I know this is FH Mk3 flat pak thread - just going a bit OT here. Playing a pair of EL-70 in a P10 mMar-Kel70 cab http://www.frugal-phile.com/boxlib/P10free/mMar-Kel70-1v0-map-231009.pdf - with a Hypex UcD 180HG amp - BT's Le Nocturne De Lumiere sounds surprisingly good. No dearth of top end, and bottom end plenty solid for a 4" driver in a small cab. It's early morning here and listening levels are moderate.
No wonder Dave and Chris like this driver so much.
Edit: The Hypex also deserves praise - very good Class D amp.
No wonder Dave and Chris like this driver so much.
Edit: The Hypex also deserves praise - very good Class D amp.
Last edited:
Hi Dave, could you tell me more about the "modded" EL70's you offer please?
What does the treatment do to the response? In what way does it improve the driver?
Thanks
Willem
Drivers are 1sr run in for at least a couple hundred hours. Then T/S measured to weed out any defects before treatment.
1/ drivers are pre-treated. a thin coat of PVA seals and ties together the paper fibres on the surface of the cone. This reduces cone self-noise, and smooths response
2/ drivers are EnABLed. This includes a conformal coating after the spots. No-one really knows how or why this works, but it does. The net benefit is increased DDR (downward dynamic range). Think of it akin to removing low level haze (or noise) allowing the driver to reproduce more of the subtle details that flesh out a voice or instrument and more of the complex phase & detail that allows a pair of speakers to provide the illusion of space.
3/ Drivers are measured again, and using a metric based on the T/S must match within 3%, and be efficiency matched within a 1/4 dB. Mark Audio drivers come much better matched than any others i've tested, the spread across a quantitiy of drivers is typically 12-13% with efficiency deltas of near 1 dB.
4/ the major discontinity where the basket joins the magnet is filled with ductseal, streamlining the backside somewhat. A side effect is some damping.
The pretreatment & the conformal coating additionally:
a/ make the cone more opaque to sound coming back thru the cone from inside the box.
b/ the surround is attached to the front of the cone. This creates a small ridge at the join. Both these coatings go up other the attachment area of the surround. This both creates a "ramp" where there was a ridge, and a continuous uniform layer all the way to the moving portion of the surround.
None of this would matter if it did not transform the performance of the driver.
It does not significantly change the "tone" of the driver. If that is what you are concentrating on when doing a comparison you will hear little difference.
If on the other hand you focus on the imaging, on a well done track, the wall behind the speakers will dissapear as you switch and the image will become less attached to the speaker.
If you just listen to the music, the increase in available information lets your brain relax more and you gain a greater emotional connection to the music.
Now hopefully some EL70eN owners will chime in, and make the last bit seem less like marketing bluster.
And in addition, treated drivers include the p10-hifi paid planset for that driver (a $25 value). For the EL70 that document runs 36 pages.
dave
Dave
Because I have no experience with fullrange speakers I have one last concern. I am now very keen on your modded EL70 but the driver response curve shows a roll-off from 10khz to 20khz of almost 10dB. Does this driver perform well enough at these frequency's that a tweeter would not be required as Toppsy mentioned the CHP-70.1 required this?
Willem
Because I have no experience with fullrange speakers I have one last concern. I am now very keen on your modded EL70 but the driver response curve shows a roll-off from 10khz to 20khz of almost 10dB. Does this driver perform well enough at these frequency's that a tweeter would not be required as Toppsy mentioned the CHP-70.1 required this?
Willem
You could do it either way, i'd ted towards how toppsy implemented them:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/markaudio/192123-tweeter-3-css-ert26-makes-great-supertweeter.html
dave
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/markaudio/192123-tweeter-3-css-ert26-makes-great-supertweeter.html
dave
Hello Planet 10
I have been following some of your post on clarifying the thor. I am new to the speaker building world but would like to build a pair of speakers in the near future. I would like to find a relatively small floorstanding speaker or a large monitor speaker. I have owned B&W 802 matrix but sold them about 2 years ago. I would like to find a speaker that has good imaging. We will unlikely be able to hear the speakers before we buy them. We now live in very remote area of Ontario. I would like a drum to sound like a drum and be at the back of the band. Male and female voices being close to correct. Need to stay relatively small as we are in a period in our life’s were we are prone to downsizing. I have a small knowledge of box type multiple driver speakers but virtually no knowledge of the full range speakers like the fostex. I have gone to your site but really did not gain much understanding. In some of the post you speak of single driver systems can you point me to documentation that explains the strengths and weakness of this type of speaker
thanks
Ben
I have been following some of your post on clarifying the thor. I am new to the speaker building world but would like to build a pair of speakers in the near future. I would like to find a relatively small floorstanding speaker or a large monitor speaker. I have owned B&W 802 matrix but sold them about 2 years ago. I would like to find a speaker that has good imaging. We will unlikely be able to hear the speakers before we buy them. We now live in very remote area of Ontario. I would like a drum to sound like a drum and be at the back of the band. Male and female voices being close to correct. Need to stay relatively small as we are in a period in our life’s were we are prone to downsizing. I have a small knowledge of box type multiple driver speakers but virtually no knowledge of the full range speakers like the fostex. I have gone to your site but really did not gain much understanding. In some of the post you speak of single driver systems can you point me to documentation that explains the strengths and weakness of this type of speaker
thanks
Ben
Single unit loudspeakers are not like any other type. In life there is always some compromise. The FH3's for example, sound fantastic - every instrument is clearly identifiable, the imaging is about as good as any speaker can be. But, and there is a but. If you are looking for thundering bass, then forget it. These speakers will not amaze you, but you won't get tired of them either. They are just very plain and straight forward - no 'wow' just beautiful sound without the hype and 'tis' 'boom' of multi-way devices.
Hope this helps?
Hope this helps?
I was told by Rene' Jaeger that Dave has a minimalist transmission line tower, very small footprint, with an equally small full range on top. A two way, but with the phase correct and the timing correct this isn't an issue.
The thing Rene' could not get over was the combinations perfect portrayal of a large band playing jazz, at very loud levels if needed and without any faults available. Rene' is the guy responsible for the Berkley Audio DAC and in conjunction with Dr. Johnson, the HDCD encoding scheme, so, Grass Valley Group and Pacific Micro-systems in his resume. And, of course, a rather good ear.
The point being that Dave's Fonken resistive port cabinets and EnABL'd full range drivers will give you all that you mention as desirable and his TL expertise will provide the bottom octave with equal success. They really will be the last pair of speakers you buy and your wife will love how they reproduce high frequencies.
Bud
The thing Rene' could not get over was the combinations perfect portrayal of a large band playing jazz, at very loud levels if needed and without any faults available. Rene' is the guy responsible for the Berkley Audio DAC and in conjunction with Dr. Johnson, the HDCD encoding scheme, so, Grass Valley Group and Pacific Micro-systems in his resume. And, of course, a rather good ear.
The point being that Dave's Fonken resistive port cabinets and EnABL'd full range drivers will give you all that you mention as desirable and his TL expertise will provide the bottom octave with equal success. They really will be the last pair of speakers you buy and your wife will love how they reproduce high frequencies.
Bud
At diyFEST the protos were biamped with a simple PLLXO, with these new ones we are working on a passive series XO.
Scott get's credit for the TL design of the helper woofers.
dave
At diyFEST the protos were biamped with a simple PLLXO, with these new ones we are working on a passive series XO.
Scott get's credit for the TL design of the helper woofers.
dave
very interesting how the camera angle can affect the apparent color of the Jatoba caps and base plates - what the photo doesn't show is that there are two separate boxes per side
