R.i.p 55-1740

[jbell]

Originally Posted by danielm

Jim, I may still have some laying around. PM me an address and I'll send you a couple to play with.

thanks for the offer daniel...

I'd spent time designing, building, and giving away pa systems to church's that need them, and with the 55-2421 and 55-1740, I had a good combo that didn't cost me much...

Now I'm back at the drawing board....

[BP1Fanatic]

Ya know, I would like to do the same for my church.

[danielm]

Originally Posted by jbell

thanks for the offer daniel...

I'd spent time designing, building, and giving away pa systems to church's that need them, and with the 55-2421 and 55-1740, I had a good combo that didn't cost me much...

Now I'm back at the drawing board....

Let me know and they're headed your way.

[jbell]

Thank you daniel for the very generous offer, however I don't know if that's the route I want to go or not, I'm still thinking. I have been looking on paper for another driver that is suitable.

Even though I much prefer 10's to 12's. I've been looking/modeling this of late:

Parts-Express.com:*Eminence Beta-12A-II 12" Driver | beta-12a keyboard speaker bass guitar speaker stage monitor speaker pa woofer

It seems to plug in well, with minimal mods to my existing designs...

thoughts on this, or other driver suggestions?

[danielm]

Originally Posted by jbell

Thank you daniel for the very generous offer, however I don't know if that's the route I want to go or not, I'm still thinking. I have been looking on paper for another driver that is suitable.

Even though I much prefer 10's to 12's. I've been looking/modeling this of late:

Parts-Express.com:*Eminence Beta-12A-II 12" Driver | beta-12a keyboard speaker bass guitar speaker stage monitor speaker pa woofer

It seems to plug in well, with minimal mods to my existing designs...

thoughts on this, or other driver suggestions?

Jim, I have some beta 10s and 12s here. The 12 has a very nice sounding midrange but really lacks xmax. I always found it odd the 12 had more mid range than the beta 10.

That cheap WH10 is a very nice sounding driver. It lacks the low mid 'grunt' compared to the Beta 10. Due to a weak motor I guess but, it has a nice extended midrange. I threw four of them in some 42" tall columns with some piezos and used them for budget stage side fills. They would easily keep up with a Peavey SP2.

Don't laugh but my first line array used sixteen of these a side. It was a non-profit outdoor gig and I needed big sound on a budget. We paid around $10 a driver and had the wood donated. For less than $200 per side I was amazed. I had plenty-o-sound 200 feet FOH with a bridged RMX 2450/side. We only had a couple of days to prepare so we built them in boxes of four drivers per column. Stacked and ratchet strapped four boxes two high, two wide. There was some combing from the two horizontal boxes that could have been solved with a bit of filtering. It bugged me but no one else noticed it.
Thats how I ended up with so many of these. In the end, the boxes were stored in a shed at my ranch where dogs decided to chase a mouse that was seeking shelter into the vent on one box. They distroyed several drivers and chewed one box up pretty good trying to catch it. I ended up cutting them up and making some small wedges out of the survivors and kept two columns for patio pool side beaters/side fill.

[jbell]

42" columns... yep, been there. I'm waffling between cheap-o and good drivers... unfortunately the now extinct 55-1740 was the middle ground.. better than the worst of the worst, but cheaper than the best of the best....

yea the beta 12 models better midrange than the beta10. The beta 12 also has 4.4mm xmax, similar to the 55-1740. Figuring the beta12 is 3db hotter than the 55-1740, and can take 3db more power, in theory, it can replace a pair of 55-1740's... but then smaller box, fewer drivers = less line array.

hmm... what to do...

[danielm]

Originally Posted by jbell

42" columns... yep, been there. I'm waffling between cheap-o and good drivers... unfortunately the now extinct 55-1740 was the middle ground.. better than the worst of the worst, but cheaper than the best of the best....

yea the beta 12 models better midrange than the beta10. The beta 12 also has 4.4mm xmax, similar to the 55-1740. Figuring the beta12 is 3db hotter than the 55-1740, and can take 3db more power, in theory, it can replace a pair of 55-1740's... but then smaller box, fewer drivers = less line array.

hmm... what to do...

The older Beta 12 had no where near 4.4mm xmax. I suspect they have changed it up a bit. That price listed is a bit much for the Beta12 in my opinion. I think I've paid less for Deltas but its been a while. For a little bit more you can get a very nice "APX" 12" driver from Mark at Audiopile.

APX1206

The twelves will require a bit lower xover than the 10" divers if you array them due to the larger CTC spacing. Now you need beefier HF drivers...

Any idea who made the 55-1740s?

[danielm]

Here's Gary Ford's impression of the APX-1206 posted on another forum a few years ago.


We have done some testing with Mark’s APX driver and I must say it is very impressive at the price point.

For testing we used a QSC RMX 1850HD in bridged mono mode (1200 watts @ 8 ohms)

The tests we ran were in a compact LA box loaded with a single 12, dual 6.5 and dual 1” The bandwidth for the APX 12” is from 40Hz to 500Hz in our app. We didn’t do any full bandwidth testing on the APX… however the Audiopile driver performed very well for our limited bandwidth app.

We did a few response tests with the box and ran some music at decent level for a time to here how the box was coming together as far as tonality goes. The sound from the low band in our box was warm and full with plenty of low mid punch. (very strong in the 100Hz – 250Hz range) and the response was acceptably flat within our intended bandwidth.

The other test was the put the pedal to the metal test… Again the APX performed admirably and did not show any signs of distress at full power for 20 minuets or so with some pretty rippen R&R (Disturbed was the test CD as I recall)

Honestly the APX driver surprised the crap out of me in its ability to handle the 1200 watts the QSC was dishing out. I would have expected the driver to fly apart in the first 30 seconds of abuse. The APX took it like a champ! In fact it kind of pissed my off a little in that we have many of the finest drivers on the world laying around here and the APX seemed to compare well to some of the higher end stuff in my shop (RCF, Eighteen Sound, JBL etc) for a lot less money.

To compare the APX to the Delta line would not be fair to Eminence… The APX blows it away for about the same money.

If you plan to do a shootout you had better head a ways up the food chain in the Eminence line to find a worthy competitor for the APX… perhaps the Magnum line would be a better apples to apples shootout.

One other aspect of the APX is that the level of customer service you get from Audiopile is simply without compare.
__________________
- G.R. Ford

Published specs

Fs: 52

Qts: 0.32

Qms: 4.5

Qes: 0.34

Vas: 2.2 cubic feet

Eff: 2.5

Pe: 600

Xmax: 0.3 inches

VD: 25 cubic inches

Re: 5.3 ohms

Le: 1.5

SD: 84.9 square inches

Dia: 10.4 inches

Bl: 18.1

Mmx: 65

Flux: 1.2T

Volume displaced by driver: 0.2 cubic feet

I'd be interested if this would be a TH candidate.

[jbell]

thank you daniel... now that's interesting. I love my ewi cases, but never thought about the 1206 driver....
hmm... gears turning...

A top that can go below 100hz.... go figure.

[Brian Steele]

Looks like a clone of the JBL 2206. If it works as well as the JBL for $80...