Suggestion for 10" woofers for U-frame dipole

[dabbler]

Im looking for some recommendations for 10 inch woofers for use in a narrow U frame or open baffle, 2 a side for a small room. Lower bass will be filled in with a closed box sub if necessary. Will be using a DCX2496 for eq and crossover

Id like the woofers to play up to around 1800 hz or higher so i can try them with different wide range drivers, waveguides etc on a seperate open baffle sitting on top. Ive attached a drawing of some ideas i have using drivers i have laying around the house.

Ive been looking at some of the eminence alpha range which are available here in australia. would any of these work for me?

thanks

[twest820]

What are your SPL requirements? All four options will have directivity limitations due to the baffle width, large MW or TW separations, and relatively high MW crossover frequencies. Lowering the crossover will improve that aspect of things and make it easier to operate a 10" within its pistonic region and below the baffle's dipole peak.

If you're looking for low cost 10s the Alphas aren't a bad choice but I'd bet the first cone breakup is 1.4kHz. Wouldn't cross 'em at 1.7. The Peerless 830668 is likely a better choice.

[dabbler]

Hi twest,

Designs 1 and 3 are somewhat a mash up of the Orion and the CS2. How does the Orion solve directivity issues? CS2 uses the 15" eminince alpha which i imagine deals with cone breakup, dipole peak by filters in the dcx?

Re SPL's, im not after concert / live levels, I usally listen at moderate levels in my small room anyway.

Thanks for the peerless driver recommendation, I'll look it up...

[dabbler]

These 2 drivers are roughly the same price here in aus. The alpha 10a does have a large peak after 1khz. Can this be successfully filtered out with the dcx?

http://www.eminence.com/pdf/alpha-10a.pdf

Which of these drivers would be more fast /snappy / dynamic ?

[dabbler]

Has anyone heard of the eminence alpha 10b? These are half the price of the 10a's over here....

[gvimhoof]

Greetings!

My vote would be for #2. I've got a Fostex FE103E OB over an Alpha 15in woofer in an H-Frame and absolutely L-O-V-E it! The dual 10's in a U-Frame should be able to get you fairly low (works for Linkwitz), and you can keep them narrow enough that blocking sound from behind shouldn't be a problem. Even with a 15in woofer in the bottom, my speakers' footprint are only 17in wide by 16in deep (1"X16"X38" baffle).

[Rudolf]

Originally Posted by dabbler

Im looking for some recommendations for 10 inch woofers for use in a narrow U frame or open baffle, 2 a side for a small room. Lower bass will be filled in with a closed box sub if necessary. Will be using a DCX2496 for eq and crossover

I would recommend these Visaton WS 25E. Their TSP are near to perfect for OB at decent levels. Almost no external EQ needed. Look at the latest OB project with them from Germany:

Id like the woofers to play up to around 1800 hz or higher so i can try them with different wide range drivers, waveguides etc on a seperate open baffle sitting on top. Ive attached a drawing of some ideas i have using drivers i have laying around the house.

1800 Hz with a 10" driver is silly, because it will start to beam at ~ 800 Hz. Therefore my vote is No 3. But DON'T integrate the tweeter into the baffle. It needs to sit on top of the baffle with a second tweeter back to back.

[ScottG]

AE Speakers --- Superb Quality, Unforgettable Performance, Definitely.

Use the second coil on each driver *actively* to boost the lower freq. response.

[twest820]

Originally Posted by dabbler

How does the Orion solve directivity issues?

Vertical directivity on the Orion is well addressed through crossover choice---1.44kHz TM and 120Hz MW. To my knowledge SL's never published horizontal polars and I've not seen third party measurements but SL does mention directivity control figures which suggest the Orion's designed to be more directive than the recent wave of minimally baffled or no baffle here on DIY. SL's recommended setup where the speakers are toed in to point directly at the listening position supports this as well.

Pretty much the only complaints I've heard about the Orion are on the horizontal directivity mismatch at the TM cross. Most of that's due to the W22 having the usual Seas loss of pistonic motion at 500Hz and on axis hotness. If you model the Orion in Edge you can get a pretty good sense of how the baffle will behave with ideal drivers. I've not done this, but I'd bet the horizontals would be decent with a better chosen eight inch, although still with wobbles at the crossovers.

The Orion's U baffles probably aren't deep enough to cause significant mismatch between front and back wave directvity. The acoustic center misalignment between the H frame and the dress panel's not ideal though; SL corrects the front wave in the ASP but that means the back wave's twice as far out. The low MW cross means this isn't a big deal but there'll be a bit of a mismatch between the front and back vertical polars as a result. My experience is the lack of time alignment is more noticeable, though.

However, all four options here have larger MW spacing at higher crossovers than the Orion does. I would be concerned about vertical lobing and imaging; since you're not after concert levels the obvious fixes are to move the 10s up on the baffles and drop the crossover frequency. However if you're not locked to 10s and the high MW crossover you'll find the vertical polars are better with a single larger driver.

Do you have a link for the CS2? It's not ringing a bell.

Originally Posted by dabbler

The alpha 10a does have a large peak after 1khz. Can this be successfully filtered out with the dcx?

You can easily EQ the peak flat but, if I'm correct the cone's in breakup, the sound quality will suffer due to the lack of pistonicity.

Originally Posted by dabbler

Has anyone heard of the eminence alpha 10b?

Not I, and it's not listed on Eminence's website or any of the North American dealers I use. Got a link to specs?

[tinitus]

Originally Posted by dabbler

Lower bass will be filled in with a closed box sub if necessary. Will be using a DCX2496 for eq and crossover

Wild Burro Betsy ?

Or this wild guess .....Eminence Legend BP 102 ?