Ellam dappo, built by George/US |
Firstly, thank you for your advice
to my many e-mails over the years. I applaud your work and contribution
to the DIY speaker community. May you continue to be a beacon of
creativity and inspiration.
I've been waiting years for a good
6/7" D'Appolito, so
I settled for the smaller 5.25in
Ellam
D'Appo kit 4 years
ago. When the SBA 16 MTM came out, I immediately placed my order, and
thought I'd never build the
D'Appo. However, I was pleasantly surprised from the moment I
powered them as I had the proverbial "Wow" reaction. They sound very
smooth and neutral.
At first, I tried the Ellam
D'appo with reverse tweeter polarity, but heard a notch ~3kHz,
perhaps the tweeter suck-out. So, I wired them with positive polarity as
the article indicates, and since, I've been quite pleased. To my ears,
D'Appolitos have a
near-field presence to the sound which make them more engaging.
The cabinet is made from 3/4" Baltic
birch. Finishing birch plywood is difficult and unpredictable, so 2
coats of dewaxed shellac was placed, followed by
GelCoat, and a
topcoat of polyurethane with light sanding between all layers. The
enclosures measure 19"(H) x 8.5"(W) x 14.25"(D). Internal volume is 24L,
minus bracing, vibration damping panels, and internal crossover yields
~22.5L net. Felt and
Polyfill was added. Wiring was 14 and 16 gauge stranded
silver-plated copper PTFE.
The 15W/8530K is a very smooth
sounding driver with no nasty cone break up modes. The XT25TG-04
tweeter, which I had bought years ago on sale for $50 has been a
wonderful surprise. The lack of adjectives describing the sound of this
tweeter is an attribute to its very natural and neutral tonal/timbral
balance. I have an extra 98000 tweeter as a back up to my all-Scan-Speak
Classic 871 system. I thought that I might try it out, but I don't think
I need to swap the XT25 tweeter for any reason listed above.
For the crossover, I chose the
Mundorf
Hepta Strand for the
woofer coil, for its supposed holographic, 3-D rendering. I'm not sure
if this is equivalent to
Jantzen's Litz
Wire? The Jantzen Superior Z caps are very neutral and spacious on
mids. The Silver Z
do a fine job of providing transparency and fine detail in the highs
without any hint of glare. I haven't experimented with the tweeter
resistor, as the default 2.7 Ohm gives seems to give a balanced harmonic
structure with plenty of treble detail without screaming "look at my
sexy highs." What also impresses me is how fast the break-in period is
for the Superior Z Caps. 20 hours into it, I feel the sound is very
mature. Mundorf
Supremes take 150+ hours on previous builds.
sound is on the ear, even at high volume. They sound larger than its
apparent size as the 2 woofers yield an equivalent membrane area an 8"
woofer. The sound is very natural. The voicing is warm, detailed,
dynamic, airy, spacious, and refined. Perhaps the SBA 16 MTM might add
dynamics, sensitivity,
transparency
with its LR2 filter over the
D'Appo,
but I don't think we're going to get more out of a 2nd/3rd order
crossover. The SBA MTM or MUN17-3W will be next to find out...
I can't imagine how so many people
are missing out listening to music on flat tablets and phones these
days. Whenever someone comes over, people are mesmerized how
full-spectrum speakers can reproduce music in such a convincing manner
and deliver the visceral impact it deserves.
George (U.S.A.)
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