My upgraded dipoles...

[Jonasz]

I've been satisfied with my Phoenix system for quite some time now, but I've always been confident that the W22 is a better driver than the 8554. So 6 month ago I got the opportunity to buy four W22's at a very good price. I also bought two Dayton RS28A to take over from the 9700. I think both drivers have excellent build quality, especially the RS28 at it's price point.

Dayton RS28A

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Seas Excel W22EX

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I've always thought that the "backbone" of the Phoenix is a bit wider than ideal so I've tried to minimize the area that reflects the sound back to the mids by using an aluminum L-profile (is that the right English word for it?). Here's some pictures of how I did it (please excuse the lousy paint job... )

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Here's a couple of pic's of the finished system.

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I have introduced a 5 khz notch filter for the W22's and made some changes in the levels for the different drivers. What I still have to do is to transform the 100 hz bass/mid crossover into 4th order, it's second order now. I really like the sound of this driver combo, I think it's easily outperforms the 8554/9700 drivers. The W22 is better than the 8554 by a wide margin, no question there. The RS28A on the other hand seems to have an advantage over the 9700 in the lower treble, it's a lot cleaner there. The 9700 though seems to have a little more air to it, right or wrong, I don't know. Overall I do like the RS28 thanks to less sibilance and an overall sweeter sound. I bet the 9700 isn't made to be crossed at 1440hz...

Well, I'm more than satisfied with my new system. I'm also going to complement the system with some low frequency omph... see pic below. Four sealed boxes below 40 hz will do the trick I hope! 8)

Jonas
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[JoshK]

very cool, thanks for sharing.

[JonMarsh]

Nice looking work, Jonas! :T

I think that's a very good upgrade for your Phoenix! I have some W22 which will also be tried in the Arvo, along with the 830884. I dare not ask you what all those W22 cost in Swedent- but I'm sure it's a worthwhile investment!

Congratulations, and thanks for sharing the Pics with us-

~Jon

[Paul H]

... I also bought two Dayton RS28A to take over from the 9700. ...

I'll take that as a very strong compliment from you to the makers of the RS28A - they're leagues apart in price.

Paul

[AJINFLA]

At last! Someone who appears to have as many boxes of drivers and stereo equipment piled up as I do. :W
Very nice work Jonas. Are you considering four seperately placed subs or 2/box, perhaps bipole, to get some force cancellation?

Cheers,

AJ

[Jonasz]

Thanks for the kind words...

Jon: I think it was well worth it, besides I got all drivers except the RS28A (wich my fiancée gave me :B ) for about half the retail price...

Paul: I know the SS is a great driver, but I think the Dayton is happier with the low crossover. I bet it sounds less strained in your dipoles with the higher crossoverpoint you´re using. The 9700 also has some nice air to it that the Dayton lacks... In the end it may be a question of taste.

AJ: I will try two XLS in each box to start with, if I'm not happy with that I will build four smaller ones. We experimented at a friends and we weren't happy until we had four boxes at different places in the room, it's a pain to get boxes to sound right in a room... Collecting speakers is a bad(?) and expensive habit I have...

[gvinson]

Nice work! Nice pix too!


Ribbon Project

[Ray_D]

Brace attachment

Jonasz

Beautiful!

How are the drivers attached to the aluminum brace?

[Davey]

Ray,

It looks like Jonasz has not attached the drivers directly.....this is consistent with the Phoenix design. The chunk of angle mounts through the block directly to the center cross pieces and pushes (via the little, half-circle spacers...not sure what those are made of) the drivers against weatherstriping (or similar) mounted on the back side of the baffle. There is no "solid" attachment used.

I'm not sure if reflections from the wider spine assembly of the stock Phoenix design were really a problem, but this modification does open up the area considerably. However, I do like the aesthetics of the original design much better.

The Phoenix system has sort of been forgotten in all the recent excitement with the Orion, but it is a terrific system that out-performs the majority of commercial offerings and even betters the Orion in terms of SPL capability.

Cheers,

Davey.

[Jonasz]

Ray: Davey explained it just fine and those halfcircle spacers are in fact damping feet for speakers cut in two.

Davey: They're more like prototypes so far, I will consider the esthetics when I've found a design I'm content with. Actually one of my friends haven't even seen the sloppy painting on the backside in four years! 8O

After some more listening, I'm very happy with the sound they're making! :B

[Saurav]

So it's not attached to the brace, and it's not screwed in to the baffle either? it's just held in place by friction?

[Dennis H]

Mounting:

[Davey]

There are no mechanical fasteners used directly on the driver. The combination of the spacers and angle brace on the back and the weather striping on the front of the driver frame "sandwiches" the driver and holds it steady over time.

Take a look at the Phoenix main panel construction for a better visual:

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/m_panel.htm

The little red and green areas denote the weatherstiping and RTV silicone in the Phoenix design.

Dang it Dennis......you posted right before me and stole my thunder.

Cheers,

Davey.

[Saurav]

Thanks.

[Kingdaddy]

I don’t understand why one should go through all the trouble of sandwiching the drivers instead of just mounting them with screws. I plan on a MTM version Dipole in the near future so I’m trying to gather as much info as possible before I start my plans.

Thanks

[ThomasW]

There's no rigid mechanical link between the drivers and the baffle.

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/frontiers_2.htm#N

[Jonasz]

I've been very satisfied with the RS28 for some time but I've found it to be a little "dead" in the top octave. I've tried to correct it but not been very happy with the results. So, what to do? I tried the Seas H1212...

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The H1212 have a fantastic amount of air and detail and at first I thought this is the tweeter I've been looking for. After some time though I noticed that it wasn't fun listening and some fatigue was present. I've read a lot of positive things about this tweeter but maybe it doesn't fancy the low crossover at 1400 hz I'm using?

So, what to do next? Neo 3 PDR? Most certainly!

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The Neo 3 have tha same amount of air as the H1212 but it is very smooth and still detailed. It handles the low crossoverpoint awesome too, something I didn't expect. John Krutkes measurements of this tweeter doesn't contradict what I'm hearing either. The only negative I can say about it so far is some limited dispersion at extreme angles but I don't find that a real problem.

Link to John´s measurements: http://www.zaphaudio.com/nondomes/

[JoshK]

Thanks for the update, Jonasz. As you may know, I am pretty close to start on building my Arvo Part variations using the W22. I haven't commited to the tweeter yet, so I intrigued by your results.

[cotdt]

would a coaxial midrange with two RS225's be a furthur improvement? reason is i prefer the RS225 over the W22 for bass, and it's much cheaper.

[Hdale85]

But the w22 is much prettyer. :B

[BobEllis]

Especially in the frequency response picture.

However, if you're going to roll it off earlier (<1.2kHz) and hard with a coax above, it should work. Keep us posted. I have a RS225 MTM with a 27TDFC in a waveguide in the works, slowly progressing.

[cotdt]

yes yes i like the idea. with a coaxial midrange i'll bet i can cross it below 800Hz, only problem is that coaxial midranges are hard to find.

[TacoD]

Try a Morel supreme 110 / Seas Millenium. Those can handle the low x-over point, and sound very nice. Also the Scanspeak 6600 is a nice candidate but I am not sure if it will work with Seas. It sounds a bit darker than Morel/ Seas.

[Landroval]

So, what to do next? Neo 3 PDR? Most certainly!

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The Neo 3 have tha same amount of air as the H1212 but it is very smooth and still detailed. It handles the low crossoverpoint awesome too, something I didn't expect. John Krutkes measurements of this tweeter doesn't contradict what I'm hearing either. The only negative I can say about it so far is some limited dispersion at extreme angles but I don't find that a real problem.

Link to John´s measurements: http://www.zaphaudio.com/nondomes/

How low crossover point are you using with the Neo 3?

[Jonasz]

I'm using the same 1440 hz crossover as before so I guess it's not optimised. I cant't hear any obvious flaws with the crossover and certainly no harsh sound dependant on the low crossover. I think the Neo3 works fine with this crossover.

[Piotr]

Jonasz,

I hate you..

for doing such nice looking designs, mine will never be able to compare to yours.

I´m sure those sound great. I´ve been looking at that tweeter also, seems like a nice one.

Morsning!

/Peter