X-Mas in July

[Nemesis.ie]

Jul 11, 2011 11:00:28 GMT -5 roadrunner said:

Nemesis

I would be very interested in how you wall mounted the ERM-6.3, especially when also using the SS-6 shelving. Photos and close-ups of mounting would be most useful and greatly appreciated.

I know that my room is different from yours, but I have found that crossing the ERD-1 speakers works very well at 100Hz. I was mildly surprised as their response curve is only down 2dB at 80Hz.

Indeed. I ran mine at 90Hz when I had them. The ERM-6.3 I am running with a 70Hz XO and they likely would be good at 60Hz.

I will measure when I get time.

Per the pic - I installed the shelf before I had the idea about the SS-6, the shelf could be cut down to just a little larger than the SS-6's base and would look neater and maybe perform better.

Attachments:

[Nemesis.ie]

Jul 13, 2011 16:47:36 GMT -5 haemphyst said:

This will be a system worthy of the name "Haemphyst". LOL

It was this very forum that made me decide on these amps. I love the look of them, and I love the descriptions and reviews they've been given. I think I will be happy. Perhaps we can revel in our new acquisitions together. Soon.

Do post pics of the build and let us know what you think of the amps.

[haemphyst]

Well... Today is the day. My speakers will be travelling to their new home in Tehachapi California, where I will finally be able to use the amps I purchased over a year ago! I was getting tired of not being able to use them, so I was using the XDA-1 as my soundcard, wired directly to a pair of UPA-1s, with a tiny pair of old-school, RS/RCA metal box 2-way speakers. I guess it would have been a lot like stuffing a Corvette motor in my Civic.

Anyway, I finally get to plug all my gear in! Impressions and photos will follow this weekend!

[haemphyst]

OK... So it took me a bit longer than anticipated... I was actually building my speaker's wires. I received (years ago, in a government surplus sale) a large spool of twisted pair, teflon insulated, braided shield, RF wire. I'd used the twisted pair from inside on several occasions, for speaker wires, and they work BEAUTIFULLY. I'd done some experimenting with speaker wires in the past, playing with geometry, DCR (gauge), insulation... I found that a random lay reduces the capacitance of the cable DRAMATICALLY, thus reducing any high-pass effects. Additionally, reduced inductance reduces low-pass effects. The BG ribbons I have (and these are hand-picked, tuned and matched BG ribbons, that I got from Tom Bohlender himself, FROM THE FACTORY, not PartsExpress purchased...) are quite sensitive to signal degradation, be it from source, processors, wires... Whatever, they know it's "wrong"...

Pictures of wires:



It's about a 24G wire; this time I used 8 pairs, for about a #12 effective wire for the ribbons, and I wouldn't even be able to GUESS at the effective gauge for the woofer, but it looks to be roughly a big #10, possibly a #8, but they're really nice. VERY transparent. I pulled all the braids, and there are 8 of those all insulated as a single wire, two to each woofer. (Obviously.) 4-Ohm woofers, (Dayton Titanic originals) in 2.2 cubic feet sealed, for a Qts of .7, and an F3 of about 22Hz. No sub necessary! The ribbons are 4-ohm, with no really appreciable dips or peaks in their resistance curves - they're pretty much a DCR, the amps love to drive them!

Anyways... O... M... G... Those amplifiers make these speakers SING!!! I've used NAD, Adcom, Sony Elite, Kenwood Natural Sound, Threshold... (Yes. Threshold.) HDMI from all sources, the TV does the switching, optical to the XDA-1, Monster balanced cables to the crossover, 48dB slopes at 124Hz, balanced out to the amplifiers (even though the amps are single-ended inputs)... NOTHING except the Threshold has ever made these speakers sound like this. THAT was a 5 kilobuck amplifier!!!

Threshold: $5G for 600 watts
Emotiva: $1.6K for 1.4kW.

A bargain, I guarantee it!

Pics of the system:



Comments welcome!

BLACK. What noise floor? Smooth. No peaks, no dips, I was able to remove the notch filter, and EQ it in the Ultradrive. Nothing passive anywhere in the signal path. I'm a convert. I'll sell Emotiva by word of mouth, forever. I love this gear!

[AudioHTIT]

Good looking system, I bet the line sources sound great and image nicely! Active bi-amp too, well done.

Just checking the math don't (8) 24 AWG wires come to about 15? The logarithm is roughly the same as SPL.
Edit: Sorry I re-read and saw 8 "pair", that would be 12.

[haemphyst]

Thankee! I do loves me some ribbons! Although technically, they're planar-magnetics... They're suspended on all four sides of the diaphragm, unlike a true ribbon which is only suspended on the ends. I spent about 6 months, three days a week, 5-7 hours a day, building those. My buddy Dave was certain I was off my rocker... I am terrible drawing plans, but I can visualize like NOBODY'S business! I see it in my mind, and my hands just make it happen! Dave's a diagramming fool! He draws everything three times before he ever puts tool to wood!

They do image beautifully! They've been bi-amped before, but the last system was NAD (216 THX @ 220WRMS) on the highs, and an Adcom (GFA-555 @ 300WRMS) on the bottom. No comparison, even though power ratings were very close. I used a Marchand Electronics XM-16 (at 125Hz) with all upgraded resistors, caps, and op-amps. It was nice, but I think the Behringer is a much nicer option.

I'm still sold!

[AudioHTIT]

I draw everything too, I have more drawings of what my system or equipment will look like before I buy or build it than pictures after I'm done. 8~0

[Nemesis.ie]

Nice - personally I think the Emo gear would look better in the rack without the trim pieces.

[haemphyst]

Sept 23, 2012 4:08:24 GMT -5 Nemesis.ie said:

Nice - personally I think the Emo gear would look better in the rack without the trim pieces.

Really? I love the silver accents...

Now... who can recommend a *good* (yet still reasonably priced) DVD/Blu-Ray? DYohn?

[Nemesis.ie]

I have a new Panasonic BDP-310 that's not bad. I don't use it as I have a BD drive in my Popcornhour and don't watch 3D much.

Shipping to the US would be a PITA. It has dual HDMI out in case you have a non-3D processor and should be available at a reasonable price.

[bootman]

You should post about your speaker build!
They are nicely done. Bravo!

[haemphyst]

Thank you, bootman! I truly do love these speakers! Imaging, flat frequency response, dynamics... When I met Tom Bohlender, I was blessed with that introduction to these drivers. I've never been disappointed in any respect with my build. I modelled them after Tom's smallest system, a system I heard in (about) '95. Tom didn't even have a booth at CES; you had to be invited to his room at the hotel across the street from the convention center. He played Jennifer Warnes Famous Blue Raincoat - "Ain't No Cure for Love" and "Came So Far For Beauty". I was entranced - literally - and I swore I would have these systems in my house, no matter the cost. Never had I ever heard such an emotionally PERFECT presentation as I had heard in that room. They are truly hand picked, and hand matched by Tom himself.

Sadly, there are no photos of my build... I put these together long before we ever documented our projects with any photos. Ask me any questions you'd like, I love to talk about them!

I can tell you that they were designed to match each other as far as surface area was concerned, woofer vs. ribbon. Their Sd's are almost identical. At 125hz, with identical output, their excursions match. (That's Klippel verified, by the way...) Important? Who knows...? But the response curves are dead on top of one another from one octave up and one octave down from the crossover point, (again... Klippel and anechoic chamber verified - at Harmon in Northridge.) which in *my* mind matters. LOL

Ask away... Anything you'd like to know. I do love to talk about them! I'm quite proud of them, even if the SAF is somewhat less than MOST wives would allow.

At the time of mentioned testing, I had two friends at Harmon - one full-fledged engineer, and one intern... The intern is no longer there, he's moved on to Logitech. The engineer is still there...

By the way... Here's the way we build pretty much ALL of our stuff in our group:

www.pyronews.com/tungsten/audio.html

[haemphyst]

Well.... Words almost escape me. Almost.

They've burned in now, for a couple weeks; they've played a few movies, hummed a few tunes, and warmed the room just a tiny bit. They're nowhere NEAR as warming as the NAD/Adcom combo I was using before, but there *are* four of them!

When I plugged them in originally, I was amazed. They were so black, I wasn't able to hear the amplifiers. With the signal path turned on, from amplifiers back to source, all of the muting circuits perform flawlessly... not a click or pop to be heard. This behavior still applies. I do hear a vanishingly tiny bit of noise from the Behringer crossover, but once warmed up, that all but goes away, and I can only hear it with my ear RIGHT on the ribbons. It's in no way audible at the listening position.

There are audible differences in source. I am using a custom built PC, and I can select between the HDMI delivery to the TV, passed on to the XDA-1 via optical (there's no copper based digital output from the TV), or the optical out direct to the XDA-1 from the PC, or USB, direct to the XDA-1. They're all active constantly, and I can simply use the source select on the XDA, for absolutely zero switch time, and thus (effectively) zero audible difference in timing.

Stramgely, the USB is actually the bet overall presentation. Anything routed through the TV sounds "veiled", with poor positioning, and the highs almost spit; probably a jitter issue. It's not likely that the TV has the best digital section, including the HDMI switching circuits. The PC optical direct is better, and could probably be picked better than 50% of the time in a careful blind A/B, depending on the music being played.

Most everything I have been listening to this evening was done through the USB.

Ray LaMontagne was really heard tonight. I was amazed at the overall quality of the recordings! I'd never heard it that good! "How Come", from the "Trouble" album has an incredible bongo leading the rhythm, on the left channel, and I'd never even known it was there! Ray's breath is like he is standing behind you! (I have to stop... I *really am* heterosexual!!!) Suffice to say, I listened to the track over and over, dissecting the recording to the finest levels, and it's good. 'Nuff said...

"Deacon Blues" from Steely Dan was also eye-opening! "Cousin Dupree" fom "Two Against Nature" had never known *bass*! Previously, all I'd ever heard was "whump", and as good as I thought it ever sounded, it was BETTER!

Jennifer Warnes... Ah, Jennifer. The LOVE of my musical collection. "Ain't No Cure for Love". There she is. Better than I'd ever heard her. Literally. I always knew those ribbons present female vocals like nothing I'd ever known, but you give them proper power, real GRUNT amplifiers, and they just go to TOWN!

Jason Mraz - Butterfly. I love this song. It's dirty. ;D I play it for the girlfriend... you know... when, well... Now, while it is a pop recording, and certainly over-processed, just as pop music is today, it sounds wonderful. Nothing is excessive, and in this sitting, it doesn't SOUND terribly overprocessed. It even sounds "very good". The noticeable "smiley-face" EQ is there, but nothing is overblown. Sibilants are VERY clean, the bass is "pop excessive", but never "wooly".

Classic rock is just perfect. I wasn't able to throw anything at this system, from ABBA to Floyd, that it didn't just love to play. Recording limitations and all, I love classic rock, and tonight was no different. All music was m4a lossless files, (for iPod compatibilty) encoded from wav files extracted using EAC, and played back using MediaMonkey with the Apple QuickTime plug-in, and playing directly from an internal hard drive.

Kid Rock. Symphonic Pink Floyd. Country. Classic rock. Easy listening. Electronic. Nothing floundered. I'm sold! Thanks, Lonnie! Job well done!

[garbulky]

Sending you a pm regarding our xda-1.

[haemphyst]

Probably gonna start saving for the XDA-2. The XDA-1 will be relegated to PC soundcard duty. LOL