Jump to content

Moving to music. Recommendations?


vasubandu

Recommended Posts

  • Moderators
3 minutes ago, vasubandu said:
18 minutes ago, dtel said:

if you don't try to customize them

After all your talk about tearing their guts out and making new ones with a paperclip and spring?  Let me ask you this.  How many speakers to you own that you have not customized?

All of them.

I changed the caps in one set, really someone else rebuilt them I just installed the crossovers.

 

What I have done on one set only, was to combine two different speakers for a yard set. It's split LaScala tops with MWM bottoms. The stock crossovers allows this and both the MWM and LaScala top is a completely stock design.

 

All completely stock

 

Heresy 1

Heresy 2

RB-75's

Cornwall lll

Forte l

Forte ll

Forte lll

MWM/402

In ceilings in the wife's sewing room

 

 A close friend designs these and I know what they go through to get them right, and all the little things that can go wrong with messing with them and changing things just for fun. He has use of a anechoic chamber to do real test to know what's going on.  I have seen how little changes can make big differences in sound, and not even as far as changing out drivers.

 

I am not that technical so I want a proven design I know works.

 

But to me I don't care how much anyone customizes there speakers. They can make any changes they want, I don't know enough or am able to properly test to even know if it's an improvement or not, but If they like them great.

And if you own it you can do whatever you like, your just not going to convince me it's an "upgrade" because a free downloadable program give you a chart saying it's better. (have heard this before)

 

I would rather take the word of someone who has been doing this for 30+ years with any way to test he could want and was trained by a legend.

I take the easy way out and follow the smart people.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

50 minutes ago, vasubandu said:

OK guys, you are probably going to write me off for this one, but my thought was to get some speakers that were nice, but not so nice that I could not play mad scientist with them.  And this may be old news, I don't know.  I want to see what happens if I can totally tame sound inside the speaker.  Normally sound proofing or sound absorption requires foam or textured panels, and that seem problematic to me.  So my thought was to use MDF.  Why not.  

 

And then I found a company called SoundPly.  They must be evil geniuses or something.

What SoundPly offers is sound treatments for rooms, not speaker enclosures.

 

Inside a speaker cab there are a couple of ways to go, for sealed speakers you want Polyfil, usually a pound for every cuft of space.  A 3 cuft sealed speaker can use about 3 pounds of polyfil.

 

For ported cabs open cell foam is preferred.  There is also a sound insulation material called denim (sold by Home Depot in the insulation, dept, not by Sears in the jeans dept) that is quite popular these days in the DIY world.

 

Remember, you are not trying to absorb sound, but to break up standing waves which may cause distortion inside the cab.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, dtel said:

And if you own it you can do whatever you like, your just not going to convince me it's an "upgrade" because a free downloadable program give you a chart saying it's better. (have heard this before)

 

Do people actually do that?  Make speakers for computers that can't even listen.  Seems pointless.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, wvu80 said:

What SoundPly offers is sound treatments for rooms, not speaker enclosures.

 

Not according to my new friend there.  Imagine a surface that looks just like a board but that sucks sound out of the air.  No more cotton balls in speakers, and the distances can be reduced.  Now imagine a planar speaker that is on  a stand with stained wood the same size as the speaker a foot behind it and all of a sudden the 3 feet from the wall rule goes away with a bunch of other issues.  I will send some your way if you want to play along.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, vasubandu said:

@Peter P. would I be better off finding the Forte?  Or do you prefer the Quartets?

The only deciding factor for me would be COST. Quartets, being smaller and not as popular, will cost less. You won't have to wait long to find Forte's available in the market which means you'll be up and running sooner. They are both so similarly constructed that any differences in low end extension of efficiency are a moot point. I'd choose either and be satisfied.

 

I'd also suggest you consider some of the passive woofer kg series speakers such as the kg 3.2, kg 4.2, kg 5.2, and kg 4. While not 3 way designs, they've got all the hallmark Klipsch qualities and their passive woofers make them very similar to Forte's and Quartets.

 

Those craigslist Heresy's are too expensive. Most original series Heresy's go for $500, tops, regardless of condition. Get Heresy's if you want to put your toe into the Klipsch waters like I did, but you'll soon realize (like I did) that playing loud (which is what the Heresy's do well) is no substitute for playing low. You can buy the Heresy's with the expectation you'll pair them with a subwoofer sooner or later, or just buy a full range speaker right off the bat. The models mentioned above will scratch your itch just fine.

 

I should mention my main speakers right now are a pair of Heresy II's with a kg sw subwoofer and I am perfectly happy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, vasubandu said:

Not according to my new friend there.  Imagine a surface that looks just like a board but that sucks sound out of the air.  No more cotton balls in speakers, and the distances can be reduced.  Now imagine a planar speaker that is on  a stand with stained wood the same size as the speaker a foot behind it and all of a sudden the 3 feet from the wall rule goes away with a bunch of other issues. 

The planars don't want sound absorbed, they need the hard surface to reflect the sound.  That is how it was designed to work.

 

You also might want to consider how a room works with regards to reflections.  If you've ever been in a new house with four walls and no furniture, the echo is terrible.  That's because sound is bouncing off the walls, you literally hear the same sound over and over. 

 

The question is, how do you deal with those reflections?  Do you want to ABSORB the sound, or do you want to break up the REFLECTIONS?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Peter P. said:

'd also suggest you consider some of the passive woofer kg series speakers such as the kg 3.2, kg 4.2, kg 5.2, and kg 4. While not 3 way designs, they've got all the hallmark Klipsch qualities and their passive woofers make them very similar to Forte's and Quartets.

I have given that a lot of thought.  If you cut a larger hole than you needed for the speaker and then took the circle and mounted on the speaker maybe a foot behind the speaker like the back wall of a speaker with the sound absorbing material on it, that might help.  And bear in mind, I am way out of league here, but I do find this interesting to think about it.  I need more info from SoundPLy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, wvu80 said:

The question is, how do you deal with those reflections?  Do you want to ABSORB the sound, or do you want to break up the REFLECTIONS?

 

I really have not thought about that yet.  Thanks for the info on the PLanars.  I misunderstood them.  The only  sound I was focused on was ambient sound from the speaker.  I may be wrong again, but it seemed to me that if ambient sound could be eliminated, then speakers would not have to be designed around it, which might lead to improvements.  I have lots of fun learning to do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Peter P. said:

You won't have to wait long to find Forte's available in the market

 

No I won't they show up constantly from $400 to $600.  Someone has undefined Forte for $490 right now.  Which version do I want, and is the more than that to it?  

 

On, and how about Chorus?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, vasubandu said:

 

No I won't they show up constantly from $400 to $600.  Someone has undefined Forte for $490 right now.  Which version do I want, and is the more than that to it?  

 

On, and how about Chorus?

My opinion is you want version II, much smoother mid-range. Chorus the big brother to the forte. Both are great speakers, chorus are technically better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators
55 minutes ago, vasubandu said:

 

Do people actually do that?  Make speakers for computers that can't even listen.  Seems pointless.

 

Download a program, connect a mic to the computer place mic in front of speaker and it will give you a plot of what it's hearing.

I didn't explain it well the first time, sorry. But that was funny.

1 hour ago, vasubandu said:

making new ones with a paperclip and spring?

Not going to lie, I have customize many things and rigged other things to make them work but I don't mess with changing speakers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, dtr20 said:

Chorus the big brother to the forte. Both are great speakers, chorus are technically better.

 

And Forte is big brother to something else.  Interesting.  I think I would tend to prefer larger over smaller speakers.  Will have to research the Chorus.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, dtel said:

Not going to lie, I have customize many things and rigged other things to make them work but I don't mess with changing speakers.

 

I can see the logic to that. I have been wondering io my quest for a CF-4if perhaps I could just make one.  You know, get a box, cut a few speaker holes, buy 2 gigantic woofers per box and a big tweeter, glue them in and plug it in, right?

 

OK, I know it is a lot more complicated than that, but I don't know what the complications are.  The speakers do look like rectangular boxes.  And crossovers can be had.  If Igot the best woofers and tweeters I could find, would that make beautiful music or is there more to it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

33 minutes ago, vasubandu said:

If Igot the best woofers and tweeters I could find, would that make beautiful music or is there more to it?

There is much more to it than that.

 

Why don't you consider my idea to buy a kit?  You can save a ton of money, they sound great, easy to put together and it's fun to be able to say "I built these myself."  B)

 

Head over to avsforum.com and sign up.  Go to the DIY Speakers and Subs sub-forum and tell them your budget, your skill level with building speakers, and what kind of music or theater system you are after.  You will get a ton of good recommendations from a highly supportive DIY community.

 

Maybe start by building a sub, or some inexpensive speakers like the Overnight Sensations.  Be sure and get the flat pack, they are worth the price of admission.

 

Several members there are also members here, and several of us have built various kits.  I highly recommend:

http://www.diysoundgroup.com/

 

NOTE:  The site is down right now.  Erich is upgrading the entire website software.  Check back in a day or so.

 

Look for the Fusion speakers, which feature SEOS waveguide horns, with much of the same philosophy as Klipsch.

 

 


 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh, there's quite a bit more to speaker engineering than that.  Fortunately, there are a bunch of folks who've done the hard work for you.  Check out diysoundgroup.com.  I've built the Tempests, and they're really, really good.  Compared to my slightly updated forte II, they have a better overall tonal balance (more on the warm side), a bit smoother, but with all the dynamics intact.

 

And I see wvu80 beat me to the punch.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

54 minutes ago, wvu80 said:

Why don't you consider my idea to buy a kit? 

 

How would I put this? Death warmed over.   A kit would make me want to kill myself. I don't read instructions.

 

We live next to Mount Rainier, which is a 14,400 foot volcano.  Impressive on the skyline and when it blows it will be even better.  My wife and I would be like to climb it.  Her idea of climbing it is driving up to 10,000 feet, sleeping in a cabin  until 2 am when the group head up the well trodden path littered with candy bar wrappers and half of the make it to the summit at 6:30, spend half an hour ar the summit and all sign the book that they made it, and then go back down. In other words, death warmed over. 

 

I would start at the water's edge on puget sound at sea level, and the cross the 70 miles to the mountain and climb it however made sense at the time. When I got to the top, I would hang out for a few days to get a feeling for the place. And then I would go down the other side of the mountain because who wants to do the same thing twice. Someone else figured out how to climb the mountain so I should be able to.

 

It probably won't surprise you that I have no immediate plans to head out. Ever since I had a little 30 foot fall on one of my expeditions (purely a random accident mind you), my wife seems to think that she can forbid me from heading into the unknown  wilderness. But she can't make me use kits.  

 

This probably all sounds crazy to you, but for me it mostly works.  I want to amass enough theory that I can try to implement something, and then see if I can actually translate my thoughts into something physical.  It won't bother me if it doesn't work, but it will delight me if it does. I see a lot of openings for something different. For example, we now have LCD screens that produce sound.  A summary of the ideas is at https://www.lifewire.com/sound-without-speakers-4126886. and it gets into high quality sound http://bigthink.com/robby-berman/googles-latest-acquisition-is-a-glimpse-into-the-future . And there is a study I cannot find on generating sound with differential movement in the air.  Maybe these things will pan out and maybe they won't, but in the meantime the audio world should be incorporating  as much new technology as it can.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, vasubandu said:

We live next to Mount Rainier, which is a 14,400 foot volcano.  Impressive on the skyline

In October 2001, my wife and I flew to Seattle to start our honeymoon and when Mount Rainier first came into view it was the most impressive sight I had ever laid my eyes on.  Just massive and shining with orange and blueish hews.  We were right next to it as if you could reach out and touch.  Wish we spent more than that in Seattle but on to Victoria for a night and then on to Tofino for 5 nights and back to Victoria and then again Seattle.  Didn't see Rainier on our flight out because she wasn't shining that day.

 

We hope to revisit on our 20th anniversary in 2021.

 

Bill

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...