[lothar]

Hi,
Five months ago I was build something like this http://www.lampizator.eu/SPEAKERS/PROJECTS/P12/opoen%20baffle%20alnico%20speakers%20project%2012.html
With altec 416a on semi open box.
Now I want go forward and build some ob with other drivers on mids and highs. I dont want change altecs, maybe I will  buy another pair of altecs 416a. My budget is 3500$.

My rest of the system:
amplifier is lampized music angle 845
http://www.lampizator.eu/AMPLIFIERS/CHINA/SET%20triode%20amplifier%20Music%20Angel%20845%20Hong%20Kong.html
cd player:
shangling cd300 also lampized
http://www.lampizator.eu/LAMPIZATOR/REFERENCES/Shanling%20CD300/CD300_Shanling_Burrbrown_PCM1794.html

My music is 95% jazz
Sorry for my english.

Thanks and regards
Lothar

[scorpion]

Hi Lothar,

Did you use the Greencones or other units ? Were you satisfied with the result ?

OT: What is your opinion of the Lampizator modded MA845 ?

/Erling

[lothar]

Yes, I use greencones and I am satisfied with the result. These drivers is a revelation for the price (60$ for mid and high)
But now I want build ob on more exotica drivers and probably better.

I was search amplifier (3000-4000 range) then I listen lampized MA845. Buying amplifier for 4000$ is a throw money in the air.
It is that good, but must by lampized, another way it is crap.

Regards
L

[scorpion]

Lothar,

According to some you shouldn't be able to better the Greencones...

Just for a change you could try my 'Volks-OB' fullrangers. I Have the Mk II in line, main baffle 110 x 40 cm and two SP130X/8s at 82.5 cm and 96.5 cm center height and 12.5 cm from the nearest side in a mirror pair. Mind I use Spruce for the baffle and a vibration resistant hanging with those Venetian Blind straps see this link: http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=46951.0 . You mustn't forget that. Passive crossover is with 70 uF Obbligato capacitor from http://www.diyhifisupply.com/diyhs_ob_caps.htm and a 4.4 mH coil to form a Linkwitz-Riley 12 db/octave crossover for the fullrangers at 300 Hz. This will set you back about 240 US$ if you buy the speakers from http://www.traumboxen.de/ .

I put forward this suggestion just for the try. It will easily be on par with or better than a B200 solution that I also have at home. The musicality of the Spruce baffles are much better than the MDF that houses my B200s. They are better than my Magnepan Mg 1.5s for sheer joy of listening to and certainly not worse in any respect. I have a pair of Greencones that I have not tried yet.

Going with your budget I suppose you should try the exotic French field-coil speakers: Supravox or Fertin  , which I know nothing about. From experience I don't think that the Orion or the Jamo 909 for instance will be so much better than my 'Volks-OB'-design. In fact I wouldn't hesitate to put the 'Volks-OB' beside any loudspeaker because I know it can stand comparison on musical merit.

/Erling

[Dmason]

Lothar

It is we who should be listening to YOU. Your site is wonderful, and fun...

My thinking was, make a list of mains-drivers you would like to sample, and sample, using your existing lower units. You already have those. One thing you point out on your site, and I could NOT agree more with is ALNICO for magnets. It makes a bigger difference than cone material. So, for Alnico mains, with VERY nice cone material we have the Tone Tubby Alnico 10 and 12 guitar cones, that are wonderful.
www.tonetubby.com    and have a growing reputation for things far beyond guitar. The 12 makes it cleanly to 5KHz, so the 10 likely makes it to +7KHz, and the Ceramic 8 is Q perfect for OB and is VERY flat to +9KHz.

With your budget, I wouldnt settle on anything until I heard the Alnico 10 with possibly your Saba or an Isophon Alnico tweeter rolled in. What I am suggesting is take the Lampization-attitude, and apply it to your speaker budget. If I had proper measurement instruments, I would be looking at the Tubby 10 mated to an 18Sound waveguide loaded with either a Beyma or especially a B&C 1" compression driver for the highs. The Tone Tubby 10 would get you high-er enough that implementation of the above HF drivers would be fairly easy. Possibly high enough that a very good and much less expensive/elaborate HF driver could therefore be mounted on the back of the baffle to increase ambient information, and greater sense of "air" and reverb.

For bass, if I were starting new, I would I think, be looking at the 18Sound drivers, or possibly Tone Tubby SuperBoy 15. A hemp coned 15 inch bass driver I personally think would be quite entertaining. Anyone who is familiar with the sound hemp cone makes, approves. Add ALNICO and you could have something amazing for not alot of money. www.abrown.com   for all the other stuff. Hope this offers a couple ideas.

[scorpion]

Dan,

I think everyone is asking for the the address to this interesting home-page ?
That we should be looking to. I found one Lothar I of France, that's the one ? Or you are implying it is LF himself ?

/Erling

[Dmason]

Jan,

www.lampizator.eu      It is fascination a la mode... kudos to Chef Lothar...

oh yes, one other thing, THE best sounding wideband mains I have tasted are the 40 year old Coral CR12A. This is another monster reason for my suspicion that properly trained Tone Tubby 10 & 12 Alnicos would be amazing. Lynn Olson agrees. Find his measurement data at www.nutshellhifi.com  Scroll down the page to the MLSSA Gallery for a more in depth study, with Lynn's assessments. Anecdotally, I would bet $ the Alnico 10 would easily hit 7.5KHz and one could easily wrench it to 10KHz if one had active contouring. I know I can do better than this with the Coral CR12A. I also know that with iTunes, everyone has equal and FREE access to 24 bit active contouring and a FREE 24db "pre amp" and so can subtractively equalize the hell out of wideband drivers, ~24db thru several octaves. Nice. And there is your "tweeter" with the Tone Tubby Alnico 10, or mud-magnet 8.

[scorpion]

Haha,

I don't think it is so because the KT88-page has been dropped for no reason.
A bit off topic, perhaps.

Otherwise, until you have listened to the 'Volks-OB' you should do no recommendations. 

I would say this is as good as The Snowman phallover or the Lucia celebration !

/Erling

[lothar]

<Dmason>
Ohh man:) It is not my site:))))
I am from Poland. Lukasz Fikus, who made this site is also from Poland:))) but He is not Me:)))))))
I am on stereo for 5 years, my last system was:
infinity r90 with krells. pass etc...
After all my experience, I decide to build something myself and by polish stereo forum come across lampizator site.
I was build speakers, amplifier and cd on advice frome that site and I am very, very happy with the effect.
But every day I am interestingly, what will by happen when instead greencones, I go with ribbon and supravox or something like that.

And once again "sorry for englisch"

L

[Dmason]

The KT-88 could be dropped because we are about to come up with an even better one, and use new production Tung Sol 6550, Aikido-for-Octals, and several specimens with state of the art magnetics. Robert Simpson who is a professional guitar amp builder says his KILLED his prior 300B, no further need for expensive DHT triodes, only TungSol pentodes are now desired. ($80 per matched pair)

And, -- for whatever reason there is NO US/Canadian distributor for Monacor. With the USD as it is, it is a false economy in bringing Volks-mains into the US. (Unless you can send them to those whom wish some pairs)

Lothar, apologies for mistaking you for Lukasz. Your Englisch is very good, my Spanish = 10/100, and I am living in a Spanish speaking country right now. Apologies to the kind folks of Ica, Peru, for my lousy Spanish....

Anyway, ONE thing Lukasz says that is very good advice is ALNICO for magnets. Supravox does NOT give you great sound, for the money they want. I say listen to Uncle Jan-Erling and ----->Monacor SPX200 or whichever model this is. It is ALL about implementation. If his Rx works for you, then use the money on music. I spend $60 on 40 year old Japanese drivers that would today cost $$$, and build quality only available in SUPER high end PRO audio drivers. JandG, and Innerconflict will agree on my assessment of Coral CR12A. Otherwise, I would have got Jan to send in Monacors.

For Europe,  www.spectrumaudio.de  write to Wolfgang who knows his stuff.

[Bemopti123]

Welcome Lothar.  I am itching for doing something similar to what you have shown us in your "double's" website.  It is simple and amazing.  I have been hoarding 8" alnico drivers from a couple of manufacturers and I also have a 10" Alnico drivers, as well as 4" types that I ripped from a cabinet.  The most unsatisfying thing about OB might be the bass factor, but with my Onkan cab loaded bass drivers, I think they will provide plenty of slamm.  Welcome Lothar.

[scorpion]

Lothar, Dmason

Sorry Lothar if hinting at things I was not certain of.

Dmason is certainly more experienced than I about Alnico Speakers and other things !

OT: And Dmason in 2002 I and my wife travelled the places that you are now working in. We went all the coastline from Arequipa in south to Ecuador in the north visiting both Ica and Nazca and the Paracas Islands not to talk about Lima, Cuzco and the Inka Trail. Fascinating country, Glad You help !

/Erling

[Dmason]

Onken, or not, the $$$ Zone, the BIG payoff with OB is <1500Hz.  Above FR becomes almost entirely directional. So you use more bass drivers on OB, or Ripol, google Ripol and see alignments for 12 and 15, plans available free. This is SLAMatoceous OB bass, the baffle is effectively folded.  I used 2X Ripol for 2 X 15 Eminence Delta 15LF in three pairs of DarkStars and you get bass SLAM. And little flea power SET for B200, which is a pretty nice wideband also

 ....OR mount 2X15 bass drivers on OB, 42 X 18 and use Alnico wideband for >200Hz, and one usually will overlap the other.  Nice example www.jamo.com You can use 18 inch wide baffle and attain effective overlap and use switching amp for bass gives high damping factor to the bass drivers. (18in^2 will give ~200Hz) and employ wideband driver of 6db< rated than bass drivers ex: 90db/97db, very easy to find.

Essential reading to understand this concept in greater detail is Martin King's latest paper on the subject at
www.quarter-wave.com 

[scorpion]

Guys,

Now we are in tune !

Ripol or Linkwitz W-Bass-dipol can be used only under 100 Hz or they will colour the sound more or less. But in that range they including the U-frame of John Kreskovsky http://www.musicanddesign.com/u_frame.html are producing very good results if designed right.

In my 'Volk-design' I have relied a lot on simulations with the MJK-MathCad models both for the Bass and the Fullranger. I don't like Dmason saying any Monacor unit because this SP 130X/8 is quite special, linear response up to 20 kHz and no colouration in any frequency band and like the vintage drivers having a voice coil former of paper. So Spruce + Paper = Mother of Tone, may be eccentric Ingenieur Altmann has a piont. The 'Volks-OB' won't deny him.

/Erling

[Dmason]

Erling,

I didnt mean "any" Monacor, but the one you had. Your conclusion; "no need to re-invent the wheel"  ..now if they made a nice Alnico one.... the Volks OB gets the Martin J King idea across re db synergies with wideband ~6db less than foundation driver. This makes me want to find 130-150mm Alnico wideband.

Yes, fabulous and magical part of the world. To know Peru, is to love her. This country is my second home now. To understand this part of the world is to know that there have been travellers coming here from "great distances" for thousands of years. This is common knowledge to the indigenous peoples, and their understanding not subject to Western argument or Von Daniken's postulations. Many parts of Ica were completely destroyed, and it was out of the world news cycle in two days. There is a cleft in the earth along the N/S highway you would have travelled, and the slip fault there shifted 20 feet. TWENTY FEET. Everything destroyed. Fortunately there is alot of help and alot of foreign $$$ here to git 'er done. Peru is our friend, and with the Free Trade Agreement she is now entering the World Economy; it is a very important time for Peru to be on her feet, stable and productive.

[scorpion]

Hi Dan - Jan I am Erling,

About the Volks-OB, frequency response is linear from 42 - 20000 +- 3 dB in my living room which is 34 sqm 7.5 x 4.5 x 2.30 m, my own 1 m measurement.

OT: Just outside Ica I rememberd the visits to the Paracas Islands, which were described as kind of 'Poor-Mans-Galapagos', they are perhaps also now damaged and hurt. Feliz Navidad !

/Erling