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Listening Impressions |
Before I describe my impressions, I thought it would be worthwhile to to present some background information about me, my system, and my listening room. If you're not interested, jump to the Initial Impressions section. Musical TastesI have a hard time labeling musicians and music. If pressed, I suppose I would call most of my favorite music folk- or jazz-influenced pop/rock. I lean towards female singers. Off the top of my head, some of my favorites include Patty Larkin (a great guitar player), Loreena McKennit, Rickie Lee Jones, Michelle Shocked, Jill Sobule, Shawn Colvin, Beth Orton, Lucinda Williams, Kate Rusby, Eva Cassidy, Jane Siberry, Suzanne Vega, Mary Black, and Mary-Chapin Carpenter. I don't listen only to female singers. I like Randy Newman, The Proclaimers, John Hiatt, Chris Rea, some Talking Heads, The BoDeans ("hick rock"), The Mavericks, and REM. I think Roxy Music's Avalon is a great album. I love The Commitments, even though they're a fictional band. On the rockier side, I think Who's Next is the greatest rock album of all time, and I like The Clash's London Calling. I have a small collection of symphonic music, mainly accessible pieces like Dvorak's New World Symphony, Elgar's Enigma Variations, Mendelssohn's "Italian" Symphony, and some Bach. I really like wind band music, like that on Frederick Fennel's Telarc CDs. I own a tiny handful of Jazz: Dave Brubek's Time Out, Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, and a few other CDs. I like Vince Guaraldi, and I think Linus and Lucy is one of the happiest, catchiest tunes ever written. Audiophile PhilosophyMy point in listing the above music and musicians isn't to catalog my collection. The point is that my stereo has to let me enjoy that music. If a component gets in the way of that, it's useless to me, regardless of how good or accurate it might be in an objective sense. I think the single biggest mistake many audiophiles make is losing sight of the music. We become audiophiles because we love music, and our systems should serve the music. But it's all too easy to lose sight of that and focus on sonic attributes that are really peripheral to the music, like imaging and soundstaging, detail, air and extension, midrange bloom (whatever that is), transparency, and subterranean bass. Those things are fun, but seductive. Following their siren song can, if one is not careful, lead to endless tweaking, equipment churn, and systems that make it difficult to just sit down, relax, and enjoy the music.
Focusing on sonic traits can also lead to the unfortunate situation where one tends to play only those perfect recordings that suit the system. I tend to go the other way. Those Chesky, Reference Recordings, Dorian, and Telarc discs tend to sound good on any system. I suppose I prefer a more forgiving system that lets me enjoy all of my favorites, not just the "audiophile approved" ones. The system doesn't have to mask flaws in the recordings, but it shouldn't highlight them either. Associated EquipmentWhen I built my 1801Fs, my system included these components:
A few months later, I replaced the Creek integrated. Now my system includes:
Before I built my 1801Fs into the system, my speakers were Spendor 2/3s on Sound Anchor stands. RoomMy listening room is our house's family room. It's almost square, and its 9" ceiling height is roughly double the length and width. Those are not ideal dimensions. (Look up "bad room" in your acoustics book, and you'll probably see a reference to my room...) It has two large openings (one 3' wide, the other 4') that lead to other rooms. A big entertainment center sits between the speakers, and I'm pretty limited with regard to where I can position them. That's not an ideal situation either, but it's a necessary compromise in my case. The room has wall-to-wall carpeting and a large, overstuffed couch and love seat. 
Initial ImpressionsWhen I wrote this section, I was using the Creek integrated amp in my system. I built my 1801F's using the -2dB tweeter settings (using the 8/12.5 ohm resistor combination). The first thing I noticed about the 1801Fs was the detail everyone seems to mention. I did find myself noticing details that I hadn't noticed (or paid attention to) before. Some of my CDs sounded really nice. I remember thinking how real the saxophone in Mary Black's Dockland sounded. Other CDs sounded good at low levels (peaks in the 70dB range or so), but were too forward at my more typical listening levels (peaks closer to 80dB). It wasn't that the 1801Fs lacked low bass, but the high frequencies seemed shelved up, and the mid- to upper-bass (it's hard for me to tell which is which with actual music) seemed recessed. The result was a somewhat cold sounding, overly "hi-fi" sounding speaker. I found that a few of my CDs fell dangerously close to being unlistenable. One example was Chris Rea's Auberge. His voice strikes me as pretty deep and resonant, but it is overlayed by sibilance on this album. (It sounds like he was so closely miked that the the microphone was inside his mouth. :-)) The album also contains some pretty piercing electric guitar. Over the 1801Fs, it seemed like all I was hearing was the sibilance and nasty guitar, with little of the underlying warmth and resonance. At this point, I could respect the 1801Fs, but I couldn't love them. I could tell that they were doing some things right, but the speakers just wouldn't get out of the way of the music. My thoughts would often lead to my second system, where my beloved Spendors now resided. I was confused. References to the 1801's on the web are almost uniformly positive, and many are nearly foaming-at-the-mouth raves. Were my Spendors so warm and syrupy that I was dependent on that type of presentation? Was my amp too wimpy? Were all of the 1801's fans wild-eyed detail freaks? Still thinking the problem was excessive tweeter output, I asked Dave Ellis for advice regarding resistor settings that would drop the tweeter level even further. Removing the PortsWhen I wrote this section, I was using the Creek integrated amp in my system. Before experimenting with resistors, I recalled Salva's AudioCircle posts about his experiences with different port lengths. I decided to remove the ports altogether, to see how the speakers sounded that way. I'm embarrassed that I didn't try removing the ports sooner. I had considered it, but I didn't realize how big a difference it would make (I thought it might affect the bass around 40Hz, but I thought the changes would be limited to a narrow band of frequencies.) Also, the port on one of my speakers fits very tightly, and I had a hard time removing it. In the end, the access panels I built saved me. I was able to remove the panel, reach inside the cabinet, and twist the port out. Removing the ports made a huge difference. Now there was warmth and body, a foundation to support the treble detail. I could relax and listen to almost anything. Chris Rea had a chest again. I was no longer confused; I was happy. Note that I used a double-thick rear panel, so no port equates to a 1.5" port. (I asked Dave Ellis, and he explained that the actual length of the port, not the length of the port inside the cabinet's cavity, was the important thing in the 1801F.) The most interesting thing I noticed is that, on some recordings, some of the higher frequencies actually seemed a little subdued. (Talk about an abrupt about-face!) I know that the port length isn't affecting the tweeter's output, but it's affecting my perception of the tweeter's output. I noticed it on Lynn Miles' Night in a Strange Town. As contradictory as it might sound, she has a wispy yet warm voice, and the album has a melancholy, but hopeful feel. On this CD, her voice seemed a little lost in the mix, and the music lost some of its emotion. This quality doesn't really bother me. I'd much rather be pulled into the music than have it pushed in my face. I could live happily with the speakers sounding this way. Still, I was curious about how the speakers might sound with an intermediate port length. As Dave pointed out, I could always re-glue the cutoffs if I cut the port too short. Shortening the PortsWhen I wrote this section, I was using the Creek integrated amp in my system. Based on AudioCircle postings by Salva and stvnharr, I decided to try 3" ports. So far, I've listened to this configuration for only a short time, but I think I may have found the sweet spot. I put that Lynn Miles CD back on, and I got... goosebumps. I put on Jane Siberry's Bound by the Beauty, jumped to the song "Hockey", and got goosebumps again. There's an immediacy to the sound with this port length that's very pleasing. I also played Michelle Shocked's Captain Swing, more of a swing/rock album. No goosebumps this time, but very clean, very balanced sound between her voice, the horns, the drums, etc. Current ImpressionsI'm writing this in April 2006, almost a year and a half after building the 1801Fs, and about six months after replacing the Creek integrated (which has a passive "preamp" section) with the Parasound preamp and NAD amp. I'm still very happy with the speakers. In particular adding the active preamp made a major improvement in my system's overall dynamics and tonal balance. Curiously, the measurements below did not change. Bass Response MeasurementsTo try to understand what I was hearing, I took some measurements using a Stereophile Test CD 1 and a Radio Shack SPL meter. The test CD has 1/3 octave tones from 200Hz down to 20Hz, plus a 1000Hz reference tone. I placed the meter on top of the couch (pretty close to where my head is when I listen), set the playback volume for the 1000Hz reference tone to 80dB, and recorded the deltas from that level at each frequency. The table below shows the measurements for the different port lengths I tried. The meter was set for "C" weighting, "slow" response.
The SPL values are raw readings from the meter. I did not apply the correction values from the Radio Shack SPL Meter Calibration Curve. If I did, the values below 80Hz would increase (improve). Here's a chart showing the same data. Note how the suckout at 63Hz changes with the different port lengths. I think the response changes in the 30-80Hz range account for most of the differences I heard. 
ReflectionsAt this point, I'm a very happy 1801F owner. My system sounds great, I can enjoy a wide variety of music, and the room looks much nicer than it did before. No more industrial looking metal stands, no more mismatched wood finishes. Plus, knowing that those speakers started out as a pile of MDF, a sheet of veneer, and a box of parts gives me enormous satisfaction. I know about pride of ownership, but it pales next to pride of "buildership." I still love my Spendors. They've given me years of good service and good listening, and I doubt I'll ever sell them. To use an audio cliche, they're unfailingly musical. But it looks like I'll be keeping them in the rec room system. The thing that amazes me most is that I am replacing a well-regarded $2000 speaker/stand combination with a pair of DIY speakers that cost somewhere in the range of $900. I kept rough notes of how much time I spent on the project, and I estimate I spent about 140 hours building these speakers. That's a lot of time, but I learned a lot of things that will help me in future woodworking projects. More importantly, I had a lot of fun in the process. Working with a DIY speaker is also very liberating. I would be very hesitant to do anything like adjusting the port length on a pair of commercial speakers I bought, for fear of destroying their resale value. I don't think of DIY speakers as having any resale value, so I didn't hesitate. With a commercial speaker, I would have had two options: live with the speakers as is, and be less than happy, or sell them and look for a new pair.
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