it works also
I used this when tried to modify fe206e by all means. I tried Morays tweak, some dammar and shellac coating (with my quite unique method, seem to work...). Nevermind the damping of the magnet and basket, I wanted more of the uniformity and substanec in the sound (not that the lower frequencies were lacking (I used them in front tractrix horn). I found these patent but as I recall it was about tubes. maybe I forgot, anyway it worked- highs are now less strident and sound is more together. What you also get is when wheezer gets smaller some of the nastiness from the main cone comes up-then dammar and shellac came in... Anyway mids more open, glare tamed with shellac+dammar, highs smoother, sound is more natural and less sterile. Recommend.
!!
T
I used this when tried to modify fe206e by all means. I tried Morays tweak, some dammar and shellac coating (with my quite unique method, seem to work...). Nevermind the damping of the magnet and basket, I wanted more of the uniformity and substanec in the sound (not that the lower frequencies were lacking (I used them in front tractrix horn). I found these patent but as I recall it was about tubes. maybe I forgot, anyway it worked- highs are now less strident and sound is more together. What you also get is when wheezer gets smaller some of the nastiness from the main cone comes up-then dammar and shellac came in... Anyway mids more open, glare tamed with shellac+dammar, highs smoother, sound is more natural and less sterile. Recommend.
!!
T
Duct seal deal...
don't discount the impact that a few pounds of Duct Seal will have on your driver, it's not just in the bass. Air flow in and out of the basket and flowing around the magnet structure can be inproved a lot. The DS damping will eat up a lot of stray resonance. It can be impressive. Try it on the back side of a sealed back tweeter. The effects are far reaching. Regards Moray James.
don't discount the impact that a few pounds of Duct Seal will have on your driver, it's not just in the bass. Air flow in and out of the basket and flowing around the magnet structure can be inproved a lot. The DS damping will eat up a lot of stray resonance. It can be impressive. Try it on the back side of a sealed back tweeter. The effects are far reaching. Regards Moray James.
me,wheezer and myself
-eh, I did it with pain. Like I said, first I cut the wheezer in 11sided star like shape (see patent, there should also be an more precise calculation for this, I do not remember anymore-with my next wheezered speaker I will try again, hope not soon), then after the removal, the sound was more open in the mids but you could here some spikes from the main cone. I did first the wheezer though- i Shellaced it and some definition wasgained in highs and the glare was tamed a bit but not enough. ThenI moved to the main cone. I started with shellac coating but I coated it from the center to the sorround. I chose to put it on in points not stripes or even coating. The center cone was coated gently but densely with points of shellac and the density diminished when moving up toward the sorround. I wanted to make the cone behind the leftover of wheezer as stiff as it is possible to make the interaction of the vibrating sound form the main cone and wheezer as small as possible. There was some success in this and I remained with that solution for a while. Then I put some dammar in the same way (but very dilluted) on the cone and found the result more balanced in sound. They sound so much better but only outside my front horns. The dammar made the fostex balanced outside the horn (which damps highs and mids compared to ordinary solution-backhorn, TL, BR, sealed where the driver plays in open space not some honky donky horn) but too dark for the front horn I use (it is 100Hz tractrix) - so now I am looking forward to terpentine the membrane and see with what I will remain in my hands. I saw the driver unlistenable after half year of playing the music but now I know how to make it sing. But this one is good only for other implications which I do not intend to use, so...
Listening to them right now, I think the bass become much fuller and tauter and gets deeper (or it is just the lack of the highs and more recessed mids?)- but when you get this balanced sound you loose the vivacity of the former, original model. You can crank the volume higher and your ears doesnt bleed like before, but then agagin the vocals loose some of the small intimacy- cause they are now recessed a bit into the whole open soundstage the one that was concentrated to center in the original mode. That is what wheezer does- in puts some magic (if you like) in the vocal, some velvety texture and some speed and attack (that become violent when you listen to the full orchestra) but detach it from the original picture of the oundstage- you realize that when you remove the wheezer form the speaker that can produce enough mids without it. Very educational would be to hear this effect of opening with some small (say 10 or 13 cm) FR (car speaker was my first-it was a relevation). I always lost the magic vocal presence (wheezer is in my opinion small vibrating horn-it activate presence and speed) but gained in the field of "more close to the right picture".
Just something to think about. I think right now diatones and visatons.
!!
T
-eh, I did it with pain. Like I said, first I cut the wheezer in 11sided star like shape (see patent, there should also be an more precise calculation for this, I do not remember anymore-with my next wheezered speaker I will try again, hope not soon), then after the removal, the sound was more open in the mids but you could here some spikes from the main cone. I did first the wheezer though- i Shellaced it and some definition wasgained in highs and the glare was tamed a bit but not enough. ThenI moved to the main cone. I started with shellac coating but I coated it from the center to the sorround. I chose to put it on in points not stripes or even coating. The center cone was coated gently but densely with points of shellac and the density diminished when moving up toward the sorround. I wanted to make the cone behind the leftover of wheezer as stiff as it is possible to make the interaction of the vibrating sound form the main cone and wheezer as small as possible. There was some success in this and I remained with that solution for a while. Then I put some dammar in the same way (but very dilluted) on the cone and found the result more balanced in sound. They sound so much better but only outside my front horns. The dammar made the fostex balanced outside the horn (which damps highs and mids compared to ordinary solution-backhorn, TL, BR, sealed where the driver plays in open space not some honky donky horn) but too dark for the front horn I use (it is 100Hz tractrix) - so now I am looking forward to terpentine the membrane and see with what I will remain in my hands. I saw the driver unlistenable after half year of playing the music but now I know how to make it sing. But this one is good only for other implications which I do not intend to use, so...
Listening to them right now, I think the bass become much fuller and tauter and gets deeper (or it is just the lack of the highs and more recessed mids?)- but when you get this balanced sound you loose the vivacity of the former, original model. You can crank the volume higher and your ears doesnt bleed like before, but then agagin the vocals loose some of the small intimacy- cause they are now recessed a bit into the whole open soundstage the one that was concentrated to center in the original mode. That is what wheezer does- in puts some magic (if you like) in the vocal, some velvety texture and some speed and attack (that become violent when you listen to the full orchestra) but detach it from the original picture of the oundstage- you realize that when you remove the wheezer form the speaker that can produce enough mids without it. Very educational would be to hear this effect of opening with some small (say 10 or 13 cm) FR (car speaker was my first-it was a relevation). I always lost the magic vocal presence (wheezer is in my opinion small vibrating horn-it activate presence and speed) but gained in the field of "more close to the right picture".
Just something to think about. I think right now diatones and visatons.
!!
T
thoughts for discussion...
I have never liked the idea of saturating a cone with anythingthat cures solid. I think that while you get a slightly stiffer cone as a result of several dilute coats of Damar you loose most all the natural "loss" within the cone pulp. This means that fibers can no longer rub against each other and disipate energy as heat. Further the cone will be a little stiffer yes but heavier also. What makes more sense is to "seal" the surface of the cone and apply a light top coat of Damar (or what ever). This way you get a skin which will give you all the strength of saturation with none of the issues of uneven saturation and unnecessary added mass.
It has been my experience with a number of cones that a light but wet top coat of acrylic or urethane will seal with almost Zero penitration into the cone material (due I think to the sizing on the paper surface). All you need is one light but wet coat and let dry. Then you can top coat with what ever coating material you like.
Your cone is designed to be a stiff but lossy material that's why paper cones sound better than plastic ones. Paper has a broader range of energy disapation. If you want to make a top coat stiffer or more correctly to have an improved memory in terms of stretch you can do so easily. All you have to do is to cross link the material. If you are using resin based material like varnish all you need to do is to add a small quantity of Borax powder. This will cause your polymer to crosslink. You don't need very much to do this. If you experiment on glass plate you can quickly establish how much is enough. Remember that a uniform composite (saturated cone) material will have a uniform resonance structure. so that process just moves the resonances around from where they were.
I believe that it is better to form a tough elastic skin with which you gain stiffness as well as damping.
There I've got that off my chest after all these years. I realize that goes againt the accepted normal approach but if you think about it it makes very good sense. This is how paper cones are made stiiffer with increased density of the pulp at the surface of the cone then they are generally sealed with sizing. Take a look at light strong laminate structures and you will see they are light and open in the core and use stiff skins to produce their strength.
I think that you will find that first class felted paper construction (not suggesting that synthetics be totally ignored) will have the lightest weight and highest stiffness with the widest BW. This style of construction yields the greatest internal loss so the resonance Q is the lowest. If you are not concerned with mass (efficiency) then viscous damping is the way to go but as a diy'er it is expensive to experiment with unless you use some inexpensive test drivers. There is/was one fellow who did a bunch of experimentation (silicone fluids) with this and posted on it some years ago. Aside from that thick light felted cones with viscose elastic skins will probably get you farther down the road with the least loss in efficiency.
One could also probably get good results with geometric grids made from thin (bonded on the edge grain) balsa strips glued to the cone. Then multiple spray coats of topcoat could be applied to the entire cone surface. Remember that coatings that have to cure (just about anything other than acrylic) and that will on average take about 18 days per coat. For this much forgotten reason I believe that many people over coat and in time find they have gone too far. Regards Moray James.
I have never liked the idea of saturating a cone with anythingthat cures solid. I think that while you get a slightly stiffer cone as a result of several dilute coats of Damar you loose most all the natural "loss" within the cone pulp. This means that fibers can no longer rub against each other and disipate energy as heat. Further the cone will be a little stiffer yes but heavier also. What makes more sense is to "seal" the surface of the cone and apply a light top coat of Damar (or what ever). This way you get a skin which will give you all the strength of saturation with none of the issues of uneven saturation and unnecessary added mass.
It has been my experience with a number of cones that a light but wet top coat of acrylic or urethane will seal with almost Zero penitration into the cone material (due I think to the sizing on the paper surface). All you need is one light but wet coat and let dry. Then you can top coat with what ever coating material you like.
Your cone is designed to be a stiff but lossy material that's why paper cones sound better than plastic ones. Paper has a broader range of energy disapation. If you want to make a top coat stiffer or more correctly to have an improved memory in terms of stretch you can do so easily. All you have to do is to cross link the material. If you are using resin based material like varnish all you need to do is to add a small quantity of Borax powder. This will cause your polymer to crosslink. You don't need very much to do this. If you experiment on glass plate you can quickly establish how much is enough. Remember that a uniform composite (saturated cone) material will have a uniform resonance structure. so that process just moves the resonances around from where they were.
I believe that it is better to form a tough elastic skin with which you gain stiffness as well as damping.
There I've got that off my chest after all these years. I realize that goes againt the accepted normal approach but if you think about it it makes very good sense. This is how paper cones are made stiiffer with increased density of the pulp at the surface of the cone then they are generally sealed with sizing. Take a look at light strong laminate structures and you will see they are light and open in the core and use stiff skins to produce their strength.
I think that you will find that first class felted paper construction (not suggesting that synthetics be totally ignored) will have the lightest weight and highest stiffness with the widest BW. This style of construction yields the greatest internal loss so the resonance Q is the lowest. If you are not concerned with mass (efficiency) then viscous damping is the way to go but as a diy'er it is expensive to experiment with unless you use some inexpensive test drivers. There is/was one fellow who did a bunch of experimentation (silicone fluids) with this and posted on it some years ago. Aside from that thick light felted cones with viscose elastic skins will probably get you farther down the road with the least loss in efficiency.
One could also probably get good results with geometric grids made from thin (bonded on the edge grain) balsa strips glued to the cone. Then multiple spray coats of topcoat could be applied to the entire cone surface. Remember that coatings that have to cure (just about anything other than acrylic) and that will on average take about 18 days per coat. For this much forgotten reason I believe that many people over coat and in time find they have gone too far. Regards Moray James.
Re: thoughts for discussion...
This is exactly why have been hesitant to use damar on main cones -- i have found it useful for whizzers, making virtual whizzers and, in the case of th FE126/127, changing the character of a specific spot on the cone to work on killing some know resonances.
Puzzlecoat does pretty much what Moray describes. stays on the cone surface, but ties together the surface fibers, and does not dry stiff and remains flexible. At the concenrations i use, very little mass is added. Additionally it is easy tto use and cleans up with water. Damar & C37 take more practise & care, and some paint thinner or turpentine (and a parade of new paintbrushes) are required.
On FRs i only do the front facing surface. On a woofer i'll do both sides -- this ends up creating a constrained layer cone that is stiff and well damped (and quieter than the untreated paper. It also gives me a greater surface to add mass to (if i desire)
dave
moray james said:
This is exactly why have been hesitant to use damar on main cones -- i have found it useful for whizzers, making virtual whizzers and, in the case of th FE126/127, changing the character of a specific spot on the cone to work on killing some know resonances.
Puzzlecoat does pretty much what Moray describes. stays on the cone surface, but ties together the surface fibers, and does not dry stiff and remains flexible. At the concenrations i use, very little mass is added. Additionally it is easy tto use and cleans up with water. Damar & C37 take more practise & care, and some paint thinner or turpentine (and a parade of new paintbrushes) are required.
On FRs i only do the front facing surface. On a woofer i'll do both sides -- this ends up creating a constrained layer cone that is stiff and well damped (and quieter than the untreated paper. It also gives me a greater surface to add mass to (if i desire)
dave
Agree with both. it should be a thin uniform layer but I knew everybody (or at least most) is doing that, so I wanted to try something else. I followed the threads regarding this unit (206E) and found a lot of solutions but none seemed to cure the hot, ragged top end (especially when driving them loud). My approach (of thin coating of non uniform-chaotic application of shellac spots) aimed to tame the Fostex`s several membrane problems that were said to be (by some guy that did the measuring of the cone distortion and selled the unit claiming that the design could not be repaired by whatever solution applied to it) all over the main cone. I tried to cure chaos with chaos. The wheezer cut works, that is for sure. The coating I think is OK but shoul be thinner- saying that I refer to the unit used in the horn. Outside of it, it is a more balanced design but now it needs a supertweeter. I am crossing one with 0.47uF and it makes wonders to the strings and vocal. Now even the soundstage is better, more balanced. I run them with an ageing amp and will be soon buying a new one so more balanced thread should be the next one. I know that cause I tried them before with the UCD amp and there were no comparison between this sound and thta gushing music.
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T
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T
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