Build or buy, speaker options
I have a pair of Triangle Volante 260 speakers which I love dearly most of the time. The times that don’t love them dearly are the Fridays when I get home from work and want to shed the stress of the week with a little high energy wall of sound type tunes. As mentioned before in this forum, the midrange and high end quickly fade out after a short while at high volume, then fade back in when I turn the volume down. Georgehifi posited that it could be iron core inductors in the crossovers getting saturated, and that sounded feasible. But, in an email conversation with Madisound, their tech indicated that he’d never experienced such a behavior, and that saturated inductors were more likely to exhibit distortion. The tech ask for some photos of the crossover, but I wasn’t able to get a clear shot of one of them, and trying to remove one from the cabinet proved much more involved than I thought it would. No good photos, but I did see iron core inductors, for sure. The Madisound tech thought “Maybe they are using poly switches that close when the power is too high, putting the speakers through a resistor”. This is something I’ve never heard of, so I’m totally unfamiliar with poly switches or what they might look like. It’s looking like I may not be able to solve this problem.
The options I’m considering are selling the Triangles, and purchasing used market speakers, or building my dream speakers.
If purchasing used, the qualities I like in a speaker are: detail, frequency balanced but leaning slightly toward warmth, tight punchy bass with authority, and higher frequencies that are truthful and never screeching. They would also need to handle a fair amount of SPL without strain. Amplifiers are Parasound JC 1’s.
If making my own, I’d be shooting for the same qualities. With that in mind, I’m considering a sealed cabinet design for two 8” woofers. Separate cabinets for midrange and tweeters, also sealed. I think I’ve decided on the drivers for the bass cabinets, the Morel CAW938 9" Woofer, which is an excellent driver for sealed design. The midrange, I’m considering either one or two drivers per cabinet, the reason for two would be power handling, although I’m also thinking that this may be overkill, and that one driver per, with good power handling may be the ticket. Manufacturers I’m considering for midrange are Morel, Seas, and ScanSpeak. Tweeters are yet another big question, but the more I research the topic, the more I lean toward soft domes, same manufacturers as the midrange.
Crossovers are yet another War and Peace length set of considerations, but I am thinking about active crossover between the bass cabinets and the mid/tweeter cabinets, a passive crossover between the mids/tweeters. Amps for the bass cabinets would be newly acquired D class, possibly in the 500 wpc range. I’d use the JC’s for the mid/tweeters cabinets.
I’d be interested in any advice, comments, experiences of others, as long as they aren’t overtly rude. Budget for either purchased or built would be in the $4000-$6000 range.
And, I’ve been following with interest a thread on this forum regarding the merits/drawbacks of sealed and ported systems. Some interesting observations and opinions.
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Thanks b_limo, but the getting the crossover out was more a matter of the time I had to invest in the moment. I can get it out, and possibly will this weekend. This wouldn’t be my first rodeo with building floorstanders, and I do enjoy woodworking. A big part of my job is building cantankerous entities out of a variety of materials, so considering and executing the construction approaches are part of the fun. I haven’t definitely decided to build, there are some products on the used market that may fill the bill. But one thing I’m looking for is a sealed design, which aren’t all that common. This alone tips me toward building. And, as Magico’s are outside my budget, and the fact they haven’t tickled my fancy sound-wise, well... that’s one of the reasons I’m looking for suggestions on the used market. I’d like to know about more sealed designs out there. I have to disagree about building versus entry level though. With a budget of say $600, even a first time builder who’s willing to put in some research, time and effort, can wax most any commercially available product at the same price point. It’s moving up the food chain where diminishing returns may enter the equation. Here’s what I’ve learned: there’s no substitute for quality parts. It may be that you need to drop $1500 for four of the eight drivers you need, and yet another $1000 for the others. Also, an excellently designed crossover with poor quality parts is a poor crossover. Period. It’s in this area that manufacturers pull their punches. |
This is the place to start.https://www.diyaudio.com/ |
I’m not acquainted with your speakers. Seas and Morel, drivers I’ve used both. I’m not a commercial speaker builder. I’ve built close to 130 pairs over 45 years or so. There is nothing that gives me greater pleasure, than to hear a 3 year project come to fruition. DIY, nothing like it. I’m a mechanic, that’s what I do.. It can be overwhelming, depending on the project. I like kits too. I’ve done a couple GRs great stuff... If a person has the inclination, the GUTS (it takes a bit), and willingness to admit, "I could have done that different, or not at ALL" . Be willing to start all over to get it right. The dividends are beyond what money can buy... And if it’s there big enough.... you can always be buried in them. Proof, YOU CAN TAKE IT WITH YOU or at least some. yuk yuk yuk... Regards |
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