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The FrankenZilch Econo-Horn: Now in Stereo!

wilberforce

wilberforce

Active Member
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The idea was to build a mid-fi mono rig for old 50's blues records and such. You see it in my avatar above. The problem is that it came out TOO good, thanks to Zilch and others. I couldn't rest until they became stereo.

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The whole story is here:

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/169755-what-would-you-do-cabinet.html
 
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Awesome ! Good work...looks like it all came together very nicely. I wold like to put together some econowaves but need to set aside the time to read through al the posts looks like there are thousands of them. How much research did you do for your project?
 
Very Nice! I sure like the look of how those turned out :yes:

I'll have to read the whole story behind them but I do recognize the cab design. How dang difficult was it making one to match the original?



RC
 
Beautiful work WF. Nice to see the completion of your distinctive two channel system. Now what about a home theater rig? ;)
 
awesome.....just awesome! Now get you some of those econowave badges about to close!!
DC
 
dc270 said:
awesome.....just awesome! Now get you some of those econowave badges about to close!!
DC
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Agree 'cept that the buy thread is in Barter Town and the OP isn't a subscriber. Could be :yes: but would need to do it soon as the group badge buy ends 4/4 I believe.


wilberforce, those are very cool. If I had available corners I would build those.
 
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mr.jones said:
Awesome ! Good work...looks like it all came together very nicely. I wold like to put together some econowaves but need to set aside the time to read through al the posts looks like there are thousands of them. How much research did you do for your project?
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Very little, actually. I was lucky enough to get Zilch's attention in the "What would you do with this cabinet" thread I started over at diyauido. He and others helped me through it, and later Zilch tweaked the crossover for this particular build. It was fun to do, and I learned a lot.

Don't be intimidated from the zillions of pages in the econowave thread--Zilch put links to the vital info in the 1st post.
 
doucanoe said:
Very Nice! I sure like the look of how those turned out :yes:

I'll have to read the whole story behind them but I do recognize the cab design. How dang difficult was it making one to match the original?
Click to expand...

It was easy--for ME. The cabinetmaker, on the other hand, spent quite a bit of time working out the discrepancies in the minimalist plans.

The cabinet design is by Jensen from 1952. They called it a "compact back loading folded horn." Compact only by comparison to their earlier refrigerator sized horn. These are about 3' 2" high, 34" wide, about 20" deep and weigh somewhere around 140-150 lbs with the drivers. Woofers are 70's era JBL 2220s, Horn drivers are Selenium D2500s. Crossovers are modified Zilchlab econowaves. That's why I call them the Frankenzilch: 50's cabinet, 70's woofers and 21st century waveguides and HF drivers.
 
These are just fabulous!

Why aren't there more back-loaded horn speaker designs like this? Reason I ask is there are some nice front-loaded designs out there (a Klipshorn for example) but the high frequency cutoffs from the woofer are much lower; in the 400-600 range. With a back-loaded design like yours, it seems much more "efficient" to use the frequencies that the 15 inch driver can deliver (up to 1500 Hz or so) to allow use of just one high frequency device of economical (1 inch type).

I may have missed it in your thread at diyaudio, but could you post a schematic of your final crossover network here?
 
rustnrot said:
These are just fabulous!

Why aren't there more back-loaded horn speaker designs like this? Reason I ask is there are some nice front-loaded designs out there (a Klipshorn for example) but the high frequency cutoffs from the woofer are much lower; in the 400-600 range. With a back-loaded design like yours, it seems much more "efficient" to use the frequencies that the 15 inch driver can deliver (up to 1500 Hz or so) to allow use of just one high frequency device of economical (1 inch type).

I may have missed it in your thread at diyaudio, but could you post a schematic of your final crossover network here?
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Standard econowave, but with a few different components:

179403d1278474370-what-would-you-do-cabinet-hisens-xo-schematic-b.jpg


Here's a cut and paste of the parts list, but this might not be the final version--we changed a resistor and a cap in the tweaking stage. it's all in the diyaudio thread.

PE Parts list:

L1 = 255-040
L2 = 266-552
C1 = 027-422
C2 = 027-430
C3 = 027-412
R1 = 004-16
R2 = 004-12.5*
LP1 = 260-255
Terminals = 091-1247

*Non-standard for the driver/waveguide combo
 
Nice. I really like the natural look of the wood and the grille you used. How was the grille front done?
 
wilberforce said:
It was easy--for ME. The cabinetmaker, on the other hand, spent quite a bit of time working out the discrepancies in the minimalist plans.

The cabinet design is by Jensen from 1952. They called it a "compact back loading folded horn." Compact only by comparison to their earlier refrigerator sized horn. These are about 3' 2" high, 34" wide, about 20" deep and weigh somewhere around 140-150 lbs with the drivers. Woofers are 70's era JBL 2220s, Horn drivers are Selenium D2500s. Crossovers are modified Zilchlab econowaves. That's why I call them the Frankenzilch: 50's cabinet, 70's woofers and 21st century waveguides and HF drivers.
Click to expand...


My father always says that a wise man knows his strengths and weaknesses and chooses his battles accordingly ;)

Sometimes the best monies spent are the ones where you default to the pros and really get the job done right. I've always felt that if you don't possess the chops or the time to pull it off in the manner that it deserves, going that route sure makes sense to me.

That a pretty complex design and deserved the full and not half ass effort. It appears that you got the full ass on this one.

Beautiful job! I'm sure your incredibly pleased. :thmbsp:



RC
 
bwaslo said:
Nice. I really like the natural look of the wood and the grille you used. How was the grille front done?
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They were cut out of 1/2" MDF with a 45 degree angle on the speaker side, and rounded edge on the outside. I got the fabric from ATS Acoustics. It's open weave burlap, the same stuff they use in their acoustic panels. The grills attach with those nifty neodynium magnets that PE sells.
 
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