Scan-Speak 1500/9700
built by Fokke/Holland
Hi Troels,
My W1500/97 monitors are finished!
I took my time finishing them with
pear wood veneer and Danish Oil, and the result is
stunning. Mirror smooth cabinets that feel softer than a
babies bottom. ;-) At first, the sound was
quite disappointing, but that's normal with new speakers
as they need to break in. Also, the Audyn caps take quite
some time to break in. So I let them thunder out
loud during the day while working, and listened to them
in the evenings using my audio-room setup consisting of
Wadia 16 CD-player, ML 28 pre and Classé CAV-150 power
amp. The little ones grew fast and after a week the sound
was already quite mature. After breaking in I tuned
the bass cabinet (that already contained pritex lining)
with a hand full of long-hair sheep's wool between the
woofer and the port. Of course, the port is left free.
This gives a fairly dry bass, with sufficient extension
and minimal compression.
I intended these speaker for my
living room and they were to be teamed up with a TEAC
VRDS-20 CD-player and Densen Beat B100 amplifier. After
connecting that equipment it just didn't sound right
anymore. Dull, uncontrolled bass, uninvolving. What the
hell was happening??? Connecting the Wadia to the Densen
brought back most of the magic: Apparently the VRDS-20
was the culprit. Luckily I found a guy who was looking
for a VRDS player offering a Proceed PCD-3 instead. I
love these little CD-players, having owned a PCD 2 for
many years to great satisfaction. So I exchanged happily.
The proceed really works in this combination, I even
prefer it over the Wadia in the Densen / W1500/97 setup.
In my reference system the Wadia stays the preferred
choice.
Then changing location between my
audio room (with heavy carpet) to the living room
(parquet) revealed yet another speaker. Because of the
harder room, it freshened up the sound of these speakers
and gave me the impression that you actually might have
designed them bearing modern and acoustically somewhat
harder listening environments in mind. It worked out fine
in my case anyway. All these experiences
showed me how sensitive these speakers are to their
environment. They let you know when they're happy, and
you'll definitely notice when they're not happy! So after
all these backgrounds: how does it sound with the right
set-up?
In one word: absolutely stunning.
This is way more than what I bargained for. Integration
of woofer and tweeter is virtually seamless. No loose
highs and so on. Just music. No over-enthousiastic
speaker that tries to sell itself. The sound is really
easy and allows for long listening sessions without any
fatigue. As is well known, the bass performance of these
scan speak woofers is downright breathtaking. Yet there
is only bass when the program material says that there is
bass. In that case, you get attacked in the back. I love
it!
The soundstage and imaging is very
realistic. Acoustical instruments have an almost tangible
presence. The full bodied sound signature clearly
contributes to this sensation. Of course a
pair of 15 cm woofers have their dynamic limits, but stay
within these limits and you're up for loads of fun! My
house has wooden floors, which are a bit flexible, and
when the speakers reproduce a big drum blow, the floor is
actually shaking. Compared to big 3-way system with a
12" or 15" woofer these little wonders are
audibly pulling some tricks to go this deep, and that's
OK. If you want the bass of a 15" woofer, get a
15" woofer. If you want a small monitor, this
speaker is definitely worth considering. I'm happy I did.
So all in all, these little babies
are here to stay for a long while. My girlfriend is very
happy with them too. She's quite critical when it comes
to sound, and this sound combined with the looks and
inobtrusiveness (you have to look twice to see where the
sound is coming from) make them a real WAF winner. I had a
slight concern regarding the size of my living room.
Floor surface around 60 square meters, and 3,5 meters
high ceilings. That's quite a volume to fill! No problems
for these speakers. Even in the back of the room (15
meters away) sound is still full and enjoyable.
Are there things that should be
different with these speakers? I don't think so. As said
before, I think that they work best in a somewhat harder
listening environment. When applied in a more dampened
room, they might sound a bit rolled of in the highs, and
a somewhat brighter set-up might be preferred. Personally
I think that the choice to roll off the frequency
response gradually by approx. 2 dB over the audible band
is quite a sensitive thing to do. It flies a bit in the
face of the current fashion to have over-brilliant
speakers (because we have to hear all those highs from
our SACD players) but people will come back from that.
This is a really timeless design that guarantees years of
enjoyment.
Included are some pics to give you
an impression.
Troels, thanks again for this
wonderful design. I will also show it in the DIY
loudspeakershop (speaker en co) where I bought the
materials because they were very curious about the sound
of this design. Also some Dutch DIY persons were
interested in comparing different "A4" type
designs, so these speakers will definitely participate in
that. Cheers, Fokke.
------
Groen, thanks a lot for the pictures
and your comments on performance. Not many (can) take the
time to try different front ends and acoustic
environments. My listening room is not particular well
damped - and only 24 m^2, however has ideal acoustic
proportions. I live in a wooden house, so no hard
concrete walls or tile floors. Your comments on size and
soundstage is very wellcome. From many diy mails I know
that getting a realistic sense of how loud a speaker can
play is tough. Many people have much too high
expectations from 75-95 cm^2 cone area.
My only worry with your set-up is the placement of coils
on your crossover board. Considering the nice size of
your rear chamber, I would have stuck the large coil in
the middle as you have done, but taken the four other
coils out in each corner with the same orientation as
currently. I'm pretty sure you have coil interaction from
the set-up.
Best regards, Troels
 
  
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