What to do with CTS 15" from old Maggie console

[mfaughn]

Hi all,

I have some CTS 15" from a console. They were originally paired with some Jensen horns (RP108). I want to try them out in another configuration but I am not sure exactly what might work best with them. OB, H/U frame, ported??? I'm not really prepared to figure out the T/S parameters, just don't have the time to head down that road with small kids, school, etc., etc. I'd like to get as much of the low end as possible out of them and use another driver run in OB to fill in the top. They are rather efficient and I intend to push with low to medium tube power or a chip amp.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Michael

[2litre]

I've used similar CTS drivers in full OB set ups. Either in a 3-way or with the 15's as helper woofers to a full range. I used a low-$ 75wpc plate amp to drive the 15's.

The ones I had, IIRC, had an Fs of @50Hz and a Qts of @1.4.

In the first two pictures I used all CTS drivers. The 15's from one console and the 8" mid/ 3" tweets from another. The mid was the problem in this one, ragged with an Fs of @200 and a Qts of @2.6!.







In this last picture I used a RS 6.5" extended range driver as the top FR unit. It definately needed a tweeter but sounded very sweet as is, meaning, to me at least, that the drivers were well suited to each other. These were passively xo'd first order around 200Hz.




All in all mine were pretty decent drivers.
Didn't go very deep and couldn't take a lot of power but could fill a room nicely with just a watt or two.
Great for jazz and classical.

R/
Jim

[mfaughn]

Thanks for the reply, its just the encouragement I was looking for. I am going to more or less replicate what you did in the two way. I'm wondering though if I can get more bass out of the driver with an H or U frame arrangement. I guess it is easy enough to experimate by just making it and them laying some panels alongside and such. Thanks again.

-Michael

[Flaesh]

Originally Posted by mfaughn

.. OB, H/U frame, ported??? ..

IB (if you have appropriate wall)

[2litre]

Michael,

I have no experience with them in H or U frames.
I guess you'd have to get the T/S parameters and go from there to see if they'll work out well in one of those alignments. If your T/S are like mine were, I don't know if they're suited for U or H frames.
Just to give you another idea, here's a speaker I built that sounded way better than I think it should have. It used a Foster (Fostex) 6x9 / tweeter set up and a 12". All console pulls. The two tweeters, if you want to call them that, only went out to about 16-17K but were open backed and sounded nice in OB.






Anyway, IIRC, mine were pretty efficient. They would have mated perfectly with that Foster 6x9 / tweeter set up, but unfortunately I had them all at different times.

Depending on what you got them for and what you ultimately want to spend, I'd look at mating them up with a Fostex 103 or 126 in a baffle like the one above. Cross them over in the 200-400 range and you would have your version of the MJK OB.

Once again, wouldn't go that low or take bunches of power but would sound great at reasonable levels with just a couple of watts.

R/
Jim

[mfaughn]

Dragging up this thread. Right now those woofers live in an OB with (depending on the day) a pair of FE103E or holey basket coral drivers similar to the FE103A. Crossed at about 1K seems to sound best to me. These things are nicely efficient -- much more so than the Fonkens I built. I'm bringing in a sub at 50Hz and am still experimenting with adding in a little bit of supertweeter as well (Realistic 1310A). They are slowly evolving into something that might stick around for a while.