Lowest mass 18"s in production -?

[freddi]

A Karlson builder is looking for an improvement over the Eminence Sigma which has ~130g mms. I had a pair of Eminence 18s made in the 1990's with 103g mms and qts=0.25. AA Craaft made an 18" IIRC with 77 grams mms. The game for his 18" K-coupler is to try to get the lowest moving mass together with a strong motor. Peavey offers 122g mms but their published spec of qes is near 0.5 (too high) plus it may be worse than that in reality. Without going to a custom build, is there anything which will beat the Sigma in regards to lower mass and good motor for this application?

[weltersys]

Originally Posted by freddi

A Karlson builder is looking for an improvement over the Eminence Sigma which has ~130g mms. I had a pair of Eminence 18s made in the 1990's with 103g mms and qts=0.25. AA Craaft made an 18" IIRC with 77 grams mms. The game for his 18" K-coupler is to try to get the lowest moving mass together with a strong motor. Peavey offers 122g mms but their published spec of qes is near 0.5 (too high) plus it may be worse than that in reality. Without going to a custom build, is there anything which will beat the Sigma in regards to lower mass and good motor for this application?

EV DL18X has a QTS of .34, total moving mass .069 kg.

The EVM-18B Series II has a QTS of .36, probably similar total moving mass.
The original EV 18-B was probably lighter in the voice coil department.

The 18-B is a pretty "poppy" 18.

[freddi]

thanks Art! - I love to have one in good shape for myself for an 18" K-coupler laying around. DL18X must be rare. There's some really beat 18B (II?) on Ebay right now.

[weltersys]

Originally Posted by freddi

thanks Art! - I love to have one in good shape for myself for an 18" K-coupler laying around. DL18X must be rare. There's some really beat 18B (II?) on Ebay right now.

Freddi,

I remembered another unusually light 18" used in a TOA 480SC, a three way speaker with a 1" exit mid horn and a small tweeter. The cone seemed to be quite compliant, (soft)but I have no TS parameters or even the cone model number.
Looks like the acoustic crossover is around 800 Hz, pretty high for an 18.
The speaker sounds pretty good, if you could get the horn up to ear level, not so easy with a 100 lb all in one cab.
Did a fair amount of listening to it at a friend's house, and was surprised to find it was an 18", I had never seen a commercial 18" cross to a small 1" horn before.

Art

[bentoronto]

It is an odd and disquieting thing that some speaker systems (like resonant BR) seem to "optimize" on drivers which don't seem right in other respects. Like having excessive mass to their cones or not the strongest motors possible.

I think the Karlson (and OB) do not have these aberrant inclination. Sure liked mine.... back in 1956.

Ben

[freddi]

I've got an empty 18" coupler which to try an EV - Art - do you know if MacKenzie's recone assemblies including the voicecoil are accurate reproductions?

[weltersys]

Originally Posted by freddi

I've got an empty 18" coupler which to try an EV - Art - do you know if MacKenzie's recone assemblies including the voicecoil are accurate reproductions?

No experience with MacKenzie.

My only experience with non-OEM recones were JBLs using Waldom parts, not only were they 3dB less sensitive, they sounded like crap.

With the high cost of recones, I'd just look for a decent old EV18-B, there were tons made.
Check Minneapolis St.Paul Craigslist, just between me and my brother, we had 30 or 40.
Bill Batson, a reconer at Metro Sound & Lighting in St.Paul might know where to find one.

By the way, I have a pair of 8" Jensen Wizzer cones in Karlsons that you really should have, I'd trade for some raw woofers if you are interested.

Art

[freddi]

I've no mobility to even trade stuff and when giving away an item and haaving no printer, UPS goofed up things. The driver I'm looking at uses a MWA parts recone - the seller is supposed to provide a WT3 report - will that conform the potential crappiness?

[weltersys]

Originally Posted by freddi

I've no mobility to even trade stuff and when giving away an item and haaving no printer, UPS goofed up things. The driver I'm looking at uses a MWA parts recone - the seller is supposed to provide a WT3 report - will that conform the potential crappiness?

I don't know what a WT3 report is.
The only way I know to tell if a driver is "good" is to do an A/B test with a known good one, hard enough to do with new stuff, much harder with decades old drivers.

[freddi]

WT3 is Dayton's version of a "woofer tester" to automatically gather parameters from a quick Z-sweep. Old drivers = yeah - I'll probably take a chance with an old 18B