Audax Home Theater Kit

Is this a good setup? Yes.

Are there better? Yes.

Audax drivers feature in speakers worth US$15,000 so for what the kit costs it is worth the money.... only complaint i would have about it is that i generally prefer sealed boxes to ported ones.

for the money, this is a great setup. sure, you can get setups with better components, but that's only half the battle. the setup was designed by Dr. D'Appolito, so it's a good bet that the rest of the system is designed extremely well. Vance Dickason's kit also seems quite good, though i haven't heard it.

still, you can get the parts for the entire setup except the sub for under $600 bucks, not counting cabinets. you really can't beat that.

i'd be inclined to use a different sub, though

I'd look into the adire drivers ( http://www.adireaudio.com ) if I were you. The Shiva is really well thought of around here. And when I'm done with my amp/pre-amp & rear speakers I'm going to go with the Tempest for a sub.

BD, I am building this kit right now (from scratch). I have already finished the mains and the surrounds, and I am working on the CC. I am not building the sub.

The mains sound really great. They have really excellent bass response for 6 1/2" drivers. The surrounds are noticably lacking in bass extension, but hey what do you expect for a small sealed box with a single 6.5" ? Regardless, all four of them sound excellent, and when combined with a capable sub then they will tear the house down .

One of the best properties of the Audax drivers, IMHO, is their imaging. They have very a detailed sound, which makes them ideal for HT applications. I attended a DIY speaker competetion earlier this year in the Washington DC area, and I was ecstatic for one important reason. The tweeter that consistently sounded the best to me (and many others) was the TM025F1, and the AP1x0Z0 drivers were also repeated favorites with the crowd. Granted, I heard these drivers in other designs with many different cabinet styles, but they consistently provided great sound regardless of their enclosure.

Right now the only two things holding me back on my HT are my center channel, which is in progress, and the Outlaw 950 pre/pro. God only knows when they are going to actually ship that , so I have some time to finish my CC .

Please feel free to post or email if you have any questions about constructing the kit.

i second the vote for one of adire's subs. i just finished building a sealed tempest and will try to put it on my webpage this weekend. needless to say i'm very satisfied. it's hard to do much better without spending significantly more money.

if space for the sub is an issue, there are other options, but if you've got room, check out a shiva or tempest.

you can get a PE 250 watt amp and a tempest for about 300.

The Adire drivers are very good indeed, but I've been hearing not-too-great things about the PE amps. Perhaps an Adire or Apex Jr. amp would be the better choice.

You'd be better off making an enclosure specifically for the shiva (or shivas) if that's the route you go. Just having the driver in a box doesn't make it sound good, needs a well made box with the right size/tuning frequency/dimentions if you go with ported (which your other box is).

The Adire drivers are very good indeed, but I've been hearing not-too-great things about the PE amps. Perhaps an Adire or Apex Jr. amp would be the better choice.

Click to expand...

hmmm, what have you heard. i haven't actually bought the PE amp yet, so i'm wondering exactly what you had heard? i imagine the adire are better, but somewhat pricey. the apex is nifty, but i would think it's in the same league as the PE.

the next step up would be a prosound amp, crown, qsc or something like that.

Bryan et. all

I too am interested in any information on the PE 250W amp, and how it compares to the Adire products (e.g. the AVA250 or the HS200).

The HS units look nice but I am concerned that they have simple phase switches and not variable adjustment. How important is the phase adjustment? I am assuming it's largely dependent on the sub placement in the listening room and its distance from the main speakers?

Adire's marketing for the AVA250 seems to take a swipe clearly at the PE 250W amp: "eliminate that annoying excess boost (in some cases, as high as 6 dB at 30 Hz!). "

If designed properly what's the sin in using an amp with some boost?

thanks
<peter>

Ok, this is just what I've heard.

As for the reliability of the PE amps, another fellow on the board with the alias BAM has been having severe overheating problems with his 120 watt sub. You can probably find the thread in the SS forum somewhere.

As far as that boost goes, it is not just PE amps that give this sort of boost. I think the PE amp is +3db, but other manufacturers do indeed have +6. As far as home theater goes, this may not be a problem, but if you have a well designed sub, a boost of this magnitude can become quite annoying, and make the bass overwhelming, and the SPL measurements will be far from linear without active EQ. Many people who buy the PE amps change the resistor values to disable the bass boost, but this voids the warranty.

And in my own experiences, I find that infinitely variable phase adjustment has been crucial for integrating my sub properly with the mains. In my room, the phase adjustment is about 70 degrees: a far cry from 0 degrees, or 180. I fiddled with the phase control a lot longer than the crossover control, and I found that I could clearly distinguish changes in the phase control to a greater extent than the crossover.

Although I have no direct experience using the PE amps, I can attest to build and sound quality of the AVA-250 as being superb. The heatsinks have rarely gotten more than warm to the touch, and the solder joints on the PCB seemed to be neat. The controls also feel sturdy, and the whole piece seems to be very well constructed.

I was considering building these speakers. The only thing is that I am more partial to floor standing towers for mains as oppossed to using speaker stands. I guess I could just leave the speakers as designed but make them tall enough to sit on the floor? And maybe stuff the cabinet or something to make sure it wouldn't resonate? What about doing something like adding a side firing woofer? Would this be feasible?

Dave

Hi, I'm also building these speakers, could someone clear up for me if the cross-overs are bi-wireable design, thanks, Matt

ogp : You can definitely modify the mains (and the surrounds) to be floor standing. I have seen a guy hanging out I think on HTF or Madisound (can't remember where I saw his pics) who did just what you describe. His web pics are here. Basically you can extend the four vertical faces of the cabinet to be tall enough to be floor standing. The important rule is to keep the "bottom" of the internal volume the proper distance from the top. This means that the upper part of your cabinet is the correct volume, and the lower part is empty, and does not affect the characteristics of the drivers. The lower part is also an excellent place to stash the crossover networks and the terminal plate. If I had to do mine over, I would have taken this approach.

mattpman : since you are building these speakers, I will assume you have already checked Audax's design pages . These speakers are definitely bi-wirable; all you need to do is use a terminal plate that has four lugs instead of two. The crossover network for each driver is separate. Just hook up each network to a different pair of lugs inside the cabinet.

Some really kick *** pictures of the finished kits can be found at:

here
and the
center channel
and
here

Thanks Silverpike, you've cleared that up for me (I thought they were, but had doubts)

Thanks again ,

Matt

ooh, ooh, forgot...are the holes (for the drivers) given on the audax website the cut-out holes, or the router holes (I want to fllush mount). Sorry about that quessie, I forgot to ask it in the first post.

mattpman : The cutouts shown on the cabinet diagrams are through-hole cutouts. You will need a rabbet bit (or some similar method) to route out a lip around the edges of the specified cutouts to flush mount the driver.

I highly reccomend looking at Audax's individual driver pages. They have detailed physical dimensions for each one. I actually routed the cutouts and rabbets before I ever had the drivers in my hands, because Audax has very accurate physical dimensions . My drivers fit right in after I purchased them .

Poke around Audax's site you can find the links to individual drivers.

Thanks silverpike, you've been of great help.

Thanks again,
Matt

Sealed vs ported boxes?

AudioFreak why do you generally prefer sealed boxes to ported ones?

SteveO