Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!

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HAL

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Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« on: 6 Nov 2012, 01:16 am »
                With help from Danny , jparkhur and Dave, here is a full range driver speaker product.  The pictures are of the driver and baffles from jparkhur for the Dayton PS220-8 driver as a test driver and three of the 8” GR-Research servo woofers.   There is a separate cabinet for each of the new servo amp to drive the 3 servo woofers. 
 
                The reason behind the project is to see if using new impulse response correction techniques we can improve the sound of any full range driver.  The Dayton 8” full range driver is a test case, as it is a very good sounding driver.
      
   My part of the project is the supercomputer digital crossover.   The idea is that I measure each Dayton full range driver and do impulse response correction and crossover  for each driver.  This makes logisitics interesting as each driver has to be cataloged with the data.  They will be sold as pairs with the digital crossover for a specific speaker.

   The digital crossover will have two different stereo output stages.  One with be passively coupled from the DAC to the power amp to full range driver.   This will help protect the full range driver from extended low frequency excursion. The other will be a DC coupled output stage for extended bass response to drive the servo amps.
 
   The digital crossover and DAC’s will not use any linear phase filtering.  The input will be either via asynchronous USB directly from a PC music server or via a 24bit/192KHz A/D converter.  The processing rate will be 32bit/192KHz floating point math for all four channels. 

   The digital crossover prototype will only have A/D conversion until the full production crossover is completed.   There will be software for a PC Music Server to run digital volume control and input switching between the A/D and USB inputs.

   Working on final pricing on the digital crossover system and driver pair.
 
   Will post in the thread progress as it is made along the way.

                Presenting The Monolith speaker.






persisting1

Re: Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« Reply #1 on: 6 Nov 2012, 01:24 am »
Can you post more pictures of the cabinets? The picture is somewhat dark.

JohnR

Re: Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« Reply #2 on: 6 Nov 2012, 01:27 am »
Most people won't be able to afford a supercomputer...

HAL

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Re: Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« Reply #3 on: 6 Nov 2012, 01:32 am »
Here is a better picture of the Monolith baffles and one of the amp enclosures:





HAL

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Re: Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« Reply #4 on: 6 Nov 2012, 01:34 am »
Most people won't be able to afford a supercomputer...

The DSP board that I am using is about 27 times the throughput of a Cray 1 supercomputer from back in the day.  Today that amount of floating point  throughput is available at what I would call a reasonable price. 

jparkhur

Re: Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« Reply #5 on: 6 Nov 2012, 01:55 am »
This may help..  Jon Parkhurst


jparkhur

Re: Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« Reply #6 on: 6 Nov 2012, 01:59 am »
And this...   More to come... from The Monoliths......


Yes= three 8's is similar to two 12's from Danny.. Order both...

Yes= this is fun and bottom end sounds great... waiting on the top to finalize... .....its like Xmas... early

HAL

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Re: Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« Reply #7 on: 6 Nov 2012, 02:01 am »
They're multiplying! :)

The rest of the servo drivers arrived today to complete the build. 

Had a death in the family and will be on travel this weekend and part of next week.  More to come after that trip.

jparkhur

Re: Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« Reply #8 on: 6 Nov 2012, 02:05 am »
They're multiplying! :)

The rest of the servo drivers arrived today to complete the build. 

Had a death in the family and will be on travel this weekend and part of next week.  More to come after that trip.

Hope all turns out well and may the force be with you.. We will continue on for you as I will be selling the rights to Disney for 4 billion dollars....   

dBe

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Re: Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« Reply #9 on: 6 Nov 2012, 02:05 am »
The Daytons are very nice.  I like them a lot more than my Fostex 206's.  Great dynamics and not nearly as harsh.  with the Servo 8's these should just kill.

Dave

HAL

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Re: Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« Reply #10 on: 6 Nov 2012, 02:11 am »
Hope all turns out well and may the force be with you.. We will continue on for you as I will be selling the rights to Disney for 4 billion dollars....

That might be hard without the lightsaber! :)

skeeter99

Re: Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« Reply #11 on: 6 Nov 2012, 02:17 am »
The DSP board that I am using is about 27 times the throughput of a Cray 1 supercomputer from back in the day.  Today that amount of floating point  throughput is available at what I would call a reasonable price.

What is "reasonable"? That term is pretty subjective, especially in this industry  :green:

Scott

HAL

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Re: Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« Reply #12 on: 6 Nov 2012, 02:21 am »
I will tell everyone once the unit is completed and have final pricing.

persisting1

Re: Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« Reply #13 on: 6 Nov 2012, 03:21 am »
Who designed the "crossovers"?

HAL

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Re: Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« Reply #14 on: 6 Nov 2012, 03:27 am »
I will be designing them once I have full measurements and Danny has a chance to look at the results. 

To help avoid confusion, this will be a HAL product with parts coming from all the principles listed in the original post.

Once this design is done, we can work with other full range drivers when there is interest.

S Clark

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Re: Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« Reply #15 on: 6 Nov 2012, 03:36 am »
HAL-
This has been the topic of endless debate.... but what do you see as the advantages in the full range speaker that over shadows their weaknesses?

persisting1

Re: Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« Reply #16 on: 6 Nov 2012, 03:49 am »
Are the crossovers only sold through you?

Jonathon Janusz

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Re: Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« Reply #17 on: 6 Nov 2012, 04:23 am »
HAL, interesting concept.  I notice that the servos are set up on a completely open baffle along with the full range driver; is the output on the full range driver low enough (or the servos together high enough) to not require the same H-frame baffle design Danny has been using in the V1/super-v/super-7, or are you simply increasing the gain on the amp to compensate? 

Also, any thoughts on isolating the vibrations in the baffle from the servos on the full range driver, as I was under the impression that with the amount of movement the servos could deliver, transmitting vibrations could be an issue?

JP, very nice work, as usual!  I really like the look, and engineering the amplifier box to be a counterweight to the driver loaded baffle looks to be a most elegant looking solution.

Danny, is the output of the servos in this configuration enough to work with the top half of the V2, or would the servos need a shallow H-frame as has been discussed in other threads?  I'm pretty sure if the answer was "yes", at the very least Tyson would be looking at his piggy bank with a hammer in hand.  :green:

stevenkelby

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Re: Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« Reply #18 on: 6 Nov 2012, 04:58 am »
Has a prototype for these speakers actually been made/heard yet?

Cool concept, how tall are they?

DaveC113

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Re: Best sounding full range driver speaker ever!
« Reply #19 on: 6 Nov 2012, 05:03 am »
This was the format for one of the Feastrex speakers at RMAF a few years ago, OB with 2 15" woofers per side and a custom digital x-over. I think it's a good option for augmenting a full range driver for sure. The Feastrex is one of the best speakers I have ever heard, but the drivers were the field coils at about $50k/pair.

Also, Omega is coming out with a line of DIY drivers... their oem drivers are as good as anything out there regardless of price. The Dayton you're using is one of the few full range drivers I haven't been able to listen to yet...

Good Luck!