The XSD Speaker

Wiring is now right and all bass drivers are pumping now air out of the slots . Burning them in is ongoing and the sound is getting better now .
I'll give them some more burn in time ;) . The speakers are still not completely finished , but I wanted to hear them first before I proceed finishing them .
 
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Nice system you have there @wagnju ! Is that a KEF Q950?

Now that you have the woofer polarity fixed, is it sounding better? You need a 4ohm 100w minimum capable amp - can I ask what amp you are using?

The XSD can handle up to 500w so don’t be afraid to push it.

Edit: our posts crossed paths. Yes, break-in of drivers is needed here. The mid range especially as it has a stiff dooed fabric surround. The woofers willl also give better bass with break-in.
 
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Please wire it exactly as shown in diagram above. Perhaps this diagram showing the slot loaded vents and how the drivers are mounted face in or out will help you (face out means magnet inside the slot).

Basically if the driver faces out, it needs to be reverse polarity. However, since the drivers are parallel then series speed, the output of the first parallel set (negative) goes to the positive of the second pair. For example, S3 and S4 are the first parallel set so amp +vs goes to S3 +ve and S4 -ve, the output of S3 and S4 then goes in series to S1 and S2 (parallel). The output of S1 and S2 then is the return to amp negative. This is one set of 4 drivers. The same thing for S5/S6 pairs and S7/S8 pairs. Note that I have the S even facing out in the diagram.

Finally, it makes no difference if both drivers orientations are flipped (left to right) as they will still squeeze air out on +ve polarity. That’s the final check. Use a battery to check each pair and then each set of 4 to make sure they all push in to squeeze air out.
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I'm not asking the question correctly, trying figure out how you wired. Let me come at it from another direction. Look at this post's crossover schematic with the red boxes you drew. Look at driver S1. It has only two wires, one to each speaker post. Now look at your post #712, first two pictures, second one an enlargement of same pic. it shows the top driver S1's connection. there are 4 wires there, two to each pole, Two come from its companion woofer with reversed polarity. What does the other pair go to?
 
Nice system you have there @wagnju ! Is that a KEF Q950?

Now that you have the woofer polarity fixed, is it sounding better? You need a 4ohm 100w minimum capable amp - can I ask what amp you are using?

The XSD can handle up to 500w so don’t be afraid to push it.

Edit: our posts crossed paths. Yes, break-in of drivers is needed here. The mid range especially as it has a stiff dooed fabric surround. The woofers willl also give better bass with break-in.
It is the KEF Q900 and T+A Jubilee 25th speakers . As Amp , I'm using a T+A PA1500R amp . 170W at 8Ohm and 310W at 4Ohm . This amp , although 25 years old , has enough juice to run most demanding speakers without a problem . It was running a pair of Infinity Kappa 9 without any issues in the past .
T+A is a German High End brand and well known here in Europe .
 
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I'm not asking the question correctly, trying figure out how you wired. Let me come at it from another direction. Look at this post's crossover schematic with the red boxes you drew. Look at driver S1. It has only two wires, one to each speaker post. Now look at your post #712, first two pictures, second one an enlargement of same pic. it shows the top driver S1's connection. there are 4 wires there, two to each pole, Two come from its companion woofer with reversed polarity. What does the other pair go to?
It’s wired just like the diagram. I think what might be confusing is that the external magnet connectors have two connections (1 for the parallel internal driver and 1 for connecting to other pair of crossover).

The negative of one pair in parallel goes to the positive of second pair in parallel in order to get a series connection.

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Yes, when I saw 4 wires, I started looking at the hook up drawing. The drawing shows the connection to the next driver pair, from S2- to S4 +. I already had the connections soldered to S2 and the driver mounted. Looking at the connection, I thought well, just slide it down the line to S1 + post which is exposed. This would explain two wires on that pole. The other would be negative woofer in, slid around to neg post of S1, explaining the other second connection.

Round about as it may be, my grasp is now ready to get to crimping. Had to order some more crimp connectors, for 10-12 gauge too help fit the ones with two wires. I did open up a few by hammering a punch on the open end, spreading it open. Easier to order bigger ones.

I have lengths of wire from the tweeter and midrange connected, going down to floor not yet soldered to board. Wires to connect all the woofer pairs are installed in their respective drilled holes. I also received the "egg crate" foam to line the inside of the wings.

Getting very close!

Russellc
 
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So I finally finished the Wolverine amp and driving the XSD with it. Big improvement in bass warmth, the class d amp I was driving it with sounded great but was a little dry. I have to be careful I have so much clean power I can play at high spl and not realize it because they play without distortion.
 
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Congrats on working XSD speakers and Wolverine amp. They sound like the perfect pair in terms of power and output impedance for bass authority.

Photos? Did you give the drivers time to break-in?

Regarding the power, I was playing them at 98dB which is crazy loud for me and there was no hint of distortion so it sounded clean. You can easily damage your ears with too much of this good clean speaker business. The sensitivity is 92dB (2.83v into 4ohms or 2W). Threshold of pain is 28dB away. A 600w amp will get you to 114dB in mono and 117dB in stereo and 300w Honeybadger will take it to 111dB mono 114dB stereo.
 
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I am having a custom faceplate milled for the Wolverine, and I think I will have front panel express make a rear panel as well, and then have a company do a camouflaged anodize on it. I always felt my Alpha Nirvana amps look was subpar to their performance and will revisit their cosmetics at some point.
 
Anyone tried these plate amps with the XSD?

Hypex FusionAmp FA123​


I have always preferred all analog after the DAC but these sure are interesting especially because of flexibility, might need to build several types of speakers, going to text two at a minimum due to the difficulty face being in an RV(I sure hope the XSD do all I want them to!) and the price is very good.

I did just receive a Topping E70 Velvet which I imagine is a much better DAC than the FA123 uses and the WiiM Pro Plus has at least some EQ capacity....

I am serious about building passive crossovers for the XSD but need to figure out the different values for the bass drivers since using 8" instead of 6.5" units and if these just do not work out then will have to sell them so having them functional would be a plus.

Hmmmmm....any thoughts or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Rick
 
Thanks!
I can easily build a 9" deep chamber for the 8's. I want to avoid a DSP for now, just got a bit excited by an easy way to go though more money which I really do not want to spend on the 3 channel Hypex amps.

Can you help with the values of the caps and inductors for the 370Hz slopes using the passive crossover design?

I suppose a standard crossover design program will do it, I have not used one on many years but will do this myself if you let me know of a good free or cheap program to use:)

I have some older high quality 6x30 watt amps I bought in a close out deal, designed by Robert Zeff, founder of Zapco, still never used one, I have 5 or six of them I can get 2x60 (if OK to split the woofers into two groups) and 2x30 watts out of each amp so can try one on the mids and tweets even using the passive crossover design for the XSD. I might of mentioned them already here so apologize of repeating myself. Two nice little amps with a total of 180 watts each, class AB. (I have 5 or 6 of them all never used)
 
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It depends on the impedance response of the driver you use. after you build it up, take a DATS tool or equivalent and do an impedance sweep. Then use microphone and do a freq sweep with REW at 2vrms at 0.5m away. Send me those files (ZMA text file and REW file or FRD text file) and I can help with the passive XO. But it’s guessing too much to just scale the existing value with existing 6.5in woofer.
 
You are correct, I forgot about measuring the drivers. I do not have any test gear except a MM, I will look into apps and if needed I can get a MM that does frequencies, impedance as well as capacitance at the new Harbor Freight that opened up 4 miles from here is a pretty small town.
 
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A MM won’t do it. You need an audio impedance analyzer. Like a DATS. You can DIY this with a sound card, REW, and a resistor and wires. But it’s complicated. The DATS doubles as an LCR meter to measure your coils, caps, etc for making speaker crossovers and can also measure driver TS parameters for modeling speaker box bass response etc. $126.

You also need a calibrated mic. Between $60 and $120. I use a UMIK-1 from miniDSP but calibrated and sold by CrossSpectrum Labs. $125.

These are tools of the trade and if you are serious about DIY speaker designing or building, they are critical instruments. I use mine almost as often as a DMM or a pocket calculator.
 
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I wrote this before your response then noted it when editing it a bit, again you are exactly right and thanks:)

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And, I need to create a sweep so again correct, looking into the DATS tool and will look into others since I will be building a few different speakers I will need a tool of some sort unless I can use one of my old audio comp disks that have sweep tracks. I also suppose I need to do this outdoors, wonder how the cold weather will effect the surround this response, I can wait until spring to test and maybe PE or others will have a great sale on a tool.

I just took a closer look at the DATS, does much more than just a sweep, will have to get one or something similar.

I will get a mic as well, will have to wait a bit, just bought a new DAC, Cisco Catalyst Ethernet switch, streamer, PS, display, etc, only one part new, would of been around $1400, spent $600.
 
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The DATS will sweep itself but it’s only for drivers and speakers intrinsic impedance characteristics. It’s very low level and can be done wherever.

Audio microphone sweeps don’t need to be outdoors or anechoic unless you want to measure a subwoofer. Stuff above 300Hz you can do indoors with a close mic and frequency dependent window gating, keep away from a back or side wall and high enough off the ground. Some of these techniques let you get close to an anechoic measurement - most of those effects are below 300Hz. So if the XO points are 370Hz, 4700Hz, you are going to be fine. For the mic measurements fhe REW software provides the sweep signal. You provide the amp and speaker and microphone/sound card. I like the USB mics since no sound card needed. One less thing to calibrate.
 
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Thanks again! It has been a very long time since I designed anything from scratch and though you explain the 300Hz point we always tested outdoors, glad I can skip that part except on the bass drivers it seems or are they OK indoors as well?

I do not have anything I can plug a sound card into unless I resurect an older PC so a USB mic will have to be what I use.

The last time I built a crossover was for my second or maybe third high end car audio comp SQ system, Dynaudio dome mids and tweeters. I went active to the dual 7" midbass and dual subs. McIntosh amps, Zapco DAC, EQ, Xover, all balanced. I beat a prior world champ in front of his starting linemen SD Charger customers, that was fun, especially since I built it outdoors in my backyard:)
 
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