Just Finished Natalie P

[Stian-]

Hi!

Im just done with my new diy speakers, the Natalie P`s.
Ive been running them for a couple days now, and i am very pleased with them but, the shielded RS180`s are discontinued, and i have one RS180 thats no good and makes some sounds that it should not do. Im not able to hear it most of the time, but in some bass kicks, it sounds really nasty and pisses me off.. 8O
Ive just spoken to PE and they have none left at the time, and no information of any replacements for this exact drivers.

My question is: Is it possible to use the unshielded drivers? My dad also enjoyed this speakers so much that he wants to make a pair of them himself, but without the drivers its kinda hard.

Will there be a crossover upgrade to match the unshielded drivers, Evil Twin?

A little specs of the speakers;
50l enclosure tuned to 30hz via a 3" Port.
Its built in 28mm(1-1/8") MDF.

Im using a Harman/Kardon AVR330 as a preamp, and a DIY ESP P3A in a push-n-pull solution producing about 200w of pure power to my new nice Natalie P`s

Including in the system is also 2 Dayton RSS265HF driven by DIY ESP P68 amp.

All in all, i am very pleased with my new system and I would like to thank Evil Twin for this very nice design! I Will post pictures of the project later on

[wushuliu]

You could put up a WTB post in the classifieds here and at TechTalk forum - I think there are a lot of people sitting on unused or spares...

[ThomasW]

Will there be a crossover upgrade to match the unshielded drivers, Evil Twin?

The situation will be discussed this coming weekend when ET and Chasw98 are in Denver for RMAF 2010

[john trials]

I just built Statement Monitors and a Statement CC. Both use the RS180 (Monitor is unshielded, CC is shielded). Two of my RS180's (one on a Monitor and one on the CC) were making AWFUL noises. Very disturbing and annoying. I blew compressed air (from a spray can) around the phase plug, and it seemed to do the trick. Apparently there was some crud in the voice coil area that was rubbing. It made the speaker cone resonate with a really bad sound...almost like the distortion from a torn speaker.

Another HTguide member said he had the problem and used a vacuum around the phase plug to suck the crud out. I tried this (it's risky!!!!), along with compressed air and running a 20Hz test tone at high excursion to remove the crud. The RS180 on the CC was a tough one to correct.

It seemed to make things a lot better. I can hear the distorted sound a bit with the 20Hz test tone, but the driver excursion has to be large...much larger than when I'm listening to music...so I don't hear it when listening to music any more.

Good luck.

[Stian-]

Thats good to know ThomasW

wushuliu:
Yes, sure i could, but i would like to use drivers i can easily get..

Including in this post is a couple build pictures. External dimension of the cabinets are 23cm wide, 32cm in depth and 122cm in height.

They're just taken with a phone camera, so they're not so good. Any comments?


Just started on the holes for the back


Finished with all holes and one backplate is down


The inside of one of the cabinets

[Stian-]

I just built Statement Monitors and a Statement CC. Both use the RS180 (Monitor is unshielded, CC is shielded). Two of my RS180's (one on a Monitor and one on the CC) were making AWFUL noises. Very disturbing and annoying. I blew compressed air (from a spray can) around the phase plug, and it seemed to do the trick. Apparently there was some crud in the voice coil area that was rubbing. It made the speaker cone resonate with a really bad sound...almost like the distortion from a torn speaker.

Another HTguide member said he had the problem and used a vacuum around the phase plug to suck the crud out. I tried this (it's risky!!!!), along with compressed air and running a 20Hz test tone at high excursion to remove the crud. The RS180 on the CC was a tough one to correct.

It seemed to make things a lot better. I can hear the distorted sound a bit with the 20Hz test tone, but the driver excursion has to be large...much larger than when I'm listening to music...so I don't hear it when listening to music any more.

Good luck.

Hi John and thanks for your reply!

Sounds like we have/had the same problem, im also very sure that it is something stuck in it, like a very small piece of wood i believe. Ill give that method a try, since the woofer is bad already, its not so dangerous if it just gets more ill.

[evilskillit]

Are the drivers under warranty? I assumed that they had to keep a certain amount of stock around for warranty replacements. If not what is the alternative? A refund, a nonshielded RS180, hrm?

[john trials]

Are the drivers under warranty? I assumed that they had to keep a certain amount of stock around for warranty replacements. If not what is the alternative? A refund, a nonshielded RS180, hrm?

Yeah. 5 year warranty. I haven't called PE about it. Supposedly the shielded are gone. The website lists them as 'no longer available'. The unshielded are back-ordered until Nov 24th. Trying to fix them myself seemed like the best choice. If the problem returns, I will probably contact PE...but there is no rush at this point.

It'd probably solve the problem if Dayton would wrap the drivers in a plastic bag before putting them into the cardboard box. I'm thinking a small piece of dirt or cardboard worked it's way into the voice coil area.

[SpeakerGuy]

I can't believe Parts Express would really screw up so bad as to not keep any for warranty replacement? That would be just plain crazy.

[JonP]

Surprising that there isn't a warranty reserve... Oh well...

You can look around here for CurtC's off the cuff, first impression of how different the new RS180 and RS225's are from the shielded ones. Box tuning wise they aren't so much, and in overall level, but the jury's still out on FR differences I guess. They're looking pretty close.

Hard to compare them with the PE datasheets, since it looks like they're using the Klippel test results (or at least something different) rather than whatever the "old style" was. Without a real "apples to apples" same test equip and setup, its hard to say how different they are.

Sooner or later there will be some comparisons...

[Stian-]

I Guess they have warranty replacement, cant understand if they dont.
But, shipping back a woofer from norway, would cost alot, and is not worth it..

Yes, i have read CurtC`s thread with comparison, seems good so far, hopefully we`ll get some good news over the weekend

[Stian-]

I must have messed up atleast one of the crossovers, one of the speakers have a serious dip in 1800hz area, one of them is down to almost 2.2ohm, the other at 3.2ohm, but its not only that, its more at both speakers. Please take a look at the attachment and tell me what you think about it.

EDIT:
Out from the original crossover, C9 has a value of 25uf, not big of a difference, but it might have some of the reasons? Also, on one speaker, R8 readed 19.9ohm before i mounted it, otherwise it should be pretty identical i believe

[fbov]

I'd say both XO's.

Look at Jon's original impedence plots (which are missing the LF port peak)

http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php4?t=13969

Your impendece above the woofers is all wrong, plus you've got a notch below the RS180's peak. I don't have sweeps of mine here, but they don't look like yours...

Perhaps a pic of the XO? Maybe we can see something obvious...

Have fun,
Frank

PS component tolerances are typically factored into the design. Your resistor error's nothing, but most of us would have used a 24uF as that's a 4% difference. Neither explains the impendence curve shape...

[Stian-]

Okey, thougth so my self.
Anyways, ive started on one speaker:

A little prepicture:


Speakers are out:


Measurements of the speakers using WT3:
RS180S-8 1:


Specs seems to be a little out of order on these, they have been used for a little over 8months, but should be ok. But RS180`s are very like, so i supose its normal
Due, the bad speaker, it isnt bad anymore?!?!? No noise what so ever when i push the cone.

RS180S-8 2:



RS28 is also a little out of specs, but not much at all:



Okey, over to the crossover. I Found a couple more differences, R3 are 0R51 and C10 is only 30.82uf. I have not measured these yet with a multimeter, but i will do once i get my self to fireup the weldingstation(correct word or? )



And then, finally out with the filter after breaking it apart, i found one huge error!
C1 have been ripped up! Now this cant be good:


Ill try to replace it and take new measurements, but i dont have a new polyprop`s, so i have to use Non-Polarized Electrolytic for the change till next order from PE. Should work ok. right?

New update soon

[Stian-]

Hmm. well, it wasnt C1, it still measured a fine 11.8-12uf

[fbov]

I was hoping for an XO p[ic more like those I've attached, where with a little help one can trace leads and see component values. You've done a thru-hole design, which is hard to trace without parts in hand. (by the way, these are Jon's free-standing and Roman Bednarek's 2.5-way XOs for these drivers)

I wasn't questioning your component impendence, rather the system-level impendence. I suggest pulling the drivers and XO and testing the assembled circuit on the bench to verify that you get the same impedence curve as Jon. Don't re-assemble until the impedence characteristic looks right. When the XO's right, the system impendence will be very close to Jon's prediction. Mine were.

Have fun,
Frank

[Paul H]

I haven't posted here for a while but drop by every so often to see what's new.

Anyway, I have two new shielded RS180's that I bought 2-3 years ago for a pair of mtm's I was going to build. Somewhere between concept and construction I changed to simple 2-ways, and had two RS180's left over.

I've PM'ed you - send me an email with further info.

Paul

[Stian-]

I was hoping for an XO p[ic more like those I've attached, where with a little help one can trace leads and see component values. You've done a thru-hole design, which is hard to trace without parts in hand. (by the way, these are Jon's free-standing and Roman Bednarek's 2.5-way XOs for these drivers)

I wasn't questioning your component impendence, rather the system-level impendence. I suggest pulling the drivers and XO and testing the assembled circuit on the bench to verify that you get the same impedence curve as Jon. Don't re-assemble until the impedence characteristic looks right. When the XO's right, the system impendence will be very close to Jon's prediction. Mine were.

Have fun,
Frank

Hi Frank!

Thank you for your post, and nice XO`s

A couple days since my last post here now, i found out what was wrong.
First error was that i have parallel wired a couple 10R for R8, so this one had about 5ohm on one channel, and 1ohm on the other(this was the reason for the big difference in channels).
Second error was... ehmm. Money saving? hehe...
I Used a parts i had lying around for L2 and L3. I Mesured L2 Air core i used to a DCR of almost 1ohm! So for now, its changed to a I-Core with a DCR of 0.5ohm until next order from PE. Not sure witch one to buy from there either, since they dont have anyone with a DCR of 0.2ohm, just over and under. Witch one should i use, from PE?

Attached is a picture of impedance and phase before and after the modification of L2(see the damn big difference, the only difference is a 0.5ohm coil vs. 0.97ohm coil). Green is before. Red and purple is how the speakers are now.
Look a hole lot better, right?

The sound got changed quite more, especially in the bass area, almost no need for my RSS265`s now.

[Stian-]

I haven't posted here for a while but drop by every so often to see what's new.

Anyway, I have two new shielded RS180's that I bought 2-3 years ago for a pair of mtm's I was going to build. Somewhere between concept and construction I changed to simple 2-ways, and had two RS180's left over.

I've PM'ed you - send me an email with further info.

Paul

Hi Paul!

Thank you for your offer. I`ve sent you an email.

[fjhuerta]

Huh?!?!? No more RS-180's?!?!? I walk away for a while from this site and everything changes! What does PE have now to replace the venerable shielded References?

[Hdale85]

Well....with all the newer display technologies not being CRT there isn't much need for shielded versions anymore. So there are non shielded versions of the RS-180-8 now. Honestly most people probably never needed shielded drivers it's just what was available.

[Jonasz]

Unshielded RS180-8 looks waaaay sexier than...



these.... :B