During the past few weeks, having a day off was almost impossible. Therefore, this project, which is essentially a mini version of the Bose PAS, was done at night, before sitting down to enjoy a tall glass of Kickapoo Joy Juice. This is basically a modification of the Logitech Z-5500 system, which has really performed well during the past several months. When the final project is completed, it will shorten the Logitech setup time to just a few minutes at most.

Thus far, the tower, which measures just 36 inches tall and 4 X 4 inches square, sound great for vocals and all high frequency sounds, but it still lack mid range sounds. I believe it has something to do with the enclosure, which I'm now in the process of modifying.









As you can see by the various construction stages above, the frame is made of 1-inch aluminum angle, the sides, top and bottom are made of 1/4-inch formica, covered with black felt and the front grill is made from ornamental, black aluminum and corved.

The speaker cables are all harnessed into a single cable that fans out at the end with 5 RCA plugs that are color coded and cut to the exact length. The post is attached to the top of the subwoofer with industrial strength Velcro, however, this too will soon be modified. The entire post weighs just over 4 pounds. With luck, I'll be able to fix the mid range problem with speaker particians made from Ethafoam and placing foam on the inner walls of the post.

More to come,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

[This message has been edited by travlin'easy (edited 11-26-2005).]

[This message has been edited by travlin'easy (edited 11-27-2005).]

Gary ........AWESOME!!! .....
another fantastic creation by "MR WIZARD"

Good luck with it !!

So Gary !!!

Sounds great - but what happened to the pics ? Or am I the only one that can't see them ?

I'm excited to see the steps of the project.

vc

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Vern

No, it's not just you. I can't see them either. On investigation it seems like you need to be a member of the Psrtutorial to see the pics because that is where they are being served from. When I put the picture URLs into my browser I just get a warning about this from Psrtutorial.


[This message has been edited by Nigel (edited 11-27-2005).]

I'll repost them using my web site as the host.

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

All speakers face straight ahead? I would think you need to angle them like Bose.

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Bill
Yamaha PSR2000

Bill,

From what I can see of the interior of my Bose PAS tower, all the speakers face straight ahead as well.

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

Mr Wizard indeed!! Now the above statement is surprising. With all the Research and development Bose claims it put into the Pas, I would have thought they came up with some magical formula for positioning the speakers. I guess they just positioned the tuning port holes on the side and back so that the reflected sound from behind the speakers eminates out the tuning ports.

Gary, maybe that's what you need to do to your enclosure to enhance the mid-range?

Al

Gar:
Louuking Goood, are those the 5 speakers from the z5500? Care to tell how they're put together, (how'd you get them apart) (guessing they used silicon to hold them in? I was experimenting with taking off the base (horse shoe thingie) to possibly do a different mount, the base has a machine bolt and comes off, but the nut on the bolt now rattles inside and can't get it out. Can't figure how to gain entry seems its all moulded into one piece?? Gave up on the different mount idea, and had to use guitar makers glue to re/afix the base back on?

I'm guessing bose's trick is not done so much with the speakers, but possibly some kind of speaker circuit that sort of does a electronic leslie effect???.

Wondered why you were so quiet lately. he he
Least it keeps you out of the bars, but not out of the elixer kickapoo....

Note to readers: If you are a glue things up person and would like some glue that will glue anything period. Try Stewart Mc donald the luthier supply company. Best glue I've ever used. Will work on anything from guitars to fenders on your Chevy..

Pose

[This message has been edited by loungelyzard (edited 11-27-2005).]

I am 99% sure, at least the one from their debut... possibly they changed... I sure thought they were angled. A line array at various angles. I thought that was a key reason it does what it does.

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Bill
Yamaha PSR2000

Gary:

Just had a idea. The z5500 mid range seems to come from only the center speaker, maybe wireing the top speaker on your pole to the center might get more projection. (if you hav'nt done this already).....Pose

Gary, very cool... you keep outdoing yourself. BTW, count me in for 2 of those.

Glenn

Good show again Gary....I hope that your getting the material together for the book
...it's got to be a big hit with do it yourselfers.....need a agent????
TR

Thanks guys and gals. I think I've figgured out the mid range problem, but won't get to work on this again until later in the week.

Pose, getting to the inside of the speaker case was not very obvious. The four little rubber sleeves that the speaker cover fits into are easily removable. Beneath them are small phillips-head screws, which allows you to take the face plate off and get to the interior of the speaker enclosure.

Cheers,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

Gary,
It looks very cool but what about the stereo image of the sounds?
Don't you loose it?

Stam

Gary:
Thanks for the tip, I thought of that possibility, but did'nt want to risk tearing something up.........Pose

Stam,

Yes, you do loose the stereo image, however, even with the speakers separated and on posts, stero can only be heard by those persons located within an equalateral triangle in relation to the distance the speakers are separated. Persons outside the triangle primarily hear either unbalanced stereo sounds, or if the room has lousy accustics, they hear mono because the sounds are bouncing off the walls, ceiling, floors, etc.

Cheers,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

Is it possible to use two of theese in stereo?

Doc-Z

Gary:
found time to fix the loose nut in the speaker, thanks to you.

Those puppies has quite a magnet for such a little speaker.

When I first looked at the top picture,with the red bricks in the background, I thought you were converting your wood stove to a pas........cheers......pose

[This message has been edited by loungelyzard (edited 11-29-2005).]

Doc,

I suppose you could fire everything through a mixer, then with some ingenious routing, end up with a pair of 5.1 surround-sound systems that would be 1,000 watts RMS. The hookup, however, for a gigging musician, would be a nightmare.

Almost forgot. A local restuarant where I used to perform just installed a Z-5500 5.1 system as a permanent house sound system. The speakers are all mounted high on the walls, one in each corner of the room, and the center speaker is mounted directly overhead, in the center or the room and facing straight down. The sub sits beneath a Baby Grand where no one can see it, and the remote receiver sits on a window ledge. When the guy at the piano, who also plays a keyboard through the system as well, fires up and performs the sound is awesome and fills the entire room with incredible sounding vocals and music.

Cheers,

Gary

Travlin' Easy

[This message has been edited by travlin'easy (edited 11-29-2005).]

Great job Gary. I like the idea of the lightweight tower housing all of the satellite speaker drivers. A weight of 4 pounds is incredibly low!

I agree with SemiLive regarding the angle of the speakers. Even though they are small drivers, they are quite directional and the coverage benefits dramatically with a bit of angling. Also the projection and balance (sub/satellites) seems to improve when using Stereo x 2 (4 speakers only).
http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/Forum37/HTML/011419.html

The angles can give it nearly 180 degrees coverage and an even soundfield. But obviously much less elegant to the eye than your compact solution!

Once again - top work.

Mark

So Gary,

How goes the project? I haven't seen any comments re: lately. I'm sure this is a busy time of year for you.

vc

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Vern

Vern,

I haven't had time to work on it lately--back to back music jobs every day from now till the middle of March. Tis the season!

Gary

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Travlin' Easy