Danley DTS-10, or other?

J

jostenmeat

Audioholic Spartan
Update please........
Moved it into HT. Waiting on amp. Received automated msg from UPS about needing to sign for a delivery, and I assume it must be for amp. I have discovered I know three people with a Dremel, but have not succeeded in borrowing any of them. Sub is freaking heavy.
 
MidnightSensi

MidnightSensi

Audioholic Samurai
Moved it into HT. Waiting on amp. Received automated msg from UPS about needing to sign for a delivery, and I assume it must be for amp. I have discovered I know three people with a Dremel, but have not succeeded in borrowing any of them. Sub is freaking heavy.
Sears a lot of times has sales on tools over labor day, might be something to look for if you want one. Not sure if they will this year, but, they normally do.
 
J

jostenmeat

Audioholic Spartan
Sears a lot of times has sales on tools over labor day, might be something to look for if you want one. Not sure if they will this year, but, they normally do.
Thanks, but I hope to just borrow it. I do very little in the way of DIY. I have no idea when the next time I'll even use my soldering iron or staple gun again, both of which I bought for this project. But, those combined are still less than half of a Dremel I think.
 
J

jostenmeat

Audioholic Spartan
So I was putting together my LFE cable, and I realized I want 2 pole connectors on the amp end, and since I waited until now to do it, I lose an additional $9.40 in shipping. Locking bananas are on for now.

My package is supposed to arrive somewhere between 8am and 7pm tomorrow, I think, and I have to sign for this one. If I'm not home, they will leave a note with "options" (but I've heard that one before; usually it's more like a command I think). I hope to have it by Friday at the latest (otherwise I am fearful I won't get it until next week). :rolleyes::(

The sub is sitting lengthwise now, next to rack, after playing around with the idea, and it offers a nice long bar of sorts to put blurays, remote, etc. I often put that stuff on top of the rack, so this is nice, because I don't have to buy additional shelving for my modular rack (which is a major pain, because I have to remove all equipment to flip the rack upside down to add shelving).

Anyways . . . that's my latest. heh.
 
Patrukas777

Patrukas777

Senior Audioholic
So I was putting together my LFE cable, and I realized I want 2 pole connectors on the amp end, and since I waited until now to do it, I lose an additional $9.40 in shipping. Locking bananas are on for now.

My package is supposed to arrive somewhere between 8am and 7pm tomorrow, I think, and I have to sign for this one. If I'm not home, they will leave a note with "options" (but I've heard that one before; usually it's more like a command I think). I hope to have it by Friday at the latest (otherwise I am fearful I won't get it until next week). :rolleyes::(

The sub is sitting lengthwise now, next to rack, after playing around with the idea, and it offers a nice long bar of sorts to put blurays, remote, etc. I often put that stuff on top of the rack, so this is nice, because I don't have to buy additional shelving for my modular rack (which is a major pain, because I have to remove all equipment to flip the rack upside down to add shelving).

Anyways . . . that's my latest. heh.
Sooo close...A lot of us can't wait to hear your impressions of that beast of a sub. Really looking forward to what you have to say once you get it dialed in.
 
ParadigmDawg

ParadigmDawg

Audioholic Overlord
Did you do any type of finish on it?
So I was putting together my LFE cable, and I realized I want 2 pole connectors on the amp end, and since I waited until now to do it, I lose an additional $9.40 in shipping. Locking bananas are on for now.

My package is supposed to arrive somewhere between 8am and 7pm tomorrow, I think, and I have to sign for this one. If I'm not home, they will leave a note with "options" (but I've heard that one before; usually it's more like a command I think). I hope to have it by Friday at the latest (otherwise I am fearful I won't get it until next week). :rolleyes::(

The sub is sitting lengthwise now, next to rack, after playing around with the idea, and it offers a nice long bar of sorts to put blurays, remote, etc. I often put that stuff on top of the rack, so this is nice, because I don't have to buy additional shelving for my modular rack (which is a major pain, because I have to remove all equipment to flip the rack upside down to add shelving).

Anyways . . . that's my latest. heh.
 
J

jostenmeat

Audioholic Spartan
Did you do any type of finish on it?
No. I'm not sure that I will. It would be cool to do my friend's idea of a billion layers of satin black, make it hard as a dance floor, dark as a black hole, but it would cost, take lots of time, and make me clean the garage all over again.

Leaving it be, I suppose it could give me options to match finish if I ever got a second, or if I sold it, perhaps it would be desirable as unfinished since any potential buyer could then match it to his other DTS10.

I've seen just a couple of pics of stained DTS10s, and I was not liking the idea.

Dunno, man, dunno.
 
MidnightSensi

MidnightSensi

Audioholic Samurai
No. I'm not sure that I will. It would be cool to do my friend's idea of a billion layers of satin black, make it hard as a dance floor, dark as a black hole, but it would cost, take lots of time, and make me clean the garage all over again.

Leaving it be, I suppose it could give me options to match finish if I ever got a second, or if I sold it, perhaps it would be desirable as unfinished since any potential buyer could then match it to his other DTS10.

I've seen just a couple of pics of stained DTS10s, and I was not liking the idea.

Dunno, man, dunno.
Pft, I still vote AwlGrip or taking it to a Line-X shop if you want something industrial and easy. Staining that is going to look like f**k imo.

Easiest is to take it to the Line-X shop. Perfect for that sub, that's basically how they finish them at Danley anyways.
 
J

jostenmeat

Audioholic Spartan
My amp arrived! But, my speakon won't plug into cab anymore. I think when soldering, the tabs maybe bent some from heat, and I'm going to google pics to see if I can get a better idea of how the outside tabs (or all the tabs) look like. I laid the sub down to get a better look, and to make tweaking it easier, but I think I'm at a loss. A rewiring/resoldering could be in order if I don't figure it out. And I just ordered speakons last night, gah, so that would be another shipping charge (and yet more wait time, again).

Sheesh. BTW, is soldering typical or not with the tabs on the interior? And I have to leave soon too, atm.

OH chit, I see I should have bought this kind: (oh great, out of stock at PE until 7/12). edit: ordered the last one from amazon reseller. just in case I can't fix the issue. gah.


and not this kind. Didn't know


This is what i need to look at for a fix:


I can't see the outer left metal tab, but I will have to go with the little I can make out, with the right outer tab (assuming my inner tabs are still fine).
 
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J

jostenmeat

Audioholic Spartan
My deep thoughts on speakon connectors.

Well, with the long weekend, I am too impatient to wait for the shipments to arrive, so I found a place near me where I can buy the plugs. Unfortunately, they didn't have the screw type, only the tabbed type. I thought they had the screw type initially, because I asked about the female plug specifically, and then I learned that the plate plug is actually called the male. That's just weird and misleading, if you ask me! So, they are called plate plug or cable plug, to avoid confusion, or so I was taught.

My plate plug is toast. Can't get the tabs to stay at the inner pole. Put new one in, and this time I bought some spades/sleeves (what are they called anyways), and my first crimping tool. The bigger sleeves that can fit my 12 AWG are just too big, where they will touch each other! So, I had to make do with smaller sleeves. I am paranoid of them coming off the tabs, even after crimping, because I have no idea how much pressure/force happens inside, next to the drivers. When the new "screw type" arrives, sigh, to put that on I'll have to remove both hatches again, and man I'm getting sort sick of doing this whole thing.

So, I just got it all back together, will go watch some Stanley Cup and bball, and hopefully read the Crown manual tonight or tomorrow. Take notes of present settings, use RS meter to get sub gain right, defeat Audyssey, and see how it all works out . . .

I bought some "female" plugs to replace the bananas. Interestingly, they only sold the 4 poles, as they said the price difference with the 2 pole is negligible, and it offers more future proofing. I wired them to 1+ and 1-, but what happens if I put them on 2+ and 2-?

And goddammittohell but those 1+/1- things are near impossible to make out, depending on the plug. The new plate plug is MUCH easier to read.

I saw they had enormous 8 pole plugs at the store too. I wonder how big they can get.

The new plug, with crimped wires. Not extremely secure, but relatively secure. Aw man, it's so blurry.

 
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J

jostenmeat

Audioholic Spartan
Hey, Midnight, can you help out this mental midget?

I fired her up, and I have sound. I see that my sub is actually running "cold" compared to my front stage, and left it that way for now.

My amp meters: only the one on the left goes up and down. The right one just stays at minimum, or "ready".

I had the wires with normal polarity, and it appears I wrongly assumed I could just flip one channel out of phase somehow in the menu/setup, but didn't see that, so I rewired the speakon for speaker 1 to be out of phase (if I understood the Danley diagram correctly).

In the menu, it is already set as "stereo", which I presume was the default.

My plate speakon has a bit of rotational give, and I wonder if I did that by trying to get it to work with the busted plug. You know, just trying think of everything, but then it still doesn't make sense that the right meter/amp is not powering/showing anything.

When I set the gain knob on left to zero, and there is no sound. How do I make sure I don't have a faulty amp?

Hm... I guess I can disconnect my front speakers for instance, and just hook those up directly to the amp. In fact, I'm going to cycle the power of the Crown right now.

I wonder if this is user error, or what the heck is going on . . . Got about an hour more of play time, before BBQ time . . .


Other questions:
Are the knobs best left at maximum, assuming the clip lights never/rarely come on? (an easier way to figure this out?)

Just leave the clip limiters defeated?
 
J

jostenmeat

Audioholic Spartan
Ok, I'm a retard, I don't have a y splitter connected. Just using a single XLR, and from previous readings on going mono-bridged, I totally forgot about the stereo thingy.

I don't know if I ever bought a Y splitter! LOL

Samson is still in the box.

Yay, I have an extra XLR male/female, and I used that on the link out of ch 1, to the input of ch2. All is good! (this connection is totally fine, right, no need to buy splitters or anything . . . )

Running various scenes from LOTR right now (since I'm familiar enough to beeline towards certain scenes).

Going to now raise gain knobs to max, and rerun last scene . ..
 
J

jostenmeat

Audioholic Spartan
Knob gains at max = HELL YEAH! lol

This new item in a new location is obviously in great need of EQ. I am looking forward to running Audyssey for it, and what kind of subjective improvements that will bring for me.
 
MidnightSensi

MidnightSensi

Audioholic Samurai
Amplifiers can reach full power regardless of where the gain knobs are set at. They are just input attenuators.

To set the gains, disconnect the subwoofer and play full range pink noise (like off a test disc) through the pre-amp at nearly max volume (since the receiver doesn't have a clip light, you just figure +5 or +10 or so is getting there), now turn up the gain knobs until the clip light just flickers, now back it off a tad. Reconnect your subwoofer and your gain has been set properly. :)

It's called gain staging. Your making it so that your receiver and amplifier clip at the same point, which maximizes your headroom... but also keeps the noise floor the lowest. :)
 
J

jostenmeat

Audioholic Spartan
Thanks a lot, Midnight! I will be sure to leave my mch amplifier as off, because if my speakers tried to handle +10 for a moment, I'd probably blow some things up. I did remember you talked about this a bit at some point, and I found it here.

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=713711&postcount=61

But, I'm glad I asked about it again, as your instructions here are very clear and easy enough to follow. When I do read that older post again, I have to admit that I wonder if my gasket is good enough. I took my plug to the store, and it looked like it was 7/8" gasket (inner diameter?) I think it was that fitted best, from the plumbing section. It's not the very thickest of gaskets, but I suppose it should be fine, but then I only have two screws holding in the plug . . .

My back is mildly injured, muscular, left side. I'm thinking about naming the sub Shaq, after the basketball player, because it weighs just about as much as the dude. Moving it around by myself, getting it into corner, back out of, back in again, to recheck my plugs, reinstall a plug, whatever, has taken its toll. I was taking advil for most of yesterday.

I then thought I really wanted to play with the horn location at corner, floor, upright, etc, but there's just no way I should do this myself at this point.

With my briefest of testing yesterday, I actually don't like what I hear. However, it's completely uncalibrated still, phase unaccounted for, etc. The sub is said to require EQ, the new location might be more problematic than I know, the greater output may be simply making my modal issues all the more pronounced, and my ears are too used to having Audyssey engaged.

OTOH, it's pretty obvious that this thing is capable of a lot of output. I feel like I haven't even touched or come close to what it can possibly do. Just a guess.

I'll see if I can get the gain staging, and a first run of Audyssey done, late tonight (when all is quiet). I didn't want to do the MultEQXT until I felt more secure about my sub placement, but I'm not really in any condition atm to do anything about that.

My 130 lbs JL feels like a paperweight at this point!
 
U

ufokillerz

Audioholic Intern
danley posted that this thing weighs 285lbs in the complete specs, i believe the amp in it is 17 lbs, which makes this amp approx 268lbs or so!
 
J

jostenmeat

Audioholic Spartan
Amplifiers can reach full power regardless of where the gain knobs are set at. They are just input attenuators.

To set the gains, disconnect the subwoofer and play full range pink noise (like off a test disc) through the pre-amp at nearly max volume (since the receiver doesn't have a clip light, you just figure +5 or +10 or so is getting there), now turn up the gain knobs until the clip light just flickers, now back it off a tad. Reconnect your subwoofer and your gain has been set properly. :)

It's called gain staging. Your making it so that your receiver and amplifier clip at the same point, which maximizes your headroom... but also keeps the noise floor the lowest. :)
Ok, MS, so I did it. However, even at +10, playing full range pink noise, the amp meters are basically at the second light, -20, and maybe just a few times hit the -10 (3rd light). It never hit the clip, let alone thermal. Oh, that's with the knobs at max.

Would this mean that I would benefit from the Samson? Someone was saying that Onkyos in general (and I think perhaps either specifically 875/876 or something, which is very similar to mine), have plenty of preout voltage to drive commercial amps (which is why the Samson is still in the box). I guess I could raise the gain (or whatever the right term is), in the receiver menu too?

As always, appreciate the feedback man.
 

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