PAP Trio 15 and DIY - Discussion

Discussion in 'Speakers' started by Cakecake, Apr 23, 2018.

  1. Vtory

    Vtory Audiophile™

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    That's really great to know. Very motivating comment. Thanks a lot!
     
  2. crazychile

    crazychile Eastern Iowa's Spiciest Pepper

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    My son has some color blindness, and he sees purple as brownish.:D

    But if blue is +, then I currently have them wired in phase. I’ll swap those when I remove the resistors.
     
  3. murphythecat

    murphythecat GRU-powered uniformed trumpkin

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    the Omega pro 15 needs a lowpass otherwise it only starts to roll off around 1.8 khz.

    right now, im oscilliating between either building a 2 way vs a 3 way. Both speakers XO would be designed with the precious help of ifi audio designer Thorsten loesch. He already built the passive 2 way using the Eminence omega pro 15 with the hivi rt2ha planar. 1st order xo at 1.5khz. I'm very tempted to just go the simple way and go the 2 way 1st order.

    or, build the 3 way but run into xo madness headache but potentially better sounding in the mid IF we can make the xo work.

    I like the idea of a simple 2 way since I know 2 way first order xo will work. 3 way is a whole other ball game...
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2019
  4. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    Experiment with this. The phase can change depending on where the tweeter is relative to the woofers. Let me know which phase connection sounds best. Other folks might benefit from it too.

    And thanks for giving it a shot :)
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2019
  5. crazychile

    crazychile Eastern Iowa's Spiciest Pepper

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    After work tonight I ripped the Xover boards out again to do some surgery. The .22ohm resistors are now gone. While I was at it I bypassed all the electrolytics with some California Audio Labs branded 1uF poly caps I've had since the 90's. I also reversed polarity on the tweeters and put everything back together.

    When I fired it back up It seemed like there was increased clarity, yet everything had a relaxed, easiness to it. But I couldn't get a good center image. After playing around with placement for a while I decided to return the tweeter polarity to normal. That did it. The center image is back and I'm digging all the details and depth of stage. I need to clear out an extra rack behind the speakers to eliminate some clutter and that should help a little.

    All with 30 year old amplification and the woofers still have just a few hours on them. I was excited for the Ragnarok 2 to come out as an easy all in one solution, but with all the positive Aegir comments, maybe an Aegir/Freya combo is next.
     
  6. Cakecake

    Cakecake Guest

    I tried not bypassing the L2 resistor today which resulted in a balanced sound ( just a tad bit too warm) but I lost alot of air and plankton. If I bypass L2, it sounds so much better with microdynamics but it's a tad too bright (need a tiny bit more bass and oomph)

    Any idea how you remedied this?
     
  7. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Decrease value of L2. You can do this by unwinding bit by bit the coil. Then cut off the extra length and keep it that way.
     
  8. Muse Wanderer

    Muse Wanderer Friend

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    The sound with the L2 resistor bypassed was overwhelming in detail, air and micro-dynamics. The treble was shifted up making it difficult to listen to some recordings unless the speakers are toed out significantly. With the 0.18mH coil in place and the bypass off, the sound is fairly balanced with sparkle up top to enjoy. The air is still there along with plankton and microdynamics, but it is less in your face as it was previously. After a few weeks of acclimatisation I never looked back. Bass, mids and treble sound just right. Air and microdetails are still present but not magnified to the extreme. Microdynamics are still the highlight of the show but not at the expense of a brighter sound.

    My system is still based on Yggdrasil A1 and Ragnarok 1 that are fairly neutral. I also have wooden Voxativ drivers that are accurate, articulate but a tad less smooth than the paper ones. A warmer amp and / or DAC may tip the balance further. I believe you have Aegir mono and Yggdrasil (?A2) in your system. Decreasing coil inductance may be needed to synergise your system. One of the reasons I stuck with Yggdrasil A1 rather than upgrade to the A2 is due to its neutral tone.

    Now there is a 10db resistor that attenuates the sensitivity of the Voxativ driver reducing it to 94db. It is necessary to tame the Vox in order for the woofers to catch up with its speed. However it attenuates the lower frequencies more than the higher ones. @Serious kindly generated some simulated graphs based on the PAP configuration for me last year. He noted that the 10ohm resistor will make the sound brighter because of the impedance curve. The impedance curve is not flat but rises towards the treble, so the resistor becomes less effective.

    The stock configuration without resistor is light red, whilst the one with 10 ohm resistor in place is dark red: Stock (light red) vs 10 ohm resistor (level matched).jpeg

    Thus the reason for the coil to shave off that extra treble (almost 3db more) at the top end and balance things out:
    0.18mH coil.jpeg .
     
    Last edited: May 8, 2019
  9. Cakecake

    Cakecake Guest

    Got some Jantzen aircoil 0.18mH from Parts-express. Previous one was 0.22mH Jantzen wax-coil.

    same result.

    If I use it, sounds frequency is more balanced but man, I do lose plankton and microdynamics. I don't know if these "plankton" I am hearing is because I hear brighter sound signature from more of voxativ? but inductor is suppose to shave off 3 db from high frequency, not degrade the sound. I can't hear the fine fluctuations of instruments and sound even at higher volume. That being said I don't know no inductor is the best inductor and somehow achieve moar bass by having Quad x 15" woofers or changing pre-amp.
     
  10. Muse Wanderer

    Muse Wanderer Friend

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    OK, I bypassed the bridge this evening and listened to several recordings (it's been a while since I critically listened - too busy and piano practising in free time). Yggdrasil A1 (Gen V USB) onto Rag balanced onto ferrite magnet wooden Voxativ (1.6 Pi Fe) PAP trio, with speakers around 3-4 feet from backwall, toed slightly out by around 5-10 degrees. Paging @MrTeaRex for his view on his own setup.

    The PAPs do sound more engaging and there is way more plankton and microdynamics that is in my face. It is bewildering, especially after so much time listening to these contraptions with the 0.18mH coils on. Sound is brighter but crisper and, dare I say, less muffled. There is a more coherence from bass to treble but bass is less and I miss that.

    Now is plankton and microdynamics lost with the inductor on?

    The microdynamics, microdetail and very low level plankton is lost. The 'in your face' stuff becomes subdued but the air is lost, there is blackness that shouldn't be there. It is like moving from Focal Utopia resolution to ZX-2 - Andro: gain in bass but losing that oomph, nuance, emotional connection and air.

    Apart from my usual Suzuki Bach cantata cycle, as well as piano recordings by Glenn Gould, Daft Punk (RAM), I especially listened to The Beatles Abbey Road album. On 'Come Together,' the bass is more controlled and not as pronounced as expected. It is still extremely defined and there is less muddiness between woofer and widebander in the lower mids with increased clarity. The voices are more refined, you can sculpt the differences between John Lennon and the backing from ?Ringo. Clear as water.

    Higher frequencies steal the show - those drums snares are more omnipresent with lingering air in between the hits. The imaging is more precise as is the staging. Sound envelopes you, coming from the back and sides of room and is way livelier. It seems that the whole Voxativ frequency range is badly affected by the coil from bass to treble.

    Do I miss the bass? hmmm hard to say. I think my initial gut feeling (link) that micro stuff was hurt was right and sacrificing it for more bass as I did last year (link) that is probably warmer than neutral is not worth it.

    Is there a solution? It may well be active crossover. PAP have a custom active crossover solution called PAP-C1 designed by Nelson Pass that may solve this. Harry Weisfeld, founder of VPI, owns a PAP trio and prefers active crossover probably to preserve the magic. Alternatively one could live with this great sound or carefully change source, preamp and amp to warmer ones and toeing out as tolerated. Am I moving back to the 0.18mH or lesser value coil? Doubt it, unless intermittently when I feel the need for warmth at expense of that magic.

    Here I am awestruck by these speakers again!
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2019
  11. Cakecake

    Cakecake Guest

    Well said man, way more eloquent and understandable than I can present it.

    My solution is:
    1. engage 0.18mH when I wanna impress guests with bass oomph
    2. bypass when listening alone for plankton indulging.

    Maybe Beta woofers might be better than Neos? Anyways the journey is not over it seems.
     
  12. Muse Wanderer

    Muse Wanderer Friend

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    No, the journey is not over, at all!

    When I thought I was out, here I am sucked again in big time, drooling from plankton overdose... lol!
     
  13. MrTeaRex

    MrTeaRex His head's not fat, he's my brother!

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    My setup is similar with the speakers about 3.5 feet from the back wall with diffusive panels, and angled on-axis to my listening position. I tried the jumper that included the extra coil in the path for one night shortly after I swapped the Tangband for the Voxativ over a year ago. That was more than enough to know I never wanted to do that again. It was like a blanket had been thrown over driver to sound make it sound inoffensive at the expense of masking fine details and air. I much prefer to cope with the widebander FR irregularities than hamstring the driver.
     
  14. Serious

    Serious Inquisitive Frequency Response Plot

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    I think the issue is that using a resistor in series more or less requires also using a cap and a coil to pad it down relatively linearly. At least that's if the crossover behaves similar to a normal parallel crossover for the widebander. I'm sure it helps that you're never on-axis with the driver anyway, but instead I'd look for better parts, maybe a resistor with a lower value, too. Wax foil coils and graphite resistors could be an option. Did you try removing the cap just to see how much of an impact that has on plankton? My gut feeling tells me that it's more than the coil. Excursion is going to become very high, though.
    The only way to avoid it altogether is to either build a speaker where the woofer section is sensitive enough so you don't have to pad down the Voxativ (what I did) or you have to biamp, but that also requires a new crossover.
    When everything works out I can probably build the Trios myself in a couple months time to find out what is going on. Something is off and I want to know what it is.
     
  15. crazychile

    crazychile Eastern Iowa's Spiciest Pepper

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    I haven't had a lot of serious listening time since I built mine. Mostly its been background music while reading or running the television sound through them. I also didn't want to judge too critically until I knew everything was broken in. Last week I noticed that the bass wasn't really as deep as I thought they should go. The previous Klipsch Heresy v1 I was running had zero bass below about 65Hz, so initially the PAPs were impressive. But yesterday I was wondering where that 30Hz bass was that I should be getting.

    Yesterday I was playing some electronic music and noticed that when I'm about 3-4 feet from the speakers the bass is great. Pretty deep but nice and impactful. When I get back to the listening chair it's completely gone. When I go into another room all I hear is the mids and treble.

    The speakers are currently about 6 feet apart center to center. I can't get them apart much further as the listening space is only about 10 feet wide and I'm trying to not put them against the side walls. The speakers are about 3 feet from the back wall. I have changed this front to back distance a bit over the past few weeks trying to dial in the staging, but the bass doesn't seem to be affected. My listening position is about 9-10 feet from the speakers. I can't change that much, but I can move the speakers around a little.

    So what should I try next to get that bass at the listening chair? I was going to try reversing phase on the woofers but wanted to check with you guys first to see if you had any ideas.
     
  16. mitochondrium

    mitochondrium Friend

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    @crazychile

    If I was in your shoes, I would go to this website:

    https://www.hunecke.de/en/calculators/loudspeakers.html

    and try to model my room and the placement of the speakers. It will give you an indication of the modal behaviour of the situation. If the model fits what you are experiencing in your room (proof of principle for OB speaker) than you can simulate different speaker placements and/or acoustic treatment to get an idea of how the outcome regarding bass performance will be without shoving your speakers around.
    Of course this is not a 100 % exact tool. It may however give you a good starting point and thereby reduce the number of iterations you may have to go through.

    Best of luck
     
  17. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    So far all the DIY builds I've seen in this thread have the drivers on separate panels. Any particular reason not to do one large panel? I know it's convenient for switching out drivers, but what if you aren't experimenting?

    The only issue I see is resonance issues with a larger panel, but I don't think it will be a problem.
     
  18. sphinxvc

    sphinxvc Gear Master (retired)

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    I did a large panel for the woofers. I would have done the widebander on the same panel if I didn't want a delay, or if I was using an active delay. I can't figure out a design that sidesteps diffraction and achieves the delay without adding more components.
     
  19. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    That's true. Any sort of physical time alignment would need separate panels. At least in TWW configuration, from what I've read WTW doesn't need this.
     
    Last edited: Jun 11, 2019
  20. Serious

    Serious Inquisitive Frequency Response Plot

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    With most drivers it will. Large woofers are deep which adds some time-delay and so does the crososver. Maybe the special Accuton Cell woofers could work, but for most crossovers you can work around time-alignement. Troels' 'The Loudspeaker' project has an interesting part about time-alignement.
    I think you need to take measurements to be able to say anything about time-alignement. At least that's how I arrived at my baffle offset.
     

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