Funny, I was taking a walk, wondering how to use the greencone. I was thinking maybe an as-small-as-possible-Fane S 8M cabinet for hornloading in a Trio midbass horn, similar to what Romy did.
Then I come back to a lot of good suggestions. But how does one replace magnets? This I wonder for the K55 too. They are usually glued on. Acetone? Put the speaker in the kitchen oven? Blowtorch? Put speaker with the magnet down on a kitchen stove on low heat?
About the Greencone, someone said it really helped to harden the cone on the backside with speaker glue, or something. But that would get rid of the nice ring I get when I tap my finger.
Then I come back to a lot of good suggestions. But how does one replace magnets? This I wonder for the K55 too. They are usually glued on. Acetone? Put the speaker in the kitchen oven? Blowtorch? Put speaker with the magnet down on a kitchen stove on low heat?
About the Greencone, someone said it really helped to harden the cone on the backside with speaker glue, or something. But that would get rid of the nice ring I get when I tap my finger.
I assumed the Peavey driver just happened to have the same diameter VC as does the K-55.
Not sure why the Peavey ferrite is an improvement over the Alnico??
Also not sure where the improvement in the HF flatness comes from??
The LF extension I assume is from the "resistive" loading at the rear.
If anyone is interested in *new* PD-5VH drivers, please let me know, as I may be able to acquire a batch of them - one time only, and not really a GB situation. Waiting to hear back on this, so it is not solid yet.
_-_-
Not sure why the Peavey ferrite is an improvement over the Alnico??
Also not sure where the improvement in the HF flatness comes from??
The LF extension I assume is from the "resistive" loading at the rear.
If anyone is interested in *new* PD-5VH drivers, please let me know, as I may be able to acquire a batch of them - one time only, and not really a GB situation. Waiting to hear back on this, so it is not solid yet.
_-_-
I understood that the ferrite is stronger than an alnico and that is needed to get lower than 200Hz. It would not be field coil, but close enough. Sry, Bear, I got hold of vintage K55-V.
What is the price of a pair of PD-5VH? It should be the same thing, diaphragms should not be had to get, and magnet is going to be exchanged anyway, so I think I am OK with vintage drivers.
I have been reading and I can't find which peavey driver he used, that had the same dimensions. Radian - help!
What is the price of a pair of PD-5VH? It should be the same thing, diaphragms should not be had to get, and magnet is going to be exchanged anyway, so I think I am OK with vintage drivers.
I have been reading and I can't find which peavey driver he used, that had the same dimensions. Radian - help!
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It is hard to believe that two totally different speakers would have identical voicecoils. Using the same wire diameter. Former diameter, coil length and positioning so they sit in the gap exactly the same would seem to be more than a coincidence.
As I have been looking for some specific components lately it is amazing when looking at a Chinese website I will see components such as pole pieces and t-yokes that are actually sold as a trade named part we would all recognize. Parts sold out of the back door that are called out by name! Once the part is produced in China is it fair game for whoever wants to buy the excess production. Cones, voicecoils, and compression driver parts, you name it is available to be used in a copy of major brand names.
As I have been looking for some specific components lately it is amazing when looking at a Chinese website I will see components such as pole pieces and t-yokes that are actually sold as a trade named part we would all recognize. Parts sold out of the back door that are called out by name! Once the part is produced in China is it fair game for whoever wants to buy the excess production. Cones, voicecoils, and compression driver parts, you name it is available to be used in a copy of major brand names.
i have heard the WE555 in the WE15a twice, at Aldo's place in italy, and Tim's in Paris. Both experiences were VERY disappointing. Because before i actually heard them, i had high expectations based on comments as yours. I thought midrange was sounding very colored, lots and lots of horn colorations, and impossible to integrate with other channels. Any previous comments i made about these two systems were just to be polite. The only way the 555 sounded gorgeous to my ears, was in the 22a horns, crossed between 300hz and 6khz in the Line Magnetic system. In that horn, integration with the other channels was ok, and horn coloration was reduced to a acceptable level, retaining directness, vividness, freshness and dynamics, while soft and non agressive, which i simply loved and impressed me. My friend Mario uses his JBL 2482 in 300hz horn above 800hz , and says thats how he gets the best performance, and uses paper cone drivers below. The 12p80nd has in my view much better midrange below 1,2khz by a significant margin, compared to Fane Studio 8M/ 38" tractrix horn. I am this and next week modifying my 38" horn, to fit the 12p80nd.
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I tried the E-120 with a 2204H recone. It has better lower midrange than the original E-120, but probably worse above 600Hz. I really like it, but the Fane is a fantastic speaker with much more detail above 200Hz. My point is that the E-120 is similar to the 12P80ND and I feel that this type of setup is not the best between 500-1200Hz. Even the cheap Beyma 6MI100 6.5" is better above 400Hz. So going from a 12" to a Beyma TPL150 is not my cup of tea. Initially it sounded good, but then I experimented more with 2 and 1 inch compression drivers in combinations and they sound so good now. My Beyma TPL150 is sitting on a shelf waiting for another project now. My 12 inch is used only to 450Hz. So imagine more compreasion drivers below down to 100Hz. I will try it out and come back. If I figure out what magnet to replace it with.
Angelo, I am the most surprised that you disliked your TAD so much and replaced it with a 12". You must be really tired of the horn sound. Maybe the Fane would have sounded better to you in a shorter horn with a more wide opening.
BTW, hornloading your 12 inch is a good thing. I got a lovelly sound with my JBL. Just for a little direction. But this means you should cross your 12P80ND like the Fane S 8M.
Angelo, I am the most surprised that you disliked your TAD so much and replaced it with a 12". You must be really tired of the horn sound. Maybe the Fane would have sounded better to you in a shorter horn with a more wide opening.
BTW, hornloading your 12 inch is a good thing. I got a lovelly sound with my JBL. Just for a little direction. But this means you should cross your 12P80ND like the Fane S 8M.
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I heard a WE555 in a large 'snail' horn, at a listening session organized by La Maison de L'Audiophile back in 1982 or -3. Mind you: a horn with an opening of more than 1x1 meter, in an auditorium of 30x50 m.
They played the usual stack of jazz (such as the pawn house) etc. but also a 'garage door' track. no complicated filters, just 12 dB if I am correct, no time alignment or such artifices that are so en vogue now.
I was absolutely flabbergasted. But you would have to design a house around it
(I try to lure my wife into something like that; almost bought a 40x60 cm JBL for the Yamaha's; but restrained myself - and right now I an contemplating a more modest version of 18x40 cm.)
The electronics is the most crucial component - and that was the heart of that set of expertise of the L'Audiophile team (M. Jean Hiraga, M. Walther ...); the low was with Jenson/Olson cabinets and a Kaneda 50 Watt; a single ended/Partridge or Le Monstre 8 W for the mids; a SE for the highs and super highs.
albert
They played the usual stack of jazz (such as the pawn house) etc. but also a 'garage door' track. no complicated filters, just 12 dB if I am correct, no time alignment or such artifices that are so en vogue now.
I was absolutely flabbergasted. But you would have to design a house around it
(I try to lure my wife into something like that; almost bought a 40x60 cm JBL for the Yamaha's; but restrained myself
- and right now I an contemplating a more modest version of 18x40 cm.)The electronics is the most crucial component - and that was the heart of that set of expertise of the L'Audiophile team (M. Jean Hiraga, M. Walther ...); the low was with Jenson/Olson cabinets and a Kaneda 50 Watt; a single ended/Partridge or Le Monstre 8 W for the mids; a SE for the highs and super highs.
albert
Was it the WE 22A or 15A? I have high hopes for my straight 11A-like DIY Goto S-150 horn.
The German re-inventor of the K-55V did say that a TAD-2001 crossed higher in the same horn would sound better for a wider range of music, at least according to google translate. Personally I find I have to be more selective to what I listen to with the JA6681B.
I doubt a K-55 in a huge horn will be the most allround speaker ever.
The German re-inventor of the K-55V did say that a TAD-2001 crossed higher in the same horn would sound better for a wider range of music, at least according to google translate. Personally I find I have to be more selective to what I listen to with the JA6681B.
I doubt a K-55 in a huge horn will be the most allround speaker ever.
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Hi Bear,
I think you are right. I never ask Dietmar how he managed the clearence
to the dome on the pole piece. He might have used a very big drill.
The magnet from the peavey driver has not changed anything
on the driver except the force from 1.2T to 1.9T and the ability to have a
bigger back-chamber.
The little hex hole is all the cavity the stock driver has behind the diaphragm.
In all reality those who use a computer or do otherwise equalize the signal
can just drill the hole all the way trough the back cover and put a little
cavity there. Most easily done with a syringe whoms tip is cutt off and fixed
some how on the hole. Then the inner piece of the syringe can be adjusted by
ear or measurement until the right volume is found. This is by the way also
very easy to do when trying to find the right back-chamber volume for a bass or mid horn.
A sewage pipe with a movable plug will work great.
After the right volume is found a permanent chamber with equivalent volume can be installed.
In my opinion the to small back chamber of the stock Atlas/K55 unit is just a safety
measure to limit the excursion. Most of those drivers where used in paging
horns mainly for speech and often used with just a cap as a 6db filter below
150hz-200hz in the bigger horns.
Although the bigger force from the Peavey magnet equalized the unit quite
drastically, it does not make a difference in the achievable spl at a certain
frequency. The right back chamber with the ability to equalize the signal
will do the exact same thing but with a bit less efficiency.
Transients do usually benefit from a bigger BL factor but how different it
sounds is a question that can only be determined by an A/B test.
Klaus
Attachments
Atlas just continued the WE design as far as I know. Why should they change
anything on the phase plug design and the diaphragm for the purpose the Atlas driver was designed ?
Getting rid of the field coil and aluminum diaphragm was all it needed to have
a rather good sounding driver with minimal manufacturing cost.
After the modification the two drivers are almost identical in the performance
up to 3.5khz which also points to the fact that there is no significant difference
in the design.
They will certainly sound different because of the difference of the diaphragm
material but I guess it will be hard to tell in the lower to 1khz region which
I want to cover with this driver.
Klaus
The only 50.8mm VC peavey compression driver I found is 1.75T, not 1.9T. Maybe a nd magnet would be better, but Peavey does not carry those. I tend to prefer the sound of iron magnets over nd magnets. Beyma and B&C do not have 2" VC. The EV ND2-8 has a 2" VC and nd magnet, but I can't find it anywhere. Only diaphgrams.
I might settle for the 1.75T Peavey. It is probably the one he used anyway. The 1.9T is probably a misprint. I wonder if I should choose the 16ohm or 8ohm peavey magnet?
I might settle for the 1.75T Peavey. It is probably the one he used anyway. The 1.9T is probably a misprint. I wonder if I should choose the 16ohm or 8ohm peavey magnet?
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Don't get to focused on the kind of magnet used. As I said before, just
drill the hole all the way through the back cover of the stock driver and
attach a little cup of some sort. See how this gets the lower frequency
raised.
The lower registers are usually not what can be raised with a stronger
magnet. In the case of the K55 it was just an indication that the back
chamber was way to small ant that the added force brought the driver
nearer to the ideal system Q.
Unless one needs the extra boost in the hf ,finding the right back chamber
volume for the stock unit has theoretically to exhibit the same result.
My drivers are still at Dietmar's so I can not check if the iron cup wich
is also funktioning as the return path, can be taken off. In that case
the length of the alnico magnet can be measured exactly and be substituded
with a number of neodymium rods of same lenght arround the center hole.
But then again why go through all this if we only use the driver from lets say
150hz to 1khz?
Klaus
1986, I believe (need to look it up). It was at the Kiron theatre in Paris. I know, as the demo was my idea.
I was the technical director at Kiron and the Audiophile crew were friends from just down the street. There were also demos there in '93 and '94 after I left.The big horns were the Western Electric 15A model. Jean Hiraga owned 4 of them at the time, and used to joke about using them for Quadraphonic sound.
Amplifier was the brand new JH-50, a P-P EL34 amp.
You are correct about the crossovers, simple stuff, all 2nd order, IIRC. Interestingly no band-pass, just low pass for the woofers and high pass for each horn section.
- Woofers - 250Hz LP
- WE 15A - 250 HP
- Iwata/TAD - 600Hz HP
- JBL 2405 - 8KHz HP
I don't remember any time alignment during set-up, but there may have been some moving back and forth of the horn sections, as was typical of Hiraga, Walter et al.
Oh yeah.... I had forgotten about that silly garage door track.
Thanks for reminding me. I was also much impressed by some of the symphonic works with choir, and also the opening track of the Andreas Vollenwieder CD "Caverna Magica". Do you remember those?That was the general take away from the demos. The listeners were flabbergasted - I saw many jaws drop - but how do you put something like that in your house?I was absolutely flabbergasted. But you would have to design a house around it
Glad you enjoyed the demo, seems like we may have met, way back then.
Hi Angelo,
We have to be careful not to confuse the issue at hand.
The WE15A upper response issues are irrelevant for our discussion.
I take only in consideration what most people say about the performance
of the WE555 on big WE horns. The reports are all in unison when they
talk about the tone, the effortless presentation and the rightness of the
lower registers.
That is what I have to rely on when it comes to this compression
driver on a big horn.
We are not talking about the mid range here. I am not a fan of using big
horns over 1khz regardless of horn contour. They can and will
never get it right up there no matter how exited the owners are. It is not
the drivers fault though. JMLC puts the WE55 right up there with the Goto
units for low to mid duty if I remember right.
My initial question was, why use a fantastic driver like the JA6681b on a
compromise horn like the big Azura. It seems to be the same phenomenon
like with the 15A. People are fascinated by what they hear and stop right there,
living with the flaws they don't realize.
I don't want to criticize you but you have been posting so many contradicting
impressions that I wonder if you gave every driver the right horn
and crossover and therefore jumping to an early conclusion.
One time you write that the Radian 950pb is way better in the tractrix horn
than you write that you tried it, but it is not as good as the Fane.
Now you say that the Beyma 12XX is way better below 1.2khz than the Fane.
How did you manage to compare the Beyma with the Fane?
As I said before, I think that Romy's/your tractrix horn is not the done right,
but that's at the moment just theory.
The Fane is a fantastic unit as almost all of the former Studio Series Transducers.
I bet that if you would give the Beyma and the Fane the exact same frequency band
cutting everything off steeply, the Fane would have the upper hand.
There is very little chance this 12" cone can match the speed and transient response of
the 8" Fane.
Maybe the Beyma is better I don't know. What I know is that I have
not heard better horns outdoors than those equipped with Fane speakers.
Outdoors is the only environment to fairly judge the performance of Speakers,
especially horns. No room interactions either from standing waves nor other
reflections. I have heard many horn rigs equipped with JBL, EV, Gauss....
but none that had the rightness and speed of the Fane rig we build back in
86. From top to bottom so perfect I would not have changed a thing.
It all is a matter of implementation and it could very well be that in all my
years I have not heard any of the other speakers implemented right. Who knows.
Klaus
I think I have been misunderstood from the get go.
It is not a good idea to let the k55 go over 1khz. We have wonderful working
horns like JMLC or even better seos constant directivity that can be used
with aluminum or berylium diaphragm drivers that exhibit more detail in the
important range over 1khz. Under about 1khz it gets really hard to hear if a
phenolic or an aluminum diaphragm driver is playing if they both are of a equal
quality in general. A plain conical from 150hz up to 1khz with the K33
attached would exhibit excellent results IMO.
.
I was going to use it below 500Hz, maybe to 1khz if not a JA6681B is better.
All I saw was that he changed magnets, and then he got better bass. Maybe these revelations were after page 92-94. It takes time to translate everything.
You have two weeks to explain in pictures before I go to work on my vintage K-55-V with a Dremel tool.
I ordered from the US a few days ago. I am guessing I will just drill the hole slightly wider and add a chamber of felt outside of the back.
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