Yeah proggrob turned me on to those drivers.  A bit expensive though.

I got some new input tubes per a post by Stone. Seem very nice so far but they. Red some more hours.  Already producing a nice smooth sound.

Under the category of "it all matters," the sound in these speakers has taken a nice jump with some good NOS input tubes in the Torii (thanks Stone).  Smoother but better detail, bigger soundstage, but not lacking any punch.

Single drivers seem a lot more sensitive to what tubes you are using.  They just have a lot more speed and finesse and therefore react.

I think my next step is rectifiers.

Palomino,
You need to double up on the Augies! If you don't have four 15's you ain't squat!
I'm like you, running out of room to pull them forward, unless I change direction in the room or move out to the other, bigger room down here....
My wife is going to kill me.

A byproduct of moving the OBs out from the front wall is that it misaligned my first reflection point absorbers and the second reflection point QRD diffusers.  So I wondered if that misalignment was contributing to the expanding and deepening soundstage.

To test this, I moved the absorber/diffuser further back, but I also switched them up.  Now the diffuser is at the first reflection point and the absorber is at the second.

I may be on to something here as it seemed to expand the soundstage.  I need to listen some more but what I heard was promising.  

OBs may defy conventional wisdom on this point.

Thanks.  It has been an interesting lesson.

Well some more rambling thoughts.  Not sure there is anyone still reading this thread, but here's the latest.

These OB are providing me something else which is a bit difficult to describe.  They are giving me accessibility to more of my (modest) music library.  By accessibility, I mean that I enjoy more of my music when listening to them.

Here's an example.  back in 2000 or so when I was trying expand my jazz listening horizons, I got this double disk "The Jazz Masters."  It has stuff by all the notables ranging from Billy Holiday to Duke to Miles Davis, Mingus and more.  Prior to the OBs, I didn't listen to much of it, even in my jazz playlists because of the production quality.

Well, with the OBs, the "music" is coming through and yesterday I listened to both disks and enjoyed nearly all the tracks.  More of that music is accessible to me now.

I am also finding myself doing more album listening than playlist listening and I have been playlist oriented practically all of my life.  The album music is now holding my interest longer - even on the less preferred tracks.

Off topic, but as I came to this discovery, I reflected on all the ways I have done playlists or mix tapes over the years:

1. 8 track (my dad had a double deck)
2. Reel to reel.  When my dad upgraded to Musak for his store, I got his reel to reel (still have it).
3. Cassette.  I also still have my Nakamichi
4. Sony mini disk (I have this deck as well)
5. CD
6. iTunes, iPod
7. Hi Def Portable Player

Good to know you are out there Lon.  I miss the what's spinning thread being here as I check out your posts there frequently, just have not posted myself.

I would imagine most people would not go through this for a pair of speakers (OK, Donnie is an exception).

It started as a subwoofer project, morphed into an fullrange OB project, involved two prototypes, the final design, room treatment changes, speaker placement changes, tube changes, adventures in bi-amping, etc. but I have learned along the way and "think" it may all be worth it.

Quote:

I've been an exception my whole life. I was raised to be a black sheep and a scapegoat.
It is interesting to me that while I was doing my research on OB's, Palomino started doing reports describing his build. It was very fortuitous for me because the groundwork was already done, and I'm not too proud to copy. Lin has been very helpful also, he points out things that I had absolutely no clue about.
Being able to make something that works is really cool.

I find the same thing about toe in. Very sensitive but once you get it, it's good.  

These tang bands are also very tube sensitive as well. Much easier to hear differences in tubes. I just got in some '74 single wire getter reflector 6n23ps.  They took forever to get here but early signs are that they will live up to their billing.  

I am also now convinced that the Torii needs to turned up about 3/4 with audirvana with a lower output volume.  It's much much more sensitive to volume changes but I'm loving the density of the sound.

I am anxious to hear tales of the frx2s!

Yeah, that's great.  good luck

I thought we weren't doing AXPONA this year? I didn't get tickets, and I believe I made other plans already....

Another event this weekend was my son was home and a friend from out of town spent the night.

The next day I was skipping around playing various tunes and played Gula by Deadmou5.  They came in the room because they knew the song.   I goosed the volume a little bit to show off.

Anyway, the drop hit and they just started laughing in amazement it was so full and solid.  Nice to know I can blow college kids out of the room with this rig.

I will prepare a special chix mix demo playlist in her honor.  Maybe if we link up for Axpona, you could swing by early before we head to the show.

The RCA 5u4g rectifiers remain in the system and I am finding less edge using them.  I will know for sure when I switch back.  Also, I can make out bass notes even better with the 5u4gs but weirdly, they aren't as crisp if that makes any sense.  More note definition without more note detail??  Still trying to wrap my head around this one.

I also got my second set of '74 Reflektor single wire getter, silver shield 6n23ps in the mail yesterday.  Much quicker deliver from Russia than from Ukraine. And these are much cleaner NIB, NOS.  I really wish somebody else would try these and see how good they are and more importantly how they compare to other NOS like the Amperex, Tele's etc.

OBs with live recordings gets me there pretty fast.  Last night's treat was Eva Cassidy, Live at Blues Alley.  Not as 3D as the Cowboy Junkies Trinity Sessions, but still quite enjoyable.  If anybody has other live recordings that fill the room, I am all ears, so to speak.

I was running the absorbers at the first reflection point again and ran that way for several weeks.  Over the Easter break, I went back to diffusers at the first reflection point.  That's it.  I'm done.  

Best 3D sound I have ever had.  I think the silver shield 6n23ps in combination with the RCA rectifiers and the diffusion is the final ticket. Ok, OK, I am doing a little bit of EQ on the Mac mini to cut shout.  Just a smidge.

Anyway, much monkeying around, but I think I got it going on.

I just bought some '75 Reflector Single wire, silver shields.  Still have my eyes on some Amprex.  Somebody stop me.

Maybe Saturday.  I have to see what all my kids have going on but my wife will be out of town.

By the way I also made it to Michigan to open up the cottage.  I listened to the dna's on Rachael.   Felt kinda boxy.  OB bass is special.   I eventually got re acclimated and enjoyed listening.  I also moved the whole system up into the loft to have about 15ft behind the speakers and got good dimensionality.  Still I came home and was blown away.  

I exchanged emails with the zieg-meister about the OBs.  He basically felt they required just the right system synergy so he doesn't have interest.  I'd have to agree they are not a mass market product.  But if you are a patient tweeter, he shall be rewarded.

Pal,

Your "Beach Ball" analogy, could not have stated it better myself. I get the same effect.

Unlike you, I'm using a more conventional Omega Monitor with single driver in a conventional monitor cabinet. My Low Frequency Open Baffles (LoFOB's) are connected to my Zen UFO in parallel with the Omega Monitors and the blend is seamless.

I did try a Bi-Amp arrangement. Zen UFO driving the Omega Monitors and SE84C+ driving the LoFOB's. To my surprise the Monitors and LoFOB's simply sounded disconnected and separate from each other. The total cohesion noted above was lost. So yes, I speculate there is some type of time smearing going on that the human ear is sensitive to when music is involved.

Even with the crown amp "OFF", you might be getting some sympathetic output from the 15" driver by simply being in the same baffle as the other driver?  I recall Steve saying he had this effect when he had a huge Home Wrecker I think it was in his old listening room. The Home Wrecker when off would reinforce the low end of any speaker playing in the room.

I think your Augies are about 88 db where the Alpha 15's are about 98 db. Have you tried simply wiring the Augies in parallel with your other driver??  

"Even with the crown amp "OFF", you might be getting some sympathetic output from the 15" driver by simply being in the same baffle as the other driver?  I recall Steve saying he had this effect when he had a huge Home Wrecker I think it was in his old listening room. The Home Wrecker when off would reinforce the low end of any speaker playing in the room."

Not too likely to cause anything audible with OB, the Imperial SO caused this because of the enclosure.
The ZOBs use the same principle to produce more bass. When designing the ZOBs Steve used a mike in the chamber feeding an amp and another driver in a separate box to boost the "free" bass.

I don't think its so much a frequency blend issue.  Versus subs, this is clearly the best frequency blend I have achieved and in terms of the bass being crisp, its no contest with the augies.

Its simply seem to have some impact on the overall 3D effect with the beach balls.  Certainly not a deal killer in any way, but I believe there is an impact.  I've listened to some more songs and it appears it is only evident on the songs with the very best beach ball effect going on.

I wish I had more patience to read about this stuff.  But the sound waves emanating from the augies has to be conflicting in some way with the sound waves from the Tang Bands.  The only word I can think of is smear but I have to admit, I don't really know exactly what that word means.

I have not run the tang bands and augies together due to the mismatch in SPL.  Tang Bands are a loud 93db and the augies are 88 or 89 I think.

I did run the original augie without crossover on an old Class D amp I have and thought it sounded pretty good.  That's what lead me to the class D crown.  But the crown with two augies wide open sounded pretty bad.  Not sure why the difference between the two amps.  But again, its not a frequcncy blend issue.  I think its a sound wave collision issue.  Its minor, but there.

I am convinced that OBs will sound killer in my cottage system with the larger room and arched ceiling.  I'd like to do a smaller size baffle for WAF and maybe go 10" for the woofer (I'll check to see if there is a 10" augie).  But, given some of your comments DBC, the 15A might be in the mix without a biamp situation.

I understand the Augies are lower SPL, if you wire them in parallel you should get some output and perhaps a taste of what a higher SPL driver could do wired in parallel to the same amplifier?

I know a big factor with my LoFOB's is baffle stability. Even using 1.5" thick baltic birch baffles the baffles have to be well stabilized for best SQ (thus the heavy duty brackets I used). I just wonder with your thinner baffle if there is not some interaction between the two drivers in addition to the fact they are driven by two different amps? Just thinking out loud.

I have 2 sets of LoFOB's, 15" using the Alpha-15A's and 12" using the Beta-12A-2. I was not expecting much out of the 12A's but they really sound good in my large listening room. They do 90 % of what the 15A's do in my large room and they are just a TAD bit Faster / Crisper if that makes any sense. I could be very happy with the 12's and I bet they just get better in a smaller room.

Pal,

Just an observation. I found on my LoFOB's, having them elevated off the floor by a good 1-1/2 inches seems to let them breathe / more air. When I had them sitting closer to the floor they started to get a little boxy sounding. I noticed that your photos have the lower baffle pretty close to the floor.

Well, the 75 6n23ps were a disappointment.  One of them was DOA.  Such are the perils of buying from Russia.  The seller seems to want to make it good and has been very open in his communications.  

The one that did work had the same signature of the '74.

So I did some listening and felt that not running the Crown was a sub optimal solution, even for music that didn't have that much bass.

So I took the stepped attenuators on the Crown all the way down and then brought them up one click at a time and listened at each stop.  It doesn't have that many stops so this experiment went pretty quickly.

BTW, my test track was Bela Fleck, UFOTOFU, after the storm.  One of my better beach ball songs.

I found that that I was able to maintain the best imaging with the Crown two clicks below my previous level, but still had enough satisfying bass on most tracks.  I think the amount of bass pressure I was introducing was interfering with the other frequencies.  Just a guess.

I can bump up the bass when I'm rocking out and use this lower level for most music.  In hindsight, I am a bit of a bass head.  The temptation with the biamped augies is to crank it up because this configuration so crisp and clean.

So the OB journey continues, but I have reached a nice plateau listening wise.  

I think you will have plenty of bass.  I think the crossover is going to be more important for you.  Does your Torii have the bass control or does it pre-date when Steve started adding it?

Days without a tweak: 0.

I came back from Axpona with a few thoughts and my actions/plans to improve.

First of all, to compare what I heard at Axpona to what I hear in my room is a bit unfair.  I have a fairly well treated room which makes all the difference in terms of imaging.  These guys are setting up in a cement sarcophagus and can’t tote large room treatments to compensate.  They can’t even pull their speakers out from the wall for depth of soundstage.

So in terms of depth of soundstage, only the modo speakers in the mondo rooms came close to what I have.  Those who ran the smaller rooms lengthwise with the speakers on the long wall with 3-4 feet space behind the speakers did better than those that ran the speakers against the shorter wall.  But generally, no Bueno.

I was pleasantly surprised at how well my mids and highs compared to the expensive stuff at the show.  I have my concerns from time to time (track to track) on the glare factor; the more expensive speakers I heard even had issues on some tracks.  

That left bass.  I can categorically say that I did not hear tight, musical, impactful bass like I have with the Augie/Crown setup in any of speakers I heard.  Not to stir the pot too much, but two of the OBs I heard are Eminence 15a based and it was not as tight or as impactful.  The Spatial OBs were musical, but were not as tight and didn’t have the impact.

That said, when I came back I did "up" the attenuators on the Crown because other box speakers had more of a fullness to them.  I know I sacrifice imaging here, but the beauty of the bi-amp design is you can easily tweak the bass level for the kind of music you are listening to.  I can also experiment with the crossover point, but I keep coming back to the same level so I think I am good in that department.

The other area where I really think this design needs work is baffle thickness.  The Spatial OBs are 2.5” of thick dense MDF.  Those bad boys didn’t seem to budge.  I think I am losing a lot of energy with my thin baffle/metal and wood support system.

So if I can find some longer furniture bolts, I could double up the baffles with some material and make it at least 1.5”.  I could route the driver hole in the backing material large enough to allow me to not have to re-drill the driver mounting screws on the existing baffles.

All in all, its hard to be objective on something you built, but toe to toe, my speakers held up really well.  And in my room, I am not left wanting for much.

with two 15" Augie's per side (4 Total) in my modified Trio's, and the 2500 Crown driving them, I simply cannot ever imagine wanting more bass.  I think this setup will lift our house off its foundation if I wanted to.  When I first got the Crown, I had some "integration" blues with my full-range crossover-less drivers as well.  I just couldn't seem to get the sound where I was "comfortable" with it.
I had an external electronic xover sitting around that has a lot more xover parameter flexibility/adjustment than what is provided built-in to the Crown.  So... what the heck, I installed it.  Normally, I am a "purist" and would have poo-poo'd adding another box, but there is no doubt that the external xover got me where I wanted to be.  I now have the Crown in Stereo bypass mode being feed by the low pass output of the external xover.  I feed my full-rangers a "full range" signal directly from my Torii - no high-passing thru the xover.  I sense no "blend" or integration problems anymore.

Pal - have you tried swapping phase on the Augie's to be opposite of the full-ranger?  Sometimes that will have profound effect on the overall sound - depending on..... it's worth a try - cost nothing to try.