Those are A$1200 in Melbourne and the satellites with a 4.5" Peerless and the same tweeter are A$810, shows the value of DIY.
Of course, this a very simplistic view and ignores the nice cabinets, various mark-ups etc but it makes for an interesting comparison with what you guys can do.
The Prime very well could use Tymphany sourced drivers, and for all we know the tweeter is off-the-shelf, but the woofer only resembles a Peerless on the outside. It is actually a plastic frame model.
They do not measure all to great, to be honest. Noaudiphile did a teardown, review, and measurement.
I'm not convinced at the asking price they represent a high value in commercial audio.
Well- that tweeter motor sure looks like the DA25BG08-06. It's been said before that SVS uses a lot of Peerless units, whether modified or not. The 15" Tymphany with the large voice coil undergoes a cone-swap for use in the SVS Ultra16 subwoofer.
I had no idea the Prime baskets were not metal until you showed me this.
One thing I really like about DIY is the beautiful cabinets that you guys come up with: I get so sick of the commercial 'any colour you like as long as it's black' offerings. These look lovely, high WAF also.
If I can get 1/4 of the way to making cabinets which look anywhere near as good as these (and Ron E's, Wolf's and many others' of course) I'll be happy.
With Craig's help - a big thank you! - I'm going to make a pair of these but there's no way I'd post them here, except maybe under a brown paper bag.
Hi Geoff, after our PM's, I stopped on the way home from work today and picked up some cheap partical board to build some quick and dirty "ported" enclosures for a redux of this project
@GeoffMillar said:
One thing I really like about DIY is the beautiful cabinets that you guys come up with: I get so sick of the commercial 'any colour you like as long as it's black' offerings. These look lovely, high WAF also.
If I can get 1/4 of the way to making cabinets which look anywhere near as good as these (and Ron E's, Wolf's and many others' of course) I'll be happy.
With Craig's help - a big thank you! - I'm going to make a pair of these but there's no way I'd post them here, except maybe under a brown paper bag.
Geoff
I agree. My stuff looks like a box. Their stuff looks like fine furniture.
If I do end up using these with the bass bins they will be actively crossed with a MiniDSP. I'm hoping the bass from the ported boxes is acceptable standalone. I am going to gift this project to a friend.
Thanks Geoff! I will probably just Duratex these black. My friend isn't into exotic hardwoods. He is a musician who just cares how things sound.
FWIW, if I like how these sound in a ported box I might repurpose the sealed box baffles and attach them to new ported boxes that are the same 13" high by 8" wide, and just increase the depth to get my 12 Liters net. The ports are 2" ID x 5" long.
While the bass response of the 830656 - with 'my' ported cabinet and crossover anyway - isn't as deep as, say, the Dayton DC160 in the Classix II, the mids are cleaner and there's enough bass for most of our recordings, in a small room. With a sub, fine.
Just for fun, I connected the Peerless to the existing crossover and it seems to provide more detail than the VIFA BC25TG, which is still a nice tweeter. It will be very interesting to try it with your crossover!
Initially I'll use the existing cabinet, which has the same volume but shorter baffle than your design, then build a new cabinet when I can get the wood.
But I'm sure it won't look anywhere as good as yours....
OH YEAH, I tried that kind of slow rolloff, box too small alignment, figuring that room gain would make up the difference, but was not happy at all with the result. Bass just sounded weak!. Now I align for the purple curve if at all possible.
But Chahly - Stahkist don't want speakers that look good, Stahkist wants speakers that sound good!
The sealed version (blue curve) was completely acceptable when I listened to them with a subwoofer. Stand alone.... an F3 of 95 Hz is in no way HiFi. I'm sure the sealed version would have been stellar as the MT sitting on top of bass bins in a 3 way WMT.
I don't have measuring equipment so I'm not sure what the F3 of my speakers is and of course I haven't heard a sealed alignment of the woofer.
However, listening to my standard 'test tracks' including 'Pari intervallo', a favourite organ piece by Arvo Part which is very demanding on speakers, the bass belies the fact that the Peerless is a 5" driver.
Do you think the vented version needs any XO changes?
Right now I'm listening to these ported versions with the same exact crossovers I designed for the sealed version. They sound great. Maybe after a few days of listening I will tweek the tweeter padding resistor an Ohm one way or the other. I'll let you know.
These enclosures are a couple liters smaller than what the SB15CAC's really want, but they should still be decent prototype enclosures. I made the ports 2" longer. Yes, that is duct tape you see. It's holding the port extensions tight while the PVC cement cures. In this picture it looks really close, but the port is about 2" from the rear panel.
Honestly, I will probably never remove the duct tape...
Here are the drivers installed. Obviously the final version will have the SB15's flush mounted and not overlapping the tweeter flange. That will obviously change the final xo design, but this prototype will give me the opportunity to measure and listen to both drivers together. The final baffle will be the same width. This will help steer me towards the best xo Fc and slopes. Now I need to figure out how to correctly/safely measure these ribbon tweeters. Cap in series? Bass removed track? Bass and midrange removed track? Then how to back out those effects... Oy vey!
Comments
Those are A$1200 in Melbourne and the satellites with a 4.5" Peerless and the same tweeter are A$810, shows the value of DIY.
Of course, this a very simplistic view and ignores the nice cabinets, various mark-ups etc but it makes for an interesting comparison with what you guys can do.
Geoff
The Prime very well could use Tymphany sourced drivers, and for all we know the tweeter is off-the-shelf, but the woofer only resembles a Peerless on the outside. It is actually a plastic frame model.
They do not measure all to great, to be honest. Noaudiphile did a teardown, review, and measurement.
I'm not convinced at the asking price they represent a high value in commercial audio.
Well- that tweeter motor sure looks like the DA25BG08-06. It's been said before that SVS uses a lot of Peerless units, whether modified or not. The 15" Tymphany with the large voice coil undergoes a cone-swap for use in the SVS Ultra16 subwoofer.
I had no idea the Prime baskets were not metal until you showed me this.
InDIYana Event Website
Wolfy's Photobucket
One thing I really like about DIY is the beautiful cabinets that you guys come up with: I get so sick of the commercial 'any colour you like as long as it's black' offerings. These look lovely, high WAF also.
If I can get 1/4 of the way to making cabinets which look anywhere near as good as these (and Ron E's, Wolf's and many others' of course) I'll be happy.
With Craig's help - a big thank you! - I'm going to make a pair of these but there's no way I'd post them here, except maybe under a brown paper bag.
Geoff
Hi Geoff, after our PM's, I stopped on the way home from work today and picked up some cheap partical board to build some quick and dirty "ported" enclosures for a redux of this project
It will be interesting to compare the sound between the cabinets and how/if the ported cabinet would work with your bass bins.
Geoff
I agree. My stuff looks like a box. Their stuff looks like fine furniture.
Come on, my stuff looks like garbage compared to Nick's or Ron's.
InDIYana Event Website
Wolfy's Photobucket
A stupid question about this project: are the bass bins connected to the 2-ways with a crossover, or directly from the amp as per a sub-woofer?
Just curious, as I'll run them with a sub.
Thank you
Geoff
If I do end up using these with the bass bins they will be actively crossed with a MiniDSP. I'm hoping the bass from the ported boxes is acceptable standalone. I am going to gift this project to a friend.
Built some ported enclosures for this project:
They look really nice, especially the round-overs and the way you've blended them into the sides. I'm still waiting on a couple of parts for my XO.
Geoff
Thanks Geoff! I will probably just Duratex these black. My friend isn't into exotic hardwoods. He is a musician who just cares how things sound.
FWIW, if I like how these sound in a ported box I might repurpose the sealed box baffles and attach them to new ported boxes that are the same 13" high by 8" wide, and just increase the depth to get my 12 Liters net. The ports are 2" ID x 5" long.
While the bass response of the 830656 - with 'my' ported cabinet and crossover anyway - isn't as deep as, say, the Dayton DC160 in the Classix II, the mids are cleaner and there's enough bass for most of our recordings, in a small room. With a sub, fine.
Just for fun, I connected the Peerless to the existing crossover and it seems to provide more detail than the VIFA BC25TG, which is still a nice tweeter. It will be very interesting to try it with your crossover!
Initially I'll use the existing cabinet, which has the same volume but shorter baffle than your design, then build a new cabinet when I can get the wood.
But I'm sure it won't look anywhere as good as yours....
Geoff
This is a bass response simulation of my current 8 liter sealed boxes vs ported 12 liter boxes. I think it will be worth it.
Yeah- I bet it will be much better.
InDIYana Event Website
Wolfy's Photobucket
OH YEAH, I tried that kind of slow rolloff, box too small alignment, figuring that room gain would make up the difference, but was not happy at all with the result. Bass just sounded weak!. Now I align for the purple curve if at all possible.
The sealed version (blue curve) was completely acceptable when I listened to them with a subwoofer. Stand alone.... an F3 of 95 Hz is in no way HiFi. I'm sure the sealed version would have been stellar as the MT sitting on top of bass bins in a 3 way WMT.
I should be listening to the 12 liter ported versions by this weekend and will report back how I think they sound.
I am not a sealed-box bass guy. It takes a lot for sealed bass to impress me.
InDIYana Event Website
Wolfy's Photobucket
First quick listen... really nice bass. So much better than the sealed version.
Hi Craig
I don't have measuring equipment so I'm not sure what the F3 of my speakers is and of course I haven't heard a sealed alignment of the woofer.
However, listening to my standard 'test tracks' including 'Pari intervallo', a favourite organ piece by Arvo Part which is very demanding on speakers, the bass belies the fact that the Peerless is a 5" driver.
Do you think the vented version needs any XO changes?
Thank you
Geoff
Geoff,
Right now I'm listening to these ported versions with the same exact crossovers I designed for the sealed version. They sound great. Maybe after a few days of listening I will tweek the tweeter padding resistor an Ohm one way or the other. I'll let you know.
Thanks Craig
Really looking forward to this - must be patient waiting for the extra XO parts I need, coming from Brisbane.
Geoff
With just a tiny bit of trimming my SB15CAC30-08 and Viawave GRT-145-4 drivers fit these test enclosures.
So I went ahead and trimmed these enclosures. Took about 20 minutes with my sabersaw.
These enclosures are a couple liters smaller than what the SB15CAC's really want, but they should still be decent prototype enclosures. I made the ports 2" longer. Yes, that is duct tape you see. It's holding the port extensions tight while the PVC cement cures. In this picture it looks really close, but the port is about 2" from the rear panel.
Honestly, I will probably never remove the duct tape...
Here are the drivers installed. Obviously the final version will have the SB15's flush mounted and not overlapping the tweeter flange. That will obviously change the final xo design, but this prototype will give me the opportunity to measure and listen to both drivers together. The final baffle will be the same width. This will help steer me towards the best xo Fc and slopes. Now I need to figure out how to correctly/safely measure these ribbon tweeters. Cap in series? Bass removed track? Bass and midrange removed track? Then how to back out those effects... Oy vey!
A single 20uf cap generally suffices, especially if you remove sub 500hz stuff from the sweep.
There's a bass and midrange removed track 8 and 14. JB beat in to my head that the cap moves the tail and changes the derived phase