My HT - New Pics

[avaserfi]

So I finally have a camera that works and works very well. Everyone can thank WmAx for that!

Here are some pictures of my current set up along with some toys that I will be working on soon enough. The Primus 360's are for a DIY build I am starting and I got a great deal on the whole tower so I ended up getting some rather than just buying the parts direct. I figured I would take the pictures while I had them out to compare to my Jamo's (Which they blew away if you are interested more on this later).

The display:

The electronics:

The front left Jamo is the one with the grille on in the first pic:

The front right and my sub:

Right side surround:

Rear surrounds:

So far I am very happy with the Jamo's but I love to learn and like having projects so I figured I would try my hand a build with the guidance of experience. I ended up purchasing the now out of production Primus 360's.

One thing to note is that the Jamo's I own retail for half of what the 360's originally did. Build quality I would say goes to the Jamo's the cabinet is far more inert as the 360 cabinet seems hollow. The first thing I noticed between the 360's and Jamo's was the experience was far richer with the 360's. After testing off axis treble (by ear) it seemed clear that the 360's had a better response allowing me to go far more off axis than the Jamo's. Further listening revealed that the 360's are more neutral than the Jamo's which tend to be slightly warm. There seemed to be more detail in the Primus pair, but slightly more pronounce sibilance as well while the imaging of the two speakers was very similar although it seemed the 360's were more forgiving to placement error. On the low end the Primus pair had far more which makes sense comparing to 6.5" drivers to the Jamo's one 5", but the Primus pair was pretty boomy IMO. Overall it seemed the 360 is a more detailed speaker that is far more musical than the Jamo which is to be expected given price differences.

Just for fun when my girl came over I subjected her to a single blinded test to see which she would like better. I did not make a peep while she was listening until I asked her for an analysis. She liked the 360's more saying they had a "richer sound" and finally realized there is a difference between speakers .

All testing was done using Pure direct mode without bass management so lack of bass with the Jamo's and the boomyness of the 360's could be overcome with proper bass management.

Tracks used:

Queen - Bohemian Rahpsody
Beatles - I am the Walrus
Chesky Records - Spanish Harlem
Chesky Records - Flute Conerto In D

 

[Sheep]

Your acoustic traps could use some steroids

Do those Jamo speakers have a midrange driver around the tweeter, or is that just an elaborate baffle? Nice looking rig, and digs.

SheepStar

 

[avaserfi]

Your acoustic traps could use some steroids

Do those Jamo speakers have a midrange driver around the tweeter, or is that just an elaborate baffle? Nice looking rig, and digs.

SheepStar

The traps straddling the corners are about 6" deep (4" OC705) and the ones on the walls are about 4" (2" OC705). The GAF was basically 0 on these but I got her flowers and she realizes how much they mean to me plus the work that went into them.

The Jamo speakers use something they call DTT, decoupled tweeter technology. The tweeter is supposed to be decoupled from the rest of the cabinet allowing for a more linear and better top end. With the design compromises taken with the speakers I have I don't think it is the most useful thing in the world, but on their higher end speakers it does seem to have an effect.

The tweeter, unusually placed below the bass/mid driver, is itself a fairly standard soft-dome type, but it's mounted with minimal contact to a separate, die-cast front plate. The theory is that by having the minimum amount of contact with the mounting it is effectively 'decoupled' from the rest of the speaker and therefore separated from any potentially harmful bass resonances which may be generated within the cabinet.

Source.

 

[Sheep]

The traps straddling the corners are about 6" deep (4" OC705) and the ones on the walls are about 4" (2" OC705). The GAF was basically 0 on these but I got her flowers and she realizes how much they mean to me plus the work that went into them.

The Jamo speakers use something they call DTT, decoupled tweeter technology. The tweeter is supposed to be decoupled from the rest of the cabinet allowing for a more linear and better top end. With the design compromises taken with the speakers I have I don't think it is the most useful thing in the world, but on their higher end speakers it does seem to have an effect.



Source.

That doesn't make much sense.. the tweeter isn't going to resonate like a midrange driver... but, I don't own a speaker company.

SheepStar

 

[Davemcc]

The room looks kinda tight for 7.1, but it's also kinda cool that you fit it all in. Am I correct in guessing that the Primus are going to get some type of WmAx upgrade?

 

[avaserfi]

That doesn't make much sense.. the tweeter isn't going to resonate like a midrange driver... but, I don't own a speaker company.

SheepStar

The tweeter doesn't but the woofer and midrange will cause the cabinet to resonate and this possibly affect the tweeter. This DTT is supposed to keep the tweeter from being affected by the other drivers interaction with the cabinet.

The room looks kinda tight for 7.1, but it's also kinda cool that you fit it all in. Am I correct in guessing that the Primus are going to get some type of WmAx upgrade?

The room is a little tight for the 7.1 set up but the rear speakers were a gift so I worked with it. If everything goes well with the speaker build I will likely be dropping back down to 5.1.

While the drivers and crossovers will be salvaged for it will be for a complete redesign of the cabinet, so the original cabinets will be thrown away. WmAx is helping me in the design of the new cabinets which is currently in the very early stages of design. I have a Woofer Tester 3 and will be getting all necessary specifications to design the cabs shortly. I hope to have the front two speakers done during my Christmas break.

 

[croseiv]

Very nice set-up there avaserfi!

 

[majorloser]

Nice crib

(It's about time you put up some pics)

 

[avaserfi]

Nice crib

(It's about time you put up some pics)

I had some pictures up from my original wires everywhere set up as well as after I cleaned that up, but this time I have a good camera so you can see the pictures clearly!

 

[mike c]

are you going to disect the primus speakers?

you saying the primus speakers are better than your jamo speakers?

 

[avaserfi]

are you going to disect the primus speakers?

Ohh yeah, they are going to be taken apart. Along side those two towers I have another equivalent set of drivers and crossovers for a third tower as well as the drivers and crossovers for two Primus 160's for use as surrounds. I just happened to get a good deal on the actual towers so I picked them up. So in the end I will have a five channel set up built out of this.

you saying the primus speakers are better than your jamo speakers?

I did enjoy the 360's more that my Jamo's, but as I said retail the Primus speakers cost double what the Jamo's do so there should be a difference.

 

[WmAx]

The room looks kinda tight for 7.1, but it's also kinda cool that you fit it all in. Am I correct in guessing that the Primus are going to get some type of WmAx upgrade?

This is a multi-stage upgrade. Aversfi is performing all labor. I am a consultant on this project. Ultimately, this will be a very high end, incredibly linear monopole system with extremely wide dispersion(imagine no more than 2db variation at even 70 degrees horizontal at 15khz) and virtually no resonances to cause timbre distortion/coloration. The Primus 360 was chosen because it has incredibly high quality mid-range drivers(that are simply excellent, regardless of any price), and a moderate quality tweeter(that will be changed out later) with a decent crossover(which will be later removed and replaced with full active DSP crossover) that will provide moderately high level sound quality until the final stages are complete to make this into an extremely high quality speaker system that should rival any monopole for sound quality, regardless of price.

The stages of up-grade:

1) High grade, virtually inert cabinet system with no audible resonance(s).

2) Replacement of stock tweeter with a wide dispersion specific model planar tweeter(the cabinet is being built to facilitate this option later).

3) Replacement of stock xover system with fully active DSP crossover.

4) Build stereo subwoofers and relieve the main channels of bass duty.

Preliminary cabinet details:

-1" HDF woofer section with 2" metal C-channel, 1/4" thick, every 2" spaced vertically epoxied to the HDF inner walls. 2"x2" oak connecting all walls at no more than 3-4" spacing, in X, Y and Z axis(matrix cage), except for driver clearance, of course.

-Mid/tweeter module uses same bracing construction, with an additional external layer of HDF with a constrained damping layer between the two units.

-4" radius on front vertical edges of cabinet, to facilitate the wide off axis response of the non-wave guided planar tweeter to be added later.

-Suspension between woofer module and midrange module. The woofer module is intended to be engineered to push the wall resonances well over the bandwidth of the woofers. The mid-range module must not excite the band of resonances that still exist above this range, thus a suspension will de-couple the two units.

-Chris

 

[avaserfi]

This is a multi-stage upgrade.

I didn't want to bore everyone with the details . Now that they probably are: I can't wait to get deeper in design and the build. I am learning quiet a bit from this project and having a blast. I just need longer days so I can get more done.

The main reason I decided to do this is to learn. Amazing speakers will just be a side effect .

 

[annunaki]

Sounds like quite a project, especially the cabinet construction.

 

[avaserfi]

Sounds like quite a project, especially the cabinet construction.

I figure if I am going to put the time and effort into something I enjoy it should be done right . Plus this is the best way to learn about the subject which seems to be very overlooked and one I really want to learn about.

I plan on taking pictures the whole way through. I am sure there will be some interesting story coming of this.

 

[Davemcc]

It sounds like quite a project. I'm looking forward to the results.