15" coaxial or horn and 15" driver?

[phase_accurate]

Definitely not obsolete and can be bought at many suppliers, I have used it and with the right crossover like Tony has done does not sound like a typical Horn. These speakers sound really, really good!

I once had the opportunity to hear some Strauss monitors and they use the same horn. I was also expecting "horn-sound" - but no, they sounded neutral and extremely effortless.

Regards

Charles

 

[jtgofish]

Take a look at Tony Gee's Calpamos build

Impressive looking kit but I wonder if a complex crossover like that defeats the purpose of using high sensitivity drivers?There area lot of inductors and resistors in those crossovers which must make them harder to drive.

To me the reason for using these sorts of speakers is that they should match low powered valve amps /SETs.

 

[Wayne1]

Impressive looking kit but I wonder if a complex crossover like that defeats the purpose of using high sensitivity drivers?There area lot of inductors and resistors in those crossovers which must make them harder to drive.

To me the reason for using these sorts of speakers is that they should match low powered valve amps /SETs.

Why do you think the crossover design makes it harder to drive?

It corrects for peaks and valleys of the drivers.

Look at the impedance plots

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

Average is 8 ohm. It never dips below 4 ohms.

It is 93 dB at 2.83 V input

It is NOT designed for SET or tubes.

It is designed to be "neutral" and dynamic. It can and will play VERY loud and also show off all the subtleties of the music.

I have heard these in Tony Gee's listening room and was very impressed with how "natural" they sounded. VERY clean and extended high end. Significantly better, IMHO, than a GedLee Summa. No horn "honkiness"

FWIW Tony uses a ModWright KWI 200 to drive them

 

[SoundRight]

Eh, harder to drive? Why? You may loose some damping due to inductor dcr, but negligible at higher frequencies. Correctly designed zobels and rcl networks will make the driver easier to drive by flattening impedance ensuring a consistent damping factor and accurate filter response. The "number" of components is immaterial...combined with the driver, it's just a circuit.

Having said all that, active and particularly dsp with "easy" minimum phase/time alignment will still probably provide the greatest accuracy of fr and polar response without tilt..and is often cheaper than fancy capacitors and inductors!