no one's mentioned intermod distortion
My only full range effort is a pair of old 5" Sharp drivers,
I put them in a K slotted pipe for extended bass,
They're pretty good, but the soft paper cones tend to break up with higher vols/ complex music.
I bought a bottle of Damar varnish last week, I want to see if stiffening up the cone improves them
Pete McK
My only full range effort is a pair of old 5" Sharp drivers,
I put them in a K slotted pipe for extended bass,
They're pretty good, but the soft paper cones tend to break up with higher vols/ complex music.
I bought a bottle of Damar varnish last week, I want to see if stiffening up the cone improves them
Pete McK
li_gangyi said:
I'm using Johns smallest tangband speaker without the notch filter (ill try the filters later but I was impatient to here these drivers) and a 12" that runs a little bit higher than the usual sub rolloff point. I'm quite floored by the sound quality. Im using these for my main music system, not on the computer, and I highly recommend giving them a try. In combination with the lm3876 gainclone amp they're amazing. I promise you you will be happy if you build these. Try the amp too if you dont already have really good amplification. Its worth every bit of effort.
ways to use a fullrange:
1. fullrange (single, 1.5way or line source)
2. small fullrange (2-3") with woofer support below 300Hz (approx)
3. large fullrage (6-10") with tweeter support above 6k (approx).
4. as a wide range with support below 300Hz and 6k (approx).
option 2 and 3 are essentially 2 ways and 4 is a 3 way.
I dont think anyone can qualify that one option is better than the others or that any of these is better than a "regular" 2 or 3 way.
to do this one needs a budget. Now lets say we got a budget of $120 per side ($250 for a stereo pair, $600 for 5 channels).
At this budget u can either use
a JX92 or 4 x Fostex 107E ...OR
a Fostex 85k with a woofer such as the SEAS H333 or Vifa M21,... OR
a Fostex 206/207 with a FT17H or other tweeter...OR
a Fostex 127 with a $70 10" woofer (SEAS H372 or Vifa M26) and a FT27D or other tweeter...
OR
replace the Fostex fullrange above with a dedicated midrange like the Vifa M10 or Seas H143
note i refer to fosex/seas and vifa but these can be replaced by other drivers.
so within a budget u have 5 choices of topology atleast more if you iconsider different manufacturers.
confused? so am i!
1. fullrange (single, 1.5way or line source)
2. small fullrange (2-3") with woofer support below 300Hz (approx)
3. large fullrage (6-10") with tweeter support above 6k (approx).
4. as a wide range with support below 300Hz and 6k (approx).
option 2 and 3 are essentially 2 ways and 4 is a 3 way.
I dont think anyone can qualify that one option is better than the others or that any of these is better than a "regular" 2 or 3 way.
to do this one needs a budget. Now lets say we got a budget of $120 per side ($250 for a stereo pair, $600 for 5 channels).
At this budget u can either use
a JX92 or 4 x Fostex 107E ...OR
a Fostex 85k with a woofer such as the SEAS H333 or Vifa M21,... OR
a Fostex 206/207 with a FT17H or other tweeter...OR
a Fostex 127 with a $70 10" woofer (SEAS H372 or Vifa M26) and a FT27D or other tweeter...
OR
replace the Fostex fullrange above with a dedicated midrange like the Vifa M10 or Seas H143
note i refer to fosex/seas and vifa but these can be replaced by other drivers.
so within a budget u have 5 choices of topology atleast more if you iconsider different manufacturers.
confused? so am i!
7V,
actually i was being rather simplistic. amplifier wattage, max SPLs required, WAF, music listened to, application are other factors.
I find that once one applies all factors to a speaker selection you are normally left with only 1 or at best 2 choices.
of the choices i listed earlier for example if my amp was a 10W SE tube I'd have little choice but to sue the Fostex 206 with the FT17H to achieve decent SPLs or if WAF was a big concern I'd might have to use the JX92 in small 12-15 liter boxes, etc...hence once you starts applying other factors the choices you really have are quite narrow.
actually i was being rather simplistic. amplifier wattage, max SPLs required, WAF, music listened to, application are other factors.
I find that once one applies all factors to a speaker selection you are normally left with only 1 or at best 2 choices.
of the choices i listed earlier for example if my amp was a 10W SE tube I'd have little choice but to sue the Fostex 206 with the FT17H to achieve decent SPLs or if WAF was a big concern I'd might have to use the JX92 in small 12-15 liter boxes, etc...hence once you starts applying other factors the choices you really have are quite narrow.
after going thru about 10 conventional 2,3,4 way designs over the past 25 years or so (I built my first 3 way speaker in 1976) and not yet finding the holy grail I am ready to try fullrange/widerange.
my speakers included drivers from philips, focal, dynaudio, jbl, morel, audax, scanspeak and vifa and maybe others.
my speakers included drivers from philips, focal, dynaudio, jbl, morel, audax, scanspeak and vifa and maybe others.
I'm wondering if the answer for me will be found with a 3 way that uses an extremely wide range mid say from 500 to 10k then augment with a woofer and super-tweeter. Either that or a two way 500 (or lower) to 20k and augment the LF. Or, it could be that's it's just a matter of money and the answer is the Exact full range from Japan that sells for ~$5000.
7V said:
Amen to that.
I think the real problem is a severe shortage of true midrange units that are available to the loudspeaker market. Most midrange units seem to compete on bass performance, while sacrificing the performance of their primary function. There are plenty of midbass speakers between 100mm to 210mm that manufacturers falsely claim are good up to 3, 4, or even 5kHz. In reality many such speakers suffer from poorly controlled partial oscillations from frequencies as low as 700Hz - well before the sound starts becoming directional. They often have excessively long voice-coils and large rubber surrounds for good bass, but this can make midrange resonances worse due to the increased mass.
For top "wide-range" midrange speakers I'd look at some of the offerings from manufacturers such as Seas, Accuton, Visaton, Eton and a few others.
Kuei Yang Wang said:
Which is why I personally prefer Gordon Rankins suggested nomenclature of " Wide Band Augmented" drivers, because there is no true "full range driver" that covers the "full range " of the normal audio spectrum
7V said:
You left off "horns" here _grin_
as you make your compromises and particular choice of preference - one rule of thumb is give a driver/horn/cabinet combo a primary decade to handle and go from there - In that normally, to achieve "flat" response you are limited by driver/horn combination to a decade or so
Soooo, if you can stretch your decade a bit and/or place it carefully in regards to crossover points - you then may be on the road to maximizing a wide band setup -
I'll be trying a number of crossover points and slopes later and will post my results.
Will try fo ensure that this coincides with a listening session with some others listening also. _grin_
REgards
Ken L
Regards
Ken L
Heres my take on this
There is no one driver that can handle the whole spectrum. Plain and simple. You will be using a crossover be it the roll off of a sealed box a cap,caps and coils or natural roll off the driver. You just can't avoid it. Keeping the crossovers out of the midrange is a good idea providing you can get a driver that can give you reasonable response from about 100 hz and up and not turn into a laser beam at 10K. That is no easy task so the whole exercise is a balance of trade offs just like a multidriver design. Question is which set of trade offs are you more likely to live with?? For me I like 4 ways with steep crossovers 24db L/R. Phase just doesn't seem to bug me all that much. I would rather have the a more constant directivity, power handling, lower power compression and lower harmonic distortion that a multidriver system offers.
Rob
There is no one driver that can handle the whole spectrum. Plain and simple. You will be using a crossover be it the roll off of a sealed box a cap,caps and coils or natural roll off the driver. You just can't avoid it. Keeping the crossovers out of the midrange is a good idea providing you can get a driver that can give you reasonable response from about 100 hz and up and not turn into a laser beam at 10K. That is no easy task so the whole exercise is a balance of trade offs just like a multidriver design. Question is which set of trade offs are you more likely to live with?? For me I like 4 ways with steep crossovers 24db L/R. Phase just doesn't seem to bug me all that much. I would rather have the a more constant directivity, power handling, lower power compression and lower harmonic distortion that a multidriver system offers.
Rob
Wow, thank you for all the responses! Throughly anserwed my questions and then some. I went ahead and bought a couple TB w3-881s drivers. They are fairly inexpensive, and I figured this should be a great beginner project seeing I don't have to use a crossover, and a cabinet/box should be fairly easy make. Plus, I can easily play with different box sizes and such.
Another question I have is how to properly read the power handling figure. For example, the w3-881s says 15w rms/30w max. If I hook them to a receiver that puts out say 100w per channel, this exceed the power handling rating by quite a bit. I know I'm misinterpreting this rating, just not sure how.
Another question I have is how to properly read the power handling figure. For example, the w3-881s says 15w rms/30w max. If I hook them to a receiver that puts out say 100w per channel, this exceed the power handling rating by quite a bit. I know I'm misinterpreting this rating, just not sure how.
Timn8ter said:
if you are looking at this might i suggest a fostex FF85K with a good paper woofer. I am also looking at this but most woofers i find need a bigger box (<25l) than I can get away with.
CeramicMan said:
in the midrange (250hz-5000Hz) what do you think of Audax's aerogel drivers?
nonamekid said:
one solution. great waf too. only i wonder if it has the slam to handle rock.
navin said:
Can't say I've heard them, at least not that I know. To me they seem similar to Vifa speakers. The non-resonant plastic chassis seems like a good idea, though it looks like Audax is doing the same as all manufacturers of soft cones: trying to control partial resonances as nicely as possible.
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