[nlitworld]

I am curious why Brian @ Rythmik has lowered the low pass down to 120hz rather than the old 200hz setting from the HX series amps. Perhaps the drivers or amps don't like that? Knowing that Danny prefers and recommends to roll off the speakers, and having previous planar speakers struggle under 200hz, it is kinda strange given their long working relationship. I bet there's a reasoning for it.

[Early B.]

So it does seem to be at least a minor issue.

Yep. There's no point in "fixing" a problem that creates three more problems. 

[subsonic1050]

Yep. There's no point in "fixing" a problem that creates three more problems.

I hear you, but it does seem like it is an issue. HAL mentioned this as one of the main reasons why the standard design has issues with the newer Rythmik amps, and Jaytor did mention this as a weakness. If I'm going to invest 7k into drivers, more into cabinet parts, either crossover components or DSP equipment then I'd really like it if that band is taken care of a little bit better. But you are definitely hitting on the crux of the fear I have - that by trying to "improve" it, I'll be doing the opposite. This is what I've come up with as far as rear bracing to try to accomodate a 12" SB OB woofer and stiffen up the cabinet a bit. The brace is perpendicular to the wing, not the front baffle, and it's 7" from the back of the LM10N drivers that are directly in front of it. I'm hoping this will result in minimal interaction with the rear waves and that the lower frequencies from the woofer won't disrupt the rear waves of the planar drivers much either. Fortunately, all of this is very low in the cabinet and primarily impacts just the lowest planar drivers.

[ciphercomplete]

I own the Super 7s, not the Line Forces. The lack of midbass punch is my only complaint, but its a big one. Its the first thing I noticed when moving from the Nx-otica MTM only version. The issue isn't fixed by simply having the subs play higher - the NX-oticas with the same sub setup simply sound better in this region, the Super 7 sounds better everywhere else. I think mounting some of Danny's NQ drivers or even the LGKs on the side wing of the line forces would be amazing. You dont need alot of output to make up this mid bass deficit.

[mkrawcz]

This is why I had a pair of M165 stands built for my Superminis to fill in the lower mid/upper bass region then hand off to the subs much lower at about 80hz. The problem with the Lineforce is you can’t really do that as they are over 6ft tall. I don’t think putting drivers on the side wing is going to work. There will be way too much resonance and probably not enough output.

[subsonic1050]

This is why I had a pair of M165 stands built for my Superminis to fill in the lower mid/upper bass region then hand off to the subs much lower at about 80hz. The problem with the Lineforce is you can’t really do that as they are over 6ft tall. I don’t think putting drivers on the side wing is going to work. There will be way too much resonance and probably not enough output.

Thanks for the input guys. I was wondering the same thing. I was already kicking around the idea of building a separate cabinet to house some midbass woofers, which would do away with the whole cabinet issue as well as the fact that I could probably cross the midbass woofers with the LM10N's a little higher (maybe 220Hz?) to make sure the planars aren't stressed at all. I was concerned about that pushing the crossover point a little too high and running into directivity issues. I'll probably go that route unless someone else has any input.

Does anyone have an opinion on which tweeter to use? I've modeled it for the LT2.2, but can't decide if the LT3.2 is the better option or not.

[Early B.]

I own the Super 7s, not the Line Forces. The lack of midbass punch is my only complaint, but its a big one. Its the first thing I noticed when moving from the Nx-otica MTM only version. The issue isn't fixed by simply having the subs play higher - the NX-oticas with the same sub setup simply sound better in this region, the Super 7 sounds better everywhere else. I think mounting some of Danny's NQ drivers or even the LGKs on the side wing of the line forces would be amazing. You dont need alot of output to make up this mid bass deficit.

CC is right -- planar ribbons don't have a lot of punch, and adding mid-woofers won't fix that. You have to live with the tradeoffs. If you prefer more punch, then you'll need to consider another speaker design.

[subsonic1050]

CC is right -- planar ribbons don't have a lot of punch, and adding mid-woofers won't fix that. You have to live with the tradeoffs. If you prefer more punch, then you'll need to consider another speaker design.

I'm not entirely following you here. I understand the planar ribbons don't have the punch of conventional cone drivers, but this seems to be a situation in which the subs and the planar arrays simply aren't meeting up. I don't understand why you can't add a midbass driver somewhere in the mix to bridge that gap? Didn't the old LS9's and such do exactly that? I have had Magnepan speakers in the past and am familiar with the trade-offs in this design - I don't expect the midbass punch of my NX-Treme's but what I don't want is a big hole in my response.

I think it's probably unimportant for now - I'm going to just build them as "normal" but with the radian drivers and some bracing in the cabinet. Then I'll see what the array is doing, how my OB subs blend with it, and I can try to address the midbass later if necessary.

[Tyson]

One of the things I like about the Line Forces is they do lower male vocals perfectly.  And I am comparing them to my last pair of speakers, the Spatial Audio X3's with their 12 inch midrange driver and even larger 15 inch bass driver.  And IME, the Line force does just as well on low male vocals.  I also own the NX-Oticas and triple OB subs in my 2nd system downstairs and I don't hear much difference between them re: male vocals. 

I used to own the Super 7's and the Super 7's definitely do not do low male vocals at world class levels.  They weren't 'bad', but just not 'amazing' the way the Line Forces are.

When I was originally thinking about building out the Line Forces, I actually was very much leaning toward the newer Radian drivers as my first choice.  But then I ran in to the exact same issue that you are here - how to get an elegant bass solution that would meet them at 200hz. 

[nlitworld]

Just spitballing an idea, but would it be possible to do a hybrid combo of OB M165 pair low, another pair up top, 2 or 4 radian drivers in the middle and a neo3 tweeter in the center of it all? I know you'd have 3 different efficiency ratings and 3 different time arrivals that would need to be sorted so that could get awkward.

Other option I'd be curious about, but are you able to mount the Radian drivers in a short form waveguide to boost the lower end a little?

If there isn't much ability to effectively run those drivers, maybe it's time for a LS9 mk2 project.

[Jaytor]

I think one of the things that make the Line Forces so special is that the planar drivers are isolated from the strong vibrations from the woofers. The fact the drivers roll off a little under 200hz is an advantage in this case. Adding additional woofers to the same cabinet structure would compromise the gorgeous sound quality.

I agree with Tyson that, as designed, the Line Forces do an amazing job with male vocals, even deep male voices such as the Fairfield Four. Where they are slightly lacking is in percussive slam, and this may be due as much to my choice of amplification (300B SET amps) as it is to any limitation of the speakers.

If you want to add additional drivers to fill in the 120hz to 240hz range, I'd suggest building woofer towers that include 2-3 12" servo drivers and a couple high quality 6" to 8" woofers, maybe in a WWwwW configuration.

[subsonic1050]

Thanks for the input everyone. Tyson - this is the first time I'm hearing that this issue is more of an issue with the Radian drivers than the old BG drivers. Everything I had read was that the LM10N was better in basically every way. When I'm looking at the frequency response, it appears the Radian rolls off much better below 200 where the BG falls of a cliff. In this diagram the Radian is on the left, BG on the right. How did you determine that the Radian would be worse? I hadn't compared the responses before and now I'm wondering if this whole question is actually a non-issue with the Radian...



I sincerely appreciate the opinions of everyone, and it seems the consensus is that a lot of the magic in these speakers is due to the low resonance of the cabinets. It's a little perplexing to me that - from what I can tell - nobody has ever built a full line array with the Radian drivers. The closest I've seen is Rich - but his didn't incorporate any tweeters. I guess I'll be the guinea pig for this experiment.

[Tyson]

I can only tell you that mine are flat to 120hz and then I bring in the subs easily at that point.

At least in my setup slam is great.  I do need to put in one of my aggressive amps to do it.  The NX-Oticas are slightly better at slam overall though which is why I use them in my HT.  Also these are OB speakers so they won’t pressurize the room like a box speaker will.

One thing I should mention.  I went with a design where I had to compromise and put the bass woofers at the bottom of the cabinet due to space limitations.  But, I think I got lucky because bass integration is pretty much perfect and I think‘accidentally’ having the bass and midrange drivers launching from the same physical plane helped it all sound more percussive and smoothly integrated.  This is what you call dumb luck, lol.

With the NX-Oticas having the separate bass tower is fine because they cross so much lower.  But the Line Force at 120hz?  That’s pretty high and physical alignment matters IMO.

[subsonic1050]

I can only tell you that mine are flat to 120hz and then I bring in the subs easily at that point.

At least in my setup slam is great.  I do need to put in one of my aggressive amps to do it.  The NX-Oticas are slightly better at slam overall though which is why I use them in my HT.  Also these are OB speakers so they won’t pressurize the room like a box speaker will.

One thing I should mention.  I went with a design where I had to compromise and put the bass woofers at the bottom of the cabinet due to space limitations.  But, I think I got lucky because bass integration is pretty much perfect and I think‘accidentally’ having the bass and midrange drivers launching from the same physical plane helped it all sound more percussive and smoothly integrated.  This is what you call dumb luck, lol.

With the NX-Oticas having the separate bass tower is fine because they cross so much lower.  But the Line Force at 120hz?  That’s pretty high and physical alignment matters IMO.

That's great to hear! Are you running 8 Neo 10's per side or 6? I searched but I can't seem to find a thread where you talk about your line force speakers, just your review in 2020 of hearing Danny's.

I also decided - F*&K it, and I just dropped almost 6k on drivers. And that's not even all of them. I ordered 16 LM10N's - deciding to do 8 per side, and I ordered 3 each of the LT3.2 and LT2.2 tweeters. My plan is to make small test speakers with one LM10N and 3 tweeters to decide which tweeter to use and also test baffle configuartions (waveguide vs no waveguide, waveguide shape, etc.). I have what I think is a cool idea regarding the waveguide. I'd build the cabinet with the drivers flush mounted from the front - like they currently are. Then I'll mill a huge piece of walnut to put the waveguides in and attach it over the drivers. That way, I can maintain the small braces that form a web between each driver. Also the waveguides will look much prettier milled from walnut. There are wood movement concerns, but I have some thoughts on that.

[nlitworld]

This is going to be a fun project to watch along with. The milled walnut will look gorgeous in a full line array like that. 

[Tyson]

That's great to hear! Are you running 8 Neo 10's per side or 6? I searched but I can't seem to find a thread where you talk about your line force speakers, just your review in 2020 of hearing Danny's.

I also decided - F*&K it, and I just dropped almost 6k on drivers. And that's not even all of them. I ordered 16 LM10N's - deciding to do 8 per side, and I ordered 3 each of the LT3.2 and LT2.2 tweeters. My plan is to make small test speakers with one LM10N and 3 tweeters to decide which tweeter to use and also test baffle configuartions (waveguide vs no waveguide, waveguide shape, etc.). I have what I think is a cool idea regarding the waveguide. I'd build the cabinet with the drivers flush mounted from the front - like they currently are. Then I'll mill a huge piece of walnut to put the waveguides in and attach it over the drivers. That way, I can maintain the small braces that form a web between each driver. Also the waveguides will look much prettier milled from walnut. There are wood movement concerns, but I have some thoughts on that.

Here is my build thread - https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=190452.0

[subsonic1050]

This is going to be a fun project to watch along with. The milled walnut will look gorgeous in a full line array like that. 

I started a new thread since that seems to make sense, but thank you. I'm excited about this one...

Here is my build thread - https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=190452.0

Dude, those are amazing man. What an inspiration! I can tell how much of an impression these made on you when you heard them at Danny's to cannibalize your old speakers to build them.