I'm into buying music and listening now. It took me 18 months to learn everything I needed to build them, and another 18 months to actually built them. I'm not into squeezing another 3% better out of them, that I might or might not hear at my age.

The synergy of the speakers required domes. I prefer the dome sound to other kinds of tweeters. 60 of them provide an unbelievable treble footprint that has to be heard to be experienced. 16 planars or ribbons simply don't match up.

Marlboro

• Calipso Line Arrays

Most people who build line arrays seem to want to do anything they can to keep the work down to 2-way. I don't understand this preference for building two way line array systems. A 2-way is a bad compromise in a point source, and I down see it as much better in a line array.

When people build two way line arrays they always have to compromise the tweeters because they have to now go what I consider TOO LOW. And they have to compromise the mid-range because they have to take it too low. To do this they end up with a too small quantity of 7 inch woofers, and a too small quantity of of planar tweeters. The line of reasoning then says that the mid range is not all that important if you have a quality treble and a quality bass. This has never been my experience. Most of the music content is in the 200hz to 2400hz area, at least most of the music content I listen to, which is jazz and classical and voice.

So for me, my 34 3.5 inch 3.3mm xmax midranges, and my 60 dome tweeters crossing at 165 and 2400 work just great for what I listen to. I connect them to a set of 15mm DVC xmax poly prop woofers which go down to about 30 hz, and power them with a separate 350 w/ch amp. They have more bass than I can use in my smallish 12 x 16 foot room.

Marlboro

I believe that wiring so many voice coils in series and parallel does
something funny to the sound,no mather how good your drivers are.What
I have now confirms this.
Sunny

Along with the midrange discussion I had above, I also found it very important to give each midrange speaker its own completely separate enclosure. And when I say separate, I mean separate---not just a space in a part of a bigger box, but a completely "1/2 inch air space separated from its peers" enclosure. This completely eliminates any coloration caused by the other midrange speakers. Additionally each enclosure is a 23.5 inch pvc tube stuffed with dense 4 lb/cu foot fiberglass, wrapped in fiberfill battens. The tube forces the back wave through the tube and completely through 47 inches of fiberglass before it has to get back to the front of the speaker. The harmonics in the tube peak at add odd fundamentals. There is no even ordered harmonics in a tube.

Why this is good is this: when tube amplifiers overload they tend to produce lots of less objectionable but soft mushy sounding even ordered harmonic distortion. Odd ordered harmonics and distortion are the part of the sound which is clarifying, but in large quantities it sounds screeching. Since my midranges have to have their back sound go through 47 inches of fiberglass, and each one only has to handle 6.25% of the total sound volume, not much comes back through. But the part that does tends to give the speaker a more DEFINED CLARIFIED SOUND. This is essential with the mid range.

And since the distortion levels are low because of the percentage of the total bandwidth, and low because no woofer sounds or tweeters sounds are dragging it into clipping distortion, my midrange is very exceptionally super.

My opinion of course, but if one has not heard a midrange in this way,
on has no idea how important the midrange can be to the music, particularly those who have designed systems around ways which by their nature tend to compromise the whole midrange of the music---where all the fundamental tones of everything "I" listen to exist. Others who listen to lots of home theater with gun shots and explosions may not notice.

Marlboro

Sorry I could not interest you in some experiment.Others have contacted me.hopefully they will share with us there findings.Good chatting with you.Any thoughts on the series/parallel issue? Keep on listening.
Cheers.
Sunny.

Don't know about the series/parallel issues. Do you have some etiology for how that might come about?

Marlboro

I took this further with four 16 Ohm drivers.Adjusted for the same SPL level the four parallel just where somehow cleaner.Cant technically explain it but there is nothing wrong with my ears.
Cheers
Sunny

Tom R.