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Zilch's AK Design Collaborative - Econowave Speaker

bwaslo said:
Love the eWaved DQ10s, bet they sound better than the originals.
Click to expand...

That depends. There are people for whom nothing will ever sound better than a DQ-10. I had an original DQ-10 pair here and refurbed them. They sounded very good but not dynamic and open like a good 'horn' based system. Side-by-side with the Econowave version, I liked the Ewave. It's basically an Ewaved Large Advent in a different package.

I'm working over a pair of Ewave crossovers at the moment. I'm adding a switch so I can go between the high sensitivity and low sensiticity versions. This requires adding 2 resistors and one cap to the original board, and a DPDT switch to add/bypass the components. When I get one done I'll put up a pic. I wanted to try the high sensitivity version on the Altec 406 woofers.
 
I guess I was never a major fan of DQ10s. They always sounded all-right, but I never got crazy about them. I did make some eWaves (using QSC waveguide and the Advent 10 inch woofer) and those turned out to be one of the best sounding speaker sets I've had in my room or have heard in any rooms, and that includes some outrageously priced salon speakers. Some of that might have been because I wasn't expecting them to work so well (some eWaves I had made just previously with new woofers didn't sound nearly as good) and some surprise factor was probably there. But the eWaved Advents were like a window (they are now my son's, as I've been tweaking up my TD15/SEOS15 speakers, which are in the same category).
 
bwaslo said:
Hi Willy,

I'm afraid Zilch is no longer with us, he passed on last February. Today it has been one year since his last post in this thread :(


The designs cross over at about the -6dB points, so that a cancellation null occurs if the tweeter polarity is flipped from as-designed.

A number of woofers have been used, but you do have to make sure to use one that can play cleanly to about 1300Hz and not have too strong of breakup peaks up just above. There's an index of designs, at least up to last December.

Get a copy of PCD for xover design, and start from the basic ewave crossovers, optimize from there for your woofer and mounting scheme.

Good luck, there are people here who can help out when you get some curves to work from.

Bill
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot, Bill; maybe Zlich RIP
 
Xo board modded for high and low eff circuits

Here are some pix of a mod that I did to allow the high and low efficiency versions of the crossover to be accommodated on one board.

Starting with the low efficiency circuit, a 9 Ohm resistor is placed in series with 16 Ohm R2, with a switch so it can be bypassed. R2 can now be 16 Ohms for low efficiency or 25 Ohms for high efficiency.

Across the R1/C3 combo n additional 35 Ohm resistor and 1uf cap are placed. This changes the 30 Ohm/0.47uf R1/C3 to 16 Ohms/1.5uf for the high efficiency.

This is the older JackLab board from about 3.5 years ago and the newer ones may vary in detail.
I used the paired holes for J1A/J1B as tie points for one end of the 35Ohm/1uf cap combo. The Blu/black wires switch this resistor/cap pair into the circuit, completing the connection across R1.

I had to cut the circuit board trace where one end of R2 connects to the (-)ve rail. This disconnected pad becomes a physical tie point for the end of R2. The circuit is completed through the 9 Ohm resistor. There's a switch contact (brn/white wires) across the 9 Ohm R so it can be shorted out to return to 16 Ohms.

Pix here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ross-hershberger/6612369829/in/photostream

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ross-hershberger/6612366195/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ross-hershberger/6612362781/in/photostream/
 
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Switcable XO

Here's a page from my notebook on the way I did the switch. Not using a printed circuit board just meant adding a bit of real estate to my hardwood/plywood board... My first one has an off position on the switch, since the E-130 _could_ be used as a guitar cab...
 

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4343 said:
Here's a page from my notebook on the way I did the switch. Not using a printed circuit board just meant adding a bit of real estate to my hardwood/plywood board... M first one has an off position on the switch, since the E-130 _could_ be used as a guitar cab...
Click to expand...

That's about the same number of parts, and conceptually simpler than how I did it. My solution was driven by the old PCBs from Jack that I had.
I've built XOs for Ewave on Masonite board using original Advent chokes (unwould to 1.5mh) and various R's and C's. It worked well and was easy to assemble.
Pix are on here somewhere...

I'm using my convertible XOs now on the D220Tis/PH612 and Altec 406 woofers in L77 cabs. Sensitivity is set to 'high'. The Lpad is at about halfway. Sounds very nice.
 
Does the HF portion of the econowave have to be enclosed into the box? Is it possible to just rest it atop my woofer enclosure? I have seen this done with horns before, but not sure if it is recommended. I have some Technics SB6000a's I would like to use, as well as another woofer in a box I may try with it, and would like to keep modifications reversible. Thanks.
 
big eWave... now with SEOS (R)

photo2.jpg

photo.jpg


Replaced the home-made waveguide with a SEOS..
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=21427942&postcount=2407
 
Great job Bwaslo :)

Can you tell me what's the measuring distance ? I want to play with your FRD and ZMA if that's Ok with you :)

Once again, this looks great :thmbsp:
 
bwaslo said:
The drivers were measured from about 0.7meters away, each directly on axis.
Click to expand...

Sorry. I didn't read this in time.

You should not measure both woofer and tweeter on axis.

"To find the acoustic offset you will need to take three measurements, but for all three, the position of the microphone and the speaker must remain unchanged. This distance and axis must be held constant.

The first thing to do is to take a measurement of the response of both the tweeter and the woofer without changing the speaker position, microphone position, or amplifier setting between takes. Leaving this constant is essential. For these measurements I used an 8 mSec gating on my impulse response. Make sure with whatever software you use that phase data is included in the generated frd file. Without this phase data the file will not import into Passive Crossover Designer. The measured phase data is also important to determine the relative offset."

Mic should be placed at listening hight (tweeter usually).
 
That method does make it easier for figuring out the z axis (because the summed simulation for that situation becomes nearly exact), but it gives an improper measure of a large driver (the woofer) if the measurement is made close-in like I had to do it in my small room. At ~3meters away, listening position, you are more or less on-axis with the woofer, but that's too far to measure from in my case.

The most accurate way would be to do four measurements, one of each on axis, one of both at the tweeter position and one of the woofer at tweeter position. Use the measurements made at tweeter axis to figure the z offset. But simulate with the on-axis measurements of each (or whatever angle you'll be simulating at for the crossover).
 
I didn't know that you had to measure that close. It makes sense.

I've looked now on AVSforums that you've already modeled xover for it with two notch filters and 870Hz x over point. Looks good :thmbsp:

18dB/o for midbas with sumation of 5.5mH on it. I didn't listen to your speakers but bare in mind that too much inductivity on midbas suffocates mids in two way box. At least that is my experience. It is very possible that it will play much better with your current configuration (MiniDSP, biamping).

On paper everything will look great but with music not so much. I had the same problem with my econowave and it is not BS, beleve me.

It is too bad you have to make xover frequency that low. Without any notch filter, it works very well if the xover frequency is above 1200 Hz. Guys with TD12M will be dead on :)
 
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I had a somewhat puzzling experience today when I took my table to a tech recommended to me by a friend. In the shop's outer area were all kinds of used audio gear for sale. There were a pair of EWaves of the large Advent variety. I asked the tech about them and he had made them for a client ( Sellenium 220ti with the standard crossover). He said the client didn't like them and no one who had listened to them liked them either. Felt he had butchered a good pair of speakers. I told him I had made a pair out of empty Klipsch Heresy speakers and really liked them. After recognizing to each his own, we changed the subject.

Now I haven't read through this whole thread, but it was the first negative thing I can remember hearing about EWaves, and it seems that many Advents have been converted. He was not anti horns either. Anyone else run into this?
 
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