Thanks for the info. I might give that a try. If I also get around to measuring them outside again, I'll try gating the response a bit and taking more measurements. Thanks for your help.
Well, I ordered the parts. Hopefully I'll get them installed next week. Not sure when outside measurements will be completed.
hi some great information here. i have a few questions about room setup: what is the recommended minimum room size and distance to front and side walls? also , how far to sit from them to integrate properly? and lastly : how does the titan compare to the vortex 15 for music, just sonic quality ? sorry lots of questions, i will probably do a search on avs also to get some info.... thanks m
Did you have a chance to test out the crossover part revisions for the dual woofer version? I'm finally getting around to building mine and wanted to order the replacement components before I start soldering. Thanks for the extra time you've spent testing these!
No I haven't due to a lack of motivation to carry these back upstairs and outside. Especially now that it's cold. I will say that now that I have had some time to play with these a while, I'm not sure I would suggest the mod anyways. I have found that with the second woofer added and the crossover of that woofer up to 300 Hz, they still sound a bit bloated until I got them eq'd flat down to 100Hz. Any rise that starts above 100Hz I found undesirable. Specifically noted in deep voices such has Kanan Jarrus from Star Wars Rebels and Chrisjen Avasarala from the Expanse. Their voices just sound boomy and not accurate. Additionally, it was noticeable during orchestral pieces like the imperial march or the Hanz Zimmer performance of Pirates of the Caribbean. The brass didn't feel like it had the presence it should until I got the eq down flat to 100Hz.
Totally understand. I'm building mine now with the only crossover mods being the omission of the 33-ohm MF R2 resistor, the MF C1 cap increased from 18uf to 22uf and the MF R1 resistor decreased from 6-ohm to 4-ohm (all recommended by Erich/Matt). Once built I'll throw some measurements and feedback up here.
@Matt Grant, I see you edited your first post to include the Titan-818 in the title! Do you have any information you can share about this?
Eminence 18" woofer, Celestion 8" midrange Same Celestion compression driver as the 615LX. 99dB / 2.83v 8 Ohms. 350/1700hz crossover points. In general just bigger/badder then the 615LX. Teaser Pic.
Those look awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing price, footprint, frequency response, and polar plots. Will there be a midrange/waveguide upgrade option for people with a 630- basically making an 830? Thanks. Tim
Hello Matt. I am having problems deciding which subwoofer you have designed would fit my needs best. I am using a pair of Danley Sound Labs sm60f synergy horns for my tops. My listening space is not very big, 12 feet wide by 18 feel long with a listening position of about 12 feet from the front of the room. I want a pair of subs to sit under my Danley's for purely music only listening. I really prefer impactful and clean bass over deep boomy sounding bass. Musical tastes include rock and many types of electronic music. I'm not necessarily looking for pro audio loud, but I really want that felt in my body experience many of the reviewers of your MBM series mention. At first I really like the sound of the reviews of the MBM-12, but I think the cabinet would look a bit odd being a good bit smaller than my tops. The MBM-15's on the other hand have a similar width as the sm60f's and the height would be just about perfect. Can you comment on the performance of the 15 vs the 12? Do they sound the same with the 15 just having more output? Are the drivers fairly similar in their attributes, as in they excel in the midbass realms? I am also under the impression that the 15 can be tuned to a desired frequency response similar to the 12, is that true? Do you feel like the 15 would be a good fit for my tops? They do seem to get really good reviews from people who use them for music, but most of the info on them that I have found has been more from the home theater community. Finally, with the addition of the Titan 818 teaser pick above, I might assume that perhaps a "MBM-18lx" or similar may soon be coming available? If this is indeed a potential how would you rate its sound signature in comparison to the mbm12 and 15? Just based on looks, it looks quite similar to the VBSS, of which I am also considering strongly as an option. Any thoughts about my questions? Thank you for your contributions to the diy community!
Well I haven't directly compared the 12 and 15 in a strictly MBM roll though I do suspect their qualities will be similar with the 15 certainly being capable of more output. The 15 can be tuned lower if needed and I actually would tune it a little lower (~30-35hz) if SQ is a priority over output. Now the Titan-818 will be getting a couple cabinet options and those cabinets will also be available as flatpacks for standalone usage with a variety of woofers. The 818 cabinet in the photo is basically a VBSS size cabinet with short ports tuned to ~30hz. The woofer from the 818 may be sold with the cabinet as an MBM/music sub and I feel that woofer/cabinet combo is the most tactile and sounds the most effortless of the three (MBM-12/MBM-15).
Thank you Matt for taking a moment to answer my questions, I really appreciate it. Your opinion on the 818 cabinet sounds really exciting, and I think its exactly what I have been looking for. The 30 hz tune with an 18" driver with tactile punch really does check all the boxes for me, especially if you are rating it above the 12-15 which received many great reviews in my research. Will the 818 cabinet feature an off the shelf driver? or will this again be something custom tweaked for your purpose? Do you have an idea when these kits/parts are going to be available over at DIYSG? Thanks again, very exciting news!
I asked Eminence to make us some samples and I think at last count they made about 7-8 different 18" models. We tested each one and decided which sample works best in the speaker design and then put in the order. Specs will be posted soon once the kit goes up. The design is basically done and all the parts are here, I just need to finish the product page and calculate costs.
Thanks Erich and Matt. If I may ask one last question. You mentioned that the 818 cabinet is similar in size and tuning to the VBSS. Could you describe the expected similarities or differences in sound quality, character and output between these two designs? Thank you
Well the Titan-818 woofer cabinet seen in the photo is basically a clone of the VBSS cabinet (tuned to 30hz), and it won't be the only cabinet option for the 818. I am sure this VBSS style flatpack will be available separately. It just so happens that the 30hz tune of the VBSS cabinet works well with a lot of Pro 18" woofers which is why it was used here for the woofer cabinet of the Titan-818. The Titan-818 is a fullrange passive loudspeaker while the VBSS is a subwoofer designed to be used with specific DSP settings and amplifiers so they are not really comparable. I never tested the Titan-818 woofer in the VBSS style cabinet as a home theater subwoofer, the woofer does have greater xmax and higher power handling then the PA460 but it also has a much stiffer suspension which makes it less ideal for deep bass subwoofer use.
This is outstanding news as I was ready to dive in to the 616XL, but I'm now just excited for these. Do you have a ball park on when they will be shipping
That thing makes an 8" woofer look like a 4" one!!! This may be kind of a newbie question but how finnicky is this type of design with room placement and off axis listening? Right now I've got a 2.1 setup which doubles for music and movies. Big (well not compared to the 818) Cerwin Vegas and an 18 inch Ultimax. Big living room and kitchen are combined and I know it will never be ideal, but half the time I'm cleaning or cooking with a Movie or Music on and the speakers Oriented at a 90 degree angle to my position. I know the 818s would blow my Vegas out of the water! It would just suck to put so much love into a speaker and spend half my listening time straining for dialogue or hearing lackluster bass. Thanks for the help! Excited for the design to be up!
Seems this is an especially dumb question, given that you posted such a nice Polar Response chart. Also I realize the bass is going to be really room specific. Also I realize that any the angles won't actually be 90 degrees and if they are it will be mostly based on the reflective characteristics of the room.
Yeah bass is often placement and room dependent but I would say it should be hard to find a place where you can't get good bass from the 818's with a little adjustment. One of the things I find these do really well is off axis sound quality. The power response is good enough that the reflected sound maintains much of the quality of the direct sound. This means you can stand well behind the speaker with it firing into a room with minimal loss of sound quality or intelligibility. The timbre is maintained the sound just gets louder with a slight increase in the top end detail while in the direct path since those frequencies are often most readily absorbed or scattered by surfaces the room. I should note the standing behind the speaker thing may not apply in a well treated room since the reflected sound of the room will be greatly reduced in that case by design.
Sounds great! Planning to run the Titans in a 26x20ft home theatre. Titan 615LX LCR in a baffle wall and then HTM-12 surrounds. Hoping it should be enough to fill the room. What do you guys think?
It should be more then enough for a room that size. You could probably double the dimensions and still be fine.
Just stumbling onto the 818 tonight. Wow, what a monster. Was pretty sold on the revised HTM-12s but these are so over the top for my needs that I “have” to consider them Any reason the Titans have been taken off the site? Will the 615 and 818 be added in a new section? I really enjoy comparing models on there. Also, kind of random application question for the Titan lineup: if I were to mount the bass cabinets flat into my baffle wall, could the waveguide section be mounted/hinged to toe in towards the MLP without affecting the overall response? Would this cause timing or dispersion issues? Asked another way, should the bass cab and waveguide baffles always be on the same plane? I’d like to be able to toe the speakers in w/o having to rotate the whole assembly/bass cab. And before you say there really is no need for toe in because of the incredible off axis response, I plan to experiment with extreme toe in similar to GedLee speakers so that I get a very strong central image locked to the screen. This also implies this will be a stereo setup, not a typical LCR. You guys truly do great great work, can’t wait till I can purchase and build something!
Hi Guys, I have some 2nd hand NIB Titan615LXs coming in the mail this week. The original owner only opened the box to take a peek, and then shipped them to me. Do directions come in the boxes? When the Titans got taken off of DIYSG I lost a lot of my reference material. The build threads on AVS largely turn into discussions beyond the build itself. I'm hoping to be able to piece it together using common sense, it appears to be a simple build, but I didn't want to miss anything. The Titans don't have a lot of videos out on YouTube, and my build will end up on my channel to help anyone else who is building them. I am very early in my HT build, so I plan on hooking these up in my man cave to a DENON AVR-591. If I reset to factory presets, are there specific configuration parameters I should consider when setting these up? I'll be running my old-school Pioneer CS-911As for rear surrounds. Can't wait for the Volt10s to be back in stock!!
I finally fired up one of the Titans outside of the box to verify that the crossover was working properly. Just sitting on the table, I expected more output - much more output. The stereo I’m using is an old 2 channel 100WPC boom box. It’s normally hooked up to a couple 3 way Fisher speakers (12s or 15s for the low end can’t remember) and it cranks. When I had this single channel playing I was shocked at how quiet it was. Does the cabinet make that big of a difference? Do I have anything hooked up incorrectly?
With the woofer running free air like that the sound from both sides of the cone cancel each other out, so yes the cabinet makes a very large difference in output especially the lower midrange and bass.