Well sq costs ;) Honestly its not that bad.

Wow, Jon is making my Khanspires look cheap!!! :) I'll have to let my wife know. ;)

Suck it up......

John Krutke has a new value build that he posted last night.

the RS180 version will cost less for midwoofers- about 1/2. The crossover is not all that complex for a three way. You can't realistically expect them to cost just a few bucks more than a two way...

:W

Well, if you consider that they are really not much more than the Modula MTM's with good crossover components, they aren't bad. Take a look at what good commercial three ways are going for these days, and these are a steal. These aren't some discount barn speaker...I really think the sound quality is going to be shockingly good. If you fool around with this RS52, you will see very quickly what sort of potential they have. As Dougie085 says, "SQ costs". There are plenty of lower cost builds available to us on here (RS WWMT?) that are not too expensive and sound very good. When Jon does a speaker design, he doesn't just do it right, he goes above and way beyond. That is what costs.

:)

Like Duelund says, the x-over is the most expensive part of your loudspeaker. Also don't skimp on the quality of these components. If it's to expensive build another design where you can do it right.

Well, I knew it wasn't going to be cheap, but I think this will be expensive enough for me to decide to build something waaaay cheaper right now (2 Modula MTs and a RS150 MTM center) rather than 3 of these. It sounds like these will be excellent speakers, and if my next option down was just a small cost savings, I'm sure it would be worth it. Going way cheaper now though, gives me an excuse for an upgrade down the road. :W

I couldn't agree more- the crossover filter is often the most neglected area in midrange commercial speakers- sometimes even fairly expensive ones.

As Taco comments, component quality is also an important factor, to often neglected. I try not to get carried away, but it must be in my blood.

Jon,
Will 5 of these be overkill for a HT in a 13' x 14' room?

Ray

Jon is going to use 5 of them in his HT. He said that at the beginning of the thread I believe. I don't think anything can be overkill for either HT or 2 channel as long as its top quality.

Yes, I remember that Dougie85....my question was more of a room size inquiry. I also have two 15" Rythimk's almost completed for the same HT room. I guess if a little is good a lot is better?!

Ray

Well my room is slightly smaller then that. If I did decide to use these for my room I would probably use LCR with these 3 ways and do MT's for the surrounds. And sorry about overlooking the size thing ;) UPS was knocking on my door with some solder and tools.

Well, I helped my girlfriend move into her new apartment at school yesterday. This afternoon she's at a sorority meeting and I haven't had anything pressing to do, so I put together this huge, massive, expensive, crazy, sweet BOM :W . It's the high-end veresion; it uses the better of the 2 types of ClarityCaps, Jon's specified inductor types & resistors, and Solen caps for large & woofer values, since those appear to have tighter tolerances & a higher voltage rating than the Dayton caps. I wasn't sure which resistors to double up, but did the 3 that are early & in series in the circuits. This could be completely wrong. Also, I had no idea if R11 would need doubled; no clue how much power goes through the zobel. I considered using Mills resistors since those are 1% tolerance instead of the Eagle's 2%, but Jon mentioned Eagle earlier. Mills would add another $2.30 per resistor, which totals $23.00 additional cash, as I have things. I couldn't find exactly 24 ohms. The best I found would be 47 & 50 in parallel which mixes Eagle & Mills, or just 2x 47 ohms, but Eagle doesn't do 47, so that's all Mills (I used this latter option). I'll note, I used PartsExpress when comparable to Madisound because it's close to my house & I usually buy from there during their 20% off occasions (twice a year!). I considered using the lower-level ClarityCaps (PX instead of SA) for some of the values (C5, C10, C11?) but wasn't sure about that and stuck with the premium version :) .

Ok, enough explaining. If I messed something up, fix it yourself & post your change or PM it to me & I'll change the attachment. I hope this doesn't cause future confusion when the build thread gets going, but it may give some eager builders a jump on the project. I won't have funds to build for about a year, so you all have fun :p: .

Oh, and for those who are just skimming, my total is $532 per speaker. This is of course only drivers & crossovers, no wood, terminals, etc.

532 per speaker with crazy spensive parts? Thats really not bad at all.

Optimum volume for D6.8 version?
 

Wow, this is getting close to the construction stage for my "from scratch" enclosure of the WMTW D6.8 version center. :T

But after reading several comments about the number of crossover components that will have to be crammed into the stock PE box, I'm wondering how much larger the enclosure volume would need to be in order to obtain optimum low end extension from the HiVi D6.8's. :confused:

This may have been mentioned before, but I can't find reference to it in this thread

What I'm assuming is that because the (25) crossover components will take up a significant amount of space in the standard PE 1.0 cu/ft box the remaining volume is no longer the optimum for two D6.8's?

At this point (I haven't started cutting MDF) it's easy for me to make the enclosure a little deeper to add this volume. So, assuming that the baffle dimensions remain the same, how much larger would the enclosure have to be to optimize the performance of the D6.8's?

Thanks for any comments on this.........

I agree. God only knows how much one would have to spend on a commercial speaker to get A)An equal quality xover design or B)The quality of the xover parts themselves.

:T

The D6.8's are midwoofers not woofers, use of a sub is therefore recommended.

That said if you want to know the specifics of a larger box use Unibox or WinISD to see were the drivers run out of excursion...

This may seem like a basic question, maybe even foolish. But if you wanted to bi-amp these. I would assume that you would do the "split" for bi-amping, by seperating the woofers from the midrange and tweeter in the entire circuit. Or in other words, 1 amp goes to just the woofers and only it's crossover, and the other amp goes to the midrange and the tweeter and the crossover for just those. I have a Denon 5805mkII and one if it's setup options, is that it can use the 10 channels of amps it has, in a optional 5.1 bi-amp mode. That would mean even the center and surrounds would be bi-amped and not just the fronts, and all I need is a 5.1 setup for now. That should certainly cure any power hungry issues these may have. And it would also be a good way for me to put some unused amp channels to use.

GOOD WORK and THANKS cobbpa!!!


Ray

Ooops, don't tell Jon that.

His drawing here:

refers to the D6.8's as "woofers".

That's what I was basing my descriptive terminology on. HiVi refers to them as "bass/midrange". Perhaps the term to use depends on the application.:W

Yep, I already do use a sub. :T

What I'm attempting to do is to get a little more low-end reinforcement from the LCR that will allow a lower crossover point to the sub. If someone had already calculated the approximate volume of the crossover components, that would be a good place to start.

I'll run the D6.8's through WinISD to see how they do in a slightly larger enclosure.

Thanks.

If I built these I was planning on using a tower rather then bookshelf. Something similar to the NatP's tower version.

When (soon) the RS180 and RS52 makes me feel good about the design the tweeter does not. :B As a former scandinavian, Vifa seems to me to be a bit "budget", isn't there a cooler tweeter to integrate to this design? I mean, the cost of the speakers will be so high anyway that an extra $20-30 on the tweeter won't be a decisive factor. :B Not only does it feel cheap it's a bear to flushmount too! :M

Will a high end version with a slightly bigger baffle to accommodate a bigger tweeter and a more refined baffle layout be available in the future? :P

Btw, I guess Dayton feels to americans as Vifa does to europeans... ;) This is written with a bit of humor so don't be to hard on me... ;)

How about the $9 Aura titanium tweeter? Works great with the RS52. :)

Seriously, that vifa is one of the best Neo tweeters made at any price. No design of any price could ever go wrong by using it.

Jon's not flush mounting. He is surface mounting and using felt.

And as it is not round, surface mounting doesn't really hurt. Other than being slightly ugly...

what he said- just look at the CSD and distortion behavior- above 2500 Hz a Seas Millenium Excel can't beat it. Within the practical SPL range of this speaker, including the other drivers, this is a good ENGINEERING choice- very good performance and form facter for the intended application at a very reasonable (IMO) price.

We could put the little ScanSpeak D2904/6000 in, if it would make you feel better to have a more expensive tweeter (+ $100 each), but it wouldn't buy you anything in this three way except a higher price tag, and bragging rights that you spent more money. And the SS is not quite as smooth in the actual operating range or as extended in the top end, though I doubt that's an issue for most folks.

The other small form factor tweeters don't have anything on this Peerless/Vifa (the Vifa nomenclature is new to this part), as John Krutke notes.

That's not good engineering to spend money just for it's own sake. Put it into the crossover parts.

And speaking of Vifa tweeters, how about the distortion performance on this custom Vifa made for Hales?







Nothing shabby about that...

Jon



Jon

Why not use the PE box, and make a small external box for the x-o?

Jon any reason you use Eagle ove say Mills? Just wondering since Mills is higher (advertised) wattage and tighter (advertised) tolerance.

I know, I know... ;) The only Vifa tweeter I really liked is the XT25 but I haven't heard this Neo Vifa yet, who knows, maybe I'll love it!? :P

I've used the XT25 extensively. It's very good above 2 kHz, excepting rather poor off axis dispersion above 10 kHz. There were a lot of design inputs from Steen Duelund into the design of that tweeter. I'm not generally a fan of soft dome tweeters; many of them are "hashy" in the CSD plot around the 9-12 kHz region (modes in the "soft dome", probably). The mini-Neo XT25SC60 does not perform as well as it's big brother, according to John Krutke''s tests, and it's out performed in all aspects by the D26CN55- flatness of SPL, particularly CSD plots (related to linear distortion), and swept harmonic distortion.

Case closed. :W

I've been a long time Mills user, this was an experiment, as ThomasW had reported that the actual measured precision of resistance on the Eagle's was tighter. Which was the case. And the price of the Eagle's is quite good. The only other concern I have for resistors besides inductance is temperature coefficient of resistance, and having no quick way to measure that (just not enough time to bake and test at this time), I'm playing it safe, and paralleling. In our listening tests, once we ditched the Adcom amp and put an Aragon in, I had no complaints that I could hear which sounded like level dependent distortion in the padding networks.

I'm going to do some more tests for comparing ESL when I have a chance in September, but for now, I think the price/performance ratio is good. And remember, for most folks, we're working to try to keep the cost down, particularly in the crossover, though some might not think so. I've always found there's a strong correlation of the final subjective results with the quality of the crossover- both the design and component choices.

But if you prefer Mills, well I certainly wouldn't argue with that choice, as I wouldn't argue with someone using Sonicaps or Audio Cap Theta for midrange and tweeter capacitors, or other improvements. It's just a matter of what your budget is. It's a bit of a balancing act.

Re the box size and port tuning, the one's being built right now are using a port size and length which should result in my intended tuning in the PE box with the crossovers installed. If the crossovers are external (not a bad thing, but a hassle for some folks), the port dimensions would have be changed (shorter).

As ThomasW points out, Unibox or WINISD can help you optimize a specific implementation, or plan it, you've just got to be a bit careful that your data is correct, otherwise you risk a gigo event. (i.e., if you estimate the net box volume incorrectly, everything else will be off- this is why checking the tuning via impedance curve and measured port output before finalizing the port length, WITH all the expected components in the box, is a good thing.

The "optimal" configuration for full range music without a sub will be similar to the optimized NatlieP towers, with a down firing 3" port, cabinet raised off the floor with points, and what is essentially a TQWT arrangement, as Martin King describes (like my M8ta). Remember, you can tune lower in a small cabinet, but the actual output level is lower and more damped. I don't recommend going for a true EBS alignment, because the roll off corner is relatively sharp (higher Q, not as good transient settling time). The ideal characteristic is more like the M12ta NS12 alignment.

Too bad Madisound had no replacement domes left
 

I'm still bummed that I couldn't get a set of those replacements.

Dave

Hope this is not considered off topic. I am new to the forum, excitedly learning everything I can about speaker building. The sheer amount knowledge available on the forum is staggering. :E
I am hoping to build a 7.1 system for my new theatre and have been following the thread closely as these speakers seem to be just about perfect for my needs for front speakers. I am trying to follow THX guidelines in my theatre, which specify dipole surrounds. I was wondering if it would be possible to take the same components and build something like this.

There would be 2 D26NC55 tweeters, 2 RS52 mid domes and just 1 RS180 woofer and a port out the bottom. I assume some modification to the cross over would be necessary, but other then that would there be any problems with such a design? Everything is drawn to scale, and I used WinISD to get the right box size. I can't wait till the final build thread. You guys are simply amazing ;x(

Thanks for the effort! :D

Unless you have the experience, knowledge, test equipment and skills to design a system from scratch, you should build the design as created by Jon. The design you propose is a completely different speaker, as a result nothing in Jon's design could be used in yours.