Anyone build Wayne Parham's Pi-4 speakers? Impressions? - Page 4

Glad to see you drop by to visit your old thread. The process has been pretty slow for me as well. I noticed your thread on Wayne's forum so I hoped the discussion could continue here as well. I did see that thread about that studio but it wasn't the same as what you and I are doing and there has been little talk regarding that installation. Meh. You and I have similar goals here. Although I will probably go all sealed cause I don't really need them to be vented. There will always be a subwoofer working with them in my system.

Please keep us updated if you go ahead with this build.



Heheh...oddly enough, these floorstanders are larger and more bass capable than a good majority of HT speaker owners. I need much more dynamics than these can do. I am tough to please.


I've thought about giving them a chance but all the local high quality pizza places are lowering their prices too. Haha!


Yes. I've been looking into this build all year. It wasn't up until the past few months that I decided it will be for the best to keep it passive if possible. You can look back to page one of this very thread and see it wasn't very long ago I was definitely going active. As much as I would like to go active I can't justify the extra expense it would require. $300 for a DCX and over $1,000 for amps just puts the whole build out of reach. Plus, I recently bought a very high quality AVR that has a very good amp section that I would like to use. Also, not using a DCX keeps an extra A-D/D-A conversion out of the signal. I really don't need the flexibility of an external digital x-over for my mains if I have a well designed passive network I can use. Sometime down the road I can upgrade to bigger amps when I see the need and have the funds.

i hear you about the amp. it's tough to throw away power. you could always bi amp by separating the high and low sides and run them with one channel each if your receiver allows for that. it would probably be hard to tell the difference though. our ears just don't seem to pick up on clipping as readily as our eyes. i've tested this. increasing the amount of clipping until i thought that i could hear it and it was a surprisingly large amount.

the world is a very weird place. as i wrote my reply, the ad being displayed...



nk.

Kewl idea

Advertising in posts...companies should do it

couple pennies per post...I might have some $$ to buy new drivers

A couple of pennies per view, and I'd be breaking even, just about....

scott and i were talking about pizzas in some other thread. it was just really strange, as i can't recall ever having seen one pizza ad around here...then we were talking pizza and it popped up. too bad dominos isn't into sponsoring 4pi builds. then again, scott might prefer sponsorship from round table pizza for his 4 'pizza' pis. ;-)

Mega roflz!!

Gah!!! Now I am seeing those Domino ads.

*shudders*

Well... I guess it's time to improvise.

Round Table Pizza.... Round Table Pizza ..... Round Table Pizza!!!

*suddenly showered with coupons*

"Gah!!! Now I am seeing those Domino ads."

i suppose i hexed the whole damn thread. ack. :-( 4pi's are one of the best builds going. i couldn't find any round table pizza over here on the east coast. i once heard one of those really 'italian' types from new york say that the secret to their great crust was the mineral content in the water. makes some sense to me. kind of like the 4pi's, to the untrained eye, all pizza looks the same. ;-)

"Could you expand your thought? I am certainly untrained with respect to speaker design."

to some folks, 4pi's just look like a crappy p.a. speaker. however, with the jbl/b&c drivers, it is a very hi-fi rig. the 2226h has high sensitivity, low distortion, low power compression, etc. the horn is a real sleeper. it is 90x40 controlled directivity, which is pretty much perfect for a home environment. no nasties in the throat. assymetric horn keeps the center to center spacing between the two drivers to a minimum. wayne has done a good job on the crossover and the woofer matches nicely to the horn. both are down about 6db through the crossover region, which is perfect. the 4pi design is not as sensitive to room as many traditional hi-fi designs. it has a lot going for it. wayne really should have that kind of information on his website. i don't mind being a little bit of a fanboy for the 4pi, because it is a good design, a good value, and wayne has contributed a lot to diy. not so much around here, but on other boards.

I think this is the biggest draw back to buying them. The kits are a great choice though and I might buy some and build nice cabinets to compare against mine.


I wonder if I can use my QSC waveguide with Wayne's CD/Woofer/crossover.

penn are you going to update your waveguide thread? You have three or four reserved slots there

penn, yours are going to be hard to beat. as you know, the copper plated pole in the td series pulls inductance down into the basement. once everything else is right, that seems to be the icing on the cake. if i recall, wayne was experimenting or offering td drivers as an upgrade, so you would probably be losing ground from where you are. are you enjoying your "m5's"?

yes, I really wanted to get some measurements posted before I did it and I have been looking for my build pictures. I had two servers blow several weeks ago (one power supply, one hard drive) and Im still recovering from backups

Outside of that Im just slow sometimes

I have all build pics now so I will atleast post those.

Measurements should happen this afternoon but I have to figure out how to use HOLMimpulse first.

I see your point. Thanks!

btw, I have to ask what's "m5" ? Sorry Im drawing a blank

over in your build thread, i mentioned that your speakers looked like the intersection of performance and luxury, so i named them m5's. ;-)

Unrelated to this topic. Didnt you post about a contractor who up and left last year without completing his work? How did that work out for you?

Very kewl!! THANKS

sorry I thought that was your thread. Yeah, it sounded like a bad situation to be in.

Yup. The design is very well balanced. Other than the plain looks the only other issue is the price. You get what you paid for which happens to be high quality stuff and a good crossover design.

Wayne seems pretty content about keeping the 2226H in his 15" woofer bases systems, at the moment. The TD12S is offered for the kits that use the 12". He has said in a few sections on his site that the JBL has good control over inductance linearity and for a 15" it has exceptional midrange. Too be honest, I was hoping this new build would use TD15M's but since I am not going active I will be happy to use the JBL. If there were two really nice 15's for bass and midrange, it's these two.

just a quick clarification. when i said -6db through the crossover region, i meant at 45 degrees off axis. the woofer begins to "beam" at the same frequency where the horn begins to lose directivity...perfect match. the frequency response on axis is amazingly flat for this kind of speaker. i think this is four pi in action:



+/- 1.5db through the midrange and then a slightly rolled off top end. this is not a defect, but a design choice. most folks prefer the sound of a slightly rolled off top end.

scott, wayne is a diy guy at heart, so you can build as much or as little as you want. he sells crossover boards, built crossovers to any spec you want, speaker kits, all the way up to fully finished speakers. heck, i bet that he'd even help you build something that isn't part of his standard lineup.

the inductance thing still has me confused. the big daddy is getting it linear, but once it is linear, is not lower better? janowitz insists this is the case and i am inclined to believe him, but maybe it is just the difference between a 98% speaker and a 99% speaker. geddes doesn't use low inductance speakers in his summas and folks don't report him leaving anything on the table.

I would certainly give the edge to the AE speaker with a lower total inductance. It isn't thoroughly documented but I would bet that it is even more "linear" in inductance than the JBL as well. The JBL is a top notch performer in its own right though. No slouch. Paired up with the B&C and with his awesome crossover you get that FR you posted. How friggin' nice is that?!? This is why I settled on his design over going active and trying this out on my own. I might have got close on my own but why bother when I can get a proven design for a little extra?

LTD02, if you skim through the past pages on his forum, you will find a thread by me asking if he would do a Pi4 with the TD15M or if it would work with his crossover. In short, his answer was "maybe". I would believe that the TD15M might not even need as many components in it's own version of the crossover thanks to the ultra low, ultra flat impedance. The rise isn't until about 10khz on that sucker. The specs between the 2226H and the TD15M are so close it isn't funny. Basically the real difference between the two are the lower inductance 'on paper' with the TD and it's use of a phase plug instead of a regular ol' dust cap on the JBL.

I love the specs on the Pi4's. I already use JBL MRX512's for LCR. Do you think Wayne's speakers would be an upgrade?

That sucks because the owner is then held responsible. You always need to talk to your subcontractors and make sure that they are getting paid. Keep in mind though that the general contractor may be holding some money to make sure that the sub is paying his suppliers, because that can come back on the general contractor. One way around this is to pay by dual check and have the check listed for what it goes to. Also getting a release for each payment made to the contractors that states that his suppliers have been paid.

This is one of the things that is so scary right now. Subcontractors and general contractors are bidding stuff so cheap that at some point someone is going to be left holding the bag.

I will be using the Pi 4s in a different room until I get around to finishing my theater.

i missed your post nichol.

has your snow melted yet? how do you like them?

Snow has melted but I am short on time. Hopefully I can start in the next few weeks and when I do, I will create a build thread here.

"Snow has melted but I am short on time. Hopefully I can start in the next few weeks and when I do, I will create a build thread here."

oh, that's great. you have given very honest reviews on everything that you have built so far, so i am looking forward to your build thread and comments.