Bought these used and already built into W frame like on Danny's website, but with slanted sides for style. He said cutting the compound angle inner panels was a bitch, but it looks nice, veneered sides and black painted top and innards. Neutrik Speakon connectors, OFC wiring, wiring simplified and soldered to reduce temporary connections.
Anyway, I got em hooked up yesterday and heard some nice things right away. Today I worked at dialing it in. There's a lot of knobs and switches on the plate amps. I placed my Feastrex single driver bookshelf speakers on top of the subs and started tweaking by ear. The feastrex are supposed to corner around 60Hz, about -12dB sealed plus the -6dB step. They are extremely fast and it is difficult to mate them with mere mortal woofers - many have tried, and died...
It would be better to use a SPL meter and test tones/warblers or RTA but I didn't want to get that deep into it now, since these are going to Carls soon to supplement his Piegas. Just by ear I was able to get them sounding excellent. There was not a noticable difference in speed between the rythmik and feastrex at the crossover. I ended up with the 50Hz/24dB crossover setting, but there is also 80Hz/24 and another setting for external bass management. It would be cool to try it with a digital crossover.
The sound was excellent. With expert tuning it should get even better. I listened to Mile Davis' Kind of Blue for the acoustic bass intro on So what. I can hear a lot of detail on that, room reverbs and bass cavity noises. It was not as detailed or spacious LF as the bass reflex Usher with carbon drivers and Spectron amp, but I don't really know what I'm doing to tune it. But it is clearer than any other amp I have used with the Usher. Proper placement and fine tuning will no doubt take it much farther. Everyone says this is the best bass they've ever heard.
But more important than clarity, the open baffle bass was extremely musical. Along with the Feastrex paper drivers it was a very engaging, captivating enjoyable listen. I was tapping feet and nodding my head like I don't usually do with the big microscope. The biggest weakness in the overall sound was NOT the bass - finally! It was the wizzer cone breakup adding breathiness and reediness to the timbre plus the sound of the resonating pine wood box. But the sub really fleshed it all out and made my feastrex's seem like a real speaker - for the first time!!! YAY! There's hope after all. It pays to have hope. I will move forward with the non resonant spherical speaker cabinets....
Going back to the Ushers, the mids/treble cleaned up a lot, bass became clearer and more precise but also more clinical, less "in the room." But a lot of the soul was also gone, I felt missing something, a little let down from the happy party going on with the hodgepodge of wacky new technologies, albeit less accurate or realistic than the Usher/Spectron. But soon I was tapping and nodding again, just not as committed. Maybe that's what bacobits was talking about after he heard my system, even with Snappers and AR Ref1 preamp. The mid is a little reserved, maybe too low level in the crossover mix.
Next I played my wife's new Sugarland CD, god it is awful. Not the newest Grammy winning CD, but the previous one. It makes a borderline system sound really bad, so it's a good test. The Feastrex couldn't handle the twang and sizzle, it was unbearable torture. Feastrex are notorious for making a Jesus come down from heaven with some kinds of music and crap out on other stuff. I forgot to try a big symphony, which they have never played well. The Ushers handle the Sugarland piece of cake, but it's still shrill and annoying - by design. People love this shit.
Anyway, it was a fun experiment. As I refine the Feastrex cabinets further, I may try it again. By then Carl will be a sub tuning expert. Carl, I look forward to your comments and hearing them tuned into your room.... Congrats to Rythmik's Brian and Danny Richie for a great high value product. Danny has designed a whole speaker system called Venue around this woofer. More to come....
