I own 4 of these as seen in the pictures bellow .Usually working in small venue or open area for a crowd of 800 people max ( depending on the application with subs or not )
I run them at about 500W per speaker Inside exist a passive crossover between woofs and tweeters
the original speaker can be found either as sound king F2215 or audiomaster F2215
Original 1.75 drivers inside failed quite often and actually not form coil issues but from mechanical pov I replaced them PSD20028S from eminence
After that had no driver issues but the middle of the speaker was kinda weird emphasis somewhere in 2K required serious equalization to produce a listenable result . I had in mind that this was an xover issue but run it like that with absolutely no probs from failure aspects
last night decided to listen to them active used a xover from behringer 2 way and out of the blue the speaker become very rich and balanced no equalization needed both controls at 0db an cross them at 3.2 KHZ
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Question 1
I dlike some advice if the xover frequency is ok ( sounds ok to me and also have the impression that i could go even higher without producing a problem in the high mid or in the mid generally
Question 2
If i decide to run them active do you recommend any aditional safety measures in the HF driver such is a lamp (s) or a capacitor or is it enough to connect directly the HF driver to the amplifier ?
any other ideas are welcome
here is some pictures of the speaker , the woofers and the drivers
thanks for your time
kind regards
sakis
I run them at about 500W per speaker Inside exist a passive crossover between woofs and tweeters
the original speaker can be found either as sound king F2215 or audiomaster F2215
Original 1.75 drivers inside failed quite often and actually not form coil issues but from mechanical pov I replaced them PSD20028S from eminence
After that had no driver issues but the middle of the speaker was kinda weird emphasis somewhere in 2K required serious equalization to produce a listenable result . I had in mind that this was an xover issue but run it like that with absolutely no probs from failure aspects
last night decided to listen to them active used a xover from behringer 2 way and out of the blue the speaker become very rich and balanced no equalization needed both controls at 0db an cross them at 3.2 KHZ
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question 1
I dlike some advice if the xover frequency is ok ( sounds ok to me and also have the impression that i could go even higher without producing a problem in the high mid or in the mid generally
Question 2
If i decide to run them active do you recommend any aditional safety measures in the HF driver such is a lamp (s) or a capacitor or is it enough to connect directly the HF driver to the amplifier ?
any other ideas are welcome
here is some pictures of the speaker , the woofers and the drivers
thanks for your time
kind regards
sakis
I'd be a bit surprised if you were actually seing a flat response from the speakers with the crossover set at 3.2 KHz. It would be interesting to know what the slopes were, too.
Get an RTA mic, that the speaker outdoors and start moving the crossover frequency up and down to see what the flattest response is that you can get without EQ. Then apply EQ to get a decently flat response. That would be your starting point to adjust the EQ for individual venues.
Get an RTA mic, that the speaker outdoors and start moving the crossover frequency up and down to see what the flattest response is that you can get without EQ. Then apply EQ to get a decently flat response. That would be your starting point to adjust the EQ for individual venues.
You should figure out how the original crossover is wired. Try and set up a sound card and run something like Speaker Workshop to measure the electrical and acoustic response. It's useful to plot the electrical response of a crossover; that will graphically show the value of the Zobel. At the very least, play some pink noise and use a smartphone or laptop or tablet running RTA software to see the response.
Light bulb limiters are a good idea on the tweeter. I tried a couple of automotive tail lamps with both filaments wired in series. When a live PA produced some excruciating squeals using a Kaoss Pad, the bulbs lit up. Someplace, though, I've got the part number of a bulb which is actually used in commercial speakers.
For what it's worth, somebody told me that 16 ohm compression drivers were tougher, so I got the 16 ohm version of the PSD2002, then wired a 15 ohm 20 watt resistor in parallel, which lets me a) feel how much real power is going to the tweeters, and b) makes for a more resistive load so the crossover hopefully works better. The crossovers are old Altecs, with the caps replaced by Solen film capacitors.
Light bulb limiters are a good idea on the tweeter. I tried a couple of automotive tail lamps with both filaments wired in series. When a live PA produced some excruciating squeals using a Kaoss Pad, the bulbs lit up. Someplace, though, I've got the part number of a bulb which is actually used in commercial speakers.
For what it's worth, somebody told me that 16 ohm compression drivers were tougher, so I got the 16 ohm version of the PSD2002, then wired a 15 ohm 20 watt resistor in parallel, which lets me a) feel how much real power is going to the tweeters, and b) makes for a more resistive load so the crossover hopefully works better. The crossovers are old Altecs, with the caps replaced by Solen film capacitors.
A PAIR of 15" drivers covering the same frequency range, if used above ~700-800hz will suffer from off axis destructive coupling kicking in noticeably as shallow as ~10 degrees off the design axis. For usefully flat response at 20 degrees off of the design axis, they would have to be crossed no higher than ~400hz, or potentially configured as a 2.5 way. Furthermore, very few 15" drivers have much useful response above ~1200hz anyway, you start running into cone break-up modes on most 15" drivers centred ~1500hz or so.
There's a reason for the mantra "less is more" in this industry. The reality is that, a well thought out set of compact, easy to move TM's with a single 10-12" midbass driver and a good CD that can hand a low crossover point, backed correctly by subs, will trounce all over most of the big TWW with 15" drivers you see.
The best thing you can do, is perhaps put them back together, pad the tweeter a bit to make them more tolerable, then sell them to the first unsuspecting victim with cash.
I'm not sure it's worth the cost of upgrading these things to usable status.
Regards,
Eric
There's a reason for the mantra "less is more" in this industry. The reality is that, a well thought out set of compact, easy to move TM's with a single 10-12" midbass driver and a good CD that can hand a low crossover point, backed correctly by subs, will trounce all over most of the big TWW with 15" drivers you see.
The best thing you can do, is perhaps put them back together, pad the tweeter a bit to make them more tolerable, then sell them to the first unsuspecting victim with cash.
I'm not sure it's worth the cost of upgrading these things to usable status.
Regards,
Eric
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..... ok then all of these speakers made by peavey or Jbl configured as 2X15" +1-2" HF are to be thrown away .... sorry don't really get it ...
Eric is right , as he exposed the knowledge acquired and used for 'home reproduction' .
The fact is that for 'live' applications , opposed to sound 'reproduction'
the listener might be more focused on the feeling rather than on the perfectness and so on ...
Also in free air environment the characteristic of sound dispersion are different
and the 'masking' due to nasty interactions might be less audible , since
it might not be associated ...well , it's a matter of dB/decay and distance ,so
the 10-20-30 dB masking might decay in a few time and distance .
For an 'hifi' home user those boxes may appear coloured ,lifeless ,stupidly big
but for a 'pro' user those might be the minimum usable for a live jig .
The benefit from biamplification is also readily recognized from the ears/brain
as a step from passive , as there is a little incremental in dynamics .
The protection cap on the tweeter should then have a value about 2 octaves below the cutoff point , so a 150-200 uF should be ok
The fact is that for 'live' applications , opposed to sound 'reproduction'
the listener might be more focused on the feeling rather than on the perfectness and so on ...
Also in free air environment the characteristic of sound dispersion are different
and the 'masking' due to nasty interactions might be less audible , since
it might not be associated ...well , it's a matter of dB/decay and distance ,so
the 10-20-30 dB masking might decay in a few time and distance .
For an 'hifi' home user those boxes may appear coloured ,lifeless ,stupidly big
but for a 'pro' user those might be the minimum usable for a live jig .
The benefit from biamplification is also readily recognized from the ears/brain
as a step from passive , as there is a little incremental in dynamics .
The protection cap on the tweeter should then have a value about 2 octaves below the cutoff point , so a 150-200 uF should be ok
well i am sorry to say that so far the information i got so far is hardly usable
150 -200 mfd in series with a HF driver will prevent nothing except DC from amplifier in case of failure
in the PA business exists way too many speakers like the above and many of them from trusted manufactures like the ones and many more mentioned above
hifi or home use was never in question in this post
other than that its a common practice in 2 way speakers to cross the HF high enough to preserve safety and a ""natural gap" in high mids
will set up active in my next gig
set up will be 4 of those speakers running with
PSA 31500 2X575W rms @ 8R times 2 for the woofs ( class H )
PSA 31300 2x 300W rms @ 8R for the HF drivers ( class AB )
active x over behringer and so on
in between since this is going to be DJ set up and will have free time i might as well RTA the system to see how will it work
thanks so far though
kind regards
sakis
150 -200 mfd in series with a HF driver will prevent nothing except DC from amplifier in case of failure
in the PA business exists way too many speakers like the above and many of them from trusted manufactures like the ones and many more mentioned above
hifi or home use was never in question in this post
other than that its a common practice in 2 way speakers to cross the HF high enough to preserve safety and a ""natural gap" in high mids
will set up active in my next gig
set up will be 4 of those speakers running with
PSA 31500 2X575W rms @ 8R times 2 for the woofs ( class H )
PSA 31300 2x 300W rms @ 8R for the HF drivers ( class AB )
active x over behringer and so on
in between since this is going to be DJ set up and will have free time i might as well RTA the system to see how will it work
thanks so far though
kind regards
sakis
A TWW w/15" drivers done properly is a very rare breed. I suspect it's possible that there might be some very fancy variations out there at very high cost that pull it off well (2" compression drivers with very low crossover points as a minimum, some baffle step loss in a .5 way would be even better since most people position these things out far from boundaries).
The "hifi" approach here, should not be ignored, it applies to all levels of sound reproduction. We are seeing the same principals, applied on a larger scale, at large events around the world. Producing an effective line or point source, and coupling the bass properly means that everyone in the crowd hears something fantastic. You can pretend like what they are doing is voodoo, or learn what's going on that makes it so right and implement it yourself.
For the most part, this TWW w/15" woofer configuration of drivers was put together to appeal to the masses. They look big, and sound big, so lots of them were sold. The sales of this configuration, was, unfortunately, not driven primarily by sound quality, but rather, a false perception in the buying market.
I have nothing to gain here by telling the sad truth. I can run the simulations, and see the flaws in these designs clearly. The only I thing I intend for here, is that, someone who has reached out this far, get the best advise I have available.
Sorry, it's a pile of rubble unless serious cash and research, perhaps the aid of simulation, and ideally, measurement, is sunk into it.
Regards,
Eric
WELL ok
there is a lot of things that you say and i understand and presumably also correct still your missing the point though
the point is that simply these are the given facts the point here is how to achieve the best from this system as is ... i am not willing to replace or invest one euro to this system still though my target is to get the maximum in aspects of quality /power / durability ....
so any advice is welcome taken ...the given facts
kind regards
sakis
there is a lot of things that you say and i understand and presumably also correct still your missing the point though
the point is that simply these are the given facts the point here is how to achieve the best from this system as is ... i am not willing to replace or invest one euro to this system still though my target is to get the maximum in aspects of quality /power / durability ....
so any advice is welcome taken ...the given facts
kind regards
sakis
The best sound you will get from them without many changes, is if you stick with an active and steep crossover, set the crossover to 1500-2000hz, adjust phase to get constructive coupling through the crossover at the listening position, try with just 2 units, and slap a big fat heavy gage inductor in series with the lower woofer of each. Like 5-10mH value. If you must use all 4, flip the second set upsidedown on top of the first set, so that the tweeters are as close together as possible, the second set should also have it's "lower" (now upper, as it's inverted) woofer in series with the bigfatso inductor.
Regards,
Eric
Regards,
Eric
Sakis I am not trying to offend you or give a bad advise those 15" woofers you have are made in China at $25 each no where near a JBL or Peavey league. You need to actively cross and be done with it. And RTA your speakers so you can hear and see whats happening. 800 people outside with 4 of those and you have not blown one component is amazing.
No Speaker system is perfect - Almost everything is a compromise to a greater or lesser extent.
What Eric is suggesting makes a lot of sense 2KHZ is probably a good starting point for setting the crossover frequency.
This will help keep the 15" from sounding too rough at higher freqencies.
Below this frequency you might start to run out of headroom with the compression driver.
Adding the inductor to the bottom 15" driver will help to clean up the midrange.
To compare the differences it is probably best to listen to the speaker off axis. The mods should improve the mid range when listening off to the side of the speaker. Standard they probably beam mid like a laser
the retail cost of the specific speaker world wide is about 650 euros similar JBL or Peavey will cost more or less half of it ....something like 350 euros
the speaker actually is 65 kgs ...almost double the weight of similar JBL or peavey
the specific woofers have a rated power 300W each and been pushing them with very clean 500W no clip at all times without any problems 4 years now ....
so if you have any of these woofers at this prize of 25 euros i will be very happy to get 100 and also pay them cash !!!.....
Been making a few tests , got my shelf a new cx 3400 behringer configured as 2way stereo with actually a quite cool limiter
just synchronized the limiter to the peak of the amplifier cross it around 3.5 khz and works just fine ... the 2KHZ problem completely vanished and actually you even may use the system without equalizer ..plays just fine as is
of course 31 band Yamaha is to be used to make minor corrections but other than that all is fine .
Slept on the idea of the two woofers in parallel and the problem created in the middle area and i find the idea of just adding a big fat coil in the lower woofer is a nice idea and i will give it a try in the coming days
meanwhile i play with this system day after tomorrow a gig with a DJ set which mostly is going to be disco or pop music ( run it though with 3 way crossing and 2 2X18 subs ) and after that a gig with Greek folkloric music
see how it goes with both and let you know
kind regards
sakis
just synchronized the limiter to the peak of the amplifier cross it around 3.5 khz and works just fine ... the 2KHZ problem completely vanished and actually you even may use the system without equalizer ..plays just fine as is
of course 31 band Yamaha is to be used to make minor corrections but other than that all is fine .
Slept on the idea of the two woofers in parallel and the problem created in the middle area and i find the idea of just adding a big fat coil in the lower woofer is a nice idea and i will give it a try in the coming days
meanwhile i play with this system day after tomorrow a gig with a DJ set which mostly is going to be disco or pop music ( run it though with 3 way crossing and 2 2X18 subs ) and after that a gig with Greek folkloric music
see how it goes with both and let you know
kind regards
sakis
here is the results to anyone interested .
It proved that the specific woofers have a hell of a good character ...Both events i had to play were so successful people where so amazed with the quality and colours of the sound that actually booked me another two events mostly cause of this .
It was so good that club or cafe owners that was located next to me since one of the gigs was in a local square to congratulate me and book me for more events or ask for my card for feature cooperation !!!
Details
In the DJ set up i used 4 of the specific speakers and a couple of subs ( renkous heinz Q 18 2*18" ) crossed in 3 way at 60 hz and middle to high a bit above 3.5 khz .
FACTS :
1) there is an obvious gap in high mid...... still ""obvious"" is for me and other experts to evaluate and for "" disco music "" program the high mids was just about enough and the paper cone deep woofers of the pictures produced high mids more than enough fro this type of music
2) Truly the mid and the comments made about the axis and the product of 2 woofers in a 2 way system ( 2X15 " + 1.25" HF driver vertical ) working also partially as mid ranges and all the issues around them was a correct thing to write from the forum member but the actual result wasn't that bad .It created a situation that middle had quite a lot of variations inside the sweet spot....and was perceived from the crowd as an extra presence in the vocals but only inside the sweet spot . In the feature i am going to install """big fat""" coils to remove some mids from the lower woofer .
Things there got a lot better in the Greek music gig setup as 2 Way have a stage 1 meter high above the crowd and 8 meters wide and give the system an inner tilt produced that extra presence in the vocals inside the venue ...
3) obviously crossing the high and the psd 200 from eminence that high ( >3.5 KHZ ) will actually make the HF drivers work in safety , create the high mid gap, require far less than 2*300W at 8 R rms to drive all 4 of them ....this situation will make the HF drivers actually working as super tweeters and of course the system will be dominated by that but hell yeah people loved it ( musicians also ) ...
Other details
In the DJ setup i was working on the beach i had loads of bass only using 1KW per sub plenty of middle but less high and that seemed to fade out after 60 meters or so ... dont know if this is horn issue or power issue ( cant be bothered though since i achieved my target on the dance floor )
In the Greek music set up run as 2 ways was a walk in the park just perfect remoove the mid problem and was almost CD quality ...
thanks for the help so far ...it seems that i am very lucky with the specific woofers and the linearity provided for the mids from them and also seems that i got the most out of my existing system in terms of quality ...
Kind regards
Sakis
It proved that the specific woofers have a hell of a good character ...Both events i had to play were so successful people where so amazed with the quality and colours of the sound that actually booked me another two events mostly cause of this .
It was so good that club or cafe owners that was located next to me since one of the gigs was in a local square to congratulate me and book me for more events or ask for my card for feature cooperation !!!
Details
In the DJ set up i used 4 of the specific speakers and a couple of subs ( renkous heinz Q 18 2*18" ) crossed in 3 way at 60 hz and middle to high a bit above 3.5 khz .
FACTS :
1) there is an obvious gap in high mid...... still ""obvious"" is for me and other experts to evaluate and for "" disco music "" program the high mids was just about enough and the paper cone deep woofers of the pictures produced high mids more than enough fro this type of music
2) Truly the mid and the comments made about the axis and the product of 2 woofers in a 2 way system ( 2X15 " + 1.25" HF driver vertical ) working also partially as mid ranges and all the issues around them was a correct thing to write from the forum member but the actual result wasn't that bad .It created a situation that middle had quite a lot of variations inside the sweet spot....and was perceived from the crowd as an extra presence in the vocals but only inside the sweet spot . In the feature i am going to install """big fat""" coils to remove some mids from the lower woofer .
Things there got a lot better in the Greek music gig setup as 2 Way have a stage 1 meter high above the crowd and 8 meters wide and give the system an inner tilt produced that extra presence in the vocals inside the venue ...
3) obviously crossing the high and the psd 200 from eminence that high ( >3.5 KHZ ) will actually make the HF drivers work in safety , create the high mid gap, require far less than 2*300W at 8 R rms to drive all 4 of them ....this situation will make the HF drivers actually working as super tweeters and of course the system will be dominated by that but hell yeah people loved it ( musicians also ) ...
Other details
In the DJ setup i was working on the beach i had loads of bass only using 1KW per sub plenty of middle but less high and that seemed to fade out after 60 meters or so ... dont know if this is horn issue or power issue ( cant be bothered though since i achieved my target on the dance floor )
In the Greek music set up run as 2 ways was a walk in the park just perfect remoove the mid problem and was almost CD quality ...
thanks for the help so far ...it seems that i am very lucky with the specific woofers and the linearity provided for the mids from them and also seems that i got the most out of my existing system in terms of quality ...
Kind regards
Sakis
and by the way ...
Simply i almost have to remove my 2X31 EQ YAMAHA from my rig ... For both of the setups i had to simply make a small low cut ...reduce the pots lower than 40 cycles ( i could as well press the low cut in my xover but i prefer to do it manualy )
Add 2db in the area of 63 HZ to enhance Bass and remove couple of db arround 8KHZ to make the high even more crisp and hifi style ....
******* awesome !!!
Simply i almost have to remove my 2X31 EQ YAMAHA from my rig ... For both of the setups i had to simply make a small low cut ...reduce the pots lower than 40 cycles ( i could as well press the low cut in my xover but i prefer to do it manualy )
Add 2db in the area of 63 HZ to enhance Bass and remove couple of db arround 8KHZ to make the high even more crisp and hifi style ....
******* awesome !!!
Sakis! Hi...
Sorry for late reply....
I have whole rig based on 2x15''+2'' and it works fine. At least for me. It might be different because I use 2x PD153ER + Beyma CP850/nd controlled by BSS FDS366 and ,,repaired,, with DN360 EQ but.....it works fine.
I've seen at your first post that you have exchanged tweeters....
What if new tweeters are out of phase? What if there was incorrect marked polarity on old ones? Have you tried to change it? If it was ok before exchanging it than it might be the reason.
I would go with good quality active crossover without any bulbs....but protective capacitor is good idea. If you connect it wrong especially if you exchange tweeter and subwoofer at 3 way system, you might only spot short burst of smoke from horns without hearing anything ....but of course with such capacitor you again risk some phase problems. And correct phase is really important thing. Especially around cut freq...and it can be really bad at highly sensitive, not very linear and extremely loud PA speakers.
Please report.
Cheers, Taj
Sorry for late reply....
I have whole rig based on 2x15''+2'' and it works fine. At least for me. It might be different because I use 2x PD153ER + Beyma CP850/nd controlled by BSS FDS366 and ,,repaired,, with DN360 EQ but.....it works fine.
I've seen at your first post that you have exchanged tweeters....
What if new tweeters are out of phase? What if there was incorrect marked polarity on old ones? Have you tried to change it? If it was ok before exchanging it than it might be the reason.
I would go with good quality active crossover without any bulbs....but protective capacitor is good idea. If you connect it wrong especially if you exchange tweeter and subwoofer at 3 way system, you might only spot short burst of smoke from horns without hearing anything ....but of course with such capacitor you again risk some phase problems. And correct phase is really important thing. Especially around cut freq...and it can be really bad at highly sensitive, not very linear and extremely loud PA speakers.
Please report.
Cheers, Taj
after setting up with both active and passive xovers i may tell you that for my case and problem was the existing passive xover inside ....dont ask me why its quite complicated to analyze and find out what was wrong .
95% of the problems solved with active xover and very very important with a multiband limiter ...
as very correctly said from forum members the middle will be an issue always and more tests are to be made to solve this .
I had no phase issues with HF driver since my xover features adjustable phase ...so i had the chance to look at that also
kind regards
sakis
95% of the problems solved with active xover and very very important with a multiband limiter ...
as very correctly said from forum members the middle will be an issue always and more tests are to be made to solve this .
I had no phase issues with HF driver since my xover features adjustable phase ...so i had the chance to look at that also
kind regards
sakis
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