Low cost tweeter recommedation

[EdC]

Any recommendations on low cost tweeters to experiment with line array (6) for elec guitar "detuned" spkr cabinet (150W -- w/ Eminence 12")?

Pyramid TW44 for example...can't find any opinion / reviews --

don't want junk (burns up on first use) but initially want low cost too...
thanks

[alan-1-b]

Ed , this really is not the way to go for electric guitar .
With those titanium dome in horn drivers - Pyramid TW44 - you will get a pierce-ingly bright and scratchy sound ! - I've heard such , is that what you want ?

I play electric guitar and once tried another way to get more treble , which I can describe to you , but simplest is to use the type of main speaker that gives sufficient treble itself . Eminence have a range of 12" guitar speakers now , and some are very bright treble sounding.
Which Eminence 12" driver do you have ? - model number , and/or type name ?

Line array (6) , you say . Do you have 6 Eminence guitar speakers ? , or did you intend to use 6 tweeters with 1 12" Eminence speaker ?

What is this "detuned" speaker cabinet ? , that is - tuned to what ?

[EdC]

No -- I don't want harsh, scratchy highs...my "thinking" is probably ahead of my "hearing" in that I have not tried just the 12" by itself -- to your point, it may be OK, great, good enough --
I have an Eminence Swamp Thang [only because I got it for great price] ( http://www.eminence.com/guitar_speak...2&SUB_CAT_ID=4 ) that has the following review:

"Very powerful, thick and chunky tone. Very touch sensitive with good sustain. Awesome bottom end." Super crunchy and thick. Lots of tone that is easy to manipulate. Suprisingly as you eq through the spectrum, it all sounds good but it is a dark speaker if you eq it that way or have a dark amp. The lows and mids are really aggressive and thick, but not out of control or sloppy sounding.

... and I found this cabinet design that looks very interesting to try by Kevin O'Conner - London Power...from his book

.'DETUNED' SOLUTION
"What's the best cabinet design? Something between a large sealed cabinet and a slightly smaller but still large bass reflex design: a "detuned" cabinet with a single driver. This is essentially a cabinet built for two identical drivers with one driver left out and it's mounting hole left open. The port is not tuned to any specific frequency but instead allows a broad range of frequencies to be reversed through the shallow duct. Instead of having a brick-wall bass roll-off, the low end rolls off gradually but slightly slower than the raw driver. The large cabinet does not sound boxey so mids and highs sound three dimensional, unlike a sealed cabinet which sounds comparatively sterile. We sometimes call this an "open-front" design since it is like having an open-back cabinet where you bring along your own wall. The closed back gives consistent sound regardless of room placement; therefore the port cannot be on the back. The only caveat is one that applies to every other design: that elevating the cabinet seriously reduces low frequency output, so -always leave it on the floor."

Good pictures of designs here: (notice also the baffle design to reduce treble "beaming"
http://www.vintone.com/detuned.html

http://lucidtone.com/?node=guitaramps

..my "thinking" on reason to add tweeters is
1) the above implies bass enhancement
2)my love affair with my Klipsch KG4s with the horn...and
3)the intended use is acoustic guitar (vs. metal-punk-distorted electric)...and most acoustic guitar combos have a mid or hi range speaker + bass in the cabinet

[moray james]

cheap and you cant blow them up the come horn loaded too.

[alan-1-b]

Ed , Acoustic Guitar - that changes my argument completely !
I would not have guessed , because that "Swamp Thang" is an Electric guitar intended speaker .
All those tone descriptions apply to an electric guitar driving the speaker via an amplifier , and particually via a Tube amp !

Acoustic guitars have much more of the sound of their own , {even those with built-in pick-up to amplify from} , than electrics , thus all the additional distortions from electric intended speakers , and those Cabinets , radically change the acoustic's tone !

I could write a lot , but first I need to know what specifically you are hoping to achieve :

Do you want as close as possible to a natural acoustic tone that your guitars pick-up will allow , or , do you want to largely or even radically change the tone to something unlike natural acoustic and into something perhaps unique of your own ?

Do you have a Tube amp ? - and its brand name and model ? , or ,
do you have a Solid-state amp ? - and its brand and model ? , or ,
have you yet to decide which type of amp ?

Do you want the speaker to be basically for you and any band member players to hear only , and rely on the PA system to get the sound to the Audience , or ,
does the speaker have to project the sound far enough to reach the Audience ?

Is your "Swamp Thang" the 8ohm or the 16ohm version ?

If you haven't already , then try playing your guitar at home through your Hi-Fi and into those Klipsch KG4s so that you can hear how horn treble sounds from a non-studio tampered with guitar -{in all recordings there will be changes to the dynamic response of a guitar to some degree} .

[sreten]

Hi,

Never agree with a man who only agrees with himself.

He has a cabinet design and he says its great, what do you expect ?

the "swamp thang" is an electric guitar speaker, not for acoustic.

Adding tweeters to it would be pointless.

Acoustic guitar combo's use PA drivers.

/sreten.

[moray james]

EdC looking at the response graph of this driver you can see that it is down 8db @ 1K5, 5db up @ 2k5 and 8db down @5K (all based upon the average line of the response). It is not likely that you will find a tweeter that will help with the first dip at 1K5 given the efficiency of the driver (listed at 102db). Getting output above 3k at this kind of level won't be an issue however you won't want flat response past about 6-8K and so you are going to have to play with EQ at the end of the day tweeter or no. I think that you can probably fudge the balance you want with just an EQ of sorts. Why don't you borrow a cheap octave equalizer and stick it in front of the amp driving the speaker. This way you can play around and see if you can achieve the sound that you want without a tweeter. If so then buy an EQ that will do the job and be happy, the eq will probably be very handy to adjust for different venues. Hope this is of some help. Regards Moray James.

[EdC]

OK...ok... without [me] actually listening to them...and not able to determine "the sound" based on looking at freq resp curves... I accept all inputs that elec guitar spkrs "color" the sound and PAs [might be] flatter..."true sound", etc...the Eminence was $40 so I grabbed it thinking "I can do something with this" [and my son plays electric -- so maybe he gets a 1x12 cabinet! -- I still think the "detuned" looks interesing -- many boutique companys offer it -- and I can always load the open "port" to make a 2x12]

SO -- I do not yet have my amp, the "ST" is 8 ohm, do not (yet?) perform - so don't need to project far, and have yet to try running thru my HiFi / KG4s....thought about it - will do so.

Re. the desired sound result -- play both Tak Nylon (w/ DSP pre-amp) and ES-175..."light" jazz, folk, fingerpicking, etc

Will want natural sound most of time, but will want to be able to experiment with stereo chorus, reverb & amp/cab modeling ....maybe BBE maximizer stuff ...

so my "thinking" is to come out of either guitar into what-ever processing (Line 6 pod?) -- basic, no frills [stereo] amp...tube or SS [I have a nice vintage Sony ES amp]???... into "flat" spkr cabinet(s)...maybe if I never crank the volume, the KG4s will survive?...although I don't want to risk damage to them!

Once I started this thread -- I realized I am probably in the wrong forum...although have enjoyed following the BBIB discussion!... if anyone knows a more appropriate place to explore this, pls point me...or I am happy to continue here
Thanks, Ed

[EdC]

EQ is likely cure for any scenario -- which begs the question -- what does the human ear want to hear -- would a dead flat freq response curve sound the most "realistic" to the source....of course, "good sound" is very subjective depending on each listener....and room acoustics, etc may also come to play....but in general??

and is there a rule of thumb for how much ripple in band is perceived by the ear as "flat"?...looking at PA spkr curves -- none of them are dead flat either...

[sreten]

Hi,

I'd regard the K4G's as likely sounding similar to good PA speakers.

I wouldn't risk them on the road. Get a decent pair of plastic PA
speakers with field replaceable drivers - built for the job.

/sreten.