Speaker Fetish!

So since I moved to this nice little shack here last year, I’ve been active with speakers! Actually not just me. Partner in crime, Master Speaker Builder — Gabriel, is guilty too!

I don’t know about you but surely one pair of speakers isn’t enough! There’s many other technologies to explore too! These drivers, 16 of them, were bought through the world’s Marketplace – Ebay, from David Dlugos. You may know him from the Transmission Line Speakers website. David also lists many amazing speaker drivers for sale on Ebay — a credit to the DIY Audio industry. I don’t know how he sourced for these treasures but I’m really grateful that he sold me these Monsoon electrodynamic planar panels. These were originally part of a computer speaker package. You need another driver for sub 200Hz (yes, these amazing panels go down that low) but as you can see, I haven’t gone there yet. As they are dipoles, and meant for near field listening, some cancellation occurs due to the rear waves “wrapping” the front. This cuts down the 200-1000Hz response. Thus I actually need a baffle 4 times larger. Hmm… maybe I’ll do this with acryllic? That said, what I heard so far was the most satifsying mids and highs ever (even though they don’t go that high). The sound is very transparent, very smooth and very “open”. Rather than the “speaker disappearing act”, what we have here is more of a “room disappearing act”. Very good potential for more messing around! Once I get back my SPL meter, I’ll widen the baffle and add a sub-200Hz driver. Stay tuned!

Inspired by the Hedlund, our intrepid Diyer Gabriel tried his hand at horn design and this is the excellent St Cloud! Named after his son (lucky kid!), St Cloud has only one bend too, like the Hedlund. Believe me, Mr Hedlund is right in insisting on just one bend. Just one word describes it best — Coherence. Note the compression chamber! At time of writing, Gabriel is trying out different drivers, hence the removable front baffle, which he HAS to route it nicely as well. I can’t remember which 4″ driver is this but St Cloud managed to pump out those heavy R&B bass notes from these puny paper drivers! Gabriel also tried with the Jordan JX92, and went head over heels!

Surely no Diyers’ home is complete without a home theater! My Grand HT Plan was to build 5 speakers with each enclosure utilizing a pair of these Aurasound NS3-194-8E, thus I bought 10 of them but when it came to building them, I realized my Home Theater corner is not really that huge. Must be all that Stout I had the previous night… So the Grand HT Plan shrinked to the Tiny HT Plan, reducing the number of speakers from 5 to a much more manageable… 2. Consulted Gabriel and he suggested 2 liter volume for each driver, so the box was built for about 5 liters. I had to build bigger as due to my “excellent” woodworking skills, it’s better to err on this end. What can I tell you about the sound? It belies its size! Though the driver specs not much output below 150Hz, I bet there’s at least 80Hz down there. I know, not sufficient for HT but we are getting an awful lot of mileage here! The sound stage is wide and opened, and I had no issue with “rough highs” even though they weren’t 100% aligned vertically (it’s really not easy to cut the holes right) nor as close as possible. Who cares? Allison Krauss is happy singing, T-rex is happy crunching bones, my wife is happy with 5-reduced-to-2-speakers, everyone’s happy! See those 15″ drivers? No, no, no. I wasn’t trying out a bass driver. Was testing them for a friend.

As you can see, speaker building is a lot of fun! Besides anyone looks cool sawing wood! I hope you’ll build some speakers now.

As for me, it’s time to plan for… more speakers!

Bass module for the Monsoon planars, a horn subwoofer for the Aurasounds…

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DIY Paradise is pleased to have acquired Jordan distributorship for Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

JX92 Full Range from 40Hz to 20kHz!

Full specs here!
http://www.ejjordan.co.uk/drivers/jx92.html

Just for fun, we put in the JX92 into our Hedlund Horn. Man, this driver can seriously do bass! The bass was rattling our ceiling!

October 2006 Update! Jordan JXr 6HD is here as well!

The widest bandwidth 2 inche driver ever made! 70-30kHz! (talk about great mileage!)

Utilizing a wonderful technique, you adjust the bass frequency by varying the volume of the enclosure. The larger the volume, the lower the bass.

They are best suited to sealed boxes ranging from 1 litre to 3.8 litres for each driver. The larger the volume, the lower the Fo of the driver. For example:

1 litre = Fo of 150Hz to 160 Hz depending on box shape and design
4 litres = Fo of 100Hz to 110 Hz depending on box shape

IMPORTANT NOTICE
The JXr 6HD is an advanced audio driver with a single mechanical suspension. This concept allows system designers to vary the operating frequency (Fo) of the driver without the use of a crossover. We strongly recommend the use of sealed box designs which allow the driver to make use of the air volume to act as a damping force to control the lower frequency response. Since the design has no secondary damping mechanism, it can be overdriven more easily than conventional drivers. If drivers are subjected to extreme low (below 100Hz)at higher power levels can result in excessive oscillation risking damage to the coil assembly. The Warranty WILL be void if damage to the coil assembly is found while investigating a claim.

Full specs here. http://www.ejjordan.co.uk/drivers/jxr6.html

I built my JXr 6HD tower!

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the Fullrange Single Driver

When Gabriel built the mock-up cabinet, I asked him what does he think of the sound of the new Jordan JXr 6HD?

“It’s the Beginning of the End”.

Huh? Beginning of the End of?

“The Beginning of the End of the Fullrange Single Driver!”

If you are a single driver fan, you may be rubbing your hands in glee to read more.

If you are a multi-way fan, you may be yanking out your hair (or whatever’s left of) at such ridiculous statment!

You bet I’m the former!

After Gabriel passed me the cabinets on Friday night, I could only lacquer it on Saturday night. Yeah, time flies faster on weekends!

Then on the Seventh day of the week, it’s crunch time!

	Jordan JXr 6HD in box. {mosgoogle}
	“Father of Full Range” Well, you know Ted Jordan designed the well known Goodmans Axiom 12 right? The JX6 definitely broke new ground with its bandwidth! The pair in the box has the same serial number. They come in matched pairs. So no buying singles okay?
4 liter tower! Very slim, very sexy! Due to the narrow baffle, could use a single solid wood plank here. Wood used here is Resak, very hard, very strong and very durable. Why heck, you could use it to club your multi-way loving neighbour!

I first installed these beauties into my secondary system. Right away they are magical! Wonderful sounding! No harshness, no shouting, just sweet natural music. [some folks pay 4x more moolah for speaker drivers that shout at them. i think this is sadist. you could pay me half the amount and i’ll shout at you!]Thus without further hesitating, plugged them into main system.

If you are building a satelite-sub combo, you can’t go wrong with the JXr!The highs is as glorious as a ribbon tweeter! If you ever played with supertweeters, you know that the 30kHz reach here extends the soundstage as well. My friend kept on commenting, no one will guess this is the sound from a 2-incher!

Man, I couldn’t help spinning CDs after CDs. Yes, a sub will help but forget it for now. Get your “high” here first. Ha ha!

Rarely do we get to listen to drivers of such calibre. Damnit, rarely do we come across one!

Rarely do we get “spooked”.

Rarely do we get “humbled” by 2-inchers.

Mr Ted Jordan, thank you Sir!

To cap off a splendid day, my wife commented, this box looks slim and nice. Perhaps we could use it as a bedroom system… I almost fell off my chair!

Do you think it’s a good idea to suggest a 6 feet subwoofer horn for an ultra-wide bandwidth system in the bedroom? Imagine 30-30kHz of audio ecstasy!

Perhaps I’m pushing my luck…

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