Post by Steve Deckert on 11/18/21 at 04:19:45
This is a real time product development log of a possible hi dollar speaker that will only happen if after a year of listening to the final results we think it would be worth the trouble. That is to say don't get your hopes up or start asking when you can get on the list, because that's not what this is about. This is about seeing things happen behind the scenes as designs are made and tested and evaluated for their merit.
I call this one The out of my comfort zone speaker.
Any guru worth his salt will tell you that what he knows is meaningless compared to what he doesn't know. To that every now and then a good challenge is in order. Since I can admit starting to grow biased towards single-driver speakers and speakers that are extremely simple, like our two-way designs that run the main woofer wide open and hang a single capacitor on the tweeter... it's time to see if I can knock myself off of my own pedestal...
I'm going to become my own alter ego and see if we can come up with a lower efficiency crossover-laden 3-way loudspeaker design using the best parts I can find. Yup, you heard it right. What better way to keep yourself honest than to split your ego in two and have a real competition with yourself!
With lots of basking in single-driver bliss from Lii Audio, some of the drivers being $700.00 each, it's not going to be a fair fight unless we pull out all of the stops. The goal is to see if we can find a magic window where DECWARE and mainstream audio can cross... and we need some $30K speakers to find out.
You see the problem lies in the fact that mainstream audio speakers are about 84~88 dB sensitivity with multiple drivers and cross-over networks and that requires a lot of power to drive. So my thought was simply this; Using our 60 watt monos, the largest Decware amp made that retains the Decware sound and imaging, can I come up with a top-end hi-fi speaker that would reach my normal listening level with good headroom. If so, it might be possible to exceed the performance we have currently enjoyed for so many years from our products using hi-efficiency speakers... it's a narrow window if it exists... I call it the overlap zone.
My focus here has been not so much about efficiency but to see if a three-way loudspeaker can out-perform any of our references over the past 20 years. It's a real question. Why? Because when you listen to these types of speakers at the shows, they are never connected to a Decware amp, so you don't know what they really sound like. I realize that most of 20-30K speakers that are 3 -way designs that I've heard at various shows are still a mystery until I hear them in my own room on our own amplification.
My biggest argument for efficient single-driver designs has been two fold - efficiency and speed. Mainly having the speed be the same for all frequencies, top to bottom always seems like a good thing. Certainly the bass is far faster than a hi-fi speaker in most cases.
Trading this even speed from a single driver design for faster speed in the mid range and treble, and slower speed in the bass, as will happen in a 3-way design, seems like a viable tradeoff so we're going to try it. More fascinating to me is the "filter" as the combination of these drivers and crossovers will become one when compared to a single-driver design. Really this will be no different than designing and voicing an amplifier so that is how I intend to approach it. I'll be listening to a baseline and then creating better ones until I can't make it sound any better.
The drivers for this holy-grail design are as follows:
ScanSpeak Revelator R2904/7000-09 Tweeter. - $345 ea.
Scanspeak Illuminator 12MU/8731T-00, 4" Midrange - $316 ea.
ScanSpeak 22W/8851T-00 8"Revelator Woofer - $360 ea.
The crossover design for this has already exceed a parts cost in excess of $500. (UPDATE $750.00 for caps and inductors only)
My only goal is to get this design loud enough to enjoy it with our 60 watt monos. So, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but I will be deliberately burning up the first watt into heat with an elaborate crossover network. Unlike the rolling phase angle of a single driver that is what it is, with three drivers and some cleaver crossover work, it should be possible to take complete control over the phase angle of the drivers which means opens the possibility for a more precise sound stage and imaging. And frankly, this seems like the only category where this approach can exceed the performance of our past references over the years... but we shall see.
The front baffle is being machined from solid aluminum to fit each driver with tapped screw holes. There will be grooves cut in the face to prevent surface standing waves. The speaker will be stand mounted. The stand will be part of the design. Some of the best sounding things in my collection over the years in the way of speaker cabinets have had challenging shapes, so expect to see some of that.
It shouldn't be hard to figure out that if it's successful, and it probably will be, that the price of a speaker to best our past references is going to be 5 figures and that alone is going to place our past references at the top of the value for the dollar making them the overall winners in this contest.
Again, my curiosity and focus with this project is to achieve I N S A N E imaging and hopefully a near perfect frequency balance that combines extreme resolution with a forgiving demeanor... gee that's not asking too much is it?
So with this little tease, you know what I'll be doing this winter.
There are some things that I guess I'll remain naive about forever... like what I think I can accomplish in 24 hrs! Here we are at least a week later and I just finally got the base coat on the cabinets. Perhaps this is a good thing because if I somehow knew the prep was it was going to take 7 days instead of 1 day, I probably would have put the breaks on which could only lead to not getting myself into these situations which would lead to not experiencing the results - right?
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