Sorry for lack of update.
I fired them up a little more than a month ago.
Because I didn't have a grill solution, I set them in the basement flanking my desk with plans to recut the chamfer with a larger bit, clean up the polyurethane finish, fashion a grill, and then bring them upstairs but I haven't had much time to do any of that.
But I'm liking the way the sound despite the less then ideal conditions - too close (4 feet) to listening position and too far from rear wall.
The grill solution I'm going to try is perforated aluminum (painted black) bonded to neodymium magnets that will attach to the woofer's screw heads. I have it mocked up at the moment.
I'm getting anxious to get them into my living room where the listening conditions are more favorable.
I fired them up a little more than a month ago.
Because I didn't have a grill solution, I set them in the basement flanking my desk with plans to recut the chamfer with a larger bit, clean up the polyurethane finish, fashion a grill, and then bring them upstairs but I haven't had much time to do any of that.
But I'm liking the way the sound despite the less then ideal conditions - too close (4 feet) to listening position and too far from rear wall.
The grill solution I'm going to try is perforated aluminum (painted black) bonded to neodymium magnets that will attach to the woofer's screw heads. I have it mocked up at the moment.
I'm getting anxious to get them into my living room where the listening conditions are more favorable.
Attachments
Hi...
Sooner og later iam going to make a frame with fabric like the original rese66 cloned ones
I will proberly use an mdf sheet, routing a little bigger as the woofer hole and attach the fabric onto that.
I think it would protect them by most this way!
Just an idea.
Jesper.
Sooner og later iam going to make a frame with fabric like the original rese66 cloned ones
I will proberly use an mdf sheet, routing a little bigger as the woofer hole and attach the fabric onto that.
I think it would protect them by most this way!
Just an idea.
Jesper.
Attachments
Thank you for the update. Such a dense grill will probably cause some problems in the midrange. But with the magnets you can remove them at any time. Good idea.
I'm curious about your impression in the living room.
I couldn't detect an impact with the grill but will measure when I get them out of the basement.
Easy to remove in theory but I still need to figure out how to securely bond the magnet to the aluminum and how many magnets to use.
Four seem very secure but looks funny/asymmetrical due to the screw positions and eight magnets might result in deformation of the grill when trying to remove.
I've finally brought the speakers upstairs to the living room. I have them placed close to the rear wall.
First impression is they are too bass heavy I'm guessing somewhere in the 50-150Hz region. I haven't setup the measurement mic yet but will shortly. Wondering if this is a cabinet fill issue. I've not had this issue with other speakers in this room.
I did notice an uptick in bass a couple weeks ago in the basement about the time I switched amps. My music genres also change so I can't say for sure I was listening to the same music after the swtich. So maybe it was woofer break-in. But to be sure I'll try the original amp.
My room is 26ft by 12ft with 9-1/2 ft ceiling (8m x 3.6m x 2.9m). Seating/listening area is in one half of the room with the speakers basically arranged along a 13ft section of wall.
The wall opposite of the speakers a 10ft wide bay window opening that is about 3 feet deep. The couch is located in this opening. My ears are about 10ft from the baffle plane. The window is about 2ft behind my head.
From the seating position, the left wall is a set of french doors, one usually open. The right wall is essentially the other half of the room.
Not sure if that paints a useful picture, I have a sketchup model somewhere.
First impression is they are too bass heavy I'm guessing somewhere in the 50-150Hz region. I haven't setup the measurement mic yet but will shortly. Wondering if this is a cabinet fill issue. I've not had this issue with other speakers in this room.
I did notice an uptick in bass a couple weeks ago in the basement about the time I switched amps. My music genres also change so I can't say for sure I was listening to the same music after the swtich. So maybe it was woofer break-in. But to be sure I'll try the original amp.
My room is 26ft by 12ft with 9-1/2 ft ceiling (8m x 3.6m x 2.9m). Seating/listening area is in one half of the room with the speakers basically arranged along a 13ft section of wall.
The wall opposite of the speakers a 10ft wide bay window opening that is about 3 feet deep. The couch is located in this opening. My ears are about 10ft from the baffle plane. The window is about 2ft behind my head.
From the seating position, the left wall is a set of french doors, one usually open. The right wall is essentially the other half of the room.
Not sure if that paints a useful picture, I have a sketchup model somewhere.
@ultrachrome
that doesn't look too bad at all. A downward sloping response towards the highs with a bit of a bump in the 80-40 range. OK granted a larger than 10 db bump, but I have seen way worse and many would be happy with this level of bass
This seems to be mainly an issue with room gain of bass and likely sitting position. The later might be hard to change. Not quite understanding your layoutm too late, maybe you could give a sketch. The former will require you to move the speakers out from the walls or corners.
You could also add bass traps, play with the crossover, dsp, damping and many other options but playing with toe in (angling of speakers) and especially placement towards/likely away from the wall will allow you to get the sound you want. Actually you can do all the above and will still need to play with speaker placement to achieve the best sound.
Probably start with a non symetrical corner placement with the speakers further away from the back than the side walls. 1:1.3 distance from side wall and back wall is a good ruleof thumb starting point. The toe in will adjust the highs/mids/ 2pi radiation patern of the speaker. Play with this first. Don't worry as much about the measurement and more how you want it to sound. Looks very linear and fairly easily fixable. What is the damping in the room. Is it bright, e.g. little absorbing materials, such as ccurtains, couch, rug, or is it fairly well damped? Can you change sitting position that is usually also very helpful when dealing with this.
Play with the positioning and make some measurements this way you learn and others will be able to more easily help
Good Luck
that doesn't look too bad at all. A downward sloping response towards the highs with a bit of a bump in the 80-40 range. OK granted a larger than 10 db bump, but I have seen way worse and many would be happy with this level of bass
This seems to be mainly an issue with room gain of bass and likely sitting position. The later might be hard to change. Not quite understanding your layoutm too late, maybe you could give a sketch. The former will require you to move the speakers out from the walls or corners.
You could also add bass traps, play with the crossover, dsp, damping and many other options but playing with toe in (angling of speakers) and especially placement towards/likely away
from the wall will allow you to get the sound you want. Actually you can do all the above and will still need to play with speaker placement to achieve the best sound. Probably start with a non symetrical corner placement with the speakers further away from the back than the side walls. 1:1.3 distance from side wall and back wall is a good ruleof thumb starting point. The toe in will adjust the highs/mids/ 2pi radiation patern of the speaker. Play with this first. Don't worry as much about the measurement and more how you want it to sound. Looks very linear and fairly easily fixable. What is the damping in the room. Is it bright, e.g. little absorbing materials, such as ccurtains, couch, rug, or is it fairly well damped? Can you change sitting position that is usually also very helpful when dealing with this.
Play with the positioning and make some measurements this way you learn and others will be able to more easily help
Good Luck
See room diagram attached. I have the speakers aggressively toed in at 45 degrees at the moment which should explain the HF roll off
I didn't expect the bump to be that low in frequency but I've not spent a lot of time comparing measurements to my subjective opinions.
The system is currently:
The system this replaced was a pair of beaten up Klipsch KG-4 gifted by a neighbor which I then removed the XO and biamped with a nanoDigi 2x8 and LM3875 gainclones. I wasn't very critical of this system as it was to play with a horn speaker and I wasn't too concerned what my 3 y/o child was going to do it.
So rolling the nanoDigi back into the chain is something I'm thinking about doing to try and pinpoint the band that I think is too high.
I didn't expect the bump to be that low in frequency but I've not spent a lot of time comparing measurements to my subjective opinions.
The system is currently:
- HDMI switch feeding Khadas Tone Board DAC
- Rod Elliot Project 37 Death of Zen preamp with Academy Audio VCU Muses volume controller
- Amp chronology:
- Rod Elliot Project 36 Death of Zen class-A amp
- AKSA-55
- Adcom GFA-545ii
The system this replaced was a pair of beaten up Klipsch KG-4 gifted by a neighbor which I then removed the XO and biamped with a nanoDigi 2x8 and LM3875 gainclones. I wasn't very critical of this system as it was to play with a horn speaker and I wasn't too concerned what my 3 y/o child was going to do it.
So rolling the nanoDigi back into the chain is something I'm thinking about doing to try and pinpoint the band that I think is too high.
Attachments
The bump around 40 Hz is normal without room correction, and your 10 dB peak is modest. I doubt it has something to do with the amps, it is just that the woofer is radiating omnidirectional and this typically adds up as a bass shelf. If you pull them a little away from the wall, this will reduce the gain a bit. And there is always the possibility for passive or active EQ elements in the signal chain for room correction. Can you show us the in-room response with a scaling of 50 or 60 dB?
@ ultrachrome if you can move the couch and the speakers down a tad, especially getting the upper (picture) speaker out of the corner will help the most. Corners is where you get the largest reflective effect from your bass radiating 4pi omnidirectional as mentioned before. With a corner you have doubling for floor and doubling for left and doubling for right wall. Also placing an absorber in the corners, even next to the couch should get it to acceptable levels. Actually impressive how much bass they give you. Always easier too much bass and tune it down than trying to integrate a woofer. Then usually 3-4 subwoofers will work best.
I would try reducing toe in to ca. 30 degrees AND Move the speakers all down and if possible the couch as well. Place anything that is right of the couch in the corner if possible and scoot everything away from the top. This will give you a play of about 6-9db less bass under ca. 80hz. Just play around with it.
Good luck. These speakers produce low bass compared to the klipsches and the corners multiply the frequencies under ca. 80hz (omnidirectional) and therefore if there is more to multiply then there is more in the end
Or you can try biamping and playing with dsp, but not necessary here.
Goodluck
I would try reducing toe in to ca. 30 degrees AND Move the speakers all down and if possible the couch as well. Place anything that is right of the couch in the corner if possible and scoot everything away from the top. This will give you a play of about 6-9db less bass under ca. 80hz. Just play around with it.
Good luck. These speakers produce low bass compared to the klipsches and the corners multiply the frequencies under ca. 80hz (omnidirectional) and therefore if there is more to multiply then there is more in the end
Or you can try biamping and playing with dsp, but not necessary here.
Goodluck
Most of my experience in this room is with a pair of Ellis 1801b's which used a SEAS W18E001 and Hiquphon tweeter. So it could be I've just never heard that much bass that low.
Tubeglow, what do you mean by moving "down?" Do you mean moving the couch laterally, towards the center of the room? That's not feasible from a room usage perspective and would otherwise displease my wife.
Sheeple, were you talking about the Y-axis top/bottom limits? If so, attached.
Earlk, thanks for that suggestion. I'll try that.
I was lucky to get a couple hours of alone time with them last night watching TV and bouncing around spotify/tidal. I relaxed the toe-in to about 30 degrees which really helped balance the sound and widen the soundstage.
I'm not sure how it is for those upstairs trying to sleep but I was impressed by the bass at low volumes. No need for a loudness control.
Tubeglow, what do you mean by moving "down?" Do you mean moving the couch laterally, towards the center of the room? That's not feasible from a room usage perspective and would otherwise displease my wife.
Sheeple, were you talking about the Y-axis top/bottom limits? If so, attached.
Earlk, thanks for that suggestion. I'll try that.
I was lucky to get a couple hours of alone time with them last night watching TV and bouncing around spotify/tidal. I relaxed the toe-in to about 30 degrees which really helped balance the sound and widen the soundstage.
I'm not sure how it is for those upstairs trying to sleep but I was impressed by the bass at low volumes. No need for a loudness control.
Attachments
Sorry for the late reply - I went to see my DIY friends over the weekend.
At what height was the microphone when measuring? If it was at the height of the tweeter, is it possible that the tweeter on the crossover is not reversed?
A falling response in the treble is quite normal for room measurements. For example, the Dirac reference looks like this (orange):
So that would fit quite well, apart from the break-in at 1.5 kHz and the bass that is too loud.
Unfortunately, you don't have a favorable setup for the bass. It's very similar in my home, so I can understand that, but your couch is a little further back exactly in the room mode. If you sit 2-3 feet forward, things will likely get a lot better. I'm sitting about 3 feet away from the wall / window behind me that's fine. If I lean back and have only 1 foot left, the bass kills me.
If nothing can be changed in your setup, I would lower the bass using a DSP.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to combat room modes in this frequency range with absorbers.
At what height was the microphone when measuring? If it was at the height of the tweeter, is it possible that the tweeter on the crossover is not reversed?
A falling response in the treble is quite normal for room measurements. For example, the Dirac reference looks like this (orange):
So that would fit quite well, apart from the break-in at 1.5 kHz and the bass that is too loud.
Unfortunately, you don't have a favorable setup for the bass. It's very similar in my home, so I can understand that, but your couch is a little further back exactly in the room mode. If you sit 2-3 feet forward, things will likely get a lot better. I'm sitting about 3 feet away from the wall / window behind me that's fine. If I lean back and have only 1 foot left, the bass kills me.
If nothing can be changed in your setup, I would lower the bass using a DSP.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to combat room modes in this frequency range with absorbers.
Attachments
Microphone was at ear level but I had the speakers toed in aggressively such that the microphone did not line of sight on the horn throat.
Are you suggesting the 1.5kHz depression might be polarity related? I'll double-check to be sure.
I'll play with the couch position to experiment but it's location is not up to me.
I'm okay with a DSP solution. That seems to be part of the logical evolution of this system.
Are you suggesting the 1.5kHz depression might be polarity related? I'll double-check to be sure.
I'll play with the couch position to experiment but it's location is not up to me.
I'm okay with a DSP solution. That seems to be part of the logical evolution of this system.
I inserted the nanoDigi upstream of the DAC and added an eq band of 40Hz, -10dB, and Q=2. Didn't get a chance to remeasure but the improvement was profound.
Would love to hear more thoughts on the 1.5k dip. I eyeballed the XO again and verified the CD has the correct polarity. I thought I read about a user having a CD with the terminals reversed so I verified that the larger terminal was positive per the spec sheet.