HMMMMMM???! This would complement my cherry base UFO25 very nicely!

Kind of in the same boat... Perhaps the mid size???  Perhaps I should just hit my pinky with a hammer to remind myself of what will likely ensue should I do it, hence the HMMMMMM????!

A good part of the wood for these baffles should have probably been burned, being split, twisted, full of sapwood, but it was the last of my dads stash, and I actually remember being there watching him cutting down the cherry tree this wormy wood came from when I was 5 years old... so now we can all rest easy that it didn't go to waste.



The worm holes, and in places nearly rotted wood, and the contrasts in color make it interesting and fun to look at...  My original thought with a solid Cherry pair, made of only Cherry, was to keep it in the lower mid range of the price window.  I hadn't planed to use my own wood, but then I started thinking what the hell else am I going to do with it?  So now with all three  to look at, the cherry pair are probably going to be my favorite.

Also, I made an observation about the cherry, and that it that it was harder and heavier than I remember... and it has that glass sound when you strike it, a sound that you don't get from the plywood, so I'm expecting greatness.

This will be my fifth pair of baffles, and it took over twice as long as all the others because of all the piecing together and fussing around with what was left of the stash, which was all of the junk wood.

Tonight I made another pair of front feet because the pair in the picture are dark, and the other pair I made were too light.  Those really need to visually match - a matched quad if you will.

And last but not least I Zen'd my way to the handles, and found them in an unopened and unlabeled cardboard box. I did this on the way to the computer to order some handles... There were six pair in the box.

Happy listening!

Steve

This is SOOOO tempting...

I've been thinking.
What about a speaker with both the 15" and the 10" Lii drivers in it?
Best of both worlds? Speed and hit?
Just thinking........

Hey lazb,

It looks to me like the new Lii 15s are bass drivers. Rated to 5000 Hz and 91 Db, seems they were designed to fill in bass and integrate with full rangers like the Crystal 10, perhaps especially in a baffle design.

So, I am thinking they are likely great for that use, but not really comparable with the full range 15". Might be just the ticket for those talking about adding a 15 in a baffle with the Crystal 10s!

Remember that a 2.83 volt rating often translates a couple dB lower than a 1w/1m rating.  The new 15 inch bass driver that was apparently designed to bring supplemental bass to the crystal 10 driver in an open baffle... certainly sounds interesting!

https://www.lii-audio.com/index.php/product/15-inch-woofer-1-pair-2pcs-for-bass-...

This would require a bi-amped system featuring a 2/6 watt Zen triode on the Crystal 10, and a 20/40 TORII on the W15 bass driver.  Of course with a bi-amped system you have basically a bass control by adjusting the volume of the larger amp driving the bass driver so a similar solution like the ZROCK2, but more potent and more expensive and much larger so naturally probably a little more fun.

I get such good tone and bass from the ZC10M with a ZROCK2 that I don't really need it.  If I added it, the size would have to get larger or have twice as many baffles, and if you're going to do that you wouldn't have been scared to death of getting the ZF15L because of its size...

That said as a reference system, my guess is that it outperforms the crystal 10 cabinet by offering a nice hit similar to the F15 but possibly a rounder tone that better matches the Crystal 10 signature.  I have (since they are often side-by-side) used the ZF15L with a 90Hz passive crossover to supplement the bass of the Crystal 10 baffle (ZC10M) and that is of course pretty over the top good...  Both can be driven by the same amplifier and the combo redefines fun... it is the best of both worlds.  

Where the W15 bi-amped system has the advantage is that the FS is 28 Hz vs. the 50Hz FS of the F15, but the advantage may not be heard unless the baffle is large.  So the hypothetical comparison is the 2 watt SET driving the ZC10M and ZF15L/90Hz crossed over in parallel, or the bi-amped system using the 2 watt amp on the ZC10M and the ZF15L/90Hz but using the W15 bass driver (ZW15L) driven by the TORII MK4... I would give the performance edge without hearing it, to the later.  It would be lower bass and more adjustable.  

BTW, when I say "hit" I don't necessarily just mean the chest thump of a kick drum, but the attack of the bow striking a bass cello with a startling forwardness that gets your stomach like a good amusement park ride! ... like it was real.

Going to take some time tomorrow to finish the second ZF15M cherry baffle and likely drag them into the listening room and install the pre-burned-in drivers and see what I hear, and if I'm lucky hear what I see! ; )

Steve 

Steve,

Thanks for the heads up on the 2.83 volt rating often translating a few dB lower than 1w/1m. Interesting thoughts altogether, including your exciting report on 90 Hz crossover on your F-15 baffle in parallel with the Crystal 10s.

Lii Audio's statement about the W15 got my attention:

"With superb bass performance, this W-15 can bring good bass even on narrow open baffles. It has a transparent tone so can bring a good coherence with most of the full rangers or tweeters&midrangers."

This is part of why I was thinking this might be tempting to some here looking to mix a big woofer with the Crystal 10, while possibly allowing more shape/size flexibility as well. Purpose design by an apparently devoted and gifted designer, it would seem the woofers and Crystal 10s might still offer pretty nice performance using a Crown or plate amp for the woofer if a Torii were not possible ? ? ?

Looking forward to your impressions of the cherry baffles! This is exciting.


Randy,

I misinterpreted. First time going to the actual 12" driver page, I got all excited! Since the pictured 12" full range driver looked design-wise more like the F-15 and Crystal 10s than the pair Geno got, I just assumed it was a newer one, and not in production yet. My mistake and thanks for the clarification!

That W15 looks interesting. I wonder if that is $499 a pair or a piece? I would need 4 of them to put in my current baffles.
$2k in woofer drivers would probably go over like a turd in the punch bowl with my loving wife.
I guess it is back to the stripper pole for me to earn the extra money.

Got the rest of my bolts today - correction they were 3-1/2 x 1/4 inch...  After assembly I'm setting the baffles in the sun to darken the lighter wood.

After removing the rear base and setting it on my table saw, it fell over onto the blade guard and fence putting about 6 nice dents in the wood!  So it is laying down soaking up some water to expand the wood back to where it was.  Even without the water, the dents just make it look more antiqued.  It's moments like this where I am so glad not to be making veneered cabinets.  Had this fall happened to a veneered speaker, it would have been game over... you'll never find the dents on this by tomorrow.

Here's a nice shot of the rear of the second baffle.  You can see how much it darkened from this morning when I took the previous picture.

Cherry is magic wood.

In addition to the engraving in the front of each baffle, bronze badges will be inlaid in every Zen Master Series loudspeaker.

After a few days of sun I will bring them into my listening room and start the listening tests...

Steve

Quote:


The biggest problem during the fest was that the ZROCK2 was located in an adjacent room and located where you could not hear the direct sound from the speakers.  Because of this no one could hear the narrow sweet spot on either EQ setting where the highs are the loudest. Therefor they constantly had it set just before it and more often than not well after it, where things get dark and heavy.

This sweet spot is shown in the owners manual, and is easy to hear with either EQ setting when you are in the same room as the speakers.

Steve

Steve, you may know this trick already but if the dents don't readily come out with just the water (doubtful with the oil) try a damp cloth and a very hot iron to steam them out.  It won't scorch if you keep it wet and steaming.  Also, Cherry (and walnut, at least) darken in the sun but then they bleach.  My cherry cabinets that get sun are totally washed out whereas my cabinets in northern exposure areas are deep and dark.

Are the drivers centered in the baffles?  They look like a nice scale.


Edit:  I looked up the ZF15M plans and I see that the drivers are close to center but not quite.  Not as offset as in the full scale F15 baffles.

Man, Steve! That is one baffeling picture! Looking good. Yes, looking very good.

Quote:


Yes, 1 inch above center. It puts the F15 closer to the floor than the larger baffle, which helps support the bass response.  That is why the hit is virtually the same between the two size baffles.  The larger one has only slightly deeper base with a bigger scale to it, but you would expect as much.  You don't expect on the surface for them both to sound the same, and that's what's happening.

Steve

Hi Pal. You gonna put the Crystal and 15” AE in the Baffle you posted the drawing of a while back? That should look awesome and sound great. Look forward to seeing photos of that when you get them finished!

Hey Pal and all,

I am hoping for more information on comparisons between F-15 drivers and Crystal 10s.

Do you think your coming Crystal/AE baffles might be as fun and engaging as your red oak F-15s? I have become so dependent on fine detail and space, that though many of you say the F-15 does not leave you wishing for more high information, I am a little concerned for myself, having worked for so many years to pull this fragile information fully and musically.

Front end is of course big time, and I have really worked mine over. And cables...lots of progressive iterations trying for that delicate balance of revealing, balanced and open transparency. And since I have finished my amp and CSP3 modifications (kind of rebuilt part/wire by part over several years)....there is a crazy amount of beauty that can be messed up by rolloff and/or low end slowness and thickness in my setup...for me anyway. But roll off from front end truncation, or from a wire or cap may feel quite different than that from these very fast and refined drivers.

With my HR-1s and MG 944s, both having tweeters that go high, I have had to do a fair bit of damping/tuning to tighten slower aspects of bass and mid-bass, making bass more impactful, while mitigating masking of mid, spacial and high information. Also I worked carefully on caps, resistors, and wires to pull fine textures and nuances more completely and musically. So both speakers are very fast, revealing, extended, a very real sounding spacious balance.

That said, I enjoyed listening to the stream of the big baffles, while finding the Crystal 10s a little hard and unbalanced during the times I tuned in. Especially the cabinet models, the accentuated/big slowish bottom not matching the speed of the mids and highs, I would not want what I heard. I did suspect pre stage involvement being a player, settings likely particularly sensitive with the Crystals, which Steve later corroborated. I don't have a Zrock but too much of any combination of stages I have could contribute to what I heard. And impressions from a stream, though with decent phones and amp, hard to believe it altogether!

I am loving my latest variation on HR-1's, but these big baffles get me going at times, thinking I may need to make some speakers....just fishing.....

Will, I may try to write more when I have more time or send you an email but knowing your desire for detail I think the crystal 10s with bass augmentation would be a better route for you.  Are they as engaging as the F15 in the bigger baffles?  I don’t believe I can answer that question without putting the big baffles back in the system and listening again.  I will get to that this weekend I hope.

Thanks Pal. If you get a chance.

Yes, I find it tricky to quantify what makes music at home feel real. Especially having heard the streams, I can imagine how accurately delivered scale, speed, hit and textural complexity with the F-15 big baffles could feel quite seductive and real...even without very top and very bottom information fully present. With these speakers, when all that is there is so exceptional, how much does full extension count?

Fine detail in open space seems very much there with the F-15s to me, delivering complex harmonics, textures and nuance with space and speed. Without noise and smearing creating subtle distortions as part of the music, and filling space that should be empty, seems that fast and musical delivery leaves room for a lot of subtle musical information. Purity of signal and clarity of transitions seem to be a lot of what can help a good setup shift from beautiful to “alive” feeling.

Considering this is covered, it seems to me that scale with resolution and complexity, and higher extension, both can contribute to a "live" feeling, and to consciousness falling into the music. Whether perceived as smooth but complex textures and speed in the mids; as fast bass definition with nuances; as complexity of a hard trumpet hit making it feel more exciting rather than scary....or as air and very subtle harmonic decays from ambient information.... Wherever it shows, I find fine detail can soften more rigid detail, quality resolution naturally spreading out whatever information is there into increased open space. I much prefer refined complexity to artfully softening detail by subtle masking or roll off, especially to get a “real” feeling musical experience at home.

I guess as I ramble I realize...with a good setup, fine detail and extension can be related, while also being two things.

At least from the Fest streams, I liked how the F-15 seemed so naturally open, complex and textured...less rigidly focussed than the Crystals. Though there were setting issues, the Crystals still appeared to be innately more focussed to me? When this results in hardness and even subtle saturation, I try to resolve it here. I couldn't tell for sure, but from what I heard at various feed times, the way they were being played, the intense focus mids up worried me. I also suspect those Crystal drivers keep getting more relaxed for hundreds of hours and more, and a feed being my only reference, I still feel a bit in the dark.

None-the-less, the rich tones of the F-15s/25th Zen from the stream implied to me that subtle, and pretty rare seeming harmonic complexities, are pretty easy for them...making them a relatively safe seeming bet for what I am after in that regard. But without being there and hearing a few familiar recordings, I just couldn't tell if I would be trying to subconsciously drag out upper extension I have become dependent on, and without success!

The questions become: In person, though needing bottom support, do the Crystals convey with a similar easy and textured complexity the F-15s offer, along with good upper extension, and without slowish bass contrasting with the fast mids and top? Does the lesser top extension of the F-15 matter? And, if it does (for me), could upper extension be pulled with the right tweeter setup. Conceptually, either supplementation using drivers complicates the beauty of a really good single driver, but does this appear possible to do seamlessly and without sacrifices?

I definitely don’t need another speaker, my sound having gotten crazy real and beautiful, but you all have certainly shown the baffle potential to be compelling!

The F15s comfortably go to 14 kHz+ and I don't find any lack in the bottom end.  I don't know how much the super high frequencies add especially considering I can't hear them.  But for some reason, the F15s (in the big baffles anyway) do what they do so well and so differnt I almost think they are a completely different experience and can't be compared in the usual way.

I too listened to the live stream of various speakers but the sound ultimately comes through whatever we were using and I don't think can convey the true experience.  It's sort of like the live vs playback problem all over again.

Since I built my own, my investment was relatively small and low risk.  If that's an option, I think it's worth the risk.  Again, I'm not addressing the CR10s vs the F15s.   But my prejudice at this point is that size matters.