Hi have the following drivers on hand with various horns and am comparing over the next few days/weeks for experimentation in 2 and 3 way configurations.
Beyma CP755ND
Beyma TPL200
Beyma CP22
BMS 4552
BMS 4591
Faital HF206
Faital HF1440
Faital HF108
I'm using a pair of 15" woofers with low mms cones in an open baffle configuration -- rated at 101db in proper enclosures. I will soon be able to bi-amp and experiment with different crossover points upon the arrival of some NCore amps which I've ordered.
The passive crossover I'm using at the moment is a 12db/oct two way at 1200hz with fixed attenuation settings.
My very preliminary finding thus far is that the CP755ND is outstanding. In a two way configuration it is more than one could ask for. It has an energy and clarity that I've seldom if ever experienced with loudspeakers, having owned and heard many top of the line offerings -- the most notable being vintage Tannoy Silver 12s, Soundlabs Electrostats, servo driven Acoustats, contemporary coaxial drivers, Apogee ribbons, Linkwitz LX521 etc.
I prefer the point source presentation of a two way horn system with a wide dispersion horn, to panels. In my experience thus far I prefer a wide horn angle compared to a heavily horn loaded presentation. The advantages in my experience are primarily a much more spacious soundstage at normal listening levels in a home size listening environment, and a nicer tonality.
I am curious to test the Radians, Celestions and TADs -- especially if the BMS 4591s in large radial horns with a supplementary tweeter shows promise and are advantageous over the CP755NDs. Contrary to what many claim on forums, I believe there may be an advantage to incorporating a higher crossover point than one might intuit, like 1200hz, if the woofer is suitable to cover more of the mid range.
I chose a 15" Beyma woofer intended for studio monitors with low qts. I like the presentation as is as I'm not a bass junky and prefer a presentation that is more musical versus impactful at the expense of detail in the mids and highs. These woofers measure far better than open baffle specific woofers like AE and the likes, and I figure if the need for more bass strikes I can experiment with equalization upon the arrival of the NCore amps.
In addition, the TPL200 is outstanding. It has a finesse in the upper registers that would probably put it in a class of the top tweeters available today. It lacks the incredible midrange energy and clarity of the CP755ND. Thus it is suitable for small scale studio monitors and hifi speakers though not as massive in presentation as the CP755ND. Both the TPL200 and the CP755ND are very smooth and non objectionable -- which is seldom the case with horns and compression drivers.
Beyma CP755ND
Beyma TPL200
Beyma CP22
BMS 4552
BMS 4591
Faital HF206
Faital HF1440
Faital HF108
I'm using a pair of 15" woofers with low mms cones in an open baffle configuration -- rated at 101db in proper enclosures. I will soon be able to bi-amp and experiment with different crossover points upon the arrival of some NCore amps which I've ordered.
The passive crossover I'm using at the moment is a 12db/oct two way at 1200hz with fixed attenuation settings.
My very preliminary finding thus far is that the CP755ND is outstanding. In a two way configuration it is more than one could ask for. It has an energy and clarity that I've seldom if ever experienced with loudspeakers, having owned and heard many top of the line offerings -- the most notable being vintage Tannoy Silver 12s, Soundlabs Electrostats, servo driven Acoustats, contemporary coaxial drivers, Apogee ribbons, Linkwitz LX521 etc.
I prefer the point source presentation of a two way horn system with a wide dispersion horn, to panels. In my experience thus far I prefer a wide horn angle compared to a heavily horn loaded presentation. The advantages in my experience are primarily a much more spacious soundstage at normal listening levels in a home size listening environment, and a nicer tonality.
I am curious to test the Radians, Celestions and TADs -- especially if the BMS 4591s in large radial horns with a supplementary tweeter shows promise and are advantageous over the CP755NDs. Contrary to what many claim on forums, I believe there may be an advantage to incorporating a higher crossover point than one might intuit, like 1200hz, if the woofer is suitable to cover more of the mid range.
I chose a 15" Beyma woofer intended for studio monitors with low qts. I like the presentation as is as I'm not a bass junky and prefer a presentation that is more musical versus impactful at the expense of detail in the mids and highs. These woofers measure far better than open baffle specific woofers like AE and the likes, and I figure if the need for more bass strikes I can experiment with equalization upon the arrival of the NCore amps.
In addition, the TPL200 is outstanding. It has a finesse in the upper registers that would probably put it in a class of the top tweeters available today. It lacks the incredible midrange energy and clarity of the CP755ND. Thus it is suitable for small scale studio monitors and hifi speakers though not as massive in presentation as the CP755ND. Both the TPL200 and the CP755ND are very smooth and non objectionable -- which is seldom the case with horns and compression drivers.
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That link is great, in some ways, but how they interpreted the results seems a bit odd.
I was personally cheering for the Tymphany, largely because it is cheap and locally available (Australia) - it is one of the few drivers I could pick up without paying for international shipping.
They rated it the best for "temporal" response / lack of resonances. That seems well supported by the plots provided.
...but how they measured and rated distortion is less obviously supported.
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They rated the BMS very highly, and the Tymphany poorly. But when I put the measurements side by side, the BMS has slightly more of whatever the red line is (H2 or THD?), and the same H3.
EDIT: In the preview, I put the images in a table side by side, but they don't display that way. Feel free to fix it if you know how
Has anyone ever blind tested whether -65dB H5 is detectable vs. -70dB ?
I doubt it
The distortion listening test on the klippel site doesn't go beyond -51dB.
I did a test there just now (on cheap headphones).
"You reached an audibility threshold of -45 dB. This value is -23 dB below the mean value of the audibility threshold of all listeners participated in the test. Apparently, you have been very sensitive in detecting signal distortion. You may be a trained listener and have sufficient experience in assessing sound quality, or you are just lucky by getting this good result on accident."
The site mentions that trained listening is an element - and my 3 failures were at progressively lower levels (-33, -45, -48) so that seems right to me - but I can't imagine having the attention span (or gear) to reach -70dB.
I doubt it
The distortion listening test on the klippel site doesn't go beyond -51dB.
I did a test there just now (on cheap headphones).
"You reached an audibility threshold of -45 dB. This value is -23 dB below the mean value of the audibility threshold of all listeners participated in the test. Apparently, you have been very sensitive in detecting signal distortion. You may be a trained listener and have sufficient experience in assessing sound quality, or you are just lucky by getting this good result on accident."
The site mentions that trained listening is an element - and my 3 failures were at progressively lower levels (-33, -45, -48) so that seems right to me - but I can't imagine having the attention span (or gear) to reach -70dB.
Between 1997 and 2004 I have heard various compression-drivers and the best for me in this time are the models from BMS-pro (no metal diaphragm like titanium or beryllium) - go to
https://web.archive.org/web/20031020003839/http://bmspro.com/products/index.html
currently homepage:
https://www.bmsspeakers.com/index.php-170.html?id=compression_drivers
Interesting to know would be, whether there are currently (new) versions without metal diaphragm resp. cone from other companies, which outperform the ones from BMS Speakers clearly for reproduction of voices and acoustical instruments.
A great advantage of metal cones like TITAN is the heat sink function and thus less power compression and much better dynamic behavior.
But a great disadvantage are unwanted and clearly audible resonance (ringring) effects - not critical for music genres like electro pop and hard techno beats, but very critical for acoustical instruments and voices (vocal jazz).
From the vintage types the Electro Voice T350 was my great favorite - but this is rather a super tweeter; check out post #19 under
https://old-fidelity-forum.de/thread-862.html
and
https://manualzz.com/doc/25084856/electro-voice-t350-data-sheet
http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PageIndex=1&postID=958#958
But a disadvantage was to observe:
No absolutely perfect distortion character (i. e. mainly high order instead low order present) anywhere in the amplifier signal pad like in class B output stages as in use in Quad 405 made the sound character very sharp and crispy. Single ended technology in the power stage and short signal pad without usual OP-Amps like NE5534 avoid this effect.
BTW - an currently available alternative to this old and excellent T350 from Electro Voice I want to know.
https://web.archive.org/web/20031020003839/http://bmspro.com/products/index.html
currently homepage:
https://www.bmsspeakers.com/index.php-170.html?id=compression_drivers
Interesting to know would be, whether there are currently (new) versions without metal diaphragm resp. cone from other companies, which outperform the ones from BMS Speakers clearly for reproduction of voices and acoustical instruments.
A great advantage of metal cones like TITAN is the heat sink function and thus less power compression and much better dynamic behavior.
But a great disadvantage are unwanted and clearly audible resonance (ringring) effects - not critical for music genres like electro pop and hard techno beats, but very critical for acoustical instruments and voices (vocal jazz).
From the vintage types the Electro Voice T350 was my great favorite - but this is rather a super tweeter; check out post #19 under
https://old-fidelity-forum.de/thread-862.html
and
https://manualzz.com/doc/25084856/electro-voice-t350-data-sheet
http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PageIndex=1&postID=958#958
But a disadvantage was to observe:
No absolutely perfect distortion character (i. e. mainly high order instead low order present) anywhere in the amplifier signal pad like in class B output stages as in use in Quad 405 made the sound character very sharp and crispy. Single ended technology in the power stage and short signal pad without usual OP-Amps like NE5534 avoid this effect.
BTW - an currently available alternative to this old and excellent T350 from Electro Voice I want to know.
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Thats a good result. Which "track" did you use?Has anyone ever blind tested whether -65dB H5 is detectable vs. -70dB ?
I doubt it
The distortion listening test on the klippel site doesn't go beyond -51dB.
I did a test there just now (on cheap headphones).
"You reached an audibility threshold of -45 dB. This value is -23 dB below the mean value of the audibility threshold of all listeners participated in the test. Apparently, you have been very sensitive in detecting signal distortion. You may be a trained listener and have sufficient experience in assessing sound quality, or you are just lucky by getting this good result on accident."
The site mentions that trained listening is an element - and my 3 failures were at progressively lower levels (-33, -45, -48) so that seems right to me - but I can't imagine having the attention span (or gear) to reach -70dB.
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"It was "Music J Stone" - some "nice" elevator music that I'd never bother with in real life.
Doing the comparison, the main clue was that with distortion, the bass sounded louder / more like "sawtooth" synth bass.
...but I rather like that bass sound. Below about -10dB I could detect the distortion, but was OK with it; it didn't make the track any worse.
Hey there,
I have STH100 horns with cheap BMS 4524 and I am enjoying them in 3 way from 1600hz.
I think I will buy a pair of hf108 non R, unless someone talks me into something else...
Any idea of the size of the beam after 10khz ? Wonder if integrating later the faital super tweeter might be a good idea...
I have STH100 horns with cheap BMS 4524 and I am enjoying them in 3 way from 1600hz.
I think I will buy a pair of hf108 non R, unless someone talks me into something else...
Any idea of the size of the beam after 10khz ? Wonder if integrating later the faital super tweeter might be a good idea...
I have to admit I don't know the difference and I got confused
Anyway i got a mail from faital which says :
"thank you for your interest in visiting our website. My name is Valentina Rossi, and I am part of the Sales and Marketing team of FaitalPRO.
For home use, I would suggest you the HF108R, combined with the STH100 horn. It’s suitable for close-by listening cabinets, in small/medium rooms. Therefore an indoor/hi-fi listening is the correct use."
Anyway i got a mail from faital which says :
"thank you for your interest in visiting our website. My name is Valentina Rossi, and I am part of the Sales and Marketing team of FaitalPRO.
For home use, I would suggest you the HF108R, combined with the STH100 horn. It’s suitable for close-by listening cabinets, in small/medium rooms. Therefore an indoor/hi-fi listening is the correct use."
Yet this one is intriguing
https://en.toutlehautparleur.com/compression-driver-kartesian-cmp35-vpa-8-ohm-1-inch-exit.html
https://en.toutlehautparleur.com/compression-driver-kartesian-cmp35-vpa-8-ohm-1-inch-exit.html
https://audioxpress.com/news/voice-coil-march-2022-focus-on-speaker-enclosures
Latest issue of Voice Coil tests the 18s NSD1095N - anyone read it?
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Latest issue of Voice Coil tests the 18s NSD1095N - anyone read it?
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https://faitalpro.com/en/products/HF_Drivers/product_details/index.php?id=502010193
How about hf109 16 Ohm...
How about hf109 16 Ohm...
The issue for me with AMTs and planars in general is the narrow vertical dispersion. The larger the radiating surface, the worse it gets (also horizontally). Finding a cone driver that will transition properly to a AMT/planar is very difficult. I used to love the combo of a 4 to 5 inch mid and planar, but now I'm more impressed by a good listening window that isn't restricted to just one seat.