Same Old DD
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Mainly, the most I can say is a bunch of, "WOWs!"
Brought in my F15s to my tiny listening room and I now have them running on my twin Zens. Speaker cables off the floor, but that is a topic for another time and place, maybe. Damnation, I did not want to ever hear that interference!
What I am hearing now, in my mock up baffles, 36" height, is reaching close to what I have always wanted in a speaker system. No deep lows, but adequate and enough to be quite palatable and even savory. Everything else is almost like a dream state or something intangible, very hard to describe, but right in the middle of my awareness. I've gone from wondering if I wasted my time and money acquiring these drivers to falling hook, line and sinker for these F15s.
Believable highs that do not hang too long or fuzz off into an irritation, detailed mids with positive and stable placement of basically everything you hear, crisp dynamics throughout the entire audio spectrum with what seems to be a natural and musical decay after a fully coherent, precisely placed impactful, eye opening accent, completely identifiable reverberation characteristics from a well done reproduction recording, some new details I only rarely noticed are now a part of reality and easily re-created.
It's not just the mids that impress me with the stable reproduction and placement of tones. Even drum tracks which include a large, almost encyclopedic array of what we can hear in music are placed precisely and from the first stick hit to the well sustained resonance and decay of the drums, remain in the location of the first stick hit. One drum strike does not travel all over your soundstage as it "ADSRs" in its normal way, the way with many three way or four way speaker systems tend to reproduce the same dynamic impact. If a drum is struck at Ten O'clock, for instance, the entire sound of that drum remains at Ten O'clock throughout is delayed resonance and decaying release, right exactly where the first impact was located. That impresses me quite a bit. Most speakers can not do that! Even my long treasured little overly clinical Yamaha near field monitors can not do that as precisely.
I mean it sounds more real! With close mic'ed vocals, it's just impossible to stop listening. SO much detail and even the human elements of swallowing and breathing, forming the lyrics from inside and outside the body is so close to as real as I've heard in a long time. More WOW!
I've not heard anything like DSOTM or other recordings with some deliberate and true low frequency content, but for now I don't need to. I know that that last hand span on a piano is seldom used anyway in the music I most often crave for a listen.
I also understand that there is some ambience and even "AIR" (that impossible to define thing) deep down there in some recordings, especially concerts performed by way of a full symphony orchestra, that is often missed with most speaker systems. I'll probably go looking for that deep sub bass eventually, but for now, I'm just going to enjoy these as they are.
I'm not a big Pop listener, so I am not really missing much with the rapid roll off in the lower octave anyway. Maybe when my daughter wants to hear some more Skillet or I have need to put on some Michael Jackson for someone, there will be some moments where the shortcomings of open baffle design, not backed up with a few subwoofer systems well placed around the room, shows up, but not today.
I do like to jam out to some heavy rock once in a while, but I have another system out in the garage I can use to do that when the need arises.
These F15s are really working well for me now, just as they are! Raw, naked, exposed ... They needed some rather deliberate and severe measures to hasten the break in period, but I managed.
I have not yet tried to measure any Fs tendencies lately, but last check they were at 62Hz and 64Hz. They are even better now after a week of singing to each other, clamped solidly face to face, out of phase so that when one receeded the other one tried to push it farther. Forcing them face to face also cancels much of the sound that would normally escape and possibly become annoying, just leaving them going all week. Old Pro Audio trick, well proven ...
I am very happy with these and I feel they will only get better with more use.
Now it's time to start looking for real at some affordable hardwood options and do them up right. I am still using a sandwich of 3/4 plywood, 3/4 MDF, 3/4 plywood, front mounted, back side splayed out some around the drivers, construction lumber footings, but mock ups of what I know I want to make eventually. They're weighty, stable and solid, but we all want nice hardwood, don't we?
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