darkmatter wrote:mat wrote:
Hi David,
Any update on your project?
mat.
Any news?
Hi Simon, Mat,
Yes, I have a pair of working prototypes in my system, and the finished cabinets are well under way.
Having played around with bass as both ported and sealed, I found that I could not live with the phase issues of the ported bass.
Unfortunately, this means that I am getting a lot less efficiency from my bass driver, which is already -3db @ 100hz in the 130L box. This has meant that I have had to drop the levels of the FR mid and trebble to around 91db using resistors. This is less than ideal, but given that I will be going active soon, it is not critical.
I have not finished tuning the crossovers, but am slowly getting it closer to ideal. The tweeter is still coming in at 17K, but I have raised the level 1 db relative to the mids (well dropped the mids more really).
On the whole, I am very pleased with what I am hearing! They are a step up from the Orators in all areas, and in some respects massively so. Interestingly, with the FR mid, and 1st ordered helper bass and treble, the timing is always very very good, even when the frequency response is very wrong. This has taken away one of the tools that I use for tuning, and makes it much harder to judge.
Their stengths are phenominal clean phase response through the mid and lower treble, great coherence, powerful dynamics, microdynamic detail, and a wicked sound stage. My tuning will be complete when I have kept all that and achieved a smoother frequency response, as I still have a little extra energy in the upper mids.
I have to say that I have not been entirely successful at my design goals, as I really wanted about 95db sensitivity and have had to settle for a lot less. However, in every other area, these things are going to meet or exceed my expectations. I think the secret to this success is that each of the drivers on their own sound fantastic, especially in the critical midrange area. The Seas Exotic tweater has the nicest midrange I have heard from a tweeter, and the field coil bass unit has incredible midrange dynamics. Another thing that has worked is having the crossovers outside the critical range ( they are at 200Hz and 17KHz), and the lovely phase response of the Supravox full range. These combine to give a clean quality to the mids and tops.
Cheers
David
