Pure Audio Project upgrades and tweaks

Starting this thread to discuss Pure Audio Project open baffle speakers, upgrades and tweaks. @Kingrex - if you have had both the horns and Coax10, I would be interested in hearing how they compare. And I copied your earlier post below.

What cables upgrades did you use? And can you share a picture of where you located the crossover? Is it attached to something else, or sitting on the floor? I was wondering about the height of the midrange/tweeter and if I should rake the front up. My system will be the Trio15 Coax10, Playback Designs MPS-8 source and Pass Int-25 amp. I'm still waiting for my walnut baffles to ship from RJ Millworkers.

You have to get the updated speaker cables. Its critical.

And , you have to separate the crossover from the frame. Again critical.

If the crossover is touching the frame, the music is very smeared from the intense physical vibration.

If you use stock, instead of upgraded cables, you loose life, air and bass. Less coherent.

The speaker is very good with these tweeks. You don't need to futz with any caps or reaistors with the Coax crossover.

You need to be patient. They take 500 hours like any speaker to break in. 2000 or a year to really be there. I actually put my coax in the basement connected to a class D amp and laptop for week and let it rip sitting on the floor. I would go dowm 3 or 4 times a day to switxh the album and volume.

Also, mine sit on a 9 inch tall very heavy block of wood that sits on fiberglass insulation. A rug would also work. Massive improvement in bass. Just shocking. And, it raises the center of the coax much closer to ear height. Otherwise its too low and like sitting in a balcony.

The fabric over the top keeps the sun from striking the driver. That is all its for.

 

True! (But my personal subjective preference is that I would not sacrifice non-fatiguing enjoyment and emotional connection for hyper-detail and forensic resolution.)

Is the emotional connection more related to a relax and non-fatiguing sound or to a vivid, lively and high resolution rendering? The jury is still out!

 

This is an interesting subject. Personally I have found chasing the detail has it's downsides. And the level of 'treble emphasis' is very personal and subjective. This IMO has clashed head on with digital sources. I may get shouted at here, but turntables going back 30 years along with probably fairly basic (affordable) phono stages in a combo amp had to my ears less high end extension, which in effect acted as a high filter. So we were served up a coloured and extension limited sound (huge simplification but as an example).

Back to present day, in a great high end system, IMO it is possible to get that upper end detail without fatigue, but many don't get there. I would say 30% at a typical hifi show have me heading for the door on that exact subject.

 

So I am finally very close to my ideal balance of sound. What I have struggled with is the in-room response between the 4 x bass drivers and the Coax that handles the mids and treble range. I have completed all the crossover parts upgrades and adjustments so this last stage is the icing on the cake.

I was really wanting to get a bit more mid and treble gain. The bass is a bit too good. After adding the big Solen Air-Core, the bass has increased in both detail, speed and gain, odd as the Solen has slightly more resistance, but must have zero saturation and more energy transfer? It is not much gain, but is there and affecting the overall FR.

Then I remembered, way back when I configured the room layout, I played a lot with distance from the back wall and TOE IN. I found tiny adjustments of toe in affected the bass energy a LOT. So last night I tried some different angles, very subtle, until I found my ideal in room response. BINGO, I think I have got it. No toe in = less bass, more toe in = more bass, to the point you can cut the bass gain by around 30%!!

The fact the PAPs are open backed means the amount of rear firing energy and how much of that comes back to the front is directly affected by toe in.

With my latest adjustments, I have got the Coax driver come come through more, but not lost any bass extension or drive, rather attenuated the volume of the bass. Manically playing many test tracks I found it is now superbly balanced and detailed right across the full FR. I am at about 10° toe in.

No doubt I will try tiny adjustments to toe in going forward, but right now it is a superb result, and has resolved my in room issue.

Damb, these speakers are so good, I would HIGHLY recommend anyone to take the PAP route, open backed is where it's at IMO. And on a budget. Remarkable product.






Note I am using 2 x JL-Audio 10 inch subs. They are configured at a 45hz slope. I find setting them to almost dissappear works really well. They keep up nicely with the 15 inch Eminence drivers, which I calculate tail off from around 40hz. Care with phase and delay settings gets them dailed in nicely.

The Pass 60.8s go really well with the PAPs. I note PAP use them a lot at shows which says something. They need an hour to come on song, but don't get very hot. I love them. I am running the DAVE DAC direct at the moment, and don't feel I'm loosing much if anything. The interconnects are only 1M to the amps.

 

Has anyone experimented going full range without any crossover?

 

Has anyone experimented going full range without any crossover?

Sounds like crap. Its easy to try. Just put your speaker wire to the coax. Extremely pure violin. But vocals and piano fall apart.

I want to try multi amping one day. Active analog crossover or line level cap/resistor.

 

Deleted

 

And yes, my PAP Trio 15 Coax is a way better speaker than one would imagine. Sure the $140,000 Wilson I heard has more bass. Compared to a Diesis thats $80,000 or so. Very similar. PAP uses a frame that is light and plays with the drivers. More air. Diesis uses a heavy concrete frame. More tight and controled sound. A DIY peson could beef and damp a PAP frame for under $1000 and get the ame sound as Diesis.

 

And yes, my PAP Trio 15 Coax is a way better speaker than one would imagine. Sure the $140,000 Wilson I heard has more bass. Compared to a Diesis thats $80,000 or so. Very similar. PAP uses a frame that is light and plays with the drivers. More air. Diesis uses a heavy concrete frame. More tight and controled sound. A DIY peson could beef and damp a PAP frame for under $1000 and get the ame sound as Diesis.

The Diesis Roma is around 96k euros, the Caput Mundi 55k euros.These are horns and single 15 inch bass driver (on the Roma). IMO they will not have the bass definition or extension of the Quintet 15s IMO. The Diesis will not sound the same, but different, they are too far away design wise.

 

The open baffle sonic signature is distinct. B

 

The open baffle sonic signature is distinct. B

Not really, like saying all traditional box speakers sound alike, and we know they don't. I have heard the Diesis and they sound nothing like the Quintet15s.

 

Not really, like saying all traditional box speakers sound alike, and we know they don't. I have heard the Diesis and they sound nothing like the Quintet15s.

I heard them both, and own the Trio. They sound a lot alike. To me. I also have the Trio horn which is very similar to the Diesis. The Coax is much better than the horn. Still had a horn tweeter. But go ahead and buy a $100,000 roughly US priced speaker. For those that can not, or don't want to, a PAP trio or Quintet Coax is an amazing speaker. Regardless of price.

 

We know electric theory has the emf field radiate out from the wire. Shielding can impact this. I have been wondering what impact a magnet has on the speaker wire. My wires lay against the large woofer magnet. Is this doing something. I also have my air core choke with the center of the doughnut facing the crossover. And it sits just below the corssover.

So, is a best practice to keep speaker wires away from the magnets of a driver?

 

We know electric theory has the emf field radiate out from the wire. Shielding can impact this. I have been wondering what impact a magnet has on the speaker wire. My wires lay against the large woofer magnet. Is this doing something. I also have my air core choke with the center of the doughnut facing the crossover. And it sits just below the corssover.

So, is a best practice to keep speaker wires away from the magnets of a driver?

I was curious about the same thing. I tried to eliminate anything magnetic around the crossover, replaced the mounting screws with stainless steel screws, was especially worried about the metal screws around the foil coils as they were all most touching. I kind of address the wire against the magnet, used egg crate foam in between the wire and the magnet. Not sure how much this really helps, but figure it is better than being right up against the magnet especially because the wire I used was not shield.

 

Can someone provide a link to the best isodamp material and source? I have the duet horns…..

I couldn’t find an isodamp washer….
Thank you!
Richard

 

Using Isodamp on the entire surface area where the baffle meets the frame adding washers so the bolts don't sink into the baffle is a big step up. Brought everything into focus tightened up the sound offering more detail from top to bottom. It was also the first and cheapest upgrade. Large impact.

Putting Isodamp on the back of the baffle is an interesting idea, I thought about putting some NoRez on there myself.

Cables, Yes do it!

The other mods I did are worth while too. I don't know how to rate them as I redid the crossover point to point and moved it away from the speaker.

I'm don't know how the physics work for mass loading or dampening materials. I know it changes the sound in a way I enjoy.

Hi,

I'm in the process of tweaking my duet horns... and I really want to do the isodamp as you speak of.
However I can only find sources for huge quantities of it. Do you know of a way just to get a smaller amount of the isodamp?

Thank you,
Richard

 

I don't remember where I got my Isodamp.

https://www.percyaudio.com/ Might still have some, if not I don't know where to buy it.

You could try Sorbothane too, if you try Sorbothane I would consider 1/8".

 

Check out Stinger Roadkill.

 

Hello all,

I have been loving tuning my PAP duet horn 1's....

Duelund 16 for the internal wiring, high pass filter in the crossover, and the gold oil caps coming tomorrow...

QUESTION: I would ideally like to keep my crossover on the metal stand, but dampen it effectively (?). I am thinking of some sort of "pillow" for the crossover.... perhaps sand or something similar.... memory foam? What do you think?

thanks,
Richard

 

I would suggest a sandbag, just place it on top. You could make one out of some material and sand filler.
Advantages are it is soft and enough weight to dampen vibrations, and is not permanent. May even reduce magnetic fields as well?

 

Bonjour à tous.
Tout d'abord, merci pour vos messages.
Cela vous aide à progresser et à vous sentir moins seul face à vos questions.
Je suis l'heureux propriétaire d'une paire de PAP Qunintet15 avec un Voxativ 1.6.
Mon souhait initial était d'acquérir le Voxativ AC-X, mais pour l'instant, j'ai dû composer avec mon budget pour m'offrir les Quintet15 neuves.
Peut-être plus tard…
J'avais une vibration dans l'une des Voxativ.
On m'a conseillé de déplacer le filtre.
Ce que j'ai fait. Je l'ai temporairement placé sur des morceaux de bois.
À ma grande surprise, j'ai constaté une légère amélioration du son en plus de ne plus avoir cette vibration.
J'ai fait une recherche en ligne et
je suis tombé sur votre forum, qui est super. Je reproche aux Quintet15 d'être moins détaillées en arrière-plan de la scène sonore que mes anciennes enceintes d'une autre marque. Sinon, les Quintet15 sont meilleures.
En lisant ce forum, je vois que certains d'entre vous ont remplacé les câbles d'alimentation des enceintes.
J'ai vu que vous parliez de trois types de câbles :
les câbles Fidelium
,
les câbles Mike Meltdown Powell
et les câbles Graditech.
Étant novice en PAP, c'est ma première enceinte de ce type. Pourriez-vous me conseiller sur les câbles ?
J'ai également lu qu'il était possible de construire un filtre.
Je ne suis pas fan des deux cavaliers, je pense qu'il y a moyen d'utiliser quelque chose de plus musical. Je vais voir ce que je peux essayer d'améliorer, sachant que je n'ai aucune connaissance en la matière.
Concernant les vibrations sur le cadre, j'avais envisagé de mettre des poids sur la base pour les limiter.
J'avais envisagé de placer les enceintes sur une grande planche de bois.
J'avais également envisagé de placer de la mousse isolante entre tous les éléments boulonnés du cadre pour limiter les vibrations.
En lisant vos messages, je vois que mes idées n'étaient pas très éloignées des vôtres.
Je vais également me pencher sur les rondelles et voir si je peux limiter les vibrations.
J'ai beaucoup d'idées d'amélioration, merci à vous tous.
Ma priorité sera de trouver un emplacement plus propre et plus efficace pour le filtre.
Ensuite, trouvez des câbles et, si possible, faites-les de même longueur.
J'envisagerai également de placer une épaisse planche de bois horizontalement entre le cadre, ce qui pourrait le renforcer et absorber les vibrations. Pourriez-vous me conseiller sur l'achat de câbles pour obtenir la meilleure qualité musicale ?
Et si vous avez d'autres conseils, n'hésitez pas à les consulter.
Merci.
Yann


Hello everyone.
First of all, thank you for your messages.
It helps you progress and feel less alone when it comes to your questions.
I am the proud owner of a pair of Qunintet15 PAPs with a Voxativ 1.6.
My initial intention was to acquire the Voxativ AC-X, but for now, I had to work within my budget to afford the Quintet15s new.
Maybe later...
I had a vibration in one of the Voxativs.
I was advised to move the filter.
I did this. I temporarily placed it on pieces of wood.
To my surprise, I noticed a slight improvement in the sound in addition to no longer having this vibration.
I did an online search and
I came across your forum, which is great. I criticize the Quintet15 for being less detailed in the background of the soundstage than my old speakers from another brand. Otherwise, the Quintet15s are better.
Reading through this forum, I see that some of you have replaced the speaker power cables.
I saw that you mentioned three types of cables:
Fidelium cables
,
Mike Meltdown Powell cables
and Graditech cables.
As a novice with PAP, this is my first speaker of this type. Could you give me some advice on cables?
I also read that it's possible to build a crossover.
I'm not a fan of the two jumpers; I think there's a way to use something more musical. I'll see what I can try to improve, knowing that I have no knowledge of the subject.
Regarding the vibrations on the frame, I had considered adding weights to the base to limit them. I had considered placing the speakers on a large wooden board.
I had also considered placing insulating foam between all the bolted frame members to limit vibrations.
Reading your messages, I see that my ideas weren't far removed from yours.
I'll also look into the washers and see if I can limit the vibrations.
I have many ideas for improvements, thank you all.
My priority will be to find a cleaner and more efficient location for the crossover.
Next, find some cables and, if possible, make them the same length.
I'll also consider placing a thick wooden board horizontally between the frame, which could strengthen it and absorb vibrations. Could you advise me on purchasing cables to get the best music quality?
And if you have any other tips, please feel free to check them out.
Thank you.
Yann