zeppelin in the Audio Nirvana

Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.
Jump to Latest
Scottmoose

Scottmoose

Member
Joined 2005
wodendesign.com
wakibaki said:
The problem is, Scott, that this isn't much of a basis on which to build a buying strategy for most people.
Click to expand...


Yes, I know. You might have noticed that I mentioned I am no longer able to measure drivers myself either, so I'm in a not dissimilar situation. However, it doesn't change the fact that many factory parameter claims are arrant nonsense & if you design something based upon incorrect specs., in practice, the results will be completely misaligned, the problems increasing the greater the deviance from the claims. That's just the way it is. Whether we like it or not is neither here nor there; it's just a fact.

With Lowther and Fostex out of the running the choice is becoming somewhat limited anyway.
Click to expand...

Limited choice goes hand in hand with a limited budget. If it's any consolation, I can't afford any drivers, period, at the moment. I got royally ripped off by my cabinet-maker for my last project, the quality of which was so bad the boxes are lurking at the end of the garden, awaiting a dry evening so I can have a bonfire, and which completely cleaned out my finances. All I have to listen to music on at the moment is my ancient PC & a dodgy pair of headphones with an intermittant left channel. But whether the choice of drivers available to your finances is limited or not is irrelevant to the fact that the parameters AN (in this case) publish are clearly at odds with what owners have measured in practice. As I've repeatedly said, that's not necessarily a reflection on the sound quality the units are capable of. It's just observing that the maker's claimed specs. for them are inaccurate, on the available evidence.

Some of us are not tuned in to the folk grapevine, and anyway, a great deal of folk knowledge is superstition.

I have no inclination to indulge in a round of experimental buying and testing. I certainly wouldn't be thinking about measuring them until they had been run for some considerable time. Open baffle is too fragile for my circumstances, so it's a box.
Click to expand...

I certainly can't afford to go buying & testing drivers. However, if people can't be bothered to spend a little while either doing some research before making a decision on what to buy, or measuring their units before they design their cabinet, they are looking for trouble, and they've nobody but themselves to blame if they don't like the results.

Therefore my first port of call and my recommendation to any reader when seeking information about any piece of equipment remains the manufacturers published specification.
Click to expand...

...which is perfectly logical; so do most of us providing you keep in mind that they are usually of questionable accuracy, so a reasonable degree of lattitude must be assumed / applied.

I am often the first to castigate correspondents for their failure to apply rigorous analysis, but there is such a thing as over-dependence. There is an important component of engineering practice which is beimg ignored here. This is empiricism.

Mathematical models vary in their accuracy.

A loudspeaker is a complicated system. Many of the interactiog components, despite the best efforts of manufacturers, are possessed of ill defined or poorly understood qualities and behaviours such as e.g. the paper in the cone or the suspension.

Anyone comparing a simulated plot of a loudspeaker with a real one will instantly notice that the real one has a lot more departures from a smooth response than does the simulated one.

Cut-and-try is a perfectly respectable engineering technique, particularly if it gets better results than a sophisticated but necessarily incomplete model.
Click to expand...

Indeed. The vast majority of the boxes I've done on the FH site for example, cannot be accurately simulated by any software, but I know how & why they perform & regularly had to explain why certain features present on a graph do not exist in reality. That's why we removed the FR plots from the site, because they were a source of confusion for some people. Hell, I was one of the first promoters of the BIB for pity's sake, which has the world's worst modelled FR, yet pretty decent in-room behaviour.

Cut & shut is perfectly respectable. I'd be intrigued to know who suggested otherwise. Plus, you can often learn more from doing it. However, it doesn't automatically mean that you'll get 'better' (whatever that means) results either, nor does it suddenly make a poor alignment 'good.'
 
V

VictoriaGuy

Member
Joined 2008
OK....
If I want to measure driver parameters, what's the simplest current 'acceptable' method to use? Freeware or budget-conscious methods preferred!

I've got the usual electronics test equipment (signal gen,scope, freq counter), spare laptop running XP, some mics, but no calibrated mic or other specialized stuff.
 
freddi

freddi

Member
Joined 2005
hahaha - I get pig N poked a lot on T-S such as old Peavey 15" coaxial pair - no email from PV - - high qes, fs ~65Hz - unbelievably stiff - have real nice midrange considering 22A HF . my nice Jeep got destroyed by a tree during an ice storm - no insurance - my phone is out worse than the jeep, state is trying (and probably will succeed) to double mineral taxes which already tripled between 2007-08 - jeep, loudspeaker failures and waste are nothing in comparison
 
V

VictoriaGuy

Member
Joined 2008
GM said:
John,
"Oh really?! Please elaborate WRT actual box performance differences, not those in the mids/HF."

GM
Click to expand...

GM-
Sorry-
If I had understood clearly what you meant when I first read that sentence, I would have answered more promptly.....still a bit baffled.

Are you asking for some sort of detailed technical report (lotsa graphs, etc?) on the difference between the 167e/Brines 1600 and the AN10/AN2.8II ? Can't help you there, as I don't have things rigged up for testing. I'm also unable to use the 'lingo' to talk in detail about imaging, soundstage depth, width (and colour!), etc as I only have a few speakers here to compare. I guess it's kinda like wine tasting- you've gotta learn through experience what all the descriptors mean . (?)



However, the AN10s definitely sound better to me, particularly in the bass- which shouldn't be a surprise. I also like the overall response better with the ANs. With my tone-control-less tube amp this is more of an issue. The past few days I've been listening with a 'vintage' SS amp and can dial in more/less bass more easily. The 167e Brines bass is much better with that setup.

Cheers
John
 
Nelson Pass

Nelson Pass

The one and only
Joined 2001
Paid Member
freddi said:
Hi Nelson - what values do you suggest offhand for AN10 filters? --- do you like the AN8's as well sz 206?
Click to expand...

Are you looking for passive between-the-speaker-and-driver?

I'm still going through comparisons of the AN drivers, and haven't
yet worked out the passive values - active being so much quicker.

I like the AN8's as well as the FE206's but I haven't done a head-to-
head comparison under any kind of controlled conditions, but I'll get
to it eventually.

Keep in mind that tend to I view all these things in context, so you'll
find me smiling when I listen to the Bu20Fu20's - at $20.

:cool:
 
R

ra7

Member
Joined 2009
Paid Member
Folded Voigt Pipes for the AN 8

Hey,

I know this thread is kinda old and I don't know if I should be posting here.

But I wanted to share my experience with the AN standard 8. I built folded voigt pipes for them. Some polyfiberfill stuff in the throat. I'm running them without any filters after having tested like a gazillion filters and coming away unsatisfied.

That they are a little lightweight down there is well documented and they could do with some augmentation, but in the right room they don't sound half bad.

I'm a big Zeppelin fan and for me, these speakers don't take anything away from Zeppelin. The bass lines fire with speed and clarity. Imaging and midrange are obviously outstanding.

I too am using a t-amp right now, but plan to build the original JLH class A soon, then maybe one of Nelson Pass' designs.
 

Attachments

  • image208_mod.jpg
    image208_mod.jpg
    47.6 KB · Views: 241
H

human.bin

Member
Joined 2008
things i understood before my super 8" was broken...

if you have the space, don't mess up with an encosure, save money for a pair of woofers and go OB... that is a place for the an, doing their job well some where over 200hz... still a bit light till 800-1000k, but i never ended experimenting and was using really bad woofer i had... as everybody nows, eminence or goldwood should do it...

look for cone treatments, they should help, i was trying to figure out the how-to.
probably the 15k peak should be filtered...

zeppelin... never use the 'remaster'

everybody says at the end best enclosure is the 2.8 from david dick, did you tried it before the voight pipes?
 
H

human.bin

Member
Joined 2008
definitely follow this link www.diyaudio.com :)

i'm joking...
first of all if you want to experiment with OB make the baffle stable, the an are quite heavy...
then there are many ways to go OB, a woofer at least is needed, than equalization, active crossover, bi-amp (but don't worry, the larger the woofer the less power required, Nelson Pass told he is never using more than 30w/ch on the bass section), padding down the fullranger, everything is welcome, everybody has his own idea... extensive experimentation is needed, but funny

extensive documentation can be found:
http://www.linkwitzlab.com/
http://www.quarter-wave.com/

http://gainphile.blogspot.com/

also a user here inclinedplane is using very simple design for AN super 8" with two pyle woofers, says it's faboulous...

and one day or another nelson pass is going to publish extensive documentation about is large OB active and passive...

in the meanwhile just it search on this forum or navigate around, OB are always on the list...

i don't have working audionirvana anymore, but if you get somewhere let me now :)
 
H

human.bin

Member
Joined 2008
@R7 you are really better listening to scottmoose and the others here, i'm really a newbie and don't understand quite a bit...

by the way, when i first started this thread a year ago the idea was to find a better enclosure, and none come out... someone somewhere said he tried many and then return to the 2.8, it was not David Dicks of course, now i'm working and cannot find the post, later if i find it i will point you to, i think it's in this thread, simply he said that simulation where always wrong due to uncorrect specs

then i think that the 2.8 are really large boxes, and their to 50hz exstension doesn't justify them, nor the expens for the wood that is quite the same price for a pair of eminence beta, alpha or what you like... so i turned OB, or pheraphs was experimenting...

now i'm waiting to build scottmoose design for the alpair 10, that really is a cabinet!

:)


PS, i tried spiral horn also with the AN, everything went wrong, dips everywhere and harsh acid sound. but the design was as is on the site for the fostex 206 (that states for my very little understanding of driver parameters), and another guy reported it to work good with the 206 and some bsc. the again why so complicate a design if you balance heavily with a bsc? maybe it could be build around the AN specs... if someone has the right ones...
 
Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.
Top Bottom