With a Unity, the tricky part is getting the mid to blend with the tweeter.
I was forced to use 2" woofers by space constraints, but it was serendipitous. I honestly haven't had any big challenges getting my mids to blend in my Unity.
If anyone's interested in DIY Unity, every single piece you need is over on the carsound forum.*
Honestly, I've found the tricky part is getting the compression driver to sound good. Because my compression driver is INSANELY small, it starts to distort quickly. So right now I've been focusing on getting it to play as low as possible, without going TOO low.
That's about it. The rest of it sounds pretty darn good.
:: PB ::
*Don't use the crossover that's posted there; I've changed it twice since I posted it. And the posted one has a glitch in it (there's an inductor in the wrong place.)
I was forced to use 2" woofers by space constraints, but it was serendipitous. I honestly haven't had any big challenges getting my mids to blend in my Unity.
If anyone's interested in DIY Unity, every single piece you need is over on the carsound forum.*
Honestly, I've found the tricky part is getting the compression driver to sound good. Because my compression driver is INSANELY small, it starts to distort quickly. So right now I've been focusing on getting it to play as low as possible, without going TOO low.
That's about it. The rest of it sounds pretty darn good.
:: PB ::
*Don't use the crossover that's posted there; I've changed it twice since I posted it. And the posted one has a glitch in it (there's an inductor in the wrong place.)
dwk123 said:
dwk123 said:
Todd Michael designed your new speakers. Todd worked with Danley on them. You should ask Todd if he's worked with Geddes. According to his bio, Todd used to design drivers for Adamson Acoustics. If I recall correctly, Earl Geddes has done consulting for Adamson Acoustics. Google it
"Todd Michael
Todd Michael has been working and designing loudspeakers for Yorkville Sound for over eight years. Previous to working at Yorkville, Todd worked at Adamson Acoustics for 5 years building high performance, hand made drive units.
Todd just finished designing the new U15 speaker cabinet which utilizes Tom Danley’s patented Unity Horn Technology. When he isn’t playing with speakers he can be found designing and building fine furniture in his home shop or teaching snowboarding at the local ski hills."
Initial impressions
Well, picked up the U15's on Monday, and finally whipped up some speakon-4 cables and hooked them up tonight. Quick hits
- rat fur versions don't look all that bad. It's black rather than grey, which helps
- smaller than I thought. Guess my playing around with 18" diameter waveguides prepared me
- incredibly efficient. I'm running them at -20 to -25 dB off a ~10W amp and it's plenty in my listening room. Could probably run them off an ipod.
Sonics:
Good: The Unity goodness is there for sure. tonal balance is a bit 'warmer' than my RS52 versions, but the clarity is there. Sound was a bit disappointing until I pulled the metal grills off, though. The result is a gawd-awful ugly speaker, unfortunately. Using the Geddes toe-in arrangement, they disappear as much as it's possible to do in my small space. Image is center-weighted, but palpable.
Not so good: real work to do in the bass/midbass area. I have to place them in corners, so I have some serious midbass resonance. The stock cabinet has a ~200 Hz resonance as well that I haven't eq'd out. I'm planning to try to seal the cabinets if I can figure out a quick-n-dirty way to do it. Also, there's no deep bass - the stock speaker drops like a rock at 50.
It's entirely possible that I'll end up building entirely new cabinets for these, but I'll defer that as long as I can.
So, about what I hoped for - promising, but some work to do. For comparison, once I removed the grilles they were at least the equal of my ACI Sapphire XL's (aside from the boomy midbass, that is), which are very highly regarded mini-monitors.
In terms of the mechanics, the obvious surprise is that the midrange entry holes are HUGE. Part of this is undoubtedly to avoid port noise at the high SPLs that these guys are designed for, but it sure looks at first glance that the bandpass tuning would be way too low to match the 1.3k xover. This is a very preliminary impression, though - so I could easily be wrong.
Well, picked up the U15's on Monday, and finally whipped up some speakon-4 cables and hooked them up tonight. Quick hits
- rat fur versions don't look all that bad. It's black rather than grey, which helps
- smaller than I thought. Guess my playing around with 18" diameter waveguides prepared me
- incredibly efficient. I'm running them at -20 to -25 dB off a ~10W amp and it's plenty in my listening room. Could probably run them off an ipod.
Sonics:
Good: The Unity goodness is there for sure. tonal balance is a bit 'warmer' than my RS52 versions, but the clarity is there. Sound was a bit disappointing until I pulled the metal grills off, though. The result is a gawd-awful ugly speaker, unfortunately. Using the Geddes toe-in arrangement, they disappear as much as it's possible to do in my small space. Image is center-weighted, but palpable.
Not so good: real work to do in the bass/midbass area. I have to place them in corners, so I have some serious midbass resonance. The stock cabinet has a ~200 Hz resonance as well that I haven't eq'd out. I'm planning to try to seal the cabinets if I can figure out a quick-n-dirty way to do it. Also, there's no deep bass - the stock speaker drops like a rock at 50.
It's entirely possible that I'll end up building entirely new cabinets for these, but I'll defer that as long as I can.
So, about what I hoped for - promising, but some work to do. For comparison, once I removed the grilles they were at least the equal of my ACI Sapphire XL's (aside from the boomy midbass, that is), which are very highly regarded mini-monitors.
In terms of the mechanics, the obvious surprise is that the midrange entry holes are HUGE. Part of this is undoubtedly to avoid port noise at the high SPLs that these guys are designed for, but it sure looks at first glance that the bandpass tuning would be way too low to match the 1.3k xover. This is a very preliminary impression, though - so I could easily be wrong.
Resuscitating this thread by . . .
. . . posting a link to my implementation, which you may see, provided that the Internet cooperates:
http://people.qualcomm.com/kalousek/index.htm
I am presenting the pictures of an unfinished prototype in a hope that a showcase of a piece of hardware proves that I am building something rather than just asking theoretical questions for questions sake, and may thus attract more responses from the knowledgeable people.
First, because this is my first conical-shaped Unity, I would like to understand better where to locate holes for mid-frequency drivers. Should I start at the same distance from the throat as the pyramidal-shaped Unity, or does the different cross-sectional area at that distanced change the location?
Second, as already asked on the web-page, I wonder if, by a miracle, someone does not have an extra mid-frequency driver, or knows where to acquire one.
Third, as again mentioned on the web-page, I need help in locating a shop with a CNC lathe that would do turning of the throat for a reasonable price.
Thank you,
M
. . . posting a link to my implementation, which you may see, provided that the Internet cooperates:
http://people.qualcomm.com/kalousek/index.htm
I am presenting the pictures of an unfinished prototype in a hope that a showcase of a piece of hardware proves that I am building something rather than just asking theoretical questions for questions sake, and may thus attract more responses from the knowledgeable people.
First, because this is my first conical-shaped Unity, I would like to understand better where to locate holes for mid-frequency drivers. Should I start at the same distance from the throat as the pyramidal-shaped Unity, or does the different cross-sectional area at that distanced change the location?
Second, as already asked on the web-page, I wonder if, by a miracle, someone does not have an extra mid-frequency driver, or knows where to acquire one.
Third, as again mentioned on the web-page, I need help in locating a shop with a CNC lathe that would do turning of the throat for a reasonable price.
Thank you,
M
Update on the Yorkvilles
Thought I'd write up a brief update on the U15's, now that I've had a bit of time to work with them.
They are placed in the corners of my 7x16 room, firing down the long axis. I put one of John Risch's 'super q'n'd bass traps' (aka bags of fiberglass) on top of each speaker. Not sure how much this helps, but certainly doesn't hurt.
First, they definately need a bit of eq. Some of this might be room related, but even so I wouldn't expect to try to run these without some parametric eq. I'm using the Allocator from Thuneau, which handles everything I need easily.
Second, I'd say they pretty much need subs even in a music-only system, and even corner placed. I was hoping that this might not be the case, but the cabinets are just too small for deep tuning. Modelling the bass driver, it looks like you could get a solid 40Hz out of it in an EBS alignment, but you'd lose some efficiency, and need a somewhat bigger cabinet.
Given the need to corner-place these, I don't have much in the way of setup options. However, despite the smooth off-axis behavior I've now found that the best performance is close to on-axis. I've moved the listening position up close to the 'equilateral' point. This puts me pretty much in the nearfield, which isn't what I would have expected going in. I'm using the Geddes-recommended approach of having the speakers toed-in so that the main axes cross in front of the listening position.
Having said all that, how do they sound? Well, I'll have to go with 'spectacular'. Or at least aside from the bass which I'm still working on. But from the midbass on up they're amazing. Some of this is likely due to the rather nearfield setup reducing room impact - not quite 'big headphones', but probably closer to that than most setups. However, the clarity of the presentation and the complete freedom from any sense of strain is remarkable. Vocal texture and articulation is great, and the top-end seems to be very extended without any harshness or emphasis of sibilance.
I wouldn't say that they are in the holographic imaging/soundstaging category, but they do pretty darn well. They definately disappear in that sound isn't localizable to the speakers, although the image is a bit center-weighted.
So, overall I'm extremely happy. I think the performance validates my belief that controlled-directivity is a huge benefit in small rooms. Spending almost $2k on speakers given my DIY perspective was a bit of a gut-check, but considering the original Lambda kits went for $1500+, the Yorkvilles are something of a bargain in that context. I still need to work on the sub and overall bass performance, but at least it's more on the 'subdued' side rather than overly boomy and intrusive.
Two thumbs way up.
Thought I'd write up a brief update on the U15's, now that I've had a bit of time to work with them.
They are placed in the corners of my 7x16 room, firing down the long axis. I put one of John Risch's 'super q'n'd bass traps' (aka bags of fiberglass) on top of each speaker. Not sure how much this helps, but certainly doesn't hurt.
First, they definately need a bit of eq. Some of this might be room related, but even so I wouldn't expect to try to run these without some parametric eq. I'm using the Allocator from Thuneau, which handles everything I need easily.
Second, I'd say they pretty much need subs even in a music-only system, and even corner placed. I was hoping that this might not be the case, but the cabinets are just too small for deep tuning. Modelling the bass driver, it looks like you could get a solid 40Hz out of it in an EBS alignment, but you'd lose some efficiency, and need a somewhat bigger cabinet.
Given the need to corner-place these, I don't have much in the way of setup options. However, despite the smooth off-axis behavior I've now found that the best performance is close to on-axis. I've moved the listening position up close to the 'equilateral' point. This puts me pretty much in the nearfield, which isn't what I would have expected going in. I'm using the Geddes-recommended approach of having the speakers toed-in so that the main axes cross in front of the listening position.
Having said all that, how do they sound? Well, I'll have to go with 'spectacular'. Or at least aside from the bass which I'm still working on. But from the midbass on up they're amazing. Some of this is likely due to the rather nearfield setup reducing room impact - not quite 'big headphones', but probably closer to that than most setups. However, the clarity of the presentation and the complete freedom from any sense of strain is remarkable. Vocal texture and articulation is great, and the top-end seems to be very extended without any harshness or emphasis of sibilance.
I wouldn't say that they are in the holographic imaging/soundstaging category, but they do pretty darn well. They definately disappear in that sound isn't localizable to the speakers, although the image is a bit center-weighted.
So, overall I'm extremely happy. I think the performance validates my belief that controlled-directivity is a huge benefit in small rooms. Spending almost $2k on speakers given my DIY perspective was a bit of a gut-check, but considering the original Lambda kits went for $1500+, the Yorkvilles are something of a bargain in that context. I still need to work on the sub and overall bass performance, but at least it's more on the 'subdued' side rather than overly boomy and intrusive.
Two thumbs way up.
Re: Update on the Yorkvilles
You've found that you like the clear presentation afforded by minimizing the room effects. The position you describe would be at the minimum.
I find the same with my Unity's. I think that the holographic imaging effect we hear with some speakers is partly an artifact, albeit a pleasing one. Part of the reason I say that is that if I close my eyes in at a live performance I can't localize things as well as I can with the stereo. And if it's an amplified performance with speakers all over the place (pretty typical), fuggetaboutit. In the case of home reproduction, think it's partly room effects too, as my ordinary monitor type speakers require a very specific placement to maximize the effect. But I wouldn't trade the clarity and tonal accuracy for enhanced imaging.
Sheldon
dwk123 said:
You've found that you like the clear presentation afforded by minimizing the room effects. The position you describe would be at the minimum.
dwk123 said:
I find the same with my Unity's. I think that the holographic imaging effect we hear with some speakers is partly an artifact, albeit a pleasing one. Part of the reason I say that is that if I close my eyes in at a live performance I can't localize things as well as I can with the stereo. And if it's an amplified performance with speakers all over the place (pretty typical), fuggetaboutit. In the case of home reproduction, think it's partly room effects too, as my ordinary monitor type speakers require a very specific placement to maximize the effect. But I wouldn't trade the clarity and tonal accuracy for enhanced imaging.
Sheldon
Re: Resuscitating this thread by . . .
Anything new? Haven't seen an update in two months there. I've posted a couple of new things on the forum that I'm using:
http://www.audiogroupforum.com/csforum/showthread.php?p=631648#post631648
mefistofelez said:
Anything new? Haven't seen an update in two months there. I've posted a couple of new things on the forum that I'm using:
http://www.audiogroupforum.com/csforum/showthread.php?p=631648#post631648
I just updated my Unity project thread. http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=69906
I added the shelving HP we had talked about M. That worked out really nice, so I added a shelving LP on the bottom end too, so that I could maximize the dynamic range of the DEQX.
Sheldon
I added the shelving HP we had talked about M. That worked out really nice, so I added a shelving LP on the bottom end too, so that I could maximize the dynamic range of the DEQX.
Sheldon
Hello!
Id like to build a horn bass speaker, but I dont know where to start.Do I need to tell TS parameters as I had to when i was building bass-reflex/sealed design or just start with "rules of tumb"?
Ive been reading some stuff on "http://www.quarter-wave.com",but no success...just too high-tech
And this is the speaker; RCF L15-542
best regards
Id like to build a horn bass speaker, but I dont know where to start.Do I need to tell TS parameters as I had to when i was building bass-reflex/sealed design or just start with "rules of tumb"?
Ive been reading some stuff on "http://www.quarter-wave.com",but no success...just too high-tech
And this is the speaker; RCF L15-542
best regards
Grandma´s_SUB said:Hello!
Id like to build a horn bass speaker, but I dont know where to start.Do I need to tell TS parameters as I had to when i was building bass-reflex/sealed design or just start with "rules of tumb"?
Ive been reading some stuff on "http://www.quarter-wave.com",but no success...just too high-tech
And this is the speaker; RCF L15-542
best regards
You are in the wrong thread, as there is nothing much related to bass horns here. That's not a big deal, but the folks you want to get some answers from aren't very likely to see your post. I suggest you search under bass horns and similar topics. You should turn up a few threads that have links to bass horn modeling. Then ask questions there or maybe start a post with some questions regarding how to accomplish your goals. The search will help you ask better questions. The more specific your questions, the more and better answers you'll get.
Sheldon
Can someone tell me how small the entry holes in the unity can be? It seems small holes (1cm diamter for midrange, 5cm for bass) get the best results in my akabak script, but there has to be a limit on how small one can make them. Especially for the bass range which has a lot of air displacement, is distortion introduced by air speed or pressure in the hole?
MaVo said:
An akabak script, that's great!
I didn't realize there was a student version of Akabak until I stumbled across it on the tapped horn thread. If I'd known this when I did my "unity" project, I would have certainly used it.
I tried a couple of different hole sizes, and wound up going with ones which were VERY small - less than a cm across.
Then again, I was using 2" midranges, which is unusual.
I'd guess the size of the holes is quite dependent on the SD and the VD of the driver you are using.
The aurasound mids which I used have a larger xmax than the prosound mids used by Sheerin and Danley.
Sheerin may be the best person to contact about this; he discussed it on Audioasylum and his site on snippets.
MaVo said:
This should get you close: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=628588#post628588
Sheldon
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