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S-LS Nastification


D-MAN

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Got a pair in the house, nasty-looking, but suprizingly sweet sounding. These pups can ROCK!

Painted black with that spray epoxy with lumps in it. This will take some practice.

Phenolic midrange diaphragm, K33E and a stock ALK crossover. JBL tweets are not going in these, I ordered some Crites tweets for these (hence the offset mid horn).

Compared to the V2's (the corner horns), these don't go quite as low, but ran out of that nylon stuffing, so resonance isn't quite where it should be. I ordered CW1526C's from Bob Crites. We'll see how they do as they can resonate in a slightly smaller volume than the K33E.

My buddy who built these is a bass player, and he was suitably impressed enough that he went back home and immediately started building himself a pair. We tried one cab with the Eminence Kappa 15C (4 Ohm) which I had sitting around and only one cabinet totally kicked tail. 30 watts was flabbergasting. These not only blow out matches, they blow the extinguished matchstick out of your hand! Real pant-flappers. I was amazed at how much air these can move. He also couln't believe how loud they were at 1/3 watt.

The next day I got to messing around and discovered that I had wired one woofer out of phase. I was thinking that the K33E sounded a little weak. Now that they are both wired in correct phase, I no longer think that at all. Doh!

These bass bins are on casters so they can roll around easily. I thought that raising the cab up off the floor would hamper the bass, but it is more than satisfactory, another suprize.

The 400Hz 1rst order crossover may not be the best - seems that the bass horn goes higher. I had the same problem with the V2 so I was sort of expecting this, and on the V2, I had to go with a steeper slope crossover to compensate. Probably the same thing here. There isn't enough room in the back chamber to allow for a front chamber to be employed, so I'm probably stuck with the crossover solution. Too bad its the most expensive!

My overall impression is that these will definitely give the corner horns a run for their money. They are just as efficient, and I think when properly tuned, these will perform just as well. They image better because they are not in a corner (apparently). Their ability to image and throw a very stable soundstage is better, and the fact that they are free-standing is a real bonus.

Now to get a nice veneered set. These are butt-ugly. But in the dark...

Dana

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JC, that is a good question! The tubes are each 8" long, the Vb is approx. 4.5 cu. ft, I would guess. The volume is a bit tricky with this stuffing. Might go with longer tubes; I went with the tube size that Chris Munson (popbumper) used as most of the ported La Scala dudes reported that they preferred the shorter tubes. There is a noticable fall-off below the resonance of the tubes, not like a bass horn. It is a very steep cliff - you really notice it, unlike the gentler roll off of the corner horns. This could be from the Fr being too high (too small of a Vb) for the K33E to resonate at the expected tuned frequency, that's my suspicion, but its still quite smooth and entirely listenable.

At this point, because I tried the KAPPA-C's which really "fit" the Vb volume, I won't know until I get the Crites in them. I didn't think that they would go well with the crossovers that I have, so I sent them home with my buddy as they were just taking up space. But they are a definite candidate for use in these. I used the 6" wide slot on those, as I would all drivers except the K33E and Crites drivers.

I know that the K33E's are not resonating anywhere near the Kappa-C's in the volume that I currently have (but within a couple of Hz of the V2's (34 Hz Fc), I'd say). I used the commercial "Acousti-Stuff" in these instead of fiberglass, as they have open ports and I didn't want fiberglass being puffed out the ports. About 1-1/4 lbs in each cabinet. I'm not sure about whether its the equiv. of fiberglass or not. The K33E's could use more stuffing (4.8 cu. ft if I remember correctly), the Crites should be close as they currently sit.

I'm also using the narrow slot for the K33E's. I will get around to checking wider slot variants too.

But I have to say, MAYBE, or even PROBABLY, when properly tuned, the corner horn has met its match. These are very promising - I didn't expect them to compete effectively with the corner horns (I intended them as rear-channels).

Test-wise, currently I don't have any test gear. It would help, certainly.

Dana

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