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Zilch's AK Design Collaborative - Econowave Speaker

jpoitras said:
Not that you want my advise, since I'm just a long time lurker, first time poster, I'd say it depends on what your priorities are.
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Thank you for the advice, which Wayne has confirmed.

It's the Parts Express trapezoidal cabinet kit, gross internal volume 1.6 - 2.0 cuft, depending upon where I mount the baffle. The woofer is rear-mounted and will consequently consume considerable volume, so it seems 12M would be the appropriate choice.

I'll confirm with box models before ordering.... :yes:
 
Got it set up today.

acoustech2.jpg


I used basic settings from the link that Zilch listed for the Behringer DCX. The first thing that surprised me was how flat the speakers were before starting the RTA on the Behringer DEQ. Ran the Auto EQ process and these speakers sound excellent. Tons of headroom and clear as a bell. What everyone has said about waveguides is true, no listener fatique whatsoever. They do not sound like horns at all.

All I need is a little bit of ultra top end air I think. 10k and up. Might add some ribbon tweets in a separate enclosure on top of the towers, maybe dipoles. ( Had Magnepan SMGa's and I kinda miss that huge soundstage.)

Next thing to do is add a waveguide to the center channel and hit the backs of the horns with some spray foam. Getting a bit resonance through them at high levels. Also, the woofs are not the smoothest sounding into the mids so considering an upgrade down the road with Dayton RS180's. Sound excellent at low to moderate volumes though. Problem is when the Acoustech woofers get hit with some serious current they start getting blurry and can't keep up with the Seleniums.

Dont get me wrong. This is freakin great! It's all good, just can be improved even more. Wow! What an upgrade for little money.
 

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Hi,
Been folowing this thread off and on and have heard the E-waves a couple of times and like them enough to want to try them .Would like to use a 16 ohm Selenium D220TI-16-1 horn driver with Altec 414A 16 ohm woofers and would like to know if there is a crossover for 16 speakers .

Thanks
 
battradio said:
Hi,
Been folowing this thread off and on and have heard the E-waves a couple of times and like them enough to want to try them .Would like to use a 16 ohm Selenium D220TI-16-1 horn driver with Altec 414A 16 ohm woofers and would like to know if there is a crossover for 16 speakers .
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The parts list shows components for a 16-Ohm woofer option.

Don't know what the "-1" means after your D220Ti-16, but 8-Ohm diaphragms are available for $12.84 each; nobody's worked out a 16-Ohm highpass. You may have to kerfutz a bit to get them installed and aligned well.

Optionally, you could put a 16-Ohm, 10W resistor in parallel with each compression driver, which will attenuate the output 3 dB. Use the high-efficiency crossover variant with that approach.... :yes:
 
Zilch said:
With his Acoustech HT-75 towers, Vlad335 joins the group of Honorary E'Wavers:

http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?p=2260584#post2260584

Nicely done! :thmbsp:
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Thanks man.

Just watched the GI Joe bluray and have to reiterate that this is a HUGE UPGRADE to my system! i have since been breaking out all my CD's, DVD's, everything that I have listened to repeatedly and am now seemingly hearing them for the first time. Having a blast.

Will place an order for a Selenium driver and Dayton waveguide to upgrade the center. :banana:
 
vlad335 said:
Thanks man.

Just watched the GI Joe bluray and have to reiterate that this is a HUGE UPGRADE to my system! i have since been breaking out all my CD's, DVD's, everything that I have listened to repeatedly and am now seemingly hearing them for the first time. Having a blast.

Will place an order for a Selenium driver and Dayton waveguide to upgrade the center. :banana:
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This is great news. I know from other forums the Acoustech speakers have a big following with the value minded HT enthusiast, now's there's an inexpensive upgrade for them. Zilch is going to have a new career working with the HT crowd. :yes: Watch his post count skyrocket over at AVS. ;)
 
From Another Forum:

DS-21 said:
I'm not slighting the Ewave, because I think it's exceptionally cool for what it is - an inexpensive plug n' play solution for people to get their hands wet with superior (narrow and constant dispersion, high efficiency) loudspeakers - but is it going to best a top-to-bottom bespoke design springing from one of the brightest minds in audio using superior drivers? Not a chance. But Ewave also costs a lot less, and allows for more learning due to the modular nature of it. And in the end, anything that gets people past the asinine paradigm of a dome tweeter mounted flush in a baffle with highly audible power response errors due to the inevitable directivity mismatch between tweeter and next driver down in the crossover region is a net plus for the hobby....
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http://techtalk.parts-express.com/showthread.php?p=1592500#post1592500
 
I finally got my Pyle horns and I just want to make sure of something before I begin building. I am going to use and active crossover but I will still build the Ewave crossover, at least the HF component of it, for compensation. The questions is, if I have no need to attenuate the horn with an L-pad and do not want any loss of signal to the horn, can the L-pad be eliminated altogether or should something be put in its place?
 
OK.. I'm stoked.. I just got my funding for my TD15M's.. I forgot I'm getting paid at the start of the year for a weeks worth of vacation. Now I don't need to worry about selling off more stuff. Hopefully by the end of Jan I'll have all my parts gathered!
 
The l-pad can be eliminated and you can actually use specific resistor values to tune to the amount of attenuation you need.

This is from Wayne Ps chart from earlier in this thread. You should find it and read the posts surrounding it to get a good idea of whats going on, but here it is:

dB - R1 - R2 - C3
=========================
06dB - 12 ohm - 30 ohm - 0.47uF
08dB - 12 ohm - 20 ohm - 0.47uF
10dB - 16 ohm - 16 ohm - 0.47uF
12dB - 25 ohm - 16 ohm - 0.47uF
14dB - 30 ohm - 14 ohm - 0.33uF
16dB - 40 ohm - 12 ohm - 0.33uF
18dB - 50 ohm - 12 ohm - 0.22uF
20dB - 75 ohm - 12 ohm - 0.22uF
=========================

Or you can just use the values in the schematic given for the crossover and use your active crossover to set levels.

I'm now running 12dB attenuation with no pad on my CV D7s and I think I've got it pretty well matched, but haven't yet got my phantom power working for my new measuring mic. :)

18-20db seemed to be the ticket for the Dayton DC-250 10" woofers.
 
Thanks, rage.

I found it on page 141. I saw several pages of follow up posts regarding it so I'll start reading. And yes, I will be adjusting levels with the active crossover and will be using a low power amp for the horn. That's why I want no attenuation built into the passive crossover other than what is necessary to help flatten the response.
 
Duffinator said:
This is great news. I know from other forums the Acoustech speakers have a big following with the value minded HT enthusiast, now's there's an inexpensive upgrade for them. Zilch is going to have a new career working with the HT crowd. :yes: Watch his post count skyrocket over at AVS. ;)
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They are great HT speakers for the money, probably the best 5.1 set you can get for $1000. Dollar for dollar the sub is the best I have heard and you can't beat this system for the sheer dynamics of Dolby Digital. waveguides simply take it to another level and dare I say to the hifi, oddiophile zone of critical listening.

Keep in mind I am biamping with a active crossover and a good deal of power to the drivers. Approx 400watts to the woofers and 120 watts to each horn. I am using the RTA on the DEQ2496 and with the parametric on the DEQ, CD horn compensation is being ultilized. The DCX is adding slight delay to the woofers as well. I have a ton of control and the ability to dial in exactly what I want. I don't know alot about designing passive XO circuits but I would think that it would be quite difficult and probably very expensive to replicate these settings but what the hell do I know. :drool:

Another question: What are the dimensions of the JBL mini waveguides? Would I gain anything going with these as opposed to the Daytons?
 
GOYA said:
The questions is, if I have no need to attenuate the horn with an L-pad and do not want any loss of signal to the horn, can the L-pad be eliminated altogether or should something be put in its place?
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For biamping, bypass the L-pad.

rage said:
I think I read somewhere you need 6-8db for the compensation to work.
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Correct. The high-efficiency variant if the eWave crossover uses the minimum suitable attenuation.

vlad335 said:
Another question: What are the dimensions of the JBL mini waveguides? Would I gain anything going with these as opposed to the Daytons?
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There are both 6" square and 8" square versions. You gain flat fronts and JBL-engineered progressive transition directivity control:

http://www.jblpro.com/catalog/support/getfile.aspx?docid=277&doctype=3
 
Zilch said:
There are both 6" square and 8" square versions. You gain flat fronts and JBL-engineered progressive transition directivity control:

http://www.jblpro.com/catalog/support/getfile.aspx?docid=277&doctype=3
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Sounds good to me.

Just got off the phone with JBL. Out of stock with no ETA of when they will get them again. :sigh: Between you guys and Greenboy over at Talkbass, http://www.talkbass.com/wiki/index.php/Fearful™_12/6_&_15/6 they can't keep them in stock.

BTW. I have a waveguide in the Fearful bass rig I built.

monster17.jpg
 
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Yeah.. I just called JBL to see about ordering the 1.5" throated guides.. out of stock too... bummin... BUT.. I did get a date to call back. A shame they can't just take your order and ship when they get them.
 
vlad335 said:
Just got off the phone with JBL. Out of stock with no ETA of when they will get them again.
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Call weekly 'til it happens; I got two pair last week.

vlad335 said:
Between you guys and Greenboy over at Talkbass, http://www.talkbass.com/wiki/index.php/Fearful™_12/6_&_15/6 they can't keep them in stock.
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Greenboy and eWave go back aways.

[4000 posts over there.... :D ]

similost said:
Yeah.. I just called JBL to see about ordering the 1.5" throated guides.. out of stock too... bummin... BUT.. I did get a date to call back. A shame they can't just take your order and ship when they get them.
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It's Pro Parts, and they're not set up to sell retail to individuals. On open accounts, they do backorders.... :yes:
 
Zilch said:
It's Pro Parts, and they're not set up to sell retail to individuals. On open accounts, they do backorders.... :yes:
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So is there anywhere else I could order them from then or is this the only game JBL has? Or, do you by chance have an open account?

Got another question for you too while I'm here..

I was reading a post from you, and you were talking about using the BMS 4555 with a compensated Altec 846B filter. Is this something I am going to ahve to do also, that is use the Altec filter, or at least build one using the BMS driver?
 
similost said:
So is there anywhere else I could order them from then or is this the only game JBL has? Or, do you by chance have an open account?
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I purchase on open account, yes. It is not mine, however.

That's moot. If they don't have them, I can't get them either, and I'm not prepared to stock components at this point. If some eWaver in Slovenia needs a pair, I'll make that happen, but it's easy enough for USA builders to check periodically for when they are available. I waited and checked for two years prior to that waveguide going into production.

similost said:
I was reading a post from you, and you were talking about using the BMS 4555 with a compensated Altec 846B filter. Is this something I am going to ahve to do also, that is use the Altec filter, or at least build one using the BMS driver?
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That's from back when Jack and I were modding Valencias with BMS. That'll work, but there are better options:

Zilch said:
I never worked out a crossover for them, and still run them on vintage Altec Model 19 crossovers. It's WiredGuy's C36s have LE14As with BMS 4555s, shown earlier in this thread, and will get a variant of Jack's excellent eWave derivative of Wayne's Pi-Speaker design. :yes:
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My upgraded Model 19 crossover schematic is posted elsewhere in this forum. I've never built them, but others have and say they are good. If you want a jump start, buy a vintage pair. Mine were acquired for $100 a couple of years ago.... :dunno:
 
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