Mid band distortion mechanism in MarkAudio paper cone drivers

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Does anyone know the cause of the distortion spike in the 10P and 12P drivers around 500Hz or so? :confused:

I've attached an example nicked from Bob Brines spike showing what seems to be 15% distortion at 500Hz with the Alpair 12P drivers.

This seems to be absent in the metal drivers...
 

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This is precisely why the A12P MLTL's have been sitting in a corner since they were first built and the A10P BR's are being used as shop speakers. On the other hand, the A10M's have been for years and still are my HT mains and the A7M's were my main stereo tops up until my Audax/SS FAST experiments.

Bob
 
Yes, I think I dodged the bullet! Just ordered some 10.3s yesterday :) .

I think metal must be the way to go. The new Pluvia Elevens look good :rolleyes: . Must open up Leonard Audio TL and get cracking!

A10p's in FHXL boxes are just a killer speaker, I don't care what anybody says. I'm still running my 12p Super Pensils, and probably will until some sort of fast system replaces them.

jeff
 
Yeah, the new Pluvia series look interesting indeed - so far a 7 and 11 - can a 5 or 6 metal or even something like a12P be too far behind?

I think this new frame style is the result of work Mark started a couple of years back in attempting to reduce the amount of material used in basket frames, and it coincidentally (or not?) also simplifies installation in that the thinner bezels don't require countersinking

pluvia-11-grey-2.jpg

we hope to have some in hand soon, and already have a Q'n'N enclosure design underway

Note in photo above that the terminal tabs are "attached" to the cast resin frame in similar fashion to the A5.2 - if soldering directly, take care to be quick, and be wary of the retaining tabs melting under heat. I'd have done that part differently - more like on the Alpairs, but my name's not Fenlon, or Lo
 
Incidentally, on the Alpair series, is the adhesive rubber surround meant to go on the back of the driver, or the cabinet mounting? I know it's probably the former, and a bit of a silly question, but I can't find any info and it doesn't hurt to ask :) .

I might have to finally capitulate to using spade connectors...

Also, does the driver provide it's own baffle step correction characteristic, or will it need to be implemented electronically? It looks like the baffle with have to be about 30cm or so wide for the best effect, looking at the response curve.
 
Yes, the extra terminals on the Alpairs are very handy :) !

Another off topic question, does the directionality of the driver mitigate baffle diffraction effects to any extent :confused: ? I want to put straight chamfers on my next cabinet and veneer over the chamfers with some birds-eye maple to contrast the sapele that will be used for the rest of the speaker. It would be nice to think that this could bring sonic as well as aesthetic benefits. Has anyone ever measured whether curved or straight chamfer provides better results?

But back to mid-band distortion, is this due to some sort of break-up mode as hinted at by the Beyma paper? Presumably metal, being stiffer (and hopefully more so in the Pluvia drivers :D ) won't suffer from this. At least it seems that way looking at Bob Brines' THD plots.
 
Hmm... Looking at Brines' THD plots, there does seem to be a little spike of distortion on the metal drivers in the same region, but much lower in amplitude and width, thankfully.

Judging by the tone of the sales pitch for the Pluvia drivers, it seems that the Alpair range are going to be discontinued soon, presumably the smaller paper cones produce less distortion.

I think the 15% distortion on the paper cones is definitely going to be audible :p .
 
I have also measured a peak in distortion in my alpair 7.3 equiped frugelhorns (mk3)

(ECM8000/ focusrite 2i2 / F1J i.e 3rd order bottoming out at 0.1% is the amp, measurement level is 2.82V @ 1kHz, there is allso a notch filter, measurements performed indoor with 20cm mic distance)
 

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