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I've been working on a speaker build I'm referring to as the Skylark Flying Towers. The design concept is to create a speaker with significantly reduced floor and ceiling reflections, but wide horizontal dispersion. The vertical beamwidth was kept as wide as possible and as consistent as possible at different frequencies while still drastically limiting the energy in the first vertical reflections, which typically happen at about 30 degrees for the floor, and 40-45 degrees for the ceiling.
This has been achieved using a “nested array” approach, which nests the higher frequency arrays inside the lower frequency arrays. In this case, the high frequency array consists of a single Fountek Neo X 2.0. The mid frequency array consists of 2 x TC9FD18 full range drivers. The low frequency array consists of 4 x RS150T woofers.
The design utilizes the Denovo knock down tower speaker cabinet, but requires the speaker to be lifted off the floor to place the tweeter at ear level. Thus the “Flying” towers. It also requires building an enclosure inside to separate the mids from the woofers. The nice thing is that the internal enclosure is completely hidden, so it doesn't have to be made to look nice. The braces also need modification, but all 3 can still be used. All the externals come from the Denovo cabinet and are precision cut.
Being a “nested” array and using “flying” towers led me to name this after a bird. I decided on the Skylark because BT made a song called Skylarking, and skylarks supposedly have a melodious song.
This design is intended to be used with a subwoofer (or multiple subwoofers) to fill in the bass below 80 Hz or so. It uses a sealed alignment for easy subwoofer integration. I see this as the ideal way of dealing with bass frequencies in home audio.
All the drivers used are good value, low distortion drivers, and the result is a 6 ohm speaker (in my estimation) with about 89 or 90 dB sensitivity and full baffle step compensation that should be able to play quite loud. The total cost for a pair is about $750, due in part to the complicated crossover required to achieve the target slopes that produce the consistent vertical response across frequency.
This is a relatively inexpensive and simplified version of this nested array concept, so some compromises were made. For reference, my previous build was a 4 way with 15 drivers in each one, standing over 5 feet tall. Still, this one is generally effective at achieving the design goals.
Compared to other arrays, there are many benefits to the nested array concept:
No comb filtering.
No EQ required (some arrays require a 3 dB per octave EQ).
No DSP to insert delays on some drivers (required by many straight arrays.)
No curved baffles to build.
You just plug them into a single amplifier channel and they work like any regular speaker.
This build represents a very simple, inexpensive way to try an array concept with very little down side (unless you like vertical reflections).
At the moment I only have 1 so I can't comment too much on the sound. (I'd be somewhat reluctant to do so anyway since everyone thinks their design sounds awesome making the subjective assessment rather meaningless). I can say that the measurements are quite nice, and the sound is extremely detailed (which is the point of limiting the vertical reflections).
This has been achieved using a “nested array” approach, which nests the higher frequency arrays inside the lower frequency arrays. In this case, the high frequency array consists of a single Fountek Neo X 2.0. The mid frequency array consists of 2 x TC9FD18 full range drivers. The low frequency array consists of 4 x RS150T woofers.
The design utilizes the Denovo knock down tower speaker cabinet, but requires the speaker to be lifted off the floor to place the tweeter at ear level. Thus the “Flying” towers. It also requires building an enclosure inside to separate the mids from the woofers. The nice thing is that the internal enclosure is completely hidden, so it doesn't have to be made to look nice. The braces also need modification, but all 3 can still be used. All the externals come from the Denovo cabinet and are precision cut.
Being a “nested” array and using “flying” towers led me to name this after a bird. I decided on the Skylark because BT made a song called Skylarking, and skylarks supposedly have a melodious song.
This design is intended to be used with a subwoofer (or multiple subwoofers) to fill in the bass below 80 Hz or so. It uses a sealed alignment for easy subwoofer integration. I see this as the ideal way of dealing with bass frequencies in home audio.
All the drivers used are good value, low distortion drivers, and the result is a 6 ohm speaker (in my estimation) with about 89 or 90 dB sensitivity and full baffle step compensation that should be able to play quite loud. The total cost for a pair is about $750, due in part to the complicated crossover required to achieve the target slopes that produce the consistent vertical response across frequency.
This is a relatively inexpensive and simplified version of this nested array concept, so some compromises were made. For reference, my previous build was a 4 way with 15 drivers in each one, standing over 5 feet tall. Still, this one is generally effective at achieving the design goals.
Compared to other arrays, there are many benefits to the nested array concept:
No comb filtering.
No EQ required (some arrays require a 3 dB per octave EQ).
No DSP to insert delays on some drivers (required by many straight arrays.)
No curved baffles to build.
You just plug them into a single amplifier channel and they work like any regular speaker.
This build represents a very simple, inexpensive way to try an array concept with very little down side (unless you like vertical reflections).
At the moment I only have 1 so I can't comment too much on the sound. (I'd be somewhat reluctant to do so anyway since everyone thinks their design sounds awesome making the subjective assessment rather meaningless). I can say that the measurements are quite nice, and the sound is extremely detailed (which is the point of limiting the vertical reflections).
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