AudioNervosa
Systemic Development => Speakers => Topic started by: richidoo on August 15, 2016, 03:51:31 PM
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(http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Plutone/Plutone.jpg)
From Tony Gee, humblehomemadehifi.com, in Netherlands
90dB sensitive 2 way. 8 ohm, 7 min. 45Hz F3, ported.
Custom SEAS-built midwoofer designed by Troels Gravesen for his high efficiency kits. Very lightweight paper cone. Newest version has high mechanical Q (low loss suspension) and bigger motor than the old version I used in my DTQWT12 project. I loved that mid driver, very alive, communicative, dynamic.
Scanspeak's most expensive tweeter: Revelator beryllium
Extremely simple crossover, only one coil on woofer and one coil and a cap on the tweeter. No resistors to suck the life out of the music.
Crossover is prebuilt (so parts values remain trade secret) using the very best quality crossover parts available. Large gage Jantzen copper wax foil inductors and Intertechnik Audyn True Copper Max cap, with Duelund CAST silver copper hybrid cap optional.
It's very tube friendly, and good off axis dispersion.
This speaker is calling my name. I can hear it in the distance right before I fall asleep.... richidooooo, richidoooooooo
Marketing highlights from the blurb: (http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Plutone.html)
The combination of tweeter, woofer, cabinet material, shape and size form such a coherent unity that we were able to design a matching crossover that consists of only three components and uses no resistors at all, not even to tame the tweeter level! The result is stunning purity combined with a very natural tonal balance and excellent dynamic expression. Add into the mix a big sound-stage and you've got probably the best two-way monitor there is! Period.
as pure reproduction as possible from a two-way loudspeaker
treble is extremely well rendered, with heaps of detail and insight into the recording and at the same time never harsh nor sharp
The tonal balance of this loudspeaker is very natural, well balanced and coherent. At no time are you thinking about how good the tweeter is or how good the woofer is, just how good the music is. The loudspeaker is also very honest, the speaker simply just plays what it is given. Feed it a poorly produced recording of 1980's popular music and you get a poorly produced recording of 1980's popular music. Feed the Plutone a nice quality recording and you you couldn't wish for anything more
the sound-stage is also big... In our demo room the speakers are about 350 centimetres apart (measured from woofer phase-plug to woofer phase-plug) and about 380 centimetres from the listening seat. This give a "being there experience" which really lets you forget everything except the music
Best part is it's free!
Raw matched drivers, assembled crossovers w/Duelund caps, everything you need except wood and finish, ~$3300 shipped to US. Add a couple hundred for 1" baltic birch plywood, veneer, finish, figure $3500.
Custom stands? Maybe a pair of similarly amazing SQ subs? Sure why not!?! Round up to $5k.
Ooooh I am so sorely tempted. Amazing really that I haven't popped for it yet. But I am also riding the Legacy Focus SE bus, and don't want to lose my seat.
Comments? ...and Yes I already know it's expensive ;) But you can tell me again.
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It was a good read Rich, rig!ht up till I hit the price! :shock:
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Save your money
buy a vintage motorcycle to leave to your kids
money well spent, one goes up in value as the other goes down, and usually pretty fast downhill
whereas the motorcycle will go fast up hill and downhill!
and your kids will have a cool toy to show off, with bragging rights that their father restored it for them.
The plutone will end up in a garage sale for $20 with some guy offering $10
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Something tells me these speakers ought to sound wonderful. They remind me of smallish AudioNote speakers.
Hell, go ahead and buy them. Then, post about how wonderful they sound so I can flip out over them, too when my wife and I are in the area next year. [Our son just applied to the Duke Physical Therapy School.]
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Rich,
It would be cheaper to count sheep when you fall asleep 😳
Nick
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plus ... it's upside down
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plus ... it's upside down
Right?! I'd flip it. Woofer has to be at ear level for time alignment but I like tweeter above my ears a few inches.
whereas the motorcycle will go fast up hill and downhill!
:lol:
The plutone will end up in a garage sale for $20 with some guy offering $10
They can put my ashes in it. :rofl:
It would be cheaper to count sheep when you fall asleep 😳
A lot cheaper! and these would keep me up too late!
It was a good read Rich, rig!ht up till I hit the price! :shock:
I had the same reaction. WHAT?!? for DIY!?! :shock: But then it kept haunting me, night and day. My wife is sick of the word Plutone, Plutone, Plutone SHUT UP! But I can't get her to say JUST BUY IT ALREADY! A few more weeks of PlutonePlutonePlutone should make her crack. She already said put it on cc, but I'm still not convinced any unassembled speaker should cost that much, unheard, unknown. Resale will be rough. "But I'll NEVER sell these, honest!" :rofl:
And now, finally, the correct answer:
Something tells me these speakers ought to sound wonderful. Hell, go ahead and buy them. Then, post about how wonderful they sound so I can flip out over them, too when my wife and I are in the area next year. [Our son just applied to the Duke Physical Therapy School.]
If you promise to buy them from me on your visit then the veneer is your choice. ;)
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If you check with the designer of the Plutone, I think you will find out that the speaker is meant to be listened to with the tweeter on the bottom because this compensates for the speakers vertical lobing error which aims the output from the tweeter at a downward angle.
Turning the loudspeaker upside down directs the highs upward towards your ears, problem solved.
Scotty
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Hey Scotty Yeah that makes sense, with the drivers flush on vertical baffle. There is an asymmetric crossover to delay tweeter 90 degrees at 2400Hz xo. I did ask him about running it "upside down," he said fine as long as woofer is at ear height. I'll ask him about lobing as he has not published verticals.
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Rich,
This speaker and my reading/viewing the humblehomehifi.com website has rekindled my interest in troelsgravesen.dk. In fact, I sent him an email asking about a couple of his designs. I may add another email asking about a third design depending on what his kits cost.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but does the Plutone remind you a bit of a design by AudioNote or ART speakers? I've got a link here....okay, there are obvious differences, but I can't help but wonder about how each sounds....
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/art/emotion.html
http://www.audionote.co.uk/products/speakers/spkr_home_01.shtml
Sometimes, while I'm not actually looking at my net worth or thinking about my real disposable income (as opposed to my imaginary income), I dream about owning such speakers. :drool:
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Yeah, they sure do look like Audionote speakers! Thanks for the links Michael. Devore Orangutan is similar style, a 2way with large midwoofer in large box. The large box is big enough to minimize edge diffraction of tweeter and to make decent bass from the kinda high sensitivity woofers. The prices of all these commercial speakers is really really high. Buying audio purity by the gram. I heard Audionote at RMAF. They were pushed into the corner, but they didn't do much for me.
I don't think the Plutone is like that. I know the woofer is a fast revealing alive paper cone, and I know the rev Be tweeter is damn near perfect treble so it should be anything but mellow.
The Plutone price seems high for a DIY kit, but when you compare them to those Audionotes and clones it seems pretty cheap. The Plutone drivers and crossover parts are arguably significantly better quality than the AudioNote parts.
I was grinding the numbers tonight, I nixed the Duelunds to save $800 and make it $2700 shipped to my door. The drivers bought on my own add up to $1700, and $280 is shipping and import duty. The remaining 720 covers a lot of stuff: assembled crossovers with ultra-fi parts, posts, wire, damping, flared tubes, and, of course the most valuable part: the crossover design itself. Not too terrible considering what I've spent $3000 on before in this hobby. But those mistakes were easily sold in days. Maybe some US Audionote guys will get wind of Plutone and start a fad. It is very easy to build.
The other option is to just get the woofers for about $600, add my Satoris tweeters, either passive xo like the Plutones and trying to avoid resistors, or, use JRiver and my new multichannel USB and DAC from diyinhk.com and my 4 Modulus86 amps for an all active system. No resistors! and no coils either! And no analog, until I can get a ADC going. Hmmm. I'd like to use it with Don Sach's amplifier so passive would be nice. Not sure my passive design chops are up to it, but it's supposed to be only 3 parts, that's with the Rev tweeter...
Scotty, Tony Gee emailed back to confirm that there is lobing (of course) as with any low order crossover, but it is aimed forward perpendicular to baffle. So as long as woofer is at ear height then tweeter above or below will work. If it's tilted back a few degrees or built with tilted baffle then tweeter could be put at ear height. It would be nice to see the verticals.
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Maybe we have a failure to communicate here. If the lobe is perpendicular to the baffle and does not have an angular component that deviates from perpendicular to the baffle, then it in fact has no vertical lobing error.
I think the speaker might sound very, very good for its size and price.
It has a lot going for it, I might try Audyen caps as an alternative to Dueland to keep the price down.
Scotty
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Thanks Scotty I value your opinion.
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Richidoo that guy is into tonality and harmonic structure big time. If the money is not an issue my bet you will like them.
charles
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Richidoo that guy is into tonality and harmonic structure big time. If the money is not an issue my bet you will like them.
charles
That's for sure, his designs are always very minimalistic, shallow filters and series crossovers with the very best drivers. He's also a jazz bassist and an architect. Can't be all bad! ;)
I'll probably give it a go for the next project.
Nice to see you back online, Charles! :thumb:
Rich
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Rich,
I'm certainly not attempting to dissuade you from buying the
Plutone. However, I can't help but notice that Troels Gravesen's QUATTRO kit shares the JA-8008 midwoofer in a two-way design. The tweeters are different. You could save enough with this kit to buy premium caps.
Just a thought.
The as yet unreleased Satori kit speaker looks appealing, too.
Michael
P.S. I'm playing with the idea of ordering a QUATTRO kit as a way to eventually upgrade to the DTQWT since it uses the same SEAS tweeter and the JA-8008.
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Hi Michael,
Don't worry the price is dissuasion enough!
Quattro is a well designed speaker. The crossover is a bit complex for my taste but he has good reasons for it.
I built DTQWT-12 a few years ago (documented on AN) and I got good support from Troels during the build. The Jantzen parts are good quality, except for the the speaker binding posts. When I bought the kit I thought I could build a few of the other designs using the same mid/tweet, but when I sold the speakers the drivers went with them and I never felt the desire to go there again; until Plutone, with very simple crossover and improved version of JA8008. The mid was the best part of my DTQWT12, imo.
I've been thinking about the price of the Plutone kit and the possibly large resale loss, which has led me to thinking about trying to clone it using my Satoris and less exotic XO parts. The new JA8008HQM with single coil filter is the main draw for me anyway, and the Satoris are similar sensitivity, so shouldn't need resistors. Maybe add pro woofer for bass. It's high time I start designing my own crossovers and this seems, on the surface to be pretty straightforward.
Before I do that I'm going to finish my 3 way active dsp speakers. I have almost all the parts. It's just putting it all together by Nov 5 g2g. Then I can see which way the wind is blowing.
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USD/EUR rising fast. Price of Plutone kit has dropped $150 since this thread started.
All the parts come from EU, so if he raises prices I'm gonna be pissed!
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a lot more information on the Plutone speakers on his website now than there was back when you brought them to our attention earlier this year? I don't recall that much, or perhaps I was too distracted(?). Dunno.
Anyway, I felt a familiar tug of interest as I read about them. Nothing will happen for a while cuz I just don't have the funds right now - though I am working on saving for a future purchase. [I'm up to about $2600 right now.] I only buy audio equipment if I have cash to pay for it.
The Plutone kit + Deuland cast Cu-Ag hybrid price of 3390.00 Euros includes a 21% Dutch sales tax. This is not included to sales outside of the EU. This drops the price to 2801.00 Euros ($2948 USD). The flat pack is 330.00/pair. Presumably, the flat pack price also includes the 21% tax, so the USD equivalent is $287.This brings the kit + flat pack price to $3235 + shipping.
When you first brought this pair to our attention, I saw the price tag and kind of freaked out because it's for a kit after all. Now I'm armed with a bit more information about these speakers; about another kit's slightly less lofty price, my imagined kit pricing of a speaker that isn't a kit, but that I lust after.
This other kit speaker called Spiritwinds was designed by Jeff Bagby using an special order AT midwoofer and a Scan Speak Be tweeter. This kit costs $1618. Pre assembled XOs would add more. I don't know anyone who would do the flat pack for me, but I do know a couple speaker cabinet makers who would charge in the neighborhood of $400 to $500 to make veneered cabinets. That puts it at close to $2200. Upgraded XOs would add $300(?) more.
My imagination kit is Jim Salk's Exotica monitors. They are not available as a kit. They cost $5995/pr. I pretend they might cost ~$4000 as a kit (?).
That's all for now. In 2 1/2 hours Taiwan will enter 2017. Time for some joy, laughter, and Kavalan Solist Cask strength Whiskey. It's amazing stuff that I picked up at Duty Free at CKS Airport for ~$96.00 (costs ~$150 in the US!).
Happy new year!
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I noticed Tony has added one buyer's comments and picture, but otherwise the webpage seems about the same. I think he changed some crossover pictures from the Audyn cap to the Deulund cap. Maybe more buyers are going for those.
You don't pay the VAT if you are not in EU. :D
Plutone is definitely lustworthy. It is expensive for a kit, but it isn't really a kit as we normally think of a pile of parts to assemble yourself. The crossovers are fully assembled, matched and wired, drivers matched, stuffing cut to width. The box and final assy is really all it needs. The flat pack is a good idea. A builder in Denmark emailed me pics of the flat pack parts, looks very nice. He said the cut quality is superb. Tony has a friend with CNC to make the parts as I understand.
Plastic cones are hit and miss for me, they can tend towards safe/boring like old Spendor and some Harbeths but the AT cone I heard in ultra high end Peak Consult Zoltans I thoroughly enjoyed. Like an open window. No paper snap, no metal brights, just nothing. Can't tell how much sizzle was missing but I didn't feel to miss anything.
Who's selling the spiritwind kit? I saw the yootoob on those a while back.
Happy New Year Michael!
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"I noticed Tony has added one buyer's comments and picture, but otherwise the webpage seems about the same. I think he changed some crossover pictures from the Audyn cap to the Deulund cap. Maybe more buyers are going for those. "
I guess I was just too distracted when you first brought them to our attention. I think we were in Banff or close by at the time. That area is AMAZINGLY beautiful.
Mark at Meniscus Audio sells the Spiritwinds. He sells a good half-dozen kits that he has so far refused to place in his website. I find it odd at best and downright irritating when I'm trying to decide on my next kit. I emailed him twice October in 2015 asking about the Spiritwinds. He finally answered in December 2016! That's kind of scary.
Michael
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On diyaudio.com, Tony Gee (Geenius) posted the FR/acoustic phase curves. I had seen the phase curve before, but it wasn't labelled, and I just thought it was too good to be phase curve so I just ignored it. When he posted it on diy I asked him if it is acoustic phase? Yup.
Check this out:
(http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Plutone/Plutone_SPL.jpg)
Nothing like linear phase. It will become popular tweak someday, you can say you read it on AN first! Seeing this I'm even more eager to try these now. All my planned active speakers with computer crossover filtering is all just to get a linear phase speaker. These do it with simple passive crossovers. Yeah they are expensive, but the price of doing FIR active DSP speakers is much more.
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Ya know, until I travelled up to the Daedalus workshop to listen to Lou's different speakers, I had gotten pretty interested in the Plutone kit. I kept returning to it a couple times a month. I very nearly emailed Tony to ask about his thoughts of modifying the Plutone to a sealed cabinet with the low end capped at 80, 90, or even 100+Hz, and supported by Rythmik double 8" subs. It was to be a quasi-Exotica 3 but a lot less expensive.
I really like Tony's website. There's a lot of really good 'stuff' in it.
I may someday ask him this for speakers in Oregon, but for now I think I'll be quite happy with my Apollos in Taiwan. They ought to be finished soon.
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Yeah, you'll be happy with those for sure.
A local friend is interested in doing your idea. He calls it Plutone Plus. With subs or bass woofers added to make 3 way. Not heard much from him lately, but I was hoping to get to hear his to see if I like the Plutone sound before doing my own.
I would probably let it be a 2way at first as most of the owners say it is enough for music listening. My 6" are almost enough for me, and these are 8" woofers. If necessary I would add front facing Aura NS18s crossed at 250. But to maintain the linear phase through that bass crossover would require DSP, and I would prefer to keep computer limited to player duties, not in the crossover.
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I'd like to pick your brain, Rich.
We've chatted about the Plutone. Now Tony has this Dueland Coherent Audio 8" driver he's using to create a new two-way speaker. As if that's not enough, he's also working on a three-way with a 15" woofer!
OMG! Does Tony Not sleep at night? He must know I've been accessing his website regularly for a year or more. He's deliberately toying with me because he knows damned well I start drooling at his pictures. :drool: This must be fixed!
Tell me those are horrible sounding speaker designs, so I won't lose sleep at night. Please, someone. Help me........ :duh
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My Plutone itch had returned in the last couple days. A local friend plans to buy it and build it as a 3 way with SB Acoustics 15" bass and 2way active xo to the passive Plutone above. Having a breakfast meeting to plan it this Saturday. With all that getting me excited for my own Plutone I was gonna move it forward in my building queue. I guess I better take a look at what Mr. Humble is up to lately!
Thanks for the heads up.
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Michael, can you post links to Tony's new projects? I don't see them on his website.
Thanks!!
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Michael, can you post links to Tony's new projects? I don't see them on his website.
Thanks!!
Rich,
Do make certain you're seated when you scroll down the page. The Dueland driver's magnet is immense!
http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/index.html