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In the Forum: Horn-Loaded Speakers
In the Thread: Jessie Dazzle Project
Post Subject: Some thoughts while settling down.Posted by Romy the Cat on: 7/13/2008

Yep, it is a lot of work and it might look like not well organized work but there is good part in all of it – when you will be do you will be done and you would never do it again. Practice shows that those custom tailored systems are made and then used for tens years.  Sure you might move to different rooms in future that would lead for some minor crossover adjustments or you might try different derivers to get desired qualities of a given channel but the bone of this type acoustic system is pretty mush fixed and has not a lot of room for any further improvements. Well, unless Mr. Le Cleach invents some kind of new horn profile that would be better but will not be compatible with anything else… OK, it was a joke…

Anyhow, I do not know at which stage your project is what I think you are somewhere in a process of integrating the drivers. Do not forget that any audio project is a wonderful opportunity to buy another set of stupid audio tools – your case is not an exception. I have two large boxes - one with coils and one with caps; the indictor and capacitance meters. They are the tools I used to search for my crossovers – I trust the calculations and the predicted response but I still always would like to have the tangible feeling what is going on. This pain might be optimized. You might get yourself Pioneer D-23 crossover. It is it a very nice and flexible 4 way unit:

http://www.thevintageknob.org/PIONEER/SERIES20/S20D23-specs.html

You might run one channel opened and then with the D-23 to observe the level of it’s none-transparency and then extrapolate the observed non-transparency in your judgment.  Do not take the digital crossovers out of consideration. The Behringer is $300 unit it means that you might rent it from you local pro shop for 10% per day. (My shop consider Saturdays to rent and Monday to return as one day). The digital crossover is also a very nice tool for prototyping. What I like about those prototyping tools - I like 2 things. First, using them you actually trying and listen instead of ordering the caps and fight with coils. Second, when you use the crossover prototyping tools you do not listening the actual sound of channel. Instead you practice the target listening – try to hear exactly what you need. I found it is self-educational.

Still, the fixed coils and caps might do – you can always parallel of serialize them… If I were you I would not think at this point about DSET.  The DSET has own complexities and before trying to assess those complexities you need to have a references how your acoustic system shell perform before it will be enriched or screwed by DSET. Your Lamm ML2.0 shall do wonderful job to drive your thing…

I would propose to spend a year or two living with a built and fully functional installation and then to see if you feel any needs for “other” amplification. If you decide that you need other amplification then it should be not the architectural decision but rather your very specific sonic demands that you flash out from a performance of you setup at that time.

The Cat

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