Horio's Wavecor Ardent Build

[JonMarsh]

Now, I'm not normally one to go grave digging... but considering the times we live in, one should take nothing for granted.


Did these get finished? The cabinets look great at this point- but do they play tunes now?

[theSven]

Now, I'm not normally one to go grave digging... but considering the times we live in, one should take nothing for granted.


Did these get finished? The cabinets look great at this point- but do they play tunes now?

Great question Jon, I had been wondering the same thing. When I was visiting Danny to hear his Ardents I mentioned this thread and we pulled it up to see if there had been an update :-)

[technodanvan]

Well they sure look near complete in the pictures! I hope all is well.

[JonMarsh]

Exactly! I expected to see crossovers and drivers loaded. I hope he's doing OK.

[Horio]

Hey all, thanks for checking in on my build update!

Not much progress was made in 2021 thanks to a combination of being swamped at work and covid making things trickier. Hoping to get to laying down the clear coat in the spring once temperatures have gone up a bit. With any luck, my Ardents should finally be singing sometime in 2022. Once they do, I'll certainly hold the record for slowest build...

[JonMarsh]

Well, as one of my past colleagues in Muenchen (Munich) used to say frequently, "Slow work takes time".

And can I EVER relate to the idea of the problems that being swamped at work makes- at this point, I'm happy those days are behind me, finally-

But as I often say now, "I never realized retirement would be so much work!"

Of course, relocation to a new state, finding a new home, having to move to a new rental because owners wanted to sell the first one, all of these things are big contributors!

Thanks for checking in with use, Horio! May 2022 offer some relief and some free time for you!

[theSven]

Horio Do you have some completed photos of this build to share? So close to completion in the thread here...

[Horio]

So after a long hiatus, thanks to work and some other things, I finally got around the final assembly of my Wavecor Ardents. I definitely take the record for longest build, but they and up and running and first impressions are great!

A couple of crossover photos:



And the Final Product (yes, I will be better positioning these out of the corners in their final home):

[JonMarsh]

Yeah, glad to hear you hope to position better- room setup and interaction is a very important factor to ultimate satisfaction.

[JonMarsh]

Very nice job on how you put together your crossovers! Let's be real, folks, sometimes slow work takes time pays off!

[Steve Manning]

Looking good Horio .... I can't believe I made those baffles for you over 6 years ago!

[theSven]

Great to see these speakers completed and ready to use. I hope you enjoy many hours listening!

[Horio]

So I am very much a novice at measurements, but thought I'd post the first round. These were taken (by my dad) with no real care in speaker placement (still near the corners of the room). Measurements were taken with REW with mic placed about 1 meter away from each speaker (left and right measured separately), with the height of the mic between the midrange and tweeter. SPL was around 80 dB. Speakers were being driven by an inexpensive Sony receiver. Next time I'm down at my parents, we'll take some better measurements with the speakers more in the middle of the room away from walls and other furniture.

Definitely seeing some lulls in the response near the crossover points, and likely some room interaction.

[JonMarsh]

It's late in the evening, I'll share some thoughts and ideas tomorrow morning.

[JonMarsh]

OK, Peabody, set the WayBack machine to December 2016, location in Rescue CA (yes, there is a town with that name- where Renron used to live).


Now, REW has some configuration issues relative to its intended purpose (which is not detailed loudspeaker measurements) but I see some substantial similarities to the problems Renron had. I measured this SPL plot at his home, using my calibrated measurement mic and my "standard" tool, Fuzzmeasure. Note, that setup goes out an octave higher, to 40kHz. And it doesn't have heavy smoothing built in standard- you can control a lot of parameters, including measurement window duration (which impacts ability to measure LF as well as rejection of room reflections later in time) and smoothing can be adjusted from 1/48th octave down to 1/3 octave.




Here's what Ron's build initially looked like:



Hmm, something a bit familiar about that, and my initial judgement was that the midrange was wired backwards, as regards polarity, and this was causing dips due to out of phase response between the drivers on axis. Note, some reflected sound with different transfer paths would tend to fill in some of that... This was measured on axis of the midrange at 1 meter, so the tweeter is effectively off axis a bit.


SO, I checked the midrange connection, and sure enough, wired out of phase- people are so used to conventional 2nd order crossovers, I guess they assume the midrange is always wired out of phase, like in a Duelund crossover. The Wavecor Ardent uses my LR3 alignment (Linkwitz-Riley, except it doesn't exist from Linkwitz, he only did even order crossover variations, and it doesn't sum properly for drivers on the same Z axis, but gee, folks, if the mid is behind the tweeter just the right amount relative to the crossover frequency, and same for the woofers, then the additional time delay "corrects" the phase response and things sum quite nicely... like this:




Measured at 1m (at Ron's), on the midrange axis. Hmmm, quite a bit different, eh?

Now, measured at 1m on the tweeter axis, things look better for the tweeter:





But the real moral of the story is that you don't listen to three way speakers at 1M (that's near field, and a compact two way is your best bet), you listen at typically 3 meters or more, and for development, if you're Jonmarsh, you measure at 2 meters.





So, my best quick guess, without being there, is that the crossovers are probably wired OK, but the midrange is connected backwards. Revers polarity. Try flipping that connection.

And, even if for now it is not practical to have the speakers other than where you have them, (wives tend to come into issues like that), set aside a Sunday afternoon to experiment, and pull them out into the room, say, using a Cardas style setup initially.

https://www.cardas.com/system-setup

This is their current online guide- there is a much more basic guide available in PDF, that may be less material to wade through initially.

Cardas_roomsetup.pdf


Now, something else I recommend checking out if you have the time is the Wilson Audio reciprocal technique for setup- simple description is you literally put one of the speakers where you sit normally, and then you go listen or measure at possible speaker placements, until you find the location that has the most neutral and faithful response.

ALWAYS you want to avoid placement next to walls, because this creates a strong boundary reflection with a short phase delay that results in comb filtering when combined with the direct response- makes the frequency response literally look more like a comb, with narrow peaks and dips. I've heard piano recitals with a big Steinway that were acoustically ruined because of the small size the room and the placement of reinforcing loudspeakers.

Please let us know what you find out...

[Renron]

Damn, those are some nice looking speakers Doc.
I listen to those everyday, everyday. Still nothing even close to their quality. Love 'em. Tennessee living is So much nicer than Ca. ie; gas is $2.64 / gal.
Doc, I hope you are as happy as I , being retired now. Busier than ever.
Ron

[JonMarsh]

I was just thinking yesterday about sending you a Text or two- it's been hopping busy here, seems like I just fall into bed at night, what with one thing or another, including projects for HTG and associates!

I'm enjoying Idaho quite a bit- we had dinner Sunday night with a Russian couple that Liubov had met the wife at a gals get together last month. Igor and Olga were living on Long Island, and they researched all over the country before picking Idaho- a variety of factors, but especially access to outdoor recreation, and low overall cost of living and some nice communities, like Meridian where they moved to in the Treasure Valley.

Liubov and I live up in Middleton- we met in early 2018, a little while after Beverly unfortunately passed away after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. With our terrible summer, my cooling bill for a much larger home than a former colleague of mine who lives in Pleasanton, with more reasonable temperatures, was about 1/2. We had really unusual temperatures this year, and that bill for last month was double the previous year.

That was a really nice looking build you did, Ron- it's still a bit of a wonder and pleasure to me how many pairs of these have been built- Steve Manning has been doing a bit of business, either building front panels, like for Horio here, or complete ground up builds including special crossover setups. And, I know of one more set being ready to construct in Viet Nam, all the drivers for YOUR midrange configuration but with a Peerless DA25TX tweeter having been sourced.

[Horio]

Jon, thank you for the very detailed response! I'm seeing the strong similarities to Ron's measurements. It makes perfect sense that the mid-range drivers may be wired out of phase, hence the dips at the crossover points.

Unfortunately while pulling out one of the midrange drivers to swap the connections today, there was a bit of a mishap and the cone was damaged. Argh!!! It wasn't much but a finger slipped in between the frame and magnet, and now the ceramic cone is cracked/split. It wasn't much and I'm a bit surprised just how delicate these cones are. Makes sense that they install a permanent metal grill on the front.

I know these midrange drivers have been out of production for a while, but I've got an email into Accuton to see if there might be a repair or replacement option through them. Keeping my fingers crossed!

[JonMarsh]

We'll keep them crossed for you. . Try eBay. For a replacement. They come up there now and then.

Do an online search and cross your fingers...

[JonMarsh]

Not an ideal solution, but I brought back a pair of Accuton C88 from the last trip to CA; physically compatible, but would require some crossover work. I'll keep an eye out for them the next few days...

[JonMarsh]

I'm short on spare time this morning, due to medical exam for my wife, a ways away from here, BUT!

I located the drivers brought back on the last trip- a pair of C88/T6, and a pair of C90/T6-89. The latter is probably the closest match, but will likely require measurement and some crossover adjustments. Getting the original is better and much less effort.


For reference, the closest data sheet I could find - it's precedent. The one's I have have grille's like the 079 and some other tweaks.

[Horio]

Thanks Jon. Haven't heard back from Accuton yet, but I'll ping them again if I don't hear back by end of tomorrow. I've been a bit slammed with work this week, but did stumble upon this during my lunch.

https://www.audiohobby.eu/en/speaker-drivers/12772-accuton-ceramic-cell-concept-midrange-c90-6-079.html

I'm a bit confused by the description as it says "Condition New" and "discontinued, available only for repair". Price is quite high, but might be an option.

I really appreciate the offer on the C90/T6-89. Outside of the necessary crossover changes, what are the tradeoffs if I had to switch to this driver relative to the 079? Agreed, it would be ideal to find a new C90-6-079, but its great to have a fall back option of the same form factor if I'm unable to a replacement 079. I'll do some more digging to see what I can find.

[JonMarsh]

It's because the C79 has been discontinued from production, what they have is a NIB (New In Box) sample(s), and they only want to sell for those needing to do repairs (like you!!)

I have no idea what you paid for your C79's or when you bought them, but Accuton parts have gone up a LOT in the last 5 years or so, even for the ones in production. Especially at the distribution level, such as available for DIY.

For example, I have NIB Accton AS190-9-251, purchased new from Solen for ~$500 each (Kurosawa project; get back to it some day, cabinets built) but now they are $1481 at Madisound. Each. For what is a very good 7.5" woofer.

In your situation, it may be a bit painful, but I recommend buying the C79 from Audiohobby.

The drivers I have a pair of, the -89, instead of the -79, do not have the black cut out dampers to reduce the Q of the upper cone breakup mode, and would require setting up in a test enclosure, measuring, and adjusting/replacing the midrange crossover. How much change would be needed is hard to say- at the least, a series not filter for the upper breakup mode, and probably adjusting the series inductor and shunt bypass caps.

[technodanvan]

I'm a little tempted to grab one in the event of a failure for my own set...

[Horio]

It's a painful ($$) lesson to learn, but I did order a replacement driver from Audio hobby. I will certainly be very careful installing the replacement unit!

Just glad I was able to find a replacement (that was my biggest concern).

[JonMarsh]

I truly believe you are very fortunate in having been able to find a replacement. I looked quite a few places and came up empty...

[duvixan]

Two available at this Dutch store

https://www.soundimports.eu/en/accuton-c90-6-079.html