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Zilch's AK Design Collaborative - Econowave Speaker

The mids seem muddy and lacking. My budy ploted the crossover and things seem wrong. I think the woofer is rolling off was too early, and a major dip around 1100hz. I am bringing it back to him to test. Crossovers are way beyond my scope. Dave Harris and ALK have started to look at the crossover and Dave will test with sweaps to get it working right.
 
so the build is done except for cabinet finishing. Still undecided so that wll have to wait. I ended up buying a pair of vintage Toshiba cabinets because they had the correct woofer size for my JBL woofers and they weighed a ton. They are actually heavier than my JBL cabinets.

The bad thing was the extra holes so I had to fill them with plywood. After unsuccessfully trying to cut round plugs, I made a square hole. I fit in the plugs and filled in the gaps with a mixture of sawdust and glue.

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The crossovers installed easily. One piece of advice, use extra long wires to connect to the speakers plus input terminal. If they are too short, you will fght it all the way.

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Here is the near finished product.

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I have one question for the experts. It seems that the bass is fuller with this cabinet, especially the upper bass/ lower mids. The JBL 125a woofer was always used in a ported cabinet of similar size yet this seems to provide a more robust sound. The highs are significantly better (as expected with the modern econowave technology) but I never thought I would be improving on the vintage JBL bass.

Am I crazy or is it possible the 125a can sound better in a non ported cabinet?
 
The 125a likes a sealed box, but fuller bass doesn't sound like the expected result (should get less bass). Could be cabinet noise thickening up the midbass.. (did you leave those bare inside?) What kind of volume have you got there?
 
donprice said:
Be warned that your first ewave mod may not be the last. The woofers used in the L88/L100/4311/4312 (among others) should be ideal and perhaps better if used in a larger cabinet.
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I am hooked. I am going to sell a pair of Klipsch KG4 to pay for my next build. I have a line on a pair of Altec Santana 2. They have the same 12" woofer as the model 9 and the model 12 speakers. Is this a good econowave base?

what crossover would be best?

standard vs deluxe?
 
justinsweber said:
The mids seem muddy and lacking. My budy ploted the crossover and things seem wrong. I think the woofer is rolling off was too early, and a major dip around 1100hz. I am bringing it back to him to test. Crossovers are way beyond my scope. Dave Harris and ALK have started to look at the crossover and Dave will test with sweaps to get it working right.
Click to expand...

What worries me is the cab faces. Lots of wood in front of the drivers....
 
dumptruck said:
The 125a likes a sealed box, but fuller bass doesn't sound like the expected result (should get less bass). Could be cabinet noise thickening up the midbass.. (did you leave those bare inside?) What kind of volume have you got there?
Click to expand...

slightly larger cabinet than the L26/L36, lots of insulation.

Seems like the bass is less boomy, just a nice rich sound. Maybe it is a case of less is more. By being less boomy, I can comfortably turn it louder and get more full bodies bass ??
 
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Update on Dell's eWaves. We built these some time ago and have made changes along the way, will more changes to come in two weeks.

Originally we used the B&C DE10 which is a wonderful driver but comes on too late for the eWave. If it where crossed at 3000hz, it would work great. We replaced that with the Selenium 220 and that sounded much better but there was still something wrong.

I live 180 miles away from Dell so we don't get much time to experiment with these and he is just following my lead. I was up there a month ago and we got listening to them and there was a hugh gap in the midrange. I pulled one of the woofers (they were unknown to me at the time of the build) and it turns out they are subwoofers not a woofers and for the most part die at 300hz.

Yesterday I got a fedex from PE with two Dayton DC300 12" woofers and will be up there in two weeks to drop them in.

I can't find a picture of the crossovers we built that is clear enough to see which version we built. I'd like to know that in case the Daytons are more or less efficient than what we built so I can bring spare parts..

Here is the original post


http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showpost.php?p=4001756&postcount=11737
 
Nice to see that the Econowave thread is 8 away from 1000 pages... Zilch would be proud (It's also only about 130 posts away from reaching 15,000).

Whoo!
 
I have purchased a pair of Altec Santana 2 with ewave in mind. Does anyone have any feedback on the woofer or should I be upgrading that as part of the ewave?

I love the looks of the Sanatana cabinet and it is about 4.5 cubic feet. It should be large enough for most woofers, especially if I port it.

In a dream world, what would be the best woofer for that project?

Altec%20Lansing%20Santana%20II%20Loudspeaker.jpg
 
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You might do a search of this thread. It seems like the Santana was discussed. It's a 2 way with a paper tweeter, correct?
 
I found the posts about the construction phase of the Sanatana but never did see any feedback on how happy the builder was with the sound of the finished product.

I love the looks / size / construction of the Santana but was just inquiring if the Altec woofer was the best possble sounding woofer for the build.
 
I too love the ratios and looks of the Santana.

I can't answer your question about the suitability of the woofer other than this: Altec made a two way using it. And I think the Ewave high end will be better.
 
the Santana 2 has an Altec 12" woofer but it isn't the biflex woofer. I think what I am going to do is to listen to the speakers for a bit before beginning the eqave process to see if the woofer is what I want on the low end.

If not, I have a small window where I can order another set of woofers and have them shipped to the border prior to me going to the US on Dec 3rd / 4th.

I was wondering if anyone had an preferred choice for a 12" woofer in a 4.5 cubic foot cabinet as part of an ewave. I am so happy with my existing ewave using a 10" JBL L125a that I am willing to spend the money to build a 12" in a better cabinet version.
 
dj- yes, the 420 is the 15" bi-flex; to me the bass was flabby and rolled off. i knew there was a market for the 420 and so i pulled and sold 'em. pmsummer came through with a great price on the 12" JBL's and in that cabinet, with scientific porting done by Paul Stewart of Dallas Audio Club, the bass is deep and tight.
 
Kneedeepinit said:
I was wondering if anyone had an preferred choice for a 12" woofer in a 4.5 cubic foot cabinet as part of an ewave. I am so happy with my existing ewave using a 10" JBL L125a that I am willing to spend the money to build a 12" in a better cabinet version.
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With 4.5 cu. ft., and a hankering for a 12", I'd check out the Eminence Definimax 4012HO. You'd want to aim for sort of an EBS alignment, tuning well below the Fs of the driver. In a home environment, you should be able to get away with it just fine. Tuning to 30 Hz models an F6 of about the same.

If you were planning on using subs, I'd go for a 15" and tune it a little higher. Definimax, JBL 2226H, B&C - there's lots of choices.
 
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