Beyond the Ariel

Lynn,
From your answer, I see I phrased the question badly. :)
Did you consider a .5" Compression driver / horn as a super tweeter?
As far as I know, only B&C makes one.
It sounds like it would work, but you never know.
If you use an approprate horn profile, it should retain much of the character of the mid-range horn..

Doug
 
How much you can push a horn depends a lot on the listener tastes and room- JBL for example specs the 1" exit 2426 to 500Hz in a level-limited app- I've run it just a smidge below 1k on a large 90 degree conical OSWG, and never felt I was asking too much from the phragm.

I agree with the decade rule, however, and never did try to get much above 10k out of it (the response dies there anyway and I needed to preserve sensitivity).

A fella can achieve high sensitivity from the Heil AMT1s by waveguiding it, which actually will do 1k-20k at around 96dB quite nicely, but it's not by any stretch a traditional horn, just a waveguide determining coverage pattern and terminating the device properly instead of with the hard edges. It buys a few dB in the low end of its response, letting you suppress that with the XO and get more SPL per watt and diaphragm displacement.
 
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Just a brief update:
Thanks for the advice on the Stanton 681, Lynn. :up: I have it running now with a new conical stylus and it seems rather nice. Seems a good fit for the mass of the Grado maple arm. Surface noise is much reduced from the Shure MM cart I had before.

Balance between channels is near perfect - just a small fraction of a decibel difference Left to Right. I checked it on two mono pressings, a Decca from 1949 and an RCA from 1968. Tracking force is now at 2.7g. Might need to adjust that for best tracking - but it's not bad now. Will check with the Shure tracking LP which came with the record collection.
 
Hi ... ports are a pain. Lynn says he is using a distributed port which could be close to Onken style if I guess correctly. I see nothing about using larger conventional ports with the exception of box depth limits and frontal area fit considerations. All programs just use a "no-noise" approach for minimum size. Where is some data on larger vent area ports? I would like to use many 2" or 3" dia ports on a 16 cu ft 2x15 box.
Onken, though not conventional, uses up to 85% of Sd and does pretty will as my 1954 Jensen Ultraflex's attest to.
Thanks, Zene
 
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Pano ... pics would be banned by moderator. I never finished, just modified for a 15", braced the hell out of it and threw in a Paudio 150 I had extra so is not a good match. Front full of white filler and no grill. Not something I would want to show. Lacks bass as you might expect but otherwise not bad. As soon as I get a decent bass up and running I will finish and then can display.
Zene
 
For your inspiration:
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La Orphean MkII ... Do no-one care that it not be time aligned? Thought we audiopiles were
nit picky about that kind of things? I be one that do.
Zene

I assumed that the horn mount allows moving along the z-axis to accomplish such. I know I will maintain such flexibility until it is aligned. I won't stretch to the use of coax CDs. Even a single CD will allow me plenty of room for "improvement" over my last effort.
 
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Wires

Lynn, and Bud .
A relevant ( hopefully ) post here .
If you think you've sorted the speaker wire issue with Bud's Litz/cotton specials , I've got bad news for you !
Just bought some Tellurium Q Blue speaker cable, and now have some 'Black' on loan which is running-in and playing as we speak .
This company is making waves here in the UK , 5-star reviews on all their stuff . The Black costs about £300 for a 3m pair , unfortunately, for us DIY fans ...

My comments here if you are interested :
Colin Wonfor - Page 3 - World-Designs-Forum

I could imagine a fascinating conversation ( about heatshrink ? ! ) if Bud and Colin got together !

Mark