After the 4 way now a big boys 5 way

There it is in the corner



+ I disconnected the GRF the other side.

I can report that thunderclaps are good even with the vol ticking over at about 75dB!

Making the 2nd tapped horn now...

 

Here they are then - my latest babies.



Imaging is better now the horns are a bit closer together.
The bass is DEEEEEEEEEEP when it's played but a bit muddy in the mid bass as the tapped horns are just playing up freq unhindered and the mid bass horns are also playing down unhindered.
But there is an extra depth I've not heard before. Adding a 2nd one certain upped the bass volume and presence. I've not heard the like before really.

Roll on the crossover parts...

 

That looks ace - mad and a lot of fun. I'd love to hear something like this.

Next step we expect you to remove those doors and build a nice horn sub in the garden. With about 8m of horn mouth perimeter I bet you could get it flat down to 20Hz in-room

 

Wot e ^^^ said.

 

Thanks

It would have to active and digital crossover / delay then - Noty sure about digital unless the dac in the box was better than the Behringer for example and would need 5 amps!

So far with 2nd order 12dB / oct passives the sound has been very good with 4 way, so no reason to think that 5 way will not be good - once I get the crossover parts - I hate waiting!
The beauty of the tapped and front loaded bass horns is the efficiency. I can lower the L-Pads on the mid / upper mid and tweeter considerably and that improves dynamics a bit further.
I might play with bi-amping - one amp for the mid and tapped horns and one amp for the mid/upper mid and tweeter. That way I could pretty much do without L-Pads.

Much fun to be had...

The more I listen the more 'seismic' I realise the bass is. I am going around trying to hum things I've been listening to and can only reproduce those depths of bass in my mind.
Some stuff sort of makes you want to clear your throat at times. Of course I have been hitting the sub bass stuff rather a lot. Most music is not like that.
What it really means is I can listen to 'normal' music at quite low volumes and get full range without feeling I have to go loud to get some deep volume from other low end response tailing off speakers.
The horns stay clear and crisp too so it really works.

 

Got the large 24mH inductors - weigh a bit and not cheap!
Neither are 126uF polyprop caps...

Still all together now crossing as should and it sounds very good.

Clean / crisp / dynamic / super clear horn sound across the normal rev range on 'normal' music.
Put anything with sub bass on and you really hear / feel it.
At vol it could be room shaking, def low WAF!

On normal vol listening it's just full range - you are not missing out on anything really.

I am well chuffed as it was a bit painful with the tapped horns and midbass not crossing properly - all the potential was there in the components, they just were not being allowed to integrate.

I am very happy with the project. Just a few hours work to prep and final finish the horns / tapped cabs really. Can't be arsed right now. They are taking on an aged natural birch look now that is quite appealing.

I can't see myself going 5 amp active with all the issues of going fully digital - it sounds too pure on vinyl for that.
Perhaps try a low powered SE amp as I don't need more than a few watts max.

As for power - the liitle T-amp (20W) yeah more like 6, is more than enough to get very loud and with good bass.
Whoever said a Tamp had no bass had not powered tapped horns with one.
The tapped horns more than keep up with the long front loaded midbass horns whose efficiency is perhaps the 100.5dB of the driver + 6 dB of the horn! The JBL 2482 mid horn is throttled back by the same amount as the JBL 2435's an nice l-pad. Nothing like a big an L-pad as I had to have with the GRF cabs as bass bins.

All have that clear crisp, accurate horn sound I love and oh such power and emotion.

Not a system that would fit or perhaps suit all, but I love it...

 

Job done then Superb!

 

Got some horn aficionados coming over tomorrow so will find out what others think... Hope they come with a SE amp to try out too

 

The tweeter is just added on with it's one little crossover.

When trying the first experiments with a Tannoy HPD bass cone and JBL2435 horn I found how much better the simple 2nd order 12dB crossover sounded and decided to stick with it throughout this project. Adding the JBL 2482's going 4 way worked well and I just kept on with the tapped horns and 5 way.


I have the tapped horns fully in the corners so use 0.5 x Pi in Hornresp.

I am using L-Pads on the JLB2435's and 2482's - 13dB on both. Nothing on the tweeters or mid bass / tapped sub horn. Balance is to my ear about right.

Measuring to be done as and when.

Listening to test tone across freq ranges all seems ok , no dips and nice room resonance down in the 30Hz area

Today I have made sure all the inspection / driver installation hatches are air tight. Bead of silicone sealant on one side and Vaseline smear on the other face and bingo - perfect seal / removable and re-usable for virtually nowt.

Listening to Pink Floyd - Wish you were here just now - sounds nice...

After some Beautiful South listening with the family we all agreed that the tweeters were a bit aggressive - clipped in a 3 dB pad - ah that's nice;-)
Fun this DIY.

 

On Sunday Mr Coco, Murray and Tel of wigwam came round for a listen and a measure.

Measurements showed an overlap of tapped and mid horn still and also I learned you need to reverse the phase of every other driver when using 2nd order crossovers... That improved the sound further!
So much so that Mr Coco wrote:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"I was really looking forward to hearing these as this similar to what I plan to do with my own system.

I certainly wasn't disappointed. They sound absolutely effortless - you get a sense of incredible power, but completely under control. The tapped horn bass is like nothing you've ever heard before. It just pressurises the room and makes it feel like it's not even trying. Like distant thunder!

I felt there was a little colouration in the mid-upper bass where I suspected some unwanted overlap between drivers (Steve has started by using theoretical crossovers, based on nominal impedances). This was indeed borne out by some measuring (though it's pretty close, TBH), showing that some values need tweaking. Not a criticism as you need to start somewhere and just shows that you need to tweak to get the best. Additionally, we inverted phases between pair of drivers (2nd order crossovers introduce a 180 degree phase shift, so require that he drivers are inverted in phase relative to each other). This brought quite significant benefit, I felt.

All in all, I think with a little adjustment, this will be world class - certainly it's already amongst the best I've heard."
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday I had a look at my crossover for the tapped and mid bass. All wired correctly!
I did mess the Zobel up though - put the Kappa 15A Zobel on the Kappa Pro LFII and vice versa! There is quite a big difference too. So with those swapped it sounded smoother and less humpy in that mid bass 70-100Hz region.

I also took the L-pad on the 2482 mids down by one dB. Yes just one dB and it did just the trick of bringing out just the right amount of that phenolic diaphragm compression driver loveliness a bit more on the mids / vocals.

I could never go back to a speaker where you just buy a box and that's it. Take it or leave it - usually leave it..., as the sound is a) usually frustrating and b) not adjustable other than by placement which is very limiting. Custom DIY rules.

I am definitely getting there and I just can't stop listening.

 

Time for an update:-

Tried bi-amping and removing the L-pad on the JBL 2482's (mid horns), also means I can tun a 7 dB lower pad on the upper mid JBL2435's.
Wow - result. So clean and tuneful, crisp and unveiled. L-pads are the devils work just as Mr Coco advised.

Then I went on to tri-amping, One for the tapped horn, one for the mid bass and one for the upper three.
I am awaiting a fourth amp to enable 4 way and removal of the L-PAD on the upper mids... Much better to do the attenuation before amplification.

I was over at Mr Coco's last night. Listening to his RCA's on conicals and Vitavox S2's on a small Le Cleach - very nice indeed.
Talking, he again mentioned the poss to chop down my upper mid conical horns.
So this morning the table saw was a buzzin'. All down. The result is really rather nice.

Mr Coco's off the cuff calc in his head were spot on, conical length / cutoff point is not an exact science.
Easy-peasy chopping them down with a table saw. 12 zapps true and in line and its done.;-)

Pic of the cut down upper conicals and with the tweeters moved.
Closer view



Nicely time aligned and with the narrow dispersion properties of the tweeters (as we already discussed) it's working really well.
The original horn size was for down to ~500Hz with the right drivers. I am using 1250Hz crossover.
Things are gloriously focused together and toneful (is that a word)?

I love these small but fundamental incremental improvements - DIY is so worthwhile.

Everyone needs horns like these or at least hear them. - So effortless and right.

And hopefully still aways to go yet perhaps.

 

Update on total L-PAD removal:

I got yet another TA-2021 amp and plumbed in. I initially used the 2 bigger, beefier TA-2021's for the Tapped and mid bass horns, one TA-2020 for the mids and tweeters and one for the uppers.

Result was a sound I did not like at all. I could not get the integration between the mid and upper horns to sound right. Was nasal nasty.
No amount of vol pot twirling would resolve it.

I had wired the tweeter on the same feed as the mid horn (JBL2482), since they are more similar efficiencies and so I would get more tweet then if I wired it on the uber efficient upper horn (JBL2435).
So, what was going on. Was it that the L-pads were damping the clear cutting JBL2435Be sound (designed for sound re-inforcement / cutting through noise venues type thing)?
I tried the tweeter on the upper horn branch - still the same. So all I had done was take one TA-2021 driving mid / upper / tweet (config I liked) and put another amp in.
I checked all the cables, phases etc, all ok.
Then I started thinking about the driver impedances - perhaps it is a change in impedance seen by the amp thing? No harm in trying a few things.
I swapped the TA-2020 on the mid horn out for a TA-2021.

Rather strangely all came good! I was able to set the vols for each driver quickly (like when tri-amped) and get the sound I like (comparable to the 3 amp solution) but with what I perceive / shall describe as added clarity and go on the upper horn (exactly what I expected with the L-pad removal).
No nasties there between mid and upper, no nasal sound anywhere.

I listened for ages on all sorts of material confirm. All good.
Re-visited over several days and all is good. So how much difference can there be between a TA-2021 and TA-2020? Oddly I perhaps prefer the TA-2020 on the Mid bass too but that could be the mid horn was struggling so much it was mucking up that integration too.

 

Steve,

How did you design the shape of the horns, did you use HornResp or some other modelling software?

 

Yeah, the Upper freq conical was same design as others have used. Similar to AH-300's.
The Mid horn was same flare but longer and bigger throat.
The mid bass and Tapped were modelled in Hornresp and the drivers & horn shape / size chosen as best compromise on availability, price, size.

 

Well surprise, surprise, surprise (starter for 10, what lyric / line comes after that?).

In the meantime, the surprise is that T-amps are not that quiet when it comes to hiss. I had read about it.
No probs for you usual inefficient run of the mill hifi speaker fayre but JBL 2435Be's!
Hiss is quite loud on the uber efficient upper mid horn. Nothing to do with source, cables, earthing or whatever else it is the gain they squeeze out of the these little wonders (wonders when connected to efficient horns - apart from those that reproduce hiss faithfully )
Confirmed by putting good old SoH tube amp on that horn pair and dead silence.

Still, not enough hiss for Mr Coco to notice in the couple of hours he was last here a'listening. So it can't be that bad
I can feel a couple or 3 of mini Set amps coming on at some stage for the mid, upper and tweeter. The smaller and more efficient (oxymoron with SET I guess), the better.

So with the tube amp in, I took the opportunity to Quint-amp or is it Pent-amp?! Am I the only one here to have soooo many babies - perhaps.
Decath- SET monoblocks - er perhaps not... unless they can be really small and efficient.

Anyway with an adjustable amp on the tweeter I could play to my hearts content with the output and see what air and openness that brings to the party.
Interesting...

 

A little update with some pics of the amps I am now using.

These two EL84 mini SET amps, one for the mid horns with the JBL2482's and upper mids with the JBL2435Be's.



For the tapped and mid bass I now have a pair of the Topping TP60's.



The two TP-60 (50w into 8ohm) amps have really tightened up the bass - fast, accurate and on it. Drum solos are excellent. Since fixing the Zobels and getting these amps there is no apparent issue with Tapped to midbass overlapp.

The smaller 25w in 8ohm TP22 is for the tweeters (JBL2405's).

Next weekend I hope to test listen to the Raal Lazy Ribbons...

 

The amps look huge until you see them with the SPU.

Never come across an EL84 SET - I guess you only have a few watts to play with?
Not that you need many!

 

yep - 5 watts. One amp easily drove a pair Tannoys Reds in GRF cabs when I hooked that up.

In the horn system they are just ticking over really even at loud vols.

They do deep stuff too. I will have to try them on the bass side and see. Could get expensive needing 5 in total

 

yet another update and some playing around

I tried putting the two TP-60 (50W into 8 ohms) amps on the mid (2482) and upper mid (2435Be) horns and the Icon Audio EL84 SET amps on the tapped and mid bass horns.

The result - well pretty ok listening and if you had not heard them the other way round you'd be happy TBH.
Firstly the treble. From the TP-60's pretty good. Clean clear and direct. A little less emotion to things is how I would describe it (Mr Coco calls it a certain greyness) but they are not as grey to my ears as the smaller T-amps. Listening more. It not bad, it's just that the tubes are more involving, more realistic. Horns (brass and woodwind) sound more like horns, there's more emotion to vocals and piano.
However on the uber efficient 2435Be's there's the old T-amp hiss - you can only hear it when all is quiet though.

On to the bass then. Not as authoritative is how I would describe it. Could not get the big drums to sound as grab you, or the bass as crisp and fast and detailed.

So South meets North when it comes to amps - use them where they suit best.

If I only had all TP-60 amps or all SET amps to choose - I'd actually go for the all TP-60 set up. The bass really is that good and the mids and highs are liveable. But of course I don't have to choose that so give me the TP-60's on bass duty and the SET's on mids and upper mids duty every time.

Switching back. The tubes are tad softer and all of the above I already wrote. I prefer it this way for definite.

Next up - proper stands / horn carriers and I hope to try Raal Lazy Ribbon's in there (I dropped the upper mid horn down more - giving more space for the tweeter in prep).
Sounding good...

 

Decware across in the States make some really nice sounding examples. About 1.8 watts from a single stereo amp or 6 watts if you bridge two into mono

http://www.decware.com/newsite/tubes.html