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Zilch's AK Design Collaborative - Econowave Speaker

I took the time this morning and got the second Fisher wired up. They sound pretty good but are lacking in the lower midrange. Not bad when playing with female vocals but you can definitely tell with male vocals. I wonder if I can change anything to lower the crossover point slightly? Kind of looks like the woofers don't like to play as high as the crossover would like them to.

I'm not sure what the efficiency rating are on these 15's. Your guess is as good as mine.
 
DENNYDOG said:
I took the time this morning and got the second Fisher wired up. They sound pretty good but are lacking in the lower midrange. Not bad when playing with female vocals but you can definitely tell with male vocals. I wonder if I can change anything to lower the crossover point slightly? Kind of looks like the woofers don't like to play as high as the crossover would like them to.
Click to expand...
No, don't mess with the highpass; we're pushing the D220Ti as low as practical.

Run the woofer with no lowpass. Does it play high enough? If so, optimize the lowpass to roll it off higher than "standard...." :yes:
 
Maybe I am missing something, but what is the blue tape for??? Is that not the right driver for the horn?
 
djnagle said:
Maybe I am missing something, but what is the blue tape for??? Is that not the right driver for the horn?
Click to expand...

That is the special Blue Audio tape I bought special for my econowave project. Since my QSC horns (bolt on) are on back order, that is what holds this whole project together. :yes: The Pyle horns are screw on.

Zilch, what do I need to do to optimize the low pass so it rolls off higher? I'm not sure how high this woofer will go. Do I need to lower the value of C2?
 
DENNYDOG said:
That is the special Blue Audio tape I bought special for my econowave project. Since my QSC horns (bolt on) are on back order, that is what holds this whole project together. :yes: The Pyle horns are screw on.

...
Click to expand...

I think you might need to switch to the red tape to get the LP to play with the WG!

What I did was to convert my Pyle's to 2/3 bolt so I can use what's on hand. Now the bolt-on drivers are aligned properly. (I did not worry about the off-center threads, I just did something about it! I do need the threads that I cut off for an old Community Radial horn that got hacked into being bolt-on years ago, so it was not a spurious decision on my part...)

Now I'm waiting for JBL to ship the thread on ones so I can spin on the Seliniums that came Friday... I did try them with the 2426 adapters, but the JBL has a much longer threaded snout and the Seliniums won't seal against the horn mouth, there's like a 1/4" gap. I'll just have to wait to get waved!

Next time I will just cut the threads off a metal thread-to-bolt on adapter so it's thinner than the 8mm plywood I used, the rapid flare is too close to the bolts!

Man, it's hard to read with an eye-patch on!
 

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Advent Maestro 10"

GordonW said:
Well, we might be building a different flavor in the E-wave Advent family.

Pete here at the store has a pair of Advent Maestros... terminally damaged midrange domes. Would be interesting to convert the baffle over to E-wave. I think there should be no problem with getting the newer Advent woofer to work- if it, in essence, would work OK in the Advent Legacy-series stuff, it should work just fine with the E-wave horn. Even better, since the crossover is lower in frequency!

If we do this, we may leave them in the store as a speaker-mod demo... it'd be nice to have an exhibit of the types of mods we can do, if desired...

Regards,
Gordon.
Click to expand...

Gordon;

Any updates on this? I have the guts of a pair of Maestros, I could really use the specs on the woofer... I seem to remember the box being sealed, but not sure, I'm currently building some test boxes to see how the sound.
 
4343 said:
I think you might need to switch to the red tape to get the LP to play with the WG!

What I did was to convert my Pyle's to 2/3 bolt so I can use what's on hand. Now the bolt-on drivers are aligned properly. (I did not worry about the off-center threads, I just did something about it! I do need the threads that I cut off for an old Community Radial horn that got hacked into being bolt-on years ago, so it was not a spurious decision on my part...)

Now I'm waiting for JBL to ship the thread on ones so I can spin on the Seliniums that came Friday... I did try them with the 2426 adapters, but the JBL has a much longer threaded snout and the Seliniums won't seal against the horn mouth, there's like a 1/4" gap. I'll just have to wait to get waved!

Next time I will just cut the threads off a metal thread-to-bolt on adapter so it's thinner than the 8mm plywood I used, the rapid flare is too close to the bolts!

Man, it's hard to read with an eye-patch on!
Click to expand...

There's an idea. I have PH612s and D250s that won't work together. From what I've read the bolt/thread adapters don't work very well. How far down should I take off the throat of the PH612 to get a good acoustic match with the D250? Might give me something to fool with while I wait for the QSC WGs in early Dec.
 
Ok I hooked up the woofer full range. That helps a lot. It looks like I will need to change the inductor to a 1.2mH and the cap to a 9.3uF. That will bring the low pass up to around 1.5 kHz. They don't carry the off sizes so I'm thinking a 1.0 mH and 10 uF should work.

These are actually the crossovers for my Valencia cabinets so it's not a big deal as I need to order the crossover parts for the Fishers anyway.

Zilch, thanks for the link to the crossover index. I didn't realize they had that online. I looked in the catalog but for some reason wasn't quite getting it. :rolleyes:

I had been playing them all day and they were sounding better even before I hooked up the woofers full range. Kind of weird as it seems like maybe everything is breaking in. Kind of nice to be able to mess around with everything and get it sounding good before buttoning everything up in the cabinet. Now that would be a pain to keep on opening it up to change anything. Amazing what this has done for these old Fishers. :yes:
 
4343, That's a good idea but I have plan's for the two set's of Pyle's I have. I already spent the extra money on the B&C's for one project. I really don't want to spend that much money on my other two projects so I will be using the Selenium's on them. I heard Ron's system and liked the sound of them so I'm sticking to that plan.

Menard's always has a nice selection of plastic pieces that might make a little nicer mod. Glue it on with two part epoxy and you should be set.
 
Bauhausler said:
There's an idea. I have PH612s and D250s that won't work together. From what I've read the bolt/thread adapters don't work very well. How far down should I take off the throat of the PH612 to get a good acoustic match with the D250? Might give me something to fool with while I wait for the QSC WGs in early Dec.
Click to expand...

I took it all the way down to the flat surface inside the threaded area. I chucked the threaded horn-to-bolt-on adapter up in my little lathe and then threaded the waveguide onto that and used a hacksaw to cut the plastic while it was spinning. Straight cut the first time, you can always sand it down if it's long or angled.

I used Gorilla Glue for the first one as I knew I could get it back apart if I messed up the alignment. Second one I used Marine Goop, but I don't think either of these adhesives will hold up a 2420! Two part epoxy is probably worth using.

I bolted the disc to the driver with a piece of food wrap in between to keep the glue out of it. Worked OK at keeping the driver clean, but on the first one I set the WG on the bench and stacked the disc and driver on it to let the glue dry... Good thing it was Gorilla Glue, as the foam was not too hard to remove from the throat of the WG... Second one I put the driver on the bench, stacked the WG on top, then found a box of bits to weight it down overnight. Balance is key here...

Your 2-bolt drivers should be easier since two bolt has more room than three, for 3-bolt, I had to find 1/4-20 Allen heads, grind off most of the heads and cut an Allen key so the bend was only about a 1/4" from the end that fits into the bolt!
 
1.2 IS available @ PE

DENNYDOG said:
Ok I hooked up the woofer full range. That helps a lot. It looks like I will need to change the inductor to a 1.2mH and the cap to a 9.3uF. That will bring the low pass up to around 1.5 kHz. They don't carry the off sizes so I'm thinking a 1.0 mH and 10 uF should work.
...
Click to expand...

Search for 1.2 inductor, you'll find air cores and one solid P-Core type.
9.3 can be had in Dayton caps by a combination of 4.0, 3.3 and 2.0 in parallel...
Here's some 12.0's I made up yesterday from parts on hand 8.0, 4.0 and various smaller ones to get the value exact. (The 8.0 was only 7.5-7.7):
 

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4343 said:
Search for 1.2 inductor, you'll find air cores and one solid P-Core type.
9.3 can be had in Dayton caps by a combination of 4.0, 3.3 and 2.0 in parallel...
Here's some 12.0's I made up yesterday from parts on hand 8.0, 4.0 and various smaller ones to get the value exact. (The 8.0 was only 7.5-7.7):
Click to expand...

It's just a guess as to the exact crossover point I should need. That was the next one up listed on the parts express chart. This is why it didn't bother me if I wasn't exact on the values. If someone thinks I should go higher please let me know.
 
DENNYDOG said:
Ok I hooked up the woofer full range. That helps a lot. It looks like I will need to change the inductor to a 1.2mH and the cap to a 9.3uF. That will bring the low pass up to around 1.5 kHz. They don't carry the off sizes so I'm thinking a 1.0 mH and 10 uF should work.

These are actually the crossovers for my Valencia cabinets so it's not a big deal as I need to order the crossover parts for the Fishers anyway.

Zilch, thanks for the link to the crossover index. I didn't realize they had that online. I looked in the catalog but for some reason wasn't quite getting it. :rolleyes:

I had been playing them all day and they were sounding better even before I hooked up the woofers full range. Kind of weird as it seems like maybe everything is breaking in. Kind of nice to be able to mess around with everything and get it sounding good before buttoning everything up in the cabinet. Now that would be a pain to keep on opening it up to change anything. Amazing what this has done for these old Fishers. :yes:
Click to expand...

As alternative, Dayton 6.2 and 3.3 = 9.5, solen has a 9.1+ small theta, or solen 8.2 and 1.0= 9.2. as to the coil, buy one size big and dewind.

Russellc
 
B'Waves At 1 (week, that is...)

So now there's one full week on the Barzilay E'Waves, and I wanted to report in to headquarters!

As I posted, immediately after trying them for the first time, where was the bass? There was one highly resonant peak, but the rest was pretty dull. Well, in a week's time the bass has opened up very nicely. It still has a small amount of peakiness, but I haven't fully braced or sealed the cabs yet. Overall, the bass is what I would call "easy". It's there in spades, when called for, but never seems forced. There seems to be a bit of magic about using a big ported box! Okay, it's not "magic", it's the laws of physics! :scratch2: It's played as low as I've asked it to, without the slightest strain. The bass is not overpowering, it's just there. And just right. :thmbsp:

The mids and treble are doing nicely also, as they have been changing in "flavor" as the driver and caps break in. It seems the treble is getting a little softer, and I have had to dial up the L-pads a little so far, maybe I'll goose 'em a bit more. After all, I am used to NHT Super One's, which have wonderful crystalline treble.

The overall presentation is different than what I have been used to, but very reminiscent of the Klipsch Forte's I used to have (without the honking :nono:). The "presence" and "dynamics" of the speakers are incredible. The soundstage is not as jumpy as it was at first, but they still throw an amazing soundstage, with great imaging.

So, a little more cab work is needed, and a little tweaking of the L-pads. But, I have been totally impressed with these speakers. They are utterly beautiful to look at, with the rich woodgrain and dark gray foam baffles. And, they have as much (or more) WAF than any speakers I've ever had. My dear wife loves 'em! They join the Pioneer SX-737 as gear I'm never to sell, under any circumstances...:D


A lot of people (Zilch, JackGiff, etc...) have given a tremendous amount of time and energy to this project, and the encouragement of certain people, especially Duffinator, has been MOST appreciated. Thank you all! :tresbon:
 
jhoyt said:
So now there's one full week on the Barzilay E'Waves, and I wanted to report in to headquarters!
Click to expand...
Thank you for your update! :thmbsp:

On first read, two elements stand out:

1) Yes, you must get them properly sealed and damped for the bass to be "right," and,

2) The fair sex has more acute hearing in the high and very-high frequency ranges. Generally, if it sounds good to them, that part is also right, as well.... :yes:
 
Zilch said:
2) The fair sex has more acute hearing in the high and very-high frequency ranges. Generally, if it sounds good to them, that part is also right, as well.... :yes:
Click to expand...

My wife can't hear worth beans. She does not even care what it looks like. Perfect!!!
 
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