what the heck did I just buy??

[4-2-7]

Sorry to disappoint you Collin, but money isn't my motivator.

Danny don't trip and I'm personally sorry that your taking you time to help a member here and being insulted left and right by a new member that doesn't no how to behave on audiokarma. If the OP doesn't contact the admin I will.

I'm the one who should be sorry Danny. When I invited you here, I thought you'd be treated with greater respect. I apologize.

You did right to help your fellow member and you can't help the behavior of others.

 

[StimpyWan]

You did right to help your fellow member and you can't help the behavior of others.

Thanks. Now I can see some light at the end of this tunnel. So, let's get those speakers built...!

 

[vagrantdandy]

Thanks. Now I can see some light at the end of this tunnel. So, let's get those speakers built...!

Phew, can I get back to drinking my beer and being excited about a cool build again? Haha

 

[4-2-7]

Phew, can I get back to drinking my beer and being excited about a cool build again? Haha

LOL, stop drinking beer you can't afford it anymore, you got parts to buy..

 

[4-2-7]

So one has to think, just because someone bought cabinets like this for $10, do they want to spend another $1500 + and that is on the cheap side. And in the end they have frankenstein speakers they will never get their money out of.

And if the manufacturer is still around and you could buy all the parts that went into these speakers. If they where a pair of $60,000+, they could sell you all the parts for $35,000 to make them right.

Speaking of pipdreams....

Unless the OP has a lot of money to invest in these cabinets, they should sell them. Find out exactly what they are and sell them to someone that has a old set they want new NOS cabinets for, color change, damage issues and what have you.

I also don't see many members here with $60,000+ speakers so I'd go to a site that members have that kind of gear. They are the ones who might recognize them and give far better leeds.
I'd be asking here, Audioaficionado
https://www.audioaficionado.org/
My two cents

My thinking is build them factory correct, then they will have resale value.

If they where $14,000 and then being sold used for $7000. The OP might want to think about building a pair and trying to sell them at a good profit, might be able to build the second pair for free.

I made these comments early on and still feel it's viable to maybe help fund a pair for vagrantdandy

 

[vagrantdandy]

Well done Vagrantdandy!! I saw them also and thought about it.
So, i asked my wife about selling the canoe.
She knew where i was going with it and asked me if i wanted to sleep in the garage.
I thought about that also.
Glad they went to a fellow Spokanite.

I'll tell you a secret, my lady and I just broke up. 6 years we were together. They say "the best way over someone is by getting under someone" in my case apparently its speakers I'm getting under lol if I were still with her no way I'd have these right now. If I get these built out, I'd love to have a fellow spokanite come have a listen to them. I'll keep you in the loop.

 

[Capt Odyssea]

Wow, what an awesome thread with a totally "Karmic" vibe!
It has me wanting to fund the building of 500 4"drivers........
Now, where will I get my cabinets?
Brilliant general info and project gents.

 

[4-2-7]

If I get these built out, I'd love to have a fellow spokanite come have a listen to them.

Well that could be done regardless of these speakers. Don't be shy I get AKers to come over all the time and it's totally fun.

 

[StimpyWan]

I'll tell you a secret, my lady and I just broke up. 6 years we were together. They say "the best way over someone is by getting under someone" in my case apparently its speakers I'm getting under lol if I were still with her no way I'd have these right now. If I get these built out, I'd love to have a fellow spokanite come have a listen to them. I'll keep you in the loop.

"If you build it, they will come".

 

[vrusso123]

Why don't you buy two of these and see how they fit? if not they're pretty much full range, put em in a little box.

Parts Express sells their Dayton Audio 4" woofer, with a truncated frame. It's a well liked, well reviewed, woofer too.

 

[vagrantdandy]

Wow, what an awesome thread with a totally "Karmic" vibe!
It has me wanting to fund the building of 500 4"drivers........
Now, where will I get my cabinets?
Brilliant general info and project gents.

Got to love audiokarma!

 

[Finjima]

I just forgot the last 2 pages to preserve my sanity. lets get back to having some fun

 

[saabracer23]

I built a line array somewhat similar to those, though I don't have any pics like my smaller tang band ones earlier in the thread. Each speaker used 16 of the Dayton reference 6" with truncated frame and 12 B&G Neo 8s. It used a mini DSP as an active crossover. If Danny can't get you woofers for a price that's within your means then the daytons are a very good option. Even with the Dayton being a "budget" driver, buying that many it will still be pricey. If you can cross actively that'll open up a lot of options for you. You can in a way make the driver work for the cabinet instead of making a cabinet work for a driver.

I thought of a brilliant business model. I'm going to design several very nice speakers and advertise them to let the world know. I will then distribute empty cabinets all around the world to be stored in attics and warehouses to be purchased at bargain prices, I know I will take a small hit. Now here is the genius, when all of these cabinets need populated with drivers and crossovers I come in and rake in all of the cash. I'll be sleeping on a king sized bed of $100 bills in no time!

I was going to say, someone is trying to rack up their thread count. Hmmm

Dan

 

[saabracer23]

Very good post Dan,
I mentioned a bit of John Dunlavy's logic to OP with respect to the difference between his original product: Duntech and his later DAL products. All of the drivers etc. were top notch individual pieces for his, say, Sovereign 2001 however due to cost/profit the design was altered - basically a very similar speaker - to allow lower quality parts to be utilized in a similar design whereby, so I've read, the crossover takes up any sq differences between the high end/high priced original drivers to the less expensive parts used within the DAL SC-V for example.
I believe you are spot on with your first bit. It will all come down to parts costs and crossovers in my opinion.. A fabulous project none the less...
However your second part seems a bit suspect in my opinion..... You know you'd be losing an awful lot of money right off the mark building the cabinets right? Each cabinet, I'd bet, wouldn't be cheap to produce.....

Well then I'll have to find a different business partner. Sure there will be thousands lost on the cabinets, but in 10 to 15 years when the cabinets are being discovered and purchased by fine folks like the op we could rake in millions by selling the components to these suckers, it's all about the money. Mwahahaha

On a serious note, I don't think getting the drivers made through Danny R. is going to happen unless someone wants to purchase the remaining drivers from the 500 unit bunch. So the OP goes with another midbass driver, at this point the crossover designed for this specific speaker will no longer be optimal. The new driver will most definitely have different T/S parameters making it behave differently in that cabinet compared to the original, the original crossover point may not be able to deal with cone break up of say the Dayton Reference driver. Too many variables to contend with. Once you change a driver, you should just forget or at the very least alter the crossover.

I've built and build several DIY speakers designed by very skilled people, Statements by Jim Holtz and Curt Campbell, Continuum by Jeff Bagby, and several others. I spend a lot of time over at techtalk/parts express. DIY has always been my thing and that's pretty much all that they do over there. Although someone just posted an Advent Maestro restoration which I thought was cool because I recently did one.

My suggestion to the OP, hopefully you have four channels of amplification. Buy yourself a mic, like the Dayton measurement mic, quite cheap. It'll allow you to measure your speakers response and you can then tweak it to get it to the response curve you like. Buy yourself a mini DSP, it'll likely be less than the inductors, capacitors, and resistors you'd need to make a crossover. Go over to techtalk and post what you have and what you would like to do. With cabinet volume, driver dimensions and the things listed above you could end up with an incredible speaker that would likely cost less and sound better than using Danny's original crossover design and throwing a random driver in there.

On a side note, I'm willing to help you out. My brother lives in Spokane and I live in Salem, OR. Take him a pair of the cabinets and I'll get them from him. I'll then build the speaker and let you know how it goes

Thanks! I'll get you his address, let me just find it real quick...

Dan

 

[Danny Richie]

I have TB checking to see if they can still make these. They haven't used those frames in a long time. Their newer truncated frame is not the same and not likely to fit the recessed hole. I'll let you guys know when I hear something back.

A word of caution though on the advice from Dan. The Mini DSP is a fun toy to have and a great tool for learning. It packs a lot of computing power into a really cheap package. But there is a reason it is so cheap. The D/A conversion, power supply, and analog output stage is similar in quality to your average $49 CD player. And that is about the way it sounds. If you are looking to build or design a high end speaker then it shouldn't be in any considerations. Spend you money on a decent DAC. There are even DAC's in the $599 range that are in a completely different performance league.

 

[saabracer23]

I have TB checking to see if they can still make these. They haven't used those frames in a long time. Their newer truncated frame is not the same and not likely to fit the recessed hole. I'll let you guys know when I hear something back.

A word of caution though on the advice from Dan. The Mini DSP is a fun toy to have and a great tool for learning. It packs a lot of computing power into a really cheap package. But there is a reason it is so cheap. The D/A conversion. power supply, and analog output stage is similar in quality to your average $49 CD player. And that is about the way it sounds. If you are looking to build or design a high end speaker then it shouldn't be in any considerations. Spend you money on a decent DAC. There are even DAC's in the $599 range that are in a completely different performance league.

Excellent point and great to know. What component has the has the ability do what it does? Wasn't there a Behringer and one made by DBX I thought?

Dan

 

[Danny Richie]

Excellent point and great to know. What component has the has the ability do what it does? Wasn't there a Behringer and one made by DBX I thought?

Dan

The Behringer was built for the pro market. It's quite the budget unit.

DEQX makes one that is a fairly solid mid-fi level unit, but it is a bit pricey.

Rich Hollis at Hollis Audio Labs makes the best one I've demo'ed so far. It uses all 32 bit Wolfson chips, and has a pretty nice output stage. It's a true high end unit. Lots of power to do anything too and about half of what the DEQX sells for.

 

[Paddy Garcia]

The all-digital approach isnt easy but is probably more tractable than building a whole new crossover for a new drivers.

I recently bought a couple of amplifiers from a local guy who built an amazing set of speakers and was using a 16 or 32 channel DAC plus software to create a 5-way crossover that fed each driver's signal to an individual amplifier channel. He said the hardest part was finding a good house sound curve as a baseline for voicing.

OP - happy to find out more about his setup if you'd like.

 

[StimpyWan]

I recently bought a couple of amplifiers from a local guy who built an amazing set of speakers and was using a 16 or 32 channel DAC plus software to create a 5-way crossover that fed each driver's signal to an individual amplifier channel. He said the hardest part was finding a good house sound curve as a baseline for voicing.

OP - happy to find out more about his setup if you'd like.

A system like that in Virginia? I'd love to hear more detail about it!

 

[toxcrusadr]

Just read the entire thread and looking forward to seeing what develops here.

I have only one comment which is to confirm (as if anyone needed it) that proprietary parts made on contract by an OEM can't be bought by just anybody. I learned that in the 80s in a chemistry lab when I tried to replace an expensive fan from a gas chromatograph. The manufacturer looked it up and said "Sorry, we can't sell you one of those, they are produced on contract with ____ and we can only sell em to them." Which of course was the name on the front of the machine. Mr. Richie is not BS'ing us.