Markaudio CHN 110 building and comparisons with Genelec 8340 SAM monitors

[Tangband]

I have been building a pair of single driver loudspeakers just for fun this week. I have bought a pair of Markaudio chn110 drivers, and if this sounds good Im gonna buy the more expensive alpair model.

Loudspeaker:

Size : 24 * 19,5 ( baffle) * 106,5 cm ( about as high as the sibelius loudspeaker )

Material : 1,9 cm MDF painted black. Three internal crossbraces. 3 mm sheets of Bitumen on the inside on every parallel wall ( the other undamped ) , to spread the resonanses at different frequencies avoiding any tunefork effects.

Damping material: sheep wool.

Internal volume : 31 liters

Box tuning : 36 Hz with backmounted basstube monacor br60 , 50 cm above the floor.

The drivers TS can be found here:

https://www.markaudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/CHN110-with-plans.pdf

So how is the sound with an Aiyima a04 ( lm4562 and tpa3251 ) , compared to the Genelecs ? Stay tuned….

For the measurement people : measurements using audiotools and Line audio OM1 are coming.

 

[ppataki]

Sounds like a great project!
Are you using any DSP correction on them? I would very strongly recommend it (Dirac or just REW)
How do they compare to the Genelec?

If I may share an idea with you: I find these full-range drivers sounding way better if you put them in sealed cabinets and apply adequate DSP correction to elevate the lows
They will be extremely fast and precise and they can go really low (easily below 30Hz in a good room with good placement)

 

[Tangband]

Sounds like a great project!
Are you using any DSP correction on them? I would very strongly recommend it (Dirac or just REW)
How do they compare to the Genelec?

If I may share an idea with you: I find these full-range drivers sounding way better if you put them in sealed cabinets and apply adequate DSP correction to elevate the lows
They will be extremely fast and precise and they can go really low (easily below 30Hz in a good room with good placement)

I have now listened for one hour, and one thing that stands out is that acoustical instruments sound very natural, and the bass is very, very good. This is the first time I have done a bassreflex speaker with no need to correct the tuning frequency afterwards. The bass is as deep as my Genelec 8340. Im now trying different placement of the speakers, they seems to sound good almost everywhere. . The soundstage is wide and deep with the instruments layered in a very believable 3-D illusion .

I know from experience that the sound-bias from DIY building is very big, so I guess some weakness in the sound will come in a couple of days.

In the first 5 minutes of the listening session there was a slightly perceived loss of treble but after one hour the treble sounded rather neutral with the correct level.

From memory, my jbl 530 with passive crossover sounds worse than this Markaudio speaker , also the jbl 305 mkII sound worse. This Markaudio speakers also sounds better than my monitor audio rx6 , with a deeper and tighter base.

 

[ppataki]

I have now listened for one hour, and one thing that stands out is that acoustical instruments sound very natural, and the bass is very, very good. This is the first time I have done a bassreflex speaker with no need to correct the tuning frequency afterwards. The bass is as deep as my Genelec 8340. Im now trying different placement of the speakers, they seems to sound good almost everywhere. . The soundstage is wide and deep with the instruments layered in a very believable 3-D illusion .

I know from experience that the sound-bias from DIY building is very big, so I guess some weaknes in the sound will come in a couple of days.

In the first 5 minutes of the listening session there was a slightly perceived loss of treble but after one hour the treble sound rather neutral with the correct level.

From memory, my jbl 530 with passive crossover sounds worse than this Markaudio speaker , also the jbl 305 mkII sound worse. This Markaudio speakers also sounds better than my monitor audio rx6 , with a deeper and tighter base.

What you describe about the sound is exactly how it should be
Full range speakers produce an extremely holographic 3D presentation and what I (and many others) call 'live-sound' - you can 'see' the instruments in your room
These speakers will sound better than most commercially available speakers, I kid you not
If you apply a full-range DSP correction then it will sound mind-blowingly great

3 years ago I ditched all my multiway systems, I only build 1-way full range systems now because of the above mentioned points
Have fun and congratulations!!

 

[Tangband]

Cheapaudioman has reviewed a speaker with this chn110 driver, and the sound according to him is very good .

 

[Tangband]

What you describe about the sound is exactly how it should be
Full range speakers produce an extremely holographic 3D presentation and what I (and many others) call 'live-sound' - you can 'see' the instruments in your room
These speakers will sound better than most commercially available speakers, I kid you not
If you apply a full-range DSP correction then it will sound mind-blowingly great

3 years ago I ditched all my multiway systems, I only build 1-way full range systems now because of the above mentioned points
Have fun and congratulations!!

The thing is, I dont feel I need to equalize those speakers, the sound has a good balance without it. But ofcourse I will try it. I have made two other full range DIY speakers before, the first I did was La petit audiophile with the fostex 103 Sigma driver and the last was a speaker called Mupps , described at the forum Faktiskt.io. Those speakers had some qualitys, but also cons that was hard to live with. This chn110 seems to have those qualities without any obvious negative things in the sound.

Iˋll be back for more subjective impressions….

 

[PatentLawyer]

I use Markaudio drivers -- his cheapest ones -- in my desktop setup. With Dirac, and the generally fixed listening position, they work very, very well for me.

I would be curious to know how they work in a more far-field application, where their dispersion will be more of a factor.

Super interesting project that I will follow closely.

(Nice craftsmanship, too!)

 

[Tangband]

Some pictures from the building. I made a special adaptor for the router tool.
I used sheep wool inside the speaker, not blocking the port and a little extra stuffed at the bottom of the box.
The whole left side of the speaker have 3mm glued bitumen on the walls, the back panel has also bitumen ( not the baffle ) . I did a mirror pair, so the other speaker had the right side with bitumen. This was done to spread the resonanses from the parallel walls at different frequencies, avoiding any tunefork effect.

I have made extensive listeningtests on other DIY speakers I have made and my monitor audio rx6 , experimenting with bitumen inside of the cabinet. The sound gets worse with all sides covered with bitumen, but better if every parallell wall has a different resonance frequency than the opposite.

Ofcourse one changes the bass-tuning somewhat with a 3 mm thicker wall, but the changes in sound for the better is happening somewhere between 100-600 Hz . The internal cable is 1,5 kvmm multistranded ofc copper, and the binding post are from the brand Stäubli. Every connection is soldered.

 

[Tangband]

I have now tested all kind of music, from Metallica ( the black album ) to Stockfish records reference recordings and everything sounds great with this markaudio driver. The speaker dont break apart at normal musiclevels. Makes me wonder If an even better amplifier than Aiyima a04 with tpa 3251 would sound even better? Maybe a Hypex amplifier …?

Its time to review the different registers in the music:

1. Soundstage - absolutely exact with good space between the musicians and an illusion of 3D depth behind the speakers.

2. Timbre - every instrument sounds correct , not thin, not bright just balanced and they can be followed in the mix very easy.

3. Bass - this was my first surprise with this speaker. Its articulated, not boomy and goes down to about 31 Hz in my room. A cello or contrabass has a good definition of its tones , very easy to follow the tunes. The original recording of ” Killing me softly ” with Roberta Flack dont break apart when the drums starts playing together with the baseguitar. This recording sounds avesome.

4. Midrange - very clear and believable, maybe a small touch of thinness at 100 -400 Hz on some recordings but this is much depending on the placement of the loudspeakers and the distance to the backwall.

5. Treble - its there, its clear sounding and it has the right amount of energy. I dont hear anything above 14 kHz so some people might (maybe) miss the very high frequencies ? I dont know.

 

[ppataki]

Makes me wonder If an even better amplifier than Aiyima a04 with tpa 3251 would sound even better? Maybe a Hypex amplifier …?

Yes, it will sound even better
I was running my speakers with a Hypex NC250MP and now with Sabaj A30A - simply amazing!!
I strongly recommend driving them with such great amps (and a decent DAC too!)

 

[Tangband]

Yes, it will sound even better
I was running my speakers with a Hypex NC250MP and now with Sabaj A30A - simply amazing!!
I strongly recommend driving them with such great amps (and a decent DAC too!)

Aha, - ppataki, you have a conversation.

 

[DavidMcRoy]

I used dual MarkAudio Alpair 12P full-range drivers in my first open baffle project, from 150Hz to 2kHz. I've been delighted with them. As icing on the cake I just EQed for room issues and a few very minor driver resonances across all units in the array. In this configuration the Alpair 12P is only good down to about 150Hz in a 24"W X 60"H open baffle, where I cross them over to small, 8" front- and rear-firing subs, the rear sub in reverse phase. Everything is fully DSPed, of course, using 24dB/octave Bessel crossover filters. (As an aside, the Alpair 12P has a nominally 8" diameter frame and a nominally 6.5" driver radiating diameter.) Operated the Alpair 12P full-range, I see extremely ragged HF response, only "good" to about 8kHz. Above that, the "highs" only seem to consist of a resonant peak at around 13kHz and another at 20kHz. Otherwise, the highs are AWOL. (But, I never intended to use these drivers full-range, anyway.)

My next project will be a much taller open baffle, 19"W X 76"H, with a similar main drivers arrangement, but adding a separate AMT tweeter over 6kHz to complement a dipole AMT mid-tweeter, and with a pair of 12" open baffle-suitable woofers, one near the bottom and the other near the top of the baffle. To keep my budget in check, I'm wondering what can be expected from other models in the MarkAudio line that are suitable for open baffle operation over that narrow 150Hz-2kHz range, having already used one of their higher end units. I haven't been able to find any distortion measurements on any of them.

 

[ernestcarl]

Yes, it will sound even better
I was running my speakers with a Hypex NC250MP and now with Sabaj A30A - simply amazing!!
I strongly recommend driving them with such great amps (and a decent DAC too!)

What was the reason behind the amplifier change? Too much gain, or was it that the latter had more extra features?

 

[ppataki]

What was the reason behind the amplifier change? Too much gain, or was it that the latter had more extra features?

Hi @ernestcarl, please read this:

Multichannel Full Digital Amp (FDA) solution

I thought I would share my experience and learning here; hopefully it will inspire others too. I have been fascinated by the concept of a Full Digital Amp (FDA) ever since early models started to appear; I even had a pair of active monitors using FDAs (Nubert nuPro A-300) But I have always...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Due to the different technology, one no longer needs a DAC and interconnect cables
Also I find the sound more detailed with the Sabaj vs the Hypex

 

[ernestcarl]

Hi @ernestcarl, please read this:

Multichannel Full Digital Amp (FDA) solution

I thought I would share my experience and learning here; hopefully it will inspire others too. I have been fascinated by the concept of a Full Digital Amp (FDA) ever since early models started to appear; I even had a pair of active monitors using FDAs (Nubert nuPro A-300) But I have always...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Due to the different technology, one no longer needs a DAC and interconnect cables
Also I find the sound more detailed with the Sabaj vs the Hypex

Thanks. Quite interesting tech... but I find the latter somewhat puzzling -- i.e. how to quantify this improved level of detail?

 

[ppataki]

Thanks. Quite interesting tech... but I find the latter somewhat puzzling -- i.e. how to quantify this improved level of detail?

I can't.....
I certainly did some measurements but no substantial difference. I could not do a blind test, I just did AB testing and I did hear more details (even new instruments that were previously 'hidden' on the stage) while listening to different recordings - maybe it is just my brain, I don't know
I guess this is more subjective than anything else

 

[ppataki]

@ernestcarl another great reading here:

Ever heard about Full Digital Amplifiers ??

Audiophile Digital Audio Computer Raspberry Pi Streaming

soundcheck-audio.blogspot.com

 

[ernestcarl]

I can't.....
I certainly did some measurements but no substantial difference. I could not do a blind test, I just did AB testing and I did hear more details (even new instruments that were previously 'hidden' on the stage) while listening to different recordings - maybe it is just my brain, I don't know
I guess this is more subjective than anything else

Well, I wish to think that I'm a practical guy... so not really convinced people should be upgrade their existing amps just because. DSP is free though esp. if you're doing it yourself in a PC.

 

[ppataki]

I upgraded just because of different technology and for me it worked out pretty well
Both the Hypex Ncore and the Sabaj A30A are great amps - so just going back to the OP's question I would be happy to recommend both of them

 

[Waxx]

That driver i also use in a similar (ML)TL diy (build and design) speaker, and it's on of the more neutral fullrange drivers arround. It may be cheap, but sounds a lot better than most others, even the very expensive ones. Of the more expensive drivers in the Mark Audio line, check the Alpair 10 series (10.3, 10P and MAOP10), they are the best in my book. The 10P is a more oldskool paper cone with less treble, the two others are like the CHN110, but more refined in sound.