advertisement


It's time for the Ergo IIIR

I bought all the drivers from Madison Sounds and they have been lying dormant in the roofspace for 16 years!
 
Well if you do, I can talk you through the setup, assuming you go with a MiniDSP type set up. I'll even give you a PFM discount on A mini DSP unit if I'm feeling in a good mood that day

I think you should at least live with the passive setup for a while, if not least because the passivecpassive components aren't cheap!


Thanks Stefan, I definitely want to give it some time to settle in and enjoy what I have first. Thanks for the offer to help though, will definitely get in touch as and when I want to move in that direction.
 
If anyone is interested I did keep a close eye on the costs and the parts to build these speakers. Bear in mind virtually all the purchasing was done several years ago and the mid range drivers are unobtainium now the totals were as follows for a pair.

Cabinet construction inc finishing, leather and spikes - £506
Crossover components - £234
Drivers - £828

Total - £1568

You don't want to know what the labour costs would be with me hand making these but if I was making these commercially I would be using a £10k CNC router and a industrial veneering machine but even then these would be an expensive pair of speakers.
 
Dare I ask how they’re sounding, Gareth?


Outstanding thanks Paul. The change to the lounge layout has made a huge difference and they are starting to sing. The bass is deepening and on some movies they shake the room like a sub would.

I have been playing with phono stages and trying to get my record player tuned up and a few favourites have been rocking the joint. Unfortunately I have a little problem with my B4 pre with the selector playing up so the focus is on that next.
 
Excellent, I’m glad they’re performing!

If you fancy a DIY phono stage you could give the Paradise a go. It’s not cheap and there’s quite a lot of work in transistor selection and build but it’s easily worth the effort.

I’ve very recently replaced my Starfish with a new build of my own design. Well, tbh the control circuits are based on a design from DIyAudio and the audio utilises a couple of Neurochrome buffer boards. I’ve not quite perfected it yet but I’ll post up some details here when I have.
 
Excellent, I’m glad they’re performing!

If you fancy a DIY phono stage you could give the Paradise a go. It’s not cheap and there’s quite a lot of work in transistor selection and build but it’s easily worth the effort.

I’ve very recently replaced my Starfish with a new build of my own design. Well, tbh the control circuits are based on a design from DIyAudio and the audio utilises a couple of Neurochrome buffer boards. I’ve not quite perfected it yet but I’ll post up some details here when I have.

I have a DIY phono stage, the Salas Folded Simplistic Phono Pre which is built and working beautifully. There is a thread https://pinkfishmedia.net/forum/threads/salas-folded-simplistic-phono-stage.242011/#post-4025390
 
Just got one of Stefan's Hypex amps with a longer term view of going fully active but passive for now. Just a straight swap for the HackerNAP which is dead currently and enjoying the amp immensely. better bass grip and depth, very similar mid to top but more listening to be done.
 
Great speakers you built there Gareth. When you are ready I'll give you a hand with getting active. Hopefully James can dig out the transfer functions to replicate and we can do it a driver pair at a time.
 
I think I have the active filter network designed to yield the same transfer function safely filed somewhere. I'll have a hunt for it.
 
Even if it's just the images of in box measurements with the filters we can reverse engineering from there with a bit of messing and measuring.
 
Just got one of Stefan's Hypex amps with a longer term view of going fully active but passive for now. Just a straight swap for the HackerNAP which is dead currently and enjoying the amp immensely. better bass grip and depth, very similar mid to top but more listening to be done.

I've replaced my HackerNAP with a Modulus-686 build which is awesome and leaves the HackerNAP behind by some margin. Interestingly I ran a pair of Hypex nc400 power amps for a while into the Ergo IIRs but I didn't get on with them ultimately. I was impressed at first but in the end I found the mid to top end just a bit 'grainy'. I went back to the HackerNAP and it was immediately better overall. The Modulus-686 seem to give the best of both worlds.
 
I've replaced my HackerNAP with a Modulus-686 build which is awesome and leaves the HackerNAP behind by some margin. Interestingly I ran a pair of Hypex nc400 power amps for a while into the Ergo IIRs but I didn't get on with them ultimately. I was impressed at first but in the end I found the mid to top end just a bit 'grainy'. I went back to the HackerNAP and it was immediately better overall. The Modulus-686 seem to give the best of both worlds.


Did some reading about them and look fun. If I wasn’t keen on trying active I might try them next.
 
While I hunt for my LspCAD files, do bear in mind that the Seas M15CH001 is unobtainium, and you should consider speaker protection gubbins on the directly connected amps.
 
Are you planing on using a digital solution for the active crossover? Something like one of the Hypex plate amps perhaps.

Probably. I have been chatting to Stefan about it and using the miniDSP but I have no fixed view.
 


advertisement


Back
Top