I got a chance to get a whole new set of speakers going in my main listening room. Open baffles once again with the same bi-amped system.
Attachment:
Open-Baffle-Speakers-Audio-Nirvana-Classic8-Goldwood-GW-1858.jpg
The fullrange driver is a
Audio Nirvana Classic 8 (8" / 200 mm) on an open baffle. The Bass units are
Goldwood GW-1858 (18" / 460 mm) in an H-Frame. A pair of oddblocks drive the top end and a DIY Pass F5 for the bottom end. The active crossover unit is an Ashly XR1001. with a crossover point set 175 Hz. The measured in-room response of the open baffle loudspeaker system is shown below.
Attachment:
AN-Classic8-GW-1858-inroom-frequency-response.png
After proper room placement, I was thrilled with the performance from this speaker combination. The measured in-room response was excellent, about +/-5dB between 32 Hz and 12 kHz. The Audio Nirvana Classic 8 driver is very smooth and very well balanced for this size of full range driver. Another plus is the 18" Goldwood rolls off flatter than the 15" Eminence Alpha-15A. The 18" Goldwoods are solid to 32 Hz and the 15" Eminence to 40 Hz. Both my ears and the in-room measurements seem to confirm that this is may well be my best sounding speaker system to date. Down to 32 Hz and very natural sounding bass. Yes. Big and ugly, but they sound fabulous!
I believe the dip between 60 and 90 Hz is a room related issue. The dip between 200 and 400 Hz I suspect are a result of the limitation with using 2-way crossover (one crossover point) as this dip is generally consistent with all the different fullrange drivers I have tried. I'm considering a miniDSP 2x4HD as a crossover upgrade in the near future.
Cheers