JohnL said:
Yes, I've been working quite a bit on that driver. We're also playing around with an Alnico motor variant of it. I have a few more spiders i need to sample and experiment with, but I've definitely determined the Kapok cone material is going to be the way to go. These drivers sound quite amazing, although I'm a little biased.
Listening to a midrange driver fullrange with no Xover where it sounds good, not harsh, not fatiguing, is not a very common thing. This driver has some unique properties that make it very easy to implement with a passive Xover.John
I've never used any of the Fostex, Lowther, Feastrex, Mangers, etc widerange drivers personally. We have actually had people using TD15's, Dipole15's, etc to supplement the bottom end with all three of them. The comments we have received back are that the TD15's are the only drivers they have every found that are "fast enough" to keep up with these widerange drivers.
John
John
otto88 said:
The TD15M itself sounds quite good fullrange if you are on axis. Up to 1500hz is not an issue at all. We have had quite a few people using them with various compression drivers on horns, crossed from 1000-2000hz with good results. As you mentioned though any 15" driver will begin to beam at these frequencies. The phase plug helps some, but there isn't any other way around it.
SamL said:
Yes, it does use a curvilinear cone. It's actually from the same family of cones as the other TDM drivers. In a 6.5" driver, the curvilinear profile contributes to the rising response on the top end. A cone dished the other way would give a flatter response, but poorer off axis. In the case of this driver it is very easy to compensate for the rising response, so we went with the curvilinear cone.
John
fb said:
How does the TD12M compare in this regard?
Ta
Good enough for Duke to use them in his new Planetarium system.
Just because the 15" might be the best behaved, does not mean the others suck.
BTW, I was in Green Bay last night to pick up some cabinets and drivers, and got a chance to give a quick listen to the new 6.5". It sounded extremely promising, being very extended and clean sounding, with what sounded like a very even off axis roll-off without any audible resurgent spikes off axis. This should prove to be quite flexible for all sorts of midrange applications.
fb said:
The TD12M is going to be quite similar to the TD15M in terms of upper end response. Both are extremely well controlled and play well up into the 4KHz region. Very low inductance, low distortion, etc. The benefit to the 12" is the smaller diameter driver will play slightly higher without the effects of beaming. Again how high you can take it depends on what your off axis requirements are. Take a look at comments people had on Duke's Planetarium system from at the RMAF2008. He uses the TD12M.
The TD12M is of course going to move a little less air than the TD15M, but that is the case with any 12" vs its 15" counterpart.
John
Hartono said:
These drivers are going to have very low distortion well up past 4-5KHz range. Due to the full shorting ring this driver is quite flat electrically out to 10KHz or so. Inductance is a tiny .081mH. I don't think you will find any driver that can play this range cleaner. We experimented with a stiffer paper pulp that actually extended the response nearly out to 10KHz. The difference is that the stiffer paper also has more breakup and is harder to damp.
John
tinitus
I’ll be throwing away a lot of efficiency because the mid tweeter I was intending to use above 800 Hz is a 3” Fostex "full range", that’s only about 88 dB/ 1 watt. a poor sensitivity match, but a good driver, which has been enabled by planet10.
I’ll be doing it in an open baffle, but you’re right that open baffle compensation + BSC will be needed, and the much higher sensitivity of the TD15M will be handy.
I’ll be throwing away a lot of efficiency because the mid tweeter I was intending to use above 800 Hz is a 3” Fostex "full range", that’s only about 88 dB/ 1 watt. a poor sensitivity match, but a good driver, which has been enabled by planet10.
I’ll be doing it in an open baffle, but you’re right that open baffle compensation + BSC will be needed, and the much higher sensitivity of the TD15M will be handy.
MisterTwister said:
We have no real desire to use any exotic cone materials. Other than for aesthetic reasons there is no advantage. The Kapok material we are using was chosen for it's great damping characteristics allowing it to play very high in frequency with almost no cone breakup. I don't see any advantage to going with another material that would perform worse in this regard. We do use aluminum cones on our AV series woofers. They are hand spun cones that we then finish in house. They are great for strength and rigidity but do have a nasty breakup around 2KHz. For subwoofer use though it is a non-issue.
John
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