Time for some Ansonica - a new design for Jagman's theater
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Driver fitting. Opened some of the holes with a cabinet scraper. The 'cup' for the tweeter was a little too tight with the sealing coats I added (epoxy) so I just chiselled the opening out a bit all the way around with a 1/4" chisel. At 1.5" thick there's room behind the tweeter to store some speaker wire.
Edit: just to clarify that the chisel was not near the the face of the baffle, only the portion around the tweeter magnet. I used the cabinet scraper to clean out any issues adjacent to the baffle face on all the driver holes.- Bottom
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Wow those look great, I really like the way the Anarchy drivers look to in that.What you screamin' for, every five minutes there's a bomb or something. I'm leavin' Bzzzzzzz!
5th Element, otherwise known as Matt.
Now with website. www.5een.co.uk Still under construction.- Bottom
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We have stereo! (I know pictures our it didn't happen) I struggled a bit with finishing the crossovers and final assembly as I'd never done it before so my documentation for those steps is weak but I'll be trying to get updated photos I have posted in the next couple weeks. I still don't have the grills finished but that's the last bit to do. Had a false start on them in the fall which I think will be salvageable (geez, is it February?). I did some in room measurements using a Dayton iMM-6 mic and AudioTool in Android and it looked OK. I'll try to get some measurements to post too.- Bottom
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Good to hear you're making progress. So how do they sound?- Bottom
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Who doesn't love listening to test tones and sweeps?
I did some testing when I had one speaker completed. I actually had the other one assembled, minus seals a couple weeks ago but it was leaking out the back pretty bad which was OK on some material. So now they are both complete minus the grills which means it is stuck in purgatory [the basement] away from toddler fingers.
Using test tones (from a PC) I noticed that there was some roll off on the low end sooner than expected. It could be felt at 40 Hz and 50 Hz, but compared to say 100Hz it was significantly lower in SPL. 25Hz and 30Hz had output if given enough juice.
I took some measurements with a Dayton Audio iMM6, with the calibration file loaded and the flat measurement curve using AudioTool in Android. The program will generate test tones and record the results. Without gating or anything, my measurements included the speaker+room reflections. With the mic roughly in my seated position (~7ft), not quite at ear level. I think the volume is loud enough that any direct sound would be louder than reflections so I think the data should be representative of the capable response, so maybe not design worthy data but I think it should be representative of what I'm hearing.
So the measurements basically confirmed was I was hearing. There was a roll-off at about 60Hz, with 30Hz being a good 12-15dB down. So a little sooner than I was expecting. CJD's models/measurements show similar output sweep so maybe there is no problem, but I know there are real/perceived challenges in measuring lower frequencies which are often done near field and I also see many measurements replace whatever happens below 100Hz - 200Hz with a model. For that, I had the impression that the output should be closer to CJD's post here where he's used Jeff B's response modeler. Now that I'm writing it out and thinking about it I believe the box modeler is showing the combined output from the speaker and the port so I'd have to measure both, right? Perhaps it's only a short-coming of my measurement technique? Perceived problem (i.e. with me the listener)? Or a room problem (modes)? Or distance from the speaker and relative length of bass sound waves? Or maybe it's the amp that is rolling it off? (It's a borrowed NAD 710 stereo receiver. In know some older NAD amps had a bass roll off I'm not sure if that's the expected behaviour.)
In trouble shooting the roll-off, I did what I could and switched the polarity on the bottom Anarchy and the output it was noticeably worse (using my ears it was obvious, measurements confirmed reduced output at 120Hz and down). I also switched polarity on the wire out from the mid-board to the bottom Anarchy board, same/similar result so I believe the woofers are in phase. Oh, and the cross-over to the tweeter/woofers appears to be OK sounds good.
An approximate ~12dB/octave starting at 60 Hz to 30Hz would align really closely with a 2nd order filter which sounds like something an amp might have and would really explain my measurements. So I'm not panicking and really leaning toward it being a built-in amp roll off. I have a Cambridge Audio Azur 540 V3 to power these when they are in place so we'll see what happens when I switch it out.
In all honesty, if there's some pre-mature bass roll-off - real or imagined - this speaker sounds great. This has been my first experience with hi-fi speakers in my own space. I've heard demos at high end stores and came very close to getting some Totems at one time but it just never became a priority. With the Ansonica, I am just floored. I can only comment on what I know. I play bass and what I'm hearing sounds just like the musician, instrument and gear is in the room. The track "Thunder" by SMV is a great recording of electric bass (S=Stanely Clarke, M=Marcus Miller, V=Victor Wooten) and I don't sound like these guys when I play, but that is a real bass sound I'm hearing on this track. Same with guitars (even distortion/overdrive) and drums. It just sounds like the real thing. I'm not sure I have the language skills to give them a better compliment than that. My wife was just as stunned. "It sounds like the guitar is coming from right there, between the speakers."
I have a few more steps I wanted to document. The ABS feet I used, my door construction, filling a crack that formed in the translam at the last minute, building and wet sanding.- Bottom
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I'm definitely enamoured. With my wife too
I think my first projection was three months. If I were single, with a job, that probably wasn't feasible. I think the real icing is when friends come and say things like, "your photos don't do them justice." Or, "I can't believe you made those." I wasn't as concerned with the sound. I basically spent the last year getting the finish right. As poor as my soldering skills are (and I'm sure I'm not the worst out there), I know I can keep tooling with crossovers and parts until I get it right. The more I listen the more certain I am I got it right. The sound signature is definitely worthy of the time I put into the boxes. When i listen to them I just want to turn it up louder and louder. Sweeps at 80dB were uncomfortable. Sweeps at 90 dB was painful (woops).- Bottom
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I've never heard The Chain by Fleetwood Mac like this before. At home alone having a little fun. I'm starting to really appreciate the comments that people make about accurate speakers. My take is that music still sounds like music, but well mixed music comes alive and you start wishing all music would do that.- Bottom
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Here's how I split my cross over boards. Back sides are on Flickr. Not the prettiest job but it works. If I were to construct them again I think I could get the tweeter board on something half the size but that's the board I started with for layout. Oh, this is the parallel version of the cross over.
Tweeter+LCR:
Top woofer
Bottom woofer:
The doors are 3/4" plywood. I cut the support brace for the door using a plunge cut so I screwed them back on. To seal it, I used some of that foam craft paper and just clamped it on with the wood blocks. It fits into the back of the speaker like a puzzle:
To mount the cross overs (above) I used some zip ties that screwed into the sides and another loop through the board to suspend them. To remove them i would just cut the loop for the tie that isn't screwed in.
Oh, and I cut carpet for the sides of the boxes. It's wool, my wife hated the rug. I cut it up and glued it in some speakers. The carpet also appears in some of my photos as a rug.
Something funny happened during assembly. I had set a woofer down as I was getting ready to mount it. Apparently I set it too close to a (closed) box of screws. So I'm loading up the box and I look in and see this.
And this wouldn't be a translam build without another crack to fill. Keep in mind that these boxes were glued up over a year ago, and the finish was done, wax applied. There was nothing else planed for these boxes. A translam box is not the stablest of construction techniques. At least, not in my experience. Here's the crack. It's still quite stable as there's a window brace behind it, but it goes all the way through.
So out comes the epoxy. Painter's tape on the back. It took two applications to fill it in. I used a heat gun to help the glue fully enter the crack. Small batch epoxy mixing, application with a bamboo skewer.
Filling:
Filled and scraped.
OK, last photo for now. Here's the speaker feet I used. I got them from Solen but it looks like Madisound also caries them. The photos leave a lot to be desired but this photo should pretty much tell you how they go together. They're actually more solid than they appear they would be from the photos (I wasn't expecting them to be mostly hollow). I'm not using the spikes, but I might buy some furniture feet with an M8 thread if I need to bump them up a bit.
A heart-felt thanks to CJD for sharing this design. These are perfect for our use. My wife would still say they are too big, but she's coming around. These are a smallish floorstander that goes very deep for the given foot print, and is loud enough for a lot of cases. I had a buddy over tonight and we were hitting peaks of 100dB and that was too loud for me. 85dB is comfortable for me but that's still permanent hearing damage range if you listen too long.
So I've been home alone for a few nights and I've been rocking these things every night. My kids come home tomorrow so I'll be moving them to the basement again to keep the drivers safe. Hopefully I can finish up the grills in less than a year. I guess they won't ever hit 115dB at 25Hz, but that would be just plain uncomfortable in our smallish living room. I've been rediscovering music, from Paul Simon Concert in the Park and DMB 'The Stone', to 'The Pot' by Tool, to Radiohead, to Aphex Twin, Squarepusher and Justice, to Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, and Dire Straights, to SMV, Christian McBride and Michael Kaeshammer - I've already covered a lot of musical ground on these speakers and they've done it all well but what I've listed have really brought out the smiles. It's going to be hard to move them down to the basement again until I find the time to do the grills. I'm not sure what's next, and maybe I should just focus on finishing grills, but I can see another speaker or five in my future- Bottom
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Hehe, I always take a last look before I close up as I have a habit of leaving tools in the wrong spot. Not so bad with little batches of epoxy you get efficient pretty quick. Great details.:T
I'm an old curmudgeon in training and I love that Tool song "The pot". My daughter has been helping me out with the new stuff.- Bottom
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Man. The translam looks cool. But, all the cracking I've been seeing, makes me reconsider. That sucks.- Bottom
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I don't disagree... I've decided it's not that different from working with solid wood I had a lot of issues with movement, not just cracking, but the baffle width changing by mm's (maybe 1/8-1/4"). If I were to do translam again (and I like the look, so I will consider it at least), I would do a couple things differently.
IMO, it seems the mistake with translam is not putting something on both sides of the plywood edges to limit the amount of water exchanged. The translaminated board is 50% end grain so it is very efficient at gaining/loosing moisture, even compared to just a normal flat sawn board. Once I had a finish on both sides of the baffles my movement issues were greatly reduced between seasons (I just painted some of my glue inside the cabinet). Once you limit the movement on any surface (i.e. finish on the outside but not the inside, internal bracing) there's a risk of differential expansion between the outside and inside faces of the board - lock one side down and eventually the internal stresses are too great and something rips apart. That's why I'm not convinced a backer board is the best way to deal with it since a backer board would effectively stop expansion/contractions on the inside face (which is effectively what I had behind the tweeter and I had a nice crack on one, but not the exterior face so you could still have differential expansion/contraction and the resulting cracking issues. However, at least with a backer board, cracks are prevented from going through to the inside of the box. (I also want to note that the cracks I'm seeing aren't glue lines, they are splitting the veneer)
This is not what I did but what I would try to do (or seriously consider) in future translam builds:
- shellac (or epoxy) both sides after gluing laminations to help stablize the baffle/board
- construct box before routing the baffle for drivers
- route the driver openings in the completed box and shellac (or epoxy) the openings when completed
- consider using a backer board on the inside face of the box
- shellac on exposed wood surfaces between every sanding session (e.g. end of the day) until I'm ready to start the final finishing stages
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What an incredible build. Your comments leave me a little embarassed, what can I say. Glad you like them! Get them a little closer to the wall and pick up a touch of bass... closer to corners, a little more.
These are now my bedroom speakers, so...we have a fireplace and a couch in the bedroom - far too big, but nice to be able to slow down at the end of a day reading a book in front of a fire, and slouch over to bed when it's time. And, of course, music is a big part of that. So, yeah.
Enjoy!diVine Sound - my DIY speaker designs at diVine Audio- Bottom
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Family is away for the weekend so I'm working on grills. The first attempt with mdf and circle cutouts didn't go as planned which has been a set back in getting these into their final home. So I'm building the grill frames with lap joints. I wouldn't recommend this method for most. I would however you recommend building grills as you construct the baffle. I embedded 6 magnets but will only need to use 3 or 4.
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Coming along nicely. Those dinosaurs are going to love them when they are done. :T- Bottom
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Actually had a really awesome moment with my four year old the other night. Hauled them out and he sat very quietly with me and listened to some of his favourite tracks (some of it is my music but he honestly is developing his own taste). I believe the velociraptor eventually joins us on the couch.
Had to put the speakers back away so our own 1 year old velociraptor didn't destroy them in the morning.- Bottom
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There use to be way more picture frames and plants. You can just see the bottom of an Ikea floating shelf on the right as well (wow, yellow walls and florescent lighting, phone camera just has no idea what to do...). Once the oldest started banging his head on that shelf (and pulling stuff off...) it went which was perfect for getting the speakers in there. I must have forgotten about the need for feet when first estimating the fit because I'm pretty sure they would have bumped. Up against it. Oops! I guess it's a good thing I'm slow and the kid grew like a foot during the build. Now if I can wait them out until college I may not need to finish these grills....- Bottom
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Greetings all! First post here.I have been considering building the Ansonicas for my first speaker build, and this thread has obviously been a big help in understanding what is involved. I have some experience with installing a nice automotive sound system with good drivers and active crossovers, and I can't wait to get into the home audio world with all of the advantages it has in speaker design/layout. If I do take this project on, I'll need a little bit of help, especially in the crossover department. I am fairly handy in general, and have some soldering experience, but I have a couple questions. First, early on in the thread a parts list was provided which gave links to part numbers. As long as I order from this list I should be in good shape, right? I don't know enough about the different components to know when I can swap one component for another, etc. The second question I have is regarding the supplied schematic. Where "source" is indicated, the top is the (+) and the bottom is (-), correct? Also, the speakers show a simple + in the middle of the speaker, but I am guessing the top of the speaker is the (+) lead.
It seems as though the "series" crossover is the more popular version, so I think I will go with that. I still don't understand the difference between the 2 (thought it involved how the drivers are wired) but that's ok.
I'm not dead set on this design, but it seems to fit the bill well for a garage smoking lounge setup without a sub. I am all ears if there are other suggestions. $600 is about the max budget I have for drivers/crossover components.
Thanks!!
Micah- Bottom
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Greetings all! First post here.I have been considering building the Ansonicas for my first speaker build, and this thread has obviously been a big help in understanding what is involved. I have some experience with installing a nice automotive sound system with good drivers and active crossovers, and I can't wait to get into the home audio world with all of the advantages it has in speaker design/layout. If I do take this project on, I'll need a little bit of help, especially in the crossover department. I am fairly handy in general, and have some soldering experience, but I have a couple questions. First, early on in the thread a parts list was provided which gave links to part numbers. As long as I order from this list I should be in good shape, right? I don't know enough about the different components to know when I can swap one component for another, etc. The second question I have is regarding the supplied schematic. Where "source" is indicated, the top is the (+) and the bottom is (-), correct? Also, the speakers show a simple + in the middle of the speaker, but I am guessing the top of the speaker is the (+) lead.
It seems as though the "series" crossover is the more popular version, so I think I will go with that. I still don't understand the difference between the 2 (thought it involved how the drivers are wired) but that's ok.
I'm not dead set on this design, but it seems to fit the bill well for a garage smoking lounge setup without a sub. I am all ears if there are other suggestions. $600 is about the max budget I have for drivers/crossover components.
Thanks!!
Micah
Years on I'm still satisfied with these speakers (1 kid when I started, now there's 3). Certainly don't desire a sub. EQ'ing bass during movies can be fun. My Cambridge Audio AVR died last year and I'm currently running through a cheap DAC class D integrated that I need to replace. Let us know if you wound up taking this path or some other. Sorry it took so long for a response, I don't hangout here too often lately, and I know CJD is less active as well.
I really should post how I made my speaker grills, I don't think I ever did that. I'd prefer them run neked, but three kids, and drivers and tweeters are all still in tact.
IMG_20190112_143228 by knowledge bass, on Flickr
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Yes, you should. Thise looks very nice, and I suspect that they give a little bit more protection than the average filt grills.
These cabinets have the same shape as the Ardents. Jar47 did give some info on how he buildt the grills innmy atdent build thread, here:
OK - so the bits are starting to fall into place, and I think it's time to start planning my Ardent build:T Inspiration thread: https://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php?41409-Wavecor-Ardent-Design-and-Build It's in good time, if you look back I actually started planning my first Avalon clone build a loooong time ago (as
(there are some info in the post/pages before and after that say something about how I did it as well. I do however think they provide more of anvisual effect and not real protection as I asume the one knowledgebass has buildt.-TEK
Many of the great achievements of the world were accomplished by tired and discouraged men who kept on working...
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Sorry to drag up an old thread, but does anyone know if the SB29RDAC tweeter would be a drop in replacement?
I bought the original anarchy woofers with the plan of building these 10 years ago.. still have the woofers but looks like SB changed the tweeters. The Madisound page makes it seem like the faceplate material is the primary change
Thanks,
Mike- Bottom
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Sorry to drag up an old thread, but does anyone know if the SB29RDAC tweeter would be a drop in replacement?
I bought the original anarchy woofers with the plan of building these 10 years ago.. still have the woofers but looks like SB changed the tweeters. The Madisound page makes it seem like the faceplate material is the primary change
Thanks,
Mike- Bottom
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