I call these "long road" because of the lengthy trail they led me down. Here's my tale of woe and intrigue:
This project started in 2003 when I noticed the foam woofer surrounds on my Boston Acoustics T1000 were starting to rot. So I looked into refoaming them / getting them refoamed. As I contemplated this I decided that the T1000's were a decent speaker in their day, but weren't 'high end' by any means, and that I could probably just use the cabinets as a starting point to create a better overall speaker. I replaced the twin rotted 8-inch drivers with 10 inch Dayton "classic" woofers, whose T/S numbers worked well with the ~1.2 cu. ft. of each woofer chamber, and whose dimensions fit the cabinet (just barely.) I decided on some 6.5 inch Focal "Audiom" mids and Fountek ribbons tweeters. I designed a crossover using some rough-and-ready software. The sound was not good. I blamed the crossover, which I designed and felt the design to be rather rough. So, I bought a Behringer analog stereo 3-way crossover, and I had enough power amps on hand to make this work. I fiddled around with that for a month or so and still couldn't get it right. So I bought a Behringer DEQ2496 digital EQ and played with that for a month or so- still not right. I decided the issue was the Focal midrange had a breakup mode right at the crossover point to the tweeter, so I got a Silver Flute driver instead. This sounded much better, but it still wasn't quite right....
Here's the modified T1000, this has a masonite adapter ring to allow mounting the 5 inch Silver Flute midrange; looks much better with the grille on!
SOOOOO... I abandoned the T1000 cabinets and built custom cabinets, using side mounted Dayton "Reference" subwoofers, SEAS Excel magnesium cone mids with a Fountek Ribbon tweeter in MTM configuration. (See picture below) These were better but still not quite right - so I replaced the analog crossover with a Behringer DCX2496 digital xover, OK, so now the sound is getting CLOSER....
In the meantime I acquired and restored a pair of Quad ESL57's - WOW, what a great sound! How can I get the homebrew speakers to sound as coherent? I bought a DEQX and by now I was using all class A amps for mids and tweeter, and it was CLOSER but still no cigar, especially the lower midrange / upper bass which was just not right. So I bought a pair of magenplanar MG 3.6's and tri-amped those with the DEQX and the class A amps and now THAT is a great sounding speaker!
OK... but what about these old bastardized T1000's? Can't just throw them away....
I ended up owning a pair of Magnavox 6V6- based stereo tube amps, and a big Yamaha integrated amp.... along with a Behringer DCX2496.... so I have decided to tri-amp the T1000 re-do's using the Yamaha for the bass, and the little Magnavox's for mids and treble. The idea just appeals to me... and I HAVE the gear just sitting around.
Along the way I acquired Omnimic software / mic and so I can actually make measurements now. Running the Silver Flute speakers off the Maganavox 6V6 amp, well that amp is maybe about 8 watts a channel.... I can only get about 92 dB out of the silver flutes before the amp clips. (They appear to be about 92 dB/1khz/1 watt in terms of efficiency.) This isn't really enough acoustic output for the midrange. So I bought a pair of AUDAX PR170M2's which are about 4~6 dB more efficient, and these produce enough dB's fromt he little 6V6. Haven't quite got the crossover points / EQ with the DCX2496 tweaked yet but the sound is pretty darn good! Now I plan to really "pretty up" the Magnavox amps, and build a kind of audio rack for the whole business (2x Magnavox 6v6 amps, solid state Yamaha amp, DCX2496 ) to use up some of the cherry hardwood I have left over from another project....I actually have no place to put this setup once it's "done" but I just want to SEE IT / HEAR IT FINISHED!!!! I'll post some more pics, curves, etc as I move along....
This project started in 2003 when I noticed the foam woofer surrounds on my Boston Acoustics T1000 were starting to rot. So I looked into refoaming them / getting them refoamed. As I contemplated this I decided that the T1000's were a decent speaker in their day, but weren't 'high end' by any means, and that I could probably just use the cabinets as a starting point to create a better overall speaker. I replaced the twin rotted 8-inch drivers with 10 inch Dayton "classic" woofers, whose T/S numbers worked well with the ~1.2 cu. ft. of each woofer chamber, and whose dimensions fit the cabinet (just barely.) I decided on some 6.5 inch Focal "Audiom" mids and Fountek ribbons tweeters. I designed a crossover using some rough-and-ready software. The sound was not good. I blamed the crossover, which I designed and felt the design to be rather rough. So, I bought a Behringer analog stereo 3-way crossover, and I had enough power amps on hand to make this work. I fiddled around with that for a month or so and still couldn't get it right. So I bought a Behringer DEQ2496 digital EQ and played with that for a month or so- still not right. I decided the issue was the Focal midrange had a breakup mode right at the crossover point to the tweeter, so I got a Silver Flute driver instead. This sounded much better, but it still wasn't quite right....
Here's the modified T1000, this has a masonite adapter ring to allow mounting the 5 inch Silver Flute midrange; looks much better with the grille on!
SOOOOO... I abandoned the T1000 cabinets and built custom cabinets, using side mounted Dayton "Reference" subwoofers, SEAS Excel magnesium cone mids with a Fountek Ribbon tweeter in MTM configuration. (See picture below) These were better but still not quite right - so I replaced the analog crossover with a Behringer DCX2496 digital xover, OK, so now the sound is getting CLOSER....
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
In the meantime I acquired and restored a pair of Quad ESL57's - WOW, what a great sound! How can I get the homebrew speakers to sound as coherent? I bought a DEQX and by now I was using all class A amps for mids and tweeter, and it was CLOSER but still no cigar, especially the lower midrange / upper bass which was just not right. So I bought a pair of magenplanar MG 3.6's and tri-amped those with the DEQX and the class A amps and now THAT is a great sounding speaker!
OK... but what about these old bastardized T1000's? Can't just throw them away....
I ended up owning a pair of Magnavox 6V6- based stereo tube amps, and a big Yamaha integrated amp.... along with a Behringer DCX2496.... so I have decided to tri-amp the T1000 re-do's using the Yamaha for the bass, and the little Magnavox's for mids and treble. The idea just appeals to me... and I HAVE the gear just sitting around.
Along the way I acquired Omnimic software / mic and so I can actually make measurements now. Running the Silver Flute speakers off the Maganavox 6V6 amp, well that amp is maybe about 8 watts a channel.... I can only get about 92 dB out of the silver flutes before the amp clips. (They appear to be about 92 dB/1khz/1 watt in terms of efficiency.) This isn't really enough acoustic output for the midrange. So I bought a pair of AUDAX PR170M2's which are about 4~6 dB more efficient, and these produce enough dB's fromt he little 6V6. Haven't quite got the crossover points / EQ with the DCX2496 tweaked yet but the sound is pretty darn good! Now I plan to really "pretty up" the Magnavox amps, and build a kind of audio rack for the whole business (2x Magnavox 6v6 amps, solid state Yamaha amp, DCX2496 ) to use up some of the cherry hardwood I have left over from another project....I actually have no place to put this setup once it's "done" but I just want to SEE IT / HEAR IT FINISHED!!!! I'll post some more pics, curves, etc as I move along....
Thanks for sharing your long journey and experiences with diverse speakers in a real listening room.
.....A few of my ramblings....
====== Chapter 1, BIG PICTURE:
Milos: "In the meantime I acquired and restored a pair of Quad ESL57's - WOW, what a great sound! How can I get the homebrew speakers to sound as coherent?"
Milos: " Love my 2x Magnavox 6v6 tube amps"
As your journey confirms, DIVERSITY ... best describes the loudspeaker market. Today's Tweets emphasize the renewed love afair with horns+tubes, and the solving the design challenges of dipoles BECAUSE ... Dipole and Horn speaker push more of their acoustic power at_the_listener than into_the_room. This is heard as greater clarity and dynamics by most listeners.
---
The power response of a speaker is the total of both its off-axis and on-axis amplitude response. It is the total acoustical power that is radiated into space. Many believe that the total radiated acoustic power by the speaker system should be constant over as wide a frequency range as possibly.
Dipole/Cardiod and Horn speaker push more of their acoustic power at_the_listener than into_the_room. This is heard as greater clarity and dynamics by most listeners.
The on axis, free space directivity factor for sound sources with several common free space radiation patterns are as follows: Monopole: DF = 1.0, Dipole: DF = 3, Cardioid: DF = 3, 90x90 Horn: DF=8.27. What this means is that if these three different sources are to radiate the same total acoustic power then if the monopole has an on axis intensity of 1.0 the dipole and cardioid will have an on axis intensity of 3.0 or 4.77 dB greater, and a common horn will have an on axis intensity of 8.27 or 9.2 dB greater. Conversely, if the difference sources are to have the same on axis intensity then the dipole and cardioid will radiate 1/3 the acoustic power of the monopole, and the horn 1/9 the acoustic power of the monopole. When studying room acoustics and reverberation this means that the "critical distance" from the speaker will be greater for a dipole or cardioid or horn than for a monopole. The "critical distance" is the distance at which direct and reflected sound are equal. The level of the reflected sound, above the modal region of the room, is usually considered constant and proportional to the total radiated power. Thus when sitting the same distance from a conventional speaker and a dipole/horn, the dipole/horn can potentially sound more detailed since at the position that ratio of direct to reflected sound is greater.
When DF is not frequency dependent, it would follow that a monopole midrange or satellite speaker should be match with a monopole woofer, a dipole with a dipole, and a horn with a horn woofer.
------
IF YOU LOVE ESL57's, there may be a 4-way Linkwitz LX521 dipole speaker in your future!
IF YOU LOVE LOW POWER TUBE AMPs, there may be a 3-way horn speaker in your future!
======= Chapter 2
SEAS Excel MTM: Study of MTM papers like:
"Vertically Symmetric Two-Way Loudspeaker Arrays Reconsidered"
http://www.birotechnology.com/articles/VSTWLA.html"
and using simple tools like XDIR for MTM lobing studies convinced me to stay with TMW or TMWW speakers in order to avoid lobing and comb filtering common with non-optimal MTM spacings. For TM, I use a larger diameter M and lower M-T Xover frequency. Your Fountek ribbon is 5" long!! I would probably study removing this long ribbon and using a very small-chasis(2" diameter) dome tweeter, and testing LR4 acoustic Xovers near 1.8Khz. You could also study a simplier TM Seas design with either a small diameter dome, or your SHORT ribbon tweeter.
Milos: " I have decided to tri-amp the T1000 re-do's using the Yamaha for the bass, and the little tube Magnavox's for mids and treble."
T1000 Cabinet: The long Fountek ribbon can be re-used with the Audax PR170M for a tube friendly high efficiency experiment in the T1000 cabinet. The PR170M only has an Xmax of 0.5mm and Fs=115Hz, so it will need a LR4 330-400Hz Xover(DCX2496 bi-amp) to the parallel Dayton woofers. With the T1000, you could also go back to the Focal 6.5" and an LR4 acoustic 1.8K Xover with a small dome, and start a different high efficiency design.
.....A few of my ramblings....
====== Chapter 1, BIG PICTURE:
Milos: "In the meantime I acquired and restored a pair of Quad ESL57's - WOW, what a great sound! How can I get the homebrew speakers to sound as coherent?"
Milos: " Love my 2x Magnavox 6v6 tube amps"
As your journey confirms, DIVERSITY ... best describes the loudspeaker market. Today's Tweets emphasize the renewed love afair with horns+tubes, and the solving the design challenges of dipoles BECAUSE ... Dipole and Horn speaker push more of their acoustic power at_the_listener than into_the_room. This is heard as greater clarity and dynamics by most listeners.
---
The power response of a speaker is the total of both its off-axis and on-axis amplitude response. It is the total acoustical power that is radiated into space. Many believe that the total radiated acoustic power by the speaker system should be constant over as wide a frequency range as possibly.
Dipole/Cardiod and Horn speaker push more of their acoustic power at_the_listener than into_the_room. This is heard as greater clarity and dynamics by most listeners.
The on axis, free space directivity factor for sound sources with several common free space radiation patterns are as follows: Monopole: DF = 1.0, Dipole: DF = 3, Cardioid: DF = 3, 90x90 Horn: DF=8.27. What this means is that if these three different sources are to radiate the same total acoustic power then if the monopole has an on axis intensity of 1.0 the dipole and cardioid will have an on axis intensity of 3.0 or 4.77 dB greater, and a common horn will have an on axis intensity of 8.27 or 9.2 dB greater. Conversely, if the difference sources are to have the same on axis intensity then the dipole and cardioid will radiate 1/3 the acoustic power of the monopole, and the horn 1/9 the acoustic power of the monopole. When studying room acoustics and reverberation this means that the "critical distance" from the speaker will be greater for a dipole or cardioid or horn than for a monopole. The "critical distance" is the distance at which direct and reflected sound are equal. The level of the reflected sound, above the modal region of the room, is usually considered constant and proportional to the total radiated power. Thus when sitting the same distance from a conventional speaker and a dipole/horn, the dipole/horn can potentially sound more detailed since at the position that ratio of direct to reflected sound is greater.
When DF is not frequency dependent, it would follow that a monopole midrange or satellite speaker should be match with a monopole woofer, a dipole with a dipole, and a horn with a horn woofer.
------
IF YOU LOVE ESL57's, there may be a 4-way Linkwitz LX521 dipole speaker in your future!
IF YOU LOVE LOW POWER TUBE AMPs, there may be a 3-way horn speaker in your future!
======= Chapter 2
SEAS Excel MTM: Study of MTM papers like:
"Vertically Symmetric Two-Way Loudspeaker Arrays Reconsidered"
http://www.birotechnology.com/articles/VSTWLA.html"
and using simple tools like XDIR for MTM lobing studies convinced me to stay with TMW or TMWW speakers in order to avoid lobing and comb filtering common with non-optimal MTM spacings. For TM, I use a larger diameter M and lower M-T Xover frequency. Your Fountek ribbon is 5" long!! I would probably study removing this long ribbon and using a very small-chasis(2" diameter) dome tweeter, and testing LR4 acoustic Xovers near 1.8Khz. You could also study a simplier TM Seas design with either a small diameter dome, or your SHORT ribbon tweeter.
Milos: " I have decided to tri-amp the T1000 re-do's using the Yamaha for the bass, and the little tube Magnavox's for mids and treble."
T1000 Cabinet: The long Fountek ribbon can be re-used with the Audax PR170M for a tube friendly high efficiency experiment in the T1000 cabinet. The PR170M only has an Xmax of 0.5mm and Fs=115Hz, so it will need a LR4 330-400Hz Xover(DCX2496 bi-amp) to the parallel Dayton woofers. With the T1000, you could also go back to the Focal 6.5" and an LR4 acoustic 1.8K Xover with a small dome, and start a different high efficiency design.
Thanks for sharing your long journey and experiences with diverse speakers in a real listening room.
.....A few of my ramblings....
====== Chapter 1, BIG PICTURE:
Milos: "In the meantime I acquired and restored a pair of Quad ESL57's - WOW, what a great sound! How can I get the homebrew speakers to sound as coherent?"
Milos: " Love my 2x Magnavox 6v6 tube amps"
As your journey confirms, DIVERSITY ... best describes the loudspeaker market. Today's Tweets emphasize the renewed love afair with horns+tubes, and the solving the design challenges of dipoles BECAUSE ... Dipole and Horn speaker push more of their acoustic power at_the_listener than into_the_room. This is heard as greater clarity and dynamics by most listeners.
---
The power response of a speaker is the total of both its off-axis and on-axis amplitude response. It is the total acoustical power that is radiated into space. Many believe that the total radiated acoustic power by the speaker system should be constant over as wide a frequency range as possibly.
Dipole/Cardiod and Horn speaker push more of their acoustic power at_the_listener than into_the_room. This is heard as greater clarity and dynamics by most listeners.
The on axis, free space directivity factor for sound sources with several common free space radiation patterns are as follows: Monopole: DF = 1.0, Dipole: DF = 3, Cardioid: DF = 3, 90x90 Horn: DF=8.27. What this means is that if these three different sources are to radiate the same total acoustic power then if the monopole has an on axis intensity of 1.0 the dipole and cardioid will have an on axis intensity of 3.0 or 4.77 dB greater, and a common horn will have an on axis intensity of 8.27 or 9.2 dB greater. Conversely, if the difference sources are to have the same on axis intensity then the dipole and cardioid will radiate 1/3 the acoustic power of the monopole, and the horn 1/9 the acoustic power of the monopole. When studying room acoustics and reverberation this means that the "critical distance" from the speaker will be greater for a dipole or cardioid or horn than for a monopole. The "critical distance" is the distance at which direct and reflected sound are equal. The level of the reflected sound, above the modal region of the room, is usually considered constant and proportional to the total radiated power. Thus when sitting the same distance from a conventional speaker and a dipole/horn, the dipole/horn can potentially sound more detailed since at the position that ratio of direct to reflected sound is greater.
When DF is not frequency dependent, it would follow that a monopole midrange or satellite speaker should be match with a monopole woofer, a dipole with a dipole, and a horn with a horn woofer.
------
IF YOU LOVE ESL57's, there may be a 4-way Linkwitz LX521 dipole speaker in your future!
IF YOU LOVE LOW POWER TUBE AMPs, there may be a 3-way horn speaker in your future!
======= Chapter 2
SEAS Excel MTM: Study of MTM papers like:
"Vertically Symmetric Two-Way Loudspeaker Arrays Reconsidered"
http://www.birotechnology.com/articles/VSTWLA.html"
and using simple tools like XDIR for MTM lobing studies convinced me to stay with TMW or TMWW speakers in order to avoid lobing and comb filtering common with non-optimal MTM spacings. For TM, I use a larger diameter M and lower M-T Xover frequency. Your Fountek ribbon is 5" long!! I would probably study removing this long ribbon and using a very small-chasis(2" diameter) dome tweeter, and testing LR4 acoustic Xovers near 1.8Khz. You could also study a simplier TM Seas design with either a small diameter dome, or your SHORT ribbon tweeter.
Milos: " I have decided to tri-amp the T1000 re-do's using the Yamaha for the bass, and the little tube Magnavox's for mids and treble."
T1000 Cabinet: The long Fountek ribbon can be re-used with the Audax PR170M for a tube friendly high efficiency experiment in the T1000 cabinet. The PR170M only has an Xmax of 0.5mm and Fs=115Hz, so it will need a LR4 330-400Hz Xover(DCX2496 bi-amp) to the parallel Dayton woofers. With the T1000, you could also go back to the Focal 6.5" and an LR4 acoustic 1.8K Xover with a small dome, and start a different high efficiency design.
.....A few of my ramblings....
====== Chapter 1, BIG PICTURE:
Milos: "In the meantime I acquired and restored a pair of Quad ESL57's - WOW, what a great sound! How can I get the homebrew speakers to sound as coherent?"
Milos: " Love my 2x Magnavox 6v6 tube amps"
As your journey confirms, DIVERSITY ... best describes the loudspeaker market. Today's Tweets emphasize the renewed love afair with horns+tubes, and the solving the design challenges of dipoles BECAUSE ... Dipole and Horn speaker push more of their acoustic power at_the_listener than into_the_room. This is heard as greater clarity and dynamics by most listeners.
---
The power response of a speaker is the total of both its off-axis and on-axis amplitude response. It is the total acoustical power that is radiated into space. Many believe that the total radiated acoustic power by the speaker system should be constant over as wide a frequency range as possibly.
Dipole/Cardiod and Horn speaker push more of their acoustic power at_the_listener than into_the_room. This is heard as greater clarity and dynamics by most listeners.
The on axis, free space directivity factor for sound sources with several common free space radiation patterns are as follows: Monopole: DF = 1.0, Dipole: DF = 3, Cardioid: DF = 3, 90x90 Horn: DF=8.27. What this means is that if these three different sources are to radiate the same total acoustic power then if the monopole has an on axis intensity of 1.0 the dipole and cardioid will have an on axis intensity of 3.0 or 4.77 dB greater, and a common horn will have an on axis intensity of 8.27 or 9.2 dB greater. Conversely, if the difference sources are to have the same on axis intensity then the dipole and cardioid will radiate 1/3 the acoustic power of the monopole, and the horn 1/9 the acoustic power of the monopole. When studying room acoustics and reverberation this means that the "critical distance" from the speaker will be greater for a dipole or cardioid or horn than for a monopole. The "critical distance" is the distance at which direct and reflected sound are equal. The level of the reflected sound, above the modal region of the room, is usually considered constant and proportional to the total radiated power. Thus when sitting the same distance from a conventional speaker and a dipole/horn, the dipole/horn can potentially sound more detailed since at the position that ratio of direct to reflected sound is greater.
When DF is not frequency dependent, it would follow that a monopole midrange or satellite speaker should be match with a monopole woofer, a dipole with a dipole, and a horn with a horn woofer.
------
IF YOU LOVE ESL57's, there may be a 4-way Linkwitz LX521 dipole speaker in your future!
IF YOU LOVE LOW POWER TUBE AMPs, there may be a 3-way horn speaker in your future!
======= Chapter 2
SEAS Excel MTM: Study of MTM papers like:
"Vertically Symmetric Two-Way Loudspeaker Arrays Reconsidered"
http://www.birotechnology.com/articles/VSTWLA.html"
and using simple tools like XDIR for MTM lobing studies convinced me to stay with TMW or TMWW speakers in order to avoid lobing and comb filtering common with non-optimal MTM spacings. For TM, I use a larger diameter M and lower M-T Xover frequency. Your Fountek ribbon is 5" long!! I would probably study removing this long ribbon and using a very small-chasis(2" diameter) dome tweeter, and testing LR4 acoustic Xovers near 1.8Khz. You could also study a simplier TM Seas design with either a small diameter dome, or your SHORT ribbon tweeter.
Milos: " I have decided to tri-amp the T1000 re-do's using the Yamaha for the bass, and the little tube Magnavox's for mids and treble."
T1000 Cabinet: The long Fountek ribbon can be re-used with the Audax PR170M for a tube friendly high efficiency experiment in the T1000 cabinet. The PR170M only has an Xmax of 0.5mm and Fs=115Hz, so it will need a LR4 330-400Hz Xover(DCX2496 bi-amp) to the parallel Dayton woofers. With the T1000, you could also go back to the Focal 6.5" and an LR4 acoustic 1.8K Xover with a small dome, and start a different high efficiency design.
MODERATOR- HELP Please remove review test post #2 .... MY BAD
Milos: " I built custom cabinets, using side mounted Dayton "Reference" subwoofers, SEAS Excel magnesium cone mids with a Fountek Ribbon tweeter in MTM configuration. These were better but still not quite right"
LineSource: "Your Fountek ribbon is 5" long!! I would probably study removing this long ribbon and using a very small-chasis(2" diameter) dome tweeter, and testing LR4 acoustic Xovers near 1.8Khz. You could also study a simplier TM Seas design with ... a small diameter dome tweeter."
My long ribbon MTM notes were for your SEAS Excel speaker, just to offer an explanation for your comment that "These were better but still not quite right". I hoped these ideas might generate curousity to run a few simulations to polar plot compare your SEAS Excel M_LONG-RIBBON_M to a M_SMALL-DOME_M topology with a lower frequency LR4 acoustic crossover. The long ribbon could be re-used for a high-efficiency TM design with the 6.5" Audax.
Milos: " I built custom cabinets, using side mounted Dayton "Reference" subwoofers, SEAS Excel magnesium cone mids with a Fountek Ribbon tweeter in MTM configuration. These were better but still not quite right"
LineSource: "Your Fountek ribbon is 5" long!! I would probably study removing this long ribbon and using a very small-chasis(2" diameter) dome tweeter, and testing LR4 acoustic Xovers near 1.8Khz. You could also study a simplier TM Seas design with ... a small diameter dome tweeter."
My long ribbon MTM notes were for your SEAS Excel speaker, just to offer an explanation for your comment that "These were better but still not quite right". I hoped these ideas might generate curousity to run a few simulations to polar plot compare your SEAS Excel M_LONG-RIBBON_M to a M_SMALL-DOME_M topology with a lower frequency LR4 acoustic crossover. The long ribbon could be re-used for a high-efficiency TM design with the 6.5" Audax.
Yeah, I'm not doing anything with those SEAS- based speakers. They sound great - with fantastic imaging- as 2-way speakers, except their extreme LF is restricted.
Run as a 3-way speaker, I could never get the transition to the side-mounted 10-inch woofers to sound right, no matter what I did. I tried crossover slopes from 3 dB to 200 dB per octave, asymmetric slopes, Linkwitz, Bessel, Butterworth, Chebychev and Linear-Phase topologies and crossover frequencies from 600 Hz to 40 Hz. I tried all kinds of phase and time-delay manipulation. Nothing sounded "right," there was a diconnect between the sound quality of the low bass and the bass from the SEAS. (I also tried running the SEAS fullrange and using a low pass for the pair of 10-inch drivers, that didn't work either, no matter how I adjusted the relative phase of the signal fed to the drivers.)
As a 3-way, deep bass was outstanding in terms of impact, distortion was very low but the SEAS didn't sound integrated with the 10-inch drivers.
So, I'm not working on these, nor doing anything with them. Will probably part them out.
I'm only playing around with the drivers in the old Boston Acoustics T1000 cabinets, with the further restriction being that I want to use only equipment I have that is not currently in use: Yamaha A-700 integrated amp, two Magnavox 8802 6V6 push-pull amps, DEQX 2496 for EQ and crossover, maybe toss in a Dynaco FM3 and an older Squeezebox as sources. Stuff I own that's not in use.
Run as a 3-way speaker, I could never get the transition to the side-mounted 10-inch woofers to sound right, no matter what I did. I tried crossover slopes from 3 dB to 200 dB per octave, asymmetric slopes, Linkwitz, Bessel, Butterworth, Chebychev and Linear-Phase topologies and crossover frequencies from 600 Hz to 40 Hz. I tried all kinds of phase and time-delay manipulation. Nothing sounded "right," there was a diconnect between the sound quality of the low bass and the bass from the SEAS. (I also tried running the SEAS fullrange and using a low pass for the pair of 10-inch drivers, that didn't work either, no matter how I adjusted the relative phase of the signal fed to the drivers.)
As a 3-way, deep bass was outstanding in terms of impact, distortion was very low but the SEAS didn't sound integrated with the 10-inch drivers.
So, I'm not working on these, nor doing anything with them. Will probably part them out.
I'm only playing around with the drivers in the old Boston Acoustics T1000 cabinets, with the further restriction being that I want to use only equipment I have that is not currently in use: Yamaha A-700 integrated amp, two Magnavox 8802 6V6 push-pull amps, DEQX 2496 for EQ and crossover, maybe toss in a Dynaco FM3 and an older Squeezebox as sources. Stuff I own that's not in use.
Im using the boston t830 I did a surround change with parts from midwest speaker repair. They supply the correct surrounds and dont give you useless white glue. With a bryston amp they don't sound too shabby at all. But I too have some upgraditus and would like to do bigger active closed 3 ways. Compliments on yours they look great.
Originally I looked at doing a surround repair, but then decided I wanted to move the sound "upscale." I figured I could do better... but my own designs never satisfied me. I ended up with Magneplanar MG 3.6's, triamped with a DEQX, which I like very well.
So after all that, now I have these things in my dinning room doing nothing and I feel challenged to make them "work" (i.e., sound at least "pretty good") with electronics I have on hand which is also collecting dust. It's just a "can I do it" challenge.
Originally I didn't want to spend any money but after some tests using the Silver Flute 5 inch as a midrange driven by the Magnavox 6V6 amp, I realized I needed a more efficient driver- so I found a pair of Audax Audax PR170M2's on eBay for under $100. I've mounted them but haven't done any testing yet. I'll be doing that in the next couple of weeks. Kind of pain to drag out all the electronics, the wiring, etc etc.
Using these let me get rid of the masonite adapter rings used to mount the 5-inch Silver Flute driver.
Grille cover still fits.
So after all that, now I have these things in my dinning room doing nothing and I feel challenged to make them "work" (i.e., sound at least "pretty good") with electronics I have on hand which is also collecting dust. It's just a "can I do it" challenge.
Originally I didn't want to spend any money but after some tests using the Silver Flute 5 inch as a midrange driven by the Magnavox 6V6 amp, I realized I needed a more efficient driver- so I found a pair of Audax Audax PR170M2's on eBay for under $100. I've mounted them but haven't done any testing yet. I'll be doing that in the next couple of weeks. Kind of pain to drag out all the electronics, the wiring, etc etc.
Using these let me get rid of the masonite adapter rings used to mount the 5-inch Silver Flute driver.
Grille cover still fits.
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