'Vista'

The pictures above are rather dissappointing, I was trying to highlight the the lovely veener but the camera has only captured a fraction of its beauty. When viewing with the naked eye the grain literally jumps out but in the photo's it looks flat.

The camera did however manage to catch the film like shellac finish over the veneer.

Guess I'll have to buy a better camera at somestage.

A few more days and I'll have the other finished. At this time I'll post back with my thoughts and a small review of the whole experience.
 
Picture of the base as the photo is too dark to show the details. With the Visaton badge of course since it feature there crossovers and drivers throughout.

Shinobiwan3264-visbase.JPG
 
Thanks.

They are something that I'm proud to say I built and for once I'm satisfied with the finished result which is unusual as I normally have an urge to change or improve things after I've finished something.
 
ShinObiWAN, very nice thanks for the pictures, can you say how you did the black on the front and on the bases?
 
Originally posted by wytco0
how you did the black on the front and on the bases?

Takes a while to do properly but here's the process:

1. Fill and then sand *any* screws/joints, holes, dents etc. Remember your going after the seamless look if possible.

2. Use a good wood primer such as Berger or similar, give the whole area a thin coat using a fine bristle brush and then let it dry thoroughly.

3. Using 360grit denibbing pads, sand until the surface start to feel like glass. Keep checking for imperfections by running your fingers over the surface. If there is keep sanding back to level the surface out.

4. Apply another coat of primer and repeat step 3

5. Now your ready for the finish coats, I used Autochem Matt Black Acrylic Spray which was then sprayed on using a compressor but a very similar paint can be bought in a spray can.
Just apply one very thin coat at this point and don't worry if nots even yet.

6. 2nd coat time and now work the spray a little more presicely this time around and try to get a good coverage without overspray or runs.

7. Apply the 3rd and final coat the same way as you did the 2nd.

If you want a gloss finish, its recommended that you sand between each finishing coat and then after the final coat, t-cut the finish to a mirror flat surface.
 
ShinObiWAN, excellent thanks for the paint details, I thought it would come down to carefull hard work.

How do they sound? have the new (completed) cabinets made any difference? Do you think they represent good value for money?

I guess these will cost somewhere near £800 to build, any thoughts on how they compare with commercial speakers at that price? I would expect them to be very much better?
 
Originally posted by wytco0
ShinObiWAN, excellent thanks for the paint details, I thought it would come down to carefull hard work.

How do they sound? have the new (completed) cabinets made any difference? Do you think they represent good value for money?

I guess these will cost somewhere near £800 to build, any thoughts on how they compare with commercial speakers at that price? I would expect them to be very much better?

No problems with the spray tips.

Sound is pretty much the same as before, when I fired the speaker up again I was again, immediately impressed with sound.

As for value for money they are very much a bargain. I'd compare them to speakers in the £2000-3000 price bracket. Everyone who has listened to them could not believe that it was only £800 worth of speakers.

The only comparison I can make is between the B&W Nautilus 804 which a friend owns and I can say that these are have the edge in more than one area. Treble is natural in the extreme, very spacious and the music just hangs in front of you. Bass is another highlight thanks to Transmission line loading. Its really well defined with a tight musical quality to it. The mid range is great with vocals and again is natural. The speakers are very revealing so I'm hearing the limitations of my source and amplification, they are however not analytical sounding, its always the music is first.

These speakers are very easy to just listen to and makes the associated components used to create the sound your hearing just disappear and surely thats the whole goal of hifi.
 
The second one is now finished:

Shinobiwan3264-visside.JPG


So now I have a pair I can start to review the sound. It will be around a week or so before I do, since its hard to give an informed opinion in the space of a few hours listening.
 
ShinObiWAN,

Can you give me/us a bit more of a review of the speakers in stereo please.

Both this and your XXX Sub have got me thinking about doing some DIY, so I can't wait to hear your thoughts.

Cheers

Rob
 
I was meaning to get back to here to write up my thoughts on these speakers.

Firstly I would just like to say that I have in no way designed these speakers from scratch. all the internal cabinet volume, crossovers, drivers and driver selection was done by Visaton. So my comments below are testament to there expertise and fine drivers. I purely added an aesthetic twist to what was already in front of me. So I can take no credit to the fine sound of these cabinets.

With that out of way, I can get onto the important stuff and namely the sound.

This is all going to sound a tad contrived and I'm sure most of you will have heard it all before. Afterall I have invested a good deal of time into the construction of these so I would be expected to have a somewhat biased view. I have however tried to stay subjective and not just gloss over the weaknesses of the design and magnify the good points with rose tinted glasses.

I'll start off with what I feel is the most impressive feature and what that simply defies all preconcieved notions of small driver units and indeed physics themselves. And that would be the bass.
Never before I have heard such beautiful and downright well defined and extended bass from such a small driver, 4" in this case.
I really would like to have every sceptic come and listen to these. They will surely change there idea of big driver equals big bass.
I've been switching through my collection of music and every track with even a slight amount of bass is a pure delight. The basslines just flow effortless with tons of detail and texture, some tracks really made me sit in awe the first time I heard them with Vista's.
Of course its the fancy transmission line bass loading technique that gives the vista is remarkable bass and without it would surely be a much missed asset.
I can also tell you that after some running the definition is a little better and deeper, I'm sure theres more to come too since they have only seen around 20hrs usage now.

The bass isn't the only asset to these speakers though, treble or the high frequencies is what gives music its breath IMHO. And these speakers can rival anything I've *ever* heard, not exagerating, its the truth. You can sit and listen to music and the soundstage is immense, moving sounds far out of the room and giving you acoustics which are totally believable.
There is also the unmistakable quality of 'air' to the whole sound, now I've said this before and its also been said of the design in the professional press but its very true. Air is difficult to describe but I would say that its an unflustered quality where everything sits within its own space, no blurring, no merging, just very precise and natural sound.

Midrange is perhaps the weakest point on these speakers, I'd say its a tad laid back but still natural. Compared to the rest of the sound its doesn't quite have the grab you quality. Its still a good sound and would still be a goal of many other lesser speakers but its not quite as 'special' as the other parts.

Now for the downers:

Sensitivity is low on these speakers at 80dB 1W/1M, so you can guess that these speakers will not go loud. They aren't a hard load to drive since they are 8ohm with 60w power handling.
I struggled to get to reference level on my Lex MC1 with distortion being present with crossover set at 40hz and only when I backed off to 80hz did the sound regain its composure. Its all a little too much to ask of the 4" driver to do the bass duties at these levels. I can tell you that the ribbon tweeter just never lets up with the volume and remains totally beautiful despite some serious volumes. In 3 or 4 way design I expect it would make quite a esoteric highend and high volume loudspeaker.
So I would definitely steer the volume loving HT crowd away from these.

Another sad fact is that the ribbon is quite directional, it must be at ear height and within an arc of 25 degrees on the horizontal, preferably on axis if you are to hear is true potential.
So another cross for the HT crowd as dispersion is high up the list for most people. Unfortunately with these speakers you are limited to a smallish sweet spot :(

IMO the downers are far, far, far outweighed by the ups but this is me and some people would, I suspect, feel deeply let down by dispersion and sensitivity.

Positioning:

Not very fussy about positioning which is lucky because I have to have each in a corner. I did however experiment with other position to see what the impact of this was. The general concensus was that for the best bass position these around 5" from the rear wall. Moving them out resulted in loss of bass but better projection of vocals and the midrange in general. I chose the bass because of room aesthetics and general preference.
 
Forgot to add something else:

Very revealing speakers, so crap recording = crap sound, no glossing over the cracks here. If its no good you will hear it.

The speakers also aren't fussy about musical genres, if its well recorded you will enjoy the sound. That said I prefer to play some bass orientated soundtracks simply because it takes me back everytime.
 
Originally posted by ReTrO
They look stunning mate.

Well done. :)

Thanks Retro.

Have you any plans on a fullrange speaker in the future, its just as rewarding as sub design - well almost ;)
 
Well it seems I'm going to need a production line soon ;) :laugh:

Seriously though, I sold a Chord power amp via ebay to a gent who lives locally. When he came to pick up I demoed the amp through the Vista's and he was blown away. He seemed very interested until I explained to him that these were a DIY design and not commercially available. He left with his new amplifier and that was that I thought.
Well later that day he rang me asking just how much would I charge to make another pair of the speakers. I was blown away, it was the greatest compliment that I could be paid. I don't know why I said it but I did agree(I must have been crazy after all the hard work on the originals) and after a few visits to agree upon the changes to the design I began construction around 2 weeks ago.

And so now they are around a week or two away from finishing and are looking good and certainly different to the my Vista's. They are modelled on the essance of Missions £20,000 flagship the 'Pilastro'. Though they cost around a tenth of that!

I'll post pictures when I've finished them.
 
Great news, it's always good when you can enjoy this sort of thing and get the rewards for it. Admittedly DIY cables are as far as I've ventured, but one day...

If you do start up a production line I could use 2 large standmounts, a matching centre and 2 smaller ones for rears :laugh:
 
eviljohn2 said:
If you do start up a production line I could use 2 large standmounts, a matching centre and 2 smaller ones for rears :laugh:

I can pencil that little lot in for completion a year next Tuesday if that OK with you? :laugh:
 
A few pictures of the unfinished speakers, they are missing the bases and veneer for the side:

Shinobiwan3264-vis07.JPG


And some new dipole surrounds I'm working on:

Shinobiwan3264-sur01.JPG
 
ShinObiWAN said:
Well later that day he rang me asking just how much would I charge to make another pair of the speakers. I was blown away, it was the greatest compliment that I could be paid.

If I could afford it I'd definitely ask you about the possibility of building a pair as well. Been following this thread since the start... stunning work. :thumbsup:
 
Hi ShinObiWAN,
Please post specs on those dipole surrounds asap.
Dave (Relinquished)
 
Check these out, how sexy are they looking now:

The colours look a little strange in the photo's thanks to a combination of naff camera, awkward lighting and dark paint job. I've had to pass them through photochop to up the contrast and brightness to bring out the details that the camera misses but you get the general idea.

Shinobiwan3264-vis11.JPG


Only the side panel left to put on now and then they'll be off to their new home :(
 
Regmarch said:
Hi ShinObiWAN,
Please post specs on those dipole surrounds asap.
Dave (Relinquished)

Hi,

All the details you need are here:

http://www.visaton.com/english/artikel/art_687.htm

This is what they will look like:

ariadipol.jpg


They're a great match for the Vista fronts since they feature the same mid-bass drivers, unfortunately they don't share the ribbon HF units but at £130 each it would work out at around £780 for the 6 used to make a pair of surrounds!
 
Just trying out my new camera, knocks the spots off the old Canon one.

Notice how much cleaner the image is on the camera when you compare it to the old shots above. Embarrasing really and I actually thought it was decent when I bought it a couple of years ago :blush:

Shinobiwan3264-vis12.JPG


Shinobiwan3264-vis13.jpg


Shinobiwan3264-vis14.JPG


Shinobiwan3264-vis15.JPG


Shinobiwan3264-vis16.JPG


Shinobiwan3264-vis17.JPG


PS. I don't know if I will ever finish these at this rate!
 
Very nice finish......... you must have made a serious amont of MDF dust shaping those..... what did you use to shape them ?

Care to talk us through the finishing process ?

Sean.
 
Cheers Ritz,

The top was 4 layers of 18mm MDF built up and then plane'd into the rough sloping/curved shape you see in the pictures, after this they were sanded smooth and even with a £10 orbital sander :)

The sides were more complicated and are basically composed of 4 layers of 3mm plyboard built onto a timber frame. I applied one layer of ply then another and so on until I'd built up the required 4 layers.

The curved corners of the front baffle were created by just plain hard work with that £10 orbital sander and then hand sanding.

The really, really labourious task was the finishing. First off I had to use a special wood treatment called wood cement, which is made for hardening rotten wood so it doesn't disintegrate or expand anymore. Now you maybe thinking why would he use this on brand new MFD and ply? Simple answer is it soaks into the MDF and turns it into something resembling hardwood, which is need since joints expand later on and it can look awful with a painted finish. One coat of this wood cement was used over the entire bare enclosure then afterward sanded smooth again.
Then I used a two part filler for all the joints - nasty stuff and you only have around 10mins to work it and then it sets, so only mix a small amount at a time - I didn't :rolleyes: and had to throw a load away. Then more sanding <Yawn>
Finally I applied a coat of shellac sealer to completely seal the surface ready for the spraying. If you need tips on the spraying take a look back at an earlier post I made which details the process.

You can save yourself a hell of a lot of time by veneering or covering the cabinet in fablon vinyl. Its only if you go for a spray finish that you really need to be so meticulous with the finishing, the veneering etc. covers up fudges whereas spraying shows every tiny little imperfection.

PS. I wear a respirator when working with MDF since its not nice to your lungs :D
 

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