Brett said:
I think you misunderstood him. He stated that he has an Acoustic Elegance driver, 12 inches, and to him Acoustic Elegance is the best.
Then he said that audiophiles drivers need to satisfy marketings requirements that have nothing to do with sound quality, implying that professional drivers are better, like those from Acoustic Elegance.
I don't know how you could be against this !
Why do you think, this driver is anything special compared to other actual 15inchersBHTX said:Before anyone else does, I guess I'll go ahead and say it
Acoustic Elegance Lambda Series TD15M
http://www.aespeakers.com/drivers.php?driver_id=4
The manufacturer says that, but until now i havent seen any measurements that prove this claims
-less distortion than others-
maybe, maybe not
-flat frequency response to 4 kHz-
AE shows us a nearfield measurement at 1 and 3 inches
My experience after measuring 100s of drivers is that speakers that measure flat in the nearfield are not flat at all at usual hearing distances
I have had great success with the B&C TBX series, the 15TBX100 and the 12TBX100. They are great drivers. I get them a cheaper than the Acoustic Elegance, but those prices will vary.
Further, USPS is the best deal in shipping anywhere. It can't be beat if they will take what you want to ship. But they do have size and weight limits.
Further, USPS is the best deal in shipping anywhere. It can't be beat if they will take what you want to ship. But they do have size and weight limits.
gedlee said:
http://www.prodance.cz/protokoly/15TBX100.pdf $309.95
http://www.prodance.cz/protokoly/12TBX100.pdf $294.95
Brett said:
I do not think that you got my point. In the first place I own Lambda SB12 which is original Lambda from the company that Nik had. So I do not have AE driver. I am assuming Lambda drivers, sold by AE are ether same or improved in some way, but certainly not worst than they were. Second, the original thread starter was looking for 15" driver and not 12" driver, so that why I had to note that my experience is with 12" and not 15"
I have very good experience with that driver (12") I generally do not like the separation between audiophile and professional. In my mind there are good and bad drivers. As we know there are many professional drivers that are better than many "audiophile" drivers. Lambda, PHL, ALtec, JBL comes top my mind.
I hope this clears out for you.
TomatoBangBang said:
As others have mentioned, I'm not sure what denotes an audiophile driver vs a pro driver. My goal is to produce drivers that are going to most accurately reproduce the signal put into them. I think that is a benefit in any market. The motor design is one of the aspects we do differently than anyone else. Yes others use shorting rings, but I am not aware of any others that use the full copper sleeve on the pole.
The shorting ring has the benefit of lowering inductance, linearizing inductance, fixing the flux in the gap, and pulling heat from the VC. These all add to creating an extremely low distortion driver. This series of pages explains the problem with most motor designs and the efforts we go through to correct it:
https://www.aespeakers.com/Lambda001-1.php
In addition to this we also go through great efforts with mechanical issues that often add to distortion. Cone, surround, and spider resonances are large factors. We have chosen proper profile cones to lower resonances to begin with. Then we go through many steps to hand treat the cones, surround, and in some cases even spiders to properly damp resonances. Many iterations were done on the phase plugs to keep acoustic loading the same at all excursions and lower IMD.
These are by no means your typical pro audio drivers that people want to play loud. They are intended for critical monitoring and high end audiophile applications. We have really made no compromises in these drivers. I don't know of another driver with the low distortion, bandwidth to 4KHz, clean top end, etc of the TD15's.
tech.knockout said:
Many of our customers are those who design recording studios and do custom monitoring applications. The drivers of choice for years have been the TAD 1601's in this field. One of the hardest things for us has been to sell a TD15M at around $300 to those who have been used to spending $900-1000 each on the TAD drivers. They assume that there is no way a $300 driver can be as good as the TAD at 3x the cost. In reality the TD15M is much lower distortion, higher bandwidth, more Xmax, etc etc. Adding in the cost of shipping overseas still proves these to be an incredible value.
Shipping to Europe and many places in Asia is not too bad, especially if near a major airport. We charge what BAX charges us plus 5%. The reason we charge this 5% is only because we get charged a little over 3% when receiving money by credit card, paypal, etc. BAX shipments are different than USPS for a few reasons. Mainly because they are a commercial shipment not a personal shipment like can be sent through USPS. In most all cases though, BAX with any fees will still be substantially less money than a shipment with USPS and will arrive much faster and safer. We have had offers for distributors throughout Europe, Asia, South Africa, Australia, etc. When looking at the percentage they want to make on each driver we have found that in almost every case it is a much better value to ship the drivers from here.
tech.knockout said:
Again, the cost of shipping vs the cost of a distributor making 50 points is always going to be reasonable. With our dollar decreasing in value, exchange rates have been very good for the rest of the world also.
I've never actually been on the receiving end, but in most cases people have told me it is a simple process with BAX. There have been a few countries that I've heard more specific issues from, but in general it's a smooth process. The packages arrive at the airport, you go down sign papers and pick them up. We've sent probably nearly 100 shipments this year with BAX overseas. I have had only 2 people inform me of issues they had.
When getting a quote you can look up your local BAX/Schenker office and call them. Let them know the weight, dimensions, value, and what it is you're bringing in to the airport. They should be able to tell you any other fees you may have so it won't be a surprise. You'd be amazed how often this is done.
John
jogi59 said:
Again, let me point you to our paper on the Lambda motor to begin with. It talks about reasons for distortions, ways to deal with the distortion, and then in the end what we have chosen to do to correct it.
http://www.aespeakers.com/Lambda001-1.php
Taking a look at the impedance curves in addition to the nearfield response is also very telling. You can see how flat the impedance curve is over a long range. It is extremely extended, there are no undamped peaks in the curve that indicate resonance, etc.
Another thing is that measuring at listening distances doesn't take into account just the driver's response. You have reflections off the floor, ceiling, walls, diffraction off cabinet edges, etc. None of these are issues with driver response, but issues with the application and use. In reality, we can never measure the driver in every baffle that someone would use it in. The nearfield is the best we can get for right now. Eventually I plan to do something with an infinite baffle that can be measured outside.
Most everyone using the drivers is aware of their benefits though and are able to do the required measurements to implement them in the system.
Some very well respected names in the industry with very good qualifications are using the drivers and others will be shortly. We are doing a custom variant on the Dipole 15 for Lynn Olson as we speak. Here are some other examples of systems using the TD woofers. All of the designers will likely be glad to share their experiences with you on the drivers:
TD woofers in Salk Sound open baffle speakers and we are also going to be providing the 6.5" driver now as well.
http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/i...?topic=54161.0
Jeff Bagby is the designer of this system. He has extensive experience and has written several software packages for speaker modeling. You can read Jeff Bagby's comments on the TD12H in the following post, and I'm sure he will share his experiences.
http://www.htguide.com/forum/showpost.php4?p=398362&postcount=44
TD woofers in AudioKinesis Planetarium speakers
http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/i...?topic=60103.0
You can ask Duke about his experiences as he had previously been using TAD woofers.
Seaton Sound Catalyst woofers
http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/p...ost?id=3044980
Again, Mark will be glad to talk to you about his experiences as well.
Evolution Acoustics MM3 woofers
http://www.evolutionacoustics.com/mmthree.html
In any case, I don't want anyone to take my word that the drivers are good because I say so. Look at the facts of the efforts we go through in designing and building the drivers. Then ask those who have uses most all the other options and get their thoughts as well.
John
Russell Dawkins said:
Actually this is something we are going to look into probably next year. For the TD15M I don't know if there will be much benefit as the cone is already the best out of all of them due to the profile. It's naturally quite well damped. There may or may not be further benefits to the kapok for it. We'll be sampling the 10", 12", and 15" though.
John
John_E_Janowitz said:
John
I completely agree with you here. In the first iterations of the Summa we used all TAD. Then we did a blind listening test of several systems one Summa with TADs and one with B&C. Statistically there was no difference, but the B&C were incrementally prefered. Your drivers are an excellent value - as are many others. Cost is not an indication of quality.
In your speakers I was wondering why you add a large alluminum shorting ring when you have a copper sleeve. These two devices are in parrallel at the base of the structure and do the same thing. Is the copper just not conductive enough because its too thin? Or is the copper too expensive to go thicker? (Which would also be undesirable in the gap). When you use the alluminum ring do you reduce the length of the copper sleeve?
gedlee said:
Hi Earl,
The copper sleeve does cover the entire pole in all cases. The alum rings are added on the OD of the coil in the Apollo upgrade. The one goes from under the top plate to the back plate and is about .225" thick. The ID is just slightly lower than the Id of the top plate. The other is a 6" diameter x 1/2" thick ring that goes on top of the top plate. The ID is just slightly larger than the ID of the top plate itself.
This does two things. The biggest thing is that it puts the highly thermally conductive aluminum mass around the coil at all times. This is much more effective in pulling heat from the coil than the air space inside the motor would be. The other thing is that it shorts any flux movement in the fringe field above and below the gap plate.
http://www.aespeakers.com/Apollo.php
John
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