I agree.
A 2” speaker driver from a cheap PC loudspeaker will indeed expose any nasty mid/high freq distortion products from the electronics when driven at low levels.
I think that this is what Frank says, not that with such a loudspeaker one can evaluate the preceeding electronics chain for all it’s qualities across the full freq bandwidth and at high SPLs.
There are many aspects of whizzer action spread across books, articles and sites, google for whizzer cones
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/full-range/195018-how-does-whizzer-cone-work-tips-whizzerectomy.html
I have played with more than ten cheap 4”-6” full range units with whizzer cone and I have applied all and any of the whizzer mods
Progressively trimming, oval trim, asymmetric trim, fuzzy trim, silicone edge damping, foam strip edge damping, polyurethane bead edge damping, no whizzer.
Best sounding for me is no whizzer (especially with phase plug).
The issues with whizzer cones appear at mid to high frequencies.
I experimented also with two 12” Alnico Phillips. Same conclusions (no whizzer with a separate paper cone tweeter coaxially placed, sounded much better)
George
Yes, pretty well - useless for below 200Hz evaluation, and beyond 12, 13 or so kHz. However, that covers about 95% of the musical content. Surprisingly, the driver can absorb relatively high levels without misbehaving - enough to create a sense of intensity in the sound, and easily reach throughout the whole house.
John, that's a fairly bold statement, You have no idea how some speaker you've never even seen works in a system you have never heard. Especially if it uses drivers you are not familiar with.
Kindhornman, I don't like knocking items on their own, but in case of Focal's inverted dome beryllium dome, I agree. They sound shrill to me, and not only in Focal's speakers, but in other speakers from other sources as well. Just a little obnoxious to me.
On comments of Frank's posts, I think he was misunderstood a bit. I believe he claims that even inexpensive speaker can show up differences in driving electronics, but I do not recall him ever caliming that inexpensive speakers are equal to High End speakers. I have heard a few such speakers, but even so, they are not something I'd like to keep for good, even in the very rare occasions I use my PC as a signal source over to my preamp of the day. Obviously, even if such speakers really can show up differences, that cannot be as detailed and as precise as a high quality speaker using quality drivers. It is silly to expect a say €10 tweeter from God knows where to be the same as a high quality driver costing ten times the price.
Kindhornman, I don't like knocking items on their own, but in case of Focal's inverted dome beryllium dome, I agree. They sound shrill to me, and not only in Focal's speakers, but in other speakers from other sources as well. Just a little obnoxious to me.
On comments of Frank's posts, I think he was misunderstood a bit. I believe he claims that even inexpensive speaker can show up differences in driving electronics, but I do not recall him ever caliming that inexpensive speakers are equal to High End speakers. I have heard a few such speakers, but even so, they are not something I'd like to keep for good, even in the very rare occasions I use my PC as a signal source over to my preamp of the day. Obviously, even if such speakers really can show up differences, that cannot be as detailed and as precise as a high quality speaker using quality drivers. It is silly to expect a say €10 tweeter from God knows where to be the same as a high quality driver costing ten times the price.
Kindhornman, don't be worried about how your old speakers would sound to you today, still good, believe me. Now, with accumulated experience, you would surely find some shortcomings here and there, but given te time diffrence, not really important.
Some years ago, I bought a Marantz 170 DC power amp and a 3265A preamp. I bought them solely on my own impression from the late 70ies, as obviously talking about acoustic memories 30 years later is just plain stupid. Verbalized impressions, yes, but that's all. Anyway, I took them home, sat down and replaced those old caps with same type new products. The only nonstandard thing I did was to replace those old Elna caps rated at 12.000 uF/56V with BC Components 22,000 uF/63V.
They ended up sounding not as good as I "remember" them, but way better. And I mean WAY better. Of course, then I had AR5 speakers, and today I own my 1041 monitors. Then I had a reVox A78 integrated amp, and today I have my choice of amplification from H/K, Karan Audio, Philips and Marantz (other models). I can play loud music all day and not get tired or bothered.
Trust your views from way back then, not completely, but don't discard them too easily.
Some years ago, I bought a Marantz 170 DC power amp and a 3265A preamp. I bought them solely on my own impression from the late 70ies, as obviously talking about acoustic memories 30 years later is just plain stupid. Verbalized impressions, yes, but that's all. Anyway, I took them home, sat down and replaced those old caps with same type new products. The only nonstandard thing I did was to replace those old Elna caps rated at 12.000 uF/56V with BC Components 22,000 uF/63V.
They ended up sounding not as good as I "remember" them, but way better. And I mean WAY better. Of course, then I had AR5 speakers, and today I own my 1041 monitors. Then I had a reVox A78 integrated amp, and today I have my choice of amplification from H/K, Karan Audio, Philips and Marantz (other models). I can play loud music all day and not get tired or bothered.
Trust your views from way back then, not completely, but don't discard them too easily.
Some follow-up on the new Meridian MQA audio format:
Hans Beekhuyzen has a nice visual explanation of the concept around 3 min - 7 min in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxFafCO9khE&feature=youtu.be
Jan
Hans Beekhuyzen has a nice visual explanation of the concept around 3 min - 7 min in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxFafCO9khE&feature=youtu.be
Jan
Probably the biggest problems for inexpensive drivers is that they have to be driven hard, to "wake them up". The suspensions are nothing special, and need heavy conditioning to "loosen" them up - otherwise, they sound quite bland and lacking in detail; an hour or so of aggressive running is required, to show of their best.
I would expect highly expensive drivers to reach close to optimum within 5 minutes or so; if they couldn't then they wouldn't be deserving of any sort of "high end" labelling.
I would expect highly expensive drivers to reach close to optimum within 5 minutes or so; if they couldn't then they wouldn't be deserving of any sort of "high end" labelling.
You are basically "listening" to your power supply. That's why the big Paradigm's
owner said my Slewmaster blew his Parasound away , twice the capacitance -
slightly bigger amp.
The old Marantz can most likely dump more amperage before the rails sag
(with twice the capacitance).
The common marketing term is "instantaneous current capability" - most often
proportional to the capacitor bank size.
OS
Ostripper,
The effect of the new big caps is twofold. The obvious thing is that they were new, the old Elnas when taken out were measured at 7.000/7.200 uF only, which is about one half of their nominal value, so sticking in even direct replacements would have produced beneficial effects. Then there's the fact that the ones I used provide a +83.3% greater capacitance as well as being new, which provides for better line regulation. Together, they enble me to use the amp at rather high levels with no sound breakup, no tonal shifts, the same as low power but more of it. Almost begs to be played even louder.
Briefly, that old Marantz was the pinnacle of their production history, that ws the last generation "Designed in U.S.A., manufactured in Japan". That was the last series donw that way, and was made 1978-1980. Mine were made on March 24, 1978 according to factory stamps inside. They were the first load tolerant amps I had ever come across until then. Unfortunately, the nxt series was different altogether and was turned into typical Japanese consumer products after that. The new owner, Philips, chose not to do much about it but decided to pitch Marantz as a digital audio leader some years later, in form of some really good CD players. But even that lasted only about 10 or 12 years, or until they split the portfolio into two distinct classes, audio for the masses and higher level audio.
As you say, the industry buzzword "instantaneous current capability" caught on, and was mostly fired up by H/K, who started the fad first (their Citation XX was billed as being able to provide 200A). I never really learnt what that means, because I soon started seeing that spec being applied for 1 mS only. To me, that's an uselessly short period of time, and I actually think even the IEC spec for 20 mS is too short. But, what if my peaks are repetative? And what if they last longer than the specs demand? And I do think many still use the 1 mS period as reference, how else can I explain a pair of 200W devices being able to deliver 400W peaks into 4 Ohms?
The effect of the new big caps is twofold. The obvious thing is that they were new, the old Elnas when taken out were measured at 7.000/7.200 uF only, which is about one half of their nominal value, so sticking in even direct replacements would have produced beneficial effects. Then there's the fact that the ones I used provide a +83.3% greater capacitance as well as being new, which provides for better line regulation. Together, they enble me to use the amp at rather high levels with no sound breakup, no tonal shifts, the same as low power but more of it. Almost begs to be played even louder.
Briefly, that old Marantz was the pinnacle of their production history, that ws the last generation "Designed in U.S.A., manufactured in Japan". That was the last series donw that way, and was made 1978-1980. Mine were made on March 24, 1978 according to factory stamps inside. They were the first load tolerant amps I had ever come across until then. Unfortunately, the nxt series was different altogether and was turned into typical Japanese consumer products after that. The new owner, Philips, chose not to do much about it but decided to pitch Marantz as a digital audio leader some years later, in form of some really good CD players. But even that lasted only about 10 or 12 years, or until they split the portfolio into two distinct classes, audio for the masses and higher level audio.
As you say, the industry buzzword "instantaneous current capability" caught on, and was mostly fired up by H/K, who started the fad first (their Citation XX was billed as being able to provide 200A). I never really learnt what that means, because I soon started seeing that spec being applied for 1 mS only. To me, that's an uselessly short period of time, and I actually think even the IEC spec for 20 mS is too short. But, what if my peaks are repetative? And what if they last longer than the specs demand? And I do think many still use the 1 mS period as reference, how else can I explain a pair of 200W devices being able to deliver 400W peaks into 4 Ohms?
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Ah hah - the old "hiding it in the noise that normal players won't resolve" trick ...
Dual concentric caps were all the rage in Japan at some point. Everybody used them, Mitsubishi, Pioneer, Fisher, etc. Personally, I hate them. As far as I am aware, they are not made any more, or at least I can't see any offered. And good riddance, too.
There's a paradox here. Marantz used discrete 15,000 uF/56V caps in their integrated amp series, as in my 1152 DC, but in their standalone power amp 170 DC they used one dual concentric 12.000 uF/56V cap. Kinda strange, I think, obviously for economic reasons. In my case, both have 22,000 uF/63V caps now, and for the better.
Those were very modular designs, so the premp is in fact eactly the same as the preamp in the integrated amp (only a single FET MC pre-preamp is added), same board, same markings. The power amp boards are also very similar, only different input dual FETs are used, and the bigger 300 DC amp is EXACTLY the same as mine, but instead of my 85WPC/8 Ohms it delivers 150WPC/8 Ohms and has (obivously) higher voltage supply lines. The output devices (TO-3, 2 pairs per side) are also of the same family, only higher voltage devices were used in the 300 DC.
Mass production.
There's a paradox here. Marantz used discrete 15,000 uF/56V caps in their integrated amp series, as in my 1152 DC, but in their standalone power amp 170 DC they used one dual concentric 12.000 uF/56V cap. Kinda strange, I think, obviously for economic reasons. In my case, both have 22,000 uF/63V caps now, and for the better.
Those were very modular designs, so the premp is in fact eactly the same as the preamp in the integrated amp (only a single FET MC pre-preamp is added), same board, same markings. The power amp boards are also very similar, only different input dual FETs are used, and the bigger 300 DC amp is EXACTLY the same as mine, but instead of my 85WPC/8 Ohms it delivers 150WPC/8 Ohms and has (obivously) higher voltage supply lines. The output devices (TO-3, 2 pairs per side) are also of the same family, only higher voltage devices were used in the 300 DC.
Mass production.
It was very long time ago when I used Lowther and SET. I had decided that they were not for me. But I think there could be a reason why the whizzer is still used by expensive fullrange like Feastrex. At least suitable for certain purpose? It cannot be that everyone is stupid, right?
All those whizzerstuff was basically made to get more highs from a fullrange and lesser directivity.
In the end it introduced more problems than it fixed.
So i think its technology from the past and useless today, since Coax-Solutions seems to work a lot better for my taste. But there are some people which i call believers, they stick on something exotic or esoteric which they do not really understand how or what works.
Here in the BTC Thread its strange anyway.
Some people explain what is true or not, but i am not so sure, if they really listen music on a nice High End System or just want to convince other people from their own meanings, based on measurement or literature.
For sure i can say, preamplifiers are not absolutely neutral, even when their distorsions specs are 0,000x or better. I never had the chance listenening trough a Blowtorch, but i am pretty sure it will be absolute top of the row.
I heard music with other JC based products like Vendetta and other stuff, and they are still on the right side to enjoy the music, even after 20 years.
For sure i also can say, that the sound of electronics is audible trough good speakers, altough the distorsions of almost any speakers are at least two magnitudes higher than those of a mediocre spec. Pre or Amp, and my ears are no more as good as 20 years ago.
Are you serious?
You are not close - I almost have free speakers !!
Found the AV's outside an Albany, NY tavern with one blown tweeter ,
found the missions on garbage night with blown woofers.
PS - AV123 tiny bookshelf speakers (ninja edition - 700$) ..that's NOT
cheap
. Won the "small speaker shootout competition". Cheapis Best buy or walmart..
OS
If I were to pay someone to make the enclosure for those, how much do you think it would cost?
Frank. see this
I guess that this ‘jump phenomenon’ (indication of a very non-linear system) is what should be of worry (so far, I have not experienced it)
If you look at the data in that same old thread, the TS parameters of my Jordan JX92S didn't change during a long period of Fr sinusoidal testing.
They did change appreciably though with test signal amplitude. This change was constant, regardless of burn-in time accumulated.
TS parameters change with signal amplitude seems to be more generic as I confirmed it from measuring 10 different drivers from various manufacturers.
George
From those Klipsch articles, conventional suspension is VERY nonlinear. Fs increases with signal amplitude, because the spring constant of the suspension decreases with displacement. It was fun to model this in the simulator. Maybe it is a big mistake to put the suspension 90 degrees to the direction of travel. Then you get a pythagorean component in the spring curve.
The driver is a JBL 2426J. Supposed to be 16 Ohms, but compensated for flat impedance up to 40KHz in 6 Ohms. Before this, a filter to flatten the response curve witch was a little ascending, in order to make-it slowly descending.
I have re-found one measuring sheet, done during the design of my little enclosures (crossed at 1500Hz) before to apply curve correction between 6 and 15KHz:
Pretty cool, ins't it ?
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