AV Eikon : finished

[Angelo]

hi

following is the configuration :

suwoofer : Aura 1808 in a vented cab > 50hz
basshorn : Beyma 15LX60 50hz -150hz
midbass : Fane Studio 8M 150hz - 700hz
midrange : Vitavox S2 1000hz - 10khz
tweeter : Coral H104 <10khz

sub and bass is crossed 24db, the rest first order, 6db.

basshorn is active driven with Inosic RAS300 plate amp , 300W/4ohm
midbass/mid/tweeter : Viva Solista Single ended Triode Valve 845 , integrated amplifier

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/sr...+solista&zzANY

VIVA SOLISTA VALVE AMPLIFIER
20 WATTS SINGLE ENDED 845 TRIODES
THE FRONT VALAVES ARE 211 TRIODES USED AS RECTIFIERS

6SN7 DRIVERS AND 6N25 INPUT TRIODES.
4 LINE LEVEL INPUTS
OR THE INPUT VALVES CAN BE BYPASSED AND USED AS A STRAIGHT POWER AMP
NOMINAL 8 OHM PEAKER OUTPUTS BUT EQUALLY HAPPY DRIVING 4 OR 16 OHMS

MASSIVELY CONSTRUCTED THESE WEIGH 35 KG
HAVE SEPARATE HT AND HEATER MASSIVE C-CORE POWER TRANSFORMERS, CHOKE SMOOTHING AND MASSIVE C-CORE OUTPUT TRANSFORMERS.

MANY PEOPLE SAY THE BEST SOUND THEY EVER HEARD WAS THROUGH VIVA AMPLIFICATION.

here a comment of a friend, who heard the system a few month ago :

http://www.audiovoice-acoustics.com/...read.php?t=650

Angelo

[Angelo]

don't bother the music :=))

[Angelo]

i have replaced the Fane Studio 8M in the midbass horn today with the Radian 950pb, which was laying around. I made a adapter from 2" to 4" with a left over tractrix horn, which i cut in two. Crossover of the basshorn 250hz / 24db.





improvement is evident. More transparency , better transient response and coherency. No wonder, Goto et al use a compression driver in the 200hz - 1khz range.

http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=hug&m=127639

The horn used by Vincent behave as a good acoustic load for the diaphragm above 200Hz. At that frequency it is surely possible for the Radian to accept few watts before the diaphragm will knock the phase plug. Vincent Brient uses 5watts 300BSE amplifiers.

[Angelo]

[Angelo]

here the measurements of the separate channels, measured mono from 2m distance:

Coral H104 , highpass 10khz, second order





Vitavox S2, tried with capacitor of 10mF, and 4,9mF, giving a theoretical cutoff
of 1,8khz, and 1khz. Whats interesting, that it looks like the capacitors have no effect on the frequency curve.....
I expected cutoff would begin right after theoretical cutoff, but it starts to rolloff at ~500hz





Beyma TPL-150, crossed at 1,8khz :





Fane Studio 8m , crossed at 150hz, and 1,2khz:

at 200hz, it starts to get out of steam, at 150hz its 5db less:




Vitavox AK156 :





Aura 1808 sub:

[Angelo]

with the frequency plots on hand, it is of course much easyer to shape the crossover. That is what i did today. The 3 main changes were :

crossing S2 at 1,8khz second order, and adding a Lpad
crossing Coral H104 at 9khz, first order.

The following measurement was made 1m from the speaker, without bass and sub connected :



afterwards i made direct listening comparisons between the S2/H104, and
the TPL 150.The differences are:

The acentuation and nasality in the midrange of S2 is gone. It sounds now more natural.

directivity : the Beyma has ( of course ) much broader dispersion, but the difference can be clearly heard, thats worth to be named.

clarity : the Beyma has much more clarity and detail in the higher register. It also sounds a little " colder ".

shout : there is still a littlebit " shout ", or " in your face ", that can be observed with S2, and still somehow a littlebit " compressed " sounding. But also warmer, maibe even softer.

Overall conclusion : i still like the Beyma's better, and that will be probably be even more, with the waveguide in place.

[Angelo]

i decided to keep Vitavox S2, and use the TPL-150 where the Coral tweeter used to be. Vitavox will cover a narrow range, from 500hz to 1,5khz only. I crossed the Fane Studio 8m at 500hz, and S2 up, but did not like it . let the Fane play parallel up to 1,2khz, and the Vitavox together, integrates better, and soundstage is better, than without the Vitavox. S2 is padded down with L-pad. While S2/H104 became fatiguing listening over time, with TPL-150 i can listen for hours, and i am not getting tired. What most impresses me is naturalness. Bad recordings sound bad, good ones sound good. Its amazing how it reveals things.....

[Angelo]

Today i finished, and mounted the waveguides for the Beyma's. I made also some measurements with virtin RTA-168A, which arrived yesterday:










this is the frequency chart of the basshorn, measured at 1m distance, on axis ( equalized with the active crossover ) :






lower midrange horn. Based on the measurements, i lowpass it now with 12db slope:




Beyma TPL-150 with wave guide:




the whole system without Vitavox S2, and without sub:




the whole system with Vitavox S2, and without sub:

[Angelo]

measured at listening position, about 4m distance :

[Angelo]

Until today, i was not 100% satisfied with bass response. The energy of the basshorn did emanate and load only the low half of the room, while i was wishing a even vertical response and load of the whole room. So i stacked my smaller Audax bass , wired it in parallel with the basshorn, and bingo !! another BIG improvement in my system. Bass now is distributed even in the whole room, and sounds soft and warm, but defined, controlled, with a lot of energy and punch at the same time. Wonderful !! Just wonderful !! F*** , why did i not think about try that out earlyer ?!! Whatever..... such experiments make our hobby so exiting. Moral of the story : To have good bass, just one woofer is not enough. The best is to stack them, and make a line array. Try new things out, and come closer and closer to the real thing is always exciting....