Avepa - Zypher's Z-21 Active Subwoofer

[hifiashok]

The long awaited Z21 AVEPA from Zypher Labs is in!

This is packed with the following features:

1] Professional 21 inch Low Frequency Driver with high sensitivity

2] 2500W RMS Class-D amplifier

3] Discrete Balanced Class-A 2 way LR X-over with inbuilt EQ for Sub

4] Enclosure is made with slotted multiple chamber bracing scheme using 18mm premium marine-grade plywood

5] Textured black Duracoat outer finish

 

[dillihifi]

Well again was fortunate enough to enjoy a nice audition of the Avepa Sub at Ashokji's place. Well literally was avepaed by the sub. It is a huge 21 inch sub which many of us mistook for a part of the furniture.

The integration was fantastic and sound was to heard to be believed (well of course at lower gain levels). Really the track of evening was Chris Jones - No Sanctuary Here - with its generous amounts of bass and sub bass blew me away. We did try out some other tracks to name a few - The amber room- Ewen Carruthers , Rasiya by Kalpana Zokarkar, Hugh Masekela's Stimela, some songs from Micheal Jackson's Thriller.


The equipment was Cadence Canasya amps + Cadence Arista ESL Speakers (Ashokji hope I got the model right). The signal was fed through an active xo to the amps and the sub. The music played created a huge soundstage with lots of headroom and the sub easily disappeared with the speakers considering the fact there are not a lot of options available with our host for the placement/positioning of the sub (his room sure does need a sub). Well as regards the never ending debate that a pure stereo setup has no place for subs it seems that if a sub is well integrated you close your ears to such thinking. The balance remains in integrating the sub with your setup which in my opinion this avepa 21 did handle exemplary well.

Hats off to Kanwar for a fantastic piece of equipment at a down to earth price.

 

[sidvee]

Interesting - what is the price?
Cheers,
Sid

 

[jls001]

The long awaited Z21 AVEPA from Zypher Labs is in!

Your listening impressions please!

How difficult is it to integrate with your current speakers?

Does it accept line level input or speaker level input, or either?

Lastly, dimensions and cost please.
Joshua

 

[hifiashok]

Zypher Avepa Sub - The not so little MONSTER!

Excerpted, with permission from the author (Sid)

Delhi Audiophiles spent Saturday evening (14th Jan 2011) with Cadence Canasyas + Aristas + CEC transport + MONSTROUS 21Inch ACTIVE SUB from Zypher Power Labs, India.

The meet was to meet & greet and check the new TL design AVEPA 21Inch sub from Zypher Power Labs which was quite an interesting proposition to look at, with its almost coffin like cabinet about 2 & half ft in height & width + 3.5ft in depth, was well intune with its Active Crossovers which sat on the Audio Component rack, right above CEC & highly upgraded variant of Lyrita Audio's Passive Pre.

In concise the active XO did add clearly audible amount of HeadRoom for the tracks played, more clearly audible were the recordings that were better off especially on the EASCA disc - EASCA

Ranging from Jazz to R&B to Mean Trippy hard hitting Rap Numbers, the sub did exactly what it should have done and remained invisible to the listners ears, not as much to the eyes due to 21 inch driver. But it got set there as a part of the furniture between the black seaters with its ProAudio like Black grainy finish - marvelously done.

The sub was taking everything under 72Hz from the speakers so that the driver on the Arista's breathe easy which they did. The highs seems to be pleasantly rolled off being the ES-panel speakers.

The talk of the eve was how invisible the sub remained thru the session offcourse the gain setting was there so one could easily rev it up to change get the lazy Monster breathe fire which it did while we played some Usher & Tupac Shakur's old hits like - Young Heartz of Men, as much that there was not a single window in the house that didnt rattle ...surprisingly we didnt see any neighbor ring doorbells, atleast till i was there for about 2hrs. Not that the owner cranked the gain all the time as we also had the usual of my suspects - Allan Taylor, Steve Strauss on the play list from EASCA disc. Track from Chris Jones with the bass guitar sounded best with the Active XO in the chain and not really without, as the latter had reasonably low dynamics and much lesser stage width & height.

I guess there have been pics posted on the forums for the subwoofer Avepa and the separate XO box that it came along with at an unbelievable price for the Quality exuded & the deed done by Avepa - well done Zypher. Any technical queries may be shot to - " kas zpl " on Facebook.

 

[hifiashok]

Excerpted, with permission from the author (Kamal)

As mentioned, it was good to meet like minded friends in the new year over beer, finger food & music on an already great but now even more augmented system.

The sub- when you first see it, provokes awe; huge in size, compared to subs you might have seen earlier.A massive driver in a huge, ported cabinet, beautifully finished.The 150 lt + cabinet is an essential design feature as it allows the big 21" driver ample elbow room to perform effortlessly.

It has more than enough grunt to pressurize Ashok's big room; cranked up a bit, it shook the sofas as in an earthquake!

For the moment, Ashok has placed the sub abt 6ft in front on the Aristas, firing across the room.

It performed very well with some rock / disco music , one did'nt immediately feel a lag in the bass or the need to reposition the sub .

But later after most of friends had left, we listened somewhat more seriously with a variety of music, both with the sub off but the signals routed thru the active x over to the Aristas, and with the sub in the chain but with the gain tamped down to more unobstrusive levels.

With rock e.g, a track from an album by Police, the system sounded just great, with the sub adding the bass impact beautifully.

With soft vocals e.g, Kalpana Zokarkar, one did'nt really feel the need for a sub.

And with an audiophile quality tracks like Nils Lofgren's "Keith don't go" & "Stimela" by Hugh Masekela,the music sounded better with the sub off, IM very HO.

But, all said & done, this sub is a serious piece of equipment.

I would really like to spend some more time tweaking the placement & gain levels of the sub and listening to jazz tracks with fast percussive beats & to some orchestral music etc to see to what extent the sub can blend & disappear in Ashoks' system across a variety of genres of music.

I must confess that I'm not a great fan of subs in a 2 channel system- lets see if this sub can initiate a change in my thinking.
Initial impressions, tho, are promising.

Kanwar has created a sub that deserves to be taken seriously by the home audio community, which is no mean feat; my congratulations to him.

 

[hifiashok]

Your listening impressions please!

hav excerpted some above, with permission.

How difficult is it to integrate with your current speakers?

generically, no issues. but, for some tracks, final tweaking is pending (among other things for the entire setup).

Does it accept line level input or speaker level input, or either?

XLR out from active XO into XLR.

Lastly, dimensions and cost please.
Joshua

huge!! 150ltrs!!!

 

[hifiashok]

some pointed pix (xPosted, but relevant) http://www.hifivision.com/what-should-i-buy/8665-post-your-latest-av-purchase-s-149.html#post318575

 

[hifiashok]

the updated chain

 

[dillihifi]

As regards the price pl keep in mind that this is a 21 inch sub with 2500watts and the pricing including active XO + cables is around that of SVS PB12. Ashokji may kindly indicate the freq respose for the same.

Thinking aloud should I get a 5 channel amp built by zephyr for my HT needs

 

[hifiashok]

generically, everything under 72Hz (sub-bass) goes to the Avepa. specifically, 25Hz @0dB and 10Hz @-18dB

 

[Decadent_Spectre]

What is the LPF/HPF on the sub and the HPF on the speaker? Is phase shift/delay being used?

Ashok/Kanwar?

 

[sidvee]

I would appreciate further info. on the sub. Specs., dimensions etc. Helping a relative build a HT in a fairly large room 25' x 18' x 9' and researching subs. Was planning to add 2 SVS subs., but this sub has caught my attention.
Cheers,
Sid
Ps: saw the dimensions in the previous thread so ignore that.

 

[kanwar]

What is the LPF/HPF on the sub and the HPF on the speaker? Is phase shift/delay being used?

Ashok/Kanwar?

DS,

Sub is actively bandpassed at 18Hz[4th order] and 72Hz[4th order], HPF on L+R speakers is also 72Hz[4th order]. Phaseshift option is given 0 & 180 degrees.

I would appreciate further info. on the sub. Specs., dimensions etc. Helping a relative build a HT in a fairly large room 25' x 18' x 9' and researching subs. Was planning to add 2 SVS subs., but this sub has caught my attention.
Cheers,
Sid
Ps: saw the dimensions in the previous thread so ignore that.

Hi Sidvee,
Sub has following ingredients:
21 inch driver with 98dB/1W/1m spl high sensitivity used in extended transmission line enclosure which reinforces the bottom end frequencies around 20 to 40hz with more than 3dB extra gain which helps in extending the LF response close to 20hz. No extra EQ has been used, all natural reproduction centered around large driver and much less excursion is needed to have the ELF effect in comparison to smaller sub with lots of EQ.

Enclosure is made from 18mm Marine grade plywood with extensive bracing and outer finish is heavy textured duracoat in black.

Amplifier used is 2500WRMS Class-D with 95% efficiency along with Large Can ALCON capacitors with 7" X 3" HXD dimensions 20000MFD/150WV in power supply, amplifier rails are +/-140VDC. The active filter is all discrete transistor based pure class-A analog one using premium components.

Hope this helps

Kanwar

 

[anm]

as far as I have read, 2 subs is always a better idea than a large single sub.

 

[anm]

how does the active x-over work? analog to digital to analog?

 

[kanwar]

as far as I have read, 2 subs is always a better idea than a large single sub.

More is always better but also depends on the personal taste and setup. Most of the time we have ELF in mono form present in both channels so a single sub is sufficient, but sometimes if someone is bass lover more is surely a way to go, i myself have 4 X dual 18 inch subs stacked closely in my listening area.hyeah:

Using non-stacked multiple subs leads to phase cancellations and thereby producing lobes at certain frequencies, better is to use single or stacked multiple units so that the vibration source of ELF must originate from virtual single source.

how does the active x-over work? analog to digital to analog?

Avepa has all analog processing, no digital conversion anywhere.
Active X-over takes full range signal from pre/source and distributes on the frequency based division to each amp connected to its respective driver so that the driver is fed only with those frequencies which it can reproduce naturally without any EQ or any other form of coloration. Active X-over does all this with zero insertion loss with high dynamic range, unlike passive x-overs which waste power and all you get is coloration in sound with phase errors and amplifier has no direct control over driver movement.

Balanced XLR Analog IN :: 4th order Linkwitz Riley Filter processing :: Balanced XLR Analog OUT

 

[anm]

what is stacked? new thing to learn

 

[kanwar]

what is stacked? new thing to learn

Placing the subwoofers close to each other so that the resultant vibration creates a homogenous single pattern, zero space between them either horizontally or vertically or sometimes both. Stacking is done to create a omini source pattern to eliminate ripple effect which creates cancellation of ELF at certain frequencies.

Think of throwing a stone in a water pond, throwing a one stone will give you nice big circular ripples with increasing diameter, but when you throw 2 or more stones with some space between them then the ripples made by the stones will then interact with eachother forming cancellations, same thing happens with subwoofers also. Though this has not much relevance in near field listening area but quite significance in large rooms.

So its always beneficial to have one single source of ELF either through one sub or stacked subs.

 

[Decadent_Spectre]

Sub is actively bandpassed at 18Hz[4th order] and 72Hz[4th order], HPF on L+R speakers is also 72Hz[4th order]. Phaseshift option is given 0 & 180 degrees.

I assume LR filters in all cases?