BillFitzmaurice.info

Here is mine:


Okay there monsters are a hair under 8' tall and have 21 woofers and 33 tweeters. The woofers are Vifa m10md-39-08 models
http://www.madisound.com/pdf/vifa/m10md-39-08e.pdf
but these have an extra magnet assembly attached to the original magnet. The tweets are an as yet unknown brand/model.



These are supposedly the original Pipedreams built by Mark something or other (can't remember the name). However, the wires have never been connected to the terminals of one cab, and the other cab has never even had the terminals installed, tho I do have the terminals.



Any ideas or guesses on what these tweeters are? They are glued in place and there is no reasonably easy way to get them out to look for brand and model. The tweets are wired into banks of 4 in series it appears with the bottom-most tweet not wired at all. There are about 10 tweets not working as of now in each array, so I need to see what I can do about that. Pipedreams should have an electronic crossover but these have none so I will probably build a passive x-over for them to make life easier, but first I have to figure how the drivers are all wired and ohmage of them.

Whether it's all oddiophile hogwash or true, Pipedreams have been on a LOT of top 10 best speakers of all time lists. These also do not have the dual 18" stereo subs, so I will need to do something about that as well.

Please - Any comments or suggestions of what I should do with these?

I have finally dug out a tweeter and it is a Pioneer add64-56f ( http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdet ... er=270-045 ). The tweeters appear to be missing the front plastic mounting piece (which is why they are all glued into the baffles ). The voice coil and domes are just held on with sticky felt (?). Looks like they were about $15 each back when they were available. One of the 8' baffles came loose from the pipe while relocating it and, of course, broke. Some of the tweeters are not working in each cab but as of now I do not know how many are actually bad. There is a source for the tweeters online and I ordered up 4 of them to replace some obvious bad tweets.

So, my friends, since I have to make new baffles anyway, should I make them the same as the originals: 33 tweets and 21 woofers? Freaking odd numbers to make a reasonable nominal impedance. 20 woofs would definitely be easier to work with (5x4) = 6.4 ohms, 30 tweets (6x5) can give me 6.667 ohms. 32 tweets = 4 or 16 ohms. 33 tweets (3x11) gives me a bastardly 2.18 or 29.333 ohms.

I bought 2- 1x8x8' pieces of red oak for the baffles and am considering using some kind of exotic veneer on the cabinets. I am totally open to suggestions on how to do these speakers.

IF these are the Pipedream prototypes as claimed, they would possibly be quite valuable in original configuration, but very impractical from an impedance/usage standpoint. For that matter they would be way more practical if I cut the damned things in half. Who needs 8' tall speakers -- and 54 drivers per cabinet??? They are total overkill for any sane person which is probably why I like them so much.

Also, what sub(s) to build to mate with these behemoths? They are *quite* efficient and LOUD. It may take a quad of Table Tubas to hang with these.

Again, I am open to ideas or criticism!

Edit: grammar

Pics

Odd magnet structure, with addidtional magents attached to the originals (WHY???):


More


Back of tweeter:


Front of dirty tweeter:


Obligatory cat.... errr.... DOG pictures while he watches me work stupidly on speaker projects:

Those are some tall cabs! Do you have 9' ceilings? When the cabs are that tall, you don't have to worry about being in the sweet spot for the tweets.
I checked for prices for the woofers, and one site was looking for $116! (times 21 = $2,436!!!!) Another site had a person selling four for $75. Anyway, the choice is yours...massive, or not-quite-so-massive.
As for the impedances, you can treat it as an SLA or TLAH and calculate alllllll the variables.

The only sensible reason for the additional magnets would be to null the external magnetic field to not interfere with a classic CRT television set.

Do you have them making noise?

Adjusting for broken drivers do they sound good?

Tom Smit wrote:Those are some tall cabs! Do you have 9' ceilings? When the cabs are that tall, you don't have to worry about being in the sweet spot for the tweets.
I checked for prices for the woofers, and one site was looking for $116! (times 21 = $2,436!!!!) Another site had a person selling four for $75. Anyway, the choice is yours...massive, or not-quite-so-massive.
As for the impedances, you can treat it as an SLA or TLAH and calculate alllllll the variables.

Yes, Pipedreams are stupidly expensive. Pipedream model 21s sold for $85,000! The wire in these is silver, and not just in color. It is high silver content wire. And no, I am not a believer that it helps sound, just helps sell them for those who have an extra hundred g's of disposable cash for a pair of stereo speakers. This is the root of my dilemma: These could be worth a very pretty penny in pristine condition so I don't really want to alter there original configuration (that is IF these are the originals, and not some knock off clones).

BassMe wrote:Do you have them making noise?

Adjusting for broken drivers do they sound good?

The one set up next to my tv is making nice sounds. There are a couple banks of 4 tweeters not working so I suppose there is comb filtering going on but I haven't listenend that closely. The x-over I am using is just an Infinity from my new set of Kappa components for my truck doors. I have no idea what the crossover frequency is for the woofs or tweets with this setup, but they sound at least passable like this. With some proper crossovers, I am sure they would be sounding mucho better (a little help, Leland?). Oh and it is LOUD, LOUD, LOUD.

Rune Bivrin wrote:The only sensible reason for the additional magnets would be to null the external magnetic field to not interfere with a classic CRT television set.

Well it didn't work then. The magnetic field around the baffle about rips the screwdriver out of my hand.

67baja wrote:

Rune Bivrin wrote:The only sensible reason for the additional magnets would be to null the external magnetic field to not interfere with a classic CRT television set.

Well it didn't work then. The magnetic field around the baffle about rips the screwdriver out of my hand.

The stupid explanation is that they're put in place to be marketable with "drivers with advanced magneto-motor design", which would be proven true by how far from a TV set they need to be.

They are called "Bucking Magnets" And yes they are used for magnetically shielding the driver for use next to a CRT TV. When they are in place you could place that tower within a foot or two of an TV. Without the bucking magnets in place I would not place those towers within 8ft of a CRT TV as you are sure to cause some serious damage to the TV.

here is mine:

I dunno, I think you need a few more drivers there

haydar wrote:here is mine:

What drivers are you going to use? That is complete overkill - I like it!

yup it standing 205 cm tall. 5.25" woofer 1.5" neo tweet. cheap dirt local driver made by Sinar Baja.
and it will be curved following CBT laws. it may took ages to complete the project since i'm workingman with 3 kidz..