Zaph KC Shootout w/ Pics

[stangbat]

Three of us KC guys got together today with our speakers. First, some history. I built the ZDT3 back in April/May. Blktre heard my speakers and decided to build a pair. Due to the Aura NT1 going out of stock and being unavailable for an extended amount of time, John redesigned the ZDT3 (renamed the ZDT3.5) to use the Dayton ND20FB. It was a strange twist of fate that I got in touch with Homebrew and he lived close, and was building two different Zaph designs. He completed his speakers last month and we set a date to get together and listen to all of them.

What was on hand, from outside to inside in the first picture:
-My ZDT3s.
-Blktre's ZDT3.5s
-Homebrew's BAMTMs (sealed)
-Homebrew's Waveguide TMMs



We decided that we weren't going to try and level match the speakers and do any extremely critical listening. By the time you unload everything, get acquainted, hook up everything, eat lunch, listen, then load it all back up, you have burned through 7 hours. The point of the day was to have fun and listen, so the sound meter didn't come out.

The one thing that I thought became apparent was the consistency of John's designs. The work he does to get his desired tonal balance and response was evident. Yes, we had three distinctly different designs, but the similarities between them was noticeable. Hearing the Waveguide and BAMTMs also provided some validation to the work that Blktre and I did on our speakers. None of us have test equipment, so until we heard other builds we didn't know 100% if we had done ours right. I'm now pretty sure that I'm hearing what John intended.

I think everyone realizes that it is hard to explain what you hear. And I'm not very good at it anyway. So I'm not going to subject you to tons of subjective descriptions. That being said, the ZDT3s strong point is the midrange. I think the RS52 shows it abilities really well with this design.

The Waveguides are impressive. It seemed like there was no bad seat in the room. I could stand up and move back and forth and the soundstage never wavered. Bass was amazing, and they will crank out the dBs. I also found them a little more forgiving in my room as far as the treble is concerned. In my room if you aren't careful with placement, the ZDT3s can seem a little bright.

The BAMTM is great for the price vs. performance. They won't handle the power that the other designs will, but they are a nice speaker for the money.

Another strange twist of fate is that we are all homebrewers. So we not only got the chance to sit back and share our work on the speakers, we got to drink some homebrew and talk beer.

Another HT Guide member, g00se, showed up later in the day and listened with us. He will also be building the ZDT3.5. It was nice to meet him and I'm glad the made the drive.

Thanks to Blktre and Homebrew for dragging their speakers all the way to my place. And finally, I have to thank my wife for putting up with all the noise from the basement and for watching the kids for the day.

[mayhem13]

So if you had to pick one of these designs as the last set of speakers you could ever own, which would it be ? My money's on the WGMMs

[pres589]

It surprises me that I've not heard of a DIY audio event like the stuff they do in Iowa and not in KS. I'd love to be able to walk into an event and talk to people [bug them] face to face and get to see and hear what they're talking about first hand.

Has anyone organized such an event in KS recently?

[JonP]

Another strange twist of fate is that we are all homebrewers. So we not only got the chance to sit back and share our work on the speakers, we got to drink some homebrew and talk beer.

I'm not just singly jealous, but doubly jealous I missed this!!! :^x

Nice field of good lookin' speakers there....

[---k---]

Those photos look great. I'm sure you guys had a great time. I wish I could have been there. :T

[Blktre]

I had a great time. And im glad we used our ears to judge the speakers instead of setting up equipment and tweaking.
I may add a few things. The difference in the ZDT3 tweeter is very minute. We AB both and found that the Dayton tweeter was a tad more up front than the Aura version. But there could be a few things that could of effected that. Speaker placement which included the proximity of the speakers to each other so they could be AB. But over all, if listening separately someone never pick it out.

The Waveguides were very enjoyable. Ed (Homebrew) did say he noticed the WG took a little more power to reach reference levels vs the ZDT3. Not a huge deal. The WG can play darn loud with no distortion that's for sure. The bass was more pronounced than the Z's as Erik already pointed out. We agreed the WG is is a design that's been under the radar and people should take a good look at them when choosing a design.

The BAMM were very well represented when imaging and accuracy comes into play. They just cant reach the volume levels the other two designs can reach. These are awesome speakers for someone on a budget and has a small to medium room.

Mayhem asked which speaker we would choose to have as a lifetime. I can only speak for myself. But, i cant say id choose any speaker to listen to for a lifetime. Audiophiles will always change speakers around. But i will never sell any of the speakers Ive built.
Also, all 3 of these designs can be interchangeable using the same cabinet with minimal cost using the same cab.

We talked about putting all the XO's in a rack mountable box, then all you would have to do is change out the baffle, and hook up the corresponding XO and within 10min. you have a different speaker. The BAMM could have a removable inner shelf to get the internal volumes correct and unplug the ports and you now have 3 different speakers to listen to for daym near next to nothing. Just some thoughts on the last speaker question.....

Cheers,
Andy

[Homebrew]

Sunday was a blast! It is very difficult to arrange something like this and I thank stangbat for being the host. 4 different sets of Zaph designed, Quality built speakers in the same room.

I also agree with stangbat that all the speakers sound remarkable and have a similar balance that you notice from listening to each design separately. They all have low distortion, very good imaging and clear and precise sound.

ZDT3.5
What a great speaker all around, shielded for CRT, has a Center Channel design available, excellent midrange. Very high quality speaker! Lots of bass. You will end up having to re-listen to everything in your music library!

WGTMM
Not for close placement to a CRT! These are unshielded and now I need a Flat screen. Seems like we listened to them at a higher volume setting than the ZDT3.5 and they sound like the same volume. Hard to describe. They will play very loud and have an open sound field so you have a large sweet spot. I really like this speaker.

BAMTM
Low cost Great sound! Easy to listen to, very non fatiguing sound. These have the same sound caracteristics of the other ones but lower cost and less power handling. With a sub they will put out respectable volume!


Funny thing is, You can not pick out the speakers that use metal drivers from the one that does not use them from the sound they make. The sound is very similar.
The Zaph designed crossovers make the speakers what they are. They are all very good speakers and we are all very very very satisfied with the sound quality.
Thanks stangbat and blktre for the great time and excellent homebrew.

[tylerdurden]

WOW! What an excellent opportunity for all of you. I am sure it was a blast. Glad you all just had fun with the day instead of spending time working with test equipment.
Blktre that is a great idea switching out the baffles and rack mounting the XO's for an interchangeable settup. Pretty original! So when are you doing it? LOL
Great pics by the way.
Homebrew what kind of wood is the baffle on the Waveguide's? There beautiful!!
Bobby

[g00se]

Just to chime in with my 2 cents.........

These speakers were just simply amazing! I was floored when auditioning these Bad Boys and all I can say is WOW! I was seriously considering going the B&W route but it is not even a question in mind anymore. The ZDT3.5 is what I'm going to go with although the WG TMM had me second guessing that for just one second. All in all, very high quality speakers and equally awesome guys. Thanks for inviting a "rookie" over and for putting this together. Looking forward to making some MDF dust!!!!

[stangbat]

So if you had to pick one of these designs as the last set of speakers you could ever own, which would it be ? My money's on the WGMMs

I didn't get a chance to listen to the waveguides long enough and to enough material to really make this decision. But I will say that if I had built the waveguides instead of the ZDT3, I would not be disappointed in the least. Plus there are plenty of other designs by other designers that I'd like to hear and build...so don't make me choose yet! :B

pres589, I've really only been active on the DIY boards for the last 7 months. I'm not familiar with any get togethers in KS, but that doesn't mean there haven't been any.

BTW Bobby, Blktre and my crossovers are now set up so we can quickly switch between 1.5 and 2 ohm padding on the tweeter filter. I already had the resistors and after seeing your crossovers I decided to mount them and wire them up.

[tylerdurden]

BTW Tyler, Blktre and my crossovers are now set up so we can quickly switch between 1.5 and 2 ohm padding on the tweeter filter. I already had the resistors and after seeing your crossovers I decided to mount them and wire them up.

Have you done much critical listening yet? when you do let us know what you think.
Bobby

[stangbat]

Have you done much critical listening yet? when you do let us know what you think.
Bobby

I installed the 2 ohm resistors a while back and liked the change. However I then made some changes to my room and furniture and felt that I no longer needed them so I went back to the 1.5 ohm. Now that I can quickly switch between the two I'll try and compare at some point.

[DeathMonk]

Awesome!

I wish I could have been there.

..My ZDT3.5s will be done in a few weeks, though. (hopefully)

[Mazeroth]

What a cool get-together you guys had! I'm sure Pappa Zaph is proud! :B

[tktran]

Thoughts on listening differences...

Hi guys,

I've long felt that the it's the crossover that makes the speaker.
And John Krutke does em good, fer sure.

However, I've always found that comparing speakers is actually not an easy task. After trying my best to level match and moving speakers around so they sit in exactly the same spot when doing A/B comparison, the differences can range from "a little different", "maybe better", "a bit better", to "definitely better". But if I had to score them they would all score 8/10 to 9.5/10.
And if I had to compare them with anything commercially purchased at the time price, well only then can I say "MUCH BETTER"

But the conclusion from a well engineered tends to be "All very good".
It must be annoying to be the designer and get bombarded with questions "Which one is the best/do you prefer/should I build?"

The other thing I've found is that when you bring different speakers from different settings/equipment into the same room, they start to sound different to how they were at home, but they sound more similar to each other than different. The room must play a big role.

To really discern differences I need to really put them through their paces- and play stuff that has wild dynamic range, minimally post-production processing stuff. System demo/test-CD kind of stuff. But then half of my friends don't even listen to that stuff. So it's hard to discern differences in mediocre tracks that you do know, and high quality tracks that you don't know. :roll:

I will have to agree with Andy that it is very hard to choose one speaker and live with it for a lifetime. I could easily live with any single one of my speakers. But I don't have to, and also want to build more. If I don't have space, I want to build speakers for family members. And for sure I'd never sell any. (I have my DIY built speakers spread across 4 rooms and 2 houses, and counting)

I still haven't tried horns, full range drivers, 97+dB/2.83V speakers with 8W 2%THD amplifiers, 200lb boxed 4 ways WMTMW's, Accuton ceramic drivers, 18" subwoofers. etc. It's a bad addiction.

Keep up the good work guys...

[jkrutke]

Three of us KC guys got together today with our speakers. First, some history.

Nice little collection of speakers there. I haven't seen that many Zaph designs in one place since... I got home from work today. :B

You guys have one comparison benefit that I didn't, I never have the Waveguides and the ZDT3.5's to listen at the same time. (with good reason - they share the same box) Your comparisons seem pretty valid however.

Thanks for the pictures. :T

[Sakura]

Thank you so much for sharing.

So, would it be fair to say then, at low to moderate volume levels, and, listening in the "sweet spot", that the BAMTM is as good as any other fine speaker? Of all of Zaph's designs, the Waveguide TMM is my favorite, but, I've not had the chance to hear it. I'm being most foolish to judge a speaker without listening to it! :P

To [my] answer another poster's question, regarding the speaker for "the rest of your life" ~ I don't think a speaker made with cones, domes, and electromagnetic coils based technology is ever going to be close enough to perfect to be able to truely provide a reproduction of acoustic instruments that you can't tell from the original.

Perhaps someday technology that can do that will be produced, who knows when, or what sort of device though.

[stangbat]

tktran, good points.

Sakura, the BAMTMs are the speakers we listened to the least. So I didn't get to go through a ton of different material on them. But I think that as you stated, at moderate volume and with correct placement, they are very good. As John says on his site, they would be great with a sub if you want higher volume levels.

I also really liked the Waveguides. Believe me, I've priced the drivers and considered building the baffles and crossover since I could just swap them into my existing enclosure. It is tempting.

[peter_m]

WG TMM and the ZRT3.5, how far did you need to sit from them to have proper summing of the drivers? Would a small city apartment living room (13'x16') be too small? Also any differences in the highs and mids between the two designs? Not asking about base as they both have 2x 7" drivers... should be enough

Peter

[Blktre]

WG TMM and the ZRT3.5, how far did you need to sit from them to have proper summing of the drivers? Would a small city appartment livingroom (13'x16') be too small?

Peter

The ZDT3.5 needs 1.5-2 meters minimum.
Id suspect the listening distance is about the same for the WG. I bet Ed has messed with listening distances since they are his speakers. We will see if he chimes in on that for you. John Krutke quotes on his Waveguide design....

"Room setup suggestions
These speakers are relatively insensitive to room setup issues. It's not going to make much difference if you toe them in or not. While these speakers do have full baffle step compensation, they never sound boomy in small rooms. Place them so the rear of the cabinet is at least a foot out from the wall. Don't forget to play around with the tuning. The size of the room will make a big difference which tuning option works best, with smaller rooms generally working best with the low tuning, and large rooms with the higher tuning."

http://www.zaphaudio.com/Waveguidetmm.html

[Homebrew]

The Waveguides are very forgiving on placement. Up close at 4 to 5 feet they sound about the same as they do from 10 feet. One example, I was turning on my reciever and I was standind 1 foot in front of the speakers ( directly in between them) and my center channel (a Polk) was directly infront of my face. I thought the center chanel was on so I turned off theater to go to stereo and the center chanel came on and scared me. It sounded like it was on but it was on stereo and the imaging was so good it just fooled me. So at one foot it fooled me in thinking the center was on. My living room is 13 x 20 and they soung pretty good. Best placement in my room is on the 20 foot wall
I used the lowest tuning option.

[peter_m]

Homebrew,

didn't understand your diagram, did you set the speaker along the long 20' wall so that speakers and sofa are facing each other in the 13' axis? Thanks for the centre channel example, it's explains lots.

How were the mids compared to the ZDT3.5? Also which x-over did you choose when building the WD TMM, Minimalist or Perfectionist? Anyone know how hard to mod to se the ER18 instead?

Peter

[Homebrew]

The diagram moves when I post so i removed it, so yes the speakers on the 20' wall and couch on other side speakers about 12 to 13 feet apart. Mids were a little less on the waveguides and bass a little more, but the overal sound is very well balanced and the sound stage seems as if it has a depth to it.
There is no dissapointment after building any of these speakers.
Perfectionist crossovers on the WGTMM