DO HST-11 Build Thread with measurements

[Electrodynamic]

And my favorite the fire extinguisher scene because you can feel the cycles increasing as she gains conciousness:

[Madaeel]

Nick you should watch Xmen:First Class. Besides TIH and WotW I don't recall that much bass in any other movie. It's low and loud. Besides EtE, and that was just that one scene, that's the only movie I turned down because of how often and loud the bass was. Plus I think the beach scene was one of the best scenes ever. Reference material from the time Magneto raises the sub.

 

Can't wait to watch Gravity. Dave said the low end is pretty good too.

[Electrodynamic]

...and now I know why War Of The Worlds is mentioned so much. Both of these screen shots are during the scene where the first of the aliens comes out of the ground in front of the church:

 

6 or 7 Hz at the bottom of the screen shot:

 

And again info down to 7 Hz:

[Ricci]

Nick the reason we often talk about movie bass versus music is because of things like WOTW's. The bass in movie's can be 10 to 15dB hotter than what can be encoded on a cd or a stereo track. The LFE channel has +10dB itself and then you have the chance of adding 5 channels or more of redirected bass on top of it. Instead of dropping off below 30Hz into pretty much nothing, like 99% of music, there will often be content down to 10-15Hz at levels much hotter than a stereo track can be. A good test is to run something like WOTW's at a level where it is really working your subs out hard and then leave the levels the same and put on one of the nastiest bass cd's you have. It'll seem like a walk in the park and not very impressive afterwards. I would not do that in reverse order or bad things may happen to your amp or drivers.

[Shredhead]

...and now I know why War Of The Worlds is mentioned so much.

Not until you hook up a signal chain with no rolloff and an amp that can really deliver on a 30A home run. Then you get to freak out properly.

[Electrodynamic]

Nick the reason we often talk about movie bass versus music is because of things like WOTW's. The bass in movie's can be 10 to 15dB hotter than what can be encoded on a cd or a stereo track. The LFE channel has +10dB itself and then you have the chance of adding 5 channels or more of redirected bass on top of it. Instead of dropping off below 30Hz into pretty much nothing, like 99% of music, there will often be content down to 10-15Hz at levels much hotter than a stereo track can be. A good test is to run something like WOTW's at a level where it is really working your subs out hard and then leave the levels the same and put on one of the nastiest bass cd's you have. It'll seem like a walk in the park and not very impressive afterwards. I would not do that in reverse order or bad things may happen to your amp or drivers.

 

 

I've been reading a lot on the forums about true LFE in certain movies (WOTW) and I actually got my HST11's to talk back to me for the first time ever when I had EQ'd the system flat to 20 Hz (only one +2 dB bump at 23 Hz) and was running DSP hotter than I should have. Needless to say the drivers were going ape-shit during that scene and the lights on the iNuke were pegged solid at choice times. I've backed down the EQ and the DSP since first installing and setting up the system. At very low volumes it's neat to run a few things hot on EQ and DSP but when you bring it up to moderate or high levels it doesn't make sense and you can easily damage something. Most of my listening has been late at night with my son two rooms away and the volume is very low so the mild EQ and aggressive DSP made sense but at normal volumes I have to cut back the EQ to less than +2 dB at 23 Hz and make sure DSP is basically off at those levels or WOTW will start causing the drivers to talk back. 

 

Not until you hook up a signal chain with no rolloff and an amp that can really deliver on a 30A home run. Then you get to freak out properly.

 

I need a bigger room first. Baby steps.  

[SME]

What does your DSP do if not EQ?  I'm a bit confused here.

[Spacebug]

Nick,  are you sure the drivers are what is causing the sound/talk back? 

I have found that the limiter of the DSP sometimes makes some noise when it is operating.

I firstly mistaken that for noise of voice coil former tapping the backplate but that did not make sense with the excursion I had going on with my previous 3000 DSP amp. 

 

Dial back the volume so you are just below limiter/clip lights during problem scenes and see if you hear the same sound, if not it can be the limiter causing the sound. 

Just a tad lower volume to keep the amp from hitting the limiter should give you virtually the same excursion as if you hit the limiter,  so if it is the drivers then you should still hear the sound... 

[Electrodynamic]

Nick,  are you sure the drivers are what is causing the sound/talk back? 

I have found that the limiter of the DSP sometimes makes some noise when it is operating.

I firstly mistaken that for noise of voice coil former tapping the backplate but that did not make sense with the excursion I had going on with my previous 3000 DSP amp. 

 

Dial back the volume so you are just below limiter/clip lights during problem scenes and see if you hear the same sound, if not it can be the limiter causing the sound. 

Just a tad lower volume to keep the amp from hitting the limiter should give you virtually the same excursion as if you hit the limiter,  so if it is the drivers then you should still hear the sound... 

 

I seriously doubt it was the DSP but I'll find out after Axpona is finished and I have time to measure. 

[Ricci]

Man I've went back and forth on going to Axpona...

[Electrodynamic]

Man I've went back and forth on going to Axpona...

 

Oddly enough it took us playing a solid 16 Hz fundamental from an organ recording early Sunday to have the heads of Expona come by our room to tell us to turn it down...three times. Of course it didn't help that I left the front door open via a door stop. Oops. 

[Infrasonic]

Oddly enough it took us playing a solid 16 Hz fundamental from an organ recording early Sunday to have the heads of Expona come by our room to tell us to turn it down...three times. Of course it didn't help that I left the front door open via a door stop. Oops. 

 

Going from sealed to resonant enhances the low end for the cheap.

 

[BeastAudio]

^^^^^^^^^^^YUP

 

Doors open in my HT is purple, closed is green, only one door open is blue. Free Bass! 

 

[Electrodynamic]

Hey, I never said that leaving the door open was only to increase the hall traffic from seeing the 24's. Leaving the door open may or may not have had some intention behind it. Oops, it INCREASED the low-end in the hallway/hall? WHAAAATTTT????  

[SME]

Nice.  I went to RMAF and noticed Hsu Research and Seaton Sound were situated right next to one another.  I had a hard time convincing myself that was a coincidence.  All the same, I don't recall people being anywhere near as uptight at RMAF as I hear they were at Axpona.

 

Some things I noticed about RMAF last year versus the year before is that room treatments were much more common and the systems were played louder, put out more bass, and sounded a lot better overall.  Is that a sign of adaptation to shifting demographics or ... did people get the hint that the best way to deal with unwanted bass from your neighbor is to cover it up with your own?

[Electrodynamic]

After going through mutliple movies I decided to get out an old'ish blu-ray movie and measure it. Below are SpecLab measurements of StarTrek released in 2009. Note these are not the digital signal but the result of my DO HST-11's during playback at a very low volume level:

 

Kirk Kicked Off: I re-played the scene just to make sure the information at 10 Hz was not a fluke, that's why you see it twice in a row.

 

 

Rising from Saturn's ring's:

 

 

After initial skydive:

 

 

Getting Red Matter:

 

[Electrodynamic]

Ok, here is your music file you sent me Paul:

 

[BeastAudio]

Is that Dark horse? I need to post the damage that one was doing to my house this past weekend  

[coolrda]

What is that? 

[Shredhead]

Hahaha, bass-pranked!

[Electrodynamic]

There is one screw that is leaking air in my enclosure (bottom screw of one woofer) but once I get that fixed I'll take a video of this song going full-tilt in my room. Maybe I can  send the wife and son out to do a few errands for an hour so I can really crank it up.

[Electrodynamic]

While there is still an air-leak on the left subwoofer that will probably require plucking both drivers and re-building them and then re-installing them using proper screws and washers so they don't twist the surrounds at the screw hole openings, I spent some time with Shredhead and did some cleaning up of the FR of the system and took screen shots of each step. 

 

First I took at FR measurement with zero EQ close-mic of one side of the DO HST-11's:

 

 

Then I took a FR measurement with zero EQ at the main listening position (MLP):

 

 

Next up was another meaurement at the MLP with one band of EQ  to take down the hump in the response. I centered the cut at 52 Hz with a -12 dB drop with a Q of 2:

 

 

Lastly I boosted 100 Hz with a Q of 2 to get the response flatter up top and added a +2 dB low shelf starting at 22 Hz and achieved this measurement at the MLP:

 

 

Technically three bands of EQ used to achieve a pretty flat response at the MLP. One big cut at 52 Hz, one big boost at 100 Hz, and a tiny shelf starting at 22 Hz. Keep in mind my room is small (11'x11' x 8' tall) so my room gain is pretty good. I did not need to add the low shelf but I personally like the extra bottom end extension and the drivers can take it with their excursion capabilities. I use a nanoAVR for EQ and an inuke6000DSP with everything set flat in the amp DSP/crossover/etc. I started out with multiple boosts and cuts (6 total IIRC) and the response was pretty flat but it had more peaks and dips than I really wished for so thanks to talking to Paul I started over from scratch and used very few EQ bands to flatten the response curve to my liking. 

 

I'll start screen-capturing scenes again and edit the posts I have already made with current caps. 

[chrapladm]

Looks quite nice to me. I am excited to also see that your using the NanoAVR. Will be purchasing one at the beginning of the year. Then I can apply Max's PEQ settings for lackluster movies and watch my single 15 bounce around. Still amazes me what your little 11's can do in your room.

[Infrasonic]

Sigh.... looks like I've got to fly all the way back to re-do all those demos. Awesome.

 

 

Very great that you improved the response so much. Too bad you hadn't been able to fix that airleak though. Hate to hear that you'll have to tear down the whole thing just to fix that. But still.... nice improvements, Nick!

[Electrodynamic]

So I took it upon myself to seal up the left side of my DO HST-11 enclosure by any means necessary which resulted in leaving the drivers in place and using the epoxy that I use to build/assemble speakers with. The way I looked at it was my last resort was going to be to pluck both 11" drivers and re-build them because I messed up and used screws that had fixed washers with rubber underneath them that twisted the foam surrounds and caused massive air leaks. Hence the following information and pictures. Note that this enclosure combo was too heavy for me to lift. Dead-lift, bicep-lift, etc. Flat-out far too heavy for myself alone so I had to improvise. I ended up using a drill case covered in a blanket to sit the enclosure on and then lift the enclosure onto an empty shallow 12" enclosure to sit the enclosure face down so I could apply epoxy around the outside edges of the driver to seal up the air leak. Below are the pictures:

 

First I turned over the enclosure and exposed the footprint:

 

Next came figuring out a way to get the 200 lb brick enclosure facing upwards which involed taking a BM mkIV out of its enclosure to be used to place the  DO HST-11 downward to avoid damage to the opposite driver:

 

 

I had to protect the finish of the enclosure so I used a towell over top of the open enclosure to not damage the finish of the DO box:

 

 

 

Finally I got the system upright to seal off the air leak using the two-part epoxy that I use to build speakers with:

 

 

I then coated every aspect of the surrounding area of the driver with the epoxy and viola! No air leaks. It's "ugly" but it works. Unless you have your head on the floor looking at the left driver you will never notice the job.