We had a great meeting on Saturday, during which all listening was done on the latest iteration of the kit speakers, with the new birch ply cabinets and some adjustments to the crossover to bring the component values a little closer to the design values. We listened with three different amps, three different sources and a pretty broad range of music to try to identify what things we were hearing that were consistent in the character of the speakers with any source or amp.
All in all it was a great session and a really great group of listeners. The birch ply makes for a much more dynamic presentation. My takeaway was that the new crossover components may have filled in a slight depression in the upper end of the woofer's response. With that filled in we now have some leeway to try shading the woofer array which is, essentially, cutting off the upper response of the lower woofer starting at a bit lower point than the upper driver. The theory is that we should get even better imaging (it's already very good) with only one woofer playing the upper mid and lower treble frequencies, along with less of the effects of comb filtering between the two woofers. This would be done without sacrificing any bass. I'll be ordering parts for the shaded crossover this week.
The other cool news is that the CFO gave me permission to order our new 40W laser cutter today. My hope is to cut 1/8" plywood panels for mounting the crossover components, and to cut and engrave wool felt surrounds for the tweeters.
