My Pit Viper Build

[joshshetter]

Going to be spending some filling and sanding the baffle to get it ready for painting. I had to put things together for a quick photo and an idea of how things are going to look upright. Sure feels good to see after all the work. I think amazon lost my bolts so I'll have to order from somewhere else, bleh.

[joshshetter]

Baffle finish came out really good. Pretty much what I was after. Just a big can of rustoleum protective enamel.

[djg]

Those look really nice.

[joshshetter]

Thank you DJG, I was really surprised with the finish and very happy. I've had many suggest I open up my shop, and I do have a custom order to make, some folded horn pa subs. I figure it's worth a shot since I'm in a good place to do it and I quit every other dumb job I've had in 6 months anyway, cannot stand working for other people. I expect theendeavor to fail but life is too short to not try.

[joshshetter]

I'm aware the room is a mess, doubles as a work shop for now. Hoping to go pick up the woofers this weekend. Gotta order more bolts.

Ain't that a pretty box?

[djg]

You need a bigger TV. Or is that your nearfield PC setup?

[joshshetter]

Yeah that's just a computer monitor for nearfield setup, some c-notes.

[DeZZar]

Nicely done. They look great. Definitely nailed the ATC SCM looks with the finish!

[joshshetter]

Got one passive xover wired, need to do the next tomorrow. Got the woofers.



Rough measurement of me holding up a mic in front of me in a small room, take it for what it is, does look good though.

[djg]

Looks great, the baffle paint job is so prominent. Are you going to do any other finish on the cabs?

[joshshetter]

I'd like to veneer them in birch then give that an oil finish. My go to has honestly been danish oil followed by amber/clear shellac, just kinda like how it makes things look, easy to repair, and I can have it in the house the same day as the application. I can't stand poly dry/cure times. Never tried lacquer.

[joshshetter]

So I'd definitely ignore the above data, woofer was miswired.

Got them into the living room where they'll sit for a long time. Gotta say wow Paul, these are something special. I'll reserve final judgement until I get them back outside and make sure everything is measuring right and the xover is built on something other than cardboard, but these are just plain impressive, the resolution from the dc130 is really surprising. Put a shelf on the HF of just -2db starting at 6k and a little roll off at the very top end as the tweeter felt a bit harsh otherwise. I think the dynamics are the biggest step up from everything else I've had, something about a speaker that can handle anything at just about any volume is something I didn't know I was missing. IMO if you have the space and can move them, they're one of the best values in DIY at this time. I think this is my fourth design from Paul and def my favorite.

Think I'll put the amigas on as rears and cnote for center tonight and watch a movie.

[joshshetter]

Here's what I got outside the other day, I live near a highway so take the results for what they are. I've run into an issue that I thought was a miswired woofer but I guess the speakers as they are just have quite a bit dip in the mid bass and it makes them sound pretty thin. EQ helps but I generally like a speaker to require as little as EQ as possible so I will approach the fix via the xover. My mid range filtering seems quite a bit different from Pauls sim. I've got an upward slope while his appears to tilt down a bit, but that could also be due to my driver being located in a different spot.




Raw driver measurements, mid range looks really great so not sure why the xover is giving me what it is.








Changing one of the midrange inductors from 1.2 to 2.2 brings back the lower mids in a way that makes me wonder if Pauls original plan is a typo? Or perhaps it was intentional to deal with the floor placement. I don't even plan to have mine on the floor so I'll be playing with the stock xover arrangement to see what I can work out. Also Vcad seems to give me that mid range dip if I don't invert the tweeter, inverting it gives me closer to real world data. If I invert it in real life I get the null, someone else might be able to chime in on that one.

[a4eaudio]

Per Paul's schematic, all drivers are wired with normal polarity. If you wire the tweeter in reverse polarity you will have a dip around 2khz. If you wire the midrange in reverse polarity you will have a dip around 2khz and 450hz. And if you wire just the woofer in reverse polarity you will have a dip around 450hz, which looks possible in your graph.

You could also sim the baffle effect of the midrange being offset vs centered in VituixCAD and see if that predicts a dip around there.

[joshshetter]

Vcad baffle sim doesn't show any sort of dip around the mid bass, and all drivers were checked for proper polarity before I took the measurements.

I'll wait until I the xover pcb's in and have everything soldered, could be miswiring in my xover but to be honest I kinda doubt it. Hopefully this isn't a case of the real world xover not really lining up with the provided sims, but I'm at least prepared to omit the passive xover all together if this is the case. I'm running them active until passive PCB's arrive and with just some simple hi and low passing they already measure much better (sound better too) but hopeful the passive will work out as I prefer the ease of use.