Speaker Decisions

[Hi Ho]

I am most likely going to purchase a Yamaha RX-V2700 next week through my employer at less than half retail cost. To go with my major receiver upgrade, I may want some new speakers. Some here may remember my hastily completed high school senior project, THESE speakers. I was pleasantly surprised with the sound from them but they have their flaws, most notably in home theater. They have a "hollow" sound with voices, something I do not notice with music, and they have a bit of harshness in "S" sounds. These speakers really weren't engineered. I used WinISD to get a box volume and port lenght and I used a standard P arts E xpress crossover design (2500hz).

I have been eyeing the GR-Research AV-1 kit. It looks very nice and I have heard many good things about GR-Research. I know some here have their speakers. What do you think of them? Is it a worthy upgrade from my current speakers or would I be better off redesigning the ones I have? I don't know much of anything about crossover design and I'm thinking that the GR-Research kit may be the best way to go for now. What's your opinion?

 

[B5I8]

If you're into the DIY projects, I suggest you get one of the SEAS kits. Or you can just buy the SEAS drivers if you like. You'll usually find SEAS drivers in very high end speakers. If you do get one of these kits, just keep in mind that they need 200-300 hours of break-in before they really open up.

 

[Swerd]

I am most likely going to purchase a Yamaha RX-V2700 next week through my employer at less than half retail cost. To go with my major receiver upgrade, I may want some new speakers. Some here may remember my hastily completed high school senior project, THESE speakers. I was pleasantly surprised with the sound from them but they have their flaws, most notably in home theater. They have a "hollow" sound with voices, something I do not notice with music, and they have a bit of harshness in "S" sounds. These speakers really weren't engineered. I used WinISD to get a box volume and port lenght and I used a standard P arts E xpress crossover design (2500hz).

I have been eyeing the GR-Research AV-1 kit. It looks very nice and I have heard many good things about GR-Research. I know some here have their speakers. What do you think of them? Is it a worthy upgrade from my current speakers or would I be better off redesigning the ones I have? I don't know much of anything about crossover design and I'm thinking that the GR-Research kit may be the best way to go for now. What's your opinion?

If I remember, you used the Dayton RS 150 and the Dayton silkie tweeter in your speakers that you built. Nothing wrong the with the GR-1, but those Daytons are good drivers and you built some nice cabinets for them. They would benefit from a better designed crossover. You might want to post a question about designing a crossover for those at the PE tech talk site or at the Madisound board. A lot of people have used the RS 150 with a variety of different tweeters, and you could easily adapt one of their designs for the tweeters you have.

I'm not sure what you mean by a "hollow sound" with voices. Does it improve if you move your speakers closer to the wall behind them, or get worse if you move them farther away from that wall? If you think the answer is yes, then you need baffle step compensation (BSC) in your crossover. Read about BSC here http://www.quarter-wave.com/General/BSC_Sizing.pdf. I believe the standard PE crossover you used probably did not deal with that.

 

[billnchristy]

Just a thought.

Why dont you email Danny Ritchie and ask him what you would be losing between the AV1 and the Onix XL-S. He designed the crossover for the X-LS and at a 1/3 of the price if there is not too much to lose then you could get a complete X-LS/X-CS system for the price of a pair of AV1.

He seems like an honest guy and will tell you straight up.

I also suggest you ask him about the AV1 vs. a modded X-LS because you could still come in a couple hundred under and the way I see it he gets money either way because you would buy the X-over upgrades from him anyways and I'm sure he pockets a bit from every X-LS sale as well.

Good luck and good hunting.

You can find him over at the av123 forum or the contact on his page.

 

[Hi Ho]

Thanks for the replies. When I say hollow sound, I mean it sounds a bit boxy. I have come to the conclusion that the boxy sound was from the source, not the speakers. The Advent Smaller Loudspeaker (circa 1977) I'm using as the center speaker isn't detailed enough to reproduce the boxy sound of some voices in TV shows.

Thank you for the suggestion on posting at the PE or Madisound forums. I never thought of that. Hopefully I can get some information their that will help me redesign the crossovers. The drivers are RS-150's and the tweeters are DC28FS silk dome. They are very nice and definetly worth using.

 

[Swerd]

Thanks for the replies. When I say hollow sound, I mean it sounds a bit boxy. I have come to the conclusion that the boxy sound was from the source, not the speakers. The Advent Smaller Loudspeaker (circa 1977) I'm using as the center speaker isn't detailed enough to reproduce the boxy sound of some voices in TV shows.

Thank you for the suggestion on posting at the PE or Madisound forums. I never thought of that. Hopefully I can get some information their that will help me redesign the crossovers. The drivers are RS-150's and the tweeters are DC28FS silk dome. They are very nice and definetly worth using.

I saw John Nail's suggestion on the PE board. A crossover at about 2.5-2.6 kHz, a notch filter to suppress the high end breakup of the wooofer, and about 3 dB baffle step compensation all sounds about right. You should build that. Did you get a schematic from him?

I would use inductor coils no thicker than 16 or 15 gauge for the 1 mH and 0.55 mH that are in series with the woofer, and smaller gauge (18, 19, or 20) for the 0.25 mH and 0.1 mH inductors that are in parallel with the tweeter or wooofer. Madisound sells 16 gauge inductors and PE sells 15 gauge. There is hardly any difference in performance in those. Go for the best price. Remember that all this has to fit inside your cabinets and probably will have to pass in throught the woofer hole.

 

[Hi Ho]

I did get the schematic and I am looking forward to finishing the project. It will be interesting making everything fit through the woofer hole.

 

[Hi Ho]

I have a couple questions. I am building a third identical speaker for use as a center channel. HERE is a picture of where my center speaker is. As you can see, it's sort of boxed in. My question is, should I put the port on the front of the center speaker? I can do it, the problem is that it would look funky.

My second question relates to the gauge of the inductors. My existing crossovers have 18awg air core inductors and are the correct value so that I can reuse them in the new crossover. The 18awg inductors are nearly half the price of the 15awg ones. Would using 18awg inductors affect performance?

My final question involves capacitor values. PE has caps for every value in the schematic except 6.0mfd. The closest is 6.2mfd. Is this a big deal? I could use two 3.0mfd to get 6mfd but I am trying to keep parts to a minimum.

 

[dan711]

If you're into the DIY projects, I suggest you get one of the SEAS kits. Or you can just buy the SEAS drivers if you like. You'll usually find SEAS drivers in very high end speakers. If you do get one of these kits, just keep in mind that they need 200-300 hours of break-in before they really open up.

I second the seas drivers. I have those in my Tyler Acoustic taylo's along with the scanspeak tweeters. Very nice sounding.