Does anybody have an opinion on which one you'd choose if you wanted one of these? The 4 Ohm
http://www.solen.ca/pub/cms_nf_catalogue_fiche.php?id=2532&recherche=&numRows=&manufacturiers=51&niveau1=1&niveau2=1&niveau3=
or the 8 Ohm
http://www.solen.ca/pub/cms_nf_catalogue_fiche.php?id=2533&recherche=&numRows=&manufacturiers=51&niveau1=1&niveau2=1&niveau3=
They have different sensitivity. I don't know why. Now, if we could only get this company to change their names to something you can talk about like AE-1, AE-2 etc.
If you read, they also suggest you can use them with SW070WA sub wooders but those are 2 3/4". Would this be a nice FAST setup for a computer desktop?
What is the advantage of a FAST setup over a regular 2-way speaker?
http://www.solen.ca/pub/cms_nf_catalogue_fiche.php?id=2532&recherche=&numRows=&manufacturiers=51&niveau1=1&niveau2=1&niveau3=
or the 8 Ohm
http://www.solen.ca/pub/cms_nf_catalogue_fiche.php?id=2533&recherche=&numRows=&manufacturiers=51&niveau1=1&niveau2=1&niveau3=
They have different sensitivity. I don't know why. Now, if we could only get this company to change their names to something you can talk about like AE-1, AE-2 etc.
If you read, they also suggest you can use them with SW070WA sub wooders but those are 2 3/4". Would this be a nice FAST setup for a computer desktop?
What is the advantage of a FAST setup over a regular 2-way speaker?
With FullrangeAssiSTed or FAST you can expect to cross lower vs a traditional 2 way system. A quality FR is likely to have more "midrange magic" vs a midbass, and in a FAST system the FR will be doing the HF and most of mid-range duty; the helper woofer of FAST will just fill up the bottom ocatves and add weight/punch. In a regular 2 way the mid-bass unit is expected to do substantial amount of midrange duty too, and XO at higher frequency makes it more likely to notice the difference of drivers.
However there are good regular 2 ways out there, but most likely to cost more because of investment in a quality tweeter, a quality midbass and XO components.
FAST can be cheaper by incorporating a relatively inexpensive helper woofer with a FR.
However there are good regular 2 ways out there, but most likely to cost more because of investment in a quality tweeter, a quality midbass and XO components.
FAST can be cheaper by incorporating a relatively inexpensive helper woofer with a FR.
They have different sensitivity because one is 4ohm and one is 8ohm.
Personally, I wouldn't bother with a FAST for a desktop. I'd go with a quality 3 or 4" full ranger. I'm a multi-way guy, and coming from a multi-way background, the ONLY way to do desktop, is full range (with some computer assistance if required).
Take a look at this figure: http://zaphaudio.com/ZD5-modeled-polar-1400-blue-3400-red-200step.gif
Look at the left polar. See those nulls just above and below the listening axis. Well, out in your living room your ears are free to move up and down within that lobe fairly freely. At your desk though, it's almost impossible to not slip into one of those nulls. And that'll kill imaging, tone, detail, etc. Also, the primary reflection is off your desk, which is going to include a giant hole in the ~2khz range.
A full range has a perfectly smooth power response. Because there is no cross over. And because you're nearfield, most any decent 3 or 4" full range can provide the required SPL and bass extention.
I've been pretty passionate about this lately, so if you have any questions about it let me know and I'll try and help.
BTW, that example I linked is Zaph's (a highly regarded 2-way designer) best (his words not mine) design available on his website.
Personally, I wouldn't bother with a FAST for a desktop. I'd go with a quality 3 or 4" full ranger. I'm a multi-way guy, and coming from a multi-way background, the ONLY way to do desktop, is full range (with some computer assistance if required).
Take a look at this figure: http://zaphaudio.com/ZD5-modeled-polar-1400-blue-3400-red-200step.gif
Look at the left polar. See those nulls just above and below the listening axis. Well, out in your living room your ears are free to move up and down within that lobe fairly freely. At your desk though, it's almost impossible to not slip into one of those nulls. And that'll kill imaging, tone, detail, etc. Also, the primary reflection is off your desk, which is going to include a giant hole in the ~2khz range.
A full range has a perfectly smooth power response. Because there is no cross over. And because you're nearfield, most any decent 3 or 4" full range can provide the required SPL and bass extention.
I've been pretty passionate about this lately, so if you have any questions about it let me know and I'll try and help.
BTW, that example I linked is Zaph's (a highly regarded 2-way designer) best (his words not mine) design available on his website.
The advantage of a FAST over a typical 2-way is that the XO is moved to below the critical hearing range.
1/ the driver-to-driver spacing can easily be less than half or even a quarter wavelength. If you can get to the latter the drivers are essentially co-incident.
2/ the ear is less sensitive to XOs when placed as low as they ar ein a FAST as opposed to smack in the most sensitive range as in a typical 2-way.
3/ the XO is passive, it benefits from being at a place where both drivers are near the valley of the impedance curve
4/ with careful driver selection you have a large bandwidth overlap that allows use of lower order XOs (including simple 1st order series XOs)
5/ XO point can be placed such that a more efficient woofer can deal with baffle step eliminating filters & EQ.
dave
1/ the driver-to-driver spacing can easily be less than half or even a quarter wavelength. If you can get to the latter the drivers are essentially co-incident.
2/ the ear is less sensitive to XOs when placed as low as they ar ein a FAST as opposed to smack in the most sensitive range as in a typical 2-way.
3/ the XO is passive, it benefits from being at a place where both drivers are near the valley of the impedance curve
4/ with careful driver selection you have a large bandwidth overlap that allows use of lower order XOs (including simple 1st order series XOs)
5/ XO point can be placed such that a more efficient woofer can deal with baffle step eliminating filters & EQ.
dave
OK, thanks both of you but I think it's Fullrange Assisted with Sub Technology.
That's helpful and interesting to know. But, assuming I wanted a Wavecor full ranger as a desktop and one with a sub for let's say a living room to listen to movies... wait, how can I put this. I saw a video on Youtube that said that a 2-way was inferior to a 3-way because the woofer on the 2-way has to do midrange as well and when it's moving a lot, it doesn't do all frequencies very well. So, what I'm really asking is, if you wanted a FAST configuration, will the sub take more of the large movements and let the full ranger do its job better than a regular 2-way?
Has anyone tried the Wavecor FR070WA01 as full rangers only? There were some positive comments somewhere but I'm not sure if they're dedicated for car audio or not.
Would you prefer 8 Ohm or 4 Ohm?
EDIT: This was typed before Planet10 posted his message.
That's helpful and interesting to know. But, assuming I wanted a Wavecor full ranger as a desktop and one with a sub for let's say a living room to listen to movies... wait, how can I put this. I saw a video on Youtube that said that a 2-way was inferior to a 3-way because the woofer on the 2-way has to do midrange as well and when it's moving a lot, it doesn't do all frequencies very well. So, what I'm really asking is, if you wanted a FAST configuration, will the sub take more of the large movements and let the full ranger do its job better than a regular 2-way?
Has anyone tried the Wavecor FR070WA01 as full rangers only? There were some positive comments somewhere but I'm not sure if they're dedicated for car audio or not.
Would you prefer 8 Ohm or 4 Ohm?
EDIT: This was typed before Planet10 posted his message.
I don"t have experience with Wavecor, but I read only very positive comments about them. The German speaker diy magazines Klang & Ton and Hobby Hifi published a few attractive multiway designs with them that seemed to be really high quality, with excellent "waterfall" plots.
What you're asking depends on a lot of things. If you want to cross over to a larger subwoofer for HT duty (circa 100hz), then forget the wavecore. If going FAST and plan to cross around 300hz, the wavecore looks like a good choice. But then you should still expect to use a subwoofer to handle the 20hz stuff typical of modern movies.
Currently I use a single 8" subwoofer under my couch (seriously compromised due to space restrictions, soon to change hopefully). A typically movie like Inception absolutely pounds it, even on mild LFE parts. I constantly bottom it out. Constantly. It's laughable really. It'll be no different for a FAST that uses a couple 6.5" woofers or something.
At the desk, it'll be fine. Out in your living room I'd consider EL70s (cost less than wavecore and are Canadian) with a proper subwoofer.
Currently I use a single 8" subwoofer under my couch (seriously compromised due to space restrictions, soon to change hopefully). A typically movie like Inception absolutely pounds it, even on mild LFE parts. I constantly bottom it out. Constantly. It's laughable really. It'll be no different for a FAST that uses a couple 6.5" woofers or something.
At the desk, it'll be fine. Out in your living room I'd consider EL70s (cost less than wavecore and are Canadian) with a proper subwoofer.
Following up on tuxedovic, I would recommend fakeout not to spend money on another pair of full rangers, but rather investigate a woofer that would work well with one of the 2 pairs of full range drivers he already has, waiting patiently in their shipping carton for a suitable project.
Well, I was kind of wanting to do forward-looking research into what I could do later. The $7 Visaton were the ones I wanted to use for testing. Because I thought once I install something for the first time, it might blow something up.
The Veravox 3X is still kind of a toss-up. I read comments comparing it to the Fostex FF85K. I also read it needs a notch filter. At this point I don't even know what that is. I'm waiting for more money to come in this month to buy Speaker Building 201 and other parts to be able to connect the drivers I have.
I had luck though in that both drivers I bought are shielded. I intend to put them in a bunch of different plastic bottles and/or containers and cardboard mockups of plans before I decide which direction I want to go.
Interesting though that you don't read much about Triangle or Athom drivers from France.
The Veravox 3X is still kind of a toss-up. I read comments comparing it to the Fostex FF85K. I also read it needs a notch filter. At this point I don't even know what that is. I'm waiting for more money to come in this month to buy Speaker Building 201 and other parts to be able to connect the drivers I have.
I had luck though in that both drivers I bought are shielded. I intend to put them in a bunch of different plastic bottles and/or containers and cardboard mockups of plans before I decide which direction I want to go.
Interesting though that you don't read much about Triangle or Athom drivers from France.
Hello Dave,
All your points regarding a low crossover point (guess below 300 Hz) are very informative. How would you compare this situation to using a crossover point ABOVE the critical hearing range (guess above 4-5 khz). All your points favoring a low crossover point would be mostly against using a higher than 4Khz XO. Although for this thread regarding desktop speakers, a low XO is the only feasible solution, I am intrigued by the offerings from Zu , Tekton and Decware Mini, that use a high XO point employing a "helper" tweeter with an extended range woofer.
As the aim of both camps if to keep the critical hearing range (400- 4KhZ) free of crossovers, is there any benefit of this super high XO approach compared to the super low XO approach ?
Thanks.
A good question. What follows may be a bit "stream of conscious"
10 years ago there wer efew if any "full-ranges" that reached above the highest octaves. If you were missing the air, you needed to fill in with a super-tweeter (ST). We did a lot of experimenting with this. An example.
To make these systems truly full-range you still needed to add a woofer (the so-called mostly FR system). In this situation, the ST usually had just a single cap on it, with the FR XO being its natural roll-off. This is still a common approach. A recent example that has had lots of positive comment is Steve's FF225wk/FT17 Metronome (the thread takes a while to get there)
This concept has been used lower down in frequency ever since people started adding tweeters to speakers. One of the most enjoyable conventional speakers i owned was a small set of Royds with a single cap as an XO.
Due to the physical size of the drivers, the tweeter can never get close enuff to the driver below, so you'll have combing. Fortunately the ear is not so sensitive up this high and the brain expects combing so the sonic effect is not nearly as bad as the graphs would suggest.
As well adding the ST doe not give an improvement in performance for the other driver. In a FAST relieving the FR of heavy lifting improves its mid-top performance -- this at the cost of a reactive component (althou this can be turned to advantage when it is a cap on the imput of a separate MF/HF amp).
Now if you want to have a system with a ST do bass without making it a 3-way, then the FR needs to be large. And these, in general, just don't have the DDR of a small driver. Often these big drivers also have a whizzer, which is its own can of worms.
Let's examine the sharing of the work load. If we assume the goal is 20-20k, we have to cover 10 octaves.
In terms of work sharing the tweeter at best covers 2 octaves, an octave or less is common. So that larger driver has to cover the rest. It is actually unlikely that this driver will actually reach 20 Hz without compromise, so if you want true FR you need a subwoofer for the bottom octave of so.
For the equivalent load share on a FAST the FR would XO at 80 Hz, the woofers (which could be subwoofers) doing the bottom 2 octaves. Since this likely still means a fairly large FR (or a limiting of dynamics or ultimate loudness) which often won't reach as high. More common is an XO 150-300 some Hz. At 300 Hz the woofers handle the bottom 5 octaves, the FR the top 5. If XOing this high, the woofers -- if they blend well with the FR -- likely can't actually reach 20 Hz, so add that subwoofer back in for the lowest octave. At 150-160 the woofer does 4 octaves, the FR 6. That is practical. Also in that consider that, in average, 300 Hz is considered the point where half the energy is below & half above. If one isn't doing movies, and we consider Low E on the bass is 42 Hz, a target LF of just under 40 Hz is nor unreasonable.
Both Tysen, and the EL166 MTM FASTs we have done, have exceeding out expectations.
What is heralding a surge in interest in FAST is that in the last 10 years, due to both a resurgence of interest in FRs, and to the development required for computer multimedua systems, we now have a growing number of FRs that reach 20k and above. Couple that with all those midbasses designed to XO to a dome or ribbon tweeter, we have a rich environment for the development of FASTs.
Compromises are a fact of life... you picks the ones that least compromise your situation and needs.
All that said, one of the projects high on our list is the EmKen, a 12" Eminence extended range with a helper tweeter. Originally conceived for light duty PA work with hifi pretensions, it is getting good press from the sole beta builder.
dave
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That was certainly a very insightful and experienced reply. Thanks Dave. I just spent most of the night looking at threads on your Tysen and MTM.
From what I gather, irrespective of speaker sensitivity, generally speaking, a design requirement of high max SPLs in larger listening environments would gravitate towards using high power handling wide-range PA drivers with helper horn tweeter and high XO . While OTOH, intimate small environments asking for detail and nuanced sound and not high max SPLs, would be better served by paper-light and fast FR drivers components with helper woofers and a low XO point.
I look forward to your Emken project. BTW, given the uneven high frequency response of the Beta 12LTA, likely due to the whizzer cone, is it worth trying the 12LCX which is essentially the same driver without the whizzer and an acoustically transparent dust-cap for a coaxial tweeter.
From what I gather, irrespective of speaker sensitivity, generally speaking, a design requirement of high max SPLs in larger listening environments would gravitate towards using high power handling wide-range PA drivers with helper horn tweeter and high XO . While OTOH, intimate small environments asking for detail and nuanced sound and not high max SPLs, would be better served by paper-light and fast FR drivers components with helper woofers and a low XO point.
I look forward to your Emken project. BTW, given the uneven high frequency response of the Beta 12LTA, likely due to the whizzer cone, is it worth trying the 12LCX which is essentially the same driver without the whizzer and an acoustically transparent dust-cap for a coaxial tweeter.
Another reason to use a FAST rather than cross over high, is a more uniform horizontal directivity match. Dave alluded to it, but I feel it deserves a highlight.
HOLY CRAPOMOLY! No one told me this existed! 😱
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/1833349-post32.html
Good grief, now if someone wanted to use say a Fostex FF85WK, what kind of subwoofer or woofer would you use?
By the way, is there any advantage to having the sub or woofer pointing in the other direction? Do you have them pointing toward each other or in opposite directions?
What kind of power of amp would you need?
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/1833349-post32.html
Good grief, now if someone wanted to use say a Fostex FF85WK, what kind of subwoofer or woofer would you use?
By the way, is there any advantage to having the sub or woofer pointing in the other direction? Do you have them pointing toward each other or in opposite directions?
What kind of power of amp would you need?
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That one specifically for SDX7. Tysen uses close to the max sealed volume for the SDX7 0.5<Q<0.58, this stubby version shrinks the volume for the woof to butterworth Q-0.707
Side mounted woofer allows narrower baffle. Mirror imaged woofs in or out depends on what works best in your room. With the XO in Tysen, on the outside with heavy toe-in.
2 stereo amps + PLLXO. Good ones prefered.
dave
Do many of the cheaper commercial subs even do <20 Hz??
What's your SPL? You think it's a bad design or the driver that's causing bottoming out so frequently?
Very few commercial subs do 20hz. They employ a high pass below tuning I imagine. They also tune high and use small cabs. This gives them power handling and sound "boomy" in order to attract customers. Higher ends subs, true subs, can do it. See the Submersive for example.
The sub is DIY, but it's an 8" in a 40L cab tuned to 22hz. So there is lots of woofer travel right around 30hz and absurd amounts of travel below 20hz. It's poorly designed because it can't handle lots of power, the kind a movie like inception requires, but it's well designed in that at moderate levels it's a suitable box and tune for that driver (ie. fairly flat). My listening SPL is probably peaks of 90db at the LP. But consider that a Dolby track would demand the subwoofer produce 100db peaks at the LP for that. That's pumped up, but not crazy. But there aren't many 8" drivers that can produce 100db peaks below 40hz. Lots of movies do. Dolby's reference is 115db peaks at the LP down to below 20hz. That takes a lot of subwoofer.
My sub is fine for most any music. I have a disc (Brooklyn Funk Essentials) which causes my sub to have a fit. Worse than a lot of movies. Tons of 30hz content.
The sub is DIY, but it's an 8" in a 40L cab tuned to 22hz. So there is lots of woofer travel right around 30hz and absurd amounts of travel below 20hz. It's poorly designed because it can't handle lots of power, the kind a movie like inception requires, but it's well designed in that at moderate levels it's a suitable box and tune for that driver (ie. fairly flat). My listening SPL is probably peaks of 90db at the LP. But consider that a Dolby track would demand the subwoofer produce 100db peaks at the LP for that. That's pumped up, but not crazy. But there aren't many 8" drivers that can produce 100db peaks below 40hz. Lots of movies do. Dolby's reference is 115db peaks at the LP down to below 20hz. That takes a lot of subwoofer.
My sub is fine for most any music. I have a disc (Brooklyn Funk Essentials) which causes my sub to have a fit. Worse than a lot of movies. Tons of 30hz content.
lol, what kind of sub does it take then to watch movies with a full ranger? Assuming someone wanted to use a Fostex FF85WK or other "competent" full ranger, which sub would you use? Would it be 10 inches or more? Is there a happy medium in sub size, 12 inch, 15 inch?
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