DIY Synergy/Unity spreadsheet

My Synergy Horn prototype is shown on post no 105. (Bill Waslo posted it for me. It is a 2-way multiple entry horn built from Bill's spreadsheet and my use of Horn Response. I also built a Tapped Horn subwoofer with a folded 3m length horn and 8" driver. These 3 units are used in a 2.1 system with a Yamaha A1 surround amp and separate electronic crossover and amp for the subwoofer. This is the system I use all the time for listening to all sources. The speakers are the finest for sound quality I have ever built (out of nearly 300). I did not start on this project until I had heard Danley speakers here in my listening room and realised that there is nothing better. At some point, I will purchase a pair of Danley SH95 speakers to use for my own listening and be a reference standard to compare other speakers.

In the meantime, I thought I would build my own, similar in design to the SH95. I used a DE250 for the high frequencies and a pair of 6" Morel MW166 drivers for the bass/mid in a closed box (about 25L). Making the cabinets, from 12mm Baltic Ply, was not difficult but took a couple of weeks. There was one aspect of my build that I could have done better. I was too cautious with the mounting of the bass/mid drivers leaving a larger volume enclosed under the driver diaphram than was best from a frequency plot requirement. As a result, the rising response needed a very large inductor to make it near flat.

You are struck immediately by the sound quality that a Synergy Horn speaker can deliver in a typical living room (my listening room is 20ft by 20ft by 8ft high, furnished and with bass traps and diffusers). Its the clarity, better imaging and overall coherence of the sound that hits you straight away, making what you hear more real and without the intrusive room acoustic problems. They are so good I am going to build some more, this time a 3-way in the same cabinet.

I guess I have been fortunate to hear Danley speakers in my own home and know how remarkable they are. Let me encourage more of you who read these posts to build your own, or purchase some SH95 speakers from Tom Danley. You will not be disappointed, in fact, you are likely to be delighted.

 

Hi all.


I almost finished mine.
Bill,
The HF enter inside the horn for 1" driver is 0.707 square.
Should I shape it round to 1" diameter?




Thank you,
Sergey

 

thank you.

 

Bill,

Very nice build and lots of information. I have been reading lots of synergy horn build threads for some time. Have read this thread completely couple of times. Hope to muster up enough courage to learn Hornresp and start a build of these speakers.

Congratulations on your build.

Manoj

 

Hi Bill,
One more quick question,
Early on when talking about the first crossover you said that the tweeter needed to be delayed to be linear phase,

But later when you posted the linear phase crossover you actually delayed the midranges and not the tweeter as previously stated as being needed,

Can you explain the thinking behind this? as the two seem to contradict each other about what was needed to be delayed. :-\


Cheers Paul.

 

Bill .
Thank's a lot for all your help.
Yesterday finished mine. Takes a lot longer then I thought. A lot of tricky angles and cuts.
It sound... BIG.
Like one huge fullrange driver. No transaction between LF, MF and HIghs like on other loudspeakers. Just a sound that is hardly divided on bass, midrange and highs.
I can't imagine how real Danley Synergy will sound with two 12 woofers!


Unfortunately I can't get any measurement, so my opinion will be VERY subjective.


You can walk 8 ft left or right from ONE speaker and the sound will remain the same.
This speaker is extremely sensitive to record quality.


I got junk tract - cheap DVD player and Parasound amp, perhaps they cost me a following problems;
1. sometimes you got that 'horn honk'
2. midrange and highs seems bit masked.
3. I don't get those 'voices' and instruments 'in the room' as I do with vintage drivers like Telefunken, Isophone or Altecs.
4. Ribbons will produce better highs.
5. No 'air'


again, do not relay on y opinion , cose you have to test it in a correct system, not in junk one, like mine.


Now. I'm interested in Synergy with Pro ribbon, 4x4" Celestion and 2 12 woofers.
Thank you Bill and Tom for your ideas and support.

 

Hi Bill,
Thanks for clarifying that,
I've gotta be honest, reversing the polarity between the Mid/high and the woofers was the only way I ever considered things would work properly on this design, so it never occured to me to that you were talking of delay to match up with the woofer's phase. :-\
I'd assumed you were always talking about matching up the tweeter and mids! Which is why I was confused by the apparent about turn. But now it makes sense!


Cheers Paul.

 

Hi Bill.


I'll try to find something and measure it, but now I'm 100% sure it's a system problem.
I was working on crossover and didn't find any way to adjust it. It is very thoughtful and it's best as it is. Thank you Tom.
By the way, I was very surprise how much bass this small beast reproducing.


And even with my terrible amplifier and DVD player, I think the Synergy horn is the best possible solution for dedicated home theater.
I want to hear DSl Synergy with 2 x12 or 2 x15 woofers!
Or may be it's going to be our next project?


[SIZE=78%] [/SIZE]

 

Gavaets, are you using Bwaslo's crossover or setting your own DSP? I'm guessing you have response issues if it is honky. Either something is off on the assembly of the Bwaslo crossover or your DSP settings aren't doing what you expect. You can definitely get honk from any horn with a messed up crossover. Measuring is the only way to know.

 

Hi Bill:
I picked up 12 of those NS6's when you warned they were getting in short supply. Now I don't think I'll need them. I'd be happy to pass them on to you if that helps.
My own Synergy efforts have been waiting on a new house with dedicated music/theater room that we're finally moving into this week. It will take me a while to get settled but I hope to be making sawdust by summer. My plan is to build (only) 36" wide horns into the front corners. CD will be BMS4550. I'm going to cross HiVi B4Ns to woofers at 150 Hz. I'm oscillating between sitting a 2-way horn above an 18" woofer in a separate enclosure and making the horn 3-way with 2 CSS SDX10s as woofers. I've been doing detailed (board by board) SketchUps of these things (my first real try at using SketchUp) and I doubt its any less difficult to actually build one. But it will be nice to have a 3D visualization of each piece before I cut it.
Jack

 

Thank you Bill.
I checked polarity in the first place.
Polarity in all woofers, mids and tweeter are correct.


Finally I found a reasons for those problems.
That honk caused by top panel of 212 Cubo that I use it as stand. As soon I moved Synergy to edge of that sub, there was no more reflection from top panel of Cubo and Voilà!
The honk is gone!!!
Then I discovered that Celestion driver is off center by 1mm!
You can find it only from front HF outlet, not from inside the cabinet.
So I fixed and now...


It's still very critical to records quality.
But it's sound beautiful.

thank you.


[ quote author=bwaslo link=topic=19.msg2051#msg2051 date=1363659350]
gavaets-

You might want to check the polarity on the drivers in your Synergy. Note the phases on the tweeter and mid are to be reversed from normal! And the woofers connect in series-parallel (but in normal polarity).

The next project I'd like to do is to make one 48" wide, 34" high and 24" deep. Three-way with four 10s or 12s for the bass. But I wouldn't have any place to use it or even store it. I guess I'd need to find some slightly insane local person who wants such things for a big home theater.

BTW, the NS6 woofers used in the CoSyne design are no longer available (NLA). So I'm trying to find something to sub for them. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be anything practical that uses neo magnets so that's going to make a much heavier speaker.

 

Wow! - 48" wide, 34" high and 24" deep? That's huuuuge!
Four 12?
I'm in.
I have Celestion TF0410MR for mids and some low QTS 12" woofers.
And I also have some pro ribbons. It's about 102db but it's huge... (I think 8-9 inches)
Weltersys mentioned that;
It is possible, though most ribbons require a crossover point higher than the bandpass mids would reach, requiring the ribbon, 2" cone mids, 6" cone mids, and woofers. Getting the crossover to work would be more tricky than using a compression driver.
The ribbon HF vertical dispersion would be more narrow than the rest of the drivers, so the horn would no longer be constant directivity, one of the nice features of a Unity style horn.
What you guys think? Is there any solution with directivity and crossover point - about 2Khz?

 

Bill, I'm going to try and give this a shot this summer. Hope to learn something.


I have some 2" drivers on hand and various other buyout 8" drivers. I'm guessing they cannot be substituted in the coSynes without a changing crossover, and probably more modeling in hornresp? If so, then I need to purchase the drivers you used to clone the design, correct?



Waiting eagerly for the pdf.


Thanks for the great work!

 

Bwaslo is there an Xmax limit to which drivers to use or does it really matter?

I had been thinking of doing one of these designs a long time ago but never started it. I couldnt quite understand what was going on. I would be interested in making a SH96 style synergy. Would not be cheap but I would try experimenting first. Doing the mids would be my first start. I dont have the funds for a 1.4" CD as of now. 15's are last I would worry about. I would probably use the 18 Sound drivers for most of the speaker parts except the CD. SO maybe LW1401 or NLW9300 for the 15's. I have these already on their way and building horned subs for them

Will keep looking at other threads and see if I can try and figure something out. Shipping is always killer to me so I try and find something that is between extreme budget and high quality. That way I can be happy with what I purchased.

I know Bwaslo mentioned a SH96 interest but maybe those were just thoughts. I dont want to take away from DSL either so I will try and learn what I can but with respect to Tom.

 

Anymore progress?

The more I keep buying woofers the more I want to start this 3 way. So for mids what is the go to driver of choice? Misco or Celestion or other?

I will try and search for other helpful threads and see if I can just figure out how to sim the mids and woofers. I think the BA cd might be my choice of CD or maybe the 360 is ok.? Still would be winging this thing but being able to go and listen to DSL is not going to be happening for me. So I will just have to try and make my own for now.

 

Bill,


I know it doesnt have as nice of a freq response and is a couple db less efficient but the smaller Aura NS 525-255-8a is available from a well known distributor in large quantities for a super cheap price.


Any chance it could be a viable replacement for the Aura NS6 ?


Im personally not oppossed to using a pricier neo woofer from faital pro, 18 sound, b&c etc. if their is a better option out there.


This is the most interesting DIY concept I've stumbled across yet. Can't wait to see where you end up.


Thanks for your sharing and hard work.


Daniel

 

On line 26 of the spreadsheet what do I put there for a 1.4" CD? .707 is there now for the 1"CD.

 

I would like to give Bill's design a try so if anyone has 8-10 of the Aura NS6's that they are willing to sell please send me a pm. I know its a long shot but 14 would be even better. For a center,L/R and 2 spares for a different rear/surround design posted elsewhere on this forum.
Ive been looking around on the various forums for them and havent found any just yet.


Thanks,


Daniel.

 

I just listed two Stentorian kit pairs at PE, to clear a backlog of projects.
I won't break either kit apart, though.
Each kit has 12 Aura NS6s and 2 tweeters and the crossover parts to make a pair of Stentorians.
I have two kits. That's enough woofers for 6 Unity's and you could sell the parts you don't want.
The price is $200 per kit plus shipping.

Here is a link to the listing.

 

Pm sent