Good points!
Funny, I never thought of that in that way, when I obviously should have.
I second the motion that a quality paper cone will outsound literally everything else. I have yet to hear another material which can give it serious run for its money (I mean in any production volume, not some wildly expensive High End stuff), although just the other day I did hear a speaker with aluminium bass/mid cones (Canton, Germany, an old favorite of mine) which was really good, although a touch cold.
D , the amps you list will not drive an ESL , with the right amp bass is not an issue with quads, believe me ...
@Brad ,
accuton® Carefully selected loudspeaker drivers. | Drivers
Diamonds are for heeeevar ...
With all respect Wayne, but damn any loudspeaker which requires a special, almost one-off, amp to come alive. Such oddities have always been around, and it's easy to agree that loudspeakers always vary wildly in their drive requirements, but this is a buit too much for me.
BTW, just FYI, that Citation 24 drives the notorious Apogees without breaking any serious sweat. And my own AR 94 speakers tend to sweat many a commercial amp offering, such as my own Sansui AU-X 701, which doesn't like the ARs at all, while all H/K amps drive them no problemo even at unholy SPLs.
So, go on, make my day, tell me I need a Quad amp to drive Quad speakers and not much else, if anything, will do.
Kevlar, ceramic, fiberglass, fiberglass mixed with pulp, poly, blah , blah , yes tried them all and still found treated paper best In the midrange . Unfortunalty keeping up with current zeitgeist will require usage of current "boutique" material if one wants to be taken seriously...
Treated Paper is well ......
Some paper is almost as high tech as any wonder material . Chaos helps and the fact the fibres are relaxed . No high Q peaks . Royd ( you won't know them ) had 20 fibres in the mix , one was nylon . Paper is the advanced form of carbon fibre . Carbon fibre was the careful research after a fire at a nylon plant . Like my story of A bombs and Jesus alas I was never there to give you my witness . Sounds weird enough to be true .
Kevlar in the paper ? Great . Buckminsterfullerene ?
Paper IS the wonder advanced fiber compoite. OK, so it is 6000 years old. Don't mess with suscess. Right now, the best mid woofer ( Seas Reed paper) and best sub ( Peerless XLS) I have been able to afford are celelous fiber composites. I was a soft dome fan until the last pair of Seas aluminum domes I used. I guess I just had not used any good enough before.
Howerer, if I were to make the last few steps in Seas or ScanSpeak, most of them are soft domes. Hmmmm. I bet the execution matters more than the material.
I have no problem with a speaker requiring a special amplifier, but it would need to be part of the package. It does give the designers of both much more freedom to ply theor trade. The marketing problem is sticker shock.
Howerer, if I were to make the last few steps in Seas or ScanSpeak, most of them are soft domes. Hmmmm. I bet the execution matters more than the material.
I have no problem with a speaker requiring a special amplifier, but it would need to be part of the package. It does give the designers of both much more freedom to ply theor trade. The marketing problem is sticker shock.
You know it is the girl next door thing . Her name was Heather and she could fight as good as any boy . One day she put on some makeup and did we get a shock . I went through life realizing no girl was more beautiful ( TV neither ) . How come we never saw it until it was too late and she was married .
I am reminded of one of my favorite American sayings - don't fix it if it ain't broke.
Paper has proved its worth in loudspeaker cones many times over the last 50 years or so. I understand and cheer on attempts to provide a still better material, but as far as I am aware, it hasn't been discovered yet. In time, it will be.
Funny thing is the smaller the better for tweeters very often ! Real small better still .
When I get a bit of time my baffle speaker project will start up again . My old boss will give me a hand . I'm helping to do a show tomorrow . That will confuse people . Just written his new price list so almost like I am still there working for him . He said to me if any good could he make them ? It would be right up his street . 15 inch paper bass , 12 inch paper mid and I suspect a ribbon top . If I get the mid to 6 kHz I will be pleased . The plan is to sound as good as my Magneplanars . A daft idea but worthy of trying . That is like asking a piston engine to compete with a jet . The elegance of the Maggie's is that of a jet . They are remarkable in not over stressing bad material as being bad . In fact it is hard then to think it is a baffle design when listening to what I call fish and chips recordings ( English fast food if you didn't know , rather good actually and started in the Jewish part of East London ) . What sounds like box distortion is the source . The Quads are not so obliging . Films are fish and chips especially if an optical sound track . Ipcress file and Alfie two of note ( same actor also ) . CD is far better, film is more involving sometimes despite the weird colouration . One needs Maggie's not to find the coluouration the feature more than the music . Other weird Maggie trait is to hear microphone pops on 78's . Thinking about it they must be there . You hear them as clear as any source .
The Maggie's should have hopeless treble , hence me saying who needs tweeters . In fact it is good and better than the Quads in terms of sparkle and reality ( Quads are not all that accurate , treble exists Quad , worse is Quad chose not to have it , it is transformer loss ) . My M's do not have the ribbon top .
When I get a bit of time my baffle speaker project will start up again . My old boss will give me a hand . I'm helping to do a show tomorrow . That will confuse people . Just written his new price list so almost like I am still there working for him . He said to me if any good could he make them ? It would be right up his street . 15 inch paper bass , 12 inch paper mid and I suspect a ribbon top . If I get the mid to 6 kHz I will be pleased . The plan is to sound as good as my Magneplanars . A daft idea but worthy of trying . That is like asking a piston engine to compete with a jet . The elegance of the Maggie's is that of a jet . They are remarkable in not over stressing bad material as being bad . In fact it is hard then to think it is a baffle design when listening to what I call fish and chips recordings ( English fast food if you didn't know , rather good actually and started in the Jewish part of East London ) . What sounds like box distortion is the source . The Quads are not so obliging . Films are fish and chips especially if an optical sound track . Ipcress file and Alfie two of note ( same actor also ) . CD is far better, film is more involving sometimes despite the weird colouration . One needs Maggie's not to find the coluouration the feature more than the music . Other weird Maggie trait is to hear microphone pops on 78's . Thinking about it they must be there . You hear them as clear as any source .
The Maggie's should have hopeless treble , hence me saying who needs tweeters . In fact it is good and better than the Quads in terms of sparkle and reality ( Quads are not all that accurate , treble exists Quad , worse is Quad chose not to have it , it is transformer loss ) . My M's do not have the ribbon top .
If memory serves, AR agree with you, Nige. At some point way back, they reduced the size of their tweeter from the standard 25 mm down to 19 mm. Why not - they typically crossed over from one to another driver at 500 Hz and 5 kHz, which is not so commonly high. By 5 kHz, a 19 mm dome makes a hell of a lot of sense.
Like the Maggie's or worse . I hate Wizzer cones . I have been told to reserve judgement . It isn't a problem if I find I need to do more . Couldn't find a polar diagram . As they are used for vocals I guess they can not be worse than the Maggie's . The idea of these is a clone than can party and if Pano is right give me nearly an extra octave . That octave comes at the expense of throwing power into them . The mid can use my 8 watt SE valve amp .
One guy who wrote on this said no cone works as a piston so listen first . Cotton wool in less than 1g quantities to tame the mid peak that eminence engineer in . Better that way as it is deal with the real problem . The wizzer works by flexing . The bass unit has a mid distance ridge on many . This helps the motion that can not be a piston to work better . A mini roll-surround halfway up the cone ( 500 Hz and above I was told ) .
One good thing about this is I am comparing one of the least coloured speaker with something that can not be other than colured . If will be interesting to see if the prejudices gained from box speaker have been due to lack of real knowledge .
http://www.eminence.com/pdf/Beta_12LTA.pdf
One guy who wrote on this said no cone works as a piston so listen first . Cotton wool in less than 1g quantities to tame the mid peak that eminence engineer in . Better that way as it is deal with the real problem . The wizzer works by flexing . The bass unit has a mid distance ridge on many . This helps the motion that can not be a piston to work better . A mini roll-surround halfway up the cone ( 500 Hz and above I was told ) .
One good thing about this is I am comparing one of the least coloured speaker with something that can not be other than colured . If will be interesting to see if the prejudices gained from box speaker have been due to lack of real knowledge .
http://www.eminence.com/pdf/Beta_12LTA.pdf
I think all speaker discussions should include . Kellogg , Altec , AR , Quad . And AKG . The 4001 G super tweeter was an AKG microphone of 1959 . Looking at the better cheap headphones they might work . The larger Sennheissers . I bet the HD 414 ( See Abba ) would make OK microphones and good tweeters . Sennheisser , which idiot dropped the 414 's . No pension for that guy I would say .
the whizzer works by allowing the bass/mid cone to decouple (flex) at HF and thus improve the efficiency (less mass to move) of the driver at these higher frequencies.
The higher efficiency equates to an extension of the HF compared to no whizzer.
It's got to be that , the books said differently in the past . They guy who was explaining the bass ridge was saying the same. It takes years to stop being a snob and thinking to give it a try .
Mr Wayne Richard Allen's people fixed a speaker for me a few years back . It was another make !
I never had a whizzer driver.
But my first DIY speakers were Richard Allen Pavane.
I quite liked them.
I was very surprised when I bought Tannoy Berkley to find that the Pavane was slightly more sensitive.
The Tannoy were capable of going a lot louder, little did I know that the Arden was the better model to copy for best bass performance out of that 15" driver.
But my first DIY speakers were Richard Allen Pavane.
I quite liked them.
I was very surprised when I bought Tannoy Berkley to find that the Pavane was slightly more sensitive.
The Tannoy were capable of going a lot louder, little did I know that the Arden was the better model to copy for best bass performance out of that 15" driver.
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Dvv,
Yea, but that requires a three way with a decent midrange. We seem to be short of mids that can stay smooth to 5K. When I find one I can afford, I would like to try the Hiquephon tweeter. Soft dome and quite a reasonable price. They don't look great on paper, but I gather owners really love them. But, ya' got to have that high crossover point! Even the XT25 is a really good tweeter if you cross at 5K.
My cheapskate attempt at a higher crossover point first order crossover on the xt25 was not very successful. It is going to get at least a second order and a notch on the woofer.
I would like to add to Andrew's quite correct description: Whizzers are a bad band-aid for trying to force a cheap driver to do things it won't. On a good day. The amount of breakup and responce issues they cause would take a book to document. A $2 tweeter works better. My experience. Your millage may vary.
Yea, but that requires a three way with a decent midrange. We seem to be short of mids that can stay smooth to 5K. When I find one I can afford, I would like to try the Hiquephon tweeter. Soft dome and quite a reasonable price. They don't look great on paper, but I gather owners really love them. But, ya' got to have that high crossover point! Even the XT25 is a really good tweeter if you cross at 5K.
My cheapskate attempt at a higher crossover point first order crossover on the xt25 was not very successful. It is going to get at least a second order and a notch on the woofer.
I would like to add to Andrew's quite correct description: Whizzers are a bad band-aid for trying to force a cheap driver to do things it won't. On a good day. The amount of breakup and responce issues they cause would take a book to document. A $2 tweeter works better. My experience. Your millage may vary.
The advice I was given is live with the Wizzer for a while . No problem as all it then requires is to crossover early to the Ribbon which says it can do 4.5 kHz. Some say remove the dust cap . Others call it an intermodulation dome so I am not so sure . The experimenters fit a phase plug ( Naim used them years ago ) . There seems to be no maths offered so I think they make them look nice as the priority . I can sort of see what they are saying . Exponential shape and looking like other peoples .
Here's a thing . Take the best speaker you know of . Listen to the tweeter on it's own . Vaguely it tells you something . Next something OK ( JBL control 1's for example ) . If your conclusion is like mine you will say how does this nasty noise make a speaker sound better ? Now redo with just bass mid . Often it is as hopeless , sometimes not . When one of the greats a quality like excellent AM radio or 78's is heard . A minute or so in and the treble gets invented in the mind . If ever a speaker called out for a ribbon .
This might tell us plenty about distortion . The bad noises will be in the tweeter region , often the tweeter itself . The smallest things matter , the oh so low 7 th harmonic . I dare say the evolution of musical instruments was slow when the higher notes were sort .
On a practical note . Does anyone know of good electronic switching . I don't mind a few J FET's if that's best . I want something better than a cheap switch ( the one that can be used to activate the J FET's ) . Seems to me it is a bad idea . What I hope to do is switch both ground and signal . I have found a nice 2 x 2 x 6 rotary switch . I think electronic switching offers no advantages ( just asking anyway ) .
Here's a thing . Take the best speaker you know of . Listen to the tweeter on it's own . Vaguely it tells you something . Next something OK ( JBL control 1's for example ) . If your conclusion is like mine you will say how does this nasty noise make a speaker sound better ? Now redo with just bass mid . Often it is as hopeless , sometimes not . When one of the greats a quality like excellent AM radio or 78's is heard . A minute or so in and the treble gets invented in the mind . If ever a speaker called out for a ribbon .
This might tell us plenty about distortion . The bad noises will be in the tweeter region , often the tweeter itself . The smallest things matter , the oh so low 7 th harmonic . I dare say the evolution of musical instruments was slow when the higher notes were sort .
On a practical note . Does anyone know of good electronic switching . I don't mind a few J FET's if that's best . I want something better than a cheap switch ( the one that can be used to activate the J FET's ) . Seems to me it is a bad idea . What I hope to do is switch both ground and signal . I have found a nice 2 x 2 x 6 rotary switch . I think electronic switching offers no advantages ( just asking anyway ) .
My father built a large speaker with a Philips 600 Ohm wizzer cone driver. Not bad at all for sixties audio, but we have learned a thing or two since then.
Tvrgeek, why do you want to cross over that high? You don't have to just look at the drivers FR face on when determining the xover frequency. Off axis behaviour is just as important. And so if you take this into acount, smallish mid-drivers (4 inch max) crossed over lowish (2k) will get you the best performance.
Tvrgeek, why do you want to cross over that high? You don't have to just look at the drivers FR face on when determining the xover frequency. Off axis behaviour is just as important. And so if you take this into acount, smallish mid-drivers (4 inch max) crossed over lowish (2k) will get you the best performance.
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