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Ricci's Skram Subwoofer & Files


Ricci

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20 hours ago, jay michael said:

I haven't man, sorry.  Hopefully someday the Skram will get the full testing treatment, I would think the Skhorn results should be a pretty good representation of what to expect obviously with lower output. The Skram also has larger vents so overall we would expect 2 skrams to outperform a single skhorn. At the end of the day it comes down to cabinet size. The Skrams 36x34x24 dimensions makes it a real compact 21" cabinet, I doubt any diy plan packs as much punch and deep extension in those dimensions. I can move these around on my own but they are at the very edge of what I would call manageable if its just you. If you have a dedicated crew that will help you move them into storage at 5am then perhaps look into larger cabinets

Do you have casters on the back of the cabs? My DIY 21" cabs have slots, which serve as handles inside the horn mouth and wheels on the back (on the hatch, which is almost as big as the entire rear of the cab), which makes them really easy to move around. I imagine the horn mouth of the SKRams would also server as a good handle to throw them onto their backs. I'm sure stacking 3 ain't fun. My back hurts from looking at that stack, the SKRam looks like it's at least 150lbs!

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Yes I have a pair of handles only on the hatch. Standing upright we can lift them 2 persons using the handles on the hatch as well I rounded the upper panel on the mount to serve as a carrying point on the front. I also have casters on the hatch side so the cabinet can be turned onto the wheels for easy rolling. I wouldn’t estimate the cabs are closer to 180 pounds but I haven’t weighed them to confirm. They can be stacked pretty easy with 4 people. 

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Contemplating replacing my very good 15"-loaded MicroWrecker tapped horn subs with a pair of Skrams in my home system. Currently I'm low-passing the MW's @83Hz 36dB/octave L-R, which seems to be the limit of their upper band before starting to progressively take on a specific and undesirable sonic character here. Conversely a lower cross-over to the mains yields lesser results as well, so 83Hz really is the sweet spot in my particular context.

Still, being I'm so close to the MW's hard deck I'm wondering whether another sub design with a more cleanly extended upper band, like the Skram, would clean up some of the upper bass to lower midrange range, while also making way to experiment with a slightly higher low-pass up to about 100Hz or so. At its "native" tuning with all ports open the Skram doesn't extend quite as low as the MW's, which are tuned at somewhere between 22-24Hz it seems, but blocking one or two ports of the Skram offers a ~25Hz and ~20Hz tune respectively, and so there are ways to come about a slight limitation in LF performance compared to the MW's. Being that I won't be using the Skram's anywhere near their SPL limits port noise isn't going to be an issue, even with two ports blocked - or so I gather.  

Will two Skram's be overkill in a home setting? Sure, but I think of it as "the more headroom the better," or certainly it can't make things any worse. I'm interested in sound quality and clean visceral impact at higher SPL's, and maybe the Skram's will bring something else to the table that's complementary to the overall synergy of my system. 

Any thoughts on this speculated change are welcomed.

/Mikael

IMG_0196.jpg

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18 hours ago, m_ms said:

Contemplating replacing my very good 15"-loaded MicroWrecker tapped horn subs with a pair of Skrams in my home system. Currently I'm low-passing the MW's @83Hz 36dB/octave L-R, which seems to be the limit of their upper band before starting to progressively take on a specific and undesirable sonic character here. Conversely a lower cross-over to the mains yields lesser results as well, so 83Hz really is the sweet spot in my particular context.

Still, being I'm so close to the MW's hard deck I'm wondering whether another sub design with a more cleanly extended upper band, like the Skram, would clean up some of the upper bass to lower midrange range, while also making way to experiment with a slightly higher low-pass up to about 100Hz or so. At its "native" tuning with all ports open the Skram doesn't extend quite as low as the MW's, which are tuned at somewhere between 22-24Hz it seems, but blocking one or two ports of the Skram offers a ~25Hz and ~20Hz tune respectively, and so there are ways to come about a slight limitation in LF performance compared to the MW's. Being that I won't be using the Skram's anywhere near their SPL limits port noise isn't going to be an issue, even with two ports blocked - or so I gather.  

Will two Skram's be overkill in a home setting? Sure, but I think of it as "the more headroom the better," or certainly it can't make things any worse. I'm interested in sound quality and clean visceral impact at higher SPL's, and maybe the Skram's will bring something else to the table that's complementary to the overall synergy of my system. 

Any thoughts on this speculated change are welcomed.

/Mikael

IMG_0196.jpg

I have a fairly small listening room at home as well and at one point I had a pair of skram's with sm60f set up. They were pretty exciting for certain types of music, live music recordings in particular were really incredible. I wouldn't have kept them in there though, they were simply too brutish and over excited the room even at lower volumes. If you do try this I would recommend using a different driver than the 21sw152. I think somewhere in this thread someone made some listening impression comments on various drivers and the 21sw152 was characterized as darker sounding compared to some lighter cone options. The 21sw152 is still one of the top drivers for war volume applications, but I think there would be better options for low volume listening. 

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5 hours ago, jay michael said:

I have a fairly small listening room at home as well and at one point I had a pair of skram's with sm60f set up. They were pretty exciting for certain types of music, live music recordings in particular were really incredible. I wouldn't have kept them in there though, they were simply too brutish and over excited the room even at lower volumes. If you do try this I would recommend using a different driver than the 21sw152. I think somewhere in this thread someone made some listening impression comments on various drivers and the 21sw152 was characterized as darker sounding compared to some lighter cone options. The 21sw152 is still one of the top drivers for war volume applications, but I think there would be better options for low volume listening. 

Thanks for your reply and recommendation! Very interesting info on the claimed "brutish" and "darker sounding" nature of the Skram's with the B&C 21SW152. I have for a while circled that specific driver simply because I find it to be a mean beast from all I've read, not least as reported in the Othorn. More realistically though I'm considering the Lavoce SAN214.50 and B&C 21DS115 drivers with the Skram's (4 ohm versions, which seems to be recommended over the 8 ohm ditto?), because they're also recommended as well as being cheaper options (certainly the Lavoce). Whether that would fundamentally change the possible fact that the Skram's may be too of much of a brute beast in a "HiFi" setup, I don't know. Looking at the picture of my system above though you may have guessed that I'm not the regular "audiophile" dude, and the MW tapped horn subs I have are no non-brutish slouches either.

To bring a little perspective: from what I can tell the Othorn tapped horn sub is very much fitting in a domestic environment due to its (again, reported) clean, "hifi-ish" and relaxed/effortless bass reproduction. It can likely rain hell when cranked, but that's only commendable 😁 More to the point: most everything in me indicates that the Othorn would be more than doable in my own system context, so I guess the question could be posed how the Skram fares by comparison, but you've already gotten into that earlier in this thread where I was almost under the impression the Skram's were equally "civil" sounding, if somewhat more lively in the mid-bass area - which may be what gives it its "brutish" imprinting. Just Guessing. 

5 hours ago, jay michael said:

Sound quality wise, I'd take skrams over double 18's all day every day.

Very interesting to read as well. Could you elaborate on the differences in presentation? Two friends of mine are using a pair of Electro-Voice TL880D subs in their respective setups, and they're ported dual 18" designs that I know intricately. I've never quite warmed to them, which is also the reason I went in a different direction with the MW's. Fitting the Skram's with the proper driver for domestic use would seem a viable option..

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Being a dual SKRAM owner and using the B&C 21SW152 for the last 1.5 years in this setup, I agree with Jay's description of how they sound.

They are simply too brutish and over excited the room even at lower volumes. - This is in my 2 car garage/workshop. 

14 hours ago, jay michael said:

The 21sw152 is still one of the top drivers for war volume applications, but I think there would be better options for low volume listening. 

They are War Machines, these things kick ass and people take notice immediately. When paired with the right tops, like the Danleys or Meyers in my case, you're going to rock the house.

 

If I was to build a system for in my house, I'd go with the BC 18SW152 in a dual setup or something much much lighter. The 21's are just too much and there sound doesn't really fit properly in a small space. (Coming from a Strictly Bass Head Opinion and not a home theater guy opinion...yet)

edna2.thumb.jpg.0d25b03283599ba651f844a6b8494e9a.jpgTops usually are not pointed so far down, was in backyard

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Well said tahoe, the overbuilt heavy and robust 21sw152 is meant for high power mayhem, at low volumes I wouldn’t consider it delicate and nuanced. I’m currently using a direct radiating reflex in my living room using a light weight high sensitivity driver and it’s much better suited for the size of the room. Even at low to moderate levels the Skrams were knocking plaster off the roof of my living room, the design is just not meant for home use in my opinion. Perhaps a lighter duty more efficient driver in the skram could work really well in your situation but I don’t have the experience to back that up. 
 

where is this war machine truck of yours Tahoe? We should meet up and let our Skrams have a play date haha 

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33 minutes ago, jay michael said:

where is this war machine truck of yours Tahoe? We should meet up and let our Skrams have a play date haha 

I am in North Lake Tahoe, Truck is stored and worked on in Truckee. We rollout to the Black Rock Desert or a couple spots in the woods. You are in Canada?

Would love to combine forces!

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Hahaha. Use the volume control fellas. I say go for it and run 2 in the house. Plug a vent or two for deeper tuning since you will not be using all of the headroom. May as well go for lower extension. I would pick these over the Othorn.

Yes if you let a pair rip in your home it will be a bit much. 

What I often find is this type of sub sounds clean at volumes most others don't, so you end up turning them up higher than usual because it just sounds good/effortless/fun compared to a typical home sub. This gets out of hand quickly in a small enclosed room. 

I tend to like going way overkill and use <50% because it ends up sounding so clean. Plus if I ever want to get stupid it's there on tap. 

Disagree a bit on the 21SW152 or other big pro drivers not being able to do nuance.

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Thanks for your replies, @jay michael and @Tahoejmfc :) Seems like words of (general) caution from the both of you on using the Skram's in a home setup, and I appreciate the well-intended advice here. Still, I'm inclined and quite tempted to go ahead with this one way of the other (i.e.: the driver being the variable). 

1 hour ago, Ricci said:

Hahaha. Use the volume control fellas. I say go for it and run 2 in the house. Plug a vent or two for deeper tuning since you will not be using all of the headroom. May as well go for lower extension. I would pick these over the Othorn.

Thanks for chiming in, Josh :) This would be my intention as well, plugging a vent or two on the both of them and then see how that fares. I take it a hard cut-into-shape foam compound would do the trick rather than having to block the vents with wood pieces?  I like that I'd be able to tweak the tune of these and what fits most properly my specific needs. 

1 hour ago, Ricci said:

Yes if you let a pair rip in your home it will be a bit much. 

They're no doubt vicious when let loose in a moderately sized living room. I don't intend to though (at least no regularly 😁); less or no more than ~110-115dB's at the LP will mostly do. 

1 hour ago, Ricci said:

What I often find is this type of sub sounds clean at volumes most others don't, so you end up turning them up higher than usual because it just sounds good/effortless/fun compared to a typical home sub. This gets out of hand quickly in a small enclosed room. 

I tend to like going way overkill and use <50% because it ends up sounding so clean. Plus if I ever want to get stupid it's there on tap. 

That's exactly what I'm going after. 

1 hour ago, Ricci said:

Disagree a bit on the 21SW152 or other big pro drivers not being able to do nuance.

I'd be surprised if they wouldn't be able to either, but that's only based on the feedback I've heard from others. Seems I won't be disregarding the 21SW152's after all if were to find them at a fair price!

The only real hold-back right now is the crazy sky rocketing of prices for plywood (I'd have these built in 13-ply Baltic birch, just like my MW's). The prices do appear to have reached their upper limit by now, so we'll see how it develops from here.  

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I just finished A/B'ing a Skram with a LaVoce and the Eminence. There is a slight difference in the sound quality to my ears but it could be just as much a placement issue as timbre. I didn't keep track of the cabinet placement when I swapped out drivers. That's how slight the difference is to me. I say go for it with the cheaper drivers.

I also picked up some more plywood from my supplier (Nashville Plywood) yesterday. Supply is back on track and prices are down slightly. They were of the opinion that eventually the price will come down almost to where it was before all the crazy started.

I like your setup. I just finished my version of a 4 12" driver MEH and I find myself just sitting in my shop listening. Going 2 way from the Skram to the MEHs. 

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18 hours ago, m_ms said:

That's exactly what I'm going after. 

I'd be surprised if they wouldn't be able to either, but that's only based on the feedback I've heard from others. Seems I won't be disregarding the 21SW152's after all if were to find them at a fair price!

The only real hold-back right now is the crazy sky rocketing of prices for plywood (I'd have these built in 13-ply Baltic birch, just like my MW's). The prices do appear to have reached their upper limit by now, so we'll see how it develops from here.  

Should work out well then. 

Yes foam is perfectly fine. Cut to shape but oversized and stuff it in there. Yes it will be a tiny bit lossy. It doesn't matter. No need for wood blockers unless the foam makes your OCD trigger.

My top pick for these is still the NSW6021-6 Eminence, but the Lavoce should do fine. The Eminence gives some advantages in response smoothness, ultimate headroom, distortion and compression performance but at increased cost. Unless you run them hard enough to start straining the Lavoce or 21SW152-4 driver most of that will not come into play though. In a home? Not so sure the extra guts are necessary. 

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9 hours ago, Rivilee said:

I just finished A/B'ing a Skram with a LaVoce and the Eminence. There is a slight difference in the sound quality to my ears but it could be just as much a placement issue as timbre. I didn't keep track of the cabinet placement when I swapped out drivers. That's how slight the difference is to me. I say go for it with the cheaper drivers.

I also picked up some more plywood from my supplier (Nashville Plywood) yesterday. Supply is back on track and prices are down slightly. They were of the opinion that eventually the price will come down almost to where it was before all the crazy started.

I like your setup. I just finished my version of a 4 12" driver MEH and I find myself just sitting in my shop listening. Going 2 way from the Skram to the MEHs. 

Nice setup. Do you have a link to the MEH build? 

I'm not surprised at the listening impression. The response differences aren't that big and unless pushed to the point that the Lavoce is starting to run out of gas the performance advantages of the Eminence won't come into play. That's going to be quite deep into the volume knob when that would happen. Really only comes into play if you need another clean 3dB out of the cab. 

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15 hours ago, Rivilee said:

I just finished A/B'ing a Skram with a LaVoce and the Eminence. There is a slight difference in the sound quality to my ears but it could be just as much a placement issue as timbre. I didn't keep track of the cabinet placement when I swapped out drivers. That's how slight the difference is to me. I say go for it with the cheaper drivers.

I also picked up some more plywood from my supplier (Nashville Plywood) yesterday. Supply is back on track and prices are down slightly. They were of the opinion that eventually the price will come down almost to where it was before all the crazy started.

I like your setup. I just finished my version of a 4 12" driver MEH and I find myself just sitting in my shop listening. Going 2 way from the Skram to the MEHs. 

Thanks for your findings on the driver comparison via the Skram - duly noted. 

MEH's - like, something of a synergy horn?

5 hours ago, Ricci said:

Should work out well then. 

Yes foam is perfectly fine. Cut to shape but oversized and stuff it in there. Yes it will be a tiny bit lossy. It doesn't matter. No need for wood blockers unless the foam makes your OCD trigger.

My top pick for these is still the NSW6021-6 Eminence, but the Lavoce should do fine. The Eminence gives some advantages in response smoothness, ultimate headroom, distortion and compression performance but at increased cost. Unless you run them hard enough to start straining the Lavoce or 21SW152-4 driver most of that will not come into play though. In a home? Not so sure the extra guts are necessary. 

That Eminence driver, even more powerful than the 21SW152-4? That's crazy. It sure is expensive, though - almost twice the price of the Lavoce where I live. Don't really see how I could justify that in a home setting never getting close to full tilt war volume these beasts are capable of. It's not that the Lavoce is a slouch itself by any stretch of the imagination. 

From what I can assess the Lavoce is only available in an 8 ohm version. What makes a 4 ohm ditto desirable here, if it even is? There's the B&C 21DS115-4 as well, but going by your driver tests the Lavoce fully appears to be its equal, and with distortion numbers being at least as good, it seems.  

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Yes, a synergy type horn or for patent sake, a unity horn. I don't have a link to it because I didn't bother to make a build thread. It's my own mix of ideas based on Art Welter's SynTripP, B. Waslo's spreadsheet and the input of Chris A. on the Klipsch forum.

I've built two cabs with 12" drivers and finishing up two more cabs with 10" drivers. I didn't port any of them. It seemed to me that 4 drivers would have enough clean output with moderate EQ without having to deal with ports. I'm very happy with the results. I'm using the Eminence TexTreme CD crossed around 850hz. It's certainly usable a little lower but to my ears it's a little less "honky" at high output.IMG_20211118_223239.thumb.jpg.03c4180ac454f278d4a99e9b6c3e3ff4.jpg

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8 hours ago, Rivilee said:

Yes, a synergy type horn or for patent sake, a unity horn. I don't have a link to it because I didn't bother to make a build thread. It's my own mix of ideas based on Art Welter's SynTripP, B. Waslo's spreadsheet and the input of Chris A. on the Klipsch forum.

I've built two cabs with 12" drivers and finishing up two more cabs with 10" drivers.

What Tens and twelves did you use?

 

I was looking at using 10's in my future build.

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Since there are so many drivers out of stock or prices getting out of hand the choices were pretty slim. And as a musician who's on the autistic spectrum working with HornResp, REW and OmniMic sets off the glazed eyes/drool factor pretty quickly. All that to say I have no idea if these are the best drivers but they sound good to me and seem to model okay.

Cheap. GRS 12PT-8 12" and FaitalPro 10FE200 10" from Parts Express. Of course I'm in the states so no idea what's available down under. Somewhere I read that cheaper drivers are okay because of the horn loading.

I think that 10" drivers are a good "sweet spot". They snug up to the CD well for slot placement above/around 1khz, slot size is reasonable for 10:1 compression and LF is more than adequate. (Sorry for the non-engineering terminology)

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On 11/17/2021 at 4:04 PM, m_ms said:

Thanks for your replies, @jay michael and @Tahoejmfc :) Seems like words of (general) caution from the both of you on using the Skram's in a home setup

I caution it as well, experiencing 2 skrams will make you want to have 4 :). 

But I'm a degenerate with 2 skrams, 8 sealed stereo integrity 18s and 8 sealed pa460 18s blended in one room. 

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I was looking at building 2 skrams and 2 submaximus builds. I have a collection of 4 21SW152's and was going to order another pair of 21's depending on what I am lacking. I originally thought four Skrams would be enough for anything but wondered about 5-20hz. Nothing settled yet but my only other option outside of BC 21's are a pair of Harbottle 24's or a bunch of Sundown 18U's.

 

@klipsch Do your pair of Skrams keep up with the sealed 18's?

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4 hours ago, chrapladm said:

Do your pair of Skrams keep up with the sealed 18's?

When the skrams and 8 HT18s were "dsp'd" for split duty, the skrams easily kept up. There is probably a significant amount of reasoning for that based on the power the drivers can handle/are being fed - 8 HT18s VS 2 Nsw6021s. 

All overlap at this point with the majority of the skrams and sealed pa460s duty being nearly identical around 30-100hz - HT18s are around 0-40hz. Been a long while since I've touched the DSP so can't remember the exact frequency bands or HP / LP filters used. 

I wanted to feel the music like I was there- even at lower volumes (~70 dB A weighted). For my room, more driver "cone area" was a way to get that. 

If I were to start from scratch, I would probably only do skrams and sealed pa460s only. 

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And I just moved and only have headphones at the moment 😖

I'm just gonna say that I believe that most, if not all difference in tonality between different drivers or these subs vs 'normal' subs in a home setting is due to a lack of EQ/calibration. I've been using the SKHorn in my HT for over a year and calibrated to the same response I could hardly hear any difference to the 12" Klipsch sub I had at lower volumes. The SKHorn integrated into my HT just like any other sub. Electrically. Not physically...
These type of cabs often have a significant bump somewhere between 100 and 200Hz, which means your acoustic crossover will be higher than expected (unless they're on a dsp), which probably is what you're describing as 'Brute-ish' or 'dark'.

Thanks to rona I have 4 unused 21ds115's in my basement right now. It makes me sad not letting them loose from time to time. Maybe I can fit a DO 15TBX100 sub into my new room, but maybe I won't even need it with 4x8" woofers from the mains I will be setting up soon. Okay, who am I kidding, of course I will need more woofage.

@jay michaelI had to mount 4 braked wheels to my cabs. If I don't engage the brakes after they're set up, the wheels will rattle, but it's a downfiring design. How are yours behaving?

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On 11/21/2021 at 4:24 AM, chrapladm said:

I was looking at building 2 skrams and 2 submaximus builds. I have a collection of 4 21SW152's and was going to order another pair of 21's depending on what I am lacking. I originally thought four Skrams would be enough for anything but wondered about 5-20hz. Nothing settled yet but my only other option outside of BC 21's are a pair of Harbottle 24's or a bunch of Sundown 18U's.

 

@klipsch Do your pair of Skrams keep up with the sealed 18's?

Well if you use the single vent open mode the tuning is around 15Hz if I recall. With 4 of them in a home with room gain below 30Hz, I'd expect strong output to 12 or 13Hz. You should have firepower to spare to use the lowest tuning. You would never do this in an outdoor PA type setting but in a home I'd likely run with only 1 or 2 vents open myself. As usual experimentation is key. YMMV. 

Chasing much below 15Hz is best handled by sealed/IB/shakers IMHO.

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Had a pretty good outing this past weekend with our 4 Skrams and 2 Keystone subs for a 400 person event!  Skrams are running off a Linea research 44m20.  Tops are a pair of PM90 mid-highs which we just completed and powered by custom Hypex amps with a Linea Research ASC48 for sound processing .  Was extremely limited on speaker placement because of the low tents and would have liked to run the Skrams on their sides or separated them slightly to spread out the coverage.  Once we retire the keystones I think we may need to build another 2-4 Skrams to keep up with the Midhighs for bass heavy music but really impressed with the output overall!  Got a lot of good feedback regarding the sound and people really appreciate the change from the usual PK cx800 double 18 subs that have over-saturated the market on the BC west coast.1164805681_SkramKeystones.thumb.jpg.3bc95a6477f3575bc1b1189754c16e00.jpg

 

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