Just browsing by the SEAS web-page today, and found some interresting news!
THE ART OF SOUND PERFECTION BY SEAS - H1602-04/06 L12RE/XFC
This should make for some interresting high-quality mini-monitirs/ PC-speakers! 🙂
THE ART OF SOUND PERFECTION BY SEAS - H1602-04/06 L12RE/XFC
This should make for some interresting high-quality mini-monitirs/ PC-speakers! 🙂
I think I'm going to have to get me a pair! Those certainly look interesting and would make for a perfect, small form factor, centre channel. Here's hoping the price is attractive also.
Would be great to see some measurements on them too though.
Would be great to see some measurements on them too though.
Yes, this unit must be perfect for a centre channel! I'm not in to home cinema my self, but I've more than once looked at some center channel spekares and found my self puzzled about their ungainly size and shape.
I'm definitively getting my self a pair when they come out, usually the norewgian SEAS dealer tend to have some very good introduction offers whenever SEAS launches new drivers.
I'm definitively getting my self a pair when they come out, usually the norewgian SEAS dealer tend to have some very good introduction offers whenever SEAS launches new drivers.
What's rather interesting is that reading the summary of features/specs ( I couldn't get the detail tech specs to open), it appears that XO frequency may be elective by the user.
I don't pay a lot of attention to this general category of drivers, but isn't that a bit unusual, or did I just misread the specs?
Anyways - interesting indeed
edit:
Some quick googling doesn't return a North American vendor with pricing for this new model yet, but based on the TPX coaxes in the Prestige range, I wouldn't expect pricing to be less than the equivalent of $120 - 140ea.
I don't pay a lot of attention to this general category of drivers, but isn't that a bit unusual, or did I just misread the specs?
Anyways - interesting indeed
edit:
Some quick googling doesn't return a North American vendor with pricing for this new model yet, but based on the TPX coaxes in the Prestige range, I wouldn't expect pricing to be less than the equivalent of $120 - 140ea.
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Good to see another coax... a more or less direct comparison to Alpair 10.2 would be interesting.
dave
dave
I'm not much into home cinema either, although I do plan at some point in adding a centre + two surrounds.
The centre speaker is often quoted as being the most important channel in a HT setup as it has to handle a LOT of sound. I mean think what it represents, what's supposed to be in front of the viewers eyes and as a result all the sound that's coming from there, this tends to be the centre of the action - hence the requirement.
Home cinema for myself would be an 'after thought' though and this is an area I'd want the extra channels to be small and inconspicuous, centre channel height is of huge importance in this. The best two way centre channel layout is for a tweeter above the midrange, as it is with a standard two way. If you place the tweeter next to the mid/bass you get a more acceptable shape for the centre channel, but the horizontal off axis response looks really ugly as you're basically looking at the vertical off axis response of a normal two way. A small coax solves all of this.
No you didn't mis-read anything. Lots of co-axials come with a pre-built crossover that is integrated into the driver. I'm thinking main stream car hifi drivers here.
The SEAS co-axials don't come with any crossover, it is up to you, as you said, to handle the driver in the right way.
Personally, in a situation like this, I'd want to cross the tweeter as low as it would cope with.
It IS the tweeter indeed, my bad, sorry. So that leaves us with around 80 db of real sensitivity for the combo.. Not enough i thing. Inductor, what does "six flags" mean, please ? 🙂
Its a playground for families, but you must have been googling by now (brand name). Just like vodka for kids and grownups to have a tough ride.
It's an interesting driver.
If you look at the frequency response plots of all the SEAS coax drivers you will see that all of the tweeters have the "W" shaped dip at 10K. It must be a function of dispersion, I.E., the tweeter being placed down in the cone of the woofer.
The 7"/18cm SEAS coax drivers sound fantastic (I have heard them a couple times) so I wouldn't worry about it too much...
If you look at the frequency response plots of all the SEAS coax drivers you will see that all of the tweeters have the "W" shaped dip at 10K. It must be a function of dispersion, I.E., the tweeter being placed down in the cone of the woofer.
The 7"/18cm SEAS coax drivers sound fantastic (I have heard them a couple times) so I wouldn't worry about it too much...
The tweeter doesn't 'give out' exactly @ 7k. The lower part of the response is given a small amount of boost due to the slight horn loading from the mid/bass cone and most likely a slight amount of boost due to a high Qtc from the small chamber behind the tweeter. This creates a downward sloping response as frequency rises. The trouble here is that the on axis response suffers from some nasty interference effects due to the way the tweeter interacts with the mid/bass voice coil and the cone.
If you ignore the on axis response and look at the 30 and 60 degree off axis plots you will see that the tweeter FR is reasonably flat, albeit sloping.
What you have to remember here is that the off axis response of any tweeter is going to droop too which makes this look a bit more severe. After you've removed the horn hump, the sensitivity of the tweeter looks more like 86dB, granted the last octave is a bit ragged, but that isn't usually a huge problem.
RE crossover point. The mid/bass has its primary metal cone resonance @ about 9k, meaning a steep xover of around 2500hz would probably be as high as you'd want to take it. If you look at distortion measurements for most of SEAS small neo tweeters you will see that they can handle a steep 2000hz xover without too much issue.
If both drivers measure how I'd expect them to, there would be no trouble in designing a decent enough crossover.
At the end of the day though any system will be compromised by the tiny mid/bass. Lets not forget that it is a 4 ohm unit, so that 86dB sensitivity is really 83 if the driver were 8 ohm, I don't need to tell anyone that this is on the low end of the spectrum. Add in some baffle step compensation and we're looking at anywhere between 77-80 dB end point sensitivity re an 8 ohm watt.
The other issue is the enclosure, the driver has been optimised to work in a pathetically small box. We're talking 1 litre sealed, 2 litres ported, any real bass extension this driver doesn't have. In a sealed enclosure you need to use a LT circuit just to get the driver to reach an 80hz cut off point. It is obvious that this drivers intended end application is really small speakers somewhat in line with the 'egg' type speakers by KEF.
If you use it in a stuffed ported box of 2 litres, tuned to 80hz, the predicted response is unsurprisingly very close to a 4th order LW @ 80hz, which would integrate well with a sub.
If you ignore the on axis response and look at the 30 and 60 degree off axis plots you will see that the tweeter FR is reasonably flat, albeit sloping.
What you have to remember here is that the off axis response of any tweeter is going to droop too which makes this look a bit more severe. After you've removed the horn hump, the sensitivity of the tweeter looks more like 86dB, granted the last octave is a bit ragged, but that isn't usually a huge problem.
RE crossover point. The mid/bass has its primary metal cone resonance @ about 9k, meaning a steep xover of around 2500hz would probably be as high as you'd want to take it. If you look at distortion measurements for most of SEAS small neo tweeters you will see that they can handle a steep 2000hz xover without too much issue.
If both drivers measure how I'd expect them to, there would be no trouble in designing a decent enough crossover.
At the end of the day though any system will be compromised by the tiny mid/bass. Lets not forget that it is a 4 ohm unit, so that 86dB sensitivity is really 83 if the driver were 8 ohm, I don't need to tell anyone that this is on the low end of the spectrum. Add in some baffle step compensation and we're looking at anywhere between 77-80 dB end point sensitivity re an 8 ohm watt.
The other issue is the enclosure, the driver has been optimised to work in a pathetically small box. We're talking 1 litre sealed, 2 litres ported, any real bass extension this driver doesn't have. In a sealed enclosure you need to use a LT circuit just to get the driver to reach an 80hz cut off point. It is obvious that this drivers intended end application is really small speakers somewhat in line with the 'egg' type speakers by KEF.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
If you use it in a stuffed ported box of 2 litres, tuned to 80hz, the predicted response is unsurprisingly very close to a 4th order LW @ 80hz, which would integrate well with a sub.
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Joined 2003
It doesn't have the efficiency to be a good midrange. I would love to see this motor/basket made with a light stiff paper cone, as a real midrange, in 8 ohm, with efficiency somewhere in the range of the tweeter's. That would be cool.
It'd work fine in a three way. Remember that the voltage sensitivity is still 86dB for 2.83 Vrms input. You can compensate for baffle step by choosing the highpass xover frequency wisely and increasing the Q of the high pass itself. This way you don't get any 'loss' when correcting for baffle step, but it does increase the demand on the amplifier.
If used with a wide variety of available 6 and 8" drivers you're still looking at the system sensitivity being set by the bass driver and not the mid range.
Yes, I understand that it would work in a three-way as it is currently, (and probably very nicely!) but I was being specific in that I want a light cone that would match the efficiency of the tweeter... With a 10" woofer, 90db system efficiency would be attainable, and as i like smaller (but not tiny) amps, 90db is about minimum for my tastes.
I'm with 6L6 on this one,
Rated at 86dB at 2.83V and it is a 4 ohm speaker? Love the misleading specs--OK 83dB at one watt.
I guess it is too difficult to build a co-ax with 92+ dB of sensitivity and stick a little neo "helper tweeter" in the center? KEF has been building Uni-Q coaxes for 20 years but they max out at 90dB. Close though... very close.
Rated at 86dB at 2.83V and it is a 4 ohm speaker? Love the misleading specs--OK 83dB at one watt.
I guess it is too difficult to build a co-ax with 92+ dB of sensitivity and stick a little neo "helper tweeter" in the center? KEF has been building Uni-Q coaxes for 20 years but they max out at 90dB. Close though... very close.
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