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I have built two arrays in the last year, and now it's time for a third. Both of the previous were 16 NSB's. One of them used a liine of 24 Onkyo's the other used two PE PT-2's. Both of these designs used 14" open baffles with support "wings" (quotes here 'cause they are really not wung out) mounted at right angles to the baffle. The supports were tapered from 12" at the bottom to 3" at the top. They are pretty attractive and received a B+ from the wife. They are 7'4" tall. They have a fantastic sound. My only thought to explain the freat sound is that the 4" drivers hit so fast and the array provides that "physics" boost. After hearing a pair of McIntosh XLR-29's, I thought I might build an array with two columns of NSB's and a line of PT-2's. Clearly all the NSB's would be minimum C/C distance in both row and column. The base of the arrays will be a Fitz Tuba 18. Here are my questions... 1. The front baffle will be ~18" wide... perhaps 21" if I use 1-1/2" stiles on both sides for wing attachments. What sort of wings should I be considering? How wide, and what angle to best reduce bass step? 2. I will be bi-amping these (using MOX project active boards). What are the advantages of building two stereo chip amps or should I consider building a four channel? I clearly need much less power on the HF side. Would it be advised to build a lesser power amp for the tweets although ultimately this only saves a few cents? 3. I have read Jim Griffin's white paper... twenty times. There's one in the bathroom and one on the nightstand.
cmanning, I can't really answer your questions, but I'd love to hear your results with the double row of NSBs. I've built three different speaker systems since I built my first NSB arrays (16 NSB, 8 PT2 tweeters per side) and I just keep coming back to the array concept - I love these stupid 4 inchers:) I'd sure appreciate it if you would post your thoughts on the double row when you get around to them. I still have two cases of the drivers waiting to do something with. FWIW regarding your amp choice, I'm tri-amping with an Outlaw 7.1 amp and it's working great. I'll be moving up to a 4way XO this year to incorporate a bass array (~50hz to ~500hz) along with my existing subs. I think there's alot of advantages to being able to easily attenuate or boost each part of the line so I like having an amp for each section. Whether it's two stereo amps or a 4 channel probably won't matter as much as having good control over the levels. An aside...I'm currently going in the opposite direction you are. I'm building two more arrays that will be shorter than my NSBs. I can never get more than 9 feet away from them so I thought I'd try the sitting-only approach and see how it works out. I'm using eight 5.75" Peerless 850234 drivers (surplus from Madisound at 13.00 each) per side in two different configs. One is a "Needles" style and the other is a normal approach with 8 Pt2 tweets per side. I was going to use a Fountek ribbon for the MMMMTMMMM experiment but I changed my mind and ordered two 106db 1wt/1m Pyle Pro tweeters - that should put the tweeter at about the right sound level at 9 feet to more closely match the levels of the mids. The Peerless drivers are 26 times the cost of the NSBs - I'm gonna be pissed if they don't sound 26 times better.:) Anyway, good luck with the new arrays and please let us know about the double row version. There's at least one person interested!
"I'm tri-amping with an Outlaw 7.1 amp and it's working great." How do you adjust the volume levels of the different lines?
The volume is adjusted at the active XO. I'm using an Ashly XR2001 3-way and it has attenuators for each channel as well as response controls to lift or drop response at the XO points. It's pretty cool to have instant control over the levels and is a pretty nice way to get the different sensitivities to match up. It doesn't do EQ though, just attenuation.