At last photo's of their new midrange driver:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
badman
Gotta hate those integral grills. I understand that the cones and domes (tweets) on these are extremely thin and fragile, but the reflections back onto the cone surface.... kinda makes the whole design of the quality motor system and cone seem pointless.... like making a 700 HP engine for a street car that weighs 4200 lbs.
Gotta hate those integral grills. I understand that the cones and domes (tweets) on these are extremely thin and fragile, but the reflections back onto the cone surface.... kinda makes the whole design of the quality motor system and cone seem pointless.... like making a 700 HP engine for a street car that weighs 4200 lbs.
Re: badman
Not really... I have some expirience with Accuton drivers, and although I could hear the effect of the grill on the tweeters (the grill is much more dense), C95T6 sounded the same with or without grill. And I listened to them for 4 years! Nevermind the ugly grills; those are wonderfull drivers!!!
badman said:
Not really... I have some expirience with Accuton drivers, and although I could hear the effect of the grill on the tweeters (the grill is much more dense), C95T6 sounded the same with or without grill. And I listened to them for 4 years! Nevermind the ugly grills; those are wonderfull drivers!!!
Member
Joined 2003
Has Accuton made improvements in their motors (inside not outside)? Copper shorting rings, etc?
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Google found me some PDFs on this page:David Gatti said:
http://www.tempest.nl/thiel/new/accuton_new.htm
Hehe....I wonder if they sound twice as good. Why don't you buy some & let us know how they perform 
They do look kinda ugly with that grill & those ears. Incidently, what exactly are those ears for?
They should make them available with & without the grills. They can't possibly be any more fragile than soft domes.
They do look kinda ugly with that grill & those ears. Incidently, what exactly are those ears for?
They should make them available with & without the grills. They can't possibly be any more fragile than soft domes.
David Gatti said:Hehe....I wonder if they sound twice as good. Why don't you buy some & let us know how they perform
They do look kinda ugly with that grill & those ears. Incidently, what exactly are those ears for?
They should make them available with & without the grills. They can't possibly be any more fragile than soft domes.
I dont think this is the concern, with a soft dome you can poke the dome and it will change shape to follow the "poke". I think these are very brittle and instead of chaging their shape you will put a hole in them. I dont know about you but I would not want to poke a hole in my $800 midrange drivers.
Edit- $800! what the hell about these costs 800 to make ZERO. Yes they look well made but nothing I wouldnt expect on a $100 woofer. Jesus lower the cost and I bet they make more money, simply because more people buy them.
5th element said:
What are you concerned about? The quid's been more or less steady against the Euro, it's the buck that's taken a dive.
As for the woofer, if the numbers are telling the truth then it's an interesting piece. Check carefully the distortion numbers - less than 1% from 100 Hz to 5 kHz [1] at just about 100 dB/1meter, which also leads us to its efficiency. Not often you see an underhung midrange with 92 dB/W at 1 meter.
[1] although I'd want to cross it lower
The interesting thing would be the energy-time curve; an earlier Accuton midrange didn't fare too well when Linkwitz ran its ETC, aka "linear distortion".
But yeah, $800 is a pile of money, especially since the number would've been half that four years ago at the same Euro cost. Makes the AudioTechnology stuff look reasonable, all right.
Francois.
Accuton Grills
My friend and I spent some real speaker design time with several Accuton drivers and their strenghts were formidable. We gave up in the end because we couldn't get the dynamics to our liking.
However all Accutons at that time showed a resonance in their waterfall plots that Accuton blames on their testing room.
If you tap that metal grille with a pencil eraser it rings like a gong. This cannot be good. I personally believe that this could be the characteristic ringing at low mid frequencies that shows up in all the watefall plots.
While at the HiFi show we surrepticiously tapped the grilles of the Kharma's, yep, boingggg.
My friend and I spent some real speaker design time with several Accuton drivers and their strenghts were formidable. We gave up in the end because we couldn't get the dynamics to our liking.
However all Accutons at that time showed a resonance in their waterfall plots that Accuton blames on their testing room.
If you tap that metal grille with a pencil eraser it rings like a gong. This cannot be good. I personally believe that this could be the characteristic ringing at low mid frequencies that shows up in all the watefall plots.
While at the HiFi show we surrepticiously tapped the grilles of the Kharma's, yep, boingggg.
"If you tap that metal grille with a pencil eraser it rings like a gong. This cannot be good. I personally believe that this could be the characteristic ringing at low mid frequencies that shows up in all the watefall plots."
I know on my C95 and my C23 that the grills are a sonic no no. I removed them from both of them.
Zalytron's $375 is a tad bit better than Madisound's $417. I wonder what Sonic Craft is charging for them. Whatever it is, my wallet's whimpering in dread, since I'm planning on getting a pair. Along with the C90's I'm getting a pair of C13's (I just can't get excited about the very top of the C23). Has anyone played with the C90's yet?
We shall see how my next Accuton turns out .....
I know on my C95 and my C23 that the grills are a sonic no no. I removed them from both of them.
Zalytron's $375 is a tad bit better than Madisound's $417. I wonder what Sonic Craft is charging for them. Whatever it is, my wallet's whimpering in dread, since I'm planning on getting a pair. Along with the C90's I'm getting a pair of C13's (I just can't get excited about the very top of the C23). Has anyone played with the C90's yet?
We shall see how my next Accuton turns out .....
C79, C88 and C92
A friend and I decided to develop a three way speaker for our own use. We purchased a number of midranges from various manufactures to evaluate. Due to reviews and reports we also bought the C79, C88 and C92 Accuton drivers. All three drivers exhibited strong family resemblances in their sound.
The ceramic drivers had amazing resolution and to an unfortunate extent speciallized in enhancing any weakness in the reproduction chain. Although we ended up trying very complex crossovers ( multi slope, with 3 traps to deal with driver peaks and resonances) we could never acheive true neutral, much less the slightly warm voicing we both favor.
Advice: use only the very best components in crossover networks, foil coils, tin capacitors, silver wire. Avoid electrolytics like the plague. With very careful design these drivers have some amazing strengths. They will proabably do best in a system with tube amplification since any solid state gremlins will be spotlighted.
In the end, besides the lack of midrange warmth we were not happy with the drivers dynamic performance, if played louder or quieter than a small range. They seemed to get into trouble compressing dynamics at both ends of the volume scale. Also replace those grilles with an alternative solution. There are some plastic aftermarket grilles or do what we did; bend some brass stock into a flattend U shape and make your own.
Good luck, these beasts will take some effort to tame, but if succesful the reward should be a very revealing speaker system.
A friend and I decided to develop a three way speaker for our own use. We purchased a number of midranges from various manufactures to evaluate. Due to reviews and reports we also bought the C79, C88 and C92 Accuton drivers. All three drivers exhibited strong family resemblances in their sound.
The ceramic drivers had amazing resolution and to an unfortunate extent speciallized in enhancing any weakness in the reproduction chain. Although we ended up trying very complex crossovers ( multi slope, with 3 traps to deal with driver peaks and resonances) we could never acheive true neutral, much less the slightly warm voicing we both favor.
Advice: use only the very best components in crossover networks, foil coils, tin capacitors, silver wire. Avoid electrolytics like the plague. With very careful design these drivers have some amazing strengths. They will proabably do best in a system with tube amplification since any solid state gremlins will be spotlighted.
In the end, besides the lack of midrange warmth we were not happy with the drivers dynamic performance, if played louder or quieter than a small range. They seemed to get into trouble compressing dynamics at both ends of the volume scale. Also replace those grilles with an alternative solution. There are some plastic aftermarket grilles or do what we did; bend some brass stock into a flattend U shape and make your own.
Good luck, these beasts will take some effort to tame, but if succesful the reward should be a very revealing speaker system.
Thiel & Partner GmbH, Accuton, also offer the D²20-6 diamond tweeter at about $2,800 each. Thiel recently introduced their D²50-8 diamond dome midrange, approximately a 2 inch dome upper midrange driver and at $11,750 each probably was the most expensive speaker driver ever offered to the market; they seem to have subsequently pulled this product?. It makes you wonder just Who would be the target market for such a driver? Any speaker system employing such ultra-expensive drivers would necessitate a prohibitively high retail price, likely a quarter million plus?
If interested in a DIY project using the Accuton drivers including the D²20-6 diamond tweeter there is a clone project of the Avalon Sentinel with some very elaborate cabinet construction, notice the use of lead sheet, known as speaker project “xXx” don’t really see the Vin Diesel context but anyway it’s at, http://home.wanadoo.nl/e.van.voorst/ProjectSpeakers.htm
also covered in all its complex detail (beware 178 pages of posts) as a thread on, http://www.htforum.nl/yabbse/index.php?board=24;action=display;threadid=8497
If anyone’s interested; the process used to manufacture the diamond domes is chemical vapor deposition or CVD utilizing ellipsoidal microwave plasma reactors. Fraunhofer IAF manufactures the diamond domes for Accuton- Theil in Germany. Fraunhofer IAF CVD diamond web site is http://www.cvd-diamond.com/
In addition, http://www.iaf.fraunhofer.de/pdf/jahresbericht-2002/cvd-loudspeakers.pdf
If interested in a DIY project using the Accuton drivers including the D²20-6 diamond tweeter there is a clone project of the Avalon Sentinel with some very elaborate cabinet construction, notice the use of lead sheet, known as speaker project “xXx” don’t really see the Vin Diesel context but anyway it’s at, http://home.wanadoo.nl/e.van.voorst/ProjectSpeakers.htm
also covered in all its complex detail (beware 178 pages of posts) as a thread on, http://www.htforum.nl/yabbse/index.php?board=24;action=display;threadid=8497
If anyone’s interested; the process used to manufacture the diamond domes is chemical vapor deposition or CVD utilizing ellipsoidal microwave plasma reactors. Fraunhofer IAF manufactures the diamond domes for Accuton- Theil in Germany. Fraunhofer IAF CVD diamond web site is http://www.cvd-diamond.com/
In addition, http://www.iaf.fraunhofer.de/pdf/jahresbericht-2002/cvd-loudspeakers.pdf
Has anyone compared the Accuton with the $129 PHL 1240/1340? Some ears like softer cone materials. Mine favor treated paper and woven kevlar curvelinear cones. Naturally, crossover skills and components play a large role.
All of my recent speakers are crossed at 80Hz and 2.5-3Khz, which puts tremendous demands on the midrange.
http://www.e-speakers.com/pdf/PHL1240.pdf
All of my recent speakers are crossed at 80Hz and 2.5-3Khz, which puts tremendous demands on the midrange.
http://www.e-speakers.com/pdf/PHL1240.pdf
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