Over the years of designing and building speakers, amps, preamps, etc. I have built a few custom speakers for use in evaluation, design work as well as personal interest.
Currently being used in our facility is a custom pair of mini line arrays with 4x 5" Peerless India full range 4 ohm drivers and 3x Neo8 tweeters. This arrangement is setup up in a ported enclosure with the Neo8's taking over at 600Hz. Love the midrange of the Neo and the liveliness of the paper coned Peerless drivers. The downfall of this "Module Array" is the limited vertical dispersion whereas a single tweeter design would eliminate this problem.
This next pair will use a different 5" Peerless India 4 ohm driver set on an open baffle. There will be 2 of these drivers per baffle handling the midbass up to about 800Hz where a single Neo8 will take over. The lower frequencies will be handled by two, fast 8" woofers in a sealed enclosure. Woofers have been decided upon but I will leave that for a later time.
The system will be voiced for a fast, articulate and lively presentation. I do not like a speaker that is overly warm or that has an unnatural amount of body and they serve no purpose in the design process of electronics.
As this venture moves forward in my spare time :rofl: I will use this thread as a build progress thread.
Bill - you should check out the thread OB Richidoo's e-lips speakers. He has put a whole lot of time over the past few months into designing and prototyping a new OB speaker design, and shared with us all of his trials and tribulations along the way.
http://www.audionervosa.com/index.php?topic=2505.0
I have seen his thread and commented on how much I like the design. I would love to here them.
This pair I am building I have been putting together on paper and in my head for a while now.
What comes next will be a new speaker design that nobody has done yet. A very unique, high effeciency open baffle design by Purity Audio design. It is a design my partners and I have been working on for some time. Sorry I can't provide any more details at this time.
Quote from: Response Audio on November 09, 2010, 08:44:36 PM
This pair I am building I have been putting together on paper and in my head for a while now.
What comes next will be a new speaker design that nobody has done yet. A very unique, high effeciency open baffle design by Purity Audio design. It is a design my partners and I have been working on for some time. Sorry I can't provide any more details at this time.
Sounds like an exciting project. Good luck in bringing the ideas to fruition.
(http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc91/Timewalker/HannibalSmith.gif)
Sounds really cool, Bill. It's gonna be fun to hear about them as they emerge. And even more fun to hear them, for me probably at a trade show. Any timeline in mind for bringing it to market?
I have heard the Neo 3 in a 2way, great drivers. The larger unit must be even better.
Thanks for the kind words guys.
The speaker that we are working on for a retail level will not use any of the drivers I have mentioned being used in the speaker I am working on now.
The. current speaker I am working on will likely go through some changes as these type of ventures always do. While doing some cleaning today, I actually came across a pair of Accuton tweeters I had no idea I had. Hmmm..... what would bring to my small arrays? After a couple different series capacitors, I ended up throwing in a 3.9uF and setting them atop the arrays. Brought a whole new level of extension, air and presence to the table.
Luv 'em, specially in 1st order to let em shine. I keep loading madisound shopping cart with $4000 worth of accuton drivers, the cool new Neo motors. Someday I will press Submit Order. :rofl: Then I'll really be in trouble!
The Accuton and Raven tweeters are my favorites. Raven being the first choice. Reliability of the ribbon is an issue, but the sound is glorious.
charles
My first choice would be RAAL then Raven. After that maybe the Accuton IF done properly
Okay, we have some updates and changes. Working on projects like this is done on my own time. I don't use up company time or family time so I usually only get to work on these on Sundays.
As you can see in the picture below, a few things have changed as it progressed. There are now 4 midrange drivers and we have gone to an open baffle midbass arrangement. I know it's hard to visualize this speaker from the picture so I hope to have further updates and new pictures next weekend. By the way, sorry about the picture quality but I shot it with my cell phone as I forgot my camera today. Here's what we have.
The speaker is being designed in a module fashion. This will allow me to swap out the midrange/tweeter baffles with other designs as well as insert the baffles into sealed enclosures. see further details on this below the picture.
Okay, back to the arrangement: This speaker will need to be paired with subwoofers as it's low frequency cut off will be at only 70Hz. We basically have a large open baffle satellite speaker hear.
The midbass arrangement is using two 8" paper cone woofers with a high Qts. The woofers in the picture are only there for a visual effect as I would not use these cheap MCM poly cone woofers. As mentioned above, they will go down to only 70Hz. These 12 ohm woofers will present a 6 ohm load as wired and 92dB efficiency.
The midbass woofers will hand off to the midrange woofers at about 200Hz (further testing will have to be done before deciding).. These 4 woofers are paper cone pieces which also have a high Qts (shouldn't matter at these frequencies anyway) and a 4 ohm impedance. In the end, the midrange will show a 4 ohm load and 92.5dB efficiency.
The tweeter is an Accuton as I had a pair laying around. Big time overkill for this system but what the hell, why let them go to waste. I have not yet settled on the exact x-over frequency for the tweeter but it will probably be around 2,500Hz.
The modeling of the speaker is proving to be very positive but of course, it will be the ears and some measurements that tell the true story. From there, the fun part of tweaking begins
(http://www.purityaudiodesign.com/photo-speakersSM.jpg)
Module setup: As mentioned above, we are going this route to allow for a variety of midrange/tweeter arrangements. I already have another open baffle design that uses 4 pieces of 5" paper cone units, 1 Neo8 tweeter and a ribbon tweeter to provide air and extension above and beyond what Neo provides. This upper baffle is the same size as the one used in the speaker so interchanging will be very easy.
The other part of this design is that the baffles can be inserted into a sealed enclosure with it's interlocking set-up.
Well, that's it for this week.
Very cool. Shades of Legacy Whisper driver arrangement on the mid/tweet panel. That round ribbon looks like the kind in the Adagio? Thanks for the inspiration.
QuoteVery cool. Shades of Legacy Whisper driver arrangement on the mid/tweet panel.
Hmm... maybe this is where the inspiration came from... but more the Helix
When complete, it will look more like the Audio Artistry Dvorak as seen below.
QuoteThat round ribbon looks like the kind in the Adagio? Thanks for the inspiration.
That IS a ribbon out of a pair of Adagio speakers. Very nice ribbon. I wanted to try it out in this design but the efficiency is not high enough.
(http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/6249/bild145qc6.jpg)
Very purty!! 8)
Heres a couple pictures of the latest progress. This will be it for a while as I won't have any further "personal time" for a while now. They are up and running and now only need some crossover tweaking and cabinet damping. I still have to make the socks and end caps.
I am quite suprized at how spacious the soundtage is but then again, they are in a large room with plaenty of distance from any walls.
(http://www.purityaudiodesign.com/OB-bella-3SM.jpg)
(http://www.purityaudiodesign.com/ob-bella4sm.jpg)
Bill these are looking really nice. Are you building these for your own personal use or is this being done with an eye towards putting them into production for retail sale?
These speakers were built on a personal level and will be used in rotation with other speakers in the shop for testing and evaluating our other products as well as for demos and auditions.
We are working on a high end Purity Audio Deaign speaker but is not something we can discuss at this time. It will be a next year release. Released first will be the High power hybrid mono blocs and headphone amp(s).
Here are a few better quality pictures of the speakers up and running. Next step is tweaking the crossover, possibly trying a ribbon tweeter and finally making the socks for a clean look.
(http://www.purityaudiodesign.com/full-system-2.jpg)
(http://www.purityaudiodesign.com/r-speaker1.jpg)
Looks great Bill! They are pretty slick for monoliths. Kinda classy actually. The black color is cool with the black drivers.
Are you using a sub with them yet? Does it need it?
Can you bring that tweeter out flush with the baffle? I think the tweeter reflections inside that recessed hole will be pretty audible. Maybe you are using it as front loading for +SPL.
I was reading that the Legacy Whisper/Helix which use that midrange tweeter arrangement like yours has each mid driver angled away from the tweeter a little bit, which adjusts the lobing to create a midrange beam of sorts to minimize wall reflections. Figuring out the specifics is another matter altogether...
Hi richidoo,
Yes, they do need a subwoofer. Large subwoofer towers are in the plans. Most likely a large sealed cabinet design with six 8" or 10" woofers per tower. I will hold off on the sub towers for a while as I have to find a fast 10" driver that can keep up with the speed of 5" midrange drivers. I also want to be able to mate the subs with other speakers used.
The tweeter will be mounted flush with the front baffle. I mounted it this way as I didn't want to mar up the front baffle untill I made a final decision on what tweeter I was going to use as well as which midrange panel will be in the final design. I still have another midrange panel using 4 midrnage drivers (mounted in a vertical array) with a Neo8 and ribbon tweeter. The ribbon will take over at about 8kHz-10kHz.
Cool, sound like a well thought out plan, as usual! Thanks for sharing it all with us Bill.
There's something about the look of them. Anyone else agree? Techie but in an artful way. Maybe its the MT arrangement, or some kind of geometric harmony.
Quote from: richidoo on November 26, 2010, 02:10:56 PM
Cool, sound like a well thought out plan, as usual! Thanks for sharing it all with us Bill.
There's something about the look of them. Anyone else agree? Techie but in an artful way. Maybe its the MT arrangement, or some kind of geometric harmony.
Love the look. How do they sound ? Can't wait for Bill to send these out on a tour :nono: Get them ready for the rave
QuoteCan't wait for Bill to send these out on a tour Get them ready for the rave
:rofl:
These will have to be heard when everyone come up here for a "Rave". This was you can also audition the new Salk HT2-TL with the RAAL ribbon (see them in the photo as well), the Extreme Adagio loudspeakers with external crossovers and the Purity One and Purity Reference linestages feeding our prototype Hybrid amplifier.....maybe the mono blocs versions as well.
Bill,
Those are nice 8) When is the Rave?
Welcome to Nervosa Mr. Foy :thumb:
I have a few more details to take care of first before I can schedule the RAVE. We have picked up a new line of speakers and want to wait till I bring a pair in to have here. I also want to have our new mono bloc hybrid amps up and running rather than the stereo unit as they will be needed to drive the new speakers.
I am also making arrangements to have an AMR CD player here.
I will have two complete systems set up with my plans being as follows:
Main system:
Purity Reference preamp, Purity 500W Hybrid mono bloc amplifiers, King Sound Prince II speakers, AMR CD777 CD player
Second system:
Purity One preamp, Purity 250W Hybrid stereo amplifier, Salk HT2-TL speakers, highly modified Jolida CD player
Bill,
This site is a cooler than AC. I look forward to the Rave, keep me in the loop.
BTW. The cbs/hytron 5814wa tubes are REALLY nice in the pre-amp.