Pushing it as a budget driver and I don't know about availability in Europe but the Eminence Lab12 is $35 more than the SB34NRX75 and has an F3 of 22Hz in 78L vented and sealed 46Hz (35L). It has impressive low distortion under 100Hz.
The FaitalPRO 12FE300 can hit 48Hz in 70L vented, lists for $137 at PE. The other Faitals run $300+.
The FaitalPRO 12FE300 can hit 48Hz in 70L vented, lists for $137 at PE. The other Faitals run $300+.
Lab12 is a pure subwoofer, while in a monkey box you need it go higher. That lab12 is not very usable above 150Hz.
12FE330 has Fs=34 hz ; near the SLS 12.
The SLS12 has 5 hz better low end at F3 but 89/2.83v at 100 hz. The 12FE330 will have 1 db more efficienty. Sealed it measures better than the Beyma 12BR70.
cabinet volumr are near between the SLS & FAital 12FE330. but the Faital has no demodulation ring... I talk sealed,
SB3NRX75-6 is more 88 dB than 90 dB /2.83V, that how why he goes much lower (Fs around 20 hz). Having a good Xmax and being clean, said people, up to 200/250 hz, I wonder if peared with a proper mid that has room too in Xmax and power handling, then if the low final efficienty of the design 84/85 dB after bafle step could be not of big importance if the volume pot can be turn easily because that Xmax ? 13 mm ! SLS/12FE330, only around 8 to 9 mm...
@hifijim knows how to make it works in 70L with a little help because of the reduced volume : Linkwitz Transform.
If sealed a good candidate too.
F3 around 45 Hz is feasible with such drivers (a little less with the Faital (it has the higher sensivity... all is corelated)
I wonder as well if a glued magnet could help for winning a little sensivity or if it plays only on some others parameters like BL ? @Kwesi had good experience with some drivers. CHeap to do, all the drivers are not suited for that...
The SLS12 has 5 hz better low end at F3 but 89/2.83v at 100 hz. The 12FE330 will have 1 db more efficienty. Sealed it measures better than the Beyma 12BR70.
cabinet volumr are near between the SLS & FAital 12FE330. but the Faital has no demodulation ring... I talk sealed,
SB3NRX75-6 is more 88 dB than 90 dB /2.83V, that how why he goes much lower (Fs around 20 hz). Having a good Xmax and being clean, said people, up to 200/250 hz, I wonder if peared with a proper mid that has room too in Xmax and power handling, then if the low final efficienty of the design 84/85 dB after bafle step could be not of big importance if the volume pot can be turn easily because that Xmax ? 13 mm ! SLS/12FE330, only around 8 to 9 mm...
@hifijim knows how to make it works in 70L with a little help because of the reduced volume : Linkwitz Transform.
If sealed a good candidate too.
F3 around 45 Hz is feasible with such drivers (a little less with the Faital (it has the higher sensivity... all is corelated)
I wonder as well if a glued magnet could help for winning a little sensivity or if it plays only on some others parameters like BL ? @Kwesi had good experience with some drivers. CHeap to do, all the drivers are not suited for that...
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For me in Canada, there's little doubt the SB34NRX75-6 is the smart buy. It is a bit pricier than ideal but fits the role well in a sealed box and it's available, unlike so many other drivers mentioned here.
Buying from PE was never easy but it's really tough these days with high shipping costs & tariff uncertainty, so if I can't buy in country, I simply will not. EU sources have never been viable so... I have noticed some Chinese vendors offering mostly big pro drivers at low prices -- and incomplete or questionable specs -- on AliExpress, but these seem high risk.
I have these Peerless SLS 10s, and they will go into lesser 3-ways, perhaps with the same mid & tweeter & passive crossover we develop here. With whatever adjustments needed for the woofer/mid transition.
Buying from PE was never easy but it's really tough these days with high shipping costs & tariff uncertainty, so if I can't buy in country, I simply will not. EU sources have never been viable so... I have noticed some Chinese vendors offering mostly big pro drivers at low prices -- and incomplete or questionable specs -- on AliExpress, but these seem high risk.
I have these Peerless SLS 10s, and they will go into lesser 3-ways, perhaps with the same mid & tweeter & passive crossover we develop here. With whatever adjustments needed for the woofer/mid transition.
The Tarkus 10" single box 3 Way classic will surely be good enough. easy to choose better mid and tweeter.
Sica LP110 ? Cheap, wave guided, however WG works less good on bigger front baffle planned here than in a slim cab. But feasible, the OSMC project has one.
Also withh 4 SLS-10, two ripole small cab woofer will goes very low with articulate bass, but less eficienty. Good up to 100 hz. Then a littlier 2way Monkey Coffin can be made Harberth style witrh a 8" that clims well+ a horned tweeter, or a 6.5".
Emminence Beta-8A (@Pano ?)
https://harbeth.co.uk/c7es-3-xd-loudspeaker-2/
Sica LP110 ? Cheap, wave guided, however WG works less good on bigger front baffle planned here than in a slim cab. But feasible, the OSMC project has one.
Also withh 4 SLS-10, two ripole small cab woofer will goes very low with articulate bass, but less eficienty. Good up to 100 hz. Then a littlier 2way Monkey Coffin can be made Harberth style witrh a 8" that clims well+ a horned tweeter, or a 6.5".
Emminence Beta-8A (@Pano ?)
https://harbeth.co.uk/c7es-3-xd-loudspeaker-2/
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If I use the SBA12 woofer, I'd probably make it an all SBA affair: SB15NBAC mid and SB26ADC tweeter with Augerpro WG & Patrick Bateman meta-back chamber. Already have the tweeter & the 3D printed mods.
Hi, of course one cannot remove the suspension and make it still work the same, the surround has to seal and hold the assembly correctly positioned in the gap along with the spider, at least with current technology.
The suspension is very active participant how the driver works at the main resonance, it is part of spring that interacts with the mass, and any non-linearity would change the relationship and low losses likely benefit here. At least low losses should improve efficiency.
However, on frequencies above main resonance force from the driver motor goes mostly into accelerating the mass and effect of spring to acoustic output is reduced in relation, which is why driver is said to be "mass controlled" above the resonance.
All the spring is still there attached to the cone and contributes to moving mass and Sd for example, but it also breaks out into it's own resonant modes and is part of how cone resonances play out. At least surround has role on how cone and the surround itself resonates, and is damped. Not sure about how much of a deal spider has, it likely also has it's own resonant modes.
For this reason I think one could actually want a lossy surround (and spider) to dampen these resonances, in some cases. I do not know whether this damping always necessitates low Qms and would it always mean (more) non-linear spring. Klippel shows non-linearity of spring as non-linear stiffness Kms(x), and not non-linear lossiness which would be Qms(x), don't know why. It's reasonable surround has effect on output, but I think mostly due to it's resonances and damping effects more than affecting how force in motor translates to acoustic output like it does around driver main resonance.
Perhaps cone can be such there is no need for the surround to help dampen it's resonances, and perhaps the topology of the spring could be so the resonances aren't that meaningful regardless of whether it's damping or not. All I know is there is always compromise on things, and I just assume having low loss (high Qms) surround would help on some aspects, while be less good on another, which is why I questioned whether high Qms is always good or is it context relevant like anything else in loudspeakers.
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Now that’s rhetorical! In all pondering about mass-spring suspension systems, don’t forget the transducer part, like I said before. There’s actually an air load on that cone behaving pretty predictable and influencing Q, or R, if you like. And Qes and its nonlinear problems likely are far more important than ultra high Qms values.
If efficiency and low price are a constraint the Bianco-12MW200 seems interesting. We can find it at 83eu at LEAN.
Of course, we compromise low end ...
SPL Comparison with 12fe330
Of course, we compromise low end ...
SPL Comparison with 12fe330
Hi @markbakk, yeah that's why I'm questioning value of high Qms , even if it was good for one application it might not be for another. I'm not proponent of high Qms, or high or low anything, just that everything needs to be evaluated against a context. My posts are replies basically to quote below, about whether mechanical losses are non-linear, and for what bandwidth they might be worse than motor non-linearities and whether it's always good to have them low or whether sometimes you'd actually want some mechanical losses. Not to drive my agenda or anything, just for the sake of discussion.
You are still missing my point. I am not talking about linear processes. My point is about non-linearity of mechanical loss processes. Please read my previous posts again. I will stop here.
Hi mbrennwa,
sorry, rereading your posts I realized you are talking about losses specifically, and not the dominant non-linear processes I'm used to just by looking at Klippel data like Kms(x) or Bl(x). Losses are something I've never paid closer attention to as a process so I overlooked and misunderstood your posts.
Quick look on losses and I found one Klippel paper that mentions hysteresis in suspension, which I understood just that after stretching the restoring process is not linear due to losses within the material.
Another Klippel paper I found is specifically for non-linear losses: Nonlinear losses in electro-acoustical transducers
The paper shows mechanical losses is main source for distortion for micro drivers but not an issue for drivers we typically use in hifi speakers, as seen in the conclusion. Micro drivers would be those in headphones or in mobile phones. This is likely the reason I've never noticed these losses earlier. Any more papers on this subject?
sorry, rereading your posts I realized you are talking about losses specifically, and not the dominant non-linear processes I'm used to just by looking at Klippel data like Kms(x) or Bl(x). Losses are something I've never paid closer attention to as a process so I overlooked and misunderstood your posts.
Quick look on losses and I found one Klippel paper that mentions hysteresis in suspension, which I understood just that after stretching the restoring process is not linear due to losses within the material.
Another Klippel paper I found is specifically for non-linear losses: Nonlinear losses in electro-acoustical transducers
The paper shows mechanical losses is main source for distortion for micro drivers but not an issue for drivers we typically use in hifi speakers, as seen in the conclusion. Micro drivers would be those in headphones or in mobile phones. This is likely the reason I've never noticed these losses earlier. Any more papers on this subject?
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I don’t want to deny the first statement, but the second is arguable. In our transducers Res is dominant, often by a factor 10 or more. So any nonlinearity in Rms, occurring mostly in the resonant frequency domain (big cone excursions and/or higher power), will have to be quite considerable in order to get noticed. Big cone excursions cause considerable nonlinear behavior of Res too, which likely is of more concern than the behavior of Rms. At higher frequencies and therefore lower cone excursions, like I wrote earlier, acoustic impedance becomes dominant (and much larger than any Rms). And no, acoustic impedance isn’t linear either.
The interesting stuff of course being how to interpret these things with music programme. But I’d say a very low Rms value would be the lesser of my demands. The impact of Rms nonlinearities simply doesn’t seem that big to me.
Can you tell us which driver, box size, and F3/F6 are associated with the red and green lines?
The SB15NAC is an excellent driver but the problem perhaps here according the targett, its sensivity is way too low in the midrange bandwidth (around 85 dB from 500/600 Hz). Above the middle baffle step point, you still have the bigger baffle step loss to deal with, perhaps up to 6 dB sometimes more according the width of the front baffle and where is the driver on it. So in reality you will end to a 80 dB loudspeaker efficienty with limited headroom (100 dB Max ?). Add 3 dB if I'm rigth because you have two speakers. So more a casual design. But what is the average listening level of most ? 75 dB, but that's at the seating position, you have to remove the dB loss of the 3 to 4 meters distance from the loudspeakers . Add the break ups to deal with in the filter (more parts), you have to add it to its cost.
There are many good mid-woof with higher efficienty, maybe with less resolution, indeed !
If you take the Beta 8-A from Eminence, it has on the datasheet 97 dB efficienty, so headrrom for the baffle step, and people don't esitate to cross over it as a 6.5". Perhaps a Dayton tweeter in a small wave guide can help, but you have to remember the center to center distance between the mid and teeter must be < 1/4 Wl of the crossover point (not feasible) or around 1.2 WL (kimossoto, Vituix). Advantage with a 6.5 or a 8" (but very few goes high enough for a tweeter) is you can also choose easilt a bass driver cause it has not to climb much higher than 100 to 200 hz if the midwoof can handle the db loss of the baffle step... Trade offs as always.
There are many good mid-woof with higher efficienty, maybe with less resolution, indeed !
If you take the Beta 8-A from Eminence, it has on the datasheet 97 dB efficienty, so headrrom for the baffle step, and people don't esitate to cross over it as a 6.5". Perhaps a Dayton tweeter in a small wave guide can help, but you have to remember the center to center distance between the mid and teeter must be < 1/4 Wl of the crossover point (not feasible) or around 1.2 WL (kimossoto, Vituix). Advantage with a 6.5 or a 8" (but very few goes high enough for a tweeter) is you can also choose easilt a bass driver cause it has not to climb much higher than 100 to 200 hz if the midwoof can handle the db loss of the baffle step... Trade offs as always.
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I agree.
It seems we may have a hard time finding the good performance bargain budget 12" woofer that is a good option in every region. In the USA, the Dayton drivers offer excellent value. Any discussion about a budget speaker that excludes Dayton drivers from consideration does not make sense for people in the USA.
Hard problem...
Not so hard, it seems an American thread here.
What was the sensivity at 2.83V around 100 hz you measured Jim in you bass box with it, please ?
I'm more and more thinking the SLS 12 is the logical choice, but the SB withh a little less sensivity (-2 dB ?) should sound better. And SLS not avialable before May.
What was the sensivity at 2.83V around 100 hz you measured Jim in you bass box with it, please ?
I'm more and more thinking the SLS 12 is the logical choice, but the SB withh a little less sensivity (-2 dB ?) should sound better. And SLS not avialable before May.
You have them on the picture but is same box 70L tuned at 45.
Green is bianco 12mw200. 45/38
Red is 12fe330 44/38. (But with the hump)
