# My very own White Van Speakers (WVS)...



## aceinc (Oct 24, 2006)

OK, For fun I bought 5.1 set of WVS. I did it on purpose, I knew what they were and I did it anyway.

Why, you ask?

Just to see how bad they really are. The set I bought, not from a van, but from CraigsList are the ProtecSound PTS speakers. The MSRP is $1,995.00, I paid a bit less, $20.00. I thought that for $20, I could have fun with them and see;

A) How bad are they really, and

B) Can they be made listenable.

My thoughts on WVS is very simple, if someone is selling them as inexpensive speakers without trying to scam you, then I believe it is OK. On the other hand if someone is trying to hype their quality, and sell them as something they're not, these folks should be discouraged in the most drastic ways possible.

The purpose of this thread will be to measure their response curves, take them apart, check out the components, and generally have fun with something I only spent $20 on. For testing, I will probably choose one pair of sattelites and the sub as a 2.1 system.

Each sattelite speaker has a 3" "woofer" and a 1" tweeter. The sub is front loaded with two 6" woofers, and has a rear facing port. My first impression listening to them is that they have little bass, very little mid bass, and some nasty peaks in the high end. Perhaps they need to be broken in.:rofl:

I will post images tomorrow hopefully. 

Paul


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## FlashJim (May 6, 2006)

Can't wait to see the pics and see what you do with the speakers!


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## aceinc (Oct 24, 2006)

Well, the system isn't quite as bad as I had originally thought. I decide to check out the passive sub a little before going to bed. I noticed that when I rotated the balance knob all the way to one side or the other the bass got stronger. My initial thought was that the internal wiring in the sub was out of phase. It turned out simpler than that I had the channels wired out of phase.:dumbcrazy:

Here are a couple of pictures from my cell phone.


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## aceinc (Oct 24, 2006)

The sub has a little too much bling factor with all that psuedo chrome, but other than that not too aesthetically displeasing. So from an aesthetic point of view there shouldn't be too much to do. 

The sattelite speakers are heavy as a brick, I haven't been able to open one yet, the first one I tried seems to have a stripped screw, and it spins without coming out. When playing a subwoofer test pattern with the sattelites hooked up the sattelite woofers are energized, and I think the tweeters are as well. I am wondering if there is even a capacitor in these things.

More later when I get home from work.

Paul


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## ojojunkie (Jun 23, 2010)

That's pretty exciting to see here in the forum. It's really great idea to have look on this stuff and see how they perform in real world. Some consider them as low cheap stuff but good enough for some...


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## fitzwaddle (Aug 25, 2010)

Lets see the polar response plots on those babies, we can't possibly judge them without that at least.

Holy cow those are ugly. Fun experiment! :T


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## bambino (Feb 21, 2010)

fitzwaddle said:


> Holy cow those are ugly. Fun experiment! :T


I think they are kind of cute:R


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## Jungle Jack (Jul 28, 2009)

Hello,
I would tread carefully. Many of these "speakers" have wildly shifting Impedance Curves that can damage the partnering AVR or Amplifier.

I definitely understand the desire to tinker, but there are dangers to some of these Speakers. I wish you good luck with them.
Cheers,
JJ


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

This should be interesting!..WVS are rife in Australia as well..
I would advise you to take a close look at the crossovers (if they have any) before firing them up..They most like have very cheap low grade capacitors at maybe 6dB./octave..if your lucky!!


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## coleco (Jan 5, 2011)

I got ripped off by these guys once I Kanata, Ontario, Canada... took me for $100!!!


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## aceinc (Oct 24, 2006)

I didn't get too much done this evening. I was able to get one of the satellites (pardon my earlier misspellings) apart. It appears to be made out of a cheap white metal (pot metal, my father used to call it). I kind of like the shape of the satellites, my wife says they look like little penguins.

I found one 2.2 uf capacitor in series with the tweeter. I don't know how to measure impedance, but the resistance is 6.1 ohms. If the speakers are 8 ohms (a reasonable assumption with a 6 ohm impedance) then the high pass should be around 9khz. 

Other than the connection wires the only thing I found was a tuft of what looks like polyfill. By tuft I mean if it landed on your newspaper, you might not bother to brush it away, and read right through it.

The amp I was using for testing started exhibiting a channel dropout problem more frequently than it had previously. This is not due to the speakers, as by pushing on the binding posts on the channel it would work, so it is probably a cold solder joint. So I spent my time this evening moving that equipment out and an old Pioneer SX-1010 in to use for testing.

I don't have too many skills, but what my approach was going to be was to do a 20hz-20khz on axis sweep of each speaker separately using REW before I made any changes. Once we see what we have perhaps we can come up with some simple and inexpensive changes to improve their sound. I am not looking for Watt Puppies, but something I can give my niece as an entry level HT speaker system and not feel too embarrassed.

Hopefully I can get more done tomorrow night.

Paul


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## kflory (Feb 6, 2010)

Hey Paul,



aceinc said:


> I don't know how to measure impedance


For what it is worth...

I have not tried it myself, but John added the ability to measure impedance with REW5 beta a few months back.

There is a section in the help file that describes how to use it.

Regards,

Kevin


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## aceinc (Oct 24, 2006)

OK, here are two graphs from REW on two differnt Satellites from about 3 feet. Used a Behringer mic. The look like the xover is too high to me. I will see whether I can easily disconnect the tweeter. Bass disappears pretty quickly below 300 hz, don't know what I can do about that.

I'll see if I can get some better pictures for my next post. Including interior pictures.

Paul


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## aceinc (Oct 24, 2006)

Here are the internals of one of the satellites. The woofer looks ok, I suspect the enclosure is too small for it. The xover is virtually non-existent, one 50v, 2.2 uf cap. The tweeter looks like a weak link as well.

Any thoughts on my next step?

At a minimum I would like to get rid of the severe dip at 4khz. It would be nice if I could extend the bass to 200hz, or a tad lower.

Paul


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## caliberconst. (Dec 10, 2009)

Thank you aceinc for this very fun very interesting thread!!


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

aceinc said:


> Any thoughts on my next step?


Yeah..throw them in the bin!! :bigsmile:
"You can't make a purse out of a sours ear"


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## aceinc (Oct 24, 2006)

I believe the proper expression is "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." Some folks will differ with that statement. Please check out the following;

http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/purse/

I don't have a problem with throwing in the towel, once I've tried and failed, but I've got to at least try.

Paul


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

Yeah..I thought it didn't look quite right when I typed it..:R
Hey good luck to you if you can do anything with them..Personally, I wouldn't have bothered..


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## aceinc (Oct 24, 2006)

With the screen name of Prof. and a mad scientist as an avatar, I would have expected some creativity in making them useful.

Paul


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## Moonfly (Aug 1, 2008)

Depends if you count charging them from a lightening storm under a full moon after grafting on some random mix of electrical components gathered from other dead speakers :heehee:


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

:rofl:


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## Dale Rasco (Apr 11, 2009)

Put them back together and give them as a gift to someone you don't like very much.


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## aceinc (Oct 24, 2006)

Now that the nay sayers have had their fun...

For the satellites I am thinking of changing the cap to a 7uf cap and adding more stuffing to the enclosure.

I actually have a number of HiVi A3n's that will fit into the woofer mounting, and a bunch of Dayton ND16FA-6 tweeters that are slightly too large for the tweeter mount, that I could possibly shave to fit.

I was hoping to use the existing drivers however, and tweak the cabinet & xover.

Still looking for helpful input.

Paul


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## looneybomber (Sep 20, 2006)

Maybe add an inductor on that woofer too?


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## Owen Bartley (Oct 18, 2006)

Hey Paul, I say good project. As long as you don't do any damage to your equipment, then have some fun and maybe even improve these babies! 

I can't help you much with the crossover modifications, but I would say that a gasket of some sort to better seal the satellites, and some more stuffing might be a step in the right direction. As for the sub, I think you could reduce the bling factor and class it up a bit by removing the chrome and hitting it with a couple coats of flat black enamel (or if they're going to your niece, pick her favorite colour or something to match her room) before attaching them again.


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## BrianAbington (Mar 19, 2008)

I had an old coworker show me his WVS set that he paid $500 for. They were a pair of towers that the guys told him "sounded just like a pair of Klipsch's" 

He couldn't understand why I was laughing so hard. 


I think this project has potential The enclosures look well built at least. Maybe line them with some dynamat and that will help them out.


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