jay michael

6 hours ago, SME said:

I don't know how big your events are, but I imagine you are running with quite a bit of headroom there?  I mean, those Danleys get pretty loud, and you say they match well with the 6 Skrams in your usage?

I hope some day I get to meet you, to see/hear your setup, and maybe even get to try out my "alien technology" in your signal chain. 

I was running about 20% down from where the start of the limiters would engage during the headliner slot, so yeah lots of headroom remaining. I feel like I’ve had some breakthroughs this summer with tuning, I can get things sounding real full and impactful without it ever feeling tiring or abrasive, it’s a real pleasure to listen to. Open invite dude, I’m a big fan of alien technology, let’s set up a play date

another clip recorded from the mezzanine upstairs, notice the bass warping the video recording…. Some serious pressure going down

https://youtu.be/_Y7Y0FqIJfw

2 hours ago, Ricci said:

Jay how many of these do you have built now? 8?

This is the whole rig for now, I don’t think I’ll be adding anything more until we see what the future looks like…. Fucking covid. It’s perfectly balanced as is, I’d need more danley’s to keep up to more Skrams so the next leap would be expensive Haha.

first time running it in a block like this, we melted some faces off, bass for days holy shit

 https://youtu.be/Bp4opVAjbZ4

The tower of DOOM

On 8/12/2021 at 2:28 PM, Ricci said:

Yeah it's heading back toward lockdown quickly here. I've already had a tour (performing not doing sound) canceled and a few spot dates with other bands that are likely to be canceled. Tour was billed right when things opened back up and reversed direction almost immediately. I've got a lot of friends who work as stage hands, or sound engineers and it's been devastating for them. It's a tough time to be a performing artist, bar or sound provider. Hell any type of person who makes a living from public gatherings. 

Its really terrible. I have many friends in the industry, music, dance, movies etc that have been hit terribly hard by this. A little bit of work opened up during the summer but I suspect when the snow comes up here shits going to get dismal again. I'm starting in person classroom instruction at the College in a few weeks, can't say I'm looking forward to it. 

4 hours ago, h3idrun said:

JM living the dream ❤️

Cant wait to get mine back outside again, we are back to crazy restrictions in relation to entertainment events thanks to another covid outbreak, got 3 more parties booked this year but they keep getting pushed back until restrictions ease.

On the plus side i should finally have a chance to build my 4th soon and do some comparisons with the Dayton 18s I bought

Sorry to hear that. We were lucky enough to sneak a couple small outings like this during the summer…. But cases are getting bad here again so I wouldn’t be surprised if we get some restrictions again soon. Hope things get better for you soon 

A little to ad to this. When you start playing with different delay values you may find a couple that gives good additive summation, maybe even 1 or 2 with positive polarity and others with polarity inverted. What I've been doing is taking screen shots of each and at the end looking at each screen shot and seeing which one has the best or smoothest frequency response as well as the best phase traces that line up both at the crossover frequency and as far away above and below the crossover frequency. You really want to keep an eye out for null ripples forming above and below the crossover point. There should be 1 particular delay value that has the best combination of additive summation and alignment of the phase lines below and above the crossover point, that point should be your ideal place to set the system. Note: It may be worth trying a handful of crossover points as well, saving screen shots of all of the different delay values as each crossover point may give slightly different results. 

2 hours ago, Ricci said:

Hell yeah JM...That should make some NOISE and sound great doing it. 

Mad respect to you Josh for sharing your brain power with us, lots of happy campers on this weekend

We spent all day Thursday really scrutinizing the tuning of the system before the crowds arrived. I built presets in my Venu360 with all the appropriate peq setting for both the Danleys and Skrams with proper measured delay profiles at 75/85/90/95/100/105 and 110hz crossover points. With a handful reference tracks in dubstep, Reggae, house, techno and psytrance, a few of us a/b'd all the various crossover points with those tracks and came to some conclusions. For the most flexible crossover point that sounded the best over all the genres of music we preferred the 95hz crossover point. The only genre we felt suffered a bit at that higher point was the dubstep tracks, they sounded a bit cleaner around 75 to 80hz. Anything kick drum driven seemed to benefit from letting the skrams play a bit higher. It still blows me away every time I hear them how tight and punchy these subs are, not typically what one would expect out of a big 21" driver. I would also say the 5 skram's are pretty close to keeping up with the pair of Sh-46's, with the sub amps wide open we had the Danley low amps around 95% and the high amps around 90%. Once we get the 6th Skram loaded the system should be pretty much perfectly balanced power wise.  If we add more Skram's some day we will probably have to add another pair of tops as well. 

Here is a few more short phone recorded clips, they seem to give a good feel for the impact and punch of the system,  but the really low deep sub stuff seems to not come across as good as it sounded in person, Iphones must compress the recording a bit or something. With some headphones these vids sound pretty good though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtuebCpml1Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tU3YXh4J4s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knf6HSPEypY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxxExGbyfSA

Hey everyone. I'm going to first off admit that I am not an expert REW user. I've drudged around the internet for a few years trying to find a reliable procedure for executing a proper phase alignment between tops and subs without spending money on something like Smaart. There have been some tools added to REW recently to assist in this, but I've never come across a proper explanation or tutorial on how to do it. Piecing together some bits and pieces i've found from a few different sources I think I may have it somewhat figured it out. Warning, I filmed this after a LONG hot day and was pretty burnt out. You'll notice I miss-spoke a few times towards the end using the wrong descriptors for what I was trying to say. Otherwise It should be easy enough to follow what I was doing. I've since used this procedure a few more times setting up my system in different configurations and I've been getting repeatable results that seem to make sense and sound really good. Perhaps this is old news to some of you but I thought I would share it to see if you might find it useful, or absolutely shoot holes in it if you think its out to lunch. End goal is I want a repeatable process that I can rely on, and maybe do a proper tutorial down the road to help others out.  It seems like its one of those mystery processes that people ask a lot about. Let me know what you think, good or bad. 

On 8/7/2021 at 4:57 AM, chrapladm said:

What was your setup? in the video audio wise?

Sorry, not very descriptive in my post lol. We had 5 Skram's out under my Danley Sh-46 for 3 days this weekend, sadly I have a driver stuck in customs so the 6th Skram stayed at home.  First time feeling like I had abundant power and amplification to really see what everything could do, used 3x CVR 3002 on subs, 1 skram per channel and 2x Crest Prolite 7.5 bi-amping the Danley's. Really happy how everything's come together, ran flawless all weekend and sounded fantastic with tons of headroom.  

Very happy to have the Skrams outdoors again, always makes me smile hearing that clean tight bass 

https://youtu.be/bNxhrqLsKME

6 hours ago, chrapladm said:

Is this total stack under 10ft?

 

Trying to figure out what sort of combo I am going to attempt for myself. Divorce is about finished and I will finally be able to build some speakers finally.

Its under 10 feet. I'm 6 foot, so in total the stack is about 9'ish I would say 

Blowing out the cobwebs today 

On 3/15/2021 at 6:41 PM, maglito said:

Jay I ran through your videos, thanks for posting those!

Did I miss where you address the noise floor on the CVR (perhaps, I skipped around)?  I know earlier in this thread there was discussion as to how dead quiet the NC500 Hypex modules are, I can confirm, I have two  NC500 monoblocs in my living room on a pair of Martin Logan electrostats, dead quiet.  I'm still working on a NC502MP module amp enclosure install I have here (I need a hand to finish it).

If I buy a CVR 3002, will I hear any hiss or buzz in my speakers?

Thanks!

Sorry I didn't specifically take not of that, but I am going to play around with them again tomorrow so Ill try to get a sense for you. The fan's are quite noisy, to use in a theatre or listening room you would have to look at fan mods for sure. 

1 hour ago, bee_dub said:

Sure, thanks.. weight is the main consideration, so I would definitely not use MDF. 

When you say it's like a musical instrument though, instruments like a cello for instance are made to resonate, whereas here we're aiming to prevent it, yes?  

Also, if one theoretically was to attempt a lighter weight version, would it be possible to include some extra bracing, or would this interfere with the properties of the design?

Yeah its more like the opposite in this case. If the box resonates a lot, it will add its own sounds to musical output, which is not ideal.  There are box designs out there that use thinner wood and extra bracing, so to an extent perhaps you could get away with it up to a point. If you are planning to use the recommended driver at the maximum powers the box will have a lot of energy in it, so good bracing is really important

5 hours ago, bee_dub said:

While I'm at it, what are the important considerations for the type of plywood?  Is it just stiffness?  I used some lightweight plywood a little while ago, and from memory it was something like 40% lighter than the usual stuff.  The seller claimed it was as strong as a standard type of plywood, but I don't know by what metric.

I don't know if this is a foolish aim, but I'd love to be able to throw one of these around by myself if necessary..

I wouldn't go for a lightweight plywood like that for a design like this. Think of the cabinet like a musical instrument, the stiffness and density of the cabinet will contribute to the sound in many ways. If the cabinet can vibrate and resonate with the driver movement it will color the sound coming from it and you may not be happy with the outcome. If you can't do baltic birch you could get away with mdf as it quite solid and dense, its pretty heavy though. 

Added a follow up video to my previous comparison between the K-10 and CVR 3002. More subs, higher power and load.

33 minutes ago, Ricci said:

Ok. I had a look in HR. It had been awhile. 

I'd recommend a 3rd order BW at 24Hz or a 4th order LR HPF at 21Hz. This is for operation with all vents open. 

4th order LPF adjusted to taste for blending with the mains. Somewhere between 50-120Hz. 70-100Hz is probably what would work for most. 

The response looks quite good with just the high and low pass added. 

This is the response with the 21SW152-4. Most of the other recommended drivers are going to be close to this as well. 

 

If you want to take it a bit further You can add a single band of PEQ at about 195Hz to beat down the first out of band response spike. This would be best if measured and tweaked accordingly but as a start these specs are probably close enough for gov't work. 

 

This would be the final with the HP, LP and single band of cut EQ up top. 

This is amazing, thanks Josh. Looks like I can open mine up to go a bit lower than what I had been doing previously. Thank you!

10 minutes ago, Ricci said:

I'm pretty sure I posted some rough starting filters somewhere in this thread. I'll have to try and find them. 

No stress, I can dig through it again. I did play around again a bit over the last week and I think to my ears at least I still like 100 to 110 hz crossover for most music styles. If I drop it down to 80-90 I think it sounds a bit better for stricktly bass music, but for house and techno, rock etc I prefer it a bit higher. Then again its harder hearing it proper indoors. Depending on our pandemic situation when summer rolls around I'm pretty keen on heading out to crown land for a number of days just to work on tuning.

18 hours ago, peniku8 said:

I'd love to test this amp with my loadbank. I'd also love to test if it'll explode being driven at max after a while like my Sanway did.

Yeah someone really needs to do some proper bench testing for sure. I guess they beefed up this model already, the 3302 has more power apparently

5 hours ago, chrapladm said:

So where can you find these CVR 3002 amps?

https://www.facebook.com/CVRAUDIO

On 12/10/2020 at 9:24 PM, h3idrun said:

Any updates on this? 

From what I've read over the last couple of days you seem to be heading in a similar path to me but a few years ahead. 

I currently have 2x Skram and 4x Martin W3 and throwing ~100 person parties in the Australian bush, but hope to build up a similar system and party size to yours in the next couple of years (it's been pushed back a bit now due to covid obviously)

My amps are a miss match of JBL, QSC and EV which works fine for a 3 way system now but il need to add more with extra subs in the near future

added some info in the Luke's amplifier test thread

On 1/2/2021 at 12:40 AM, SME said:

Thanks for doing this!  Those CVR amps definitely look attractive from a value perspective.  It's nice to know your doesn't run like a furnace.  Amps typically sound very similar when operating within their performance capabilities.  However, differences are still possible for a few reasons:

Amps typically use a high-pass filter to protect them and/or the speaker(s) from inaudible DC signals, and they vary a lot with regard to where the HPF kicks in.  However, most amps don't start rolling off until 20 Hz if not much lower.  This is something that should show up in the REW measurements if there's much difference.  I certainly don't see it here.

Another reason is low pass filtering used specifically with Class D amps, which together with speaker characteristics (response and impedance both) affect how treble frequencies are reproduced.  Such differences could not only impact how the treble sounds but could also alter perception of the bass including the bottom end.  However, this only comes into play when the amps are being used to play treble and not if the amps are only used for lows and/or subs.

I believe these are the most audibly significant reasons.  There will always be unusual amps that were either designed with a "house sound" or screwed up in the design process somewhere.  However, I believe this is more common in the audiophile world than with pro stuff which is pretty much designed to sound neutral, excepting the necessary filters discussed above.

Of course, all bets are off once you start pushing the amp(s) close to their limits, which for some amps needn't necessarily involve a lot of power output if working with very low frequencies.  That's part of the original reason for this thread.  Many amps can measure and perform great at quiet levels and can meet their published power handling specs at "1 kHz", but if you try a strong 20 Hz tone, they might not put out anywhere near their rated capability and may even malfunction.  High power amps are most likely to be used to drive subwoofers, so understanding their output capability with heavy low frequencies is very helpful.

On another note, have you thought about trying to improve the acoustics of that room?  Or do you not use it for sound normally?

Thanks SME. I'm just editing a follow up to the previous video. This time I was able to run the cvr up to 48 volts driving 4x 21sw152 at a 2 ohm load. No appreciable difference between it and the k10. I have no illusions that the cvr can hang with the k10 all the way to max power, but it can drive 4 21's on a 2 ohm load to pretty fun levels very well. Ill post the vid when its ready

20 minutes ago, klipsch said:

Thank you for sharing. Hadn't heard of this brand before. Any thoughts on sinbosen compared to these CVR (if you happen to have experience with sinbosen)? 

I have no experience with the sinbosen sorry. 

Hey guys. While not as rigorous as the excellent testing in this thread I put together a little vid doing some light testing and listening comparisons between the chinese CVR branded 3002 amplifier up against a Powersoft K-10. Might be a good option for people looking for some decent performance at a good price point. Maybe you will find it interesting. Ill have this set up for a couple more days so if you're quick and send me a request for ideas for further testing I can try to accommodate 

Hey Josh. Curious if you would be willing to make a recommendation for high and low pass filters with recommended slopes your Skram design. It’s been a while since I’ve had mine out with the pandemic and all, but I’m planning a day at our studio tomorrow to get everything plugged in and spend some timing tuning and tweaking. Planning to get the measurement mic out and spend some time dialing in the system so I don’t get rusty haha. I’ve been happy with the setting I’ve been running which I don’t remember off hand but I’ve got some different amps on hand so willing to try some new things. Another goal for tomorrow is to try and get some comparison data between the Cvr 3002’s and the powersoft k-10.