Hello there, I want to ask about designs using a full range and bass driver. I have a couple pairs of some pretty decent midbass drivers, where the bass is definitely what I want, but the mids aren't so good. I've always liked the idea of a single driver covering the mid - high frequencies, so there is no filtering in the vocal frequencies.
What I'm looking for is comments on full range systems with dedicated bass units. I'm looking at using a CSS FR125S or fostex or equivalent driver, paired with my midbass drivers, filtered anywhere from 200 - 500hz, in order to get loud and clear mids and highs and deep throbbing bass, as the drivers I have are tuned to 35Hz, and are more than satisfactory for the size of the room I'm in.
What are your comments?
Cheers, ~Andrew
What I'm looking for is comments on full range systems with dedicated bass units. I'm looking at using a CSS FR125S or fostex or equivalent driver, paired with my midbass drivers, filtered anywhere from 200 - 500hz, in order to get loud and clear mids and highs and deep throbbing bass, as the drivers I have are tuned to 35Hz, and are more than satisfactory for the size of the room I'm in.
What are your comments?
Cheers, ~Andrew
You're going to need to get the crossover down more into the 100-120 region to really get beneath the vocal range. 200-500 is right through the fat part of it.
Otherwise, its a good idea. The lowest frequencies require so much more energy to produce that if you've got a single driver covering all the spectrum, you're likely to get more distortion throughout because of all of that lower frequency energy. Then there's always the issues of needing a larger driver to provide the lower frequencies, and it seems that 8" is really the limit for any readily available FR units, and they trade off top end and off axis performance for increased bass capabilities, and even that is not generally that great since they are not designed as bass drivers.
Now, the main problem with using an FR with a bass driver is that the crossover can be very expensive, simply because the large values required to build it mean large parts and they do seem to sell by the pound ;-p I'm not even remotely a crossover guru, so if you can't figure it out from the Parts Express Crossover Primer, I won't really know anything about it, but maybe there are some other concerns here, too. On possiblity would be to simply let the FR driver run FR and run the bass driver from a plate amp and use the plate amp's adjustments to blend the bass driver into the FR driver's natural output. I've been thinking along these lines for awhile, but even a couple of cheap PE 70watt plate amps along with drivers to go with them has been a bit out of my budget.
Kensai
Otherwise, its a good idea. The lowest frequencies require so much more energy to produce that if you've got a single driver covering all the spectrum, you're likely to get more distortion throughout because of all of that lower frequency energy. Then there's always the issues of needing a larger driver to provide the lower frequencies, and it seems that 8" is really the limit for any readily available FR units, and they trade off top end and off axis performance for increased bass capabilities, and even that is not generally that great since they are not designed as bass drivers.
Now, the main problem with using an FR with a bass driver is that the crossover can be very expensive, simply because the large values required to build it mean large parts and they do seem to sell by the pound ;-p I'm not even remotely a crossover guru, so if you can't figure it out from the Parts Express Crossover Primer, I won't really know anything about it, but maybe there are some other concerns here, too. On possiblity would be to simply let the FR driver run FR and run the bass driver from a plate amp and use the plate amp's adjustments to blend the bass driver into the FR driver's natural output. I've been thinking along these lines for awhile, but even a couple of cheap PE 70watt plate amps along with drivers to go with them has been a bit out of my budget.
Kensai
Yeah! Driving woofers with plateamps is also my kind of thing and I would use the cheapest Hypex as it has 12db cut off, and it is true that good big passive components will easily become more expencive than than a cheap Hypex - and it will be more effective and have the possibility to adjust level of bass, EQ...
But I actually like passive filters as they have other options of adjustments, but thats more tricky
And that leads to another aspect - I think FR125 might not be the best choise for this kind of setup
It is simply too ineffective - true, it has huge Xmax, but because of its low sensitivity it will get into trouble keeping up with most woofers - but offcourse it all depends on how loud you play
But I actually like passive filters as they have other options of adjustments, but thats more tricky
And that leads to another aspect - I think FR125 might not be the best choise for this kind of setup
It is simply too ineffective - true, it has huge Xmax, but because of its low sensitivity it will get into trouble keeping up with most woofers - but offcourse it all depends on how loud you play
This is a really good idea indeed and if you can go active its better, I mean let the fullrangers reproduce sound above 100hz or 120hz like Kensai said so that their cones stay relatively still even at high volume.
Now, a good advice would be to try and match the woofers with the fullrangers, for example avoid mixing paper and metal drivers, loot at their specs and T/S parameters.
Now, a good advice would be to try and match the woofers with the fullrangers, for example avoid mixing paper and metal drivers, loot at their specs and T/S parameters.
Going OB would fix baffle-step. If you went passive with the xover (I know, contrary to my earlier advice; this is just a for instance), the big inductors you'd need would add resistance that would raise the woofers' Qts. You could just engineer the low pass to where it gives you enough resistance to get a Qts around .7 and it should be really good in OB. You'd have to cross a bit higher, probably as I doubt the you'll get a smaller FR to be any good below 150Hz without EQ (unless, of course, you find one speced well for OB, which there aren't many).
I personally use Kenwood KFC-6469s as OB FRs in my office. Without EQ they're reasonable to about 60-65Hz before falling off a cliff. EQing the crap out of them (which I don't really have the amp for; I can pretty easily clip my little T-Amp with some hard driving music at higher levels), I can get pretty flat to 35-40Hz and at least audible at 20Hz (though you won't hear it if anything other than a 20Hz tone is playing
).
There are a few theoretical ways around this, I guess. You have T/S parameters for your woofers? That might help.
Kensai
I personally use Kenwood KFC-6469s as OB FRs in my office. Without EQ they're reasonable to about 60-65Hz before falling off a cliff. EQing the crap out of them (which I don't really have the amp for; I can pretty easily clip my little T-Amp with some hard driving music at higher levels), I can get pretty flat to 35-40Hz and at least audible at 20Hz (though you won't hear it if anything other than a 20Hz tone is playing
).There are a few theoretical ways around this, I guess. You have T/S parameters for your woofers? That might help.
Kensai
Below is a pic of the woofers I have, there's 4 of them. Jaycar response carbon fibre, quoted T/S:
Sens - 89db
Re - 3.79ohm
fs - 43Hz
Qts - 0.449
Vas - 15.1l
Like I said, smooth detailed bass (Ported 22l, 38Hz) but lacking in the mids. I have a 24db/octave electronic crossover, the the full range with be actively filtered. So what size drivers would work with 1 or 2 of these?
Sens - 89db
Re - 3.79ohm
fs - 43Hz
Qts - 0.449
Vas - 15.1l
Like I said, smooth detailed bass (Ported 22l, 38Hz) but lacking in the mids. I have a 24db/octave electronic crossover, the the full range with be actively filtered. So what size drivers would work with 1 or 2 of these?
Attachments
With that low Re you will have couple in series if you use two pr side - dont know about that
But I would definately recommend one of the previously mentioned 5"
Fostex Fx120 with assistance of the sweet little Peerless Vline(formerly Vifa)... XT19(ringradiator) above 10khz, quite sure it would work very nicely, and you wouldnt need any attenuation
But I would definately recommend one of the previously mentioned 5"
Fostex Fx120 with assistance of the sweet little Peerless Vline(formerly Vifa)... XT19(ringradiator) above 10khz, quite sure it would work very nicely, and you wouldnt need any attenuation
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