[quote author=DrN  link=1040842968&amp/30#43 date=1041289211]
On Steve's file Win Media Player opens but it come up "data is invalid".

Peter, the MP3 works. Thanks!

Den
[/quote]

Hmm...perhaps this is a DRM issue? Particularly if it was recorded with Windoze...??

I think the last version that came out, had it as an 'option' that you can turn off....

I'm guessing soon, that this will no longer be an option....

Anyway, you might check on this?

C

Peter,

You are right about piano.  And Terry,  I did not touch the drum set.

As for the links, this is the "cut-corner" home version of the Imperial.  It was designed for a single 15 as was the original model Paul and I built.  Paul and I have built a pair of these also, still have them.  They do not compare to the full size imperial with one 15.  They really do not compare to the new models.  They do not go much lower than 37 Hz, and they sound sloppy compared to these new ones.

I got the compression drivers yesterday and one was dead out of the box.  I installed the good one on the cabinet with the two 15's and was pleased to find I need do nothing else.  I simply hung a 15 uf SOLEN cap on it and wired it up.  

The Solen compression driver is claimed to be 107dB with 1 watt.  I kinda expected to have to pad that down a bit, but that is not going to be the case.  In fact it could be 1 or 2 dB louder.  Adding it completely cleaned up the 15 inch woofers, now that the highs have a place to go.   After hooking it up, I realized in just a few minutes that all my suffering with the bent wood lenses was well worth it.  WELL worth it.  Amazing.

Today, a few of us found ourselves sitting around in the shop listening to public radio again.  I don't think anyone moved  for about 2 hours.  It really is amazing how just one cabinet can fill the room and have "stereo imaging" be the farthest thing from your mind.  It sounds so real, so live.  The incredible power it has even at low levels let you feel every note.  Besides piano, I have found horns to sound incredible, and acoustic bass on this speaker simply wastes Pauls 200 watt CLASS A all tube bass rig - also using 2 15 inch drivers.  Imagine that for a  minute.  Imagine an acoustic bass growling with textured low notes that are tight and powerful enough to make a good sounding electric bass sound stupid.  Well, this is what is happening.  

Got to go, we have a big get together tonight.

Steve

Mr. Deckert,

You certainly tell a good story. I'm skeptical of the sound I'm hearing out of the horn speaker you've built. It's sounds simply amazing. I know you had a stereo microphone set-up due to the background noises I'm hearing (some howling?, shakers, talking). That's not what amazes me. It's how 3D the jazz music I'm hearing sounds.

I listened through a pair Sennheiser HD590's directly out of my sound card so I'm certain I'm receiving a relative realistic presentation of these particular recording. Direct to DSD recording sound eerily realistic while using these headphones so I'm confident I'm hearing the full potential of this recording due to the potential I know these cans contain.

I'm very skeptical of these horns sounding as "life like" as the (short) wave file I've heard.  The full length wave file has been official labeled as a lost cause. I've tried the MP3, it does sound like an MP3 compared to the wave file, in other words it sounds like a four letter word. However I think the MP3 and the wave file are of the same source so I'll say these recording came from the same source. I also will say that the shakers prove the recording is legit.

What I don't understand, why does the jazz sound stereo and life like through only a mono 15" bass guitar drivers. What makes a horn sound so life like?

I don't know about you Jimmy, but I hear a lot, even though this is not what I would listen to everyday for pleasure.  I have done enough recording that I know the dynamic range protrayed in this recording is incredible.  I wonder how loud it it is, sounds pretty loud to me, with the voices in the back ground being faint.  But then I have this vision of the Mic being about ten feet from the speakers too.

Dynamics in recordings are what make it sound natural, otherwise the back ground noise comes up to a level that it is appearent.  Dynamics are a very important part of sound reproduction, and the weakest link are our speakers most of the time.  When I was in the industry our studio monitors were 104dbs 1w/1m, they put speakers in the studio like that for a reason, and it wasn't because they didn't have enough power.

TG

[quote author=Audioillusion  link=1040842968&amp/45#54 date=1041584968] I've tried the MP3, it does sound like an MP3 compared to the wave file, in other words it sounds like a four letter word. [/quote]

I strongly dispute this.

Firstly, what soundcard are you using?  There are not many soundcards whose amps are good enough for your headphones.  I was using a Roland SD-90 24/96 studio audio interface, and I couldn't tell the difference.  Admittedly I wasn't using 'audiophile' headphones, since I didn't have them with me,  but even so...

If it really does sound that bad, then surely you can tell the difference easily between clips if I post a/b of the original file, and the mp3 converted back into WAV.  Fancy a challenge?   I wasn't using LAME, just cooledit (another studio-quality piece of software btw), I'm sure you could not tell the difference if I used LAME, and I'm pretty sure the guys at syntrillium would be upset if you could even with cooledit.  

Or maybe it's just your mp3 software which you need to change, but that too I find odd, most software is capable of accurate playback.  What software are you using?

Damn I need my 'real' gear.  I'm fed up of making compromises.

Hi Everyone,
I,m just wondering if all of us are hearing some kind of attractive phasing anomoly from using two mismatched woofers in the Imperial speaker.  Steve, have you tried a pair of matched woofers yet?  Honestly, I wonder what both Imperials sound like, even with mismatched woofers.
Take care,
Steve F

[quote author=Peter  link=1040842968&amp/45#59 date=1041626354]
I take that dispute back. [/quote]

I was really interested in your challenge. The perceived difference in the MP3 and WAV is blatant in my opinion, glad we see eye to eye. I've done MP3 A/B's before, I nailed the MP3s every time.

I was listening through a stereo receiver that was connected to my sound card so amplification wasn't much of a problem. Especially since my phones are really efficient. I know the DAC in my sound card isn't the best but the recordings were still very reveling.

[quote author=Peter  link=1040842968&amp/45#59 date=1041626354]
--Addendum:  Even so, the crazy imaging is still there.  Where did that come from?
[/quote]

My guess is since Steve's recording was so pure, meaning it wasn't damage by a recording "engineer", and since Steve's horns are able to accurate reproduce the signal, the way our brain perceives the music is true to the actual music which is why it sounds life like. Even through we weren't listening to a stereo pair of speakers, the horns were still able to transmit the necessary acoustic information to our brain. Remember the brain is what perceives a sounds location by analyzing the properties of the sound. Not sure exactly how our brains do this, but I?m sure the ?Illusion? of a 3D played-back sound has more to do with preservation of the acoustic information than the number and location of the speakers.

It?s my belief that the best possible recording is one with the least amount of distance between the microphone and our ears. In other words: the simpler the recording the better. For example: every time an EQ, mixers, compressors, ect. is used during a mixing session, information that our brain needs to recreate the true sound of the music is lost. These tools make the original acoustic information untrue to the music. It?s like copying a video tape, with each copy of a copy the video quality degrades. A lot of mixes are guilty of something similar. In Steve?s recording, everything was preserved why it sounds life like.

Peter..dude..you are getting way too deep for me at this late hour, I mean I think I understood what what you said...and that scares me

Audioillusion wrote, Quote:


You know, i may as well let the cat out of the bag. All recording engineers today are contracted by a government agency, to insert "damage" and subliminal messages. The end result is "mass birth control" by destroying the male libido, not to mention invoking paranoid delusions, and an inability to take amature recordings at face value.

I Honestly dont mean to offend anyone, I just wanted to show contempt fot the "William F Buckley Jr." tangent that seems to surface at times in this forum...

Jamie

If you do catch hell for it, I hope it's in a new thread!  

I have received 4 matched woofers for the cabinets.  Still waiting for a replacement compression driver. The new drivers are real nice, but I doubt they will fly.  We installed a pair in the other cabinet last night and everyone liked the miss-matched drivers better.  The new drivers do not have the midrange and I believe that is most of it, however it raises many questions.  

I'll try to do a complete update over the weekend with a few more pics.

Steve

Sorry about bringing Don Gabor into this thread.  I will move him over to the music lover's forum.  

Steve, too funny!! that A-bomb gave me a good laugh!

So as you might have guessed we are now listening to a matched pair of cabinets (each with miss-matched woofers).  I still do not have my compression drivers because the original ones I ordered only went up to 9K.  I am now waiting for another pair of something else that will handle between 1.5 ~ 20KHz.  In the meanwhile I have a pair of low grade compression drivers installed using a simple capacitor for a crossover.  The woofers are running in parallel with no crossovers.

The overall frequency balance at this stage is surprisingly flat.  I was also pleased to find out that when you toe them in and stand in the sweet spot you actually get one hell of a sound stage!  Very believable imaging too.  I am very pleased with the bent wood horns and learned something very important as a result of building them.  I will make plans and a white paper available soon where I will try to explain what I discovered about horn flare design.

So for the past week we've just been playing with them.  In this state, they work for any purpose.  PA use, no problem.  Home audiophile use, no problem.

To date, these are the tightest most extended speakers I have heard at any price and any size, including live concerts.  Turning these speakers up loud is an experience you'll never forget.  There is no ear fatigue, and it sounds convincingly live on any type of music.  The effortlessness and shear power is unreal.  I can only compare them to my Acoustats which I listened to last night.  The Imperials sound lower and hit harder and sound tighter in the bass than the Acoustats which should be impossible.  On everything else, they demonstrate a presence that is not found on the Acoustats.  The richness and harmonic textures of piano, string bass, etc. sound more real on the Imperials.  This is because the cabinet is like a piano and you sense it's presence when it plays because it is really there.  On these speakers it is really there too, the mass and size is the same.  Interesting stuff to say the least.

I have never been a person to listen to music loud because my distortion alarm always goes off about half way there.  On these speakers it has not gone off yet, and I'm sure we have listened in excess of 120 dB from time to time.  My ears have yet to ring from listening to these, yet at lower volumes our own band has created the dreaded ringing you hear when you go to bed later that night.  That means ringing is not tied to SPL, but rather a side effect of distortions.

I have just about completed the blueprint for the Imperial.  I plan to give it away for free to everyone following this thread.  Later they will be available on the site for sale.

In that case, I'd like to go on record as saying that I AM FOLLOWING THIS THREAD!!!!!


EZ

I would like to add that not only do You report that they sound great, but they look beautiful too.  I can not remember a more pleasant looking speaker.  

i always knew there was a magic troll in my subwoofer box, the more i cranked the amp up, the more the electricity shocked him and the harder he punched that woofer , of course the imperials are a lot bigger then my subwoofer, hell you could prob get a pair of lord of the rings cave trolls in each one , now...how can i shoehorn two into my dormroom when i go back to school 8)  -Matt

>Makes me wonder why anyone would want a small bass reflex speaker anymore.<

When you are a space challenged NYC apartment dweller as I am, small bass reflex speakers are attractive because they fit into the limited space available.  Necessity being the mother of all invention, I've been forced to acquire some expertise in subwoofer/satellite speaker setups.

You know Steve, I have been looking at photos of Your listening room... are You going to have room for dual Imperials in there?  

Eli,

With some very desirable drivers folded Voight Pipes are a real option as well, only they have better quality bass.  Have you thought of trying some?  What are you running for speakers right now?

Terry

come back from a holiday and find this thread -- took over an hour to read it all -- gob smacked over the pictures -- beeyootiful speakers. okay --- plans for a music room on hold -- to absorb size of horns. looks like i now have a dream!!!! to fulfil.

Brian,

Not a chance.  They'll just have to stay where they are.  

Dave,

The Barn idea is great.

Homey,

The the bass will certainly couple much better close to the wall.  That is the way we expect most people to use them.  Even against the wall, they are still 28 inches out into the room.  The impedance will be 4 ohms in most cases.  However, in a smaller room I would like to try two 4 ohm woofers in series and let the natural 15 degree phase shift that occurs create some magic - it usually does.

Terry,

The overall size is around 65 inches high, 38 inches wide and 28 inches deep.  In case of tornado, I would take shelter in the speaker since It's so heavy and can easily support the weight of a house.

Cheers, Steve

I just sent the url for this thread to my audio company partner, (he also helped my build my HWK) He says he can hardly wait to sink his saw teeth into this project! He wants to make the bentwood lenses too, but i have a 3' pair of vintage JBL 2" lenses already... i wont argue with him. Looks like i may need to buy a new AB Precedent amp... some Altec, or JBL compression drivers... (dreaming)

Jamie

>I think it would really convince my friends (not to mention wife) that I'd finally lost it.<

My wife and family and friends are already convinced that I've lost it!
Dave

Hi Everyone,
Like Steve and a few of the other members,  I'm simply amazed at how much different a driver can sound in different cabinets.  I can't wait to try building the Decware Imperials!  
There really is magic in a good horn design. Steve, it sure sounds like you found some!
Take care,
Steve F

Funny you should mention the JBL 2226's I just got a pair but now that Steve is going to hook us up with the plans (THANK YOU STEVE!) I am going to have to get another pair. The old Fraizer wood horns I got off E-Bay showed up. I installed the drivers (sounds like the same ones Steve had) and used the EV st350 tweeter and some old EV Sentry 4 crossovers I had using my Ohm Walsh 4's just for low end. (I know, don't say it I just wanted to hear the horns) THe 4's need to go now so it looks like they are E-bay bound. I already have a spot for the Imperial's
Mike