Mini Statements Finished

[vettett15]

Guys,

Just got the mini statements done and set them up. Really enjoying the sound although I have to turn the volume up (Pioneer SC 05) a lot more compared with the Dali Ikon 6's.

It seems that the voices aren't nearly as forward as they were with the Dali's, not sure if its a bad thing although I think I like it a little more forward. I have measuring capabilities just haven't gotten a chance. Always a chance that I hooked something up backwards.

Hopefully this weekend Ill get to do some more listening and measuring and comparing with the Dali's.

thanks,
pete

[DeathMonk]

Did you remember to disable mcacc?

Also, pics!

[vettett15]

I did turn MCACC off which is good but on the same hand I had my Dali's EQ'd out so they were at an advantage. After listening a little more last night it seems that its just the vocals that are bothering me (male more so than female) as I was listening to some Miles Davis is just sounded awesome.

Yeah I need to get some pictures up, not too close though...

[AdelaaR]

pictures or it doesn't exist

[Jim Holtz]

Guys,

Just got the mini statements done and set them up. Really enjoying the sound although I have to turn the volume up (Pioneer SC 05) a lot more compared with the Dali Ikon 6's.

It seems that the voices aren't nearly as forward as they were with the Dali's, not sure if its a bad thing although I think I like it a little more forward. I have measuring capabilities just haven't gotten a chance. Always a chance that I hooked something up backwards.

Hopefully this weekend Ill get to do some more listening and measuring and comparing with the Dali's.

thanks,
pete

Hi Pete,

Some things to check. Vocalists (not close miked) should be positioned in a normal recording even with or just very slightly recessed from the front plane of the speaker. Close miked recordings will position the vocalist slightly in front of the front of the speaker. In other words, it will be very similar to other quality speakers.

Here are the things to check:

Speaker polarity. Especially the mids. If this is reversed, vocals sound like they're in a cave. Don't ask me how I know.

Double check your crossover assembly for correctness and make sure you don't have any cold joints.

Mid tunnel foam. Start with the beveled end of the foam about 2" back from the inside of the front baffle. You did use 1" foam in the mid tunnels, correct? The mini's are more sensitive to foam positioning than the full sized Statements.

You do have the Mini's positioned away from the wall behind them the required 18", correct?

Let us know how you come out. The Mini's should not be hard to drive for any decent amp or receiver and they should not sound recessed. They'll have a very large soundstage and imaging should be exceptional.

HTH

Jim

[vettett15]

Sorry for the delay, been spending all my free time listening...

I do have the speakers space greater than 18" from the wall and I started with the 1" foam 2" back from the front baffle and beveled per your specs.

I'm not sure anything is wrong except for me and how i'm used to hearing things.

The crossovers and polarity will be kinda hard for me to check, I just need to run some sweeps and any polarity issues would be easy to see I assume..?..

Here are some pics

[Jim Holtz]

Sorry for the delay, been spending all my free time listening...

I do have the speakers space greater than 18" from the wall and I started with the 1" foam 2" back from the front baffle and beveled per your specs.

I'm not sure anything is wrong except for me and how i'm used to hearing things.

The crossovers and polarity will be kinda hard for me to check, I just need to run some sweeps and any polarity issues would be easy to see I assume..?..

Here are some pics

The Mini's use reverse polarity on both the mids and ribbbons. If they are wired out of phase, it will create a significant dip in response that gives a hollow and recessed quality to the sound. Check with Curt for more details about how to measure and determine if it is correct. I usually just trace the crossover by comparing to the schematics to check myself.

The Mini's sound stage should not be recessed but it is very deep.

HTH

Jim

[vettett15]

Alright guys,

Got a chance to do some ROOMEQ on it, took some sweeps, graphs are below.

From the graphs I don't believe I have an issue with my wiring, although you can see the havoc a room plays on speakers.

Three graphs:

1. No EQ

2. I let the Pioneer SC05 do everything

3. Put a little manual adjustment into the EQ.

[Coconutout]

if you change out the phasing of 1337s on just one of the speakers, it will become apparent if you wired them wrong or not because one side will be significantly louder than the other. the louder side will be the correctly wired unit

[fjhuerta]

Alright guys,

Got a chance to do some ROOMEQ on it, took some sweeps, graphs are below.

From the graphs I don't believe I have an issue with my wiring, although you can see the havoc a room plays on speakers.

Three graphs:

1. No EQ

2. I let the Pioneer SC05 do everything

3. Put a little manual adjustment into the EQ.

I bet that sounds forward and waaaay too bright.. there's too much HF and too little bass when corrected. I do think the high midrange / low treble on up is too low in level when uncorrected, too...

[vettett15]

The high end doesn't fade off like it did with Dali's but i'm not finding it bright at all. I haven't messed with the positioning of the speakers at all (heavy as hell) but I'm sure I can get it better. I still think the Dali's were more forward but I believe I'm hearing more detail out of the statements. As of now I believe I had a great set of speakers (Dalis) and built ones that are a little bit better.

[vettett15]

Sunday night update:

I was still thinking something was wrong so I switched some mid range polarities and it sounded louder on one speaker so then I was pretty sure something was wrong.

I took the drivers out and tried to trace the polarity back to the xover but couldn't really see the wires on the crossover. Before I installed the crossovers I marked what I thought was the correct wire, i.e. tweeter + or mid -.

Still determined I utilized some technology. A quick download of Room EQ and some knowledge of the xo frequencies I used the sine generator. Bottom line is I had to switch the polarity on both the tweeters and I had to flip the polarity on an entire speaker (banana jacks going into it).


Too late for music (damn) but I will be trying and updating you guys tomorrow. With my luck it will sound worse somehow....

[fjhuerta]

I'm looking at your uncorrected plot. I'm unsure it's a polarity issue. It seems more like a problem with the tweeter leg of the crossover.

[Jim Holtz]

Sunday night update:

I was still thinking something was wrong so I switched some mid range polarities and it sounded louder on one speaker so then I was pretty sure something was wrong.

I took the drivers out and tried to trace the polarity back to the xover but couldn't really see the wires on the crossover. Before I installed the crossovers I marked what I thought was the correct wire, i.e. tweeter + or mid -.

Still determined I utilized some technology. A quick download of Room EQ and some knowledge of the xo frequencies I used the sine generator. Bottom line is I had to switch the polarity on both the tweeters and I had to flip the polarity on an entire speaker (banana jacks going into it).


Too late for music (damn) but I will be trying and updating you guys tomorrow. With my luck it will sound worse somehow....

I'd suggest you pull the crossovers out and confirm that they are wired correctly. The sound you described indicates a crossover issue.

Jim

[vettett15]

Jim,

You are probably right, I think i'm going to listen to them first just because its going to be somewhat of a pain to pull those out.

I don't think I described what I did last night well. I actually had to flip the polarity on the mids to get them in-phase with the woofers (by in-phase I mean I stood there with my radioshack meter and found out which polarity gave me the loudest sound a 400 hz). Once I did that I found that my mid and tweeter were out of phase so I flipped the tweeter. I did the same thing to the other speaker. After that I made sure my two speakers were in phase, again using the meter and it was saying I had to flip the polarity on one of the speakers.

[ruseriousclark]

9v battery is a great way to check speaker polarity very quickly.

[vettett15]

Yeah thats a good call, I was going to do that but unfortunately didn't have one around. When I wired everything up I was counting on the "+" and "-" on the speakers to be accurate. Is it common for them to be wrong?

[Jim Holtz]

Yeah thats a good call, I was going to do that but unfortunately didn't have one around. When I wired everything up I was counting on the "+" and "-" on the speakers to be accurate. Is it common for them to be wrong?

The drivers are marked correctly. However, both the mids and ribbons are reverse phase on the Mini's and it has one of the more complicated crosovers to construct.

Check it carefully and I think your issues will disappear.

Jim

[Curt C]

Hi Pete,

A couple of thoughts here:

First, I’m a bit confused about the Dali’s sounding bright in your room. While I’ve not heard them, the Stereophile review measurements suggest they would not be all that bright in the midrange, although the tweeter appears to be adjusted a few dB hotter than I would have.
http://www.stereophile.com/content/d...r-measurements.

Your uncorrected response of the Mini’s is puzzling as well, as I am at a loss to explain the nearly 10 dB difference in response between 600 Hz and 20K. My own in room measurements suggest if anything a response sweep with the mic at the listening position would exhibit only a small peak of around 1 dB in that area, and overall, a slightly depressed midrange/lower treble response. I see from your room pic that the left speaker is fairly close to the side wall, while the right has no wall boundary. The close proximity of the left speaker to the wall might exacerbate some of the room mode peaks below the Schroeder frequency.

The 9v battery test is a good one, but only useful to verify the woofer polarity at the speaker binding posts. The mid range polarity could be verified if C 3021 in the midrange network is temporarily jumpered. You cannot test the ribbon polarity with the battery. However, you can, with the aid of an ohmmeter, check the ‘minus’ connection of the drivers. The woofer -, mid +, and tweeter +, should all ring together, and to the binding post -. Determination of the proper polarity by measuring the output at the crossover frequencies would be problematic at best, and since the mid and tweeter run in phase quadrature, impossible in that case.

I’ll second Jim’s suggestion, and suggest verification of the crossover construction and driver connections.

C

[vettett15]

After listening for a couple hours I think I'm there.

Unfortunately I believe all the screwing and un screwing of these speakers caused a buzzing in one of my woofers. I removed the woofer (upper) and turned it upside hoping junk would fall out while also gently moving the cone in and out. Seems like the buzzing is gone, but should I be worried?

Before that happened I believe I got them just right (going to do another sweep sometime soon). These things sounds great, glad I went searching for a problem. This huge soundstage is something i'm still taking in, its pretty wild.

[john trials]

After listening for a couple hours I think I'm there.

Unfortunately I believe all the screwing and un screwing of these speakers caused a buzzing in one of my woofers. I removed the woofer (upper) and turned it upside hoping junk would fall out while also gently moving the cone in and out. Seems like the buzzing is gone, but should I be worried?

Before that happened I believe I got them just right (going to do another sweep sometime soon). These things sounds great, glad I went searching for a problem. This huge soundstage is something i'm still taking in, its pretty wild.

It seems that a lot of the woofers come from PE with junk in the voice coil area. I had two that needed a lot of cleaning. Blowing compressed air around the phase plug while playing low freq. tones (20-30Hz) helped clear mine out.

[vettett15]

John,

I think you are right, they did seem a little dirty and I don't think screwing and un screwing helped me out at all. But when it was making the noise it sounded so much like a blown speaker that I was worried. Haven't heard the noise since.

[john trials]

John,

I think you are right, they did seem a little dirty and I don't think screwing and un screwing helped me out at all. But when it was making the noise it sounded so much like a blown speaker that I was worried. Haven't heard the noise since.

Yeah, mine sounded like blown speakers, too. I could easily cause the noise with a low freq. tone. Hopefully you got yours fixed. Mine have been fine since I cleaned them out.

[vettett15]

Curt,

Thanks for taking the time to check out my thread.

I may have overstated the Dali's, I haven't found them bright, I was just comparing them to the Statements (wired wrong, mids out of phase with woofer). I will have to hook the Dali's back up to see how they compare now.

It will be interesting to see what the Statements measure now, hopefully I can get that some time this week, I will definitely post the results.

Hi Pete,

A couple of thoughts here:

First, I’m a bit confused about the Dali’s sounding bright in your room. While I’ve not heard them, the Stereophile review measurements suggest they would not be all that bright in the midrange, although the tweeter appears to be adjusted a few dB hotter than I would have.
http://www.stereophile.com/content/d...r-measurements.

Your uncorrected response of the Mini’s is puzzling as well, as I am at a loss to explain the nearly 10 dB difference in response between 600 Hz and 20K. My own in room measurements suggest if anything a response sweep with the mic at the listening position would exhibit only a small peak of around 1 dB in that area, and overall, a slightly depressed midrange/lower treble response. I see from your room pic that the left speaker is fairly close to the side wall, while the right has no wall boundary. The close proximity of the left speaker to the wall might exacerbate some of the room mode peaks below the Schroeder frequency.

The 9v battery test is a good one, but only useful to verify the woofer polarity at the speaker binding posts. The mid range polarity could be verified if C 3021 in the midrange network is temporarily jumpered. You cannot test the ribbon polarity with the battery. However, you can, with the aid of an ohmmeter, check the ‘minus’ connection of the drivers. The woofer -, mid +, and tweeter +, should all ring together, and to the binding post -. Determination of the proper polarity by measuring the output at the crossover frequencies would be problematic at best, and since the mid and tweeter run in phase quadrature, impossible in that case.

I’ll second Jim’s suggestion, and suggest verification of the crossover construction and driver connections.

C

[vettett15]

Crossover Check

Alright guys, I did some more sweeps on my speakers and got the results below: Seems that I have a dip in the 250-500hz range. I tried flipping the polarity which oddly enough seems to hardly change the response curve (we are talking in the 1-2db range).

Note the pictures go left only, right only, left+right

Also this is post eq and we are talking +5 on the 250 and 500 bands and -4 on the 63 and 125 bands.



So this morning i pulled out one of my mid/tweeter crossover and one woofer, can you guys take a look?

[vettett15]

Hi Pete,


The 9v battery test is a good one, but only useful to verify the woofer polarity at the speaker binding posts. The mid range polarity could be verified if C 3021 in the midrange network is temporarily jumpered. You cannot test the ribbon polarity with the battery. However, you can, with the aid of an ohmmeter, check the ‘minus’ connection of the drivers. The woofer -, mid +, and tweeter +, should all ring together, and to the binding post -. Determination of the proper polarity by measuring the output at the crossover frequencies would be problematic at best, and since the mid and tweeter run in phase quadrature, impossible in that case.



C

Curt, I used a battery to check the woofers, they are correct in polarity. I also did the check of the "minus" connection. I found that the woofer -, mid + and tweeter + rang with the binding post - and +. Is that an issue?

Thanks,
Pete

[Curt C]

Pete,

Sorry for the delay. Work and other responsibilities have been getting in the way of my time lately..

As near as I can tell, the crossovers appear to be constructed correctly, and you have the drivers connected with the correct polarity. Yes the woofer – and mid + and tweeter + should all be connected together and ring to the – binding post of the speaker.

The dip in response between 250 and 400 Hz looks to be the result of room boundary modes, probably resulting predominately from floor bounce. It problematic to attempt to EQ floor bounce out, as the frequency and response varies with the listening distance and position in the room. Like most aberrations in this frequency band, it can be done for one specific listening position, but the results are rarely as optimum anywhere else in the room. While it looks quite unacceptable on the plot, our ears are quite accustomed to addressing this type of phenomena. Due to our own psychoacoustic signal processing, these types of issues pose surprisingly little significance from a practical perspective.

While we rely strongly on measurements to design speakers, it is important to remember that the measurement tools and the methodology used to make the measurements have specific constraints. These measurements are just a small slice of, and really only an approximation of what we actually perceive.

C

[vettett15]

Curt thanks so much for the reply.

With regards to the "woofer – and mid + and tweeter + should all be connected together and ring to the – binding post" test as mentioned above those also rang to the + binding post too, is that an issue?

Thanks again,
Pete

[Curt C]

No worries Pete!

The woofers are connected across the binding posts through their respective LP filters. With an ohmmeter, the meaurement should indicate the Re of the drivers plus the DCR of their associated inductor divided by 2, as they are paralleled. -Or about 3.5 ohms.

C

[vettett15]

If anyone is interested I have posted some additional graphs over at http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...surements.html

Showing in room response of woofers separate from the mid-tweeters this time.