There are a newish pair of 4 pi's in the world thanks to Johnnycamp5. He's upgrading from 4 pi's to 7 pi corner horns and was nice enough to sell me his 4 pi cabinets. The cabinets are beautifully put together and he really did sweat out the little details - since I have no woodworking skills I'm pretty fortunate to land these cabinets.
You can see they were built for use on the floor. They are currently about couch width apart and aimed at the coffee table. It creates a nice soundstage.
They've been running pretty much continuously to loosen up the new 2226 and de250. After about 25 hours I noticed there was more bass than several hours earlier (it was obvious even from listening in another room). Not much change after that but it was pretty obvious something shifted in the first 25 hours.
When leaving the house they get turned way up with dub music to help them burn in ... even at those high volumes with bass heavy music the woofers don't even appear to be moving much. These things are beasts.
The volume of these speakers will sneak up on you before you know it. As the volume goes up there is no shift in tonality or tweeter compression ... they just get louder. They don't seem loud, though, and I often find the music is louder than expected.
They are evil.
Still playing with placement and gear. Seem to be narrowing the placement reasonably well but there will be gear swaps over the next few months just to see what happens.
They have a different tonality than the 2 pi towers in my room, likely because the room is pretty lively. The 2 pi towers dome tweeters scatter sound waves everywhere and the 4 pi waveguides focus it into the listening position. It makes a difference.
The waveguide has another interesting benefit. The 4's sound fairly similar if your sitting up on the couch or lying down on the couch. When listening to the 2 pi towers there is a huge change in tonality when sitting or lying on the couch - lying down puts you below the woofers and creates a pretty dramatic increase in bass. The 4 pi's allow you to put your feet up, grab a book and relax into the music without losing the right tonal balance. Neat trick.
It's been a fun couple of weeks. Looking forward to a lot of listening over the next few months.
The 4's never got gaskets as I was in a rush to get them assembled. A few days ago I finally picked up a few feet of shower pan liner and started cutting.
It makes a subtle difference. Sounds like it removed a bit of glare and/or added a bit of smoothness to the presentation.
I've added weatherstripping or rope caulk around the drivers of other speakers and experience similar results. And when the weatherstripping or rope caulk was removed the effects vanished.
A good $16 dollar upgrade. A VERY good $16 upgrade.
Wayne Parham Messages: 18792 Registered: January 2001
Illuminati (33rd Degree)
Good deal, Barry. Those huge O-Rings JBL provides with the 2226 drivers are neat, but I don't find them very useful. I prefer gaskets made like you've described.
The shower pan liner was taken right out of your notes somewhere on this forum. Normally I do the job quick and easy with rope caulk or weatherstripping but you recommended the liner. Is the liner better than weatherstripping? I've no idea. It's more work but it's your design so I follow your guidelines.
I've found it's always a good idea to put speakers together exactly like the designer suggests. There are often reasons for doing things that are way above my pay grade.
The 4's are certainly sounding good. After a day of listening the gaskets seem to make even more of a difference than at first listen. One of the great preamp/amp combos from before the gasket installation now sounds a bit too laid back. A different preamp/amp combo had been too thin sounding before and now is pretty spot on. Funny how a bit of refinement changes the mix.
I'll try to get some notes in order and post something as it's been fun dialing them in. In the mean time you guys have a great Christmas.
Wayne Parham Messages: 18792 Registered: January 2001
Illuminati (33rd Degree)
Super groovy cool, Barry. I'm glad you're dialing those in and getting 'em setup in your home. I know I'm biased proud papa and all that, but to me, the four Pi speaker is one I can live with for life.
That gasket link is in the FAQ, near the bottom of the page. Or here:
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