Beyma tpl-150 + Lambda TD12M's

[studiotech]

After many months of design work, building and testing they are finally in place. The concept for these studio monitors began last year as an exercise to see what could be done to improve upon our current monitoring situation at www.phatplanetstudios.com At the time, we were running Quested mid fields.

See here: http://www.quested.com/vs3208.html

They were never resolving enough for critical work and ran out of steam very quickly at high levels. We needed something quite a bit more dynamic.

I was pretty much settled on Lambda TD12M's right from the outset, but the tweeter was a tough choice. We needed high sensitivity to mate up with dual TDs, ability to crossover low enough and be able to handle whatever abuse a recording engineer or intern might create. We tried the Fountek NeoPro 5 without sucess. Down anywhere below 2Khz is bad news for that guy. We tried a Beyma CP380 on a waveguide. This was better, but we were still not pleased. Finally, I up'ed the budget and went the TPL-150, also from Beyma. Now that was the ticket! Handles below 2 Khz with ease, high sensitivity of 99dB spl and is very robust mechanically.

What we ended up with is a 2.5 way design. The inner woofer in each pair is crossed over at appox. 250Hz while the outer one works up to around 1.8Khz. The box is sealed so accordingly, the response drops off below around 60Hz in room. This was the design goal, because coming up next is a dedicated pair of subs. We The signal is processed using a BSS Omnidrive 366 with a Crown K2 for the lows and a Bryston 4B for the highs.

The enclosure is an inner layer of 3/4" MDF covered on all sides by an outer layer of 18mm Plywood. Each monitor is 185lbs as finished. These babies are very inert even at levels upwards of 110 dB spl. For absorbtion inside, there is rigid fiberglass as well as Bonded Logic Ultratouch insulation which I highly recommend. http://www.bondedlogic.com/ultratouch.htm Works amazingly well and it's friendly to your lungs AND the environment.

Greg Begland - technician for Phat Planet Studios

[studiotech]

Here is a shot with the automotive paint finish on the baffle.

[studiotech]

another shot:

[studiotech]

second layer of plywood going on and some rigid fiberglass test fit on the side wall.

[Brett]

Sweet.

A mate in Melbourne has a dual TD15S, TD10M and TPL150 system that I want to hear a lot.

My next project on the drawing board, and realistically a year away will use an AV15, TD10S, TD6.5 and most likely the TPL150.

Current project uses TD15X in the mains and TD10M in the sides.

[Iain McNeill]

Beautiful.

Can I come and hear them next time I'm in Orlando?

[planet10]

Very nice... XO details?

dave

[studiotech]

Originally posted by Iain McNeill
Beautiful.

Can I come and hear them next time I'm in Orlando?

Anytime you are in the area, call the studio and ask me.

Greg

[studiotech]

Originally posted by planet10
Very nice... XO details?

dave

Like I mentioned, we are using a BSS Omnidrive. After weeks of experimentation, measuring and listening tests, the xover has been set at 1.8Khz, with 36dB/oct slopes. The newer BSS processors have these special NTM filters which take basic LR 24 and 48 filters and add a further notch. As I understand it, they share most of the attributes of the LR filters.

http://www.bssaudio.com/productpg.php?product_id=6

The difference btw LR 48 and NTM 36 was just astonding. The presentation of the soundstage got very much wider AND deeper with the NTM 36.

Greg

[planet10]

Thanx... i've read the Theile papers. Interesting to see that it has made it to market.

dave