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Building the Ergo E-IX mini-monitor loudspeaker system

Mine in use and raising eyebrows! Trying to persuade the local manufacturer of railings to have a go at speaker stands.....
 
James Evans said:
General speaker building question - what's the best strategy for cutting these internal driver hole chamfers?
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I usually use a 45-degree bearing-guided router bit to cut the chamfers between the T-nuts/threaded inserts. The other way by hand is a rounded rasp/coarse file.
 
I want to get going on mine, but my garage is currently occupied by my non-starting Jag. I'm sending it off to the shop later this week, at which point I hope to commence with gluing, sanding, and oiling.
 
Mike Hanson said:
I want to get going on mine, but my garage is currently occupied by my non-starting Jag. I'm sending it off to the shop later this week, at which point I hope to commence with gluing, sanding, and oiling.
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With a Jag you must miss access to your garage frequently (I sympathize we have a Land Rover...). Currently my Ergo XO replacement is hampered by my own non-starting clean up of my garage/workshop!

I think you will be very happy with the build - I use mine with the current wall mount type XO in a free space configuration and they still sound great, looking forward to see what the new XO brings to the party.
 
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Question for Ergo IX builders, how much stuffing and what type did you use? - I'm using a a nylon bulk fiber, a reasonable about but not tightly stuffed. I think James mentioned he used bats, which depending on the type could be quite a lot denser.

I read one data sheet that mentioned 1 lb of acoustic wool per cubic foot of enclosure. That seems a fair amount more than I am currently using, although I never actually weighed it.

Just curious, once I open mine up for the new XO I will experiment a bit and report.
 
MartinC said:
With a Jag you must miss access to your garage frequently (I sympathize we have a Land Rover...).
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I've had it only a few months, and so far it's been fine. It's a 2003 XJ8 Vanden Plas that I got for a song, so I don't mind putting a bit of money into maintenance now and then. ;)
 
MartinC said:
Question for Ergo IX builders, how much stuffing and what type did you use? - I'm using a a nylon bulk fiber, a reasonable about but not tightly stuffed. I think James mentioned he used bats, which depending on the type could be quite a lot denser.

I read one data sheet that mentioned 1 lb of acoustic wool per cubic foot of enclosure. That seems a fair amount more than I am currently using, although I never actually weighed it.

Just curious, once I open mine up for the new XO I will experiment a bit and report.
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To be perfectly honest, I have never experimented with varying levels of stuffing. I always design the enclosure such that it is not entirely dependent on stuffing to achieve a higher apparent volume. I use stuffing mainly to kill internal reflections. I use just enough stuffing so that it doesn't move inside, but not so much that it is heavily compressed.

1lb per 27L is reasonably dense. I won't go beyond that, because overstuffing achieves the opposite (adiabatic) effect.
 
Well blow me down. These sound fantastic!

At first I found them a bit too bright for my tastes and wasn't sure how well I'd get on with the tweeter. Now, I'm not a speaker burn in believer (past say, a couple of hours), so I'm not sure if I just got used to the sound a bit more, but they have really impressed me. That mid bass driver is a thing of wonder! Bass is super tight and goes a lot lower than you would expect for a driver/cabinet of this size.

I might write up something a bit more detailed when I get the time.

Thanks to James for the great design and thanks to Stefan for all his help.

One last thing. I always wonder how anyone could ever do it, but I did it... Wired the darn woofers up out of phase to each other when I first tested them out. "Great bass?! What bass?!" :)
 
ThELiZ said:
That mid bass driver is a thing of wonder! Bass is super tight and goes a lot lower than you would expect for a driver/cabinet of this size.
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Take care not to over-drive them, especially with very low bass. Despite their generous X-max, they are still a small driver and can suffer damage if you treat them like 12" woofers.
 
I noticed these warnings a couple of times: what kind of damage and at what levels should we expect? I played things like this in a 25sqm room so loud that people can't speak and understand, is that too loud?
 
jpk said:
I noticed these warnings a couple of times: what kind of damage and at what levels should we expect? I played things like this in a 25sqm room so loud that people can't speak and understand, is that too loud?
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The little Scan-speak has good thermal capacity relative to its size, and so should be able to reproduce just a touch over 100dB at 1m comfortably at, say, 1kHz. That's loud enough to be bad for your long term hearing. Its limitations kick in with LF that exceeds its physical excursion, which is very generous at +/- 9mm. I'd just visually check that when playing loudly that the cone is not exceeding 18mm of total travel. It is linear up to 13mm, so going beyond that will ramp up distortion even before you hit the end stops.

Doing so regularly will damage the suspension.
 
Thanks for the explanation, that makes it very clear!

BTW regarding suspension: my units show some small damages in the suspension under the screws. It seems the rubber get's dragged around the holes when fastening the screws...
 
jpk said:
BTW regarding suspension: my units show some small damages in the suspension under the screws. It seems the rubber get's dragged around the holes when fastening the screws...
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That's a simple fix. Use a suitably sized washer under each screw/bolt.
 
Thank, I fixed it by using washers. Here a pic before replacing the screws:

u6pyE9U.jpg


And here how the damaged rubber looks like under the screw top:

vodC60f.jpg
 
Newly built free space XO installed replacing the against wall version - who says size doesn't matter... made a quick custom PCB as part of the change. Lots of supports and hot glue as the new XO weight a ton.

Subjectively the little Ergo's seem to go deeper and seem perhaps seem a bit faster (not sure the sub is needed now), overall I believe a worthwhile change for my near field type set up. I wonder if having thicker gauge inductors contributes to the difference at all?

Anyway, thanks again to Stefan for the group buy and James for the awesome original design.




50711545272_3f0ca54234_h.jpg
 
Martin, you seem to have one extra capacitor. Are you bypassing the 12uF with a small value cap?
 
Hi James, no, the two Superior Z-Caps are actually in parallel. If you recall the kit of parts from Stefan had a 2.2uF cap as opposed to the 2.5uF recommended value so there's a extra 0.33uF cap added. The smaller black 'Crosscap' is the other 2.2uF that parallels the 7R5 resistor. Image is close to the actual PCB (FX notations just refer to notional mounting holes). Other red 'holes' are holes in the board for tie wraps.


PCB Layout by Martin Carrington, on Flickr
 
Oh that's right, Martin. My memory is like a sieve these days. As you were then. I'm glad you like the free-space version. I thought the 0.33uF Z-Superior would be a fair bit smaller. Enjoy.
 
Yes the .33 cap size surprised me too!

Lots of listening yesterday evening, I didn't think the Ergos could improve much more but the new XO really suits the room set up I have. They work exceedingly well with the JVC Z1010 which has plenty of oomph.
 
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