visaton vs amphion

Just bumping this I'm interested also

Ok..  Those Visaton sure are trying to look like Amphions, that's for sure..  

I don't know anything about Visaton speakers, but I can say that SEAS is no "cheap" speaker.  Even then, what does price have to do with anything?  

I'll go down the list for ease of reading..

Bass response has a LOT more to do with the crossover and driver than just box size and tuning.  Things like voicecoil size and construction can have huge influences in the *quality* of the signal coming from the driver.  Amphion uses a phase plug rather than a dust cap like the Visaton.  Phase plugs smooth out the top end response of the driver, so that less crossover poles are needed.  Aluminum coned woofers have harsh breakup modes on their high end response.  Using a phase plug pushes these up higher so that you can filter them out easily with a crossover.  I'd worry that a dust cap'd woofer has breakup that extends down in to the usable range, and that excessive crossover work is needed to "fix" it.  In my monitor design I chose to use a driver with a phase plug, and I'm very happy I did, becase I was able to use a 2-pole crossover in conjunction with a reasonably low tweeter crossover point and I didn't need any specific resonance fixing crossover sections.  

Waveguides also have more to do with the tweeter/waveguide working as a *system*.  It's not nearly as easy to just put a tweeter in a waveguide and call it a day.  In fact, my monitors were going to have waveguides, but the complexity of the R/D was prohibitive, so I decided against.  

I don't buy the "harshness" stuff.  Having heard the Amphions, the actually sound pretty soft in the top end.  My tweeters are aluminum domes as opposed to the titanium ones, and they sound brilliant, but not "harsh" by any stretch.  That being said, they do have some top end breakup just like the woofers do, but careful crossover construction gracefully rolls off that breakup.  One of the greatest tweeters of all time, the tweeter from the NS-1000, is made from beryllium, which is much much harder than either titanium or aluminum, and has been lauded for decades for it's clarity and smoothness.

Besides, tweeter construction is much more than just the dome material.  In fact, I can't even begin to explain the complexity of tweeter design.  If you were to write it all down, it would give a phonebook a run for it's money.  Even things like small amounts of material behind the dome, air chambers, magnet polarity, adding copper or aluminum slugs to modify the magnetic flux, voicecoil material/thickness/size can have large effects on the tone and quality of the signal. The dome material gives the general tonality of the signal, but is only a small portion of the tweeter as a system.

Woofer excursion..  Another red herring in my book.  A 10$ subwoofer can have 3" of excursion but that doesn't mean it sounds any better than a 100$ subwoofer with 2" of excursion.  The voicecoil size and construction, the spider rigidity, the surround pliancy, and the overall construction can have a much greater effect on quality of sound reproduction from woofers.  Again, these drivers need to be looked at as "systems" because one positive attribute doesn't negate something else done poorly. 

I don't know anything about Visaton.  I've been building speakers off and on for decades and have never heard of them until now.  What I can tell you is that SEAS is a good speaker on average(every speaker company makes some duds here and there) and I've heard of them for the longest time.

Whomever those comments came from sounds more like marketing speak than a speaker designer's wisdom.




Now, for dropping in different driver into a box..

If you know the volume of your box, you can likely design a crossover to fit your drivers, the box and the port.  I won't lie, it's not as easy as it sounds.  I went through 5 iterations of crossover before I was happy with the sound.  Frequency/waterfall/resonance charts can tell you certain things, but building and listening are where the rubber meets the road.  Shooting these monitors out with Amphions while a room full of seasoned audio folks listened and gave feedback was invaluable to getting these right.

The boxes you have are likely a bit too resonant.  First thing I'd do is brace all the sides and rear with something like this:





Which will cut down a lot of low end problems you likely didn't know you had!

Secondly, what dayton drivers do you have in your boxes now?  Dayton is a budget brand, but some of their drivers are outstanding (just like how SEAS can make a dud, Dayton can have real performers).  I would seriously investigate doing a crossover upgrade first.  Chances are that if you have a dayton kit, someone has already redone a crossover for it.

Thirdly, it might be as simple as upgrading the crossover components.  They have a HUGE impact on the sound, believe it or not.  

If you still want to embark on designing a crossover, I can forward you the excel spreadsheet/calculator I used, and point you in the right direction for speaker models and information, but make no mistake, it's not something you can do in a weekend, especially if you're new to doing so.

Speakers are a system not the sum of there parts, you want something that sounds like Amphion ? Well then buy Amphion, don't care if they use Aluminim drivers and wave guides they ain't amphions !
The large Visiaton kit with the horn is popular with the set crowd but I have never liked that horn.
Putting SEAS down is pretty stupid given the companies that use Seas.
Visiaton makes a bunch of drivers everything from $3 full range for laptops to some pretty expensive drivers but I would not put any of them in the same league of SEAs , Skanspeak, Morel, ATC, Volt ect.
I don't judge speakers by the price of the drivers, let's take the Quested 3 way with the 10 as an example that's a $75 Morel tweet, a $75 Skanspeak mid and a woofer based on a $260 Volt. Go take a listen They are pretty impressive, top to bottom, you would need to spend 15 times as much on ATC drivers and it won't go as low to knock them off their pedestal!
Yesterday I was listening to a $7500 pair that uses a $60 knock off of the Dynaudio mid, the manufacturer found the knockoff more consistent than the Dynaudio and they sound like $8000 dollar speakers!
Putting "Better " drivers and a "Better " crossover in a box designed for something else has a very good chance of sucking big time even if you don't know what your doing. improving components can improve a speaker if you know what your doing, but using more expensive components has a Rick of sucking!
Also remember Crossover components are going to have a 5-10% tolerance so if you want them to sound the same you might need to buy a bunch to get 2 of any component that matches up ( this is one reason why some $$$ speakers cost $$$, the cost of parts that just don't meet the builders tolerance ).
If you want build something , buy a kit , In England the folks at Wimslow Audio have some pretty nice kits, Zaph Troels Graven, Solen and madisound have great kits as well.
Want to design your own? Leap is great software and not cheap!
Bass Box pro with Crossover pro hard to beat for $179 !
Win speak, The early Beta had problems but it was free and for under $40 not bad.
Understand that 2 drivers that on the computer look great wit a crossover can sound like ass, there isn't a parameter for works well together or sounds like ass!
Realize that because a Driver looks exactly like the one in your favorite box may not sound like your favorite, you can't see most of the sauce , it's like a Mercedes c249 looks a lot like a C32 but it won't get you to 60 in less than 5 sec like a c32 even though they both have a Komoressor badge !

Are Amphions closed cabinet? Says in the specs those are closed cabs... The lowend looks really familiar to NS-10's too.

No technically ported ! At least every book I and expert I know except Amphion says it's a type of port !

I was taught it's a vent with a tuned diaphragm rather then tuning the vent!

Just thought I would offer my vast technical knowledge to this thread regarding the Amphions:

They're black

Swedish Charcoal.

Comedy!