Tank you all MANY MANY times over for your help. Ok as you stated above. Enough with the noise. Lets get down to business. Number 1 thing on the list. FAILED DRIVERS. I need either a replacement for the white poly coned 15 inch Goldwood woofer OR I need to get this one repaired. If I can't get a white exact duplicate then I need to replace both so they match. One of the 12 inch has also failed. The issue with the 12 is that it is a dual voice coil speaker and the one in the other cabinet is a single voice coil and is good. It is my understanding that the single voice coil speaker is the correct one and the dual is not. SOOOOOO with that I am in need of a 12 inch that has a smooth black poly cone to match the good one I have.
Can't help you much with the above except to say I agree, more likely the single VC 12 is correct, DVC is not.
I am desperate need of finding the correct location of the 12 ohm and the 24 ohm resistors that I found in shit system. In one cabinet there was a 12 ohm in series with one of the 10 inch speakers and a 24 ohm in parallel with that same speaker. In the other cabinet the resistor values were reversed. I am pretty sure it is not supposed to be that way. Are they even supposed to be there at all???
R12 is in series to the two parallel 10s. R24 parallel across the ribbed 10.
I won't say Brian never made the exact error you describe (R's different L/R), but I don't recall him making such error, though that's not proof of anything either. But this tends to increase my suspicion that this is a kit, not factory assembled.
Back to the woofer wiring. I am still unclear on this. When you say the woofers should be in a series am I to understand you mean only the 15 and the 12??? And then wire these in parallel with the two 10 inch in series??? Or are you saying that I actually got it right by accident when I drew them out???
Is what you typed above equal to your diagram? AFAIK your text matches your diagram and both are original. You can see, even with all woofers being 8 ohm, the net impedance is a little higher than 8, maybe 10 ohm subtotal. The woofers are in a series xo with the mids, so the total load for the woofers/mids is unknown, wonky phase angles I bet, especially w/the domes/planar.
Tube amps always sounded weak/cloudy driving VMPS cone/dome systems, even 100W versions, likely for reasons I describe. IMO the only amp to drive this thing is one making 400W+ @ 4 ohm, 2 ohm rated, 1 ohm capable, e.g. Hypex NCore.
Oh just a little extra info concerning these speakers. The present owner relayed to me that when he connected them to two rather large(300W each) monoblocks, he was a bit underwhelmed because he expected more volume. He said they sounded lacking in volume and bass. He connected them to a much larger amp(1000W) and he said they performed better but still felt like it should not have taken that much power to drive them. I perdon't know that much about themsonally was under the impression that these speakers were very efficient but then again I do not know that much about them. I thought I had read a review somewhere that showed they would perform well without the need for huge amounts of power. Did I read it wrong? Or is there something else going on in these cabinets that I have not found yet?
Does anything indicate the person who shared their opinion above ever heard these things setup properly? "Lacking bass" does not apply to STIII running and driven correctly. Brian overstated sensitivity maybe even more than the industry standard. A speaker can have an accurate spec of 92 dB, but if it has a 45 degree phase angle @ 110 Hz @ 2.5 ohm, it needs huge current or it's just gonna sound flat and weak and like crap. Brian added 3 dB for each woofer, including the PR (a PR extends cut off but has zero effect on sensitivity). That 15 is probably about 84-85 dB. It might be OK to add 3 dB for the 12, but that's it. Both 10s are mid-bass only, not low bass, especially the ribbed one, plus they are padded, so they barely increase sensitivity if at all. Total is 89 dB tops.
PR's have more fine step sizes to tune compared to a system with multiple ports. But those finer steps are within a narrower band size for tuning. A PR system can never achieve the effect of a sealed system; a multiple ported system equals a sealed system with all ports sealed. In your case, a single 15PR costs a lot less than the required flared ports for such low tuning frequency. When you exceed a certain mass on a PR, I don't know what happens to the bass tuning, but I know it's not good, and it is NOT equal to a sealed system.
The classic PR formula is active woofer cone radiating surface area x2 = PR cone surface area. You can see your formula is way off. Check how closely Sandy Gross follows this formula (GoldenEar). For years I suggested Brian switch to side-firing PR, which he eventually did in the RM50, his last model.
What size fishing weight is glued into your PRs? Pretty sure original was 1 oz, with several inches of rope putty (might have been 2 oz). What is your PR condition?
Are your domes Kevlar or fiberglass? Sorry, but to me those Kevlar domes are from hell, can't stand them. The glass domes I liked a lot. I am not the only one surprised early WATT sported that Kevlar dome.
