michael_w
02-21-2006, 11:40 PM
They're not beautiful but they're done. All they need now is a finish. I started these out at school and then finished them at home in the last couple days.
They use a 3" Audax HT080M0, which I had received as a gift at the last northwest audio meet. The cabinets are made from 3/4" mdf and are about 0.2 cubic feet with a single port at the bottom. According to the graphs from winISD and Unibox they are ±3dB down to about 89hz. I did the internal wiring with 12awg twisted home depot special at just under 30 cents a foot (the same stuff I use as regular speaker wire for my LSi7's). I cheaped out on the binding posts and used some crap radio shack ones because I didn't want to have to order anything right now and had them lying around but eventually I'll order something better for them. Also, the top half of the cabinet is stuffed with polyfill.
What do they sound like you might ask? Well for a 3" driver I was expecting them to lack bass and be a little on the excessive treble side but I was wrong. In fact they're pretty much the opposite of that. They dig deep enough to listen to without a sub (very unexpected) but lack a little oomph on the vocals. Since it is only a three inch driver doing all the work the vocals seem to blend in too much and don't seperate themselves enough. The drivers can go high enough in certain passages but it isn't as pronounced as desirable. Imaging and vocals can be improved by moving closer to the ground (or sitting on it) since the drivers fall short of ear level by about eight inches.
I first ran these on some Steely Dan and they seemed to like that kind of music. After spinning a few discs it became very apparent that they're not big on rock. They just can't handle it and still sound good... they much prefer the softer and slower types of music.
Will these replace my LSi7's or come close to what they're capable of? Of course not, but it was a fun experiment to try a new and unusual design with such a small driver. Right now they're running off my NAD C352 and seem to be very power hungry and inefficient.
Edit: after listening to these for a while I've noticed it sounds almost like they have a blanket in front of them. A sort of muddled midrange and pulled back highs. I'm going to try and fix this by not feeding them a full range signal anymore and moving them over to a receiver where I can cross them over around 100Hz to a sub. I might also try and put them on a concrete paver to see how it changes things.
They use a 3" Audax HT080M0, which I had received as a gift at the last northwest audio meet. The cabinets are made from 3/4" mdf and are about 0.2 cubic feet with a single port at the bottom. According to the graphs from winISD and Unibox they are ±3dB down to about 89hz. I did the internal wiring with 12awg twisted home depot special at just under 30 cents a foot (the same stuff I use as regular speaker wire for my LSi7's). I cheaped out on the binding posts and used some crap radio shack ones because I didn't want to have to order anything right now and had them lying around but eventually I'll order something better for them. Also, the top half of the cabinet is stuffed with polyfill.
What do they sound like you might ask? Well for a 3" driver I was expecting them to lack bass and be a little on the excessive treble side but I was wrong. In fact they're pretty much the opposite of that. They dig deep enough to listen to without a sub (very unexpected) but lack a little oomph on the vocals. Since it is only a three inch driver doing all the work the vocals seem to blend in too much and don't seperate themselves enough. The drivers can go high enough in certain passages but it isn't as pronounced as desirable. Imaging and vocals can be improved by moving closer to the ground (or sitting on it) since the drivers fall short of ear level by about eight inches.
I first ran these on some Steely Dan and they seemed to like that kind of music. After spinning a few discs it became very apparent that they're not big on rock. They just can't handle it and still sound good... they much prefer the softer and slower types of music.
Will these replace my LSi7's or come close to what they're capable of? Of course not, but it was a fun experiment to try a new and unusual design with such a small driver. Right now they're running off my NAD C352 and seem to be very power hungry and inefficient.
Edit: after listening to these for a while I've noticed it sounds almost like they have a blanket in front of them. A sort of muddled midrange and pulled back highs. I'm going to try and fix this by not feeding them a full range signal anymore and moving them over to a receiver where I can cross them over around 100Hz to a sub. I might also try and put them on a concrete paver to see how it changes things.