My waf dipole speaker design. Waffle.

[gene_stl]

Hello from Belgium, I very impressed with your system, mostly because of the inphessis on midrange. It seem that there is agreament that the Yamaha dome midrange is one of the best, I listened, recently to the ATC dome midrange, I was very, very impressed. How do think the Yamahas compare. What cut off frequencies are you using with the D 23? What JBl drivers are you using? Are there any JBL 12 inch drivers that would fit in the Yamaha NS 1000M? Thanks, Els

I have a pair of NS1000M that I bought that have woofers that had the adhesive fail so that the magnet has become detached. Rather than worrying about getting them reglued I intend to replace them. I wil set that pair up running the midranges from 1000 Hz (instead of 500 Hz) and I will use a smaller woofer either a ten inch or even an eight inch. These will be for side channels and will probably also have a "lower woofer" They will operate from whatever the low cutoff measures ( I expect about 50-60 Hz) up to 1000 and then cross to the 88mm Yamaha midrange. I may play with the upper crossover frequency. It is 6kHz stock but I may drop it to 5kHz. This is what the big speakers have but they use NS500 tweeter. That is suitable to drop a further octave (The ns 500 was a two way but the magnet is bigger )

The JBL mid basses are LE10 in a 1.1 cu ft sub enclosure.. They can make fair bass themselves but are crossed to the real wooofers at 100 Hz. There are four LE14A facing rearward. I thought that was pretty extreme in 1976 but now you can buy lots of speakers with that many drivers.

To recap 4x LE14A "0" to 100 Hz LE10A 100-1000Hz Two JA 801 1000-5000Hz four JA 513(i think) 5000 to infinity. The Modified NS1000 will also be driven by a D23 which will allow for some experimentation and tuning.

The replacement wooofers I am going to start the experimentation with are from EAW or RCF from Italy. They seem to be similar in quality to JBLs and have very high power handling capacity and good efficiency. L8 and L10 They came my way conveniently locally. I still like JBL especially for wooofers. There is no JBL that will drop into the yamaha NS1000 that I know of.

I cannot comment on the ATC drivers you are talking about because I am not aware of having heard them. (they could have been in a system I listened to but I am not aware.)
Yamaha drivers still appear with some regularity on ebay. I am considering buying one or two to build a timbre matched center channel. There are some ceramic and sapphire dome tweeters from tangband that are of interest to me. I haven't seen a reasonably price three inchish midrange. The Yamahas can be had for about 200 250 dollars each fairly regularly. The ATC does look good. Eventually someone will build a really rigid dome with a peripheral voice coil. Using ceramics or corundum or diamond.
Diamond is attractive but has gimmick pricing even though it is a mass produced commodity (as is sapphire and other corunda)

Let us know how it turns out.

 

[Els]

I have a pair of NS1000M that I bought that have woofers that had the adhesive fail so that the magnet has become detached. Rather than worrying about getting them reglued I intend to replace them. I wil set that pair up running the midranges from 1000 Hz (instead of 500 Hz) and I will use a smaller woofer either a ten inch or even an eight inch. These will be for side channels and will probably also have a "lower woofer" They will operate from whatever the low cutoff measures ( I expect about 50-60 Hz) up to 1000 and then cross to the 88mm Yamaha midrange. I may play with the upper crossover frequency. It is 6kHz stock but I may drop it to 5kHz. This is what the big speakers have but they use NS500 tweeter. That is suitable to drop a further octave (The ns 500 was a two way but the magnet is bigger )

The JBL mid basses are LE10 in a 1.1 cu ft sub enclosure.. They can make fair bass themselves but are crossed to the real wooofers at 100 Hz. There are four LE14A facing rearward. I thought that was pretty extreme in 1976 but now you can buy lots of speakers with that many drivers.

To recap 4x LE14A "0" to 100 Hz LE10A 100-1000Hz Two JA 801 1000-5000Hz four JA 513(i think) 5000 to infinity. The Modified NS1000 will also be driven by a D23 which will allow for some experimentation and tuning.

The replacement wooofers I am going to start the experimentation with are from EAW or RCF from Italy. They seem to be similar in quality to JBLs and have very high power handling capacity and good efficiency. L8 and L10 They came my way conveniently locally. I still like JBL especially for wooofers. There is no JBL that will drop into the yamaha NS1000 that I know of.

I cannot comment on the ATC drivers you are talking about because I am not aware of having heard them. (they could have been in a system I listened to but I am not aware.)
Yamaha drivers still appear with some regularity on ebay. I am considering buying one or two to build a timbre matched center channel. There are some ceramic and sapphire dome tweeters from tangband that are of interest to me. I haven't seen a reasonably price three inchish midrange. The Yamahas can be had for about 200 250 dollars each fairly regularly. The ATC does look good. Eventually someone will build a really rigid dome with a peripheral voice coil. Using ceramics or corundum or diamond.
Diamond is attractive but has gimmick pricing even though it is a mass produced commodity (as is sapphire and other corunda)

Thank you for the detailed rundown. I am looking to build something similar but more modest, my sytem is in a small dedicated bedroom. I am going to look at a pair of NS 1000M today, asking price is § 1000. Anything I should look for to avoid buying a damaged speaker.

 

[gene_stl]

$1000 is getting into the realm of reasonable. There were a lot of them sold here in the USA so you can find them for a bit less than that if you get hard nosed.

If they are the black M model sometimes the black polymer finish can peel. This is repairable/refinishable. It should be reflected in the price.

Listen to some music you know well through them or if you have a test oscillator sweep the frequencies (loud but brief) to listen for holes in response (a dead speaker would be easy to hear by its absence) or buzzes or rattles.

One pair I bought had detached wooofer magnets. The adhesive failed. The voice coils were not damaged so I may have our local speaker fixer who has been at it about 50 years repair it. That pair was $300. I have seen that this adhesive failure is something that happens after 50 years. I don't know of any rhyme nor reason that predicts or prevents it.

I have a mint pair that I bought from a retired Naval officer for $500. I told him his price was very low but he just wanted them gone. He bought them new in Japan "back in the day". I see them offered here for $700 often. I also see them offered for up to $3000 but I doubt many sell at that kind of price. Depending on supply and demand in Belgium, I would hope that at $1000 they would be very "minty".

If you look in Dr. Toole's book the NS 1000 is the only speaker from ancient history that performs as well as current excellent speakers. (Page 453 iirc) Also there are some nice things said about the Be drivers in Martin Collums "High Performance Loudspeakers" where he states that they are the best drivers he has ever measured.

Some NS1000s have been used for PA use and those can look pretty beat up. Others , people go crazy and put piano finishes on them. One guy had a high end automotive paint shop finish his pair in British racing green using a Porsche paint. They did look very cool but that is probably crazy.

I have always wanted to get a pair or two of the ebony version which have heavier sturdier cabinets. These have eluded me so far. I would also love to get some of the subsequent models of which there are several. The drivers in the later models are reputed to be even better. I have never seen the later models for sale here new or used. The ebony versions are a very small fraction of the used offerings but are seen from time to time.

 

[JeyB]

Seems like we are a team!. Ardacer and JeyB! My 4-way dipole journey started in 2013, inspired by Jorma Salmi's Gradient 1.3 that I had listened at my "girl"friend's. In the beginning I needed and got a lot of help from reading sites mentioned and eg. JohnK and Rudolf themselves. John Reekie's way of using Minidsp actually made my dream possible ( passive is almost impossible even for experts)

John Reekie https://www.hifizine.com/2011/03/refining-a-4-way-open-baffle-speaker-minidsp-2x4/
Oliver Pirlich http://www.2pi-online.de/index.html

My AINOgradient story https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/aino-gradient-a-collaborative-speaker-project.231353/
- I chose monopole downfire bass because of copying Gradient design and because of necessity to position the speakers rather close to the front wall!

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Hi Juhazi! Thanks for the links. I've been reading a lot about your AINOgradient thread at DIYaudio. Nice speaker indeed. I think that at some point you were debating yourself regarding adding dipolar bass or not, although you've finally settled on monopolar with Seas LROY. As you've commented, the very SL in person suggested to you the dipolar approach (he always insisted on that for some good reason, adding dipole bass to Kiis Threes, adding dipole bass to Beolabs 90...)

By the way, nice photographs with very illustrated personalities . So after long term experience how are your loudspeakers resulting? Have you ever listened to dipolar bass at your own home? If you ask me, I can only express my absolute commitment for dipolar low frequency reproduction.

If you look at my listening room photographs a few posts before, you may observe two stacked big Arendal sealed subwoofers and two Spendor SP2/2 loudspeakers on the red carpet. The xover MiniDsp 2x4 HD is hidden in the black rack furnishing. I use this second hifi system for watching films on my tv (I looove films). I keep this system with monoplar bass just to be aware from time to time of the enormous advantages that the dipolar LX521offers. Notwithstanding, their narrower and shallower phantom scene is very well suited for the tv location, as the whole sound action is projected on the flat screen and its surroundings with voices coming exactly from the actor's mouths on the screen.

Hearing, as any other of our senses that conncect us to the inmediate surrounding environment, is highly adaptative (imagine the contrary!). This is a survival mechanism, but bad if you want to obtain pure objectivity from your senses. It is easy to not perceive slightly incremental hotter water on your skin, little by little saltier meal on your mouth... So, my hearing system also adapts very quickly to any sonic stimulli. If trying to compare those two systems in my room, the big differences are only completely perceivable in the first 1 to 2 minutes after changed one for the other. After that time the hearing system starts to adapt itself to the new situation and any difference vanish magically, saying, "hey man, it doesn't sound so bad, it is listenable after all...ehh wait, this is really great". If this situation is made on a daily basis, then your brain learns to not settle down and to still perceive the differences after more listening time. You have forced your brain to write a sound database of both sound systems at that point.

All this story is just to remember that the bass monopole system, despite measuring very similarly flat on axis like the LX521's one, it does not convey the same sound perception. Measurements does not take into account the brain's sound perception/interpretation. They help, no doubt, but they are not a sufficient condition. It would be necessary to develop some measurement system connected to the head for registering the brain's reaction, which is what we ultimately are interested in. This leads me to question in some way, that the measurements as we know it today are not enough to categorize a sound system that is designed to stimulate the highly adaptative ear-brain system. We are still very far from that kind of measurement.

Well, thanks a lot for the team's comment . It's funny that very distant people coincide in their view about great loudspeaker designers and felt influenced by the same personalities. So yes, happy to be in the team!

@Ardacer, I would be very happy to test your projected variable hrtf dipolar headphones design. I always thought it may be a great experience as SL said when he tested one of these models with an attached accelerometer. Do you expect to be able to project the stereo phantom image out of the head? That would be awesome! But this kind of headphone needs to be designed to suit every different pinna, ie completely personalized.

Yes, it was me who asked about audible effect of GD in low frequencies. Glad to know you either didn't perceive it

Also, if any of you, or anyone in general happens to be near here in Spain, he will be very wellcomed to listen to my system and also chat about music and sound. Great spanish wine guaranteed . In any case, thanks Ben for your kind invitation, I would love to listen to your Waffles.

 

[JeyB]

Liked your post there on DIYaudio. That's why I have my LX521 at 80 cm from my ears in ultra nearfield setup. Much, much less room modulated sound and much, much more "what is on the recording" sound.