Well hello Danny. Glad to have you back and I have to say that it's a great privilege for you to take the time to answer my questions. I really appreciate it!
LOL
That will be a lot of speaker for no larger than that room is.
This kind of had me confused... Still does actually.
Bass extension will increase depending on the length of the line. The longer the line the more collective gain you will get in the lower frequency ranges and the more low end extension from the coupling of more drivers.
Also the longer the line the lower you can tune it to offset the low end gain.
12 of them could get you into the 38Hz to 40Hz range. This doesn't take into account any room gain.
Just because I am one for overkill, and because I don't mind saving up and spending money on good quality sound, I'm defiantely going to be using 12 M-130X drivers per side (even if there wasn't a quantity discount, but there is so it helps!). Spending this much on this project, I want it to be well worth it which also means getting as much as I can out of it performance-wise. I want these speakers to cover as much as the audio range as possible and sound great doing it so I can listen to just about anything including pipe organ music without the aid of a sub. For movies however, I will fire up the sub for that extra punch and have the mains crossed over at 50Hz.
I also have big plans for 8 of your SW-12B drivers, but that's a different story for another time and thread. aa
It depends on the number used. If your room really does add output in the 20 to 40Hz range then you might want to tune them a little lower than normal to get more extension without added gain in the 40Hz and up region.
Alright. So since we know that I'll be using 12 M-130X drivers per channel and the nature of my room, roughly how low would you say the tuning should be, 45Hz, 40Hz, 35Hz, etc, etc?
What you want to do is load each driver evenly. If some drivers are closer to the ports than others then it will effect them differently. So a port per woofer keeps that from being a problem.
That's what I thought you were getting at with using one port per driver. What I was thinking though for mine (and to keep costs down some) was to use six ports spaced between every two drivers. So in a sense, each port would have it's own two drivers.
You could do 2kHz to 2.5kHz with these in a line source with no problem. This is good because those tweeters really can be pushed lower then 2kHz.
So the M-130X drivers can be pushed up to 2.5kHz with their C-T-C spacing. Cool. Now that second part you mentioned about the tweeter is where I nearly go my head handed to me on another forum. According to Parts Express, the Dayton PT2C-8 planars can only handle a xover freq as low as 2.5kHz as a single driver, but 2kHz with multiples. You're saying that they can actually go lower than that, which is also what I said, and that's when I got beeaten' with the ugly stick! LOL
As far as output? They are capable of levels way louder than you can stand.
Actually, I was referring more to overall sound reproduction. I'm guessing you've never built a line array with the M-130X drivers so this might be a tough question to answer. Max SPL isn't much of an issue since I know that these monsters will do a lot more than what I can possibly stand listening to. Plus I value my ears way too much.
Now for a few more quick questions...
1) So you get a little more lower frequency gain with a longer line, then you tune the line lower to take advantage of that lower gain? Then on top of that, you can tune even a bit lower to get below the 40Hz range of room gain in my particular room?
2) What size ports do you use on the LS-6/9's? What size would you recommend for my project? The reason I ask is because even at 48Hz in a 5.4cf enclosure, (
3" ports are already exceeding 10" in length. At least that's what WinISD Pro comes up with.
3) If being able to tune a bit lower, should the enclosure be a bit larger as well?
This is the big question of the day... if you don't mind giving it a shot...
4) If you had 24 of the M-130X drivers and 16 of the Dayton planars sitting right in front of you, how would you go about getting the absolute best performance out of them regardless of what room they are going in, kind of like becoming the baby version of the LS-9's so to speak?
I just want it to be clear that I am not all about max SPL and bass extension. More than anything else, I want these speakers to sound as good as they can throughout the widest range that they are capable of reproducing. I know the end results rely on my room and the way I end up voicing them with my DCX2496. I'm probably looking for the same kind of qualities that you were when you designed the LS-6's and 9's. My main concern as it always has been is 2-ch music playback. That is 100% more important to me than watching movies through this system. And I listen to all sorts of music from pipe organ to jazz to rock to pop to whatever.
Anyway, many many thanks in advance for your help and info. As I said before, it is greatly appreciated!
