Titan Speaker Kits

Thanks Matt. Also, thank you for the helpful tutorial on how to put these boards together. Mine is not anything to brag about, far from it actually, but your video convinced me that I could put them together. My hot glue gun and soldering iron both came in the mail today and I jumped right into it. I’d never soldered anything like this before, have to say, I’m pleased with the results and with just how simple they were to put together. Excellent job with these kits guys.

 

Hi guys, happy thanksgiving.
I found myself in the theater again to keep moving on the speakers. I got the PCB secured to the waveguide and placed on top of my 2nd cabinet and fired it up. It sounds very muffled and crappy. It has roughly 1/4 the output of the other speaker when they’re both playing. When I hooked the board up to the first speaker it still sounded horrible so I don’t think it’s the speakers I think something is wrong with my board. It looks identical to the last board from what I can tell but is wrong or broken in some way. I’m hesitant to make my 3rd board if I’m screwing something up here. Can someone take a look and tell me if there is anything glaring that is out of place here?
12ga in from radio.
14ga out to speakers from board.
The soldering looks adequate to me.
The pieces all seem to be in the right place.
Any help would be greatly appreciate. I’m going to start gluing up the 3rd cabinet... can’t screw that up too bad.

 

And you have double checked that the amplifier is wired to IN, the woofer to LF, midrange to MF and tweeter to HF?

Something else to check would be to connect each driver one at a time and make sure all three are working.

Also if you have a multimeter handy you can check resistance from +IN to +LF (should be about 1 ohm). -IN to all other negatives should be about 0 Ohms, Across the HF terminals (~30 Ohms), across the MF terminals (33 Ohms).

Also check across each resistor make sure they measure near their value.

Finally within each of these groups it should measure close to Zero Ohms when you probe across any of the marked points within the group. Measure at the leads on the top side of the board, if any two points are are open (infinite resistance) it may indicate a bad solder joint on one of those leads.

 

Yeah, this picture shows what I’m working with, though having the other board on the box makes it look worse than it is.
The yellow one goes to the amp.

Sidebar - was “LF C2” removed from the kit? I don’t have any components for it and the pics online don’t seem to have it either. It would go between “LF L1” and “LF C1” (as if you didn’t know ) - the first board seems to work fine without it, but thought I would ask.

 

LF C2 isn't used for this design, it was added to the PCB for future proofing for the Titan-612 but that one was never turned into a kit.

It does appear you have the input and woofer terminals on the crossover reversed if you have those colored circles marked correctly. (input should be at top, woofer connection on the right side)

 

Thanks Matt. Just seeing your edit now - I’ll hook each speaker up separately - but to be clear - each one can be connected to the radio separately right? I’m just using a little aiwa boom box for testing.

 

I’m better at wiring a board than circling with colors ... sorry. Those are just labeled wrong.

 

Yes with the amp connected to the crossover you can connect the drivers one at a time to make sure each one produces sound.

 

Gotcha. Just making sure that the crossover needs to still be in the equation.

FWIW - I haven’t hooked the known good crossover to the new cabinet and waveguide. But I did hook the “bad” crossover to the good speakers and it sounded bad.
I didn’t think it would matter but I had to finish that board with 40 year old solder... I didn’t think it would go bad, but I’ll definitely get the tester out and go over the board as you instructed.

 

MATT!!! You’re the man. Found a bad solder.
Also, finished the 3rd cab and crossover - fired right up perfectly!!!

I’ll get them into the basement tomorrow and hook them up to the Denon and get off of this 2CH boom box.

 

They scream. This is at 6 on the Denon, and I still feel like I need to change my 10 year old settings in the AVR to really take advantage of them. Crystal clear at these levels. I just don’t have any bass coming out of them yet.

 

In my AVR (Denon AVR591) I set the LCR to large. In bass settings SW Mode - SW + Main. That should be pushing everything into my mains to get full range out of them, right?
Now, to be fair, I didn’t buy them for bass, but I don’t have my subs yet... so I’m trying to get a good full range experiment in the meantime. Is there a good way to set up the AVR to shake the house a little or are these just going to scream on the top end - because they scream!

 

Without subs right now I would just turn subwoofer to no. Then go into the Tone setting and change bass to +6dB which should give you a little more kick from the woofers. (Also appears dynamic EQ must be off to use tone settings.)

I don't know if you had run Audyssey yet but I would also let that run before making those changes as any existing EQ map applied by Audyssey from your previous setup may be messing with the sound on these speakers.

 

Thanks guys. I lost the mic for Audyssey... so it’s still set up for a house... 3 houses ago; lol.
I’ll have to disable as you mentioned because I didn’t have access to Tone in any of the settings I saw; but I’ll play with it some more tonight.

Great setup guys. Can’t wait to build 17 more, lol.

 

For Titan owners- How do they perform for music? I know they're great for HT, but wanted some opinions for a split of movies/music. The current plan is Titan 818s for my LCR when they come back in stock. I was set on getting 1899s for LCR, but just don't know if they'll be offered again...

 

Hi Jeff,

I’ve been unable to configure the AVR properly for any bass out of the Titans, but I’ll be trying something new today and see if I can squeeze any out. If I can get a little thump out of them, I can’t imagine needing anything better. The highs are loud and clear. If I can get more full range out of it I’ll be able to give you a better idea of how they work in 2CH.

 

When can we expect to be able to order or pre order the titans again?

 

I just picked up a pair of 615LX and a pair of MBM 15's from the same local seller. I've been reading old posts trying to find some info on what I have as the 615LX is no longer listed on the DIYSoundgroup web site. I found an AVSforums thread but this one is by far the best I've seen.

The stock 615XL sounds pretty good. They are L/R in a 5.2 setup. Klipsch RC-64 III in the middle and Klipsch RS-62's for SS. The other speakers available to me are Cheap Thrills (15" woof and 12" SEOS with DNA-360 CD. I also have the Fusion 10 Pure, 10" woof and 12" SEOS, DNA-205 CD's.

I've done no setup so far, just plug and play. The next step is is to run Marantz 6011 Audyssey, a high end version. I use an Emotiva XPA-5 L/C/R giving them 250 wpc each. The RC-64 can handle 400 wpc RMS.

I think the 615's are from 2019. I'd like to make sure I have the latest version XO.

I'd also like to know from this group if I need the MBM's. The current setup is in a medium sized basement and the speakers are on the short wall. I have flexibility in terms of placement.

Suggestions?

 

Do you have a picture of the crossover board? I can tell you from that if it is the latest version. But there were only small changes to the crossover that can easily be made if it's not the latest version.

 

If you want another angle of close up, let me know. I kept the XO screwed into the cabinet.

EDIT: My files are too large. Resizing now. -Dave

 

I could not edit my own comment. Placing pics here.

 

Those are the newest versions as they have the 33ohm resistor removed and use the 20 Ohm resistor on the HF driver.

 

That just sends the bass from the left and right channels below whats configured as the crossover, to the sub channel, in addition to being played by the left and rights. It doesnt send any extra bass to your mains.

 

Excited to see them up! They shown in stock but when I try to add a pair it says "Quantity Unavailable". Did they already sell out or am I just experiencing a glitch?