Dave's cherry HT2's

jsalk · « **on:** 8 Jul 2006, 12:25 pm »

Dave wanted floor-standing, ported HT2's in ropey cherry. Here they are...

The optional grills were included to prevent little fingers from damaging the drivers. They are NOT recommended for listening and will be removed when the speakers are in use.

Here is a close up of the corner detail...

And a side panel close-up...

And the plinths/spikes...

I usually like to use three spikes on each plinth as it is more stable and requires no fine-tuning of the spikes to level the speakers (not to mention cost considerations). However, the HT2 plinths are narrower and are just a bit too unstable with three. So we used four on these plinths.

Happy listening Dave!

- Jim

launche · « **Reply #1 on:** 8 Jul 2006, 02:35 pm »

Thanks Jim, another handsome pair of speakers. Those HT2's are really starting to appeal to me. Looks that the front has a slight curve from top to bottom? Haven't seen much info. about them on your site, care to give a little more details...pricing, drivers, size etc...

Thanks

95bcwh · « **Reply #2 on:** 8 Jul 2006, 03:20 pm »

Excellent work Jim!

Looking at these pretty HT2, I'm really tempted to ask you to build me a pair of these plus a center to complete a 5.1 HT set up..

The biggest problem is.. I have no place to put them in my current apartment, so the wait is on

jsalk · « **Reply #3 on:** 8 Jul 2006, 03:42 pm »

launche -

Quote

Thanks Jim, another handsome pair of speakers. Those HT2's are really starting to appeal to me. Looks that the front has a slight curve from top to bottom?

Thanks for the kind words. Much appreciated. As for the curve, it is an optical illusion.

Quote

Haven't seen much info. about them on your site, care to give a little more details...pricing, drivers, size etc...

No, I haven't had time to put up a page on the HT2's yet. Hopefully I'll get one done this week-end.

The design is a ported MTM with Seas Excel W18's and the new LCY ribbon tweeter. It is a nominal 4-ohm design with a sensitivity of about 87db. The design frequency response is 38Hz to 60,000Hz +/- 3db. The cabinets are 40" tall, not including the plinths and spikes, 9" wide and 14" deep.

There is also a sealed version which is 22" tall and is designed to use with a sub since the bass response falls off much sooner.

The sealed version starts at $2795 per pair and the ported starts at $2995 per pair, depending on options and finishes.

- Jim

cdorval1 · « **Reply #4 on:** 10 Jul 2006, 06:22 pm »

Jim,

Great pictures, beautiful finishes, excellent craftsmanship. What a great-looking pair of speakers! Thanks for posting the pictures--they feed my anticipation.

Craig

jsalk · « **Reply #5 on:** 13 Jul 2006, 02:05 am »

Craig -

Quote from: cdorval1 on 10 Jul 2006, 06:22 pm

Jim,

Great pictures, beautiful finishes, excellent craftsmanship. What a great-looking pair of speakers! Thanks for posting the pictures--they feed my anticipation.

Craig

I started spraying your's today. It shouldn't be that much longer before you see them posted here as well.

- Jim

avahifi · « **Reply #6 on:** 13 Jul 2006, 09:02 pm »

Jim, can you comment on what the basic sonic differences are between the new Veracity HT2s (ported model) and the Veracity QW design?

Thanks

Frank Van Alstine

jsalk · « **Reply #7 on:** 14 Jul 2006, 12:25 pm »

Frank -

Quote from: avahifi on 13 Jul 2006, 09:02 pm

Jim, can you comment on what the basic sonic differences are between the new Veracity HT2s (ported model) and the Veracity QW design?

That is a difficult question to answer since I never had an opportunity to A/B the two designs. However, I can offer a few observations.

First the QW's will have a slightly (very slightly) more extended bottom end since they feature a transmission line cabinet. Most speaker cabinets are designed to be as inert as possible, adding nothing to the sound reproduced by the drivers. With a TL cabinet, on the other hand, the cabinet is designed to become part of the the speaker system and contributes to a more extended bottom end than the drivers could normally produce in any other type of cabinet.

The HT2's will have slightly less distortion in the midrange and will handle higher SPL's since there are two W18 midwoofers sharing the load. They are also about 4db more sensitive than the QW's (it would be about 6db but the HT2's use the standard version of the W18 while the QW's use the higher sensitivity W18EX).

In terms of the tweeters, the LCY tweeter in the HT2's is down 3db at 60,000Hz, while the G2 in the QW's is down 3db at 40,000 Hz. While this may at first seem significant, in terms of performance in the audible range there is very little difference. The LCY tweeter was chosen for the HT2's, in large part, because it allowed closer spacing of the W18's than the G2 would have.

Since both speakers utilize the W18 midwoofer, midrange performance is quite similar on the design axis. The QW's are slightly more consistent with regard to frequency response above and below the level of the tweeter. This is a function of the HT2's MTM design.

In an MTM design, when you move above and below the level of the tweeter, the distance between each of the midwoofers and your ears is no longer exactly the same. This results in a certain amount of comb filtering since the phase relationship between the drivers is no longer exact. This is not a major issue, mind you, as evidenced by the many great speaker designs utilizing the D'Appolito MTM driver configuration. But I thought it was worth mentioning.

The QW's are an 8 ohm nominal design, while the HT2's are a 4 ohm nominal design.

As I mentioned above, I have not had a chance to A/B the two designs. But the QW's have always struck me as being a little more relaxed in the midrange due to the TL cabinet. The HT2's, on the other hand, seem just a little more forward in the midrange in comparison. But these observations are purely from memory.

Both speakers image extremely well, are extremely transparent and highly detailed. Dennis Murphy did an incredible job designing the crossovers for these speakers and, in my opinion, they are both world-class in every respect.

I hope this helps.

- Jim

avahifi · « **Reply #8 on:** 14 Jul 2006, 07:43 pm »

Ah, choices, choices, choices. One of these days Patty is gonna take her set of HT3s home and then I am going to need another set of Veracitys. I am thinking that my walnuts ones are probably overkill for the video system upstairs, used for video sound mostly, and that either the QWs or HT2s would work really well there, with a really creative cabinet finish of course.

Regards,

Frank

Toka · « **Reply #9 on:** 5 Jan 2007, 10:10 pm »

Quote from: jsalk on 14 Jul 2006, 12:25 pm

In terms of the tweeters, the LCY tweeter in the HT2's is down 3db at 60,000Hz, while the G2 in the QW's is down 3db at 40,000 Hz. While this may at first seem significant, in terms of performance in the audible range there is very little difference. The LCY tweeter was chosen for the HT2's, in large part, because it allowed closer spacing of the W18's than the G2 would have.

Jim (or anybody),

I'm a little dense on the subject matter, so forgive me for asking a silly question, but when you mention the 60,000Hz/40,000Hz difference between the two tweeters, what does this mean exactly?

brj · « **Reply #10 on:** 5 Jan 2007, 10:30 pm »

He is referring to the frequency at which the tweeter's output has dropped 3 decibels below a perfectly flat response. Any speaker driver will output a flat response (uniform output level in dB) across only a limited frequency range, and will roll off to lower output levels above and below that range.

Note that the range of human hearing is usually quoted as 20-20,000 Hz, although you continue to lose your high frequency hearing as you get older. (How fast and how badly depends on genetics and how well you protect your hearing.) There was a thread a while back that asked people how high they could still hear, and I seem to recall numbers as low as 12,000 Hz. There have been studies suggesting that people may sense frequencies higher than 20,000 Hz, with bone conduction being given as the most likely mechanism, but I don't think any sort of consensus has been reached.

In short, even 25,000 Hz is overkill for most people, let alone 40,000 or 60,000 Hz!

Toka · « **Reply #11 on:** 5 Jan 2007, 10:33 pm »

Thanks for the info! The 20-20k range I was aware of, but how it all integrated into the crossover/drivers was the 'hmmm' part for me...its all hair splitting in the end, but still interesting.

DMurphy · « **Reply #12 on:** 6 Jan 2007, 01:10 am »

I guess the real issue is whether the ability of these tweeters to reach so high has any implication for how well they reproduce the audible spectrum. The argument would be that their very low moving mass does translate into superior sound below 20 kHz. Not being an audio physicist, I can only go by what I hear. I recently did a 3-way version of the Dave Ellis 1801. The 1801 is basically an HT1 with the 0W1 3/4" dome tweeter instead of the G2 ribbon. I compared the 3-way very carefully with the HT3 and V3. although the frequency response of the 3 speakers is very similar, the difference in the highs was not subtle. The dome produced a more focused and forward sound, with more ssssssssssssssssss on cymbals and triangles. When I switched the ribbon, the highs seemed to spread apart, with less sssssssss but more air. I'm not sure everyone would have preferred the ribbon (although I certainly did), but there's no question that the basic sound is different.

Hogg · « **Reply #13 on:** 6 Jan 2007, 03:08 am »

Dennis,

Who owns the intellectual property for these cross-over designs esp. the 1801? Is the 1801 with the OW1 in the public domain? Thanks.

Jim

DMurphy · « **Reply #14 on:** 6 Jan 2007, 04:01 am »

Hi All of the crossover deisgns I've done are in the public domain--except Jim's and the 1801. I don't profit from those, but both Jim and Dave seemed so dedicated to producing really beautiful speakers that I thought it would be best to keep the schematics proprietary. I think both the 0W1 and G2 work particularly well with the W18, although they definitely do have different characteristic sounds in the midtreble. The 3-way I just completed is a one-of-a-kind, and has almost no components in common with the 2-way version of the 1801.

avahifi · « **Reply #15 on:** 6 Jan 2007, 05:14 pm »

Dennis, did you ever consider designing in an upper bandpass filter into a speaker crossover to protect the tweeter from seeing out of band high frequency garbage?

I suspect that could improve the musicality of good loudspeakers used with less than good electronics. There are lots of sources of high frequency garbage such as cartridge mistracking, poorly filtered digital switching frequencies and their harmonics, RFI, and so on and so on. A tweeter voice coil has finite limits and if you remove signals that could cause low level voice coil saturation, and/or high level damage, I think the result might be better sound yet and better fault tolerance too.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

DMurphy · « **Reply #16 on:** 6 Jan 2007, 06:58 pm »

I don't think I've ever met that issue before. It wouldn't be too difficult to do, but it almost seems like a switchable circuit on the preamp would be even easier to implement.

WEEZ · « **Reply #17 on:** 6 Jan 2007, 07:01 pm »

Doesn't a Zobel network help to filter out of band noise?

DMurphy · « **Reply #18 on:** 7 Jan 2007, 01:10 am »

Quote from: WEEZ on 6 Jan 2007, 07:01 pm

Doesn't a Zobel network help to filter out of band noise?

A zobel would be used on a tweeter mainly if it were a dome that didn't use fluid to cool the voice coil, and had a very prominent impedance peak at resonance. The zobel would smooth that out and make the crossover easier to implement, but it wouldn't have any effect in the extreme highs.

WEEZ · « **Reply #19 on:** 7 Jan 2007, 01:27 am »

thanks for the info...I knew they were good for something