Fane 12-250TC or 15-300TC in a large sealed enclosure

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#41
GM said:
The one with the widest BW = 12"

Depends on how big a box you can tolerate for a BLH or other form of TL.

GM
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GM/Greg,
What do you think of the 15" compared to the 12" if one has bass/treble controls, and also the slightly higher qts of the 15" to use in OB or Open Back/ Open Bottom cabinet compared to the 12" etc?

Gotta love the sensitivity of both these drivers, and perhaps with some amount of tweaking here and there they could offer a really nice alternative for a reasonable price, especially for people using low watts etc.

I guess I'm asking which one would you choose if you were wanting any of these drivers? 😀

Dave.
 
#42
Oh, I want the 15" [BIB, yada yada]; Harry Olson's RCA LC-1A speaker spoiled me at age 16, so been waiting nearly 7 decades for something suitable 'enough' and affordable, even sims ~ the same in his circa 1950 reflex that's actually a MLTL that RCA used through its lifespan with only a different driver offset, minor vent changes and what got me started down the path of tower/column alignments, though took me another ~7 yrs to learn the real reason why he shifted the driver down.........so as you can see, my opinion isn't what you'd call rational. 😱

GM

edit: OOPs! I was thinking the Fane FC152F01TC
 
#43
DaveCan said:
What do you think of the 15" compared to the 12" if one has bass/treble controls, and also the slightly higher qts of the 15" to use in OB or Open Back/ Open Bottom cabinet compared to the 12" etc?
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Ignoring my earlier rant, WRT these two, I'm still biased towards the 15" since they have similar enough Fs, Qts, plots and the high Vas of the 15" will in theory track [weak] transients better above the mass corner for the more 'open'/'effortless' sound I grew up with, i.e. large box a must.

GM
 
#44
Thanks GM I was thinking the 15" Fane could be the best choice as well and was considering the 12" just to save a bit of money etc. BTW I never saw any rant just good info! 🙂

Yes a big box is a definite must, those that are under their WAF dictatorship need not apply lol.
I have MJK's 18" Goldwoods in H-Frames, and if I don't end up at some point just getting a set of the Klipsch RP 600M bookshelf speakers to plop on top of them and forget about more diy projects, then I have an idea to go with the Fane.

What I'd like to try and I haven't worked out the math (like I could do that anyhow) is build a cab say approx 36"H x 20"W x 16"D. There would be no bottom to this cab and I'd have legs to keep it up off of the floor, which I would tweak first to find out how high off the floor for my room before making it permanent etc. I'd put the 15" driver on the front baffle near the top and the 18" Goldwood on the back up near the top. Brace the cab with dowels or a few 2"x2" etc and add stuffing to the cavity until things sound good, then put a screen on the bottom to keep any pests out etc. The 18" would be powered as they are now off a plate amp and the 15"s from my stereo amp etc.

So to me this just seems like a sort of OB that tries to provide enough distance from the front and back wave of the driver to work. As long as the 18"s do pretty much what they do now all should sound pretty good as far as the lows go, and I'd leave the 15" unfiltered and running fullrange. I'm kind of intrigued by this idea to keep things simple but there is still lots of room for tweaking first, such as distance off of the floor, stuffing, etc .

Edit: I kind of think of this as an OB approach that's installed in a cabinet instead, while still providing enough distance between the front and rear wave to work hopefully.
 
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#45
One more edit that I didn't make in the time limit for my post:

Edit: I sort of think of this as an OB approach that's installed in a cabinet instead, while still providing enough distance between the front and rear wave to work decently, although I realize that maybe some pipe effects from being in a cabinet will effect the sound, but hopefully for the better compared to just OB, dunno...
 
#47
+1 to that idea (you will have seen some references earlier in this thread)

I ended up with an excess of bracing in my build, and would suggest you don't need to go as overboard as I did !😱
 

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#51
Not ready to start a build thread yet, but yes please remove any posts I made that are not in keeping with the OP's intentions. I kind of just think out loud sometimes, well lots of times actually lol, but never meaning any disrespect.
Sealed for these drivers especially the 15" = just a tad on the larger side. If you're under the authority of WAF then forgetaboutit 🙂
 
#53
Bigun said:
I ended up with an excess of bracing in my build, and would suggest you don't need to go as overboard as I did !😱
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Indeed! It appears to be a high enough ratio for 1/4 WL [1/2 WL if sealed] in which case the horizontal bracing should be acoustically transparent, i.e. just dowels or similar with vertical bracing of boards on edge to tie the dowels to keep it from 'breathing'.

GM
 
#55
DaveCan said:
Thanks GM

What I'd like to try..........

Edit: I kind of think of this as an OB approach that's installed in a cabinet instead, while still providing enough distance between the front and rear wave to work hopefully.
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You're welcome!

FWIW, with one exception, all my early speakers for others were based on a '62 Admiral SS receiver, dual end table stereo system where the speaker bottom was open and only spaced up by 1/4" half round rubber 'snubbers', which regardless of furniture design had a heavy, decorative slate insert that took up most of its top area, so early on I learned of the need for vertical mass loading.

The drivers were a 'full range' 12" [~40-12.5 kHz +/- 5 dB] that when I went to buy some, found that it was basically a super weak [high Qts as I would learn some years later] ceramic motor driver used for decades in field coil form in various AM, shortwave, FM consoles and was available/cheap through MCM as a universal replacement till the mid '90s before finally being lost to us.

It was coupled to a Motorola metal [later plastic] piezo horn with a 2.2 uf cap that I was to find out later that this combo was basically W.E.'s bass reflex patent application and had come down to us in various forms with a 15" mid-bass horn driver as the Lansing/Altec Iconic studio monitor and its consumer variants first as a reflex and later in ducted port alignments.

Lightly stuffed with a rolled up foam pad, it proved very popular with my contemporaries and their families for all pop, orchestra music of the times and to my pleasant surprise did a credible job on my first 'thumping' R&R album, IRON BUTTERFLY's '68' 'IN A GADDA DA VIDA' and loud enough at what I deemed low distortion for an elderly lady living upstairs and [18] apartments away from mine to call the cops. Apparently, 17+ mins. of 'godawful racket' was just too much to endure! She never minded me 'cranking' Sinatra, big band, et al to '9' during lunch hour though............

Anyway, even as short as ~21" i.d. have 1/4 WL resonances, though not low/strong enough to impact reflex tuning, so not really OB even if spaced way up, just really high tuned TLs until stuffed to near aperiodic with fiberglass insulation [polyfil less so] and even then it will be better overall if basically bottom, open back as most consoles were [generally tough to improve on the pioneer's solutions].

In short, have fun, but most likely will wind up [re] learning the old adage of 'those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it'. 🙁 Note too that University introduced a 15" DVC woofer to the back of one premium model console with the left, right channels driving the dual VCs in a derived 3rd channel alignment. For the day it was pretty awesome spaced ~3/4" from a really solid [outside] wall.

GM
 
#57
I did make a back for the box so that I can try with and without. I also added some vents or what are really just plain openings in the back so that I could try it in a more similar fashion to how Audio Nirvana design their boxes . surprisingly I didn’t find a huge difference with or without the back or with / without the vent openings. I thought the bass in particular would be different. Subjectively, this speaker has a bit more air and the bass a little more natural sounding, with the back removed and I think this is the best design option for this particular driver. it isn’t exactly a Boffle, but pretty close. The box weighs a complete ton because it’s double skinned with a constrained layer of silicone glue, the driver is on the inner baffle and so this inner box is therefore isolated from the outside box. Along with all that bracing and it’s probably twice as heavy as it should be. The box is so large with all without bracing you could almost use it as a hi fi equipment rack !
 
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#59
GM said:
Box 'floating' in a box is serious isolation! Was it worth it sonically?

GM
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doubtful, but it sounds good enough that I’ve been unable to find something better.

having said that I haven’t turn my hands are trying to make a horn speaker

that’s something I’ll be interested to try

something along the lines of a modern take on the VOTT, and since I listen in mono I have to build only one
 
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