Possible speaker projects, etc.
First of many ideas:
Here are the basic details: 1. Two 15 open baffle woofers mounted on a large damped, dead and braced open baffle. 2. Two midrange drivers in d'apollito configuration on another dead , damped and braced open baffle with a Beryllium or AMT tweeter in between. The tweeter set back for time alignment and with plenty of felt around all three drivers. If you are using a forward firing driver then another tweeter can be mounted on rear to give some dipole coverage of highs. A dipole AMT like the ESS will not need a rear tweeter. 3. A three channel amp would sit right behind each channels baffles and tri-amp the system. The speaker wires would be hardwired directly from the amp to the xover parts or directly to the midrange drivers. Here are more specifics: The two woofers would be the Acoustic Elegance Dipole 15 woofers.....these things are incredible. The xover for these woofs would be 12 gauge Jantzen toroidal core coils or 10 gauge foil coil ferrite core from Mundorf and super caps. These two inductors have the lowest impedance and therefore give the woofers the best control. The xover parts would be damped on a separate isolated stand behind the woofer panel. The wires from the coil would be soldered using super wire directly to the voice coil wires on each speaker.....the two drivers would be wired in parallel to give a 4 ohm load at around 93db sensitivity.....so 500 watts into 4 ohms will play at least 110db. The woofer panels would be moved relative to the mid/high panel so they would give perfect time alignment at your seating position......set by ear and measurement. The midrange drivers would be a pair of the new Purifi 8 ohm 6.5 inch mid range drivers. These drivers are not yet for sale...but will be soon. They would be wired in parallel to give around 94db+ sensitiviy. These midranges would be wired directly from one channel of the amp to the voice coil wires of the speakers. The xover for the midranges would be a two pole passive filter before the discrete input stage on the midrange amp. These small parts would be the worlds best and have practically no sound. 12 db per octave. There would be no xover on the bottom of the midranges. Because of the dipole effect the midrange speakers will not put out much energy by themselves below 150hz......and they have plenty of excursion so 500 watts into 4 ohms will drive them to over 115db in room. The tweeter could be the latest Bliesma Berylluim tweeter. This high senstivity tweeter can handle tons of power and is suppose to be super. The tweeter xover would be a simple cap and coil.....using super parts. Another option would be the great AMT tweeter from ESS (much cheaper and also dipole so you only need two). The matching of the tweeter to the mids and lows would be accomplised by adjusting the gain of each amp so the speaker measures flat. This way there are no resistors after the amp....none. The tweeter would be set back from the midranges so the voice coils align giving excellent time alignment. Felt would be placed around the mids and tweet so that only the cones that move would not be covered. The xover between the mids and tweets would be aournd 2K. The panels would be made from three layers of three quarter inch material.....alternating between birch plywood, bamboo plywood and highly refined MDF. Wings on the backside would double as braces. You would not need wings for the mid/high panel but you do want it braced. You could also use green glue in between layers for even more damping. Massive stands and bracing would go up most of the way on the back of each panel. They would be super dead. The amps would be VTV large chassis three channel Purifi amps using two 1200 watt power supplies. There are new Purifi higher powered modules about to go on sale and these sound better, even when using low power. One power supply would be for the woofer amp and the other would run the mid and high amps. These two three channel amps would be modified by me using air core coils on the output of the mid and high units.....and all the other mods I do. The speaker wire is hardwired directly inside the amp. You could also use one NC1200 in place of a Purifi module for even more bass power. The speaker wire would be custom cryoed 14 guage PCOCC Neotech litz wire for the mids and highs and Furutech cryoed 11 gauge wire for the woofers. There would be no spades or any connectors as all wires are soldered everywhere. The wire would be tried in both directions to see whch direction sounds best. All wires would be suspended from the floor.
Ground Enhancers would be mounted directly to to the ground terminal of each driver. Bybee Quantum Clarifiers would be placed on the back of each midrange and woofer (8 total).
Here are some links to the drivers and parts:
http://aespeakers.com/shop/dipole/dipole15
You would get the two 16 ohm tap verson and wire them in parallel and then both drivers in parallel to get a four ohm load
https://purifi-audio.com/transducers/ptt6-5w08/ The drivers would be wired in parallel to ge a four ohm load......this is not the driver you want, please see the Purifi site for the new dedicated midrange driver.
You could use a much cheaper tweater on the rear for rear high frequency addition....but for best sound and matching sensitivity I would use the same tweeter on the rear (you can alwasy pad down the rear tweeter to taste and room).
https://vtvamplifier.com/product/vtv-amplifier-three-channel-purifi-audio-1et400a-amplifier/
The above link is for a three channel amp with a 3000 watt supply......what you really want is two 1200 watt supplies. Warren at VTV can do this for you.....no problem......and you want the new not yet released modules from Purifi. I will update this info when the new Purifi amps and Purifi drivers are available to purchase.
The above video shows two 12 inch Acoustic Elegance open baffle drivers used on a 3 way tri-amped speaker. One could make a similar thing using 2 mids and have it look fantastic and sound incredible. However, you really want to time align the mids and tweets to the woofers.....in this case it was done digitally in the digital xover. If you had to do it mechanically then you would want the mids and tweets stepped back on the bafflee.....very complex thing to do. This is why I prefer to have the bass on a separate panel......you can time align easily and there is less interaction betwen the bass and mid/highs. Plus it allows you to make new baffles for either different mids/highs or woofs without messing with the entire design. Here is a basic parts list and approximate costs:
4 Acoustic Elegance Dipole 15 woofers $2000 About $19K plus finishing. You could substitute less expensive woofer, midranges, tweeters without much lose of quality.
Let's quickly look at some of the limitations of the Wilson Alexx speaker as compared to the above: 1. The Wilson speaker has 4 sets of binding posts in series with the mids and highs.....one set in series with the woofers. It also has one set of speaker spades in series with the mids and highs. All connectors veil the sound. 2. It uses Caddock power resistors to pad the mids and highs. There is no perfect resistor but I have found that bypassing a power Caddock resistor with a Nude Vishay resistor is way more transparent. 3. The midrange and woofers are most likely wired to the posts or tabs on the drivers. I have never seen a manufacturer solder the wires from the xover directly to the voice coil wire. Bypassing the speaker connector gives more information. Less is more. 4. The midrange drivers are in a box......therefore limiting the openess they can give. The midrange drivers have speaker level xover parts......using a line level xover using nude Vishy resistors and copper foil poly caps is way more transparent.....plus you need no veiled large power resistors. Certainly the Wilsons will have great bass....and maybe more than the above speaker......however, you could use 4 15 inch woofers per side and blow your brains out. However, a major problem with the Wilsons is there low impdance. You really need super high current amplification to drive them to the max....so, you then you have to buy an expensive monster amp to drive them. If you design a speaker with reasonable impedance than you have lots more possiblilies of amps to use and for way less money. More to come. The above pics show another custom speaker option using B&G midrange and tweeters (now unavailable) ans using servo woofers on the bottom. Harold has the speakers way to far apart....here. He has redone the setup. I will try and get some updated pics. Notice the 12 gauge foil coil in series with the midrange, Clarity Cap MRs....Jupiter copper foil bypass caps and 14 gauge Neotech litz wire...all sitting on cardboard/wood slabs...for good sound. No cables touching the rug. Pics below are a crossover I made for a customer who has custom Apogee Duetta ribbon speakers. More info to come about this......an incredible speaker.
Even larger pic showing all parts now upgraded to latest goodies, I will have pics of the entire Apogee Duetta system soon.
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