All in all, I think I'm going to really like the Betsy's. They do have a very nice sound. I did have to cross the Hawthorne Audio Augies higher on them, but otherwise they are superior to the old EV's in every way but the looks (the EV's are eye candy). Tapping on the cones of both drivers was enlightening. The EV's have a papery sound, very noticeably so, with a touch of raspyness. The Betsy just gives a dull thud. Obviously, paper cone technology has improved since 1958.
The whizzers on the Betsy's are noticeably more extended and sound like they don't need any whizzer tweaks. I think someday soon I'll play with the EV LS12's and see if I can get a smoother high end out of those whizzers. It'd be a shame to just pack them away. Maybe I'll build a set of baffles for both drivers and rotate every so often. Be like getting brand new speakers again.
Dave
The whizzers on the Betsy's are noticeably more extended and sound like they don't need any whizzer tweaks. I think someday soon I'll play with the EV LS12's and see if I can get a smoother high end out of those whizzers. It'd be a shame to just pack them away. Maybe I'll build a set of baffles for both drivers and rotate every so often. Be like getting brand new speakers again.
Dave
Well, I'm not on axis here. My baffles are aimed at a spot a couple of feet or so in front of me. It's been my experience that whizzer speakers sound better off axis a bit. I will do closeup measurements on axis soon (have to go get some stitches removed right now). One can't judge too much on one set of measurements at 12 feet away in a living room full of junk, err, interesting things.
Dave
Yeah, photobucket stopped allowing direct linking to their images from within other pages a few months ago - I had to stop using them for forum images as well.Hmm, Photobucket must have changed something. It worked a while back.
Dave
Here is my EV LS-12 Wolverine drivers with Hawthyorne Audio 15" Augies.
EV LS12 12 ft w-Utah w-Augies 1-6th by the_hurdy_gurdyman, on Flickr
Dave
EV LS12 12 ft w-Utah w-Augies 1-6th by the_hurdy_gurdyman, on FlickrDave
Here is the Betsy in Caintuck Audio Betsy baffles. The Betsy shown a couple of posts back were in my old tall Hawthorne Audio baffles (baffles have removable panels for easy driver swapping).
Caintuck Betsy both w-Augies XO-60Hz 2nd order-1-6th smooth 4-18-2017-b by the_hurdy_gurdyman, on Flickr
Dave
Caintuck Betsy both w-Augies XO-60Hz 2nd order-1-6th smooth 4-18-2017-b by the_hurdy_gurdyman, on FlickrDave
Wow I'm glad to find this bit from DBMandrake, 2011! Over here in China, a fellow diyer on bbs.hifidiy.net "mogu1986" experimented widely before recommending the use of automotive "plast", the black stretchy heat-resistant tape for securing cables, to cover the front of a speaker cone to dampen resonance/breakup. The plast is extremely light and stretchy yet has a stiffness to it. I experimented with different coverage, back surface vs front of cone, etc., on some super-hard-space-age-material speakers: 6.5" resin-coated-carbon-fiber (a very poor man's Magico?) car bass/subwoofer, taking it to 7khz with no resonance peak and more fidelity than all my dome tweeters even Paradigm Studio beryllium (I had to use an electrostatic supertweeter); 4" fiberglass-honeycomb pictured here
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/1-order-crossover-help.391332/page-2#post-7151405
A small "whizzer" helps it go tweeter-less, as well as XO-less with an 8" upfiring driver of the same make (dubbed "LXmidi"). The resin-coated-CF plast-job has a rosette as well that I think helps with dispersion. Eventually I added a vintage alnico 4x7 and dubbed the unlikely MTM (with electrostatic ST and CF-resin sub-bass-to-7khz) "Ultrae" for ultra-sultry. More recently, I added plast whizzer to the dustcap-edge of a 4" Michael's Audio/Hifi-Bird/Isred(?) purple-drum-paper-cone FR (dubbed "Blacktulip" in pianoblack T'Lonken), and plast wave-guide around a ceramic-dome car-tweeter (very poor man's Accuton) held over the dustcap area of a 15" wide-range-to-4.3khz (dubbed "Axia"). Besides adding 1-2dB very HF, I think/hope the main cone HF dispersion is improved too.
Early snapshot of resin-coated-CF subwoofer (Juecass 658). The "plast rosette" grew around the dustcap area (without touching it or boom!) nulling cone breakup/resonance. After 0.6mH 1st-order LPF at ~1khz, flat to 7.5khz no audible distortion. (Use of plast, credit to mogu1986 of bbs.hifidiy.net.)
