# More loudspeaker systems



## Howard Ferstler (Sep 27, 2007)

These two shots (one with the grill installed; one without) illustrate one of the two main-channel speakers that I built for my smaller AV installation. Each uses Allison/RDL tweeters and a single Allison 6.5-inch woofer. (The deep bass is handled by a big subwoofer, so the small size of the woofers is no big deal.) The midrange drivers are by TB systems, and while they are not quite as good as the Allison midrange drivers employed in my main AV installation, they are still excellent, once properly contoured by the crossover network, which I designed and built myself. The front and back are MDF, and the top, bottom, and sides are solid pine. The woofer has its own sealed enclosure section, with the two midrange drivers sharing the upper section. The two systems are each biamped by two 110-watt amps, and each weighs 50 pounds. Both system crossover networks were carefully voiced by means of a good real-time-analyzer.


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## Howard Ferstler (Sep 27, 2007)

*Speakers footnote*

I just looked at the photos and want to say that while it looks like the speakers are leaning backwards, they are not. That is just the way I held my new digital camera when I pushed the button. The big subwoofer mentioned in the initial post is sitting to the left of the speakers in the photographs. It is a Hsu VTF-3, MK 3, with the turbo boost attachment. Strong bass to below 20 Hz.


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## Howard Ferstler (Sep 27, 2007)

Here is a shot of the two speakers in place, with the 56-inch TV monitor between them. The center speaker is an NHT VS1.2 mounted vertically in a cabinet I built to hold it. A 6.5-inch woofer is on the bottom, facing downward. This installation is powered and controlled by a seven-channel Yamaha processor.


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## knotscott (Nov 8, 2007)

The cabinets look great Howard! :thumbsup:


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## Handyman (Jan 2, 2008)

Howard Nice speakers. They look nice and big. 

I built the 6 that are in my living room. My wife doent like them because she said they are too big. It took me a month of calculating the air space inside the boxes so the speakers would have the right air space for the speakers size. One set have 2 12" speakers and a Pazeo horn with a little splitter circuit board inside each cabinet. And the other 2 have 2 4" self contained speakers, 4 tweeters and a 6x9 at a 45% angle hitting the floor. All Omage brand speakers. One set has one 7" in each box . I have theater sound that will rattle the whole house. I like big speaker. They move some air and sound better. When I built my system, I went out and bought the movie "Apocalypse Now" and when the helicopter fly by in the movie you can feel the air in my living room.


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## Howard Ferstler (Sep 27, 2007)

Handyman said:


> Howard Nice speakers. They look nice and big.
> 
> I built the 6 that are in my living room. My wife doent like them because she said they are too big. It took me a month of calculating the air space inside the boxes so the speakers would have the right air space for the speakers size. One set have 2 12" speakers and a Pazeo horn with a little splitter circuit board inside each cabinet. And the other 2 have 2 4" self contained speakers, 4 tweeters and a 6x9 at a 45% angle hitting the floor. All Omage brand speakers. One set has one 7" in each box . I have theater sound that will rattle the whole house. I like big speaker. They move some air and sound better. When I built my system, I went out and bought the movie "Apocalypse Now" and when the helicopter fly by in the movie you can feel the air in my living room.


As I noted, the package illustrated here is my smaller system. Previously, the mains in it were a pair of Dunlavy Cantatas that I recently sold. (List price for a pair was $5500, but I got a lot less than that on resale.) The performance goal with all three of the speakers shown up front is flat response and wide dispersion. My RTA measurements (done with a computerized averaging technique that lets me measure over a broad area at head height at and between the two listening chairs) showed a response of +/- 2.5 dB between 80 Hz and 12.5 kHz. However, I also make use of Rane equalizers, and with them in operation all three front speakers measure +/-1 dB between those two points. (Above 12.5 kHz the response rolls of to -9 dB at 20 kHz and below 80 Hz the subwoofer powered bass ramps slowlly upward to +6dB at 20 Hz.)

I mentioned that the main subwoofer is a Hsu VTF-3, MK3, but there is actually a second subwoofer, a Hsu TN1220, that handles just the center-channel bass. Each sub is able to put better than 106 dB into the room at 20 Hz, with the VTF-3 actually able to hit 112.

You may have also noted my bigger system in another picture folder I created for this group. It has even bigger speakers (the mains are Allison IC-20 models with ten drivers apiece), and also with two powerful subwoofers. Not all shown in the small-system pix are the four surround speakers. Two are small custom jobs that I built, with one shown in the wider-angle shot in the upper left corner. The two further to the rear are vintage, and refurbished by me Allison Model Four units, hanging on the side walls. In the main system (in the other photo series) the surrounds are four Allison Model Ones (sides and front effects), plus two more minispeakers used as "back" surrounds. The main system is in a room that is a bit more than 22 x 18 feet, with an 8.5-foot ceiling. The smaller system is in a 22 x 17 foot room, with an 8-foot ceiling.

The biggest job with all of the speakers I built (and modified) involved crossover work. All of the ones I built have mostly second-order networks, with premium caps, and each system also has each driver or driver array protected by self-resetting bistable resistor fuses. (Three fuses in each system.) No use taking chances with burning out drivers, I say.

I used to review audio products for The Sensible Sound and The Audiophile Voice, and also did dozens of commentary columns for the former. I also have published two books on AV, plus two consisting of sound-quality oriented record reviews, and also did the technical editing for The 2005 edition of The Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound. I put some of my reviewing outlook to work when I reviewed several tools for this group in the tool-review section. That was some time ago, however.

I love the speakers I have built, and also love those that I purchased. (The big IC-20 models remain the best speakers I have ever reviewed.) While the smaller installation shown here cannot match the bigger one in terms of absolute spaciousness, power and depth, it is still able to hold its own against any others I have auditioned, and the measured response flattness equals what I have with the bigger system.

Glad you have put together a package you like. Audio can be a very fun hobby, and it becomes even more fun when you do much of the construction work yourself. Tricky doing the crossover network fine tuning, however. I spent over 20 hours tweaking things.

PS: You want to really test the dynamics of your systems? Go get a copy of the movie U-571 and listen to the full depth-charge sequence. Fasten your seat belt first.

Howard Ferstler


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## Daren (Oct 14, 2006)

Sounds like you know your stuff Howard, wish we where neighbors I would come over and watch movies :laughing:.


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## knotscott (Nov 8, 2007)

Wow Howard! ...I'll bet you know my old audio buddies Ken Stevens from Convergent and Bobby Palkovic from Merlin? I spent many a CES show with those guys in the late 80's and early 90's. :thumbsup: How about Richard Vandersteen, Harvey Rosenberg from NYAL, George Cardas, Sal D'Amico from Distech, or Paul Heath a partner in Merlin? I've forgotten a bunch of good folks I met over the years...not really into it much anymore but definitely _was_...


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## Howard Ferstler (Sep 27, 2007)

knotscott said:


> Wow Howard! ...I'll bet you know my old audio buddies Ken Stevens from Convergent and Bobby Palkovic from Merlin? I spent many a CES show with those guys in the late 80's and early 90's. :thumbsup: How about Richard Vandersteen, Harvey Rosenberg from NYAL, George Cardas, Sal D'Amico from Distech, or Paul Heath a partner in Merlin? I've forgotten a bunch of good folks I met over the years...not really into it much anymore but definitely _was_...


One of the things I did as technical editor for The 2005 Routledge (revised) edition of The Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound (this two-volume monster listed for almost $300) was to clean up some of the old technical articles and write quite a few new ones. 
However, one other thing I did was do brief biographical sketches of a number of audio notables: design engineers, journalists, and recording engineers. Some of these people I already knew (mostly from correspondence, because I am not the traveling type), and those that I knew gave me pipelines to those I needed to contact to get still more information. 

Some were dead, and a few, like Hirsch and Kloss, died only shortly after I contacted them and got the info. Indeed, Henry Kloss and I actually wrote his biographical sketch together while we talked on the phone and a week later he died.

Many of those I profiled were seriously heavy hitters, while some were smaller in stature, but still significant. Just for kicks, here are a few of those I managed to biographically discuss (and please pardon the name dropping): Ralph Couzens, Richard Small, A.N. Thiele, Simon Eadon, Roger Russel, Elliot Scheiner, Al Schmitt, Ken Pohlmann, Phil Ramone, David Rich, Mike Riggs, Tony Faulkner, Floyd Toole, Stan Lip****z, Tom Holman, Gordon Holt, John Eargle, Edgar Villchur, Henry Kloss, Stan Goodall, Mark Davis, R.A. Greiner, John Pellowe, Gene Pitts, Sydney Harman, Tom Nousaine, Sean Olive, Dick Pierce, Alan Parsons, Hugh Padgham, Don Hartridge, Mike Hatch, Michael Bishop, Julian Hirsch, Jack Renner, Amar Bose, Roy Allison, Don Keele, Larry Klein, Siegfried Linkwitz, George, Massenburg, Minoru Nagata, Roger Nichols, David Chesky, Ken Kantor, George Augspurger, Leo Beranek, Jack Hidley, and Philip Hobbs. I mention so many, because some here might be interested in looking up the life and work histories of certain audio notables. Hopefully, a local library (certainly a university music library) will have a copy of The Encyclopedia.

As you can see, some of those people (Small, Thiele, Toole, Villchure, Allison, Scheiner, Faulkner, Davis, Schmitt, Bose, Ramone, Holt, Hirsch, Eargle, Nichols, Parsons, Renner, and Beranek, for sure) were pioneers in some very important areas. Some practically invented hi-fi design. hi-fi journalism, hi-fi research, and the hi-fi recording technologies as we know it today. However, even some of the smaller players did some very significant things.

I did not get around to dealing with the people you mentioned, and for that I apologize. It was difficult enough getting some of the people above to supply important biographical info as it is (many were just too modest), even though I had been corresponding with a number of them for years. Most were cooperative as hell, however. A few offered real thrills when I got hold of them: "I have been reading your stuff for years, Howard, what can I do for you?" Comments like that money cannot buy.

Howard Ferstler


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## knotscott (Nov 8, 2007)

That's a pretty amazing history in audio Howard. I scanned through the list of names you mentioned and recognize many as industry stalwarts. I definitely remember David Chesky. His record label was an upstart when I met him and his brother... he was one of a dozen or so that would hang out with Kenny Stevens, Sal D'Amico, and a few other true diehards. The Chesky's actually came out to Rochester and presented to our "Kodak Audio Club" once, as did Richard Vandersteen, and Harvey Rosenberg, among others. The name Ken Kantor rang a bell too but I can't put the name to a face or product....any help there? 

Was $ensible $ound out of Buffalo? I wrote and a single review on a Luxman LV105 tube/transistor hybrid amp that got published by one of the smaller sound mags...for some reason $ensible $ound is coming to mind, but I'm not certain which one. It wasn't Stereophile or Absolute Sound... It was too many tools ago to remember! :blink: 

I founded the Kodak Audio Club ~ 1984 as a young lad and ran it until around 1988....it survived another 4 or 5 years with others at the helm before layoffs and cutbacks dealt in a terminal blow. After that I took a stab at designing and building my speakers...I started and ran Sterling Acoustics locally for about 7 years and made and sold a couple hundred pairs from about 5 models I had designed....one model approached state of the art stuff, but most were just solid high end values. At that time I wasn't into wwing and was hiring the cabinetry out to a couple of locals. I do believe that they sparked some interest in wwing though. :yes:

Anyway, it was nice reminiscing about another life with you! Thanks for allowing me to segway a bit on your thread. :thumbsup:


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## Howard Ferstler (Sep 27, 2007)

knotscott said:


> That's a pretty amazing history in audio Howard. I scanned through the list of names you mentioned and recognize many as industry stalwarts. I definitely remember David Chesky. His record label was an upstart when I met him and his brother... he was one of a dozen or so that would hang out with Kenny Stevens, Sal D'Amico, and a few other true diehards. The Chesky's actually came out to Rochester and presented to our "Kodak Audio Club" once, as did Richard Vandersteen, and Harvey Rosenberg, among others. The name Ken Kantor rang a bell too but I can't put the name to a face or product....any help there?
> 
> Was $ensible $ound out of Buffalo? I wrote and a single review on a Luxman LV105 tube/transistor hybrid amp that got published by one of the smaller sound mags...for some reason $ensible $ound is coming to mind, but I'm not certain which one. It wasn't Stereophile or Absolute Sound... It was too many tools ago to remember! :blink:
> 
> ...


Ken Kantor was a founder of NHT. He designed most of their notable products in the early days of the company. His tradition goes back to the early days of east-coast audio, with companies like AR, Advent, KLH, Apt, and Allison.

The Sensible Sound continues to be based in Snyder, New York, although the early editorial work was done in Ohio. I got out of the business a while back, although one of my reviews is in a recent edition and one or two more may still be in the pipeline. No more for me after those, however.

The magazine had (and has) a mix of rational reviews and columns by guys like me, Dave Moran, David Rich, and Bob Thompson, as well as what I will carefully call "tweako" reviews by people who claimed to hear things that, well, cannot not be heard. To legitimize my approach, I was one of the guys who favored double-blind comparisons when dealing with the so-called sound of amps and CD players (and even wires) and that approach did not endear me to certain members of the high-end audio establishment. 

While I never owned an ABX, double-blind comparison device, writer and reviewer Tom Nousaine loaned me his for a while, along with a fine Bryston amp for reference work, and using it pretty much substantiated my previous ideas about the so-called "sound" of decently designed amplifiers in particular. I did many careful (level matched, which is vital) comparisons between assorted other high-end amps and some mainstream receiver amplifier sections, and neither I nor anybody else I pulled in to go through the tests, could ever hear differences between amp units - provided the weaker amps were not called upon to match the bigger ones during loud-volume listening. It was funny how listeners could suddenly hear differences once they knew which brand was playing, however. Audio is a funny hobby.

I did similar blind comparisons between wires (upscale versions I dealt with spanned the price range from $500 for a pair of leads on up to $1000 bucks!), with the upscale versions sounding the same as 16 AWG lamp cord, even at fairly long lengths.

If you Google my name you will come up with all sorts of threads dealing with my approach to audio. Some commentaries by my antagonists border on paranoia. Several of my reviews and commentary columns are still available on line, and some audio buffs even seem to like me.

Howard Ferstler


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## Howard Ferstler (Sep 27, 2007)

*Speaker and bookcase closeup*

Here is a closer shot of the center speaker in that smaller installation of mine. As I noted before, the tweeter and midrange array is a vertically mounted midrange-tweeter-midrange (MTM) VS1.2 unit made by NHT and designed by Ken Kantor. (In most installations, this NHT unit or others similar to it would be mounted horizontally, which is not a good way to position an MTM driver array, even if most people are stuck with having to position systems like that to accommodate their TV situation.) The woofer is bottom mounted and aimed downward (black standoff spacers give it room to breath at the bottom) and there is a modified Allison crossover network inside that sends the bass below 180 Hz to the woofer and everything above that frequency to the VS1.2. A detachable external jumper wire on the back electrically connects the two sections together. The pine enclosure is stained with Minwax golden oak stain, with sprayed on sating urethane. This is also what the left and right speakers have.

There is a felt-lined cuttout in the top section to hold the NHT speaker, with clamps in the back to keep it from sliding to the rear. In a normal AV installation, the NHT center speaker would have to handle the range all the way down to 80 or 90 Hz, where the subwoofer takes over. However, by utilizing the small, 6.5-inch woofer on the bottom of this vertical cabinet the NHT system only has to go down to 180 Hz, which increases its headroom capacity considerably.

Note that this system actually does have the front panel leaned back slightly. (So does the center speaker that I built for my larger main system.) This is because a focussed MTM array (or MTTM array like my main-system center speaker) is directional in the vertical plane and so to get a clean and flat first-arrival signal at the seated, ear-height listening position the system needs to be tilted back slightly. 

The left and right speakers in both this and my main installations are tall enough for their vertical MTTM arrays to be properly aimed at the seated ear-height listening postion with no leaning back at all. (The apparent lean back of the main speakers in my smaller installation is the result of the photographer - yours truly - not quite knowing what he was doing.) 

The bookcase behind the speaker was built by me to hold that 56-inch TV. It is solid pine, with an MDF back. Where it differs from most bookcases is that the shelves are fairly shallow (7 inches deep, while the bookcase itself is a foot deep), with the MDF back mounted inboard five inches. This allows the back to act as a brace to keep the top shelf flat under the weight of the TV set.

Howard Ferstler


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## GROOVY (Apr 27, 2008)

Hey Howard I was just wondering why the speakers are in front?
Could they say be closer to the wall or even part of a cabinet AV setup?


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## knotscott (Nov 8, 2007)

GROOVY said:


> Hey Howard I was just wondering why the speakers are in front?
> Could they say be closer to the wall or even part of a cabinet AV setup?


I'd hazard a guess that Howard is a fairly critical listener. Location is a huge aspect of the overall sound of a system. Shoving speakers near a wall, and especially in a cabinet or on a shelf can really degrade the soundstage. They make look better out of sight but won't have optimum placement.


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## Howard Ferstler (Sep 27, 2007)

knotscott said:


> I'd hazard a guess that Howard is a fairly critical listener. Location is a huge aspect of the overall sound of a system. Shoving speakers near a wall, and especially in a cabinet or on a shelf can really degrade the soundstage. They make look better out of sight but won't have optimum placement.


Yes, I am pretty critical, particularly since in the old days I was both a component reviewer and also reviewed recordings. Before I built the left and right units I had a pair of Dunlavy Cantata systems ($2700 each) in those locations, because I needed name-brand speakers on hand for fair A/B comparison work. The new systems have a more spacious sound than the Dunlavys, and they also take up less space. I prefer their sound. The Dunlavys have been sold to a very happy friend.

The center speaker is in line with the left and right mains, and this also requires that my surround processor apply a bit of delay to get the center the same rough distance from the central listening position point as the mains. The TV (a low-profile projection unit) cannot be hung from the wall, so it has to sit on the bookcase, and so the speaker has to sit where it is. However, this location works fine, and my wife does not seem to object. We cannot do away with the bookcases, anyway, because, well, we have a lot of books. The shots of my main system elsewhere on this site do not show just how many bookcases are located on the back wall of that room, and our living room also has bookcases full of books. Remember, I also used to work in a library.

The center speaker itself may eventually be replaced by a shorter version of the left and right mains. I prefer the stacked Allison RDL tweeter array in the left and right systems to the single NHT tweeter in the center systems, and I also prefer the TB midrange drivers in the left and right systems to the ones used in the NHT unit. Also, I want to have the woofer on the front, both for stylistic reasons and also because that would allow the bottom-located woofer enclosure section to be a bit larger inside. (The air space under the enclosure to allow for the downward-facing woofer to work would be gone and the enclosure enlarged downward accordingly.) The sound difference in the base would probably be inconsequential, however.

Why did I build the speaker with the downward-facing woofer in the first place? Well, that is what those Dunlavy Cantatas had, and I wanted its style to match theirs.

Howard Ferstler


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