This is something that's been sitting in my garage for quite a while now. I had attempted to sell this before in a more piece-meal state, but got no takers. So, today, I had an idea how to make it far more practical, and in any case- to get it running, for the first time in over 10 years.
Some background- in the early 2000s, a friend of mine wanted a pretty state-of-the-art-ish speaker system. By that, something that would be extremely smooth/flat response, full response from 20-20KHz, and output levels that could legit duplicate what you might hear on stage at a show. And, BTW, we wanted it to sound good on EVERY type of music.
Tall order? Yeah. Here's what transpired:
The system was tri-amped, with six 12" subwoofers in pretty large cabinets- two double-12 cabinets, built into a wall in the front of the living room of the house, and the third double-12 cabinet going into a "bench speaker" cabinet, on one side of the living room, as well. Midbass was especially ridiculous- FOUR Madisound 8" woofers PER SIDE, in a large aperiodic cabinet. Mids and highs, were the venerable Focal 7V313 midrange (95dB sensitivity, Polyglas cone, extraordinarily flat response), and after some experimentation- we wound up pairing it with the also venerable SEAS 27TFFC dome tweeter. The 12s were on one pair of amp channels, the 8s on a second pair of amp channels, and the mid/tweeter cabinet on a third pair of channels, with a passive crossover (which we modeled in LEAP/LMS, then tuned in-room), between the mid and tweeter. The active crossover was a Madisound Sledgehammer (made by Marchand), set at, IIRC, about 50Hz and 350Hz, and the amp was the simply monstrous Cinepro 3K6SE, which delivered in excess of 400w/ch into EACH of ALL SIX channels.
In full song- this system measured flat from 20-20KHZ, plus and minus ONE POINT FIVE dB. I actually have the chart we made of response at the end of crossover tuning, using filtered pink noise, to prove that. It would also absolutely PEG one of the old Radio Shack SPL meters- which read up to 126dB, in either A or C weighting (it would peg it in both modes, without audible distortion). And, the soundstaging was pretty incredible- on the right source material, it would seem like sounds were coming in every direction, including almost BEHIND you. People were amazed how well these speakers, being as big as they were, could absolutely DISAPPEAR into the soundstage- no sense of the sound being limited to coming just from the speaker- it sounded like the sound was just THERE, properly in the appropriate soundstage space.
This system was in use for close to 10 years- until my friend sold the house, and everything was removed and put into storage. Unfortunately, my friend's new house could not accommodate the system, so it wound up in storage for nearly 10 years- at which time I then wound up with everything. It's spent the last 2 years or so, in my garage...
When it was removed from the house- the subwoofer cabinets couldn't be saved- as they were basically built into the house, and were in no way going to be easily converted to "stand-alone" use. However, the four-8 cabinets and the mid-high cabinets, were built into Madisound Woodstyle veneered cabinets- and those were in great shape.
Rather than try to re-create the subwoofers- I decided to see what could happen, with a much more practical, simplified setup. Four 8" woofers is a LOT of cone area- equivalent to basically a 16" woofer. Using the 8" woofers for bass as well as midbass, by converting them from aperiodic to a vented cabinet, and running them in what amounts to "point-5 (0.5) mode"- where two 8" in each cabinet were for low bass only, and the other two were for bass and mids (meeting the midrange drivers). This is it, after all the mods were done, today:
Fortunately, in the last 20 years, processing has gotten a lot more sophisticated. Where we were limited to a old-school active crossover before- I now had a nice DBX Driverack. Not only infinitely adjustable crossover, but with parametric EQ and a lot more, built in. It's still using three amps- one for the two 8" on bass, one for the two 8s on bass-midbass, and one for the mid-highs. The two 8" on just-bass are only playing in the 20-something Hz range, while the other 8"s are playing from their low-end rolloff limit up to about 250Hz, where the mid-highs take over.
I took apart and cleaned up the passive crossover, re-arranging all the passive components into a neater, better arrangement, and adding a terminal plate with banana jacks onto the crossover boards. I also made up a bunch of banana-plug speaker cables, to make hookup a lot easier and neater. Four-conductor jumpers between the mid-high cabinets and the passive crossover, two-conductor cables between the crossover and the mid-high amp, and four conductor cables between the bass cabinets and the two bass amps.
So, the obvious question- how does it SOUND??
I, frankly, am almost speechless. I expected goodness- but I did not expect THIS level of GREATNESS. Though the lower limit doesn't quite go down to 20 Hz (it does get into the lower 20s, though), and it's not going to do 120dB plus anymore (but, it still should do 115dB with no issues, even now)- it's every bit as smooth and refined sounding, and with just as good dynamic behavior, as it was before. Imaging is still wall-to-wall, with great depth. And that's with only a couple hours of system tweaking, this afternoon.
I now have a dimemna.
I think this sounds better than my normal speakers, in my room. But, from almost any practical standpoint, it's too much cabinet for this tiny room. To the point, where due to the size of the left speaker stack, I can't even access my desk, currently.
My brain is trying to work out permuations to where it will fit, and the desk can be used- but I don't hold high hopes for that, unless the normal laws of physics (the whole thing about two things not being able to occupy the same space at the same time) stop existing suddenly...
But- it sounds SO GOOD...
Regards,
Gordon.
Some background- in the early 2000s, a friend of mine wanted a pretty state-of-the-art-ish speaker system. By that, something that would be extremely smooth/flat response, full response from 20-20KHz, and output levels that could legit duplicate what you might hear on stage at a show. And, BTW, we wanted it to sound good on EVERY type of music.
Tall order? Yeah. Here's what transpired:
The system was tri-amped, with six 12" subwoofers in pretty large cabinets- two double-12 cabinets, built into a wall in the front of the living room of the house, and the third double-12 cabinet going into a "bench speaker" cabinet, on one side of the living room, as well. Midbass was especially ridiculous- FOUR Madisound 8" woofers PER SIDE, in a large aperiodic cabinet. Mids and highs, were the venerable Focal 7V313 midrange (95dB sensitivity, Polyglas cone, extraordinarily flat response), and after some experimentation- we wound up pairing it with the also venerable SEAS 27TFFC dome tweeter. The 12s were on one pair of amp channels, the 8s on a second pair of amp channels, and the mid/tweeter cabinet on a third pair of channels, with a passive crossover (which we modeled in LEAP/LMS, then tuned in-room), between the mid and tweeter. The active crossover was a Madisound Sledgehammer (made by Marchand), set at, IIRC, about 50Hz and 350Hz, and the amp was the simply monstrous Cinepro 3K6SE, which delivered in excess of 400w/ch into EACH of ALL SIX channels.
In full song- this system measured flat from 20-20KHZ, plus and minus ONE POINT FIVE dB. I actually have the chart we made of response at the end of crossover tuning, using filtered pink noise, to prove that. It would also absolutely PEG one of the old Radio Shack SPL meters- which read up to 126dB, in either A or C weighting (it would peg it in both modes, without audible distortion). And, the soundstaging was pretty incredible- on the right source material, it would seem like sounds were coming in every direction, including almost BEHIND you. People were amazed how well these speakers, being as big as they were, could absolutely DISAPPEAR into the soundstage- no sense of the sound being limited to coming just from the speaker- it sounded like the sound was just THERE, properly in the appropriate soundstage space.
This system was in use for close to 10 years- until my friend sold the house, and everything was removed and put into storage. Unfortunately, my friend's new house could not accommodate the system, so it wound up in storage for nearly 10 years- at which time I then wound up with everything. It's spent the last 2 years or so, in my garage...
When it was removed from the house- the subwoofer cabinets couldn't be saved- as they were basically built into the house, and were in no way going to be easily converted to "stand-alone" use. However, the four-8 cabinets and the mid-high cabinets, were built into Madisound Woodstyle veneered cabinets- and those were in great shape.
Rather than try to re-create the subwoofers- I decided to see what could happen, with a much more practical, simplified setup. Four 8" woofers is a LOT of cone area- equivalent to basically a 16" woofer. Using the 8" woofers for bass as well as midbass, by converting them from aperiodic to a vented cabinet, and running them in what amounts to "point-5 (0.5) mode"- where two 8" in each cabinet were for low bass only, and the other two were for bass and mids (meeting the midrange drivers). This is it, after all the mods were done, today:
Fortunately, in the last 20 years, processing has gotten a lot more sophisticated. Where we were limited to a old-school active crossover before- I now had a nice DBX Driverack. Not only infinitely adjustable crossover, but with parametric EQ and a lot more, built in. It's still using three amps- one for the two 8" on bass, one for the two 8s on bass-midbass, and one for the mid-highs. The two 8" on just-bass are only playing in the 20-something Hz range, while the other 8"s are playing from their low-end rolloff limit up to about 250Hz, where the mid-highs take over.
I took apart and cleaned up the passive crossover, re-arranging all the passive components into a neater, better arrangement, and adding a terminal plate with banana jacks onto the crossover boards. I also made up a bunch of banana-plug speaker cables, to make hookup a lot easier and neater. Four-conductor jumpers between the mid-high cabinets and the passive crossover, two-conductor cables between the crossover and the mid-high amp, and four conductor cables between the bass cabinets and the two bass amps.
So, the obvious question- how does it SOUND??
I, frankly, am almost speechless. I expected goodness- but I did not expect THIS level of GREATNESS. Though the lower limit doesn't quite go down to 20 Hz (it does get into the lower 20s, though), and it's not going to do 120dB plus anymore (but, it still should do 115dB with no issues, even now)- it's every bit as smooth and refined sounding, and with just as good dynamic behavior, as it was before. Imaging is still wall-to-wall, with great depth. And that's with only a couple hours of system tweaking, this afternoon.
I now have a dimemna.
I think this sounds better than my normal speakers, in my room. But, from almost any practical standpoint, it's too much cabinet for this tiny room. To the point, where due to the size of the left speaker stack, I can't even access my desk, currently.
My brain is trying to work out permuations to where it will fit, and the desk can be used- but I don't hold high hopes for that, unless the normal laws of physics (the whole thing about two things not being able to occupy the same space at the same time) stop existing suddenly...
But- it sounds SO GOOD...
Regards,
Gordon.
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