[Rick Craig]

Three custom designs from this summer:



10" 3-way which transformed our SSR design into a dipole mid with an additional aluminum cone Vifa bass driver. Thanks to Regan from Washington for providing pics of his first time building a cabinet 




Paul (near Philly) designed and built a cabinet for Peerless drivers while we did the crossover. This 10" 3-way performed really well for the $. Stunning cabinet work!



Seas Excel 5" magnesium cone drivers and the Millenium tweeter. A nice combination that sounds much bigger than what you would expect. Thanks to Jake for showing the cabinets he built - you can see them at the 2007 Iowa DIY.

[poseidonsvoice]

That dipole design looks real sweet. I didn't know that the Revelator woofer could be used as a dipole mid.

Nice job,

Anand.

[Rick Craig]

That dipole design looks real sweet. I didn't know that the Revelator woofer could be used as a dipole mid.

Nice job,

Anand.

Thanks for your kind comment. The Revelator works really well as a dipole due to its' low Fs and compliant suspension. I forgot to add that I'm soon going to be working with Paul Kittinger on a transmission line speaker with serious bass extension from a 8" Scan-Speak. If there's enough interest we may go ahead and offer it and license the TL design from Martin King.

[ific]

Rick,

I would like you to elaborate on the sound of the vifa 10" (MA26WR). It looks like a pretty nice driver to be used sealed, with very good low end extension, but its low efficiency scares me bit.

Thanks in advance.

IFIC.

[Rick Craig]

Rick,

I would like you to elaborate on the sound of the vifa 10" (MA26WR). It looks like a pretty nice driver to be used sealed, with very good low end extension, but its low efficiency scares me bit.

Thanks in advance.

IFIC.

Actually there's more than one version of the Vifa with different parameters. My experience with it was very positive and for the $ it would be difficult to beat. Unless you have a low power tube amp I wouldn't worry about not getting enough volume from it. I was able to drive it pretty loud with my 50-watt test rig amp.

[klh]

How tall is the custom OB 3-way at the top of the thread? I would imagine it would be fairly easy to swap out the Vifa 10" for an Aurasound driver. Do you think exchanging the woofers would make much of a difference in sound? One could probably do separate open baffle and enclosed units like the 3D. If you don't mind divulging, how low is the SS crossed over to the Vifa? Is it ported, and if one were to go with the Aurasound, how low do you think the F3 would be if it were sealed? Lastly, how does this speaker compare to to the 3D? Sorry for so many questions ... I can't help myself.

[Rick Craig]

How tall is the custom OB 3-way at the top of the thread? I would imagine it would be fairly easy to swap out the Vifa 10" for an Aurasound driver. Do you think exchanging the woofers would make much of a difference in sound? One could probably do separate open baffle and enclosed units like the 3D. If you don't mind divulging, how low is the SS crossed over to the Vifa? Is it ported, and if one were to go with the Aurasound, how low do you think the F3 would be if it were sealed? Lastly, how does this speaker compare to to the 3D? Sorry for so many questions ... I can't help myself.

The speaker is 40" tall. A different woofer would obviously change the crossover but the Aurasound could easily be used. The Aurasound motor is very low in inductance so it would be my first choice; in fact, that's one reason why I use it in many 3-way designs versus something like the TC Sounds. In this case my customer was on a tight budget and the Vifa was a good choice - this is the same woofer Krell used in their top speaker a few years ago.

You could do this design in a 2 pc. enclosure like the 3D but for simplicity and ease of construction I this type of cabinet works better. The woofer is rear ported and tuned pretty low. The AuraSound that we use is engineered for ported enclosures so it's not a good idea to use it sealed unless you add equalization. Sorry - crossover points are proprietary 


So how does this stack up against the 3D? As good as the 3D is I thought this overall was even better. For $1,280/pr. (including shipping) this kit is hard to beat.

[klh]

Sorry - crossover points are proprietary 

Oh well, I thought I'd try . Seriously though, this sounds like one hell of a system. I would imagine the SS does a little better with an open baffle due its lower Fs.

At any rate, I'm totally sold on open baffle speakers, but my concern is my room does double duty (HT and 2 channel music). Because of the seating arrangement, a center channel for the HT is a must. Do you think an MT open baffle with the SS (sans woofer) would be able to get solidly down to 80Hz (and would it have the dynamic range necessary for center channel duty)? If not, I would need the WMT enclosures to be only 30" tall. What do you think would be the best option?

[Rick Craig]

Sorry - crossover points are proprietary 

Oh well, I thought I'd try . Seriously though, this sounds like one hell of a system. I would imagine the SS does a little better with an open baffle due its lower Fs.

At any rate, I'm totally sold on open baffle speakers, but my concern is my room does double duty (HT and 2 channel music). Because of the seating arrangement, a center channel for the HT is a must. Do you think an MT open baffle with the SS (sans woofer) would be able to get solidly down to 80Hz (and would it have the dynamic range necessary for center channel duty)? If not, I would need the WMT enclosures to be only 30" tall. What do you think would be the best option?

The larger cone of the Revelator and wider baffle were the main factors because I was able to extend the dipole effect to a lower frequency. In a MT the 7" won't go low enough in an open baffle. You could do a shorter 3-way enclosure; however, the ribbon needs to be near ear level when seated. For a 30" tall cabinet a dome tweeter is a better choice (still not ideal but maybe you can angle the cabinet upward to compensate?).

[klh]

Thanks Rick... the 6600 with a subtle backwards tilt might be a better choice. The trapezoidal shape would not only be noticeable from from the front but also the sides. That might be very interesting .

[Rick Craig]

Thanks Rick... the 6600 with a subtle backwards tilt might be a better choice. The trapezoidal shape would not only be noticeable from from the front but also the sides. That might be very interesting .

You could do a tilt with the ribbon as well.