'LGT' Construction Diary

[LaMa]

Originally posted by salas
RAAL's awesome, no worries.

I second that, stop talking and start building .

I would consider Audiotechnology instead of Accuton, but hey then you end up with a natural/ neutral sounding speaker instead of hifish. Also the Raal/ Accuton combi is not that great, both drivers aim at different design aspects.

The Accuton has a certain snap which sounds artificial to my ears. I could not get rid of it in my designs, while the Lumen White, Kharma and Avalon loudspeakers I heard, are stressing this aspect and calling it their strong points.

Part of the journey is to select drivers which results in more than the sum op their parts. It's your project, so I cannot stop you using Accuton.

Oh and before I forget if you like upfront/ forward voicing then Tony Gee can help you with the x-over (yes I heard a few of his designs). What I am trying to say is that if you share this presentation you should use Accuton, but then you have to use a different tweeter (ceramic, alu, berylium).

DISCLAIMER, yes I own a Raal 140 and also used every driver I described above (talking first hand experience here).

[ShinOBIWAN]

Originally posted by LaMa
I second that, stop talking and start building .

I would consider Audiotechnology instead of Accuton, but hey then you end up with a natural/ neutral sounding speaker instead of hifish. Also the Raal/ Accuton combi is not that great, both drivers aim at different design aspects.

The Accuton has a certain snap which sounds artificial to my ears. I could not get rid of it in my designs, while the Lumen White, Kharma and Avalon loudspeakers I heard, are stressing this aspect and calling it their strong points.

Oh and before I forget if you like upfront/ forward voicing then Tony Gee can help you with the x-over (yes I heard a few of his designs). What I am trying to say is that if you share this presentation you should use Accuton, but then you have to use a different tweeter (ceramic, alu, berylium).

DISCLAIMER, yes I own a Raal 140 and also used every driver I described above (talking first hand experience here). [/B]

Hi

Sounds like your enjoying the AudioTech. and RAAL combo.

You sure it was the C90-T6 mid you used? Its apparently quite a different driver to the usual lower sensitivity mids that have come from Accuton before. Its a low mms, and comparatively big BL underhung design.

Sorry you didn't have more luck with them anyway. Bit of an expensive mistake! Fingers crossed things work out a bit better for me.

[ShinOBIWAN]

Len, Tal and Tinitus.

Thankyou for the suggestions. The Aura's are tough to get hold of in Europe, don't think I could stomach the shipping for 4x12" drivers and then get hit for tax and import duty when they arrive here. They do look nice though.

Where are 18sound available from in the UK/Europe?

Thanks
Ant

[gbyleveldt]

Originally posted by ShinOBIWAN


Where are 18sound available from in the UK/Europe?

That is quite odd. 18 sound have a disti in South Africa but not one in the UK?!? Try This
They are highly recommended

Cheers
Gert

[LaMa]

Originally posted by ShinOBIWAN


Hi

Sounds like your enjoying the AudioTech. and RAAL combo.

You sure it was the C90-T6 mid you used? Its apparently quite a different driver to the usual lower sensitivity mids that have come from Accuton before. Its a low mms, and comparatively big BL underhung design.

Sorry you didn't have more luck with them anyway. Bit of an expensive mistake! Fingers crossed things work out a bit better for me.

T95, so not the new one. But it has the same family characteristic (heard the Avalon Isis).

18sound is good available in the Netherlands, also Eton is coming with new drivers in March (new 12").

[ShinOBIWAN]

Originally posted by LaMa



T95, so not the new one. But it has the same family characteristic (heard the Avalon Isis).

18sound is good available in the Netherlands, also Eton is coming with new drivers in March (new 12").

LaMa

After your brief post, I've been doing a little more investigation and the best part of £1300(price of Accutons) on four midrange drivers is not something to be taken lightly. I'm not sure I like the idea of emphasized edge on reproduction, I've heard it in some systems where its pushed as clarity but like you say it tends to be a little on bright side of neutral, although certainly you'd be forgiven for initially thinking it was more impressive.

Its tough to come by opinions for the RAAL and potential mating driver choices so when one does come along its best to take note, so I've been looking into your suggestions more closely.

I rang AudioTech. and had a chat with Per Skaaning about what he could do with my list of requirements. I mentioned that I was after something with around 92-93dB sensitivity, optimised for low distortion in the 200-2Khz range, low mms, a high BL and most of all, a natural midrange. I also mentioned that it would be crossed to a ribbon tweeter and we talked about the CSD behavior of ribbons and concluded that a high acceleration midrange was needed He's suggested a modified 15cm C-Quenze with the largest motor, kapton VC former, copper sleeve on the pole piece, SD system and a underhung coil. It would work out around 92dB sensitivity in the 200-2000hz range.

Why no flex unit? Well Per thought the C-Quenze was a little better in the mids with an improved cone geometry lending a smoother FR, he went on to say the flex units are more suited for bass and mid/bass units where their ability to tailor a greater number of aspects than the C-Quenze units are more useful and closed by saying the C-Quenze were already optimised for the best midrange so I didn't argue. It was refreshing that I wasn't immediately recommended *the* most expensive driver in the range, instead I got what was best for my requirements.

I'd only really rang up just to get idea's and opinions from a professional but by the end of the 30 minute conversation I was pretty much sold so at that point I ordered. At the end of all this, the price was 191Euro's each + 25% tax but I'll get a discount of 15% for the quantity order of 4. Which I didn't think was bad when the Accuton C90-T6 were over double that at 465Euros each from Clofis.

Overall they came across as a professional outfit that was as happy to take time out for a casual DIY'er as they were for anyone else and also make sure that any requirements you had were carefully looked into and met or if that wasn't possible then sensible alternatives were offered. Off the top of my head I can only think of ATC that offered similar service. On the other hand I rang Scanspeak(Tymphany) last year to find out about the D3004-6000 'aircirc' tweeters I'd had on order for 2 months and the person I spoke to gave the distinct impression that they were less interested in DIY'ers order for 'just' a single pair of drivers.

Overall the AudioTech units are expensive but I can't think of any other company that offers such sound advice and a thorough emphasis on creating custom drive units to get exactly what you want from them.

I look forward to them arriving in about a four weeks time.

[wigginjs]

Wow, if I did the calculation right your total should have come to about 820 Euro or $1050 after tax. Thats a boat load of money to spend on four midrange drivers, you can be sure. But I started to think about it this way. The Scan-Speak midranges you had originally looked at were about $220 a piece, so $880 for the set (plus tax if applicable). So for about $170 more you got consulting from a master in the field of loudspeaker driver design AND he's going to custom make you a set of drivers for your application. That, my friend, is what we call in America a "bargain" .

[ShinOBIWAN]

Originally posted by m0tion
Wow, if I did the calculation right your total should have come to about 820 Euro or $1050 after tax. Thats a boat load of money to spend on four midrange drivers, you can be sure. But I started to think about it this way. The Scan-Speak midranges you had originally looked at were about $220 a piece, so $880 for the set (plus tax if applicable). So for about $170 more you got consulting from a master in the field of loudspeaker driver design AND he's going to custom make you a set of drivers for your application. That, my friend, is what we call in America a "bargain" .

Yep I was happy at that too. It was 856Euros including postage, just to put that in perspective, the Accutons would have been 1900Euro's all inclusive, could have bought a quad of ATC supers for that money.

I've got to feel sorry for the folks in Denmark though, they get charged VAT at 25% on everything from food to loudspeaker drivers... ouch!

[Mutley666]

This site sells Eighteen Sound products out of the netherlands (so no worries about tax). RSL


Also lautsprechershop in germany now sell the Aura sound woofers but at 260 euros a pop they ain't exactly cheap!

[LaMa]

Originally posted by ShinOBIWAN


LaMa


Its tough to come by opinions for the RAAL and potential mating driver choices so when one does come along its best to take note, so I've been looking into your suggestions more closely.

I rang AudioTech. and had a chat with Per Skaaning about what he could do with my list of requirements. I mentioned that I was after something with around 92-93dB sensitivity, optimised for low distortion in the 200-2Khz range, low mms, a high BL and most of all, a natural midrange. I also mentioned that it would be crossed to a ribbon tweeter and we talked about the CSD behavior of ribbons and concluded that a high acceleration midrange was needed He's suggested a modified 15cm C-Quenze with the largest motor, kapton VC former, copper sleeve on the pole piece, SD system and a underhung coil. It would work out around 92dB sensitivity in the 200-2000hz range.

Why no flex unit? Well Per thought the C-Quenze was a little better in the mids with an improved cone geometry lending a smoother FR, he went on to say the flex units are more suited for bass and mid/bass units where their ability to tailor a greater number of aspects than the C-Quenze units are more useful and closed by saying the C-Quenze were already optimised for the best midrange so I didn't argue. It was refreshing that I wasn't immediately recommended *the* most expensive driver in the range, instead I got what was best for my requirements.

I'd only really rang up just to get idea's and opinions from a professional but by the end of the 30 minute conversation I was pretty much sold so at that point I ordered. At the end of all this, the price was 191Euro's each + 25% tax but I'll get a discount of 15% for the quantity order of 4. Which I didn't think was bad when the Accuton C90-T6 were over double that at 465Euros each from Clofis.

Overall they came across as a professional outfit that was as happy to take time out for a casual DIY'er as they were for anyone else and also make sure that any requirements you had were carefully looked into and met or if that wasn't possible then sensible alternatives were offered. Off the top of my head I can only think of ATC that offered similar service. On the other hand I rang Scanspeak(Tymphany) last year to find out about the D3004-6000 'aircirc' tweeters I'd had on order for 2 months and the person I spoke to gave the distinct impression that they were less interested in DIY'ers order for 'just' a single pair of drivers.

Overall the AudioTech units are expensive but I can't think of any other company that offers such sound advice and a thorough emphasis on creating custom drive units to get exactly what you want from them.

I look forward to them arriving in about a four weeks time.

I have the same experience, (quality is very good with the std series and custom work is also excellent). But lead time is > 4 weeks. But they always deliver, if you are ordering at the time they are doing the drivers for Sonus then you have to wait .

Also when I ordered my Raal tweeters, and told that I wanted to use AT, Raal told me he was very excited about the match between Audiotechnology & Raal.

Oh before I forget what are you using on the bass, because 18sound is good, but not great. I think you can do better (series consisticy isn't that great)