I'm looking for this type of speaker

[v1rtu0s1ty]

Ok folks, I was at ABT Electronics 2 weeks ago. They had a small ht room setup there with a big screen and Krell speakers. This ht room is different from their other ht rooms which is found on the right side. This HT room I was referring is near in the public area.

Anyways, when I heard it, I amazed by the sound that even if it was loud, my ears didn't get tired, didn't get hurt. The highs were really really clear. It was also full or open as if I was in the middle of the orchestra. I think they call it full soundstage or open. Correct me guys if my terminologies are incorrect.

So, which DIY speaker can perform close to that setup? This way, I can save money and try the DIY route. I really can't afford the Krell. It's impractical especially I've got kids.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Geoff St. Germain]

I know that some of the designs on HTGuide.com have been favourably compared with speakers costing many many times the cost to build them.

One I would be very interested in would be these:
http://htguide.com/forum/showthread.php4?t=28728

[buggers]

Another would be these http://htguide.com/forum/showthread.php4?t=11873
I am building them myself, but understand that these are BIG! One person said they sound better than the Wilson Watt Puppies.

[v1rtu0s1ty]

buggers wrote:

Another would be these http://htguide.com/forum/showthread.php4?t=11873
I am building them myself, but understand that these are BIG! One person said they sound better than the Wilson Watt Puppies.

Wow, I love the way it looks too! Does that have an open sound and warm? I am looking also for a sound where the tweeter doesn't hurt our ears even at enough volumes.

I noticed my Polk Audio RTA 11T's tweeter doesn't have long sustain. I don't know how they call it. I connected back my Paradigm atoms and I switched them back and forth. That's how I found out that my tweeter on the towers is short and the paradigm does have like a sustain, smooth effect.

[Mitch G]

And, just to go OT for a second, everyone should take a walk through Abt at least once in their life. The amount of product they have is amazing. It's not necessarily all audiophile stuff, but they sure carry lots of TVs. Plus they let you sit down with a remote and play with the TV settings in the show room!

Having grown up near there, it's amazing to see how they've grown that business and it's amazing how crowded it is on weekends.


Mitch

[buggers]

I would not call them warm. Having built the NatP's, these speakers use the same drivers with 2 10's to kick up the bass. They are neutral sounding meaning no coloration.

[Brian Bunge]

Since these are my speakers being mentioned I thought I'd chime in. The design goal was flat frequency response and big dynamics; both of which were met in spades. So they are not warm, but very clean and accurate. They will play at very high levels with not harshness to the tweeters.

And not only did one guy say he felt they sounded better than Wilsons, but another said that they specificially reminded him of Krell speakers. From the one Krell HT setup I've heard, I'd rather have these than the Krells!

[v1rtu0s1ty]

Hi Brian,

That was really nice to hear about the speaker you built!!! I really would like to build my own but need to save more first. My always fear is the building of the crossover since I am not good in deciphering diagrams. I understand it better if I see the images or drawing with labels and how they're connected. I looked at the thread previously but I didn't find a drawing like that.

It's the first time I saw Wilsons from your post. Are they good speakers? Is Wilsons the same as B&W?

Thanks.

[Brian Bunge]

I've never actually heard B&W speakers, but several people who's opinions I trust have not liked them. The terms they used were "cold" and "analytical", which is not something I'd like I'm afraid.

I've never heard any of the Wilson stuff either, but have never heard anything negative about them; well maybe except for some of the prices!

BTW, these speakers have the most complex crossovers I've ever built. That is mainly due to the fact that there are several large capacitor values in the design and instead of buying such large, expensive caps I bought a hundred 10uF caps and used them in parallel to create the values I needed. IIRC, there's a 180uF cap and 200uF cap in the circuit so that would be 18 and 20 caps in parallel respectively. Actually, I measured each cap and added up the values and then threw in some .33uF and .68uF caps in there to get as close to the actual value as I could.

That's not something I'd do again except for testing purposes. For a customer's speaker I'd buy the actual values I needed and charge them accordingly. In the end, the cost of the large caps would probably be cheaper than the cost of the labor involved with building the capacitor arrays. But for prototyping the cap arrays are probably worth the time invested.