Sealed cabinets don’t produce as much bass as vented cabinets. But the bass they produce is very clean and articulate. Not flappy and indistinct. This cabinet makes bass down to 50Hz which is good for most music. I have found that a high quality discrete Class AB amp with high damping factor *plus* thick 12ga speaker cables makes for noticeable bass extension and authority improvements vs a small cheap Class D amp or lower power 25w Class A amp. A 50w to 100w Class AB amp is the way to go.
Assuming average output is 82.5dB, -3dB is about 47Hz and -6dB point is quite a bit lower. Certainly no slouch on bass as long as you are not trying to get home theatre style rumble. Just get a $100 10in dedicated HT reflex sub crossed below 60Hz or so.
Assuming average output is 82.5dB, -3dB is about 47Hz and -6dB point is quite a bit lower. Certainly no slouch on bass as long as you are not trying to get home theatre style rumble. Just get a $100 10in dedicated HT reflex sub crossed below 60Hz or so.
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As XRK said, a sealed cabinet is going to be limited in low frequency extension, even with an 8" driver. The RS225-8 has a relatively low Qts too, so it really needs support from a bass reflex cabinet to reach down lower and louder.
I'm using a DAC with a very fast digital clock and a high end TI chip, the quality of bass from these speakers is probably the best I've ever heard. The recording definitely makes a difference, these speakers will not be kind to poorly recorded material. If there is no bass on the recording, they will not add any to the sound. Some commercial loudspeakers emphasize bass response too much for my taste, adding bass to music that shouldn't have it.
The damping I'm referring to is the soft Poly-Fill material I stuffed the cabinets with to reduce the effects of internal sound waves reflecting back into the driver. The cabinets are made out of very dense 3/4" Baltic Birch Plywood with some bracing, there is no resonance in the panels influencing the sound as far as I can tell. They sound very much like an open baffle speaker in that regard, little to no cabinet colouration. They certainly do not have a boxy sound.
jenghis,
yes you can't expect miracles....you need to make tradeoffs if you want more bass. if it follows roghly XRK's graph, you are good. One thing you could do, if this is really bugging you, is get the speakers to a high end audio store to try other gears and see if there is a difference. As XRK noted, the amp can also make a difference. As far as i know, the ACA amp is no bass monster. the power supply quality also can have a significant impact on bass output. regarding your dac, the dac chip itself is only a part of the performance.. a good digital portion is also very important with good supplies, low jitter, etc. Bass performance is a good indication of a digital section. In general low noise supply and parts everywhere in the chain helps bass. for clock, i m using in my external dac the very good NDK NZ2520SD , for reference. Anything similar or better is what i would recommend. Also, you could look for ''ian fifo'' i have not tried it but it may bring benefits
Else, you could look at the «finalist» speaker from tim holtz: there is a transmission line version...floorstanding though....or a DSP to equalize.
yes you can't expect miracles....you need to make tradeoffs if you want more bass. if it follows roghly XRK's graph, you are good. One thing you could do, if this is really bugging you, is get the speakers to a high end audio store to try other gears and see if there is a difference. As XRK noted, the amp can also make a difference. As far as i know, the ACA amp is no bass monster. the power supply quality also can have a significant impact on bass output. regarding your dac, the dac chip itself is only a part of the performance.. a good digital portion is also very important with good supplies, low jitter, etc. Bass performance is a good indication of a digital section. In general low noise supply and parts everywhere in the chain helps bass. for clock, i m using in my external dac the very good NDK NZ2520SD , for reference. Anything similar or better is what i would recommend. Also, you could look for ''ian fifo'' i have not tried it but it may bring benefits
Else, you could look at the «finalist» speaker from tim holtz: there is a transmission line version...floorstanding though....or a DSP to equalize.
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I don't want more bass, that would upset the neighbours
. I'm more than happy with how the speakers sound. I've tried them with an 80 WPC Class A/B amp, and I like the ACA better. As I mentioned earlier, I've heard Audio Note's AN-E speakers (8" mid bass, 1" dome tweeter, ported cab), and they did not impress me like these FAST speakers do. I've also heard Klipsch La Scala's with fancy tube amps, I felt like someone had jabbed forks in my ears
My DAC might use an NDK for the clock, I'll have to check...
Neat WMW speaker - XPS foam walls too. What XO are you using or active bi-amp?
I have thought about a tapered TL design for this speaker sort of like a PMC that will give tight and deep bass extension and keep rest of the speaker performance the same. Even same XO.
I am using an active system. Have the 225s parallel as the amp can handle 4 ohms fine. Doubled the enclosure volume so there is slightly more volume per woofer because there is only one cone for the 10f.
Wanted to try the MWM out first and see if it was an improvement. It was, and I will build some proper boxes when I get some time. Thinking about polishing up my welding skills and doing a stainless frame with wooden panels. I've done commercial fixtures like that in the past and it can look unique and pretty good.
I really enjoy these speakers. I built a foam pair that were your stock FAST design and they were fun, but these are FUN! I'm new at this and I know there is more I can get out of them as I learn and tune, but they are great now at 85-90%.
Thanks for putting this out there for us.
Andy
Wanted to try the MWM out first and see if it was an improvement. It was, and I will build some proper boxes when I get some time. Thinking about polishing up my welding skills and doing a stainless frame with wooden panels. I've done commercial fixtures like that in the past and it can look unique and pretty good.
I really enjoy these speakers. I built a foam pair that were your stock FAST design and they were fun, but these are FUN! I'm new at this and I know there is more I can get out of them as I learn and tune, but they are great now at 85-90%.
Thanks for putting this out there for us.
Andy
8in TL is too big to be bookshelf. A 5.25in woofer could be bookshelf but that’s a whole new speaker.
I made a little PMC clone with a 5.25in woofer and dome tweeter and it sounded darn good. Very deep bass. Active though - better quality (smoother) drivers would make for an easier to implement passive crossover.
Low-Cost PMC-inspired TL Monitor with DC130A and DC28F
I made a little PMC clone with a 5.25in woofer and dome tweeter and it sounded darn good. Very deep bass. Active though - better quality (smoother) drivers would make for an easier to implement passive crossover.
Low-Cost PMC-inspired TL Monitor with DC130A and DC28F
Yeah, I thought about calling it a bookshelf speaker as a bad pun, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I knew I would need a stand and thought I would just "build it in". I think it might look good if the bottom was stainless square tube with some racks installed. If I do that I think I will make the bottom bolt on so I can change it if it turns out bad.
Thanks i'll take a look. Anything that fits on my computer desk (33''X72'') though is welcome, even if tall. In any case, i haven't even build the seal cabinet yet...and there is a pile of dish in my kitchen also but that is another story
A 0.40x Karlsonator with a 3FE25 or TC9FD is a compact desktop speaker that sounds wonderful.
Mini Karlsonator (0.53X) with Dual TC9FD's
Here is one on a music mixing desk by Bonjonno:
Does it go lower than the rs225/10f? They are roughly the same volume if i,m not mistaking....the smaller woofer sure paves the way to a wider selection of tweeter or small fullranges like the fr58ex.
BTW, it seems you have experince with the fountek 2 inch...how would you compare it with say tc9fd10 and other similar fullranges? Its it noticebly «flatter» to the ear?
As for karlsonator, probably high value, but i chose for now the speaker in the present thread we discuss in right now because it fits my desk reasonably and wanted a reference sepaker at a reasonable cost. i'm more used to the headphones world. if i can get a speaker that ressembles a bit my hd650, i'll be happy.
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Ha ha police is calling X if memory recall is quite up to day okay about what is smooth and not smooth or did you get some second stock of that nice respectable Aurum Cantus driver or whatever : )
ZAPH site state below:
And below is third party mesurements from ZAPH site for Aurum Cantus and two of Daytons alu cone tranducers, unfortunate he had not RS-225 so took that data from producers datasheet overlaid the others:
ZAPH site state below:
And below is third party mesurements from ZAPH site for Aurum Cantus and two of Daytons alu cone tranducers, unfortunate he had not RS-225 so took that data from producers datasheet overlaid the others:
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That AC130 and a 10F/8424 (or even FR58EX) might make a nice bookshelf TL FAST speaker. The AC130 does not work well in a sealed as the pressurization behind the cone produces some nasty higher order distortion which was very apparent. It surprised me how well people like this driver in the Continuum as a sealed driver. Vented TL probably fine though.
Okay read you as after a second thought you had some non ideal distortion for AC130 in a sealed allignment tuned to some unfortunate dimension and allignment numbers used for that transducer, then guess below points should be ignored as unfortunate information/memory because logic is looking at the graphs that its exactly the other way around and points where a raw out of box AC130 will shine and run most other transducers over, say used over wide bandwidth and with relative low orders of XO slope.
In light of raw out of box response plus smooth over a wide bandwidth is kind of exelent for AC-130F1 below is comparison some other serious smooth ones.
In light of raw out of box response plus smooth over a wide bandwidth is kind of exelent for AC-130F1 below is comparison some other serious smooth ones.
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Maybe I was a bit too harsh about the AC130, it sounded quite nice as a Micro-FAST with FR58EX. At reasonable 80dB, the distortion was not too bad. Here is frequency response, distortion, and step response use 1st order crossover (active).
FR58EX and AC130F1 micro-FAST / WAW
FR58EX and AC130F1 micro-FAST / WAW