• The move to the new server is done. There are some software and database maintenance updates in process. This has us passing the hat around to help out. We appreciate any donations. Seriously, even a dollar helps. The payment page may be found here - https://www.audiokarma.org/support.html

Zilch's AK Design Collaborative - Econowave Speaker

Thanks for jumping in Z. I like the JBL 6X6" sound better than the 6X12" JMHO. I have good boxes that the BUFO would drop right into and have been wonderiing if it is time for another pair of EWs. I'd like to wait until you mess with the 6X6 first though.

Have you heard the BUFO? Looks like it might work well. I have to do the box thing and see if it will fit in what I have.
 
dj,

No pix. Sorry to all if this is OT. This description is from my link:

Removing the whizzer is kinda like trimming your nails. I used good light, an exacto knife with a new blade and kicked back, pretending to watch TV at the same time. Your favorite beverage is optional.
I started with a cut from the outside edge proceeding toward the dust cap. I made this cut around the whizzer, not directly toward the dust cap. This cut gave me a point of entry to the root of the whizzer. I didn't worry with getting all the way to the dust cap at first. I needed to clear the bulk out of the way. This allowed better access to remove the remainder.

The first cut I made for removing the dust cap was an "X"...well, two cuts...Once the bulk is out of the way the trimming is easier. I stopped at the point where all of the paper not coated with adhesive was gone...I'm not too worried about the bead of adhesive which remains.

I made the phase plugs on my lathe. You could do the same using a screw as a drive center (cut the head off) chucked into a drill. Tie or clamp the drill so it is stationary, crank it up and start shaving. A drill press and you're better off.

A wood rasp is good for this purpose. A file is almost as good, though you'll have to clean it out more often. Finish to suit with sandpaper. The hole you use for your screw chuck will receive a counter-sunk screw which the magnet of the speaker driver will be glad to hold onto. Size your hole for a #10 or #12 screw...bigger means more holding power. Don't forget to dress the mating surface of the plug flat.
Click to expand...
 
I can do that! But how did you determine the profile of the Phase plug? After you made the first one, did you make a patern from it and use that patern on the second?

How did the phase plug help the sound?
 
greenmark59 said:
Gordon,

I have a set of HPM 1100 woofers also with broken graphite cones and the voice coils/spiders work well. I would like to recone these and use for eWave project. So you are saying this could be done and would be all right to use?

I asked Parts Express the cost to recone these woofers and they gave me a figure of $60 per woofer which I didn't think was too bad (especially since I can deliver and pickup). Do I have to make sure they use a specific cone (i.e. Yamaha 3803 15" pro-audio woofer) to make them decent for Ewave usage?

I plan on using them in the original HPM 1100 cabinets with a possible 12" circular waveguide like this Dayton H12RW 12" Round Waveguide 1" Threaded or something better?
Click to expand...

Know way of knowing is these can reach up high enough for an Ewave horn......With 15" diameter, not going to get to the 10" round ones for sure. The QSC 152i or 6212 maybe. 15" drivers aren't the best directivity match for these WG's ideally...but can be done.
 
Hey Dan, stop by this week some time if you are in the area after work. With the lower eff. driver, you just use the low eff woof crossover. Although you are knocking down the eff of the CD, it still seems to work. You can boost the eff of those drivers is you use three on top of the WG and three under it in an open baffle line array. The Xmax and Qts are good enough to use in an OB and more than enough for a sealed line array.

Cosmos said:
Z, pardon me, I did not read the mini Ewave thread yet, but doesn't the woofers 88 db/w/m efficiency just hold back a high efficiency driver way to much? In other words, why would anyone want to make that choice of a woofer/midbass for a combo with a compression driver?
Click to expand...
 
djnagle said:
Hey Dan, stop by this week some time if you are in the area after work. With the lower eff. driver, you just use the low eff woof crossover. Although you are knocking down the eff of the CD, it still seems to work. You can boost the eff of those drivers is you use three on top of the WG and three under it in an open baffle line array. The Xmax and Qts are good enough to use in an OB and more than enough for a sealed line array.
Click to expand...

Dennis,

I understand what you're saying, but my point is that there are 97 db/w/m efficient 8" woofers that go down just as low. There has to be some 6.5" midbass/woofers that get better than 88db/w/m. Further, we aren't talking about 6 or 8 of the midbass drivers and one waveguide, the idea was one or perhaps two midbass drivers and on waveguide. More than that just tells me we're trying to put paint on a horse's behind to dress it up.

The midbass mentioned may be a great driver for a MTM with a dome tweeter, but I don't quite get wasting that much efficiency on the HF side, when there has to be better choices. Even the Peerless woofer goes down lower and gains 1.5 db/w/m.

In my mind a couple JBL 2118 drivers would be an interesting combination with EWG and get 97db/w/m.

Thanks for the invite.
 
Last edited:
Cosmos said:
Z, pardon me, I did not read the mini Ewave thread yet, but doesn't the woofers 88 db/w/m efficiency just hold back a high efficiency driver way to much? In other words, why would anyone want to make that choice of a woofer/midbass for a combo with a compression driver?
Click to expand...
Yes, compression driver eWaves have sufficient efficiency to mate with woofers (and combinations of woofers) rated at 100 dB/W/M and higher; few alternative tweeters can approach that. However, efficiency isn't everything when it comes to this technology -- even padded down to mate with far less efficient woofers, compression drivers retain the other characteristics for which they are renowned, lower distortion, dynamics, low power compression, and clarity. They also play lower than conventional tweeters, generally, making high-performance two-way designs truly viable.

88dB is not low efficiency; you'll see many eWave designs represented here incorporating vintage extended-bass woofers, some as low as 82 dB. These builds fulfill the dreams of early acoustic-suspension pioneers for a tweeter that would play low enough to cross directly with their innovative woofer-in-a-small-cab approach, with overall performance they could only have imagined might one day be achieved.

Yes, eWave can mate with high-efficiency woofers as well, but let's not be deceived by specs alone -- by the time their response is flattened and baffle step factored into high-fidelity alignments, many of these woofers' efficiencies end up substantially derated in actual systems, as well as compromised in their low-frequency response capabilities.


Cosmos said:
In my mind a couple JBL 2118 drivers would be an interesting combination with EWG and get 97db/w/m.
Click to expand...
There are "issues" running multiples; JBL's dual-2118 systems were 2.5-way:

http://www.jblproservice.com/pdf/Cabaret Series/4612B.pdf

http://www.jblproservice.com/pdf/Theatre Series/46120K.pdf
 
Last edited:
All good points Dan and Z, but one thing to remember is the "econo" part of it. Those drivers are 15 bucks. Compared to the cost of the 2118, that's a steel.
 
I don't know what PE will use for cones... but, the Yamaha cone is one of the ONLY cones that will readily FIT into that frame, period, out of what's available out there for parts. Need to use an extremely soft spider with those, since the fabric surround on the Yamaha cone is kind of stiff. If you do, it winds up fine.

As for working up to 1.5Khz- should be fine, with a felt dustcap. With a paper dustcap, the dustcap resonance would probably upset the response...

I wouldn't think that the round waveguide would be the best choice. Too much spacing between the center of the woofer to the center of the horn driver, and the round waveguide simply doesn't go as low as the PH612-type "standard" E-wave horn. I'd be inclined to just use the PH612, the original JBL PT waveguide or the PE equivalent, due to that design having the lowest center-to-center distance of any of the E-wave options. And, to boot- I can vouch for it working with 15" woofers fine, in actual real-world experience. I've done that like 4 times now... and it sounded good every time.

Regards,
Gordon.


greenmark59 said:
Gordon,

I have a set of HPM 1100 woofers also with broken graphite cones and the voice coils/spiders work well. I would like to recone these and use for eWave project. So you are saying this could be done and would be all right to use?

I asked Parts Express the cost to recone these woofers and they gave me a figure of $60 per woofer which I didn't think was too bad (especially since I can deliver and pickup). Do I have to make sure they use a specific cone (i.e. Yamaha 3803 15" pro-audio woofer) to make them decent for Ewave usage?

I plan on using them in the original HPM 1100 cabinets with a possible 12" circular waveguide like this Dayton H12RW 12" Round Waveguide 1" Threaded or something better?
Click to expand...
 
mayhem13 said:
Know way of knowing is these can reach up high enough for an Ewave horn......With 15" diameter, not going to get to the 10" round ones for sure. The QSC 152i or 6212 maybe. 15" drivers aren't the best directivity match for these WG's ideally...but can be done.
Click to expand...

It can be done very well with 15 inch drivers, and in some ways, are advantageous. (assuming they reach up enough to do mids at all) See Wayne's writtings on this. Similarly, the smaller drivers arent all they are cracked up to be, (again covered in Wayne's writtings) with their lack of collapsing directivity actually doing damage from too much mid.
Interesting guy, that Wayne.

russellc
 
Russellc said:
It can be done very well with 15 inch drivers, and in some ways, are advantageous. (assuming they reach up enough to do mids at all) See Wayne's writtings on this. Similarly, the smaller drivers arent all they are cracked up to be, (again covered in Wayne's writtings) with their lack of collapsing directivity actually doing damage from too much mid.
Interesting guy, that Wayne.

russellc
Click to expand...

Wayne's not the only smart guy who's noticed the directivity "advantage" of 15" woofers, sometimes, in applications like this. Tomlinson Holman of THX is another... the original THX systems were designed, as I've mentioned before in various places, to use the collapsing dispersion (of DUAL 15" stacked woofers, in the original THX system) of the woofers to match the dispersion of the mid/high horn. In Holman's case, he used stacked woofers to give a roughly 90x45 pattern (narrower vertically, due to the stacked woofers), at around 800-1000 Hz (IIRC)... and he published quite a bit of data, to show it did pretty much what he expected it to do...

Regards,
Gordon.
 
GordonW said:
I don't know what PE will use for cones... but, the Yamaha cone is one of the ONLY cones that will readily FIT into that frame, period, out of what's available out there for parts. Need to use an extremely soft spider with those, since the fabric surround on the Yamaha cone is kind of stiff. If you do, it winds up fine.

As for working up to 1.5Khz- should be fine, with a felt dustcap. With a paper dustcap, the dustcap resonance would probably upset the response...

I wouldn't think that the round waveguide would be the best choice. Too much spacing between the center of the woofer to the center of the horn driver, and the round waveguide simply doesn't go as low as the PH612-type "standard" E-wave horn. I'd be inclined to just use the PH612, the original JBL PT waveguide or the PE equivalent, due to that design having the lowest center-to-center distance of any of the E-wave options. And, to boot- I can vouch for it working with 15" woofers fine, in actual real-world experience. I've done that like 4 times now... and it sounded good every time.

Regards,
Gordon.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback to my questions. Looks like with some more research I can utilize the HPM 1100 woofers and I'm going to move towards an elliptical wave guide based on recommendations here.
 
Zilch said:
There are "issues" running multiples; JBL's dual-2118 systems were 2.5-way:

http://www.jblproservice.com/pdf/Cabaret Series/4612B.pdf

http://www.jblproservice.com/pdf/Theatre Series/46120K.pdf
Click to expand...

Three issues with the 4612 that probably would not be a problem here:

1) The 2118 has a slightly rising response above about 1.5KHz or so... running them as 2.5 way "flattens" the response markedly (the lower end response of the ".5" woofer "adds" to the low end response of the "full-range" woofer, causing it to more "match" the high-end response of the full-range woofer).

2) The effective crossover between the "top" 2118 (the one that is not just doing bass, but is instead allowed to "go up" to the midrange crossover point) and the 2404 tweeter is effectively about 5KHz in the 4612. At that high of a crossover point, you DEFINITELY don't want ANYTHING narrowing the response of the 2118. It's still a bit of a compromise, being about an octave above where the "normal" crossover of an 8" to a tweeter would be in most speakers, but it does work fine, in practice, in this case.

3) The 2404 tweeter in the 4612 is a "square dispersion" driver... its horizontal and vertical dispersion is the same. So, having ONE 2118 effectively "interfacing" with it, would mean that the mid driver would also have a uniform dispersion (i.e, the same in the vertical and horizontal directions). This means that the power response would be slightly more uniform...

These are all issues that would NOT be a problem with a 1500Hz or so crossover point, to a flare with a rectangular or elliptical dispersion (as in the PT waveguide or QSC waveguide- anything rectangular). At that point, it would be quite acceptable to run both 2118s in straight parallel... the narrowing in the vertical dispersion due to the "stacking" would probably actually help the overall power response balance in all directions...

Regards,
Gordon.
 
Russellc said:
It can be done very well with 15 inch drivers, and in some ways, are advantageous. (assuming they reach up enough to do mids at all) See Wayne's writtings on this. Similarly, the smaller drivers arent all they are cracked up to be, (again covered in Wayne's writtings) with their lack of collapsing directivity actually doing damage from too much mid.
Interesting guy, that Wayne.

russellc
Click to expand...

I agree with everything you've said here Russ, but the crop of 15" drivers capable of this level of performance are limited, and not exactly "Econo" if you know what i mean. :no:
 
Changing loading for a woofer?

All;
Here's my issue. I have these Altec 406 woofers (Bolero) that I love. In the original 1.5 ft Bolero cabs they're loaded with PRs. The cabs that I have on hand won't fit the PRs and the woofers and a waveguide - too much front panel real estate needed.
I'd like to relocate the woofers with a waveguide to different cabs - this would be pretty easy. But to retain the loading I'd either have to:

1) relocate the PR to the back of the cabinet in some appropriate location - I assume there are rules for this
2) deal with a sealed cab and non-optimal loading
3) change to ported loading

I don't have TS parameters for the woofer. Is it practical to just figure out a port for the new cab based on an impedance sweep of the current Bolero, or should I use the PR for best performance, and if so how?

I don't want to make this a cut/try/listen experiment. A little tweaking is OK but I'm not into the blind search methodology.
 
mayhem13 said:
I agree with everything you've said here Russ, but the crop of 15" drivers capable of this level of performance are limited, and not exactly "Econo" if you know what i mean. :no:
Click to expand...

Not really. Recone a derelict EV15B or EV15L, or JBL M1158A stamped-frame 15", with a simple "generic" recone kit (Eminence 15" bell-shaped cone, felt dustcap, appropriate spider and such), and you can have a worthy woofer... for probably around $100 total each. Not dirt cheap, but still "econo"... considering the high-performance level they can achieve...

Even some of the "commodity brand" PA woofers can be reconed for this use. I've reconed many of the Behringer 15W400 woofers (dead, out of Behringer PA cabinets) for the same purpose... in fact, the three E-wave speakers used in the Video 1 room at Anime Weekend Atlanta have these exact type speakers in them, reconed with the Eminence cone. Work absolutely great...

Regards,
Gordon.
 
Bauhausler said:
All;
Here's my issue. I have these Altec 406 woofers (Bolero) that I love. In the original 1.5 ft Bolero cabs they're loaded with PRs. The cabs that I have on hand won't fit the PRs and the woofers and a waveguide - too much front panel real estate needed.
I'd like to relocate the woofers with a waveguide to different cabs - this would be pretty easy. But to retain the loading I'd either have to:

1) relocate the PR to the back of the cabinet in some appropriate location - I assume there are rules for this
2) deal with a sealed cab and non-optimal loading
3) change to ported loading
Click to expand...

PR in the rear is probably the best compromise. You can then match the original cabinet size (to a reasonably close degree) and be pretty assured that the woofer will work pretty much the same as the original cabinet...

Regards,
Gordon.
 
Hi Ross, the ESS AMT1s I had, had the PR in back and they sounded very good. I don't think it would have made a diff if they were mounted in front. If you use bigger or smaller cabs would the same PR work? I thought they were like a port...tuned for that specific application.

Bauhausler said:
All;
Here's my issue. I have these Altec 406 woofers (Bolero) that I love. In the original 1.5 ft Bolero cabs they're loaded with PRs. The cabs that I have on hand won't fit the PRs and the woofers and a waveguide - too much front panel real estate needed.
I'd like to relocate the woofers with a waveguide to different cabs - this would be pretty easy. But to retain the loading I'd either have to:

1) relocate the PR to the back of the cabinet in some appropriate location - I assume there are rules for this
2) deal with a sealed cab and non-optimal loading
3) change to ported loading

I don't have TS parameters for the woofer. Is it practical to just figure out a port for the new cab based on an impedance sweep of the current Bolero, or should I use the PR for best performance, and if so how?

I don't want to make this a cut/try/listen experiment. A little tweaking is OK but I'm not into the blind search methodology.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom