I have also some interesting gigantic TOA drivers laying around (with alnico magnets etc) but no HF/UHF extension. Some mods would be nice. Some day when time allows.
With the proper horn and dsp tweaking, you can come close to the TAD performance with the BMS4592nd according to some. I never heard the TAD drivers myself but as a BMS owner I do not feel the need to invest much more money to get the last drop of audio nirvana, and fiddling with the 4592, finding your own recipe to get the most out of them, is fun anyway. But then, if I won the lottery....
While the top models of yesteryear are no doubt very good, as evidenced by the support here, there is also something to be said about engineering and the undoubted progress in materials, manufacturing, and modeling over time. To think that older drivers are better just because they were made in the good old days is a fallacy. They are no doubt top notch but so are today’s drivers if you know what you are looking for and can do the work of properly using them in a design. It is more a case of matching drivers to horns and getting the most out of them.
Looks like a lot more 2nd harmonic in the high frequency section, especially compared to the DCX464. Would such distortion (2-8%, peaking at 13% in the 5khz range) be acceptable performance in pro audio? Waterfall looks good though.
Kind of new to CDs and horns, and looking to learn.
i have a Seos Horn with 1.4inch throat but didn't like the sound with a 18sounds NSD3 and don't like it also with the Faital . my goal is to upgrade the HF108 for the highs but i don't think i will keep the HF1460 for that as the difference in sounds don't justify the cost for me . i have a 1K tratrix horn for the HF108 so to be fair i would have to buy a 1.4 inch tratrix horn too. i'm used to listen my compression drivers alone without horn it tell me fast how ( the Horn is just a passive amplifier).
and a 18sounds Titanium N , a faital Ketone and another one Textreme have a very different sound signature.
and a 18sounds Titanium N , a faital Ketone and another one Textreme have a very different sound signature.
I use the BMS4592nd midrange driver in my three way and it is simply sublime!
So what do you think a horn is, I am curious about your definition. My thoughts are that they are a acoustic transformer with gain 🙂 but I guess that is also open for debate.
Very different might be an exaggeration, but dome/cone materials have their specific signature, even though many/most people don't seem to notice it.
Even if I received TAD TD-4003s for free I would immediately sell them > can't really enjoy beryllium as mentioned before.
But if it has to be beryllium, why not buy a pair of TD-4002s for about $1000-1500 that even includes a removable throat adapter?
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Wow this is an expensive driver. Does this have high H2 as well? (can you point me to tests please)
Thanks!
Acoustic transformer: Yes !
With gain: No !
Gain would imply the feeding of energy. But it actually increases the efficiency of the whole horn/driver setup by achieving a better matching of radiation impedances. As such it does not have a uniform frequency response and the drivers do neither. That means one would have to compare horn/driver combinations and not horns or drivers alone. In order to make a valid comparison they should also be equalised the same way.
I don't even want to start discussing about directivity (it is late here) apart form the fact that combinations with constant directivity horns almost always need to be equalised at their top end. This is not a fault of them - it is physics.
Regards
Charles
You are correct, thank you. For me the raised efficiency translate into higher SPL in respect to a driver without horn, so I translated that into "gain". I also agree that horn and driver should match and that you cannot separate them to review individually. But I understand that measuring drivers might be or is being done with some tube like device with a certain length, forgot the name (doesn't start with a D though).