Ry's DR200 Build Thread

Nice progress so far. I thought about building a pair of the 250's but will have to wait while for any builds to commence.

Nice work! I'm currently building four OmniTop 12's (not for HT use though). I considered the DRs, but build pictures like these made me think otherwise.

Looks nice!

sub'd


dbl

Very nice build!

Awesome! Make sure you measure and EQ flat at the LP. These have more dynamics and clarity than anything I have heard.

Looking good RyGuy!
On your crossover board--stand one of your coils up on its edge. You will get a lot of cross-talk between the two if you leave them as they are.

Oh, and what did you use to form the cheeks? It looks like it flexed very nicely.

Nice work RyGuy!

On the next one, can you show more pics of what you do with the tweets? I had no idea that they were set up that way.

dbl

I'm too lazy to click the link that you provided, so I'm just going to ask how much does it cost to build a pair of these bad boys?

Also, are you planning a road trip to Dallas any time soon so I can hear them? I know it's a long shot, but what the heck.

RyGuy,

No one I know of has ever done good, independent, outdoor or gated measurements of these cabs. Do you have the capability to do on and off axis gated measurements? I would be very interested to see how these measure.

Something tells me that the off axis response will have one hell of a bloom at and just beyond the piezo crossover point. Below the piezo cross, a much tighter pattern due to the radiating area/horn shape. Asking an 8" driver loaded horn to go from 150Hz all the way to and slightly past ~2kHz is a tall order with constant directivity.

Vertical directivity would be likely more uniform throughout the passband, due to the piezo line and the small vertical flare of the last horn segment.

MKTheater has a room that is so absorbent that power response abnormalities are effectively nulled if the speakers are properly aimed.

That these things are a good value is an understatement. I just am curious as to their specific properties.

JSS

I am not sure. I have been tweaking and made things worse. Max, what do you want me to do for measurements?

I am just messing with the built in EQ of the elite. I am not sure what MCAAC does but I am not flat at my seat when measuring each speaker. When I EQ'd myself I got that palpable feeling back but the elite does not sound as good as the Ada at loud volumes. Also, with the limited adjustments on the EQ I still have some peaks in the response but even though I looks bad it is still +/- 3 dBs.

Duratex is not toxic. It's a water based costing that doesn't give off much for fumes. It's also very durable like truck coating. To minimize the duratex used I always cost the enclosure with flat black paint first and then use the duratex to give the texture.

I recommend DuraTex because it's hands down the best product available that doesn't require professional application. IMO DIY truck bed liner should be left on truck beds. It's just the wrong tool for the job.

Duratex is a great coating to use. Everything others had said is true. Very very little odor. And a little goes a looooong way.

Would be very good if you could do measurements with speaker and mic up on a 4' stands, speaker about 2-3 meters away, aimed at the mic carefully (most HF energy w/ vertical aiming), and take REW sweeps at 5 degree intervals horizontally off axis up to about 45 degs, and vertically at 6" intervals up or down from center up to about 2 feet. I can gate the measurements for you if you post the REW measurement files, or you can do it yourself with OmniMic. Just take a pic of the setup and nearest boundaies to set gating properly.

Other than irregular off-axis response, the fact that the piezos are not delayed will cause null(s) at some frequencies, with severity depending on crossover slopes.

Again, this will be a critical look at a very high value DIY speaker, and is not intended to discourage people from building them, quite the opposite, it will let people know how to best implement them with aiming and acoustical treatments. I think technical characterization of a design is a good thing.

JSS

Actually I measured them last night and will post a whole bunch of graphs here and on my thread. Mine have just high pass and low pass filters so they will be peaky in the response. I have them aiming at the LP(downward a little) and the left and right and toed in only about 10 degrees or so. I treated my room so that I wanted to hear the speakers and not the room but I still get some room interactions. I have always put in speakers without EQ and they always sound awesome! For example, M&K S-5000's, Triads, eD cinema 12's, JTR triple 8's, JBL's cinema, you name it. They have always sound excellent without any tweaking whatsoever and the DR's sound aweful without tweaking and I figured the reason was the crossover! All those speakers have crossovers so they are flat at 1 meter and when placed in my room they all have a similar response which is my room which sounds great! The DR's don't have a crossover and at 1 meter they are far from flat. Now if I was sitting in one sweet spot I would just EQ all the speakers to that one spot and call it a day however I have 7 seats and again all the seats sound really good with the other speakers with crossovers. So my thinking was to EQ the DR's at 1 meter and let the room do the same thing to them as the other speakers. I also EQ's the DR's at the seat to hear the difference and there was a difference. I can tell you to experiment and do whatever sounds best but in my room EQing them at 1 meter(each speaker was EQ'd to 1 meter) has a better sound to the room than eqing to that one spot at the LP, especially when you moved from seat to seat. Now what I did was run a sweep on each DR-200 and then let the REW EQ function set the filters for me with the DCX in place. I used 1/3 smoothing so I can see a line which without smoothing is it more like a seisometer! It is very simple, Here are the graphs. Keep in mind they are behind my screen as I wanted to EQ them how I will use them.

First here is the 1 meter response with no EQ(raw) on my left channel



Here it is EQ'd using DCX and REW(8 filters)



Here is the right channel raw at 1 meter



Right channel 1 meter EQ'd



Here is the center channel 1 meter RAW



Here is the center EQ'd 1 meter



I then used the center channel and measured what happened at the LP at 0 degrees.

Center at LP without changing EQ from 1 meter



As you can see my room does a pretty good job at keeping it tamed!

Now I measured to the far right seat about 30-40 degrees(estimated)



And finally the far left seat



You can see how the off axis response changes but overall not that bad from 14 feet away all using the center. So you can see what people are hearing from seat to seat and like I said, crystal clear and very dynamic! So I played Immortals and some music to compare this EQ to my MCAAC and I hate to say this but the Ada with the DCX sounds much better! I am also flatter at the LP than what MCAAC did and the mic was at the LP with MCAAC and I EQ'd with the DCX at 1 meter and still was flatter at the seats! The sound is just smoother and more audible. I once again can play at reference levels without any strain where the Elite was too loud at reference and hurt my ears so I turned it down anywhere from -5 to -10MV depending on the movie. With the Ada gear I set at 0 MV for any movie! Music was the biggest difference as it was more palpable like it was before! I am sorry guys but I will stick with used high end(ada at least) than brand new AVR's. The elite came the closest but I have not found one AVR so far that can play reference without sound too loud for some reason and you guys read it all the time and say how can you watch at reference, it is way too loud! Not on my Ada gear!

Yes, they do. They're not flat because they're not supposed to be. Rough response is the price paid for such high sensitivity from such a small and inexpensive cab. If you don't have a high quality EQ that's a problem, but they're pro-sound cabs, and in pro-sound high quality EQ is standard equipment.

I thought they had just LP and HP's? It really does not matter because from the get go I knew I needed EQ for them. I tell everyone interested they need EQ. I can tell you last night they sound better than ever after my EQing with the graphs posted! They are not just a bang for buck, they are giant killers! They just sound so clear and dynamic with more detail than anything else I have heard(I guess this is where the clarity comes from). I watched Immortals last night for the first time at reference and it was just incredible how they sound. Music is even a bigger difference! Other speakers might sound softer(triads piano was softer) than the DR's but if you don't mind that harder sound(example would be hitting the piano key harder than Triads) then these are it! Also they drop off pretty quick down low but as you can see at the LP I am down 10 dbs at 80hz but what I forgot to mention is that I have a 80hz THX crossover in place. BTW, what these do for mains the wedge 6's do for surrounds! Now I need more DCX's or something to EQ them at 1 meter! Even without EQ the surrounds sound good.

Bill,
BTW I am sorry if I have misrepresented your designs in any way. I will add that your DR's and wedges were built and designed for live or PA stuff where the room is much bigger. A smaller room could complicate the response with all the reflections. I have been known to try things not in the norm like putting massive JBL cinema speakers in my room. All I can say is that the DR's have excelled at HT than any other speaker I have tried regardless of any shortcomings. This is the first Time I used them crossed over at 80hz without their T-39 counterparts and I can say so far so good! I need to put in midbass movies like Transformers and The Dark Night because Immortals is a low bass movie. However, music has never sound better in my room!

That's what constitutes a crossover.

I wouldn't say that you have, so no apology necessary. I'm pleased that they've worked so well for you.