Wavecor Ardent Journal - the first Builds

[JonMarsh]

Well, you're right about I'm really enjoying them, though with company and all not being able to do measurements or critical listening. Still, the Acoustic Alchemy sounds great, very clean, a tight extended bottom end brings out some LF detail I haven't heard on these albums before.

If I consider size, cost, and a voicing that is not strictly neutral in the bass but works well with a lot of program and electronics, I'd say it's a more successful design than the Isiris- the latter I would judge more neutral, both in the low end, and a bit more resolving and "not there" in the top end (sheesh, you should get something like that with a diamond tweeter!) but more critical of setup and room position to do it's best. And of course, the tweeters alone in the Isiris cost about 80% of the build cost of the Wavecor Ardent.

So, let's just say I find the setup very musical, so far, and am looking forward to double checking the second speaker with measurements, finishing the grilles, and trying some critical listening. Your and Ben's contribution have made this possible about a year sooner than I likely would have been able to do on my own. A worthy collaboration indeed! :T

Tomorrow I'm planning on some woodworking for woofer module and CatherineZ front panels, before the rain kicks in for the weekend, so I won't get to the Ardent work and setting up the new audio subnetwork and router until the weekend.

[JonMarsh]

Sneaking in a few evaluation tracks while we're getting desert ready- Aras, by Curanderos, now "Just a little lovin" by Shelby Lynne. I like what I'm hearing overall just fine, the top end is very good, but because you just hear the instruments clearly. Very nice definition and sound stage top to bottom. It just sucks me in to wanting to cue up more tracks...

Even modern pop like "Royals" sounds good and detailed, regardless of the production values. I can definitely live with these in the family room a while, and take my time on the line array development.

[JonMarsh]

Keb Mo now, very nice.

[5th element]

It just sucks me in to wanting to cue up more tracks...

This is always an excellent sign!

[JonMarsh]

We're listening to an old favorite now, the White Winds album by Andreas Vollenweider- this was a favorite demo piece back in the 90's, but it's like a new remaster on this system. :T

It's actually the first time I've heard it on the new electronics, as well as on the Ardents.

Electric harp, and a lot of other instrumentation, well recorded. Recommended as music and an evaluation piece if you like somewhat jazz oriented new age. There's a lot of well recorded percussion as well as interesting vocal effects.

[JonMarsh]

And we have a stereo pair!

Here's how the 3 boards fit in.



I'm glad I didn't mess up anything in the crossovers because after tightening the 7 bolts for the bases I never want to take it apart. They sounds...AWESOME! The felt needs work though, there is a marked improvement running grills with no felt or no grills. They need quite a bit more gain then the little 2-ways they replaced so I'll have to finish up that ncore amp for them soon. Feels good to hear these guys after a year and a half and countless hours of work!

Any pictures set up in your new place?

[benthe8track]

Well, you're right about I'm really enjoying them, though with company and all not being able to do measurements or critical listening. Still, the Acoustic Alchemy sounds great, very clean, a tight extended bottom end brings out some LF detail I haven't heard on these albums before.

If I consider size, cost, and a voicing that is not strictly neutral in the bass but works well with a lot of program and electronics, I'd say it's a more successful design than the Isiris- the latter I would judge more neutral, both in the low end, and a bit more resolving and "not there" in the top end (sheesh, you should get something like that with a diamond tweeter!) but more critical of setup and room position to do it's best. And of course, the tweeters alone in the Isiris cost about 80% of the build cost of the Wavecor Ardent.

So, let's just say I find the setup very musical, so far, and am looking forward to double checking the second speaker with measurements, finishing the grilles, and trying some critical listening. Your and Ben's contribution have made this possible about a year sooner than I likely would have been able to do on my own. A worthy collaboration indeed! :T

Hey happy thanksgiving! A worthy collaboration for sure, I'd happily go on another speaker adventure with you again.

Any pictures set up in your new place?

Not yet and just got back to work up in the frozen north--stepped out on the tarmac to -25c (-13f). I'll try to snap some pictures despite the dark basement of the house we're renting. New place can't get finished soon enough.

How far out from the wall are you? Mine are a bit cramped just because of the layout but I think they will open up even more when I can give them some room.

[dar47]

You sound like me, even when I have a house full with great conversions going I still get distracted and drift away on portions of nice tracks on a resolving low distortion system. I'm siting here smiling just thinking how nice there going to be especially how your ranking them next to Bonnie & Clyde. It's also been a lot of fun hearing Ben's excitement as he is usually unflappable. Sounds like my daughter in-law is right in there flipping vinyl and is really enjoying them as well.

I agree with you this has been an amazing collaboration and not something a lot of people get to experience. I have some pics of mine up on my dual 24" monitors at work that causes people that stop by to say those are nice. I try to describe the collaboration and they usually say that's cool but I'm thinking you have no idea. :W Looking forward to seeing the next designs details as well as seeing a new corp of excited builders, should be fun.

[dar47]

You know Ben and Jon I'm thinking of getting a bike soon so we should plan a road trip to meet in Calgary for an Ardent fest. Maybe the summer of 16 when your settled in the new place. Jon maybe you will have pulled the pug by then. :W

[JonMarsh]

You know Ben and Jon I'm thinking of getting a bike soon so we should plan a road trip to meet in Calgary for an Ardent fest. Maybe the summer of 16 when your settled in the new place. Jon maybe you will have pulled the pug by then. :W

That's an interesting possibility- one of the things I've wanted to do and a big motivator for getting the ST1300 was riding up to Calgary and then over to the Bamf area and Lake Louise and other sights around there. Not sure if I'll have pulled the plug by 2016 or not... but I do have some generous vacation benefits with my nearly 30 years at this company...

[JonMarsh]

Hey happy thanksgiving! A worthy collaboration for sure, I'd happily go on another speaker adventure with you again.



Not yet and just got back to work up in the frozen north--stepped out on the tarmac to -25c (-13f). I'll try to snap some pictures despite the dark basement of the house we're renting. New place can't get finished soon enough.

How far out from the wall are you? Mine are a bit cramped just because of the layout but I think they will open up even more when I can give them some room.

I'll post some pictures- right now they're about in the same position as the Isiris were, maybe just a little bit further back toward the wall. In this position, they do create a sense of acoustic space on good recordings that over rides the room fairly well.

[Steve Manning]

Congrats on getting things finished Jon, actually to all three of you, it has been a very interesting project to follow the three of you through your builds. Can't wait to see pictures of everyone's finished speakers.

[JonMarsh]

Thanks Steve. I still have some detail work to do, grille and felt for the second speaker, measuring it as a QA check, and polishing out the finish.

Here's a pic this AM of how they were "setup" yesterday morning before getting started in earnest on preparing the balance of Thanksgiving dinner. Not necessarily optimal- I do plan to do some measurements from nominal listening position and see if moving them around can better fine tune the response there. Thing is, almost all my listening was done over in the dining room behind the family room, which has an 7 foot high by 10 foot wide "portal" into the family room- they sounded fine through dinner...




They're so tiny and cute in comparison to the Isris, but they weigh a bloody ton, hard to believe there's any empty space inside for the woofers to work into! :W

This is a cell phone picture, so the perspective is distorted - I'll take a picture with a real camera later. After I get things cleaned up, too!

[Steve Manning]

They're so tiny and cute in comparison to the Isris, but they weigh a bloody ton, hard to believe there's any empty space inside for the woofers to work into! :W

This is what happens when you make the baffles 3" thick and stuff lead inside of your cabinets!

[JonMarsh]

Somewhat curious- checking on the pricing and availability of SW223BD01 at Solen, and they have 16 in stock, but have a special price, dropped about $100. I just ordered three for testing for another project, as I don't want to take one of the Ardents apart. Will order another 9 if this looks good... and if it is the best system alignment fit (which is is so far, but have a few other drivers to model.

[JonMarsh]

This is what happens when you make the baffles 3" thick and stuff lead inside of your cabinets!

Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me about the lead! That helps keep the Kryptonite enhanced magnets in the Accuton midranges from creating radiation problems in the family room, you know!

[Wayman]

I took advantage of the Solen sale and ordered 4.

Are cabinet drawings available?

Cheers, Wayne

[5th element]

Somewhat curious- checking on the pricing and availability of SW223BD01 at Solen, and they have 16 in stock, but have a special price, dropped about $100. I just ordered three for testing for another project, as I don't want to take one of the Ardents apart. Will order another 9 if this looks good... and if it is the best system alignment fit (which is is so far, but have a few other drivers to model.

Another project? Would this be a line array per chance? :W

[JonMarsh]

Another project? Would this be a line array per chance? :W

Alas, you've read my mind again! If it tests out the way it models, unless the PE HO reference 10 looks better in modeling, I'll be going with these. There's just something cool about the idea of a stack of six of these on each side... will build the cabinets up half the line height, 3 in each, with 3 PRs. That should still be "movable". LF concept based on Evil Twin's module analysis.

I took advantage of the Solen sale and ordered 4.

Are cabinet drawings available?

Cheers, Wayne

PDF's of the original Ardent have been available, the new one is in preparation, we're working out some file exchange issues so I can prepare piece part drawings as well as cabinet details. My guess is an ETA around Xmas. If you would like to see the original Ardent PDFs (you could build these from those, with just relocating and enlarging the woofer holes, as needed) PM me your email address.

[5th element]

That's a heck of a lot of bass those PR'd 22s, give out :O The line array should, if anything, give pretty scary dynamics with the right amp.

[JonMarsh]

That's a heck of a lot of bass those PR'd 22s, give out :O The line array should, if anything, give pretty scary dynamics with the right amp.

It will be a bi-amped system, passive crossover between mid woofers and tweeters. Will likely modify the old X1 crossover for the right crossover points and EQ. It's pretty flexible. The way it will be wired is three 4 ohm woofers in series, then each series set in parallel- net load of 6 ohms. Eazy-Peazy to drive. I'm thinking my nCore 400 mono block builds should do. I haven't bothered to do the sensitivity analysis yet, but it should pickup a bit from the stock parameters due to driver coupling. Will lose a bit due to impedance transformation.

Just ran the numbers- net LF impedance of 6 ohms, efficiency gain of 7.78 dB, Impedance sensitivity loss of -1.76 dB, net sensitivity of 90.52 dB/2.83VRMS Power handling is hard to estimate accurately- well over 400watts of course. 99 dB/8 watts.

[shootinnutz]

Hi Jon, glad to hear you got your ardent ' s up and running. Could you tell me what the dimensions are and was there any thought of putting a Raal tweeter in the speakers. Can't wait to build these beast's. Thanks, Paul

[---k---]

We need to get this in the Completed Speakers thread. Same goes for the original Ardent, Irisis, and your MTM that I can't remember the name of right now.

Fill this out, and upload a picture to the htguide server and I'll get it done.
Blank Template
Design:
Price:
Size:
Tweeter:
Mid:
Woofer:
Designer:
Other Design Notes:
Related Designs:
Comments:

[JonMarsh]

We need to get this in the Completed Speakers thread. Same goes for the original Ardent, Irisis, and your MTM that I can't remember the name of right now.

Fill this out, and upload a picture to the htguide server and I'll get it done.
Blank Template
Design:
Price:
Size:
Tweeter:
Mid:
Woofer:
Designer:
Other Design Notes:
Related Designs:
Comments:

Will do that soon. I'm planning on having a construction PDF guide; was thinking about an official build thread, too, just summarizing all the design details and referencing this one. In a sense, the original Ardent is not done- last phase on it was to install and modify crossovers for SS 7" Illuminator woofers, but that's when I started kicking around the idea of the Wavecor Ardent, as I cast the net around a bit further. Need to call it something different though, or just decide that this is the completed version of the Ardent, as Wavecor is a copyrighted Manufacturer name.

[JonMarsh]

Hi Jon, glad to hear you got your ardent ' s up and running. Could you tell me what the dimensions are and was there any thought of putting a Raal tweeter in the speakers. Can't wait to build these beast's. Thanks, Paul

Basic dimensions are 43" tall, 11" wide, and about 16" deep at any one point, remembering that the total front to back depth from floor to top is greater because of the angle.

These are inspired by the Avalon Indra, but with the desire to bring the performance up to levels more like the Avalon Time, but without the much larger and not so nicely proportioned cabinets. To this end, the woofers and tweeters are substantially upgraded over the Indra, and the cabinet is pure sealed operation, not the resistive ported operation of the Indra.


Indra


Time


Ardent


The Indra's LF capability doesn't match up well with the midrange and treble, and it has a brutal impedance curve in the low end, to boot.


Ardent Z



Indra Z





Avalon was founded by a guy that used to work for me and whom I gave a pair of heavy, faceted, thick front panel speakers I'd built that my then new wife (now ex) didn't like. Neil Patel acquired Avalon later on. Avalon does much nicer photography than I do, and better cabinet veneering, too, but they make their cabinets out of MDF... not nice for this price range.

I am planning to do a system with RAAL tweeters, but there isn't one that would work in the right frequency range for this project, with the necessary vertical dispersion. After testing and evaluating quite a few dome tweeters, I settled on the ScanSpeak 6640, both because of measurements, and it's very clean, quick sound with a minimal signature of it's own. It has better distortion characteristics down low than most ribbon tweeters. I do like the big RAAL 140-15, with the amorphous core. Pricey, though. And it's too big and has somewhat limited vertical dispersion for a speaker intended to be usable in smaller rooms.

[Wayman]

In terms of a name, I'll toss this out. Not to downplay the tweeter but it seems the main drivers are the mid & bass: Accuwave

Just a thought, Wayne

[JonMarsh]

I like that name, but how about if I use it for the line array concept I'm working on? :W

[benthe8track]

They will always be the Wavecor Ardents to me but I emailed Wavecor and asked if it's ok if we call them that. I would honestly be surprised if they took issue because:
They don't sell full speakers
We aren't selling these
This thread has 60k views, is on page two of google search of "Wavecor"
These speakers are a great example of how good thier drivers are and they probably want people to know that

But you never know, I'll let you know what they say.

[dar47]

The Wavy Ardents, :B As in we are all waving after building these,

[Wayman]

Yes, of course, use it for the array!

Cheers, Wayne

[JonMarsh]

They will always be the Wavecor Ardents to me but I emailed Wavecor and asked if it's ok if we call them that. I would honestly be surprised if they took issue because:
They don't sell full speakers
We aren't selling these
This thread has 60k views, is on page two of google search of "Wavecor"
These speakers are a great example of how good thier drivers are and they probably want people to know that

But you never know, I'll let you know what they say.

good move, Ben, we'll have to see what they say. If they go along, then it "sticks" as far as I'm concerned. :W

[JonMarsh]

Wavecor Ardent Summary Description

Design: Wavecor Ardent floor standing three way



Price: About $2900 for drivers, crossovers as built vary between about $1200 and $1500; cabinet materials including LBL panels for front panel about $400-500 in materials.

Size:* Basic dimensions are 42-43" tall (depending on base design, whether tall base is used with crossover installed in bottom), 11" wide, and about 16" deep at any one point, remembering that the total front to back depth from floor to top is greater because of the angle.*

Tweeter: ScanSpeak D3004/6640-00 Beryllium dome tweeter - other SS models (6620, 6600) were evaluated and discarded. The 6640 has low resonance and low distortion amplification, and a minimal breakup, matching the Accuton midrange driver in it's overall low coloration and very low high order distortion.

Midrange:* Accuton C90-9-079, matched pair. Core concept for this speaker was the use of this midrange driver- due to low resonance, low distortion, and extended response, no other type considered.

Woofer:* Wavecor SW223BD01 - 4 ohm, wired in series. A number of woofers were considered and tested in prototypes during the evolution of this design, including the Seas ER18RNX and the ScanSpeak Illuminator 18WU/8747T-00; and the 8" aluminum ScanSpeak Revlator; the desired low frequency performance required shifting to a sealed design and searching highly linear small form factor woofers, which like the Aurasound NS12, straddle the line between a subwoofer and woofer construction, offering a very stiff cone, exceptionally linear motor, and declining distortion up to 1 kHz; this supported creating a sealed alignment with a robust well damped bottom end similar to the much larger Isiris system, but of necessity at a lower sensitivity point (approximately 82 dB, similar to Magneplanars).

Designers/team:* Jon Marsh with DAR47 and Benthe8track

Other Design Notes:*Crossover is similar to the Isiris, being a three way implementation of a modified LR3 concept designed to work specifically with the normal driver offset delays of drivers mounted on a common front panel. Woofers are connected in series, to provide an easy to drive amplifier load. The provided schematic looks "busy" because all the individual parts used to achieve a specific value are drawn out explicitly.



The net load impedance is very benign and quite flat, especially considering no external conjugate networks are used to reduce impedance in the crossover regions; this is an inherent characteristic of all realizations to date of this crossover type, which may improve driver damping and limits impedance swings for amplifiers to deal with, especially vacuum tube and non-feedback types like Ayre Acoustics or Theta.



Felt diffraction control is used in the grille panel, in conjunction with the crossover optimization to produce a wide vertical window with relatively small changes in response and minimizing diffraction effects to the degree possible. This measurement was not made with any attempt to optimize the low frequency positioning in the room (it was not in a normal listening position) and so response variations around 100Hz and below are due to non optimal setup and the long measurement window (200 msec).



Distortion was correlated from one of the frequency response sweeps, at a level of about 90 dB. All drivers exhibit good performance, but especially the midrange.




Related Designs:* Isiris three way using Aurasound woofers, Accuton C173-6-90 midrange, and Jantzen JDT-1024 diamond tweeter; NatalieP, Modula MT; all using the same modified LR3 crossover concept.



Going to try this as a separate post for Ryan. Thanks for bringing this up.

[JonMarsh]

Somewhat curious- checking on the pricing and availability of SW223BD01 at Solen, and they have 16 in stock, but have a special price, dropped about $100. I just ordered three for testing for another project, as I don't want to take one of the Ardents apart. Will order another 9 if this looks good... and if it is the best system alignment fit (which is is so far, but have a few other drivers to model.

Got a call from a nice young lady at Solen- as usual, their online system way over charges for shipping, and we worked out the charges and method by phone. the 3 I just ordered will be on the way today. I should get my buns in gear and order more soon...

[bigjohn]

Got a call from a nice young lady at Solen- as usual, their online system way over charges for shipping, and we worked out the charges and method by phone. the 3 I just ordered will be on the way today. I should get my buns in gear and order more soon...

I took advantage of the sale pricing as well, for my Wavecor build!

[benthe8track]

Congrats bigjohn! Can't wait to see your build.

I kept pretty good records and my cost was ~5k CAD. The veneer/finishing was 1k alone though so there are more affordable options.

[---k---]

Jon,
the *Core Ardent has been added. But, I took out the crossover images, etc. to make it a little more compact to give a quick overview.
Now we just need the Nascent and a few others added.

[benthe8track]

Hey guys, here is the .IGS for the assembly. Let me know if you can get all the parts from that WaveCoreArdentAssembly.IGS with whatever software you are using. If that works I'll finalize that model and call it the As-Built (some tolerances I want to adjust for better fit based on what we learned). This is mostly to test a universal 3D file so we don't need to (but one could) make 2D drawings.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wwzm5x9yehn17wq/AACS6bMq3eV9kZZlxdvnJivMa?dl=0

[JonMarsh]

Thanks Ben!

I've snagged those- I'm out at a seminar today and a special meeting at work, but will give these a look on the ET R2D2 Mac Pro tomorrow to see if things translate nicely- I'm not expecting any issue with IGS, have used that before with Shark. I prefer the idea of a universal 3D files that we can just take apart for the parts and document individually- Shark has a nice model to 2D automatic tool that supports multiple view points and that's how I created all the PDF files for the first Gen Ardent.

[ergo]

Will be interesting if Shark opens these. ViaCAD Pro ver 9 (and ver 8 ) stops responding while importing these and ViaCAD app is from Punchcad too.

[BobEllis]

FreeCAD opened them without issue. I wish that I had the skill to do a CAD drawing. I'm going to be on paper.

[benchtester]

The IGS files opened in Solidworks2014 and Creo2 (formerly Pro-E)

I was hoping to show-off and include Autodesk Inventor, but my copy has expired. It may be a couple weeks before I get it reactivated.

[benthe8track]

FreeCAD opened them without issue. I wish that I had the skill to do a CAD drawing. I'm going to be on paper.

Well we needed the model to program the CNC but there were a ton of manual cuts. Some of them we cheated by just skimming the surface with the CNC. However, often I had the laptop open and just got the dimension from the model and scribbled it down on paper.

Will be interesting if Shark opens these. ViaCAD Pro ver 9 (and ver 8 ) stops responding while importing these and ViaCAD app is from Punchcad too.

What does ViaCAD like? .STL maybe? I can pump them out easily to whatever format you want easily.

[BobEllis]

FreeCAD seems to like a lot of formats in addition to iges, STEP, dxf, dwg, python...

The file opens up, I just need to figure out how to get the dimensions for my poor man's version. I have a follow on project brewing that will need to be a touch bigger, that I am having trouble creating in FreeCAD. I need to work with it more. I keep losing my parts, even when I extrude a sketch and don't save changes the drawing gets deleted in the file and I have to start from scratch. AARGH.

[ergo]

This is what ViaCAD shows for imports..

[shootinnutz]

Would Mccormack 0.5 monoblocks have enough power to drive the Ardents and would it be okay to mount the crossover externally?