I meant Peerless , unfortunately only got one pair , there sensitivity might 've been okay . I have some Daytons, I'll check them out.
Yea not sure bout the sens. I see one version of that woofer at 88 then another (that looks like yours) at 86.
Either way when you put two drivers in series you end up with the same sens as one driver. When you put two drivers in parallel you get a 6 db gain in sensitivity.
If your mid is at 90 db and your woofers at 88 the even that 2 db difference will be easily heard as brightness. If the woofers are at 86 its even worse.
Overall nearly every loudspeaker I have ever voiced needed around 4 db of baffle step, AND a gradualy falling response out through to treeble to get a natural tonality.
AND heres the thing that will get by most. Just 1 db change in level between midrange and treeble can strongly effect the way it ALL sounds.
The last few speakers I have voiced had about 4 db baffle step built into the woofer crossover, a level midrange from about 700 hz to about 5khz, then a smooth gradual drop to about -2 db at 10 khz. From their out ot 20 k hz it doesnt matyter much to most people BUT those who claim it does can taylor however they please I guess.
By far the biggest issues are correct baffle step, flat midrange, and a gradual smooth slope to about -2db by time u get to 10 khz. This basic freq response seems to give the most natural sounding tone on many systems.
This will get debated hotly but I have seen it too many times to ignor
Remember that 1 db difference in balance between midrange and treeble can take it all from good to great. This is the area most struggle with IMO and often a capable system doesn't reach its potential because this area is not finessed enough.
Get system up and running, get a freq response plot going, and play with crossover components on the fly in a big rats nest on the floor, listening and changing on and on.
By a cheap receiver with short circuit protection for testing and do radical things with crossovers to force system freq response into what you want just to get an idea how these changes sound. Then work out details of a proper crossover to get similar response.
To get experience with how the changes sound dont be afrade to use the bass treb controls. Again pay attention to even 1 db changes in levels between mid range and treble
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Thank you , I did mistakenly believe that paralleled result in a 6db increase and in series a 3fb, I did put in a resistor compensation circuit , but it would have been 3db out. I know Lpads are frowned upon but when used with a Ribbon I think they are crucial due to the differences in room shapes and furnishings.
I'm still open to suggestions for replacing the Monacor Ribbon because I really don't like pushing the mid out to 4500 Hz . Back to basics redesign of the crossover.
I'm still open to suggestions for replacing the Monacor Ribbon because I really don't like pushing the mid out to 4500 Hz . Back to basics redesign of the crossover.
yea you really have to do some measurements to know whats going on. Until then its a shot in the dark on what direction to move in.
If your going to keep those woofers then they will dictate the systems reference sensitivity and all other drivers will have to be padded down to match
If your set on using that mid dome I would do some CSD measurements and see if/ where there is stored energy and or distortion peaks. This will tell you where it needs to be crossed over and will tell you what you can use as a tweeter.
The cheaper Arum and Fountek ribbons can be made to work well BUT not much below about 3khz wich might be ok with your mid dome but need measurments to be sure.
The Bolender Grabner planer tweeter is good to 2 khz I think and has good reviews.
The mid dome will make your learning experience VERY difficult. Much more than a two way design. The mid dome does allow you to get a lower cross on the woofer so its great for getting the trouble area of woofer ( above 1 khz) out of the way, BUT it can be quite tricky to get a 3 way with a small dome mid right.
I have a smallish 3 inch long ribbon in development a present that can be used to 1 khz to neatly side step the mid dome 3 way format and just do a 2 way with same resolution. However they will not be cheap and not available till sometime this fall.
If your going to keep those woofers then they will dictate the systems reference sensitivity and all other drivers will have to be padded down to match
If your set on using that mid dome I would do some CSD measurements and see if/ where there is stored energy and or distortion peaks. This will tell you where it needs to be crossed over and will tell you what you can use as a tweeter.
The cheaper Arum and Fountek ribbons can be made to work well BUT not much below about 3khz wich might be ok with your mid dome but need measurments to be sure.
The Bolender Grabner planer tweeter is good to 2 khz I think and has good reviews.
The mid dome will make your learning experience VERY difficult. Much more than a two way design. The mid dome does allow you to get a lower cross on the woofer so its great for getting the trouble area of woofer ( above 1 khz) out of the way, BUT it can be quite tricky to get a 3 way with a small dome mid right.
I have a smallish 3 inch long ribbon in development a present that can be used to 1 khz to neatly side step the mid dome 3 way format and just do a 2 way with same resolution. However they will not be cheap and not available till sometime this fall.
If your only criteria for a tweeter is very low harmonic distortion that might make a dome tweeter look better on paper.
But they're inferior in many other ways compared to a waveguide loaded ribbon tweeter, ways that matter more than harmonic distortion IMHO. Such as directivity control, flatness of frequency response, freedom from diaphragm breakup resonances etc.
If you're convinced that obtaining very low levels of harmonic distortion at the expense of other properties is worthwhile then I suggest having a read of some of Earl Geddes research on the audibility of THD and harmonic distortion in general and what a poor indicator measurements like THD are for sound quality.
Audibility of harmonic distortion is very much a threshold effect, once you are below a certain threshold, a threshold that varies depending on frequency, SPL and other factors, it becomes inaudible. Further reduction in harmonic distortion below the thresholds where it is audible make no further improvement in sound quality.
As long as both tweeters have harmonic distortion that is well below the audible thresholds - which is typically the case unless you're over driving them, the actual difference in distortion levels doesn't matter and isn't audible.
I used to believe strongly in the very low distortion view point many years ago, largely from an ideological view point in hindsight but empirical comparisons between measurements and how something sounded simply did not show a good correlation between obtaining lower than typical distortion levels and good sound quality.
Later I read and discussed Earl's work on distortion on this forum and I completely came around.
Much more important to me are flatness of frequency response, freedom from breakup modes, high sensitivity and directivity control - the latter helping both with overall speaker directivity control in the room, but arguably more importantly as a means of minimising high frequency diffraction from a baffle.
Even if a high quality dome tweeter has a very flat response measured on an infinite baffle (and some do) as soon as you put that on a real, finite size cabinet that actually has edges to diffract from, has a midbass driver nearby to diffract from etc, the lovely flat frequency response is completely mangled by the baffle diffraction because there is so much output from the driver at 90 degrees along the baffle surface.
However my ribbon tweeters with short waveguides measure almost the same above 3Khz whether they're sitting naked in mid air with no baffle, mounted on an infinite baffle, or mounted on a normal cabinet front panel.
It makes virtually no difference because there is very little 90 degree off axis radiation to travel along a baffle, and that relative freedom from baffle diffraction effects means that in practice even if the raw response of the ribbon isn't quite as flat as the dome, the finished speaker will be a lot flatter, and relatively free of baffle diffraction effects even on a conventional baffle.
If the choice is between a dome tweeter with marginally (but inaudibly) lower harmonic distortion or a ribbon tweeter with a flatter response, better directivity control, freedom from resonances etc, then I'm going to choose the ribbon, every time.
Ever since I started using ribbons I have absolutely zero inclination to go back to dome tweeters - I just can't stomach the cone breakup issues and the lack of directivity that lead to diffraction problems.
Ribbon tweeters do have their challenges of course. Most won't go below 3Khz, require a minimum of 3rd order high pass filters to work well, (I use 4th) and are subject to damage from strong wind currents (vacuum cleaner against the front, strong outdoor winds) or exposure to grit or metal filings since the magnetic gap is very powerful and is open and exposed with only a wire grid as protection.
They are also more prone to being over driven - I have managed to damage one by over driving it when using only a 2nd order filter. On the plus side, if over driven and damaged it is a DIY repair to fit a new ribbon foil - the rest of the tweeter is extremely rugged, whereas an overdriven dome which has burnt out the voice coil usually isn't fixable especially if the diaphragm has been overheated and distorted as well.
They're not suitable for all applications but in those applications that they are well suited to I think they can't be beaten, and certainly not by a conventional dome tweeter.
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I have to say my findings after 30 years of development of ribbons is exactly as Mandrake says.
And btw the distortion "issue" is one I chased in the extreme. My real world "ears on" conclusions after many years and over a hundred different examples are that THD is not nearly as critical as we wanted to believe.
I personally worked to eventually develop a ribbon design that actually does have significant reduction in THD to much lower frequency than what is seen in typical true free swinging ribbons. At the moment we have a 75 mm long by 20 mm wide ribbon that shows 1% THD at 98 db 1 meter when used with a second order LR cross at 1 Khz. At 90 db THD is around 0.3%. The freq response is +- 1.5 db from 1 K out and a clean CSD . The standard ribbon diaphragm design in the same magnet chassis will show upwards or 7 % at the same volume!
However In the end its not so much the lower measured distortion that made me peruse this one farther but the diaphragm control and reliability that allowed the low crossover with a small ribbon.
And btw the distortion "issue" is one I chased in the extreme. My real world "ears on" conclusions after many years and over a hundred different examples are that THD is not nearly as critical as we wanted to believe.
I personally worked to eventually develop a ribbon design that actually does have significant reduction in THD to much lower frequency than what is seen in typical true free swinging ribbons. At the moment we have a 75 mm long by 20 mm wide ribbon that shows 1% THD at 98 db 1 meter when used with a second order LR cross at 1 Khz. At 90 db THD is around 0.3%. The freq response is +- 1.5 db from 1 K out and a clean CSD . The standard ribbon diaphragm design in the same magnet chassis will show upwards or 7 % at the same volume!
However In the end its not so much the lower measured distortion that made me peruse this one farther but the diaphragm control and reliability that allowed the low crossover with a small ribbon.
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