Looking for 3 way project. Statement II, Bordauex, Wavecor Ardent, or Ekta Grande?

[boinger]

I am looking at the following speakers:

Statement II's
Bordeaux
Wavecor Ardent (I know this one seems to be around a $4500 build can it be done within the budget as a variation?)
Ekta Grande

Budget is ~$2000

I am leaning towards the the ekta grande. I was just wondering which of these builds in users opinions would be better / sound better?

room 15x40x10 open entrances

What would be the pro's and cons for each speaker and I currently have paradigm prestige 95f's and how would they compare to that.

I don't quite get how to read the charts yet so any help would be appreciated.

[Bear]

The drivers for the Wavecor Ardent are ~$2100 for drivers alone, and that's the 12MU version. The crossovers can be done on a budget for $500-ish, but you won't impress anyone with your capacitor quality at that price point. An alternative would be to use an active design, with something like a MiniDSP 2x4HD (~$200) for each unit and your preferred flavor of amp. ICEPower

The Ekta Grande design is pretty from a visual perspective, but I'm not a fan of the midrange or tweeter choices. The 12M midrange is ... not a good value in terms of its distortion performance. I'm also not a fan of the Scan-Speak large format ring radiators, but I've only listened to them at trade shows (terrible acoustics). The distortion and off-axis performance of the ring radiators are more objective performance criteria where I think they lack versus other options. YMMV, as always.

In terms of charts, here's the 12M from the Ekta as measured/published from forum member HiFiCompass (lower numbers, more negative, are better...):

https://hificompass.com/sites/default/files/styles/1000_px/public/zamer/afc315/12m4631g00_315mm_2v83hd.png?itok=iChnDNrh

Here's the 12MU that is used in the budget Ardent... Both are ~$275...

https://hificompass.com/sites/default/files/styles/1000_px/public/zamer/afc315/12mu4731_315mm_2v83hd.png?itok=ym64DiGy

For such a large room, that lends itself to one of the "bigger" designs, as it is. Both the Statement IIs and Bordeaux have fans, so support should be there. One options out of left-field might be the CBT line array kit from Parts-Express:

https://www.parts-express.com/cbt36k-line-array-speaker-pair-kit--301-980

It's an unconventional design, but a line array would work better in such a large space and the tall, curved speakers would be an interesting party piece.

[boinger]

Hi thanks for the response.

The wavecor do you think if I build it with the lower quality caps it will be a large difference in sound quality and upgrade them later? Or just better off going for a better design.
Where is the 12mu version bom? I tried looking through the thread but I didn't come across it maybe I missed it?


I just started reading about the Bordeaux last night as it seems to be using the accuton midrange.

Those seem to be in high regard. So I started to look for some designs with accuton midrange's but haven't found much out there.

The only other one in my budget seems to be the sp44.

Am I missing any?

I do also like nice deep tight bass. Don't know if that helps at all.

That line array looks really interesting. I am just wondering about the bass quality being relatively small drivers.

[ergo]

I'm of course biased towards the Ardents as thats the only one I've built (or listened to) from the above list. I do like the sound of these speakers a lot and they are by far the best I've had or built. With cabinet work as challenging as it was I think the Accutons and Scanspeak Berylliums are still something to shoot for if one goes after this build.
There is the http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthr...d-Priced-Build thread where Renron built a bit lower cost version.

As for capacitors - I have the xover still outside the box waiting for me to buy a bit better caps. As is the caps are mostly the budget priced Janzen CrossCaps and the sound is fine and still beats my prior builds with margin. So doing a bit less expensive crossover (keeping the values of course, just a bit more budget caps will work.

***
Each of these need a fair amount of woodworking skill to pull off. So hopefully you have that side well covered. For me there was an extra investment in woodworking tools that I bought as well that can be considered to be partially a cost as well. I will use all those things for next builds, so it is not 100% cost toward Wavecor Ardents. Finding a woodworker to do it for you will for sure blow the budget.

It's not evident whereabouts are you on the globe. If in Europe, especially Scandinavia, then it is worth to note that I still have two Wavecor Ardent front panels as I built 4 of those and used only 2. Shipping those is possible, but will get expensive fast the longer the distance of course.... These are one of the more complex parts of the box. Rest of it needs time and effort too, but the front panel alone take several days to do if done from scratch.

[Bear]

There is the http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthr...d-Priced-Build thread where Renron built a bit lower cost version.

I made an assumption for US pricing, but even Renron's version is over the OP's budget for just the drivers:
- SW223BD02 x4 @$295/ea -- $1280 (Parts Express now carries them so shipping is a LOT cheaper in the US)
- 12MU x2 -- @$275/ea -- $550
- D3004/6600 x2 -- @$193.70/ea. - $387.40

$2217, but hey! Free shipping. :-)

Now, swap the 12MU for something like the SB17NBAC, and the 6600 for the SB26ADC, and one can keep the budget under $2000, and you'll still have a speaker with a noise floor that's about -60dB down from about 50Hz to 20kHz, at least at moderate levels. One might even swap in the BD03 in parallel for the BD02 to pickup 6dB more sensitivity. Of course, then it's more of an "inspired by", rather than an actual Ardent version, but......

[boinger]

I made an assumption for US pricing, but even Renron's version is over the OP's budget for just the drivers:
- SW223BD02 x4 @$295/ea -- $1280 (Parts Express now carries them so shipping is a LOT cheaper in the US)
- 12MU x2 -- @$275/ea -- $550
- D3004/6600 x2 -- @$193.70/ea. - $387.40

$2217, but hey! Free shipping. :-)

Now, swap the 12MU for something like the SB17NBAC, and the 6600 for the SB26ADC, and one can keep the budget under $2000, and you'll still have a speaker with a noise floor that's about -60dB down from about 50Hz to 20kHz, at least at moderate levels. One might even swap in the BD03 in parallel for the BD02 to pickup 6dB more sensitivity. Of course, then it's more of an "inspired by", rather than an actual Ardent version, but......

Hi, I could probably swing $2200 but that doesn't inlude the crossover so might be tough.

Is the Accuton midrange much better than the 12MU?

[Hdale85]

It also doesn't include cabinets, which trust me won't be cheap for those designs.

[BobEllis]

Yep, Ardent cabinets are expensive. I spent half of the OP’s budget on veneer and lumber for mine.

I can’t believe how much the woofer price has increased - more than double what I paid. Still very worthwhile if you can swing it financially. Just realize that you’ll also feel a “need” to upgrade your electronics as well.

[Bear]

Hi, I could probably swing $2200 but that doesn't inlude the crossover so might be tough.

Is the Accuton midrange much better than the 12MU?

Yes, but that's saying more about the 12MU, which is good, but not great. Without dragging you too far down a rabbit hole to learn about distortion charts, here's a comparison between the 12MU at 5.6v:


...versus a similarly-sized model from Wavecor (WF120BD03). Since the Wavecor is ~1.5dB less sensitive than the ScanSpeak, here's the 8v chart:


The blue lines are second order distortion (HD2, D2 or even F2 on some charts), which is often considered benign -- at least at moderate levels. Many people also set -40dB as the threshold of audibility, but I think that is an oversimplified rule of thumb. For both drivers, they have HD2 peaks that are well within the -40dB threshold.

Third order distortion (black line here, HD3) is what to watch for most closely. For a midrange, the critical freqeuncy range is ~500Hz to 3kHz. Individual implementations can adjust that boundary in either direction. For example, in the "budget" Ardent. JonMarsh crossed the 12MU at 600Hz for a few reasons, not the least of which is that the 12MU performs increasingly better the higher the frequency. The Wavecor doesn't have the improving response as frequency rises, but it only touches the -50dB increment in a few places within the traditional midrange band. The Wavecor isn't a better driver, and its motor geometry would not work well in a thick baffle application like the Ardent. Not many small, ferrite magnet drivers will work in a three inch baffle, in fact. From a price/performance standpoint, though, the WF120 is not cheap ($107 at Parts-Express, and wasn't readily available in the US until the last couple of months), but it is also less than half the price of the 12MU.

In other words, the Ardent is a true high-end design. It has some requirements that most drivers can't meet, and the few that do are relatively expensive.

[TEK]

Yep, Ardent cabinets are expensive. I spent half of the OP’s budget on veneer and lumber for
well.

Hey, don’t scare the poor guy more rhan nessesarly.
Sure, you may use a lot on the cabinet build. Especially if you go the full bamboooo route and luxury finish.
However, you may also build them just as cheep as any other 3-way floorstandig speaker. Add a bit more material due to the thick front baffel - but thats mostley it.
(maybe also make a plan on how to cover the side of the baffel, as your choices there might drive som costs. For example an extra layer of mdf. That would mean one (or two) extra sheet of for example 3mm mdf (I would guess 20usd?)

Regarding that, I have seen some reports about thelegraphing between the speaker sides and bagfel, even from those adding sheets of mdf. I think I also have some very discreet indications of that.
So if you go the Ardent route I think I would have used a sheet og 6mm (not 2 or 3) to cover the side of the speakers before paint or veneering. The best solution might be to actually build the whole speaker (and baffel) with 1.2cm smaller then designed and then apply 0.6cm sides afterwards.
Then you fir the sides to the front of the baffel.
Finally you add a 0.2 or 0.3 sheet over thw front of the baffel to ensure that it is perfectly flat and that the 0.6mm mdf does not pharagraph through (or other traditional threatment to avoid that when you have paragraphing where an edge meets a different edge.

[Bear]

Hey, don’t scare the poor guy more rhan nessesarly.
Sure, you may use a lot on the cabinet build. Especially if you go the full bamboooo route and luxury finish.
However, you may also build them just as cheep as any other 3-way floorstandig speaker. Add a bit more material due to the thick front baffel - but thats mostley it.
(maybe also make a plan on how to cover the side of the baffel, as your choices there might drive som costs. For example an extra layer of mdf. That would mean one (or two) extra sheet of for example 3mm mdf (I would guess 20usd?)

Regarding that, I have seen some reports about thelegraphing between the speaker sides and bagfel, even from those adding sheets of mdf. I think I also have some very discreet indications of that.
So if you go the Ardent route I think I would have used a sheet og 6mm (not 2 or 3) to cover the side of the speakers before paint or veneering. The best solution might be to actually build the whole speaker (and baffel) with 1.2cm smaller then designed and then apply 0.6cm sides afterwards.
Then you fir the sides to the front of the baffel.
Finally you add a 0.2 or 0.3 sheet over thw front of the baffel to ensure that it is perfectly flat and that the 0.6mm mdf does not pharagraph through (or other traditional threatment to avoid that when you have paragraphing where an edge meets a different edge.

Or one could skip paint/veneer and go with a finished bamboo exterior... One could call up Jodi at Cali Bamboo and ask for the "best deal" they could do on LBL, which might be about $200/sheet delivered (minimum 2 sheets, plus tax) for 19mm in edge grain or horizontal, in either natural or carbonized... Hypothetically speaking, of course.

[Hdale85]

Hey, don’t scare the poor guy more rhan nessesarly.
Sure, you may use a lot on the cabinet build. Especially if you go the full bamboooo route and luxury finish.
However, you may also build them just as cheep as any other 3-way floorstandig speaker. Add a bit more material due to the thick front baffel - but thats mostley it.
(maybe also make a plan on how to cover the side of the baffel, as your choices there might drive som costs. For example an extra layer of mdf. That would mean one (or two) extra sheet of for example 3mm mdf (I would guess 20usd?)

My issue with this is the Ardents are a super high end design and really isn't a design you generally want to cut corners on, especially on things like cabinets, crossovers, etc. Now yes there are some cheaper alternative versions with the drivers, but those version still perform extremely well when implemented right and with the right cabinet construction. Also not sure how you'd be proud of your speaker that you spent so much money on and then not finishing it nicely lol. Yes sure you could do them cheaply, just my opinion that to build that design generally you don't go into it to cut corners.

[Bear]

But it is also one where one might expect to be jumping on a ladder of some sort. There's not that much difference, aside from starting point, in sinking money to upgrade capacitors versus upgrade amps versus upgrade DACs. The Ardents are seemingly more journey than destination.

And TEK never got his center channel, IIRC...

[TEK]

And TEK never got his center channel, IIRC...

[Bear]

There's always Plan B, er, Plan Be...

http://salksound.com/model.php?model=SS+8CBe

[boinger]

Thank you for all the input.

I think I will go for the Bordeaux to experience the Accuton mid range within my budget. Since it is my first speaker build I figure I do not want to bite off more than I can chew.

[Jim Holtz]

Thank you for all the input.

I think I will go for the Bordeaux to experience the Accuton mid range within my budget. Since it is my first speaker build I figure I do not want to bite off more than I can chew.

I'm biased but I think selecting the Bordeaux is a very good choice. Curt and I had a cad drawing developed complete with cut lists and BOM. We also include build pictures and a builders tip sheet that should help with assembly. A one click kit has been put together by Meniscus for ease of ordering and they do offer several upgrades and crossover assembly for an additional fee. Of course if you'd prefer to order individually, the design is available here in the Bordeaux thread or shoot me an email and I'll destroy your email in box with everything you need to build them.

HTH

Jim

[TEK]

Hope you will share the build process!
Jims thread about the Bordeaux is here:

http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php?43878-It-s-time-for-a-Bordeaux

Thinking about it, it would be fun to heare a comparison between the Bordeaux and the Wavecor Ardent...
Anyone thar habe heard both builds?