Econowave Speakers

[stereofool]

Rich,

What about the possibility of smaller cabinets to house the horns and midrange, and then build big-ass...pant flapping subs ...which you could kind of 'hide' in the corners.

Maybe Julie would go for that  .

[tmazz]

These horns are a bit too much detail for me. I focus on reverb trails and cracked notes, stereo pan instead of the melody. 

Give it some time. Right now all that detail is new to you and you are "discovering" all of the sounds within the music that had evaded you before. Once you get a bit more used to that level of detail it won't be that distracting and your attention will go back to the melody. 

[Inscrutable]

Great job Rich .. Looking and sounding mighty impressive ... can't wait to hear.

Obviously, haven't seen a build like this one ... do you have a guess on the system sensitivity?  Would guess well north of 95. Perhaps north of 100?

Re Steve and Julie's comments .. weren't the original Econowaves in fact in much smaller enclosures? (shorter at least)

I have all the parts in my cart for LCR front stage.  Haven't been able to model with my IB15's instead of the Eminence ... WinISD blows up on me ... get soem kind of 'dividing by zero' error message some kind of pilot error I am sure, or some kind of issue from manually entering the driver parameters .. wish these were in the canned database...

[hometheaterdoc]

Tim,

Don't go ordering parts just yet  I've got some SEOS waveguides coming to play with and compare with these QSC ones, as well as some different drivers... this econowave may be the value to beat.... but we should hear the options before spending more money (or at least before *you* spend any money... it seems I'm bound and determined to spend more hehehe  also, let me order the stuff for you if you're ok with that... I get better prices with my wholesale accounts)

Rich was awesome to build out the test mule cabinets for this and put everything together... He's the man, here because I certainly don't have the time right now to be cutting up wood.....  but this design was meant to be an experiment just so we could all hear it and see if the concept was sound or not...  

it's certainly looking like it's worth pursuing based on comments here and an email or two Rich and I have swapped (I need to get over to his place soon to get a listen to it in person)...  but it sounds like there is still some tweaking to do on crossover, maybe even compare to a couple other drivers to see if its ideal or not...  plus, as I said, I've got way too many of the SEOS-12 plastic waveguides on pre-order to come in and see how that affects things compared to this QSC waveguide....  I'm hoping its better and if you decide to build some speakers that you'll take a few of them off my hands  Otherwise, its just that many more I'm going to have to figure out how what to do with them other than store them in a bin in my garage for a while

More info in the big AVS Forum thread on the SEOS, including a couple new designs just posted with an economy Dayton driver that's about to be introduced at parts express:  http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1291022 it's pushing up to 110 pages now... last ten pages or so are likely most relevant at this point...

I've got 3 AE TD12X woofers hopefully shipping to me this week if John will read his email and put shipping labels on the boxes sitting at his place.  I've also got a couple different folks that are willing to sell me pairs of TD15M woofers from the group buy whenever that actually is able to ship out.... so it should be interesting to hear those drivers in comparison to the eminence woofers.  but as usual, I'm getting ahead of myself

Can't wait to get over your way and have a listen, Rich... hopefully sometime this week or maybe this upcoming weekend...  it all depends on someone else, though right now

[richidoo]

The new server is fast, and no login error!  


Tim, sensitivity for this 'Ewave Delite' is nominally 90dB. The driver is relatively high EBP compared to subwoofer drivers so the woofers 99dB rating does not extend into the bass freqs. The horn is severely padded to mate with the woofers low frequency response. When I build my own speakers they will be WTW so that the paralleled woofers will allow 6dB less pad on the horn.

The published Econowave Delite design that I am using here was prototyped in a Parts Express knock down cabinet. It is cheap, available and easy to assemble for those who can't build or design their own box. Zilch said many times that his design did not include the bass alignment, you were on your own for that. He used the same box without mods for all the 12" "deluxe" designs no matter which woofer, so they were all compromised in the bass to some degree. The knock down cabinet is a compromise for this woofer because it is too small to achieve max flat response. I used WinISD to calculate the max flat Butterworth alignment to get the lowest flattest response without regard to size or cost. It is pretty big for a single 12" driver when you consider the Geddes Abbey speaker which requires subwoofers. Mine don't require subwoofer to enjoy all kinds of music at high volume. You can reduce the volume of the box and the simulator will change the port dimensions to maintain flat response, but sensitivity and bass extension will decrease.

You can use Unibox
http://audio.claub.net/software/kougaard/ubmodel.html
or Jeff Bagby Woofer Box
http://audio.claub.net/software/jbabgy/jbagby.html
simulators are more powerful and flexible software. But WinISD is adequate for this job.  Maybe it can't handle IB type drivers? Please post the IB15 T/S specs? Thanks

[richidoo]

Come hear it if you want Shane, but there is a lot more work to do before it is worthy of golden ears. Set your expectations accordingly.

[hometheaterdoc]

Come hear it if you want Shane, but there is a lot more work to do before it is worthy of golden ears. Set your expectations accordingly.

duly noted....

[Inscrutable]

Shane,
OK, thanks ... I will direct my energy at getting the boat in the water rather than the screenwall. Have some rewiring to do and recovered bolsters to mount and insturment panel to refinish and ... like they say ...
Bring
Over
Another
Thousand

Sounds good on the waveguides and drivers. Checked the Dayton site ... the Designer 12's are up, at <$80 each,  pretty low Fs compared the Eminence 12's (which I don't really need since mated with HT sub), not very sensitive ... we'll see ...  Now, if there were a good low-cost altenative to the DE250 ...

If not confidential, what kind of price did they get on the AE drivers?  I REALLY wish he was still making the IB15's ... would save me a lot of mental grief deciding whihc way to go now for LCR and/vs sub. Ah well ...

Yeah, I can deal with lightening your load on teh waveguides ...  the AE 12TDX are probably overkill for the screenwall, tho probably would be sweet for a 2-ch pair.

[Inscrutable]

Rich,
Yeah, while I would definitely go with larger boxes as you have for a freestanding pair, smaller cabs will work fine for me as I don't care if I don't get much below about 60Hz. I would however like to model a shallower box so I don't have to bring the screen out as far - something on the order of 8-10" rather than 14-16".

WinISD drove me nuts. I tried inputting a couple different ways - found guidance on which parameters to input (only), and other tips on what order to input them ... gets me past the conflicting parameter entry messages, but still get errors when running a project. Maybe sometime if we are together you can show me the error of my ways.

For morbid curiosity, these are the TS parameters for the drivers:
IB15 8ohm
Fs: 16Hz
Qms: 6.8
Vas: 439L
Cms: .45mm/N
Mms: 220g
Rms: 3.239kg/s
Xmax: 18.5mm
Xmech: 25mm
Sd: 830sqcm
Vd: 3.07L (p-p)
Qes: .78
Re: 5.5ohm
Le: .33mH
Bl: 12.49Tm
Pe: 500W
Qts: .7
1WSPL: 86dB
2.83V: 87.3dB

And yeah, not really designed for IB modeling, but actually was trying to model for more conventional sealed/vented enclosure to see if I could go that way with these or not. Also looking for the power necessary to achieve full output, as I will have to be making a decision on an amp soon.

Let us know when the babies are ready to receive visitors

[richidoo]

Tim, thanks for typing all that out. I got it working in WinISD Beta. I entered everything as you listed, except for Sd and Diameter I converted to meters first.  It's like college chemistry has returned to haunt you - watch the units!

Running a box simulation it shows that these drivers will require gigantic boxes. Optimum closed box size is 21000 liters (the size of an attic?) Vented is something like 2500 liters. A box of 400 liters would make a 3dB bump at 30Hz, it would drive you nuts. The Qts is very high, .7 so they will sound warm and not very detailed if asked to play into upper midrange frequencies to match up to a horn. So forget these for Econowave type speakers.

Maybe if you make a faux wall 2-3 feet in front of your current front wall, to install these as IB subs, then flush mount the screen and put the speakers behind the screen or flush mounted in the wall.

[Inscrutable]

Thanks Rich so much for the effort. Sounds like that fixes my decision ... move on as originally planned to use these in an IB configuration for subs, and deal with the LCR completely separately with new drivers. Now the problem is that the size of my "indoor" enclosure was only going to be about 60 cf (about 1700 liters) ... more of  asealed box than an IB. So I eiether need to accept that limitation, or go back to venting these to the attic and dreaming up some kind of removable insulation panel.

As an IB, the Qtc ~= Qts, and also I'll be EQ'ing it to boot, so should be fine from an articulation standpoint. I am only worried if I have enough drivers for necessary output in so large a room. had planned to try it and buy 4 more if needed, but my hibernation has put a crimp in that unless I can pry some away from current owners. Guess if they don't put out enough I could sell them and get all new drivers for the sub. I'll bet I could sell them for at least what I paid.

Since you already have them plugged in can you tell of what kind of output they are capable if we assume about a 1700 liter sealed box and 4 drivers? I guess what you've already run showing the 21000 liter box approximates venting into my attic - could even increase that number. Do you recall what that showed?

If I'm being too big a PITA don't hesitate to say so.

[richidoo]

4 drivers in a sealed box of 87363 makes Qtc .71.
4 drivers in a sealed box of 1700 liters makes Qtc 1.0, that's 60 cu. ft, ~6' x 4' x 2'. 

See tim.jpg below for FR at 2.83V, 4 drivers in one 1700liter box. At 500W it is same curve at 120dB up from 93dB at one watt.

With all the drivers in one box acoustic modes will be worse than if you spread the sources around the room.

[Face]

FYI, this program is far superior to WinISD: http://audio.claub.net/software/jbabgy/WBCD.html

The only negative(if you want to call it that), you need 32bit Excel installed on your machine.  

[richidoo]

Getting back into this now after a week of real life.

I listened and experimented a bit this afternoon. Toed the speakers in even more, and sat up closer to widen the triangle.

Some songs benefit from cranking in more horn, while other songs need less. The double edge sword of high resolution. Turning down the level of the horn does not reduce resolution.  So it is not ideal for pop music, but well recorded music sounds great, even high resolution audiophile stuff and rock recordings with sonics in mind. The tweeter is broken in more now, but there is still an edginess that distracts. I'll try the Radian tweeter this week too.

Bass and midrange (the woofer) is not as clear as it should be. It's not keeping up with the horn.  I think it's mostly box vibration, so I will be adding cross bracing tomorrow.

It could also be the driver, with paper cone, but the cone feels very stiff and thick, and the driver Q is only .38 so it should be fine thru the 1400Hz xo.

Maybe the iron core coil on the woofer should be air core for lower hysteresis and distortion? It is Erse Super Q type, supposedly lower hysteresis, but it is still a magnetic core.

Speaking of awesome air core inductors, Did you guys know that North Creek Audio's shop burned down in January? He says they are rebuilding and will be selling coils again in spring/summer.

I am remembering hearing Jason's Abbeys which have much clearer midrange. They use extremely solid self-damping urethane box and a B&C woofer, which easily keeps up with this tweeter.

[richidoo]

I forgot to mention that I (edit: temporarily) blocked off the reflex ports to make Qtc .57. Clearer without the port phase shift, but not as low. The midrange coloring remained.