Accuton C95-T6, advice wanted

[Fred75]

Hi all,
Just looking for a kick in the butt to get going so please be kind.

First off, just to avoid the start small advice, I generally jump in way over my head, kindof my way to force myself to learn. Generally it works out. Problem is lately I have been absolutly swamped and my project has been put on the back burner.

A while back I picked up a pair of Accuton C95-T6 and a pair of Scanspeak revelators (D2905/9900) with grand intentions. I am not an absolute beginner to DIY although I don't have much experience with crossovers. My woodworking is decent though, so I thought I could jump right into design, learning as I go. Right now I have zero time though.

Lately I have been thinking that I should sell the drivers, but I know I will forever kick myself because it will be a long time before I buy something like this again. So what I am looking for is someone with some experience with these drivers to give me some insight to get me off my be-hind and headed in the right direction.

Looking to build a two-way, with sub for music only. I listen to all types of music. My HT system is complete, for now, and looking for a music only system built around these speakers. I have always preferred sealed designs but have yet to hear of anyone using the accutons in a sealed design.

Thanks for any insight.

Fred

[alan-1-b]

Fred, look on Accuton's web-site -{ www.accuton.com }- and get all the Data for that driver, and similarly on the site :- www.tymphany.com , get all the Revelator's data.

Then buy a copy of "Loudspeaker Design Cookbook" by Vance Dickason , in the new 7th Edition.
There you will find a lot about designing cross-overs and much else to help you make a good speaker.
You will also see in that book Dickason's own design speaker which uses the Revelator tweeter.

[Fred75]

Thanks Alan,

I am a little ahead of that though. I have all the data and some software to work with. I guess I should've worded things a bit different. It was late last night.

All I am loooking for is if anybody has had great success using this Accuton driver. I don't have any problem with ported or more complex designs, but like I said generally I prefer the sound of sealed.

Thanks

[hermanv]

My friend and I spent a year trying to get the best out of the smaller accutons (C76, C88). While their rendition of resolution and detail has few equals, they had several problems.

Here are my opinions:

I would recommend high order crossover slopes, the ceramic cone is not at all forgiving of break-up.

Traps might be needed to reduce the more serious out of band peaks.

They never sounded very musical to me.

Their dynamics were quite restricted, OK at just the right volume awful when playing louder or softer.

We had a chance to hear the Kharma Grand's at a HiFi show and they too exhibited this dynamic compression.

The C95 might be different, haven't heard that model.

[tinitus]

The C95 might not be the worst of the lot

I am thinking about if it would work in a 2.5way with yet another but different woofer of some kind ... it might so to say, "fill in" some of the missing warmth

maybe something like this one could match the specs

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=296-410

On the other hand, it would just raise the cost even further ... though, 53 USD thats kind of cheap

[tinitus]

XO could look like this ... sorry, no values

The first notch on midrange is a broad and very mild one to tame it a bit

The second notch is to get rit of the peak

ahh, forgot tweeter pad

[Cloth Ears]

Tony Gee ("Geenius") had some success with the 89's and the 220's (see Humble Home-Made HiFi - Soup & Cup-a-Soup). Maybe he has some advice for you. Unless you're only playing very light music, I'd be thinking that you would probably need something to fill in the bass octave(s). Maybe an Eton or 2...

[CeramicMan]

Hi Fred,

I used the C94 version together with the C23 tweeter. Judging by its specs the C94 is very similar to the C95 apart from differences in the 'tuning' - stronger magnetic damping and a softer spider. But for all intents and purposes, it's probably a safe guess that the same rules will apply.

check it out...
http://www.lechpapierski.info/Miscel...y_speaker.html

Go Active

With a passive crossover, I too found that its dynamics seemed restricted. Never mind that I used air-cored coils, polypropylene caps, and that the components didn't even get warm... Slowly turning up the volume would cause the sound to get harsher and harsher, until I got annoyed that it seemed to have such a low x-max. However, changing to active crossovers completely eliminated that problem.

Adjusting the volume now made the speakers louder or softer, with practically no change in tonality or colour. At high volume (say, filtered midbass peaks regularly exceeding +-20V) the sound becomes warmer from the unavoidable soft-distortion of speakers that are getting thrashed, but it is still perfectly listenable from a distance.

In my next project I'm definitely ditching the "classic rectangular box" theme, and will attempt to get even nicer dispersion characteristics and room response.

Cheers,

[hermanv]

As "fast" as the Accutons are, I would guess that carefull attention to diffraction issues will return good rewards. Offset the tweeter, round corners as much as practical. Even the back panel should be rounded (we tested for this, it's easily audible). 4" radius is best, less is still better than square corners.

If you go passive crossover, only the better coils and capacitors should be used, I would lean strongly towards foil coils (12 AWG if you can afford them) and film and foil caps, polyprop or Teflon if you can pay the price of admission, nothing metallized. These drivers will happily exagerate any flaws in the source, amplifiers or crossover.

For first class speakers, time alignment is also important.

Good luck.

[tinitus]

Yes, and maybe further clothe the whole box in felt