CLS said:
WOW! That does make my system look a tad wimpy.
The Audio Critic article was in #19, authored by Drew Daniels. The satellites were 52" high...
Driver lineup, per side:
(2) 2245H subs. Man, that's twice as many as I have and I thought mine was overkill...
(2) 2220J bass drivers. Those are 15" jobs.
(1) 2123H midrange. That's a 10".
(1) 2382A horn with 2450J compression driver.
Compared to a full horn system, that's underkill. (Remember this is from someone who had a pair of sort of corner loaded LABsubs in his living room.)SY said:
Daniel's system here
I like it but would do a few things a bit differently, such as using isobariks for the bottom with the same drivers, and a conical horn with a neo BMS at the top, mayb big enough to run low enough that I could even remove the 2123/2012.
When I get back home in a few years, this is more what I'd like to have, and I'm slowly aquiring the drivers for it.
There's another great big JBL based system design here: the Ancient Audiophile.
I remember downloading this paper years ago from the Madisound BB (no 'Net, just dial in directly to it). Great writing and a very, very well-thought-out approach. It's something I'd try if I had the money.
Hi Paul,
I'm just finishing up on my new speakers which ~kind of~ fit your goals.
I'm doing a 3 way with a sealed 15" pro driver (97dB sens) so that it rolls of at 80Hz to match the thx style settings on my processor. This crosses at 300 to a 99dB sens 10" mid, then on to a 1" CD on a 90x40 horn.
Drivers are Beyma LX60 15", Precision devices PD107 10" and a beyma 380 compression driver (107 dB sens)
The compression driver is as 'sweet' or sweeter than my old s-speak revelator 9900 tweeter btw.
In the future I plan to add another 15" to each side to boost up the output loss from baffle step, but as of now these things play very loud, and very clean.
I've just started cutting the sheets for 4 labhorns - I plan to 'flatpack' 2 of them for a later date (when I have a bigger room) and use 2 in this setup when they're done. Using 3 sealed tempests below 80Hz at the moment
No official measurements yet (British summertime -rain 😀 - stopping outside stuff) but here's a pic :
Cheers, Rob.
I'm just finishing up on my new speakers which ~kind of~ fit your goals.
I'm doing a 3 way with a sealed 15" pro driver (97dB sens) so that it rolls of at 80Hz to match the thx style settings on my processor. This crosses at 300 to a 99dB sens 10" mid, then on to a 1" CD on a 90x40 horn.
Drivers are Beyma LX60 15", Precision devices PD107 10" and a beyma 380 compression driver (107 dB sens)
The compression driver is as 'sweet' or sweeter than my old s-speak revelator 9900 tweeter btw.
In the future I plan to add another 15" to each side to boost up the output loss from baffle step, but as of now these things play very loud, and very clean.
I've just started cutting the sheets for 4 labhorns - I plan to 'flatpack' 2 of them for a later date (when I have a bigger room) and use 2 in this setup when they're done. Using 3 sealed tempests below 80Hz at the moment
No official measurements yet (British summertime -rain 😀 - stopping outside stuff) but here's a pic :
Cheers, Rob.
Attachments
phase_accurate said:
The US distributor charged me $600 US each.
I made an enclosure for them that cost me $300 each and
rewired the electrical.
I also have dome tweeters from various manufacturers, I have
big compression drivers and the SA planar beats them all
in sound quality with high SPL. If you don't like SPL with your
sound quality then use a good dome tweeter. If you don't
care about sound quality then get a good compression driver
with horn. If you want it all, the pro magentic planar is the only
thing I can find. There is a new one that Philip de. Haan created
that is 18" tall and reaches 145dB max spl. It would probably
cost your right now about $3500 each to get.
For reference;
I classify a dome tweeter to have good sound but it lacks SPL.
A compression driver is the choice for SPL but lacks sound quality
in reference to the good dome. Usually you have a 'horn' sonic
signature when you attach a lense to it but you can mimimize
this effect with good loudspeaker design.
The pro planar gives you the sound quality of the high end dome
with high SPL that is normally found in compression drivers and
the best part is that there is no horn. The waveguide is optional
and boosts sensitivity from 103dB to 107dB. I don't see a need
for this unless you have a very large room.
The drawback to the planar is it's also subject to weak vertical
dispersion that all drivers of similar design face. I don't think
it's a big deal if you design the loudspeaker well. It's not the
best mechanical design for installation, so I had to do mods.
Pics with mods.
http://home.pacbell.net/lordpk/SA8535/
A recent comparison done;
http://home.pacbell.net/lordpk/test/
I compared the sound of one 8" planar to the array of ten PT2
which is about a 65" line. Both drivers can be considered the
same technology so the comparison is fair. The PT2 in bulk
cost $25 each {line of 10 = $250} the other costs $600.
Essentially $250 vs. $600.
What I hear is about the same SPL level. The 8" driver can
give me the same SPL as the 65" line of cheap planars.
The pro planar has a stronger midrange sound, is able to
be crossed over very low if you want, it's flat down to 1.6khz.
Keep in mind, the PT2 array is wired for 0.8 ohms per tower
to get maximum SPL. The pro planar is a 13 ohm load.
What is the conclusion of all this? If I want SPL by using a line
array of PT2 I need to wire them for the lowest impedance,
which means you need a good amplifier to drive a very low
impedance. It's not a big deal, my Adcom can do it.
If you have a sensitive amplifier or use low powered amplification
the 13 ohm load is easy. Imagine yourself wanting the high SPL
of the low impedance PT2 line but your amplifiers is not able to
perform well at low impedance so you go out and spend more
money on a better amp. The money you spent on this new
amp could have been used to buy the $600 planar and
still use your old amp.
The other thing that comes to mind is the compact nature of
the design. If you can cram the SPL of a line array into a 8"
speaker, would you pay extra? $250 vs. $600 is a big difference,
but when you factor in building materials to make the massive
array do you really save alot of money?
Final test:
Four SA per channel is percieved to be about twice as loud
vs. that ten PT2 array. It's intense.
Like the links up put up tell you, the HI-Vi does what you are looking for. But they are not 25 dollars 😀 i have the RT8II running now now crossed at 2k and padded 9db but they hurt at 10 feet if i crank it with a sweep. I dont want to know what would happen if i take the L-Pad off.
A pair of Vifa P21 in DAppolito with an H26 on each side will have controlled directivity and should easily reach 115dB for 80Hz up. Include your favorite subwoofer and voila....
Any speaker is highly room dependant , and the dipole/bipole designs you show as motivation are perhaps moreso than a conventional one. I shudder to see the polar response of either.
Any speaker is highly room dependant , and the dipole/bipole designs you show as motivation are perhaps moreso than a conventional one. I shudder to see the polar response of either.
Wow, thanks for all the responses so far, this is getting VERY interesting 🙂
Madmike, those swan ribbon speakers do look very interesting. In the past, ribbon tweeters and other similar types that I had seen specs for needed a fairly high xo point and had low power handling, so I didn't think the sensitivity was much use to me (I'm not into the idea of 4 way speakers!) I'll have to look into these some more. I've yet to hear anything bad about ribbon tweeters, from a SQ point of view. Is there anyone who has heard them and doesn't like them?
We should have a glossary section on this site, and include an entry for
overkill, n. : The true essence of anything diy
I've seen that JBL article a while ago, will have to have a proper look at it. For the moment, I'd like to hear a hifi system with CDs to see what I think. Perhaps live sound setups aren't the best point of reference. Trouble is, I'm a bit picky about the top end. Last year I heard some VAF speakers using a pair of compact neo tweeters, and something was missing in the treble - just wasn't sweet sounding. They were designed to be efficient, but they lost something, unless of course they weren't broken in, but they would have to improve a lot ...
Isn't that SS a tweeter that quite a few consider a bit harsh? Or maybe it's another I'm thinking of ...
What made you choose the 40x90 lens? I was considering what kind of coverage angle would best suit my 4x5m room, and found that about 40 degrees seemed just right to cover likely listening positions while avoiding wall reflections ... your thoughts?
thylantyr,
Thanks for the recommendation/review! They are overbudget for me right now, but I'd like to hear something like them - they may well be a future upgrade.
Ron, is that Vifa H26 still available?
I've read that dome tweeters are suitable for waveguides but not horns loading in a way that gives a significant increase in eff. Is this true and if so why?
What is the difference between a CD and a dome tweeter?
Earl Geddes claims to have come up with a horn waveguide/lens that matches the SQ of a good dome tweeter, and apparently this has been verified to some degree with blind listening tests in comparison to a Gradient speaker. He uses some foam in the waveguide and the profile is on his website
I've removed the image I linked in this post since it was huge and makes it annoying to read. You will find it at this link:
http://www.gedlee.com/Summa.htm
The image is of the Gedlee Speaker which uses this new waveguide. Apparently, he claims a big part of getting SQ out of a CD waveguide arrangement has to do with minimising diffraction. I don't really know enough about this to comment ...
Madmike, those swan ribbon speakers do look very interesting. In the past, ribbon tweeters and other similar types that I had seen specs for needed a fairly high xo point and had low power handling, so I didn't think the sensitivity was much use to me (I'm not into the idea of 4 way speakers!) I'll have to look into these some more. I've yet to hear anything bad about ribbon tweeters, from a SQ point of view. Is there anyone who has heard them and doesn't like them?
We should have a glossary section on this site, and include an entry for
overkill, n. : The true essence of anything diy
I've seen that JBL article a while ago, will have to have a proper look at it. For the moment, I'd like to hear a hifi system with CDs to see what I think. Perhaps live sound setups aren't the best point of reference. Trouble is, I'm a bit picky about the top end. Last year I heard some VAF speakers using a pair of compact neo tweeters, and something was missing in the treble - just wasn't sweet sounding. They were designed to be efficient, but they lost something, unless of course they weren't broken in, but they would have to improve a lot ...
Isn't that SS a tweeter that quite a few consider a bit harsh? Or maybe it's another I'm thinking of ...
What made you choose the 40x90 lens? I was considering what kind of coverage angle would best suit my 4x5m room, and found that about 40 degrees seemed just right to cover likely listening positions while avoiding wall reflections ... your thoughts?
thylantyr,
Thanks for the recommendation/review! They are overbudget for me right now, but I'd like to hear something like them - they may well be a future upgrade.
Ron, is that Vifa H26 still available?
I've read that dome tweeters are suitable for waveguides but not horns loading in a way that gives a significant increase in eff. Is this true and if so why?
What is the difference between a CD and a dome tweeter?
Earl Geddes claims to have come up with a horn waveguide/lens that matches the SQ of a good dome tweeter, and apparently this has been verified to some degree with blind listening tests in comparison to a Gradient speaker. He uses some foam in the waveguide and the profile is on his website
I've removed the image I linked in this post since it was huge and makes it annoying to read. You will find it at this link:
http://www.gedlee.com/Summa.htm
The image is of the Gedlee Speaker which uses this new waveguide. Apparently, he claims a big part of getting SQ out of a CD waveguide arrangement has to do with minimising diffraction. I don't really know enough about this to comment ...
paulspencer said:
Hi Paul,
The 9900 tweeter is rumoured by some to be harsh, but I didn't think so (used in my system for approx 1 year) Clinical maybe, but not harsh. You may think otherwise though - all our ears are different.
The horn in the JBL system is 120 x 40 I believe. I went with a 90 x 40 as I wanted to cross lower than a 60 x 40 (I planned on crossing the 10" to the horn when their off axis measurements are as close as possible) I think the 10" would need to be beaming a lot more to match a 60 degree flare. I've read of some people prefering a wider dispersion, and hope to have a bigger room in the future where a 90 degree flare will match nicely. (centre speaker straight at you, left and rights toed in a bit which moves the outside walls 1st reflection points behind/ beside you.)
I'm still waiting for a decent day to drag them and my pc outside to measure them all though. Some time off next week so if I'm lucky....
Cheers,
Rob
Attachments
- Status
- Not open for further replies.