Official Wavecor Ardent Reference Thread - How we realized the Dream

[ergo]

I can concur that in the space we listened in, that was a family room + open kitchen behind it of about 40m2 total the Cambridge amp had no issues to drive the Ardents to levels where Jon's friend had to remind him of the neighbours few times
Antonio - what is the size of the room you have for your system and do you have private home or also neighbours to think of. 100W is probably enough most of the time. The only time of trouble might be if you have freedom to crank up volume without disturbing anyone - in such case very clean speakers tend to sound so good that one wants to keep increasing the volume.

On my side I did send in an inquiry to audiohobby.eu for all of the drivers. Waiting for quote now and planning to put in an order as soon as it comes. If one/some of the drivers are not available from there then I'd need to look around in EU side to find alternate sources.

[Renron]

Regarding the Seas H1212, the 27TDFC are comparable. I really like the Seas 27TDFC (series) tweeters and have used them in several builds. I also own a pair of Seas Millennial tweeters with the copper band. They both reproduce high notes very well and (mostly) without too much distortion. But in listening and swapping one for another in the same cabinet I can tell you without a doubt that they are not in the same league. Is the cost difference worth the additional charges? Meh. Depends upon what your design goals are in relationship to cost. For most people, and most builds I would say not worth the extra $$$. HOWEVER.
The Ardents were not designed to "affordable" to the masses who build with MDF. They were designed to be the best sounding speaker for the size cabinet acceptable by SWMBO.
My wife didn't like the looks when I showed them to her online, once built she loves the look. I love the look and the sound. I chose to use the 6600 and not the 6640 because I am OK with the price/performance ratio. Everyone has to decide where their $ "comfort" zone is. The Ardent is not the Volkswagen of speakers.
Ron

[dar47]

I agree Ron I have had both the Seas drivers as well and they never made my heart skip a beat although good value.

Interesting how this pride of ownership thing can also work the other way around when a well designed modestly price build is so good and you built them your self, it must be as good as all those high priced builds! I think if you are happy with your speaks no need to go further but if you have the cash and time there is another level that has a lot of value. Pride of ownership aside the Ardents allowed me to find the level I could afford for the gear in front of the speaks which has out stripped the build cost of the Ardents. As was mentioned 3 DAC, 2 pre-amps and 2 different amps. Could I again change gear in front of course but that would now just be a mans pride thing. Another DAC well probably have to double the cost of this $5000. DAC, another Pre well again double the cost over $4000. and amp probably triple. That I would say is fools gold for me anyways. For me the Ardents were the speaker that allowed me to get to my comfortable system level in a controled manner noting real improvements and allowed me to very easily push the stop button, haha.

Oh and that doesn't include al the demo gear I tried and didn't bite on. That has value to!

[DigitalMaven]

I cant seem to find a demo of these on youtube (Ardent). Someone please post a quality video in the future if you can. The confusion towards my comment about the tweeter might be that the more expensive tweeter does not have as pronounced rolloff compared to the seas h1212. I tend to like the rolloff after 10kz because it feels more natural to me. But yes even a 10% improvement in perceived sound quality might be worth it with the more expensive tweeter.

[BobEllis]

I've never understood the concept of a YouTube demonstration. Most gear is going to have better performance than the YouTube codecs and likely the microphone and recording chain used so you won't learn anything useful.

If you like a high frequency roll off you can design that into any system. I'd suggest going back through the threads and finding the one about response shaping. Or read Linkwitz, since he started the idea that speakers should be voiced with a slight downward tilt. A general slope of a couple of dB over the whole bandwidth. I've experimented with this digitally and find it is helpful on a range of speakers. The Ardent crossover for the current -02 woofers includes this tilt. Try it instead of a 10K roll off. You might like it.

[Renron]

Instead of YouTube, just build what sounds good to YOUR ears. The Ardent is not intended as a build for everyone. I built Mid Priced Ardents. Y$MMV.
Ron

[BobEllis]

From all reports, you hit a sweet spot on this build, Ron. Getting 98% of the performance and enough left over to pay for a nice DAC. Hard to beat.

[Renron]

Bob,
Mostly because I was incredibly lucky that the mids and tweeters were on sale when I bought them. Also, fortunate that Jon donated his extremely rare free time to redesign the Mid range XO for the Scan Speaks I used. Retail market price difference between the Accuton mids and Scan Speak mids is about $100 for the pair. In which case I simply would have used the Accuton drivers. I REALLY like the way my SS mids sound, although I've never heard the Accuton mid to compare....
Ron

[DigitalMaven]

I use this youtube video to hear the difference between original jbl tweater and Berylium tweater...skip the the first 5 minutes as rambling...

https://youtu.be/8xm8f7tJ1LU

[BobEllis]

Yes, you can hear a difference in tone, but there is nowhere near the detail level you'll get out of actually listening to a 6640 properly implemented. It just doesn't mean much to me. I don't know the JBL speaker in question, but isn't that demo it a bit like comparing the sound of a Ford to a Ferrari? I firmly believe that if the differences were more subtle, like comparing an Ardent with a 6600 and a 6640 (no crossover change required) you wouldn't hear a difference on YouTube. You probably would hear a subtle difference in a live comparison, assuming that you are feeding them suitable quality recordings.

If you find YouTube demos useful, then by all means use them. I just feel that they can't demonstrate the differences when you are getting up to the absolute last few percent of performance that we are discussing here.

[DigitalMaven]

I do...find them useful...I use the high end sony bluetooth headphones and for bluetooth they're very good. Sure its not perfect but its a helluva lot cheaper than flying to japan and could save you some time in narrowing things down. In that same demo you can hear the difference in base attack as well....

The whole point of the video was to show how much of a difference the beryllium tweeter can have on the overall smoothness and increased sensitivity. So if you have a great $400+ beryllium tweeter that last 10% makes the booze that much smoother...

[BobEllis]

I didn't watch the whole thing, but the voicing was notably different. Ok they made a different speaker that sounded better in the JBL box. How much of the improvement was due to voicing and how much the tweeter? Did he change the crossover at all or just drop the new tweeter in? How was this recorded? Webcam?

Played back through oppo bdp103 to Pass Aleph-J to Ardent there wasn't any of the goodness that separates a 6640 from a Seas Excel tweeter and makes it worthwhile. It may have been there in the room, but it wasn't in the recording. You might get something useful if the sound was recorded with top flight gear and you could download a high res file, but even then we're talking about subtle details. Maybe not Japan, but you'd be well served to go to a DIY meet or a high end store nearby to listen to a system that uses the tweeter you're interested in.

Who knows, Ron or Jon might take something interesting to a show. If you were closer I'd say come on over and listen. Then I'd show you what room placement can do.

[DigitalMaven]

I went back and looked at the video again...looks like he changed the tweeter to berylium neodium + new mid range + new crossover + maybe repairing original woofer...lots of changes without any controls...

[dar47]

The Ardents are so good they make country music sounds sweet,:-y:^x:hb

[BobEllis]

Absolutely correct. I'm finding that music I could only handle as background music is now engaging.

[Renron]

The Ardents are so good they make country music sounds sweet,:-y:^x:hb

Hey now! Some of the best recordings I have on disc are country music. They actually care what it sounds like. "I 'ain't in it jest fer the money". Listen to an Alison Krauss disc and get back to me on that.

Listening to anything through Bluetooth is an adventure in futility. Compression upon compression, clip out a few digits here and some more there. What the heck, it's digital right? It all sound the same, it's either a 1 or a 0 right? Uh-huh.
Ron

[dar47]

Ron everybody needs those "lying, cheating, somebody done somebody wrong songs" once in a while,lol.

I agree there are lots of well recorded country albums. I was just steaming CD quality, Tidal country play lists the other night with a coffee in hand while reading on the notebook. A few tunes just kind of grabbed my attention, who knew Lady Gaga sounds great doing country tunes.

[BobEllis]

My favorite country song from back when I was in high school.

https://www.google.com/search?q=tom+t+hall+i+like+beer&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari

[Renron]

Bob, Damn it, I wish we lived closer. We would hang out all the time.
" The Perfect Country and Western Song" by David Allen Coe. If you can't stand it just skip to 3:00 for the best part of the song and how it got it's title. :boohoo:
8x)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_qfujQ_jTQ

[BobEllis]

Yep, that's a close second.

[scottvalentin]

I might be a different vintage than you guys but I would also hang out with you both!

[Renron]

Y'alls always welcome 'round these parts, if'n yer ever in the neighborhood. Good BBQ, good friends and good music. Pretty much open invitation for the forum members, good group of Folks here.
Ron

[JonMarsh]

And Ron is very DEFINITELY good people- I know from first hand in person experience! :T

I'm back from Villach Austria, but work is crazy busy, presenting webinars for European teams in the morning today and Asia in the evening. It's a long day when you do that... :W

I can vouch for the Alison Kraus, have most all of her and Union Station's albums, in more of a bluegrass spin, but very good recording, check out the Nickel Creek album. Oh, it's very good music, too! Even if you think you don't like bluegrass...





I'd go for the vinyl version or the SACD if you can find it... even the 44.1kHz layer is pretty good, but the DSD rip/conversion to 24/176.4 is better...

[Renron]

Is it my monitor, ? or does the guy on the right wearing a sweater look like he has Australian Shepard eyes? One brown one blue?

Thanks for the Compliment Jon, right back at 'cha. Superior intellect and generosity. I understand about 1/3 of what he says but it's always interesting.

Ron

[Renron]

Completely off topic

This came across my desk today, thought I'd share some timeless wisdom with you'll .
Mods. Feel free to delete this if you see fit.
Sorry, this is completely off topic. But so worth it if I get scolded.
Ron

[Steve Manning]

This came across my desk today, thought I'd share some timeless wisdom with you'll .
Mods. Feel free to delete this if you see fit.
Sorry, this is completely off topic. But so worth it if I get scolded.
Ron

Now who's the troublemaker!

[JonMarsh]

Ron, just to be sure I'm getting the correct message here, let me put it in plain English:

Long term, the high priced "exotic car" is cheaper than the high priced "exotic girl friend/wife". Yes?

Well, Doh, of course!

Not that I've really ever had one of the latter, though I've dabbled at the low end of the former (NSX) (still have it).

OTOH, in many cases, this rule applies even for the not so exotic girlfriend... how you pick and select is critically important. Some lessons are only learned the painful way...

I think a little unrelated and visually satisfying wisdom is never a bad thing to have in a thread; it's humanizing; but then, I'm certainly not the worlds best (or strictest) moderator, and often personally guilty of breaking the "rules" .


:B

[DigitalMaven]

They sound extremely good compared to my laptop speakers...;>)

[Renron]

Troublemaker #2 here.........
Thanks for putting us back on track here digitalMaven.
Ron

[Antonio Tucci]

Back to the issue of sensitivity...
do you think it is possible to increase the sensitivity of Ardents by
- utilizing the acoustuic elegance woofers (that have sensitivity >94-95 dB/2.83V)
- increasing the volume to 70-80 liters?

[Scottg]

The midrange also limit's efficiency. Even some gain from diffraction is largely higher in freq. (..due to the unique baffle shape). On top of that you'll have some losses from the crossover.

https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/approx-5-midrange/accuton-c90-6-079-5-ceramic-dome-midrange/

The design would need a complete re-work (different driver selection for midrange and woofers) to get substantively greater efficiency.

If you like this design but need more power from a well-reputed amplifier design, consider "DIY" nCore amplifiers.



It's a very nice design, but it isn't an efficient design - and if that's something you are after you'll need to look elsewhere. ops:

[neuro]

You could go MTM, whats another $1k in parts cost ?
Now you will need a lower noise floor amp compared to what would be acceptable on the original design, maybe more $ .
You should be able to keep the baffle width so at least that input to the xover design is constant. You could keep the low to mid xover frequency but then you'd be "wasting" some of the potential of adding another mid. I believe MTMs have their own body of xover design theory, so it may be a dead end to try and minimally modify the original crossover (where minimally at least means changing (nearly?) every component in the mid to get the same FR for double drivers, plus changes to the high and low networks to account for the new sensitivity goal).
On the other end of the number of mids spectrum, could go to zero instead of two. The AE woofers tend to stretch up high and the SS tweeter stretches relatively low. That probably deserves its own thread for discussion though...

[JonMarsh]

Back to the issue of sensitivity...
do you think it is possible to increase the sensitivity of Ardents by
- utilizing the acoustuic elegance woofers (that have sensitivity >94-95 dB/2.83V)
- increasing the volume to 70-80 liters?

70 to 80L would not be enough volume increase to provide the same bass extension at high efficiency. Hoffman's iron law rules that out- sensitivity and LF bandwidth are inextricably linked to enclosure volume.

The C79 does not have the efficiency to match up with the Acoustic Elegance drivers. For that, you need something like the C173-6-90, as used in the Avalon Isis or my own build. then you'll need a 93 dB efficient tweeter, such as the newer ScanSpeak Beryllium dome. And probably should plan on 140 to 160L. A bigger version of these.






And you'll still have to give up 4-5 dB for baffle step compensation. True 90 dB for 2.83VRMS speakers are very rare, and usually somewhat low impedance. These will both, about 3 ohms through the bass region, with three 9 ohm woofers in parallel, with six passive radiators. All of that comes with a steep BOM cost, about $15K.

[Zvu]

Nice...

http://www.audioxpress.com/article/test-bench-wavecor-sw223bd03-8-75-inch-high-xmax-subwoofer

[Renron]

Happily listening to my Ardents at medium volume. They can play loud enough to drive anyone out of the room.
Thanks Jon!

[technodanvan]

I'm slowly gathering the parts to build a pair of these. Are people just making their own baffles at this point?

[BobEllis]

I think everyone after the initial group did our own baffles. Not nearly as hard as it looks. Mark the facet edges. Handsaw off most of the facet then use a plane/power plane/belt sander to the pencil line. Done with all cuts in about the time it takes to build and set up a tablesaw jig.

[technodanvan]

I'm not too terribly worried about the facets, it's the laminating that I always find to be a tedious, messy process. No way around it though.

[TEK]

Lamination? As in laminating together several pices of plywood to get a baffel of the wanted thickness, or as in veneering?

I placed the plates on top of each other and used drilled holes and wooden dowels to avoid that the sheets moved sideways when I glued them together.
But one advice is to ensure that you add a side sheet of thin plywood for the whole side of the speaker to ensure that you do not get a edge between the baffel and the sides of the speakers. As the baffel is very thick and the wood are in another direction than the side of the speaker - this will easly happend if you do not take actions to avoid it.

If you do not like veneering you could of course go for spray paint :-)

[BobEllis]

I took the easier way out - since I had excess material I just glued two layers together with a clamp across each end until I had a few vertical clamps tight. Repeat with the double layers after driver cut outs. Then used a 2" flush trim bit guiding on the third layer down - it was most recessed on one edge. You're going to have to trim the 1/16" excess baffle width anyway, so I used my tablesaw to trim to width so that it just needed a touch of sanding to go flush.

I went the epoxy route for sealing. You pretty much have to do a gloss finish after it, and need to coat the show side with epoxy after lamination because there will be bleed through. And I still have a little bit of seam telegraphing through. I'd probably go TEK's route if I did it again. My girlfriend says they look and sound great and I am not allowed to re-veneer them.

[technodanvan]

Lamination? As in laminating together several pices of plywood to get a baffel of the wanted thickness, or as in veneering?

I placed the plates on top of each other and used drilled holes and wooden dowels to avoid that the sheets moved sideways when I glued them together.
But one advice is to ensure that you add a side sheet of thin plywood for the whole side of the speaker to ensure that you do not get a edge between the baffel and the sides of the speakers. As the baffel is very thick and the wood are in another direction than the side of the speaker - this will easly happend if you do not take actions to avoid it.

If you do not like veneering you could of course go for spray paint :-)

Laminating as in gluing several layers of materials together for thickness. I just find it messy most time I do it. I like the idea of adding an additional layer to the sides. Unsure how I'll finish them, honestly I might just pay someone to veneer, coat, and polish them (or fiberglass, paint, and polish them) as I really don't enjoy that part of the job. We'll see what's available when the time comes in 2020.

Is that being a bit too pessimistic?

I took the easier way out - since I had excess material I just glued two layers together with a clamp across each end until I had a few vertical clamps tight. Repeat with the double layers after driver cut outs. Then used a 2" flush trim bit guiding on the third layer down - it was most recessed on one edge. You're going to have to trim the 1/16" excess baffle width anyway, so I used my tablesaw to trim to width so that it just needed a touch of sanding to go flush.

Also not a bad idea. I'd rather have a little too much wood than not enough, especially when we're talking about bamboo. Though I might follow what our dark lord did with the Kurosawa project and source some of that pin block material, at least for the baffles. Do you think he'd mind if I went with a nice shade of white?

I think I feel my throat tightening already...

[JonMarsh]

If you look at the original Ardent thread, you can see some stuff about laying up and clamping pieces to make the front panel; it's recommended unless you have a dedicated beech work bench to use some heavy angle iron to assure basic alignment and no warpage of the pieces.

I'd go into more, but short on time, I'm in a McDonald's in Winnemuca NV finishing a light lunch, before proceeding to Boise.

It's been a busy month.

Just ask Steve- we've got a crossover BOM for the Minerva's put together, and will post that soon, too.

[csmielke]

Jon,
My oldest went to Cal State Northridge and I hated that drive from Winnemuca to Boise. I'm sure you loved doing 55mph all the way through Oregon.
Chris

[JonMarsh]

Oh yeah, the Oregon part of the road and the super low speed limits in the towns are JUST LOVELY!

Force Recon was completed successfully, including a one day trip to Idaho Falls, which I was more impressed with in places than I expected to be. Still, it's another 4 hours aways.

Got some stuff dropped off in climate controlled storage in a unit I rented in Boise. Some of the places I was looking at were very close to that storage on Eagle Road. The gal Friday there said that about half of the climate controlled units were held buy people from Southern CA- now I'm from Northern, so wouldn't want to be lumped in with that crowd, but obviously we're more similar than native Idahoans.

Checked a lot of houses and areas while there before heading back on Tuesday. Finished the acquisition of a new to me vehicle which would have been nice to have on the trip- the new FJ is sort of like my old car, a Honda Element, but on steroids and been to the gym to work out and buff up...

The 2WD version gets better gas mileage and has a higher towing capacity than the usual 4WD FJ; it should be good for towing stuff up there...




All I need is a new towing hitch, some LED headlamps, some cattle guard bumpers, and a pair of 50 cal to deal with the Idaho militias.* :W

Get it put into the full Mad Max mode...








*most of that is in progress already...

[csmielke]

Jon,
Glad the recon went well. Eagle road is certainly in my old stomping grounds though, traffic is heavier than when I lived there. Certainly not by Cali. standards I'm sure. No worries on the militia stuff as that was mostly in Northern Idaho. Suv/trucks are very much the vehicles of choice. The Toyota is perfect there and 2wd is fine since they don't get much snow in Boise (high desert). Driving north you get into snow country pretty quick and 4wd would be valuable for those excursions. Actually come to think of it, the cattle guards could come in handy on those highways with open range signs, especially at night. Kind of a wake up when you come up on a herd of black angus prime in the middle of the road.
Chris