Quick update
Swapping 15's for 18's has been shifted to this Friday for a minor logistical issue at Nick's end.
I'll get him to post some pics once he's been
I believe this thread is now deserving of a "pictures or it didn't happen" prompting.
Quick update
Swapping 15's for 18's has been shifted to this Friday for a minor logistical issue at Nick's end.
I'll get him to post some pics once he's been
I believe this thread is now deserving of a "pictures or it didn't happen" prompting.
infintely bafled
It is too bad that you didn't go ahead with your Infinite Baffle project. These are not as complicated as it looks, especially that you had already build space for them. As for performance, they would for much less money and I mean , much , much less run circle around anything commercial you could fathom. An investment of $10K in an IB would outperform those 8 Krell MRS. They wouldn't carry the reputations or the audiophile prestige that could come with the MRS but in term of performance and return on investment and pure sonics ??
This being a hobby, please do enjoy what you have or want to have but in term of sheer performance and sonic quality few subwoofers alignment surpass a correctly made IB. On top of that you can still add smaller subs throughout the rooms to smooth the response ... An IB is IMHO a win-win solution.
I believe this thread is now deserving of a "pictures or it didn't happen" prompting.
Nick was here yesterday, a successful visit installing the second pair of 18's.
As it was the hottest day of the year so far for this part of the uk we got the eq and setup done, had a quick listen and then headed out to enjoy the weather. There's a natural amphitheatre just the other side of the valley by a secluded bend in the river, so went with my gf and took the dogs for a swim. On return I did my chores and settled down with a glass of bubbly to see what was what.
Ok first impression was as Nick was here doing the test signal sweeps and it was just how powerful the system was sounding, the whole house felt like it was shaking. Then we played some tunes and it sounded as though we had upgraded my main speakers to grande utopias; my system appeared to have doubled in size and no longer sounded as though there were separate subwoofers. And the thing that really stood out was how much better the main speakers were sounding...I was hearing more detail in the mids and tops, a big increase in the size of the soundstage and just a breathy realism all across the frequency range.
At this point I need to share that recently I've upgraded the pair of balanced i/c that runs for 9m from one side of the room to the other, linking pre to power amps. After reading from a member here that Mogami microphone cables were a useful stop gap I'd been using them to cover the distance but intended to upgrade them. Now I have replaced them with JPS Kaptivator Sc3 and it's like the dam has burst, and all of the life in the upper registers has returned, especially texture and imagery. So now that Nick had rerun the eq I was getting the full benefit and it was sounding really, really good
But what of the bass....Well the two new 18's are box fresh and past experience has shown that they will break in over the coming month. But weight, impact and power are off the chart, with articulation not quite where the mixed stacks were, but hopefully that will come as they loosen up.
It has made me wonder about getting the 15's back as well....I've already alerted Nick to my thinking, we'll see how the new 18's settle but I haven't completely discarded my theory that the slightly different voicing of the 15's brings something to the party
Ok more detailed observations to come over the next few weeks....watch this space ?
gav
Thanks for jumping in Nick,
Indeed, it wasn't clear what sort of levels the OP was looking for. Stacks most certainly work well, and I'd strongly recommend picking a sub that fits the performance need in bandwidth, and scaling up rather than mixing different versions. We recently did this setup at AXPONA 2017 in 1/3rd of the Chicago Westin O'Hare's grand ballroom where the room was 47 x 81 x 22. For LFE effects we could use the full capability, but for music this just gave us effortless headroom:
For scale:
Wow !
I've only just been able to view your pictures, Mark
Which model sub have you stacked there?
OK now please file this under 'dumb things punters have asked'...
But could there be any merit in turning one pair in each stack the opposite direction, to achieve dipole - like omni directional bass?
Dear Mark,
Your products in those photos look amazing!
Did you ever decide to pursue the "audiophile versions" of your subwoofers?
Yes, this is something I will be pursuing as resources, especially available time, allow. I've been amidst the addition of 6 new speaker/subwoofer models or versions with a few more to come, updates of my Catalyst speaker models, and working on updates, improvements, and supplier changes to a few other models. I do have a few prototypes at my home and in a local friend's listening room and am quite impressed with how the first concepts are sounding and performing. Obviously there's no reason to offer a "me too" product, but I think I have found some great qualities and capabilities I can bake into the designs which will better align with the uses and priorities of the 2ch/audiophile market while still keeping very much in line with what I've delivered in products over the past 12 years. When I can justify the experimentation with the more expensive cabinet materials and have a production sample, I'll definitely be looking for a few to give them a test drive.
That sounds very exciting!
You have a lot of fans here, and I know many people will be very interested in your designs with more exotic cabinet materials (heroically sturdy and heavy phenolic resin?) or other audiophile tweaks (Class AB amplifier instead of Class D?).
We already use and I work with some builders of exceptionally low distortion woofers. These do not always provide the highest level of output for their size, but are highly capable with typical music demands, and multiple units can make for highly impressive movie playback for those pulling double duty or for the audiophiles wanting something even more refined in their home theater system. I've regularly demonstrated over the past 12 years how we can reliably deliver 6-12Hz in-room extension with the sealed subwoofers I've offered, and even done a few ported and bandpass subs tuned into the 9-12Hz range. Delivering such extension while maintaining the upper bass articulation can be a trick, and is not automatic, but very important.
I have a few concepts I'll pursue, but will start with a couple sealed solutions with front end DSP and the latest ICEpower amplifiers which are quiet and very well behaved for subwoofer use. I see a definite need for some competent dipole/open baffle woofers, and some examples of each we can do with external analog electronics if desired.
One of the materials I'll be experimenting with will be quartz, as the manufactured nature makes is consistent and super stiff while not needing exotic finishing beyond polishing. We'll see what gets finalized first.
Thank you for you compliments and enthusiasm,
Steve Williams Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator | Ron Resnick Site Co-Owner | Administrator | Julian (The Fixer) Website Build | Marketing Managersing |