Impending House Move: New Listening Room

[Simon Hickie]

We've sold the house (if nothing goes wrong) and had an offer accepted on a new one. The current listening room is about 10 x 13 feet with 10.5 foot high ceilings. Speakers fire down the long side.

The likely new listening room is 17.5 x 9.5 feet with a slightly vaulted ceiling. Speakers will have to fire over the short dimension.

Does this sound like a recipe for some cube type speakers? My thinking is that they will have to be pretty close to the wall and I want a decent distance between me and the speakers, although distance apart can be pretty flexible. The move will leave us with no spare cash, but I do have some Doc Modded 8 inch drivers similar to those used in the cubes and can recycle some tweeters and construct some steel lined cubic foot (external size) cabinets. I'm looking for a tighter bottom end than the old 10 inch SEAS drivers seem to be able to give and my experiments with the 8 inchers suggest this is possible.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Go for it semi omnis don't fight the room you will find fitting them in easier. Talk to Steve (the shadow) as well he is getting a good understanding of the concept.

[Simon Hickie]

Cheers Doc. I found these words from Roy Allison encouraging:

"I had emphasized dispersion in order to re-create as best I could the performance-hall ambience. I don't want to put up with a sweet spot, and I'd rather have less dramatically precise imaging but a close simulation of what you hear in a concert hall in terms of envelopment. For that, you need reverberant energy broadcast at very wide angles from the loudspeakers, so the bulk of the energy has a chance to do multiple reflections before it reaches your ear. I think pinpoint imaging has to do with synthetically generated music, not acoustic music—except perhaps for a solo instrument or a solo voice, where you might want fairly sharp localization. For envelopment, you need widespread energy generation."

Given that I like orchestral music as much as anything and that the 'imaging' at a live concert is anything but pinpoint (same for watching a band too) this makes a lot of sense.

[Stemcor1990]

I love my cube 3s and can't see myself changing to anything else (apart from cube 2s or 1s). You can analyse them for all of the classic hifi attributes but the bottom line is that they work and work exceptionally well. Try a pair and you might not want anything else. Good luck with your search.

[SteveTheShadow]

Well I'm sold on the semi-omni concept.

It has taken me a while to get it right as I designed my own speakers, which are an amalgam of the ideas of Stig Carlsson, Roy Allison, Richard Dunn, and also incorporating Martin J King's modernised Voigt quarter-wave bass loading techniques.

But....once you get used to this presentation, which is different to that of conventional speakers, then nothing else will do.

[Simon Hickie]

Interesting ideas Steve. I have a pair of DIY MLTL speakers as the rears in my TV system and am familiar with some of MJK's work. The big challenge for me is shifting enough air for the full-on orchestral stuff whilst maintaining a tight bottom end. I'm slightly tempted to go for a double height version with an internal division half way down with an aperiodic port in the divider. The principle was used in the Dynaco A35 which was regarded as having a tighter bass as a result: only the lower bass used the full cabinet volume due to the operation of the internal damped port. However, that may be a step too far for a first go at a semi-omni. Perhaps a twin 8" driver version like the cubix may be worth looking at later.

The semi-omni is appealing: a friend had a pair of Shahinians which were pretty good. He then made his system worse by trading them for some Audiovectors. The best speakers I heard at Writtlebury a few years ago were some hideously expensive Zeta Zero omnis.

[Stemcor1990]

Steve,

Congratulations on designing your own speakers (did you build them as well ?). It must be so satisfying. I would love to do something like it at some point in the future.

Apologies to the op for drifting off topic.

[SteveTheShadow]

Have a look at this thread:

https://hifisubjectivist.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=48499
If you want to talk about the design, the above thread is the place.

A few posts down the first page, the Doc has also linked to some design threads on Audio Talk.

[Simon Hickie]

Cheers Steve. I'm likely to go with a semi-omni but perhaps closer to the Allison 5 than the Allison 6 / Cube 1 in form. A slightly modified Allison 5 form allows for a shallower but wider speaker whilst still retaining the net 15 litres or so that the T&S parameters suggest will give a Q of 0.7ish with my 8 inch drivers (similar to the Doc's). External dimensions of 250 (D) x 300 (H) x 360mm (W) in 18mm MDF lined with 5mm steel ought to work well and give the same internal volume as a 12 inch cube. The Allison 4 is intriguing with its two tweeters set at 45 degrees on each front corner but probably beyond my limited skills and equipment.

I'd be interested on the Doc's take on Allison 5 vs 6 form factor.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Never heard them, but all Allison speakers were good reputation. My experience was 1, 2 and 6.