Hi, finally finishing my HTM-6 veneer project, for the ports do you just press them down and the ribs grab securely, or add some glue also?
I just hammered them in via a board, guess I should have filed the baffle port hole edges as the plastic ports now have a white stress mark on them
They Look interesting to me too. Looks Like Erich is catching up on new products. Due to space limitations (Custom Wall unit with locations for speakers built in) the HTM-8 , New HT-8, Fusion 8 Center or the Volts and soon to be released High End Coaxes are all possibilities. Matt, right now, the HTM-8 and HT-8 look like the most interesting to me since they use the SEOS wave guide and will not have horizontal nulls from the side by side woofers in the Fusion 8 Center. Since you designed both, and I am not trying to match anything else ( I will use 3 of whatever I get as the front stage), how much better (or what are the differences) between these 2 models from your perspective? I have not heard any of these, so I would be going in blind unless Erich has one laying around ( I live in a Cincinnati suburb, so going to hear one would not be difficult)
The two models are surprisingly close. The HTM-8 does use better drivers with lower distortion. It also uses a more advanced crossover so the frequency response is a little flatter. The HT models have a tiny bit more baffle step compensation built in so they have a slightly more full or punchier bass/midbass then the HTM's.
Thanks Matt. I would rather get the better lower distortion speaker for the long run. Less Baffle step compensation will not be an issue since the placement will make up for that ( I know, the worst place to put a bookshelf speaker is on a bookshelf ). My wife put up with this crazy hobby and me constantly changing equipment for years,so we settled on keeping the front room in our new house "pretty". The other question I have is where will these soon to be released higher end coaxial's Erich has coming soon fall in the spectrum of what I mentioned? My guess is that the dispersion is conical and they will not control the pattern to as low a frequency that you would get with a larger horn. I can fit in a large coaxial in my setup. See below. The limiting dimension as far as size goes is the height of 16 inches. The internal volume of the spaces that the speaker sit in is over 5 cu.ft. ( with a weird aspect ratio) so there is plenty of room to get some large volume enclosed if I had to customize for a Coaxial. Whatever goes in will have to be angled down to cover the listening area. To give you a sense of scale, the center of the Center speaker is 6 Ft. up. The Pic below shows the detail of how things are set up now with the speaker on an angled stand. I may have to invert the HTM with the horn on the bottom. After 17 years, I might give the S-38's a rest; they still sound good and play louder cleanly than other commercial offerings that are bookshelf sized. I tried a few MTM center channels due to the limitations in vertical height, but they can't play well at the volumes I want. Subwoofer duties are handled by an IB manifold array that fires out of the floor in the corner; you can see the grille if you look close; part of "keeping things pretty" Thoughts on what might work best in this setup? I am probably at 35% TV, 40% movies and 25% music these days. Thanks in advance. It is a real nice to have the designer of all these offerings to bounce ideas off of since you may have a better sense of what the advantages/disadvantages of the various designs are for this application.
@Matt Grant, I have a set of HTM-12 kits on the way. Is there any way a 15.5" x 24.5" x 10" ported box can work for them? I am working with some tight constraints. Thanks!
Just to add to that, I am confident I can get the drivers to fit within the width. One option i am looking at is to use a slotted port above the tweeter, and shift the drivers down, in order to fit porting into the size.
I do think one of the coaxial designs could work just as well or better then the HTM's for your application. The pattern control of the coaxial will extend just as low as an HTM using a similar woofer size since at the low end the woofer diameter is the dominating factor. But at this moment the coaxial designs are still in the development phase so I don't have a true estimate for their release date. I also don't know exactly where the price will fall but a ballpark might be if you took the cost of an HTM and changed the woofer from the deltalite to a kappalite.
It would be extremely tight, the SEOS-15 is 15.5" wide itself. But if you could get everything built/mounted it should still be ok. Is there a reason you want the port above the waveguide? I would personally place it on the bottom of the baffle as there is less of a chance for strange diffraction effects to occur.
Thanks, your advise has saved me a lot of stress! The only reason for putting the port above the wave guide would be to avoid the port being in too close proximity to the woofer. Might you be able to recommend ported slot dimensions for a very shallow slotted port?
hello folks, new member here, i find this whole co-op audiophile thing quite awesome! i'm ready to pull the trigger on some of your offerings but am having a hard time getting a handle on what might be best for my particular situation, also figuring out what is in stock or not and then ordering? it seems as though there is site maintenance going on.....also seems like there are some new offerings (neo coax line) but its like a ghost! should i just wait awhile or go ahead and order b4 everything is gone? in particular looking at a pair of htm 12 on top of a pair of mbm 12 or 15? room is 13x15 but open to a 25x30 space with vaulted ceilings ranging from 11' to 23' in ht.....lp will be 11' from 13' wall (center) this will be tied in with tv but just in a stereo configuration (no center) mostly music with no concern for lfe. undecided in either mbm 12's with a single 15" sub or just mbm 15's no extra sub......30hz is fine with me so i'm leaning towards mbm 15's any suggestions? i want to try crossing the mbm's to mains up around 120/140hz (setup has enough hp/lp for that) looking for that hit you in the chest kinda bass. want to be able to listen to loud (reference level) but smooth music.....have excellent quality amp (parasound hint) and above average sources.....mbm's would run off a behringer nx3000dsp also like the idea of these neo coax line up.......for what i want (music) would that be a better choice (than htm12)and wait for those? thanks, bob
Hi Bob, Are you open to assembling you own enclosure? If so I would take a look at the Flex-12 design which uses the woofer from the 12" MBM in a larger lower tuned enclosure for greater extension and low bass output. Using a pair of those there would be no need for additional subwoofers. Additionally if you want to get maximum midbass output do not crossover the speakers to the MBM/subs in the 120/140hz range. Instead depending on the AVR/processor/DSP you are using let the speaker run full range with the subwoofer in double bass or LFE+ mode. This was both speakers and subs contribute to the midbass range which increases output and can provide additional smoothing of the frequency response. The HTM's should serve you well for this but I would also consider the HT-12's which have a little bit more midbass punch to them. The Coaxial designs may also be considered but I don't yet know when they will be completed and on the site and until the design gets further along don't know how they compare sound wise to the HTM's.
thanks matt, i tried responding earlier and it flagged me as spam or 'inappropriate' ......now as accurate a description of me that may be i didn't post anything even remotely so! hopefully it works this time........ i've got a height limitation on the mbm of 25" .....looks like the flex 12 is pretty tall? i was gonna get the flatpacks just to save time. how tall is the mbm 15 enclosure ? looks like it would fit the bill, i like that it has better sensativity......would mbm 15's not sound as good paired with the htm12 ? as far as the ht goes i'd prefer to get the better drivers the htm offers......on that note is there a better tweeter for music than the 325 to 'upgrade' (yah i know no upgrades!) or is that the best? i've never liked the sound when i run mains full range with a sub......but that is open to experimentation. bob
I believe the 15" MBM is 29 or 29.5" tall though you could lay them sideways. The only limitation with the 15's is that they won't really dig down to 30hz with much authority as they are tuned to 40hz. You could extend the ports to lower the tuning but the enclosure is a little undersized for that driver to get deep extension without using DSP to help boost the bottom end (tradeoff of the high sensitivity). You can't really swap compression drivers in the designs as it requires complete reworking crossover since the crossover is tuned for the specific drivers used in the design. Another option I would consider is the Maximus-12 which has the DNA-450 compression driver and is more designed towards music/full range playback.
yes, jeff bagby is highly regarded over on the pe forums and i did notice the maximus kit, but was kinda leary about an octagon driver. my reasoning at first was silly as octagon drivers reminded me of some cheap stuff from bygone days.......fully realizing that bc is anything but! then your also kindly stuck with that one driver as far as replacement goes....but hey its already been proven so shouldn't be any reason to change it. i do believe maximus 12 is how i'm gonna roll.....another consideration is its obviously matched to the mbm 12.... is the mbm part of the crossover in this design? if so where does it cross? i don't see a assembled crossover for the maximus......is this a possibility for axtra charge? and as far as ordering goes i see check pmt is an option.... i'd feel better about sending a check as the website seems a little wonky! how do i move fwd on the maximus 12.....just place an order online and then send payment? there is no mailing address i can find? also who is check made out to? thanks man....thoroughly stoked about this! bob edit......started my own thread in 'speaker kit info' as to not muck up the htm thread!
Thanks Matt, really appreciate your input I think I will hold on for a while on a decision then, Erich's latest post on his site indicted he just picked up the first runs of the Coaxial Woofers from Eminence, so I will wait to see how the final released products turn out. When you finalize the product and actually have a chance to listen to them, I ( and probably a lot of others) would appreciate impressions relative to the HTM's. Looks like the cost will be ~ $300 to $350 using the delta prices on Parts Express site. Not cheap, but still less than any of the B&C; Beyma's and Radian's in that size range and those do not include crossovers, nor are they voice optimized for home use. I assume you will start a dedicated thread for those on this site as things go in to production.
Will the HTM-12 (or HTM-10) have low enough extension to be used full range (40Hz textbook for Dolby) without sub support and be recognized as a “Large” speaker (No Bass Management)? I see the spec is 55Hz, however will it reach into the low 40s in room? Im looking at possibly doing 4 of these as 4 base layer surrounds. My LCR are very capable to 40Hz, so looking to keep all of the content in each box for each position, and not send any to the LFE via BM.
Overall length of those ports should be 2". Not in the standard flatpack enclosures, unless you have massive room gain. They are tuned around 50-55hz so any output will falloff below that range and the driver will also run out of excursion much more quickly below tune. If you could build custom enclosures roughly double the normal volume, say 2.5cuft for the HTM-10 or 4cuft for the HTM-12 then 40hz extension should be much more achievable.
Thanks Matt. Makes sense. The F12 had great extension, shame its off the shelf. Ill model the DL and see how it looks in 4cuft and a 40s tune.
Im wondering if there are measurements for the new ht line to compare against the htm's? Im on the fence between the two 8" models and wondering if the extra money will be worth it in my smallish room. Any help would be appreciated.