I just finished a pair of ZAPH's BAMTM
(http://zaphaudio.com/BAMTM.html)
My friend and I let them break in and then we auditioned the heck out of them. They do many things well, but one area they absolutely fail in is vocal reproduction (and this is huge in my book). If a speaker can't do vocals and do them well, why bother? My own opinion, just ignore if you don't agree. I believe this is a result of the very low x-over point that Zaph chose (1450 Hz), and think the vocals would come through in a big way if crossed over at a higher point of 3k.
Is there anyone out there that had a similar experience?
At any rate, I would greatly appreciate anyone who could redesign the crossover to 3k and post the values here.
Thanks very much in advance.
(http://zaphaudio.com/BAMTM.html)
My friend and I let them break in and then we auditioned the heck out of them. They do many things well, but one area they absolutely fail in is vocal reproduction (and this is huge in my book). If a speaker can't do vocals and do them well, why bother? My own opinion, just ignore if you don't agree. I believe this is a result of the very low x-over point that Zaph chose (1450 Hz), and think the vocals would come through in a big way if crossed over at a higher point of 3k.
Is there anyone out there that had a similar experience?
At any rate, I would greatly appreciate anyone who could redesign the crossover to 3k and post the values here.
Thanks very much in advance.
I apologize about the design, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm sure you wired the crossovers exactly as detailed, and the chances of you making a mistake anywhere are zero. The 100 other folks who built this design and loved it probably don't have your evaluation skills. Yes, I think you should move the crossover point up to 3kHz, that would definitely sound better. You can use equations right out of Vance Dickason's Loudspeaker Design Cookbook, for accuracy. Thanks for your design insight, I'm going to go update that page right now with your new, better sounding design.
Also, have you tried placing the speakers right in corners, against the wall? Sometimes that improves vocals.
Also, have you tried placing the speakers right in corners, against the wall? Sometimes that improves vocals.
(joke inside)
SoundQuest: try to use another microphone when singing through the BAMTM...or even change the singer...
SoundQuest: try to use another microphone when singing through the BAMTM...or even change the singer...
Zaph, you should be ashamed of yourself. What are you thinking? You spend lots of money auditioning and testing drivers of all sorts, posting the results, spending many hours perfecting numerous speakers designs, and participating with the gurus and newbies alike, all for absolutely no charge to us and no (that I know of) financial gain for yourself. This guy knows that your crossover design is wrong, so re-design it for him! While I'm at it, the waveguide TMM can't possibly work with a simple cap for the tweet (we all know that from the textbooks). I think your website should be pulled down until you can start being responsible and post designs that actually work. Total elimination of the possibility of mistakes being made in the crossover section by any builder would be a good place to start.
All kidding aside, thanks for the work on the waveguide design. It has inspired me to do a bunch of experimenting with less expensive drivers in your configuration, though admittedly with marginal success. I won't blame your hard work, though. I'm capable of goofing something up myself as well as any other guy...
All kidding aside, thanks for the work on the waveguide design. It has inspired me to do a bunch of experimenting with less expensive drivers in your configuration, though admittedly with marginal success. I won't blame your hard work, though. I'm capable of goofing something up myself as well as any other guy...
Zaph you sure don't waste time... I like I like!
But who cares right? The OP obviously doesn't want help...
But who cares right? The OP obviously doesn't want help...
All bow down to the mighty Zaph. 🙄
Love the attitude just because someone doesn't happen to think like you do. Stick to the blog, at least there people don't talk back and can't offer opinions.
Love the attitude just because someone doesn't happen to think like you do. Stick to the blog, at least there people don't talk back and can't offer opinions.
you must power them with 4ohm capable receiver-amplifier, it's very important. I once tried my pair with cheap 8ohm receiver and all imaging and great bass they had were gone.
SoundQuest,
I recommend you do the following:
1. Crossover check. Ensure you have wired exactly as per Zaph's design. One technique is to work through each driver's circuit - both from the driver backward to the amp side, then from the amp side to the driver. Reason to check in both directions (especially the opposite to the way you have constructed) is it forces your mind to evaluate each connection rather than "remember" the way you actually connected it - thinking it to be correct. (the human brain is a nuisance here). If you are able to do an impedance sweep / measurement - this can highlight a myriad for flaws in assembly - from incorrect crossover hookup to driver anomalies to cabinet resonance issues.
3. Speaker hookup. Ensure you haven't reversed polarity connecting one of the speakers to your amplifier. Although more likely to affect bass response rather than midrange - do check
4. Room placement and listening axis. I believe Zaph often designs and measurements shown by Zaph are on tweeter listening axis. What have you put the speakers on? Are they at ear level? Reason being - nulls will begin to appear depending on your listening distance and vertical angle.
5. Comparisons. What speakers are you compaing the BAMTM's too? Commercial speakers often have too little BSC. Zaph's designs factor in an appropriate level of BSC for most rooms. People can mistake BSC for "lacking midrange" - when infact what they are hearing is a properly balanced spectrum.
If you think Zaph is being abrupt or rude with this reply - it really irks designers when someone criticizes their designs with little or no objective evidence to back their criticisms up. I am not defending Zaph (he doesn't need that). Zaph has embedded tips in his reply.
David.
I recommend you do the following:
1. Crossover check. Ensure you have wired exactly as per Zaph's design. One technique is to work through each driver's circuit - both from the driver backward to the amp side, then from the amp side to the driver. Reason to check in both directions (especially the opposite to the way you have constructed) is it forces your mind to evaluate each connection rather than "remember" the way you actually connected it - thinking it to be correct. (the human brain is a nuisance here). If you are able to do an impedance sweep / measurement - this can highlight a myriad for flaws in assembly - from incorrect crossover hookup to driver anomalies to cabinet resonance issues.
3. Speaker hookup. Ensure you haven't reversed polarity connecting one of the speakers to your amplifier. Although more likely to affect bass response rather than midrange - do check
4. Room placement and listening axis. I believe Zaph often designs and measurements shown by Zaph are on tweeter listening axis. What have you put the speakers on? Are they at ear level? Reason being - nulls will begin to appear depending on your listening distance and vertical angle.
5. Comparisons. What speakers are you compaing the BAMTM's too? Commercial speakers often have too little BSC. Zaph's designs factor in an appropriate level of BSC for most rooms. People can mistake BSC for "lacking midrange" - when infact what they are hearing is a properly balanced spectrum.
If you think Zaph is being abrupt or rude with this reply - it really irks designers when someone criticizes their designs with little or no objective evidence to back their criticisms up. I am not defending Zaph (he doesn't need that). Zaph has embedded tips in his reply.
David.
1) Do check the polarity first. Even if it looks good, maybe you could reverse the tweeters as a test/experiment.
For me the fun part of DIY is trying new things to see if they improve things. So try anything you want. With your goal, I would approximately double the frequency of the existing crossover. I you don't have extra components you may need to borrow the parts from one speaker and just test on the other speaker.
2) The modification is achieved by doubling up all the inductors and capacitors with the same value. The inductors are in parallel (side-by-side) so half the current goes through each. The capacitors are in series (end to end) so that all the current has to go through both capacitors. This will raise the crossover frequency to close to 3 kHz. (Don't do anything to the resistor for the tweeter.) This is not prefect doubling, mostly because the driver's impedance changes, but I think you will find it enlightening.
Give it a try. I'm guessing that some of the cone breakup will be more noticeable, which will show up as sounding a little harsher. But I find the fiddling around is the best way to learn. It certainly will demonstrate the difference between high and low crossover points.
Another experiment is to listen to music with either the tweeter or woofers disconnected. This demonstrates what part of the music the driver is actually contributing. Just have fun with it...
Edit: I was writing while the Dave Bullet posted his better written comments. You will note that most of us are suspicous that the polarity is wrong. But I thought of a good test before you embark on raising the crossover frequency. Drive one (or both woofers) full range without any crossover. You will hear what their high frequency capabilities are, and you should hear a bit of a screech at the cone breakup frequency.
For me the fun part of DIY is trying new things to see if they improve things. So try anything you want. With your goal, I would approximately double the frequency of the existing crossover. I you don't have extra components you may need to borrow the parts from one speaker and just test on the other speaker.
2) The modification is achieved by doubling up all the inductors and capacitors with the same value. The inductors are in parallel (side-by-side) so half the current goes through each. The capacitors are in series (end to end) so that all the current has to go through both capacitors. This will raise the crossover frequency to close to 3 kHz. (Don't do anything to the resistor for the tweeter.) This is not prefect doubling, mostly because the driver's impedance changes, but I think you will find it enlightening.
Give it a try. I'm guessing that some of the cone breakup will be more noticeable, which will show up as sounding a little harsher. But I find the fiddling around is the best way to learn. It certainly will demonstrate the difference between high and low crossover points.
Another experiment is to listen to music with either the tweeter or woofers disconnected. This demonstrates what part of the music the driver is actually contributing. Just have fun with it...
Edit: I was writing while the Dave Bullet posted his better written comments. You will note that most of us are suspicous that the polarity is wrong. But I thought of a good test before you embark on raising the crossover frequency. Drive one (or both woofers) full range without any crossover. You will hear what their high frequency capabilities are, and you should hear a bit of a screech at the cone breakup frequency.
Dave Bullet said:
Hi David,
It might well irk some designers but an attitude isn't going to help anyone and certainly isn't justified. They put their designs out there for others to build and naturally audio being audio not everyone will agree. Now the question is was zaph's build instructions followed to the note or is this just a case of preference? Eitherway I'd suggest zaph ignore any criticism of his designs if he can't avoid resorting to childish belittling or try to work through the problem with a fellow audio enthusiast.
What can I say? Tastes differ. You can't please 'em all. If the vast majority of people are satisfied with Zaphs system, I'd call that a win for Zaph. If you, SoundQuest, don't like the sound of the design, consider it an opportunity to learn speaker design, and build something that you DO like. You can definitely re-use those drivers; they're some of the most workable out there.
Sorry Zaph. I didn't mean any offense. In all honesty, all I am trying to do is get the vocals to come out -- I meant you no harm. Is there a chance we wired the X-over wrong? Sure, although remote, there is still a chance. However, we have checked and rechecked it (several times). Is there a chance this speaker was designed to do other things and vocals took a bit of a back seat? Only you would know. All I know is what my ears tell me and that is that there is something missing in the midrange. I'm sure you put a lot of time into this and your other designs and I'm sure they sound great. Is it wrong to want to improve upon something? Isn't that what all of us are trying to do? I don't think any of us or our designs are infallible -- it's a sad day when we start to think so.
Thanks to those that have responded reasonably and kindly. Some of you act like I came out and defiled your temple with pig urine -- I'm sorry for laughing but it's a bit comical to see some shoot all their venom like an infant snake at a blade of grass swayed by a small breeze. Can you say tempest in a teapot?
Thanks to those that have responded reasonably and kindly. Some of you act like I came out and defiled your temple with pig urine -- I'm sorry for laughing but it's a bit comical to see some shoot all their venom like an infant snake at a blade of grass swayed by a small breeze. Can you say tempest in a teapot?
SoundQuest said:
bigwill said:
From what I see the xover is wrong. Please invert polarity for the tweeter. (Zaph has it 180º out of phase). With this I'm not saying it will be fine since I never looked at it before. Metals are not my thing.
SoundQuest said:
No problem man, my post was actually just a joke though my sarcasm is often misread. But as Dave hinted at, there are indeed some tips hidden in my joke. There's also some good tips from some other folks here. After confirming the polarity, the next thing I'd look at is placement. Assuming polarity is right, If you are indeed placing them close to a boundary, I think I have a reduced BSC crossover version around here somewhere. Good luck with the build.
SoundQuest,
You have to look for other, easier ways to voice the speakers differently before you blame the poor vocal reproduction to the low xover point. There is no scientific/empirical evidence that supports your preference of a higher xover point. It's just your speculation. I designed and built two 2-way designs with 1.5 k to 1.6 kHz xover point. I absolutely have no problem enjoying these speakers' excellent vocal reproduction---I don't think I have a problem in evaluating them since my hobby is classical voice music.
My suggestion is adding one or two 1 uF caps to the C7 (currently 10 uF). If you don't listen too loud, this mod won't cause a problem in its power handling. This mod will give more imaging to midrange instruments including vocal. Try 11 uF first and then 12 uF.
Also, as Zaph mentioned, reduced BSC might help. The above tweeter rolloff mod can also be tried with reduced BSC.
-jAy
You have to look for other, easier ways to voice the speakers differently before you blame the poor vocal reproduction to the low xover point. There is no scientific/empirical evidence that supports your preference of a higher xover point. It's just your speculation. I designed and built two 2-way designs with 1.5 k to 1.6 kHz xover point. I absolutely have no problem enjoying these speakers' excellent vocal reproduction---I don't think I have a problem in evaluating them since my hobby is classical voice music.
My suggestion is adding one or two 1 uF caps to the C7 (currently 10 uF). If you don't listen too loud, this mod won't cause a problem in its power handling. This mod will give more imaging to midrange instruments including vocal. Try 11 uF first and then 12 uF.
Also, as Zaph mentioned, reduced BSC might help. The above tweeter rolloff mod can also be tried with reduced BSC.
-jAy
Re: Re: Zaph Bargain Aluminum MTM - something missing - help
What? Don't confuse him. Zaph's xover is correct. It's LR4 design.
Inductor said:
What? Don't confuse him. Zaph's xover is correct. It's LR4 design.
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