Audio Nirvana Super Cast 10" (New)

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David at Commonsense Audio has just received Audio Nirvana cast frame super 10" & 12" full ranger drivers.

I loved my super 10s that I bought last year buy wanted to try a different cabinet design.

I settled on the 2.8 MKII Ambience enclosure listed on his site using the new 10" Super Cast Frame driver and a regular AN 8" for the top driver. The cabinet is made out of 3/4" birch and is ported with 2 3" port holes, no tubes.

The drivers are wired in parellel and have a combined resistance of 4 ohms. I drive these with a Kingrex T20U. Since they are full range drivers, no crossover is needed.

I have just completed construction of the enclosue and have listened to them.

WOW!

The new cast frame super 10" sound really good. More open than the regular super 10s. The bass is a lot better too, due to the extra 8" driver. By far, the best speakers I've ever hear!
Since I've only been on the full range band wagon for about 1 year now, I don't have a lot of listening experience with other full range speakers. I have listend to lots of multi-way combinations over the years and nothing comes close. I would highly recommend these speakers in the 2.8 Ambience enclosure.


The cost of these were $228 for the cast frame super 10" and $118 for the regular 8" less a 5% discount for ordering 4 speakers. $40 in wood and $25 in parts.

David has been very helpful in answering my questions and making sure I built these correctly. I learned a lot last year when I built my first set, so these were pretty easy.

Just thought I would share my experience. The tripath amps and affordable full range drivers have renewed my interest in high-fi.

I will try to post some pictures in the next day or so.

Allen ...
 
has anyone heard the 12" cast version, i was going to go for the Omnes Audio L8, but seeing the cast version, looks very tempting, and would not need any bass augmentation (in Open Baffle) :)

and for what you get, very cheap £125/pair (i expect delivery to be around $100 from USA) ;)

any idea how they would deal with rock/dance music?

thanks :D
 
I own the original super 8's and I have been nothing but pleased with them. I have just completed a new BLH design for them as well. Next on the long list of things to do is a BLH for the cast 10. I believe I am going to order a pair within the next couple of months, once I complete the plan for the enclosure. I could push up the design a bit if there is some interest. The specs on them look good and I believe I can get a solid 35HZ enclosure worked up for them in the next couple of weeks if needs be.

Tom
 
I have a pair of Super 8s coming.

Here are the shipped prices to the UK as of 2 weeks ago:-

Super 12 Cast Frame: $370/pr
Super 12: 320
Super 10 Cast Frame: 330
Super 10: 280
Super 8 Cast Frame: 280
Super 8: 250
Standard 8: 220
Super 6.5: 230
Standard 6.5: 200

I'm going to build his 2.8 cft enclosures. Unfortunately after taking 5 days to get to the UK from Chicago, they've been in storage here for 8 days at an 'International Hub'.

I got a revived interest in hi-fi after getting a Tripath amp too...

What are people using as a source? I drive mine off an M-audio 2496 soundcard in a desktop computer, I don't rate MP3s. I'm looking for something that's a genuine complement to the system, but not disproportionately priced.

I'm also thinking about a subwoofer, even tho' I won't get to hear the run-in system for some time yet. I guess I shoulda gone for the cast 12s for 120 bucks more. Next time.

w

Allen, you can just edit your posts if you notice any typos...
 
Harderror said:
I own the original super 8's and I have been nothing but pleased with them. I have just completed a new BLH design for them as well. Next on the long list of things to do is a BLH for the cast 10. I believe I am going to order a pair within the next couple of months, once I complete the plan for the enclosure. I could push up the design a bit if there is some interest. The specs on them look good and I believe I can get a solid 35HZ enclosure worked up for them in the next couple of weeks if needs be.

Tom


I have been looking at the AN cast 10s for my first hi-fi full range audio project

-Justin
 
Here is a picture of my Cast Super 10" in the 2.8 MKII enclosure.

I haven't stained them yet. I was to anxious to listen to them.

Here is something I did when I built mine, that you might want to consider. I used 2 pair of speaker terminal and wired the top driver to one and the bottom to the other. I wanted some options with this setup. Here's what it can do.

1. Jumper the 2 terminals and use 1 amp = parallel setup 4 ohms.
2. No jumper, 1 amp using only the 10"
3. No jumper, bi-amp, no active crossover required.


Thanks for the tip about editing my posts. I didn't know I could do that.

Allen ...
 

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despotic931 said:



I have been looking at the AN cast 10s for my first hi-fi full range audio project

-Justin


I have decided that these will be my next project (tax returns don't ya know) :D . I will begin design on an enclosure based around the Model III (for the 8" style drivers shown) probably this weekend. I will keep everyone posted.

Tom
 

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inrank said:
has anyone heard the 12" cast version, i was going to go for the Omnes Audio L8, but seeing the cast version, looks very tempting, and would not need any bass augmentation (in Open Baffle) :)

and for what you get, very cheap £125/pair (i expect delivery to be around $100 from USA) ;)

any idea how they would deal with rock/dance music?

thanks :D


Well, I don't have the 10's yet but I do run the super 8's. Once again I don't have them on an open baffle but in a horn they deal quite well with rock and dance. I expect the cast 10 to be quite a bit better with this sort of music.

Tom
 
ranger3 said:
Here is a picture of my Cast Super 10" in the 2.8 MKII enclosure.

I haven't stained them yet. I was to anxious to listen to them.

Here is something I did when I built mine, that you might want to consider. I used 2 pair of speaker terminal and wired the top driver to one and the bottom to the other. I wanted some options with this setup. Here's what it can do.

1. Jumper the 2 terminals and use 1 amp = parallel setup 4 ohms.
2. No jumper, 1 amp using only the 10"
3. No jumper, bi-amp, no active crossover required.


Thanks for the tip about editing my posts. I didn't know I could do that.

Allen ...

Allen,
Those look sweet. I was thinkng of going in that direction myself.
Just a couple of qustions;
1) Did you use Dave's design's
2) How are they sounding and what do you listen too?
3) Ilike what you did with the terminals. Pardon and ignorant question, but when you run the terminals jumped in parallel w/ Input impedance 4 ohms, what exactly does that mean if my amp has an 8hm output impedance? My amp is a Dynaco St-70 with the EL-34 tubes.

Thanks,
Tony
 
Harderror said:



I have decided that these will be my next project (tax returns don't ya know) :D . I will begin design on an enclosure based around the Model III (for the 8" style drivers shown) probably this weekend. I will keep everyone posted.

Tom

Thanks, I look forward to seeing what you come up with. I am also curious about the 12's but fear that their high frequency response may suffer too much...

-Justin
 
Yes I did use David's design. Except for the wiring part, it's exactly as David designed it.

David is a real down to earth guy. I e-mailed him and talk to him on the phone several times so he could answer all my questions. This being my 2nd set of Audio Nirvana speakers I have learned a lot about building and tuning these speakers. I would be happy to answer any questions you have with them.

Both sets that I have built sound awesome. The best I've ever heard. Certainly better than anything Best Buy sells.

The first set is the Super 10 in a 2.8 Series I birch enclosure using the 6" port hole.

The second set is the Super Cast 10 & the regular 8 in a 2.8 MKII Abmience birch enclosure with twin 3" port holes.

Their wasn't enough low end bass with the first set with the 6" port hole. So after talking to David, he told me that a 5" long port tube would improve the low end bass making the enclosure equivalent to one with the twin 3" ports. So I bought two tubes from Parts Express for about $5 and it greatly improved the sound of the low end on these. The second set has the twin 3" ports and it's perfect.

I recommend the 2.8 enclosure with the twin 3" ports. The Ambience if you can afford it.

I listen to a lot of different things. Right now, I'm re-enjoying Supertramp because I'm hearing things I've never heard before I had these speakers. The song, "School" is really good. When the singer starts to sing, you can practically see him standing in the room it's so real. I listen to 70s, 80s, 90s, alternative, jazz, and dance music. The speakers play them all well, but the recording makes all the difference as to where or not they sound fabulous.


By jumpering the speaker wires, the load presented to your amp will be 4 ohms. If your amp can handle 4 ohm loads, you will have no problem. It should be listed in the documentation.
 
An 8ohm amp will need to push harder the 4ohm load. These speakers are sensitive so you may not have to drive the amplifier so hard to make the speakers "sing". If I remember the El34 PP will give you around 30watts p/c - I would say more than enough for the ANs.

I hope this helps you!
MV
 
Not the 10" but two 8"

Hello all,

I have also experimented with the 8" ANs. I have implemented the 2.8 enclosure (25mm MDF at all sides) with first generation super 8s at the front and normal 8s at the top. I prefer the normals at the front and the supers at the top. They seem more detailed and holographic this way. (it depends on the listening room and angles!)

I have been experimenting with the port and quite a lot. I think I like 8cm the best. I do like the bass attack of 5 1/2cm but at this diameter the port sings a little too much. But I can say it is subjective...

My dream is to construct this:
http://www.hm-moreart.de/23.htm
The very detailed plans cost about €15 (if I can remember).
Horst is very helpful but the time (I have very little) and energy make this design very discompelling.

I'm now interested in building an open baffle. For this I would like to use the same driver in a vertical array open baffle. I haven't decided what to do for the woofer - any ideas? BTW, is anybody interested in trading their pair of normal8"s for a pair of super8"s?

I might order a pair of the 10"s if I go to California in March - the transport and custom tariffs are very expensive in the EU!

Greetings,
MV
 
Remember that if you run two units full-range on the same baffle, you'll run into severe lobing problems above the frequency achieved when centre-to-centre spacing exceeds 1 wavelength. So, for e.g., an 8in distance between centres will mean lobing issues will progressively increase from ~1.7KHz. One option is to use them in a quasi 1.5-way format where you use the 2nd driver simply to support the response below the driver's mass-corner & roll it off above that frequency.
 
Scottmoose: Yes, thank you. This was one of my questions (amongst many others such as phase balance and filter frequencies etc...) but I wanted to obtain more information first before populating this or another forum. Is there a forum for specific argument?

I was thinking of maybe using only the Super10 in the future however I must also finance this little project with what i won't need in the future or two pairs of AN full range drivers! :scratch

While I write this I have removed the top driver of one loudspeaker and have placed this at the top open and directed to the listing area. Very interesting...

I will report more later but I must ask the moderators maybe to merge this and other "Audio Nirvana" news in one unique thread. I only have 8" and not the 10"...

Greetings,
MV
 
We are deviating for the thread subject but...

Scottmoose: for the open baffle I understand now about the dual midrange issue. I will use one.

For the woofer could I use a mix of bass-reflex and open baffle? Maybe a box as a base with one or two sides open? This changes everything and I have not seen this and have no idea how this is calculated. I also want to limit the width of the baffle to 40cm... if not this solution will be too large and non WAF compliant!

Thanks for the help and best regards, MV
 
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