one thing.
If I felt the sub was needed I'd certainly use it - it isn't, at least not from 30hz up and this is fine for music.
And yes the ATC 9" isn't any normal driver. Hell, I could buy one of TC Sounds 12" LMS4000v2 super-subs for the price of one of these and still have change for a beer or two. They're solid bits of engineering, they don't defy physics but they play clean upto the point where most others don't.
pinkmouse said:
Is that plastering your handiwork? Looks good.
If so any chance you can pop up and do mine to save me waiting for 2 weeks 😀
You know.. you *could* use those two drivers with a passive radiator(s) and a lot of added mass for a VERY low freq. tunning point suitable to HT.
It wouldn't be as clean in the linear region as a bass reflex, but it would have a ***LOT*** of physical impact because of the mass and the motor strength - perfect for HT. And with room gain and such it should be capable of a fairly high output with a lot of input.
Hmm, perhaps around 120 liters each with linear operation to around 10 Hz. No chuffing, no port whine, just a monsterous amount of "slam" with a monsterous amount of power. (..and this time it *would* require a lot of power, but not a problem with the UCD700.)
😀
It wouldn't be as clean in the linear region as a bass reflex, but it would have a ***LOT*** of physical impact because of the mass and the motor strength - perfect for HT. And with room gain and such it should be capable of a fairly high output with a lot of input.
Hmm, perhaps around 120 liters each with linear operation to around 10 Hz. No chuffing, no port whine, just a monsterous amount of "slam" with a monsterous amount of power. (..and this time it *would* require a lot of power, but not a problem with the UCD700.)
😀
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