Vortex Speaker Kits

Here's a quick and dirty moving microphone RTA with an 18db/octave crossover at 80Hz. The orange is after EQ, using a Harman target curve I got from Julian Krause. Nothing final or carefully considered about this, just wanted to experiment with the tonal balance in my DSP.

Definitely some extra energy from around 120 to 300Hz that was pretty audible but nothing a little EQ couldn't handle. They sound incredibly transparent now.

 

Hello people

I have to confess I am usually a forum lurker, but I had to join to primarily commend Erich and Matt for such great work. You are a credit to the world of audio engineering sirs.

I shall certainly be ordering up some Vortex-15s to have a play in the near future. Just curious as to what they would sound like in my living room.

I am usually a fan of sealed enclosures and I am toying with the idea of building a 2.5 way setup (sealed), but with a second 15” driver to help compensate for the reduced bass output from the sealed enclosure. Can you recommend an eminence bass driver the Denovo Hyperlite 15-8 is most common to so I can try this out? A lot of their 15” products are unsuitable for a sealed enclosure.

I’ll probably also build a 5 cu ft vented for comparison.

Anyway, thanks for all of the hard work.

Best
P.

 

Matt, would it be possible for you to compare the "HT/HTM sound Vs the Vortex sound? I'm leaning towards 80% music.

I'm also looking to do a ~2.5 Cu Ft sealed enclosure (apartment/college appropriate playback for a few years, before I can get my own house and setup a sub). I'm not trying to get evicted lmao.

I calculated an equilateral triangle with a 16.5' wide baffle, made out of .75in stock, has about 2.8 Cu Ft right at 36"-- ear level for the top of the enclosure.

Think Zu inspired, but a triangle tower instead of a square. Probably gonna make a double thick baffle to give it a really big rounder, that way it doesn't look mega "sharp" in the room

 

If you're willing and able to build towers, I would recommend going with the full 3.5cuft spec so that you don't have to worry about the upper bass hump that you can see in my response.

 

Honestly I think I want the upper base hump. With that comes great power handling/low average cone movement.

If I use it to enhance "chest thump" and push it into a subwoofer to get low, it gives the best of both worlds. Atleast that's my theory. It's the "fast bass" above 80hz, 50hz is the beginning for true "bottom end" extension, and 32hz is low with 20hz bring ultra-low.

 

I don't know, I'm a bass freak and I think they sound quite a bit better with EQ to flatten out the hump.

Of course, there might be less of a hump in a sealed alignment.

 

For music I would go Vortex rather then HTM. The HT/HTM have a slightly drier sound that is better suited for home theater and lack the bass extension the Vortex driver can give in their ported tower alignments.

I'd generally put bass snappiness and attack in the 80-120hz range and chest thump in the 50-80hz range. You probably don't want a hump in the response like Severian had, that just adds bloat to the lower midrange and muddies things up.

 

I'm planning to buy a pair in about a month, after I sell some others to put towards the purchase.

How does this cone compare to an oblate spheroidal profile in terms of generation of HOMS?

 

Hi Matt,

I’m finally ready to build my speaker enclosures for my four vortex 15’s and two vortex 12’s. These are all going to be surround speakers for home theater, could I please get a recommendation for sealed enclosure volumes for the 12 and the 15? I will be crossing them with subs at around 80 hz. These will be built into the walls and ceiling. Thank you!!!

 

How about a pair of the 15"ers in sealed cabinets atop a pair of 18" Ultimax subs (in Sledge enclosures). Crossover b/w the subs and Vortex mains would be handled by a miniDSP SHD.

Kind of a small-ish high-output stereo setup? Would be used for mostly music but some movies as well.

-Jim

 

Sorry for the late reply.

The Vortex-12 could be used in a 0.8-1.2cuft sealed enclosure though the F3 will end up around 100hz. It could liekly be run at an 80hz crossover with minimal issues.

The Vortex-15 would do well in 2.5-3.5cuft sealed with an f3 of around 75-80hz.

-----

You could certainly put the Vortex-18 on top of some 18" subs like that. It won't be terribly different then a standard 2.1 setup with mains/subs though the miniDSP gives you a little more flexibility in the crossover optimization and EQ which is always good to have.

 

Appreciate the reply Matt. I wasn’t able to wait and ended up building 2.5 cf sealed enclosures for the vortex 12s. Think I’ll have any issues? If worst comes to worst, I guess I could still port the boxes, but I’d need some help with how many 2” ports per speaker box I need. I know at the beginning of this thread it states four 2” ports with a 2.5 cf enclosure, but my usable cabinet depth is 6.25” (depth of cabinet minus the back piece). I don’t know if shallower ports change any of the math? Sorry speaker design is not my strength.

 

It should be ok, f3 doesn't move much and you will have more output (less gradual rolloff) below 100hz with that larger cabinet.

 

Got it, thank you Matt!! Really excited to get these things finally playing some music. Still a few months out before room is finished.

 

Hi Matt,

Why do the Vortex-15's drop off so sharp above 8k at 30 degrees off axis? I listen with my speakers toed in (crossfiring)so that I'm 20 degrees off axis. Even if I equalize that flat then I'm concerned there's going to the some serious swings in treble response.

Thanks
Shawn

 

The internal horn flare and transition to the cone isn't as ideal as a one piece horn/waveguide (like the SEOS) so there is some slight beaming in the top octave, that said the evenness of the response as you move off axis is still better then almost every other high output coaxial driver available. If you are worried I would suggest toeing in a bit more to the 30 degree mark so that you land in a more consistent area of coverage. But in reality the change in sound is not as dramatic as the graphs would make it appear.

 

Something to keep in mind is that the Vortex's or many other speakers may not be compatible with that much toe in.With so many variables in speaker design, room placement and the room itself there are too many possible toe in angles to lock yourself into one.

 

Is there any distortion data on the CX15 speakers?

 

Finally ordered a pair of these (b-stock sale). I appreciate all the technical info provided here and would love to see distortion data as well, if it’s available.

 

I took a few quick distortion measurements of the Vortex-15.

Update these results are not 100% valid - I found the 2nd harmonic distortion measured by a UMIK-1 becomes masked by the mic's capsule distorting at high frequencies starting around 90dB. -See tests here

Below are response and harmonics (2nd/3rd) taken at 90dB/1M, 100dB/1m and 90dB/2M, then the plot normalized to fundamental to look at distortion % for each of those measurements.

Note: the spike seen in the distortion plots at ~120hz in the 1M measurements are due to the cancellation notch in the response, you will notice it disappears in the 2M measurement. I also believe some of the rise in the 3rd harmonic in the treble can be attributed to the noise floor of the amplifier (I was using a crown CDi 1000). You will notice in the 100dB or 90dB 2M measurements the 3rd harmonic flattens out as the fundamental increases but the noise floor (hiss) did not.

 

Hi Matt,

I want to give Vortex 12 a shot as floor standing speakers in living room. No permission to put any kind of sub in the room. what are my options to use V12s and combine with 12" subs in sealed box to avoid DSP & amp combo for subs.

The box max size would be 16D 14W 40-46H. Went through the comments and you were recommending V12 in a sealed box so I will have around 2+ cuft of space to plugin in some subs. There aren't many builds to read through so need your suggestions here.

1. V12 sealed + 12" sub sealed ( Need some sub recommendations , eminence-lab-12c-high-power-12-subwoofer-speaker-driver-4-ohm--290-668 from PE is on my mind).

2. V12 slot ported with 30-35 hz.

3. V12 using a radiator for a tune around 30 -35hz

 

Hi Matt,

I’m designing an enclosure for the Vortex-15. I’m looking at doing a transmission line style cabinet with a width of 25” and wondering what such a width would entail as far as BSC (re: the crossover as currently designed). Feel free to pm me if you want to take it private.

 

Sorry I didn't reply sooner.

A sealed Vortex-12 over a sub would be a simple design assuming you have the ability within the control the subwoofer crossover using an AVR or similar. It would be no different then dialing in a separate speaker/sub except they are now in the same box. If you wanted to do a passive approach it's much more complicated an involves heavy modification to the existing crossover along with a reduction in sensitivity.

A slot port tower design would be simple and could be modeled off the prototype enclosure I built (40" H x 14" W x 15.5" D). Though I would advise tuning to 40-50hz as the bass response would be greatly rolled off with a lower tuning unless you happen to have a lot of room gain or can EQ the bass response back up.

Passive radiator design would not be much different then a ported design, again should be tuned around 40-50hz unless you wanted to EQ.

 

What has happened to the Vortex kits? I dont see them on diysoundgroup anymore..... ??