Jericho horn speakers with Audio Nirvana Super 8"

[JeanM]

Thank you Mr. Moose

You weren't convinced by the Lowthers then? You're not alone; I'm not a huge fan of them either.

The Lowthers win marks in a lot of categories but those good points don't come together to make a whole IMHO. IOW, the have a strong character and don't let you forget it. I can sacrifice some detail, luminous HF and LF reaching the nether regions if the electronics/speakers have the talent to disappear and let the music through.

Thanks for everything you do for the DIY community sir. I am a very experienced cabinet maker, done it all my life and a fair, but no more, hand at putting together electronic circuits. We'll meet again, soon

 

[GM]

Re: AN Super 8 CF BIB

Sorry for being off thread with this question....but would a AN Super 8 (cast frame) work well in a BIB?

Hmm, I thought you looked familiar, I answered this in a PM request over a year ago, which based on the info you referred me to WRT your amp's specs makes Scott's BIB way too small even if corner loaded.

That said, if your driver specs are as far off from its published specs as those in this thread, then even the much larger BIB I calc'd will be woefully too small for good bass reproduction at low distortion.

GM

 

[Scottmoose]

Ouch -out of interest, what kind of amp is it?

 

[GM]

Re: Have you ever heard any of the ANs?

Not to **** you off with my first message here but since Scottmoose and GM are so vocal about the AN I must ask if anyone of them ever heard and Audio Nirvana driver, in which enclosure and which model. Your names have much weight around here and you are really putting the brand down.

I have no experience with AN drivers beyond reading others information and don't need to do basic cab design. What I do need though is reasonably accurate specs so that with a ~10% oversize 'fudge factor' to account for manufacturing tolerances, an alignment can be calc'd that with no more than some fine tuning of stuffing density and/or vent length yields an excelllent performing cab within all the agreed upon limitations.

In this thread though, we learned that at least one model's published specs were off by a factor of ~4.81 on average using T/S max flat vented alignments for comparison! In today's T/S driver spec oriented 'world', this is completely unacceptable, so you won't hear any kind words about AN (the company) from me as long as they grossly misrepresent their product's performance.

Maybe you're comfortable with promoting/buying the advertised equivalent of a high performance Shelby Cobra replica based on its looks and exhaust tone only to find it has a Pinto motor and suspension, making it a poor performer overall, but I'm not.

GM

 

[GM]

Ouch -out of interest, what kind of amp is it?

Cayin TA-30 with supposedly 8 ohms of output impedance, though I questioned it at the time. I didn't go look it back up before responding, just assumed it was a 300B (my bad), so maybe it's not as bad as I implied, though 300Bs typically have at least 2.4-2.5 ohms and often higher, so factor in what are probably high Vas, Qts specs and a relatively huge BIB is required.

FWIW, here's what I suggested using published specs/8 ohms:

L = 138" (69" folded)
zdriver = 30"
Sm = ~347.07"^2 (15.687" W x 22.125" D)
a-b-c = 11.06"

GM

 

[VictoriaGuy]

Re: Re: Have you ever heard any of the ANs?

It will be interesting to hear them again since John has changed the porting on the box to something much more resonable and he has stiffened the box. He is also working thru a series of driver mods -- don't know how far he has gotten.

Update: The 'driver mods' (and enclosure mods) were very modest, and have been completed. Since several things were changed at the same time, and no A/B testing is possible (I don't have a 'spare set' of original boxes and drivers), it's difficult to say exactly what -if any- improvement resulted. There's (almost) no science in audio, so this is not unusual.
The bass response seems to be 'tighter' with the longer (10.5") port tube in the 6" port, and some of the mid/highs may be a bit smoother with the few mods done to the drivers.
Driver 'mods' (30 min per driver)
- 2 light coats of thinned Modge-Podge aka Puzzlecoat on cones
-whizzer edge support with open-cell foam
-Ductseal applied in magnet/basket gap and on basket struts
-felt applied inside struts and on back of magnet.

I had thought of applying the gloss 'top-coat' as well as the Modge-Podge, but lost my nerve. The 'eNable' dot pattern will have to wait for my reincarnation into an even-more uncluttered life, or an unexpected (I don't buy tickets) lottery win, so I can pay for 'upgraded' drivers.

Cheers
John

 

[Scottmoose]

Thanks Greg, that sounds favourite. Hope the building work is progressing as well as possible BTW?

 

[VictoriaGuy]

Re: Re: Have you ever heard any of the ANs?

I have no experience with AN drivers beyond reading others information and don't need to do basic cab design. What I do need though is reasonably accurate specs so that with a ~10% oversize 'fudge factor' to account for manufacturing tolerances, an alignment can be calc'd that with no more than some fine tuning of stuffing density and/or vent length yields an excelllent performing cab within all the agreed upon limitations.

In this thread though, we learned that at least one model's published specs were off by a factor of ~4.81 on average using T/S max flat vented alignments for comparison! In today's T/S driver spec oriented 'world', this is completely unacceptable, so you won't hear any kind words about AN (the company) from me as long as they grossly misrepresent their product's performance.

GM-
Interesting.....
Which company publishes specs that are within 10% of what you consider to be the 'true' values? I recall several folks (Scottmoose?) commenting that some of the Fostex numbers were inaccurate, and that Jordan specs were also suspect.

Also, I'm afraid I don't understand your statement about the AN specs being out by a factor of 4.81... you mean a 480% difference in one of the spec numbers when comparing the AN published # with 'outside' aka 'amateur' measurement? I don't see such a large variation, looking at my various data sheets here. Of course, if you perform enough calculations, you can make even a modest difference seem very large.

That said, it would be nice to see more consistency in the T-S parameters, assuming they are the be-all-and-end-all of speaker design. The 'amateur' measurements on the AN10 are quite consistent with each other, from what I've seen, and some are up to 50% different from the AN published specs.

Cheers
John
PS-The ANs are still great-sounding speakers and a good value, IMO.

 

[GM]

Thanks Greg, that sounds favourite. Hope the building work is progressing as well as possible BTW?

You're welcome!

Not really, several damaging storms have swept through recently with each one undoing my dirt rearranging, so have basically just done the same yard project three times now with more rain forecast for tomorrow. Hope the straw holds the dirt this time around, so I can start on the roof..............

GM

 

[Scottmoose]

Oh great. As PITAs go, that's up there with the worst of them. Hope it improves for you.

 

[mark_maya]

Have I done something wrong?

Cayin TA-30 with supposedly 8 ohms of output impedance, though I questioned it at the time. I didn't go look it back up before responding, just assumed it was a 300B (my bad), so maybe it's not as bad as I implied, though 300Bs typically have at least 2.4-2.5 ohms and often higher, so factor in what are probably high Vas, Qts specs and a relatively huge BIB is required.

FWIW, here's what I suggested using published specs/8 ohms:

L = 138" (69" folded)
zdriver = 30"
Sm = ~347.07"^2 (15.687" W x 22.125" D)
a-b-c = 11.06"

GM

Hi GM,

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, we did PM a year ago & I thank you agian for taking the time to correspond with me back then... but I never received your design recomendations for the alternative to the BIB. Honestly, I assumed you just lost interest, so I did not pester you.

In the meantime a friend has given me a pair of power amps (built by a tech here in Atlanta) based on the WE 91A SET typology, w/ WE 300b output tubes.

Just hoped the BIB/300B SET/AN Super 8 CF might have good synergy because the BIB design is probably right for my quite basic woodworking skills.

I enjoy visiting these forums. Hope I haven't upset you.

Respectfully,

Mark

 

[GM]

GM-
Interesting.....

Greets!

Most of the major ones I've done designs for AFAIK or they shouldn't have elicited such high praise, though I must say that recent posted Fostex, Jordan specs makes me wonder. For sure, during my active building days, Altec, JBL, Peerless, Scan-Speak, Philips, data was always accurate enough to the point where I quit measuring them except for horn apps.

Remember, I said referenced to T/S max flat alignments, not individual specs which within reason aren't required for sealed or simple vented box alignments. Higher order alignments and horns OTOH require somewhat more accuracy of course. Anyway, I took the averaged measured specs alignment's Vb divided by the factory specs alignment's Vb to get the ~4.81x difference. So much for me trying to prove my viewpoint through obfuscation.

As for trusting 'amateur' measurements over factory specs, I consider the source and in the case of the AN S10, its own cab alignments make much more sense to me using the former's rather than the latter's.

T/S isn't the 'be-all-and-end-all' of speaker design as you can make excellent performing speakers without them, but what they do is allow one to pare its size down to the bare minimum and calculate a ~optimum tuning without the need for much fine tuning with the downside of course being they have to be fairly CLOSE TOLERANCE to the published specs for (technically) good performance.

GM

 

[VictoriaGuy]

GM-
Thanks for the patient reply.
I do tend to get a bit 'defensive' about the avalanche of negative comments that mention of the AN drivers seems to provoke around diyaudio. Sorry about that, but the ANs tend to 'bury the competition' for most folks who visit my decidedly non-audiophile living room, and may well be a good choice for many people.

Remember, I said referenced to T/S max flat alignments, not individual specs which within reason aren't required for sealed or simple vented box alignments. Higher order alignments and horns OTOH require somewhat more accuracy of course. Anyway, I took the averaged measured specs alignment's Vb divided by the factory specs alignment's Vb to get the ~4.81x difference. So much for me trying to prove my viewpoint through obfuscation.

Well, you lost me, for sure...but that's not too difficult.
As I said, basic T/S parameter differences of 50% between manufacturer and 'outside testers' (I won't say 'amateur' if that helps) are not good. However, differences of 10-30% between the published values for the AN10 from 'outside testers' don't inspire much more confidence.

Cheers
John

 

[Scottmoose]

Avalanche of negative comments? Out of interest, where are those? The CSA cabinets regularly get a deserved roasting, but the drivers generally don't provoke much in the way of negative press, other than in their wild deviations from the factory claims, and the larger units generally mandating extremely large boxes. For people outside the North Americas, there is little incentive to buy units from the range that have direct equivalents by rival manufacturers, as their price advantage is mostly wiped out by postal costs, import duty / taxes etc., but they do score with the other units -particularly the cast frame and larger drivers. Setting price / spec. aside, the ones I've heard have been OK; I'd like to hear the 12in & 15in units at some point -given the price, they've clearly had to compromise, so it'd be interesting to see just how far.

 

[rjbond3rd]

Hi Scott, I also want to hear the AN 15". I am seriously tempted by them.

 

[Scottmoose]

Yeah, AFAIK, they're the first 15in FR (OK, that's stretching it, make it WB) units since the 1940s, which lifts the interest factor. How far they've had to compromise, given that you can only do spo much for the money -well, it'd be interesting to find out. Need an enormous cab. though, even using the factory specs.

 

[schro20]

great sounding AN12 horn

FWIW I had the distinct pleasure of hearing the Rocky Mounting Big Horn (http://rockymtnaudio.com/) at RMAF in Denver this past fall. VERY impressive. The version I heard had the 10in AN driver in it. The gentleman who builds these horns also told me that he built them with 12in AN. They were driven by some vintage McIntosh tube amp at a couple of Watts or so and had a depth and range and clarity that made it one of the best loudspeakers (in its category: single driver) which I heard at RMAF. (The best by far was the Linkwitz Orion [no surprise there] and a speaker by some German guys that was silly expensive but also phenomenal.)

Anyway, since having heard the big horn building something like that has been on my list (behind a whole bunch of other things on my ever longer list... )

Peter

 

[GM]

Hi GM,

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, we did PM a year ago & I thank you agian for taking the time to correspond with me back then... but I never received your design recomendations for the alternative to the BIB. Honestly, I assumed you just lost interest, so I did not pester you.

In the meantime a friend has given me a pair of power amps (built by a tech here in Atlanta) based on the WE 91A SET typology, w/ WE 300b output tubes.

Just hoped the BIB/300B SET/AN Super 8 CF might have good synergy because the BIB design is probably right for my quite basic woodworking skills.

I enjoy visiting these forums. Hope I haven't upset you.

Respectfully,

Mark

Greets!

You're welcome!

Hmm, at this point in time I only vaguely remember not hearing from you after awhile, so forgot about it. Just as well considering the apparently way far off specs combined with your TA-30's listed output impedance would have probably only got you a ~one note bass in any reasonable size cab.

Regardless, you've lost me, you're still wanting a BIB even after you dismissed the one I suggested as a minimum size, but say I was supposed to do an alternative (what?) that unfortunately I don't remember anything about it which I assume was part of our telecom, so please refresh me.

WRT the 91A, what's its 8 ohm tap DF or measured output impedance since it's probably different from the TA-30's?

Your room/seating the same as you emailed me? If so, please resend the photos, I apparently didn't save them.

Let's get this 'show on the road', I want to hear what all the 'fuss' is about with these drivers.

GM