Thanks, fellow scandinavians! 
koldby: the arrays are still pretty new to me so I'm not used to them yet, the drivers are not broken in, and I am still tweaking the frequency response among other things... Haven't even settled on preferable toe-in yet actually. How do you angle yours?
Having said that, my impressions so far are that they are quite dynamic and sound relaxed and effortless in that nice way that large and capable speakers tend to do. Large and engaging sound stage that I feel works great for home cinema purposes, which is the main use for them.
I do feel that a little something is missing in the top and bottom ends though, just like you concluded as well if I remember correctly. Might consider adding a tweeter array. Also, I cross to separate subs at 80 Hz which I feel is too low. 120-150 would probably be much better, but my current subs can't be placed close enough to the arrays for crossing that high. I see a pair of bass towers in my future. Just need to let my wife recover from these first...
haraldo: I am following your array build and am silently cheering on!
koldby: the arrays are still pretty new to me so I'm not used to them yet, the drivers are not broken in, and I am still tweaking the frequency response among other things... Haven't even settled on preferable toe-in yet actually. How do you angle yours?
Having said that, my impressions so far are that they are quite dynamic and sound relaxed and effortless in that nice way that large and capable speakers tend to do. Large and engaging sound stage that I feel works great for home cinema purposes, which is the main use for them.
I do feel that a little something is missing in the top and bottom ends though, just like you concluded as well if I remember correctly. Might consider adding a tweeter array. Also, I cross to separate subs at 80 Hz which I feel is too low. 120-150 would probably be much better, but my current subs can't be placed close enough to the arrays for crossing that high. I see a pair of bass towers in my future. Just need to let my wife recover from these first...
haraldo: I am following your array build and am silently cheering on!
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My toe in is so that the speakers point at a spot a little behind the seating position. This is a little of a random choice, as I use the audiolense software to compensate frequency and for room correction measured @ listning position.
I am still considering a tweeter, but it is so little I miss in the highs, that the trouble and relating problems of adding crossover and a different dispersion pattern, could be voting against such a solution. One of the great things about these speakers are the great cohorency they posess.
Koldby
I am still considering a tweeter, but it is so little I miss in the highs, that the trouble and relating problems of adding crossover and a different dispersion pattern, could be voting against such a solution. One of the great things about these speakers are the great cohorency they posess.
Koldby
Thanks, fellow scandinavians!
haraldo: I am following your array build and am silently cheering on!
Too many plans now, TL sub and array build is on hold
Now it's work and pleasure, next is TOGAF Architect certification ....
Although I would like to make an initial set of speakers with these drivers
http://www.parts-express.com/fountek-fe85-3-full-range-speaker-driver--296-717
1st try with cheaper drivers, to decrease financial risk.....
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Thanks.
Looking forward to the finished result of your efforts - your cabinets are probably some of the nicest looking ones I've seen. koldby said:
I do the same, but with Dirac Live. At first I angled my speakers so that they crossed about 1m in front of the center listening position, now about 20cm. I've always felt it is difficult to evaluate the effect of different toe-in angles, but in my (limited) testing I imagined a decreasing angle corresponded to improving stereo perspective but a decreasing sweet spot.
I share your sentiment on tweeters. I have a feeling I might like the more consistent dispersion gained from adding a tweeter array, but am not sure it is worth the crossover drawbacks (and added cost for that matter). I have some thoughts of building a 2-way CBT center, with the same Vifa drivers as woofers/mids. If it comes to fruition and I like the result, I might try out the same tweeters on these arrays as well.
haraldo said:
I know exactly what you are saying, there is constantly so much fun (and other) things do, and so little time...
No hurry though, there is no point in rushing the fun out of things! I've read good things about the Fountek range of mid-size drivers, sounds exciting to try them out!
The silver Fountek's, probably FR88ex, look mighty similar to the drivers Geir Fredriksen employs in his top-of-the-line Adyton Silver Signature line .... it's probably not stock drivers .... but still
I should probably visit OHC and shoot some closer pictures
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
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All the line-sources that I heard are crazy good, it's just one thing that bother's me, the soundstage is just unrealistically tall, like Mark Knopfler's mouth is half a metre tall
Certainly no boominess from what I have heard, but what else to expect in Oslo Hi-fi center's hi-end room...... I never heard them in residential rooms.... Although from 80Hz down, in this case, it's the line source sub taking over.....
Certainly no boominess from what I have heard, but what else to expect in Oslo Hi-fi center's hi-end room...... I never heard them in residential rooms.... Although from 80Hz down, in this case, it's the line source sub taking over.....
Thought I'd share my IDS-25 clones I finished a month or so ago. Maybe it'll be of interest to people following this thread...
It's 28 Vifa TC9FD-18-08 in a floor-to-ceiling array. EQ is done in a PC, by Dirac Live and some manual tweaking in JRiver MC (still ongoing).
I made them in a similar triangular shape as IDS-25, but with a rounded rear side.
At the top there is a plate with the same shape as the base, with a couple in-built bolts pressing it against the ceiling (with soft feet between). Works great, they are stable against tipping without needing a large base.
The grille is made from perforated metal sheets with hexagonal holes, attached with magnets against driver mounting screws. Neither grille nor magnets are painted yet - they will eventually get some black paint...
Njoak,
Beautiful cabinet work there! How are you wiring the 28 drivers as it is not a square number anymore for equivalent series/parallel wiring? You really have to EQ the top end like crazy (+20 dB shelf, Q=0.5, from 15 kHz on up) but that will produce a flat response to 19 kHz. Sounds very good as cone excursion is still very little. You should not need a tweeter array. If you were not using a sub similar EQ on the low end will give bass down to 30 Hz like a 15 inch woofer.
All the line-sources that I heard are crazy good, it's just one thing that bother's me, the soundstage is just unrealistically tall, like Mark Knopfler's mouth is half a metre tall
yup.
some people have luck with a seriously rugged single tweeter crossed in.
Norman
The spec sheet shows a pretty good frequency response, but max linear excursion is only 1.5mm. the TC9's are 3ish. It's really nice if you can use them down to 80HZ anyway, so that might be the limiting factor. Roger Russel uses the TG9's (almost identical to the TC9's) down to 20 HZ. I'd call 30HZ low enough personally.
Linkwitz says the same thing about vertical arrays; that the singer is too big. What's really happening IMO is that the fault is in the recording process. A mic is typically jammed up against the singers mouth. What if your ear was right where that mic typically is? How else would that sound in a truly accurate reproduction system? Past a certain point, errors in the recording process become more clear than you wanted. But the rest of the sound is probably great.All the line-sources that I heard are crazy good, it's just one thing that bother's me, the soundstage is just unrealistically tall, like Mark Knopfler's mouth is half a metre tall
Certainly no boominess from what I have heard, but what else to expect in Oslo Hi-fi center's hi-end room...... I never heard them in residential rooms.... Although from 80Hz down, in this case, it's the line source sub taking over.....
Right on the target!!!!
If you listen to well recorded classical music on these linesources, you get correct size and pinpoint placement of the instruments..
If it is a not so well recorded piece, with a soloist that is highlighted with a dedicated microphone, that soloist will grow out of propotion compared to the rest.
Koldby
Norman, I have several tracks of guitars ,where it is like the guitar (and player) is in my room in natural size.
Maybe because well executed linesources are very pure and distortionfree even at very high volumen settings, this misconception occure.
People tend to turn up the volumen and listen to too high spl, resulting in to big images?
The unrealsisic big sound described here sounds more like what you get from somthing like the big old Magnepan loudspeakers, but they were not linesources...
And these IDS25 types are quite different beasts.
Koldby
Maybe because well executed linesources are very pure and distortionfree even at very high volumen settings, this misconception occure.
People tend to turn up the volumen and listen to too high spl, resulting in to big images?
The unrealsisic big sound described here sounds more like what you get from somthing like the big old Magnepan loudspeakers, but they were not linesources...
And these IDS25 types are quite different beasts.
Koldby
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