New speakers!!!

[Paul Barker]

Yes can we hear them at Oqwsot?

[shane]

What are the bass drivers, Chris?

[Toppsy]

Paul wrote

Yes can we hear them at Oqwsot?

Sounds like some place up in North Canada where the native North Americans might live?

Best go to OWSTON Paul or you'll have a long trip for nothing

[chris661]

S'alright, I knew what you meant.

Yes, these'll be coming to Owston.


Shane, these are they:

http://www.tb-speaker.com/detail/1230_04/w6-1139si.htm

I'm still amazed at the sheer amount of bass they can put out.
We played some dubstep with the LF amplifier turned up. Cone movement went >8mm p/p, but it still sounded clean!
Note the rated excursion is 13mm one-way. I don't think I'll ever get around to pushing them that hard, though if they ever do, it's likely to be at Owston, what with all you bass heads around...

Thanks, Lee.

Chris

[chris661]

So t'other day I had a friend round to see what he thinks of this design.

He's got a store-bought system (mission speakers, etc) that ought to sound reasonable.
Problem was that the music he considered "detailed" was compressed (dynamically) into oblivion, so we stuck with my iPod, apart from when Dubstep was required.

So we set off with the system set "flat" (no boosting of the woofers), sounded decent enough, even doing pretty well on "Black Metal" - a rather noisy genre of music that seems to be about getting angry about something unidentifyable.
Played some other tracks by artists like Tori Amos and found them decent enough.

Next up, I turned up the bass drivers to +4dB (from -2, so a 6dB gain), put on some rap music, and cautiously started turning it up.

I've never seen stuffing jump clean out of a port before, but we managed it. Only on one speaker, curiously enough: the other slurped the stuffing further into the cabinet. Weird...


I suppose this is the active crossover side of the system coming into its own - you can (without wasting any power in passive crossovers) put drivers together that normally would be very badly mismatched in terms of sensitivity, and compensate for the difference with a turn of a volume knob.
So, I dropped efficiency by Hoffman's Iron Law (small size, low bass, efficiency - pick any two) by using mini-subs, threw power at those and gave the high sensitivity, low power Fostexes a smaller, more delicate amplifier for the midrange and treble.


I'll stop ranting and raving about these for a while, hopefully you'll all hear what I'm hearing at Owston (brace yourselves, I might play some of said rap music as a demo for the bass-heads).

Chris

[shane]

I've never seen stuffing jump clean out of a port before, but we managed it. Only on one speaker, curiously enough: the other slurped the stuffing further into the cabinet. Weird...

Out of phase

[planet10]

Still grinning like a maniac,

dave

[chris661]

Okay, so I've finally taken the time to finish these off properly - the wires now have appropriate connectors, instead of chocky blocks and wires through the ports.

I also scoped the output of each amplifier with some music playing. The picture's a little out of focus, but lets see who can guess which line is which speaker...

More to come

Chris

[chris661]

Okay, so the rest of the system needs to be tidied up a little. It all works now, though - I had to add an inductor to the Tripath amplifier's PSU as I was getting a high pitched whistle due to ground loop problems (noisy SMPS didn't help).

Chris

[Andrew]

The speakers look fab, nice small elegant and Colin did his usually top job.

Andrew

[Mike H]

These are the ones going to university?

[chris661]

These are the ones going to university?

They are, yes.

I set them up as a desktop system on the dining table (after tea) and tried them with a variety of games and music. More than enough volume, everything still sounds nice, and with the Fostex drivers close to the screen, the sound follows the images around quite nicely. I'm very happy with them set up in this way.

I'm currently in the process of replacing a Logitech Z4 system (on my desk in my room) with these - there's certainly a size difference, but the step up in quality is enormous.

Chris

[zman]

Well conceived project and nicely executed. Cabinet by Mr. Topps is a looker as always.

I have the W6-1139 drivers also - but the ones with the bigger ferrite magnets. Parameter wise they are the same, and yes, they can produce nice clean bass even in relatively small enclosures. I did a FAST with them and results were very satisfactory, specially with a Mar-Ken 7.3. BTW Chris, I had pm'ed you @diyaudio on the tapped horns for these drivers, but felt too lazy to build them - went for simple boxes instead.

Good to see Chris go ahead and do the FR+Sub integration in a compact cabinet. Keep us posted on your progress.

- Zia

[Ray P]

Okay, so I've finally taken the time to finish these off properly...

Hi Chris, I picked up the cabinets from this project At Owston, courtesy of Phil. They're likely to end up being populated with some drivers and donated to a nephew who's setting up in a new home.

I was checking out the Tangband units you originally used but it seems they're not available in the UK, not ultimately a problem as I could always pay to get them shipped in, but i wondered if there might be any alrenatives worth considering - please don't go researching, just off the top of your head.

[chris661]

Hi Ray,

I'm glad they'll be going to a good home.
These are cheaper than the Tang Band units: https://www.soundimports.eu/en/dayton-a ... 165-4.html

And look like they'd perform a similar role.


Chris