Hello!
Sometime ago a friend asked me about designing a floor-standing speaker that should have some kind of “vintage sound signature”!
Since I’m familiar with Visaton speakers due my former collaboration with their dealer in Greece, I decided to go with W-300, W-170, Μ-10 and TW-6NG in a 4-way design.
The friend who built the speakers commented that the sound was very "involving" and "lifelike". The bass was nothing close to boomy despite the vented-box reputation among a fraternity of audiophiles who declare it as “single note’’ bass.
He said that the listening had traveled him back to the finest sounds made by large American speakers of the early golden-era of Hi-Fi.
If someone has worked on a similar design I’d be glad to hear his comments.
Sometime ago a friend asked me about designing a floor-standing speaker that should have some kind of “vintage sound signature”!
Since I’m familiar with Visaton speakers due my former collaboration with their dealer in Greece, I decided to go with W-300, W-170, Μ-10 and TW-6NG in a 4-way design.
The friend who built the speakers commented that the sound was very "involving" and "lifelike". The bass was nothing close to boomy despite the vented-box reputation among a fraternity of audiophiles who declare it as “single note’’ bass.
He said that the listening had traveled him back to the finest sounds made by large American speakers of the early golden-era of Hi-Fi.
If someone has worked on a similar design I’d be glad to hear his comments.
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Here's my recent attempt at vintage style speakers, Pioneer 8" woofers with Q of ~.9; 4" Matsushita (Pioneer?) coated paper mids, and old Philips tweeters.
The woofers weren't going to play well in a vented box, but I have them rear ported to bring up the bass near a wall. Except for low bass, they have an impressive mid sound, and are well balanced. Xover is a generic serial design, simply because that lowers inductor costs (Although all of the parts in this came out of my stash) IIRC, ~400Hz & 3Khz. I think the key to vintage sound is the paper cone woofers
The woofers weren't going to play well in a vented box, but I have them rear ported to bring up the bass near a wall. Except for low bass, they have an impressive mid sound, and are well balanced. Xover is a generic serial design, simply because that lowers inductor costs (Although all of the parts in this came out of my stash) IIRC, ~400Hz & 3Khz. I think the key to vintage sound is the paper cone woofers
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Unfortunately, my friend didn’t send any photos at that time. I only have a paint color proposal as he asked me so.
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Thank you for sharing all that information about your speaker project. The drivers you used, were well reputed at their time. I do agree with your opinion about paper cones. Also, I like that you used serial crossovers.
The woofer’s Qts was quite high, as you mentioned, so you couldn’t use a vent to modify the existed sealed boxes in order to get some bass lift. If you were building the boxes from scratch would you consider about the transmission line loading?
Hi Manolitsakis, a low tuned vent will work like an aperiodic vent, it will give a little bass boost but not bring it up flat. Re: transmission line, that would be a good option for a floor stander.
Thank you for your comments. You are right about the low tuning bass lift effect. Of course, if not overdone, can be used to benefit!
I do share the same good opinion with you about transmission line speakers. This is one TL speaker set from my latest builts. The sound of course, comes from the built-in microphone on the mobile phone at the listening hot spot!
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