Zilch's AK Design Collaborative - Econowave Speaker

[Kegger]

Also a small piece of foam (like half super ball shaped) stuffed into the horns throats
helps quite a bit in taming\smoothing the high frequency driver.

Newman can tell you the info on the type of foam he gave me to try, it worked great.

 

[Spectrum77]

The woofer and waveguide will integrate better, and it will reduce any resonances coming from the free-standing waveguide. I don't hear any myself, frankly, and many others are using E'Wave just as you show.

In this case (the E'Wave sitting on top of the cab), what would be the optimal distance from the top of the woofer to the E'Wave? Just 'as close as possible without compromising the structural integrity of the cab', or the distance won't make such an audible difference?
Currently, I'm planning not to mount the E'Wave in the cab, but have space to do so. My reasoning is that it may be good to have the option of tweaking the E'Wave position... right?

 

[Zilch]

In this case (the E'Wave sitting on top of the cab), what would be the optimal distance from the top of the woofer to the E'Wave? Just 'as close as possible without compromising the structural integrity of the cab', or the distance won't make such an audible difference?
Currently, I'm planning not to mount the E'Wave in the cab, but have space to do so. My reasoning is that it may be good to have the option of tweaking the E'Wave position... right?

See Wayne Parham's discussion(s) of driver spacing and vertical nodes earlier in this thread.

Yes, once it's fixedly mounted on the baffle, you can no longer adjust the differential location of the driver acoustic centers....

 

[jackgiff]

This reminds me, did Jack giff ever work out the compensation for the E'wave with cx 3400? I remember it was a little problematic, but I dont remember the punch line. Gad, am I lazy!:yes:

Russellc

Hi Russell,

Back on page 37, in posts number 545 and 546 I gave the results of my playing with the CX-3400 and bi-amping EconoWaves. To fix the 2 KHz hump in the response of the D220Ti would either take a tuned correction circuit, which as Zilch pointed out would be a bugger to design, or simply use what works, the 3 KHz HP of the EconoWave. I opted to use the existing 3 KHz Hi Pass with the CX-3400 set at 1.2 Khz. It does the job as well as could be expected, and both circuits would be similarly affected by varying the frequency of the crossover.

The woofer would be simply hooked directly to the amplifier driven by the low pass output of the CX-3400, while the Amp driven by the hi pass would drive the Selenium through the hi pass of the Econowave crossover. There is a drawing in post 545 which shows the hookup I recommended.

Zilch designed a circuit which worked and sent me the values to try, but to be honest I simply never got to it. The HP of the EconoWave does it for me.

 

[skywave-rider]

Fluff Piece

Last night I did it again.
Hooked a wire with my big feet and a Selenium driver went airborne, aided by lift the untethered mini EWaveguide provided, and managed to glance off anything expensive and nice in the glide path. (Not much.)

Completely flattened the diaphragm terminals. Nicked up the waveguide/airfoil, but still works.

I’d done this previously with BMS 4550, which managed to nicely round 4 corners of my once pristine, sharp edged Heresys. Balistic BMS.

Third time? No Way!

Took a trip to Home Depot and picked up some of their Waveguide Mounts (in the back, near the waveguides.)

Sweet!

 

[DENNYDOG]

Last night I did it again.
Hooked a wire with my big feet and a Selenium driver went airborne, aided by lift the untethered mini EWaveguide provided, and managed to glance off anything expensive and nice in the glide path. (Not much.)

Completely flattened the diaphragm terminals. Nicked up the waveguide/airfoil, but still works.

I’d done this previously with BMS 4550, which managed to nicely round 4 corners of my once pristine, sharp edged Heresys. Balistic BMS.

Third time? No Way!

Took a trip to Home Depot and picked up some of their Waveguide Mounts (in the back, near the waveguides.)

Sweet!

Those look pretty nice!

 

[djnagle]

I do that all the time. I wish my system was finished so I could hide the wires......maybe next year.

Hey Zilch, you were right, the Behringer 3400 with the CD correction was much to hot for my taste. I leave that piece for my Jensens.

 

[cuthien]

In the search for "mini-econowave"... anyone tried the B&C ME10?

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=294-618

I've actually got a DE10 horn driver (recommended match), sitting here on the shelf...

I'm thinking that might be a killer contender for a dual-7"-woofer "slim tower" E-wave variation... or, for maybe a sideways-MTM variation for a center channel...

Regards,
Gordon.

Gordon,

I am trying the DE10 on my 811B horns and also on the econowage guide for a week now with "econo" crossover and to my ears, they have more bite than the 210. Something about them that draw me into the music more and more. I know the econowave crossovers are probably not optimum for them but I really like the DE10. Just my 2 cents and my tin ears.

 

[fxxm747]

Zilch....first off thank you soooo much for taking the time to address my questions. And so well I must say, I really needed advice straight from the knowledge source to steer me in the right direction and franky give me a confidence boost. Please forgive me taking up your time for daft novice inquiries. I almost went with a PM to Jack with the dumb questions but figured there's got to be others as lost as I am....ah hem...or was. And it might prove beneficial for those folk. (That's my story and I'm sticking with it) Besides I was going to ask Jack how my LE14's were doing. LOL....I'm kidding Jack. OK, so I'm going to try and not get ahead of myself and just dive in. Crossover parts on the way but haven't called JBL yet on the horns. We'll start with installed LF driver. BTW, I think I will go with a different HF cab as suggested by Kegger and then finish it to match the original complete with original grill. Unfortunately these cabs were never meant to come apart. To do so would require pulling the front walnut frame to get at the front baffle. The back wall of the speaker was installed from the front prior to the front baffle. Solid yes, easily modified no. Well I guess I'm finally at the starting gate, I will post pics of my progress. And yes.....probably more daft questions to come. Thanks again Zilch and to all that have contributed to this ongoing phenomenon called the "Econowave" ! Very cool indeed.

 

[fxxm747]

Oh yeah, I said I wasn't going to get ahead of myself? Picked up a sweet pair of Infinity Column II's today from Salvation Army for $20. Hey I HAD to save them right? I'm thinking invert the baffle and install the smaller horn. Man I love this stuff......

 

[Russellc]

Hi Russell,

Back on page 37, in posts number 545 and 546 I gave the results of my playing with the CX-3400 and bi-amping EconoWaves. To fix the 2 KHz hump in the response of the D220Ti would either take a tuned correction circuit, which as Zilch pointed out would be a bugger to design, or simply use what works, the 3 KHz HP of the EconoWave. I opted to use the existing 3 KHz Hi Pass with the CX-3400 set at 1.2 Khz. It does the job as well as could be expected, and both circuits would be similarly affected by varying the frequency of the crossover.

The woofer would be simply hooked directly to the amplifier driven by the low pass output of the CX-3400, while the Amp driven by the hi pass would drive the Selenium through the hi pass of the Econowave crossover. There is a drawing in post 545 which shows the hookup I recommended.

Zilch designed a circuit which worked and sent me the values to try, but to be honest I simply never got to it. The HP of the EconoWave does it for me.

Thanks, I'll re-read the piece. Let us know if you try the alternative circuit. Sounds like a couple of others have been trying the cx-3400 as well.

Thanks,

Russellc

 

[Zilch]

I almost went with a PM to Jack with the dumb questions but figured there's got to be others as lost as I am....ah hem...or was. And it might prove beneficial for those folk.

There ARE no dumb questions, of course.

It's better to resolve these issues in the open forum; I have long since lost the ability to keep track of everyone's projects here, let alone my own....

 

[Russellc]

Last night I did it again.
Hooked a wire with my big feet and a Selenium driver went airborne, aided by lift the untethered mini EWaveguide provided, and managed to glance off anything expensive and nice in the glide path. (Not much.)

Completely flattened the diaphragm terminals. Nicked up the waveguide/airfoil, but still works.

I’d done this previously with BMS 4550, which managed to nicely round 4 corners of my once pristine, sharp edged Heresys. Balistic BMS.

Third time? No Way!

Took a trip to Home Depot and picked up some of their Waveguide Mounts (in the back, near the waveguides.)

Sweet!

I did the same thing twice installing my 2235H drivers. None the worse for the wear, sort of slinkied out a little, so pushed it back into shape.

Russellc

 

[dnewma04]

What you need to use for the foam that Kegger brought up earlier is 30 ppi (pores per inch) reticulated foam. It's used for filters in fish tanks and for speaker grills. If you find sources of the former fish tank parts, it'll likely be cheaper.

 

[Russellc]

Hi Russell,

Back on page 37, in posts number 545 and 546 I gave the results of my playing with the CX-3400 and bi-amping EconoWaves. To fix the 2 KHz hump in the response of the D220Ti would either take a tuned correction circuit, which as Zilch pointed out would be a bugger to design, or simply use what works, the 3 KHz HP of the EconoWave. I opted to use the existing 3 KHz Hi Pass with the CX-3400 set at 1.2 Khz. It does the job as well as could be expected, and both circuits would be similarly affected by varying the frequency of the crossover.

The woofer would be simply hooked directly to the amplifier driven by the low pass output of the CX-3400, while the Amp driven by the hi pass would drive the Selenium through the hi pass of the Econowave crossover. There is a drawing in post 545 which shows the hookup I recommended.

Zilch designed a circuit which worked and sent me the values to try, but to be honest I simply never got to it. The HP of the EconoWave does it for me.

What exactly happens when you do the high pass this way, since the electronic crossover is set to 1.2 KHZ and the passive is at 3khz, is it just ignored,( the 3 khz point) or does the behringer feed 1.2 and above (instead of the entire freq spectrum) and effectively, and the passive takes over at 3khz?

I guess what I dont understand is why the behringer cant be set at 3khz and just attach the compensation circuit to the driver. Obviously that wasnt working, I am just to dumb to see why not. Obviously, as you found it didnt work this way, I just wondered why, if you know. Otherwise, I'll just do it the way you did, naturally! Thanks for the time,

Russellc

 

[Russellc]

There ARE no dumb questions, of course.

It's better to resolve these issues in the open forum; I have long since lost the ability to keep track of everyone's projects here, let alone my own....

Thanks for saying that about the dumb questions, lord knows I've been chocked full of them! Thanks again for all the work, as well to Jackgiff, and everyone else who has contributed to the project.

Russellc

 

[Russellc]

Back ordered wave guides

Any news on this from those of you waiting? I'm going to need a couple of more pairs soon...2213H econowave, and another one with my left over 2225H drivers. I prefer to get the JBL one to the other almost identical one, dont ask why, I just want the JBL one "because"......what a smuck I am:yes:

Russellc

 

[Zilch]

Any news on this from those of you waiting?

Three pair came to ZilchLab last week, actually. You're going to have to call to get the current stock status.

I guess what I dont understand is why the behringer cant be set at 3khz and just attach the compensation circuit to the driver.

1) The woofer can't play that high.

2) E'Wave's "3K" filter is part of the HF compensation. The actual acoustic crossover point is much lower, owing to the Selenium driver's response in the region between.

Look back to the first posts of this thread to see the HF driver's frequency response on E'Wave without filters.... :yes:

 

[Russellc]

Update on 2235H econowave

I got the 2235H driver installed and have been listening for a couple of days now, and really havent come to any conclusions on preference to it over the 2225H drivers.

One thing for sure, there is a lot lower bass output than with the 2225H. The mid range is the next change I have noted. Both good as well as bad.
The 2235H is more "HIFI" in the mids, a touch more transparent and detailed than 2225H was. However, there is a very live and somewhat forward slam with the 2225H that I really enjoyed, that seems to be a little more polite now. The whole nature of the speaker is changed and its going to take a little more listening to come to any concrete conclusions.

I have tried it with both one and two ports plugged. two definately tightens things up and lowers the frequency response of the out put, but the mids are edged a little towards the polite side of the line, whereas one port closed seems to open up the mids, adding a little bloom.

The crossover I'm using is also the original basic low pass, with no tweeking done yet, and this is likely a ground furtile for tweeking. Not even a zobel yet, just bone stock. I started with the >95 db crossover, because it was installed for the 97 db efficient 2225H. seemed a little thin in the mids this way, so I tried the <95 db efficient version, understanding that the 2235H is only 93 db. again, the sound is a little too polite on the high end...... It did occur to me that I had removed the AVA Super Pas III from the system as its developed 170 volts on the chassis and need attention, and replaced it with a small active/passive preamp I built, which may be a source of a little dryness. good lord, I am listening to a all sand system for the first time in 10-15 years! with that, I pulled my other Super Pas III out of the basement system and brought it up. This eliminated the dryness and added a nice healthy bloom, vastly improving the sound. The highs seem a little too polite still, but with the >95 db crossover, a little thin.

I was extremely happy with the setup with the 2225H, now its a different system. A little tweeking should get me happy again, or its back to the 2225H!
I'd like to get this all lined out before trying the CC crossover version, dont want to change too many things at once.


Russellc

 

[Russellc]

1) The woofer can't play that high.

2) E'Wave's "3K" filter is part of the HF compensation. The actual acoustic crossover point is much lower, owing to the Selenium driver's response in the region between.

Look back to the first posts of this thread to see the HF driver's frequency response on E'Wave without filters.... :yes:

That makes sense. Thanks for dumbing that down for me Zilch to where I can grasp it! I wasnt thinking that the accoustical response would be that different going from passive to electronic. That's the part that I wasnt getting. I thought 3 khz was 3 khz whether electronic or passive. Obviously this was way incorrect. I did mean that the woofer would be crossed at the 1.2 khz by the electronic, and the high freq. set at 3khz and the passive compensation circuit on the compression driver. Obviously, this wouldnt work either!

Thanks again, hope others wondered this as well..

Russellc