I thought I'd share with all of you my experience (so far) of the 2 Pi Towers that I just completed.

First, some history. I found out about Wayne and Pi Loudspeakers probably 7-8 years ago and built a pair of 1 Pi's to use with a SET amp I was experimenting with at the time. Not a bad speaker, but this was using the old Motorola Piezo tweeter and the high end didn't quite do it for me. So they went into storage.

Fast forward to about 3 months ago when I started getting frustrated with the small Magneplanar Loudspeakers I had on my home theater system. Great speakers, I've owned several pairs of them over the years, but the room was too small, too little power,etc. etc....they were a bad fit for this application. So I dug out the 1 Pi's and hooked 'em up. They still had the shortcomings with the old tweeter, but they sure were a lot of fun and the added efficiency was what I needed for this room. So I decided to look into a newer design from Wayne and decided the 2 towers would be fun to try.

I went with the strict implementation of Waynes standard 2 Tower design. The only option I applied was I used 3/4 MDF and I used an Audiocap bypass with a Solen Cap for the tweeter Xover, and I used a basic Jantzen aircore choke for the woofer. It was all wired up with el cheapo 16 ga. zip cord. I have a tendency to want to start adding all sorts of tweaks to a design trying to make it into something that I think will be better, but this time I resisted and just went with the basic design. The cabinets are nothing fancy, after a brushed base coat, I rolled on 3 coats of Dutch Boy "Kids Room" paint in Black that I had left over from a project a couple of years ago. They actually look pretty good.

My setup is still pretty compromised. I only have the speakers separated by about 4 ft, they're only 8-10 inches from the back wall, and the room is small, dimensions are approximately 10x12, and I sit about 6 feet away from the speakers. Despite these conditions the speakers sound remarkably good, given that they're not even broken in yet. The Vifa tweeter is very smooth yet I'm hearing some great detail from recordings that I've heard 100's of times before. The midrange is very listenable, and I'm sure there will be some additional smoothing out over time, but even now there is nothing offensive about it. I'll also add that the imaging is also very good considering how close they are together. I'm sure in a different room I could really make these sound great with some careful setup. The bass is also sufficient and plays rather deep on some cuts of music. I'm gonna guess they're pretty solid down to 50Hz and then they roll a bit but they're not bass deficient by any means. Personally I don't feel compelled to add a subwoofer, even if i had the room. These speakers are very coherent and listenable. As long as you don't try to be too hyper-analytical about the sound, they would please any normal guy out there.

There are a few things I wonder about a little bit. The speakers are kind of tall (in a small room anyway) and my ear level while sitting is approximately at the top edge of the woofer cone. I wonder if the imaging would be better if the tweeter was 2-3 inches lower. I also wonder what would happen if the port was on the front of the speaker. They wouldn't look as good but would the bass be smoother for those of us that have to place it close to a wall? I'm sure they were designed this way for a reason, I was just curious.

A little bit about my equipment. In recent years I have downsized tremendously and am currently using a Panasonic SA-XR55 digital HT receiver. I've owned interconnects that cost more than this thing in the past ($250-300) but this thing sounds remarkably good for the price. My audio source is a Macintosh Mini computer with 1TB of external HD playing .wav files via an optical output into the Panasonic. I also use this as my DVD player. I have since moved the original 1 Pi's I built to the rear channel. I also have the parts to make a center channel using an Eminence Alpha 6 and the same Vifa Tweeter as the 2 Pi's. I hope to complete that in the next couple weeks or so.

So to summarize I am really happy with these speakers. I have heard more speakers than I can count over the years, and I can honestly say that these are better than many speakers I've heard in the $800-1K price range, and probably a few that were a lot more. Given the price to build these i would recommend the project to anyone thats looking for a basic project.

Hey Wayne, how much $$ should I send you to get some Pi logo's for these?

crazychile

Send me your address via E-Mail and I'll send you a pair of logos.

As for the woofer/tweeter height and listening position, the two sum perfectly when the listener is on-axis with the midwoofer. Higher than that and the tweeter leads, lower and the tweeter lags.

About the port, I did a lot of models before building the first prototype to find port/driver positions that minimized standing wave influence. I wanted the cabinet to be tuned solely by Helmholtz and not by pipe modes. The positions chosen make response as smooth as possible.

I'll send you my address in a bit. Thanks for everything Wayne.

Crazychile