4DSelect

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic. Read 3260 times.

Louis O

4DSelect
« on: 28 Jul 2003, 12:22 pm »
Hi everyone,

I was thinking about new designs and thought of the Decware Zen Select amp. I know this amp sounds great and is a steal for the money. I was thinking of making a speaker that would mate extremely well with it. They amp likes 4 ohm or less loads.

The speaker will use a Super 8 cabinet and have 2 Super 3 drivers wired in parallel. The specs : 96dB, 4 ohm, 55-20KHz. I have to figure out the price and this will be a factory direct speaker. :D

Best Regards,
Louis

wunderlast

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 37
4DSelect
« Reply #1 on: 29 Jul 2003, 03:59 am »
:D  :D  :D

JLM

  • Full Member
  • Posts: 10653
  • The elephant normally IS the room
4DSelect
« Reply #2 on: 2 Aug 2003, 11:32 am »
Louis:

I'm a big fan of the Select and the Super 3, so this would be very interesting indeed.

Would the drivers be mounted one above the other, or perhaps one on the top of the cabinet to more reinforce the bass?

jeff

Louis O

4DSelect
« Reply #3 on: 3 Aug 2003, 01:23 am »
Hi Jeff,

Thanks, this speaker should be a lot of fun and I have high hopes on the combination.

Looks like I will try placing drivers side by side first. Whats great about full range drivers is that I can also put the cabinet on it's side to hear the sound when the drivers are mounted vertically. Which ever sounds best is the way it will be.

I'll keep you updated  :D

Thanks and talk to you soon,
Louis

JLM

  • Full Member
  • Posts: 10653
  • The elephant normally IS the room
4DSelect
« Reply #4 on: 3 Aug 2003, 11:54 am »
Louis:

The more I think about it, the more a design like the 4 driver line array you'd mentioned a while back makes even more sense for the Decware Select, as it loves very low impedances.

As the cost of the Fostex drivers aren't too high and this could become a floorstanding speaker, the overall cost could remain quite reasonable for a 102 dB, 2 ohm speaker.  As you'd mentioned, wiring options could open up options for other amps as well.

Currently many Select owners use Paul Speltz's autotransformer to bring the impedance "seen" by the amp down.  Adding the cost of stands to the autotransformer brings the price of the Super 3's as high as $1,400.  If you could offer a simplier solution (the Decware folks love simplier since the Select only has 7 components with no additional wiring) for the same money, you'd have another winner.

Don't know what exact shape/size you had in mind for the array, but a cabinet roughly the size of 4 Super 3's stacked would be awesome (but maybe a bit visually overwhelming for significant others compared to your current offerings).  Perhaps the drivers could be bunched together in a vertical array to provide more of a point source (better vertical imaging) and the cabinet made shorter but deeper to provide more stability while maintaining the necessary internal volume (and improve WAF).

jeff

wunderlast

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 37
4DSelect
« Reply #5 on: 3 Aug 2003, 08:02 pm »
Louis, a couple of thoughts:

For reasons of economics, you should try the 2-driver setup; as you already have a suitable cabinet, this would be the easiest and most cost effective way to start.  At 94dB, and wired in parallel at 4 ohms, it should work very well with the Zen.  Also, as an option, if the drivers were wired in series, it would be 16ohm, and many amplifiers, particularly SET amps, benefit from higher impedance.

But a 4-driver array could be a superb choice.  Needing a larger cabinet, it would be a nice little floorstander, eliminating the need for extra-cost stands.  It would bring sensitivity up to about 97dB, and would have two viable wiring options: all parallel at 2 ohms for the Zen crowd, and combination parallel/series at 8 ohms for most everyone else.  This would be a killer combo for other low-powered triode amps, like the Bottlehead Paramours, the Fi X, Jeff Koernoff's 45 amps, etc.

Good luck.

Louis O

4DSelect
« Reply #6 on: 5 Aug 2003, 02:56 pm »
Hi Jeff & wunderlast

The line array will also work well with the Select. It would play loud for sure and wouldn't take much to get it singing. Wiring options will be available for other amps for sure.

Your right about the Zeros. They do help out the Select, but are pretty expensive. I would think properly mating a speaker to the amp is the simplest way to go.

I will start off with the 2 driver array right now and then the line array. I want to keep the cost of the speaker well under $1000/pair and the 2 driver speaker will do this. The line array will be made soon and what I will do is keep the width the same, limit the height in the 40" range and definetly will have to add depth. The speakers will be floor standers and will have a slight tilt back, like my Maggies. this will give the array a better spread.

I have been paying with cabinet construction lately and may have a new look soon. It's only slightly different. I have used a combo of the Softwood MDF that I use now and 13 ply Baltic Birch. This combination is very good. the Super 3 will be the first and I will post a picture on the site very soon.

Thanks again,
Louis