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In the Forum: Audio Discussions
In the Thread: A listening room for a domesticated Cat?
Post Subject: Changing Macondo ConfigurationPosted by Romy the Cat on: 9/18/2017
Lately I have been thinking a lot, trying figure out what I am and where I would like to go with Macondo. The Macondo base, the horns isle is still there and I have no motivation to change anything. The conceptualizing and assembling of what I have in the isle is an evolutionally thing and in my view and to my ears presents a pineal of what might be done in within the given topology. The Macondo support in base region is something that I am not certain for now. 
 
In the first Macondo version, when I lived in my city apartment, the base was handled my line-arrays of 6 my favorite pimpled SunSpeak drivers. It was sitting at 107Hz, the room was small, the Upperbass horns were positioned at very active spots in the room and the overall result was spectacular. The bass did not have that “vintage glow” but it was VERY interesting result with very accurate, well controlled, very transient, very lush and very noble bass. I drove it by Milq bass channel  and the small size of the room made it possible the Milq to stay in class A1.
In my West Woburn house, I built 40Hz straight horns with Vitavox 40/15 drivers and drove it from Milq’s low bass channels. Even though I feel that the Milq’s low bass channels were loaded 2-3 times heavier then I would like it to be but it was VERY wonderful result. The ULF was handled by the same SunSpeak line-array and 100W SS amp behind an active tube crossover. To my huge surprise, hiding behind the midbass horn decay the ULF was very effective. 
 
Now I have my new listening room. The upperbass horn are not in active spot and they do 130-140Hz. If I put in use the SunSpeak line-array with 6 drivers per side then I good 6-7dB down in gain. To rectify it I would need extra 4-6 drivers per side, I have no room to accommodate it and the array will be 14’ height. To drive it by anything other than Milq (DSET) does not sound attractive. I do not have more powerful and with more gain SET. To use SS would be sacrilege, let do not even discuss it. 
 
I am looking now in the direction of small folded horns. K-Horns, Jamboree and etc. My initial testing results are very negative but I still will be working on it. The conceptual problem is that if I make them to work then I will lose my time alignment and still will need some SS amps to drive my ULF. I am very afraid my high-power SS to drive lower bass. It was OK in my former room but it was way behind a very slow decaying straight horn. The small folded horns stop response very abruptly like a rock and I will not have a log decaying tail where my SS crap ULF might hide. 
 
So, am a bit at lost. I might go with upper bass horns, I have room to do it but I do not have zeal at this point. I would like the kids to grow a little and the family stop bleeding from the nights when the Charley’s teeth growing, Abby’s dipper rashes or with Thomas’ temper tantrums. 
 
In meanwhile I clearly would like to have Milq to drive my midbass, no SS amp and I would like to have time alignment. One of the direction is keep working on corner horn. I will not have time alignment but I might have a good room loading. The problem is that with the corner horns I get 50Hz, heavy EQed and very rapid roll of. There is no way in hell I will find a SS amp that will run in auditable region. If I have a SS amp to run in sub 20Hz where sound is not tonally auditable then it is fine but I for sure do not want a SS to drive my tower all the way to 50Hz. One of solutions might be to come up with 15” line-array with near 100dB sensitive drivers. Employing 3-4 of them I can get the output I need, I can even to set them to run as 2 in midbass and 2 in sub-bass. Like 2 Vitavox 15/40 and 2 Altec 505G. I can make all of them run from Milq bass it is might be enough. I can eventually set a SS to run in sub 20Hz but this it already less important. The bitch is to able to predict how the 15” direct radiators will be decaying in sealed enclosures of let say 6 cub feet. If I able to make it fast/slow (high transient but slow decay) then I will be able to compliment if with SS crap at the bottom… Ah, I wish I had time to experiment with all of it as I did 15 years back and not to be afraid to make mistakes!!!

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