Ian, I bought it from a town centre branch in Sheffield, in the craft section. It was indeed Zig brand 2-Way Glue, exactly as Bud uses.
Simon
Simon
Hi all, I have tried three w h smith shops, but no joy with the zig glue. I have looked online and there are quite a few variations.
Would someone kindly post the exact model and knib type please.
Thanks in advance
Ian
Would someone kindly post the exact model and knib type please.
Thanks in advance
Ian
Cheers Simon,
I have ordered a pen from Amazon.
EnABL kit arrived too, cant wait to get glueing next week!
All the best
Ian
I have ordered a pen from Amazon.
EnABL kit arrived too, cant wait to get glueing next week!
All the best
Ian
Been reading on enabled drivers and it feels a bit like Alice falling into the rabbit hole. One thing leads to yet another deeper intriguing discussions. After reading many dozen pages on various threads, I realize that there's no way I can possibly read them all.....🙂
Have a couple of questions if that's not too much for this thread, having not read through the whole thread.
1. For those who have heard enabled and non-enabled drivers (has to be the same drivers), is there general consensus that the is an audible difference? (Not 100% but general - meaning majority of people.)
2. And of those who hear a difference, is there consensus that the difference is an improvement? Or is there a sizeable group that thinks the change is negative?
3. Finally (I guess this is beyond a 'couple' queries....sorry....🙂) is there a sense whether this works better for smaller or larger speakers? I'm looking at 4" full range drivers which are pretty small.
And I'm not even asking about enabled patterns on cabinets and ports.....now THAT is a mind bender that these patterns on a pretty rigid cabinet can make a difference. I barely can handle the concept of changes on drivers which makes sense as they are thin and light...🙂
Thanks,
UL
Have a couple of questions if that's not too much for this thread, having not read through the whole thread.
1. For those who have heard enabled and non-enabled drivers (has to be the same drivers), is there general consensus that the is an audible difference? (Not 100% but general - meaning majority of people.)
2. And of those who hear a difference, is there consensus that the difference is an improvement? Or is there a sizeable group that thinks the change is negative?
3. Finally (I guess this is beyond a 'couple' queries....sorry....🙂) is there a sense whether this works better for smaller or larger speakers? I'm looking at 4" full range drivers which are pretty small.
And I'm not even asking about enabled patterns on cabinets and ports.....now THAT is a mind bender that these patterns on a pretty rigid cabinet can make a difference. I barely can handle the concept of changes on drivers which makes sense as they are thin and light...🙂
Thanks,
UL
1. Why bother if there is no difference? I did my older JBL pro drivers - documented in this thread - and the improvements are not subtle.
2. See 1. Naturally there is opinion concerning what 'improvement' really means. When I began to sense what is possible, it bent my opinion of what was really desirable. But people who have not heard my system 'before' the mods remark with a bit of awe that they've never experienced anything like it.
3. I used various mods on 1" dome tweeters as well as 15" woofers. Each individual driver has it's own defects to address - and each treatment depends on the driver. There is not much that is 'generic'...
I suggest you take your time and read this thread. Learn everything you can before deciding if you would enjoy messing with drivers. If you want a bit of a case study, you can look for my posts from last winter and read how Bud mentored my very successful project. You will see that an upgrade to my DAC sent me back to the drawing board on the midrange driver mods - plus as my skill in critical listening improved i found more qualities to tweak. I thought I was done tweaking multiple times... 😉
Everybody here has been very nice and helpful, and most will suggest that you start with some 'non critical' drivers.
Cheers,
Frank
Hi UL,
I had an opportunity to test your first question just a week or so ago.
The Pacific Northwest Audio Society asked me to provide a discussion and demonstration of EnABL vs clean drivers. I used treated drivers and untreated drivers provided by Planet 10 HiFi out of Victoria BC. Same full Fonken size enclosures, stacked on a pair of EnABL'd TL sub woofers, also from Planet 10.
Only the above 80 Hz drivers were switched, all cabling was type 2 Litz wire in cotton sheath's, without shielding of any sort, both speaker and interconnect. The drivers are Fostex 127eN and Fostex 127 original, so same size as yours and from the same production batch. Both sets are fully run in.
I deliberately did not run a double blind test and even asked where they wanted the sound from first, untreated was the consensus. I did give some preparation, resonance movies that show that the direct pressure application is anything but uniform, as it applies to material that is adjacent to the vibrating membrane and a couple of blink comparisons, The movies are available here;
YouTube - resonance
YouTube - resonance2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bAmjRK9wBA
YouTube - resonance3
and the blink comparisons here:
Enable Tests
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/119677-enabl-technical-discussion-88.html#post2350234
The only telling pics are from the wavelet analysis and they are as conclusive as you can get, so at least look at them and ask questions.
I also mentioned that they were really not going to hear something that they had ever heard before and to expect some time before they recognized what was going on. After the first song, from Patricia Barbers SACD Modern Cool almost no one looked even remotely convinced. Some looked embarrassed for me, some looked confused and only two were smiling. After the third song, with me just getting up and casually switching the sound in everyone's view I stopped and asked if there were question? None. Then we played some orchestral music from the club. At the end of the first piece the questions began. Not a single person commented that they could not hear a marked difference, some were very excited some looked a little apprehensive, as if they feared that the next piece of music would up end what they were learning to hear and a couple were pretty obviously struggling to remain neutral. I mentioned that the treated drivers don't have a sweet spot and don't excite room nodes to the extent that the untreated drivers and that they should get up and walk around to discover this. All but three people did so.
Violin was the next event. At the end of this section everyone was excited and talking, either to me or to their own groups. I asked if there was any further need and one individual got up to point out that the cabinets were made from different materials and perhaps this was the reason for the difference. Baltic birch and bamboo. The 127's don't provide enough energy to make either material ring but I didn't argue with the gentleman. Others took some time to get up and listen to more Patty Barber, with it's strong bass and seemed not to be concerned that this had anything to do with the difference.
Uniformly, over the evening, the comments centered around the treated drivers no longer sounding like speakers playing music. Instead they just sounded like music, without any added artifacts.
Don't know that any of this proves anything, except that around 30 people suffered from the same hallucination, or, they actually heard a difference they approved of quite a bit.
None of these words will help with your doubts, but perhaps, if you want to try it out for your self, you will be encouraged to do so.
Bud
I had an opportunity to test your first question just a week or so ago.
The Pacific Northwest Audio Society asked me to provide a discussion and demonstration of EnABL vs clean drivers. I used treated drivers and untreated drivers provided by Planet 10 HiFi out of Victoria BC. Same full Fonken size enclosures, stacked on a pair of EnABL'd TL sub woofers, also from Planet 10.
Only the above 80 Hz drivers were switched, all cabling was type 2 Litz wire in cotton sheath's, without shielding of any sort, both speaker and interconnect. The drivers are Fostex 127eN and Fostex 127 original, so same size as yours and from the same production batch. Both sets are fully run in.
I deliberately did not run a double blind test and even asked where they wanted the sound from first, untreated was the consensus. I did give some preparation, resonance movies that show that the direct pressure application is anything but uniform, as it applies to material that is adjacent to the vibrating membrane and a couple of blink comparisons, The movies are available here;
YouTube - resonance
YouTube - resonance2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bAmjRK9wBA
YouTube - resonance3
and the blink comparisons here:
Enable Tests
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/119677-enabl-technical-discussion-88.html#post2350234
The only telling pics are from the wavelet analysis and they are as conclusive as you can get, so at least look at them and ask questions.
I also mentioned that they were really not going to hear something that they had ever heard before and to expect some time before they recognized what was going on. After the first song, from Patricia Barbers SACD Modern Cool almost no one looked even remotely convinced. Some looked embarrassed for me, some looked confused and only two were smiling. After the third song, with me just getting up and casually switching the sound in everyone's view I stopped and asked if there were question? None. Then we played some orchestral music from the club. At the end of the first piece the questions began. Not a single person commented that they could not hear a marked difference, some were very excited some looked a little apprehensive, as if they feared that the next piece of music would up end what they were learning to hear and a couple were pretty obviously struggling to remain neutral. I mentioned that the treated drivers don't have a sweet spot and don't excite room nodes to the extent that the untreated drivers and that they should get up and walk around to discover this. All but three people did so.
Violin was the next event. At the end of this section everyone was excited and talking, either to me or to their own groups. I asked if there was any further need and one individual got up to point out that the cabinets were made from different materials and perhaps this was the reason for the difference. Baltic birch and bamboo. The 127's don't provide enough energy to make either material ring but I didn't argue with the gentleman. Others took some time to get up and listen to more Patty Barber, with it's strong bass and seemed not to be concerned that this had anything to do with the difference.
Uniformly, over the evening, the comments centered around the treated drivers no longer sounding like speakers playing music. Instead they just sounded like music, without any added artifacts.
Don't know that any of this proves anything, except that around 30 people suffered from the same hallucination, or, they actually heard a difference they approved of quite a bit.
None of these words will help with your doubts, but perhaps, if you want to try it out for your self, you will be encouraged to do so.
Bud
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At our audio club meeting last week, Bud demonstrated the enAble treatment, as well as showing Videos from a British lab that showed the wave forms on the surface due to frequency. Bud also had two pairs of Fonken speakers, with treated and untreated cones, which he switched back and forth from time to time while the music was playing. Of the nearly 30 people attending I believe only one person said he couldn't hear a difference. As most of the people there had never even heard of the enAble treatment, there was a "lot" of sceptics, by the end of the presentation there weren't (except the one person) that remained sceptical.
Not only did they hear the difference, but everyone agreed it sounded better.
Bud was using 4 inch drivers at the demonstration. The treatment will work on any surface. BTW: I attended a meeting earlier this week where a GeoTech Engineer just back from surveying the damage from the earthquake in Japan talked about many of the same wave patterns in the shock waves that Bud had mentioned the night before.
See #3 above.
Best Regards,
TerryO
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Interesting. I'd like to know more about this as I'm a geotechnical engineer with a fairly strong background in seismic ground response. I'll watch those videos.
I've only read as much as the first couple of pages in this thread, but I do intend to learn more about it.
francolargo, BudP, TerroO - Huge thanks for the quick response.
BudP, in particular, Thank you for your time. I'm sure you have typed what you just typed in other threads. Thanks for redescribing that event. I am not a skeptic at all. (The most skeptical thing in audio I've read about was Franck Tchang's little resonators. Having a physics background, I though that must have been an April fool's post but subsequent readings have convinced me that they make a difference if I could afford them! Gold and Platinum.)
Anyways, not skeptical. Just wondering if I should go for it in my first DIY system - hence my questions. Its been a great journey recently finding this forum.
TerryO, thanks for confirming your observation.
Again, grateful for all the help.
Thanks,
UL
ps: Incidentally BudP, you are the person with the patent right ? Given this impact, surely some high end driver manufacturers may be interested in licensing this from you? Yes, yes, I'm sure that traditions die hard. I wonder if anyone tried this with really high $$$ drivers. Or even drivers in the thousands. The cost of labor is the same for a $10 driver as a $1000 driver so it seems that high priced drivers can merit this type of treatment from the factory.
BudP, in particular, Thank you for your time. I'm sure you have typed what you just typed in other threads. Thanks for redescribing that event. I am not a skeptic at all. (The most skeptical thing in audio I've read about was Franck Tchang's little resonators. Having a physics background, I though that must have been an April fool's post but subsequent readings have convinced me that they make a difference if I could afford them! Gold and Platinum.)
Anyways, not skeptical. Just wondering if I should go for it in my first DIY system - hence my questions. Its been a great journey recently finding this forum.
TerryO, thanks for confirming your observation.
Again, grateful for all the help.
Thanks,
UL
ps: Incidentally BudP, you are the person with the patent right ? Given this impact, surely some high end driver manufacturers may be interested in licensing this from you? Yes, yes, I'm sure that traditions die hard. I wonder if anyone tried this with really high $$$ drivers. Or even drivers in the thousands. The cost of labor is the same for a $10 driver as a $1000 driver so it seems that high priced drivers can merit this type of treatment from the factory.
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So UL and others,
The main thing to know here is that EnABL does not affect the cone by mass loading it. It does not provide damping of any kind. It just disperses those specific points on the cone surface where non minimum phase energy arises and steers the rest of the energy coming off of the cone. That energy is not damped either, just the steering, loop back and resonant node activity that arises at those specific places is interrupted, disallowed to arise as it normally would. That energy is still transferred, but it is only as a component of all other energy being transferred by direct pressure.
The end product is true flat wave emission. Phase coherent if you care to take it that far, from top to mid to bottom. Another 40 to 50 db down is added below the typical -40 db down from signal level, in coherent clear information. No hot spots in the room. Extremely wide dispersion. The addition of around four thousandths of a gram of extra mass. And, a very sweet and musically correct reproduction that leads you to learn about how good modern day electronics are and how correct an illusion of performance space can be provided, by just a pair of inexpensive speakers.
More expensive, treated speakers, just provide a bit more information due to their superior materials and physical construction, but with a lot more physical impact, as you would expect from the quantity of air moved.
Bud
The main thing to know here is that EnABL does not affect the cone by mass loading it. It does not provide damping of any kind. It just disperses those specific points on the cone surface where non minimum phase energy arises and steers the rest of the energy coming off of the cone. That energy is not damped either, just the steering, loop back and resonant node activity that arises at those specific places is interrupted, disallowed to arise as it normally would. That energy is still transferred, but it is only as a component of all other energy being transferred by direct pressure.
The end product is true flat wave emission. Phase coherent if you care to take it that far, from top to mid to bottom. Another 40 to 50 db down is added below the typical -40 db down from signal level, in coherent clear information. No hot spots in the room. Extremely wide dispersion. The addition of around four thousandths of a gram of extra mass. And, a very sweet and musically correct reproduction that leads you to learn about how good modern day electronics are and how correct an illusion of performance space can be provided, by just a pair of inexpensive speakers.
More expensive, treated speakers, just provide a bit more information due to their superior materials and physical construction, but with a lot more physical impact, as you would expect from the quantity of air moved.
Bud
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BudP, I was editing my previous post as you were posting yours. I note that you should be able to market this effectively as it becomes more widely accepted. Good stuff.
You mentioned much wider dispersion. I had stayed with 4" drivers because I'm listening nearfield at about 4 feet distance. With the wider dispersion, does this mean that larger drivers (say 6") would work well? Or am I not understanding this correctly? wider drivers have more 'weight' which is a positive but they are more 'beamy'.
Thanks,
UL
You mentioned much wider dispersion. I had stayed with 4" drivers because I'm listening nearfield at about 4 feet distance. With the wider dispersion, does this mean that larger drivers (say 6") would work well? Or am I not understanding this correctly? wider drivers have more 'weight' which is a positive but they are more 'beamy'.
Thanks,
UL
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First post in this thread for me. I was at the club demo last week and I wasn't a skeptic, even before the first track. Bud had what I think were the same pairs of speakers last year at the club's DIY speaker event. I heard the same sort of phenomena then. The treated speakers disappeared and the sound changed quite dramatically, at least I thought so. Much more 3D, but at first it seemed like it also sounded sort of flat in a dynamic or transient sense (hard to describe). As I listened, I decided that the transients actually sounded more precise and crisp, but didn't jump out from the overall music as much. I had a similar sense when I changed my tube amp from RC to transformer coupling at the interstage point.
I've ordered my pen and paint set from Ed and am anxiously waiting for it's arrival.
Best and good luck,
John
I've ordered my pen and paint set from Ed and am anxiously waiting for it's arrival.
Best and good luck,
John
UL
Untreated drivers do have those problems. EnABL'd drivers do not, regardless of their size. Minimum dispersion angle is described by the final angle of the cone surface. Most dome speakers exhibit a 180 degree dispersion across their effective bandwidth. There is no on center hot spot and the sound maintains the response found on center throughout the included angle of the driver. You can sit outside of the pair of drivers and still hear the illusion of activity between, behind and beyond the speakers. You can get up and walk around the room or down the hall and still have the full frequency response available.
John,
thanks for your comments. Your experience is actually base line for folks being exposed to this process on speakers. The comment on transients is spot on, they remain buried within the web of illusion and tied directly to their source and it's perceived location. This initially sounds thick and unimpressive, until the level of information begins to overwhelm.
Do plan to bring you learning devices by when you have them. I will contrive to get my nephew out to visit for the same session, if possible. He is hot to get instruction too.
Bud
Untreated drivers do have those problems. EnABL'd drivers do not, regardless of their size. Minimum dispersion angle is described by the final angle of the cone surface. Most dome speakers exhibit a 180 degree dispersion across their effective bandwidth. There is no on center hot spot and the sound maintains the response found on center throughout the included angle of the driver. You can sit outside of the pair of drivers and still hear the illusion of activity between, behind and beyond the speakers. You can get up and walk around the room or down the hall and still have the full frequency response available.
John,
thanks for your comments. Your experience is actually base line for folks being exposed to this process on speakers. The comment on transients is spot on, they remain buried within the web of illusion and tied directly to their source and it's perceived location. This initially sounds thick and unimpressive, until the level of information begins to overwhelm.
Do plan to bring you learning devices by when you have them. I will contrive to get my nephew out to visit for the same session, if possible. He is hot to get instruction too.
Bud
There's a reason why drivers of various geometries are used to produce different frequency ranges. You alluded to this and are correct, the directionality of a driver is primarily a function of the physical dimensions with only minor changes made due diaphragm materials. Treating a diaphragm will change it's response to one degree or another, but the laws of physics of a direct radiator having to do with frequency wavelengths as they relate to the diameter of the radiator, and to other types of transducers in their particular ways as well, cannot be altered. A large dynamic driver cannot in any manner be made to have either fully uniform radiation, as in omni-directional response, nor completely directional response, as in a horn, which has its own problems when examined across an arc and which has its limits as well. No such drivers exist.
Consider the typical full-range driver. It has a "whizzer cone", does it not? Why do you think it is there? It's the same issue, frequency reproduction being dependent on driver diameter in its most simplistic analysis. Were that not the case, no driver would have a whizzer cone, it would be superfluous.
Since you asked and seem interested, I suggest reading the next link as a simple start:
Driver directionality
Note specifically the first line of the section "Basic theory".
Then read some (or all if you have a lot of time) of this original thread, from which this one was separated, starting at:
First discussion thread
And finally, since you seem interested in the technical aspect:
Enabl Technical discussion.
As Bud does when the technical thread has posts on it about applications and directs the reader here, these will direct you to the other part of the debate. That is, if you're interested in the technical discussions.
Dave
No longer the case. The Fostex F200A and the entire line of Mark Audio drivers have extended frequency response and far wider dispersion than might be expected from their conventional design appearance and lack of whizzer cones. I applaud this, I think whizzer cones are not a good solution.
As for the the impossibility of large drivers having wide dispersion, citing omnidirectional dispersion as a case in point is misleading. Full frequency response across the included angle of a cone drivers final surfaces is attainable with EnABL treated drivers. Perfect frequency response across this wide an angle is not.
However, when combined with the lack of beaming as the frequency rises, less noise from transverse wave induced reflection emissions and the increase in intelligibility arising from this less confused emission, the illusion of wide dispersion is considerably enhanced.
All of our two channel audio experience is an attempt to create the illusion of a recreated space, within which sounds are created by palpable objects that have specific characteristics that make their shapes unique and recognizable. The information required for this illusion is typically of a low amplitude when compared with the various other signal levels. The entire audiophile hobby is aimed at expressing as much of this illusory information as possible. It seems quite likely to me that many of the peripheral "improvements" found in audio are aimed at this particular effect. Certainly all of my efforts lie in this direction. I am not certain that this sort of activity is going to coincide with the much more normal deconstructionist approach to investigation, on a regular basis.
Until migeO brought wavelet analysis to impulse measurement on EnABL'd drivers, I had despaired of finding an objective tool that might allow us to look into the requirements for "better" illusions that EnABL'd drivers most certainly do provide. The V 2.0 techniques that experimenters have been working with, since soongsc pointed us towards them, have shown just how much "better" these illusions can be. SY has privately pointed the way to V 3.0 and I intend to examine his suggestions. Now, if we can just get that wavelet tool into general circulation....
Bud
Not a bad curve!! Do those sound dull like other full range drivers, thin like the Fostexes or something else??