augerpro said:
There is no data on AE drivers either. For a long time now. The driver is out of production and I which to avoid a run on it on the second hand market. I would like to purchase 2 more samples to check my previous results ;-)
John_E_Janowitz said:
I beg Your pardon. I'm sorry, really. My assumption that You let machine and assemble the parts in a sweatshop must have hurt You. It is all to common that production is outsourced. Even a very special product as AI "Summa" is partly made in Thailand, isn't it? Again, I beg Your pardon, John.
Unfortunately I could not afford Your drivers for the shipping cost to Europe. Neverthless some data on the drivers performance would be highly appreciated, IMD, HD freq.response plots etc.
Thank's for Your correction.
wxa666 said:
These drivers are HAND built in good old USA so thats another plus for Americans to support their own manufacturing facilities
Beside that you are not forced to buy the upgrade....I had no concerns myself over spending an extra $100 on the upgrade considering my project was to outperform speakers that cost $10K, YMMV.
tinitus said:
I thought the OP posted his intent....There are limited options out there.
btw, in a DBT (I Have done it) I can not tell the difference between the TD12S and regular 8" drivers from my Klipsch RB-81s during simplistic level testing....turn it up to 125 dBs then we have a BIG difference
Again its application specific and you are right to say the huge Xmax is probably a waste for you. I want HUGE dynamics and I search last year for the best solution, the TD series was the winner.
btw, the OP posted this
so we should keep on topic of his specific needs and not rip apart John's drivers because they do not suit other needs.
If someone has other drivers that handle 1.3KHz crossovers and also matches the disperation of a WG/CD design Im all ears too.....We only know of 1 choice other under $200 so far.
Well, we know of two but someone is keeping it a secret
doug20 said:
These drivers are HAND built in good old USA so thats another plus for Americans to support their own manufacturing facilities
Beside that you are not forced to buy the upgrade....I had no concerns myself over spending an extra $100 on the upgrade considering my project was to outperform speakers that cost $10K, YMMV.
I feel forced to justify my assumption that specially the second shorting is overprized. My assumption was wrong clearly as John could show.
Many corporations let build their stuff in China/.. etc. The production cost for a common shorting is below a dollar or so. AE does not provide data on the benefit of a secondary shorting. I've the personal experience that shorting with a good design is not really necessary, and so the inventors of the sophisticated "A.I.C." system, 18sound too. I pulled the whole story of a second shorting into question. The question is answered for good - partly. But taking my mistake into consideration, I'm not the one to question it further.
wxa666 said:
Again, no one is arguing with you that they may be overpriced. John is very honest and straight forward in what he does, if someone thinks they are worth it so be it, its ONLY $100 and to me that is losing one hole of golf (its a relative thing).
If you think they are overpriced then do not buy the upgrades. Is there a need to go after John because he does not want to use Chinese manufacturing?? Kudos to him to keep the work in America for once and charge a little extra for it. Im okay with that but I know you are from a different country so you have little concern about them being made in America.
Im also happy yours outperform any speaker of any price but that is meaningless here since you post zero data, zero information.
You want to impress people, post it all
Ha, you deleted that last comment.....why is it such a secret?
wxa666 said:
I don't know if you meant one of our drivers is out of production, or another driver. We can always make any of the past Lambda drivers anytime necessary and also recone any of the old ones if there are ever issues.
There is a lot of data on the drivers by many respected individuals, just not publicly posted. We have been doing multiple drivers for Salk Sound for their new Archos, their HT3, the new HT4 or whatever it will be called. Jeff Bagby stated the TD12H was the lowest distortion driver has has tested in the past 30yrs of working with speakers and that other drivers can't even begin to compare. Mark Seaton uses a custom 12" driver in his Catalyst. Duke uses the TD12 in his Planetarium system. Those in the recording industry are relying on our TD drivers as upgrades to the famed TAD woofers and others of that kind. All of these people have measured and verified data and then made the decision to use the drivers.
No problem. It is very rare that anyone would go through all the effort we do. In this day and age it just isn't heard of.
We had looked into distributors in europe. the problem was that the cost to the end user would go up if we took that route. We can often send 2-4 drivers to many major airports in Europe for only around $145-175 total. At $50-$75 per driver this is much less than the 50% markup any distributor would wish to make to sell the products. Due to the individual hand built nature of the drivers we just can't afford to discount the price 50% so a distributor can sell at the same retail. The only option to keep distributors happy then is to drastically increase our retail prices. That wouldn't make too many end users happy though.
John
John_E_Janowitz said:
John,
I meant an other driver, from Europe that is out of production. It shows very low intermodulation without shorting rings. Better than any other of the many models I have had here with or without one to multiple rings. That shorting is not necessary in every case.
Alas, one guideline lost that a DIYer could use to select a driver by its documentation only. If You would provide some data regarding the benefit of that secondary shorting it would be much easier to decide for or against that monetary effort.
May be I buy some drivers when I'm in US next time. Overweight garanteed as I see.
cheers
doug20 said:
I thought the OP posted his intent....There are limited options out there.
btw, the OP posted this
so we should keep on topic of his specific needs and not rip apart John's drivers because they do not suit other needs.
If someone has other drivers that handle 1.3KHz crossovers and also matches the disperation of a WG/CD design Im all ears too.....We only know of 1 choice other under $200 so far.
Well, we know of two but someone is keeping it a secret
Totally true
First and most, topic aim would be whether Faital would be an alternative option
Well, John claims there are no alternatives at all, if I remember correctly
This is what started focus the debate on AE drivers
Which is a quite fair response, trying to figure out if there could any truth in such claims
I take it we dont have to take his words for it
But to be honest, many of us usually dont like to buy drivers with no response measurements shown, even when we know they are rarely to be trusted completely
But still relevant
Mind you, I have NEVER doubted that AE is an honest hard working company
But it would suit their professionalism much better if they didnt use any oppertunity to mock all other driver makes
I cant help it, but it puts me off, and just enough to make me think twice about buying
So, as a friendly "heads-up" to John, I will say that such strategy doesnt work very well, at least not on me
Sorry to be negative, but Im just being honest about it
But sure, I like the technology, I really do
I only whish they had a driver to suit MY needs better, but Faital may suit me better
I may have to talk with John about a TD15M with lower Fs
To repeat it, TD15M probably would be a very good choise, on the topic
Though I dont know any of them, I still find Faital interesting too
I like the looks of those too, very "smooth" design, and which driver is really perfect anyway
btw, cheap alternative? I could suggest Eminence BETA-8
Ahh, ok, I didnt know it was me
But yeah, I did suggest Beta-8
To answer that we would need to know more about the CD/waveguide
I suppose to use waveguide on 8" too would help
Maybe use double 8" would alter dispersion
Also the xo design might matter
8" dispersion?
Wouldnt it begin to narrow around 1khz?
So it has constant directivity(CD) only up to 1khz
It will have less dispersion above 1khz, but at exactly what frequency it will match the waveguide is hard to say
Anyway, are you certain thats the main issue of the design
But yeah, I did suggest Beta-8
To answer that we would need to know more about the CD/waveguide
I suppose to use waveguide on 8" too would help
Maybe use double 8" would alter dispersion
Also the xo design might matter
8" dispersion?
Wouldnt it begin to narrow around 1khz?
So it has constant directivity(CD) only up to 1khz
It will have less dispersion above 1khz, but at exactly what frequency it will match the waveguide is hard to say
Anyway, are you certain thats the main issue of the design
ZilchLab said:
It's an important one when mating woofers with CD horns/waveguides. In theory, the dispersion should match at the crossover frequency....
I know thats a useful parameter for doing such design
And it probably works well too
I dont think its proven that it ONLY works that way
But if constant directivity is the design goal, then thats what matters
I can make just about any poor speaker sound acceptable or maybe even good
But even though I mostly know what to do, I admit I dont know much about why it works
In science theres lots of "backwards" thinking to find an explanation why it works, but scientists also know that when they do that its not the proof of why it works, but merely a way to be able to repeat the success
You could say its a proof of HOW it works, but not WHY it works
But if it works its still OK
augerpro said:
Certainly listening tests will never have any value as a scientific proof
It just shows that it works
It doesnt prove that nothing else will work
But never mind
If thats what you have as a priority to decide on design and driver so be it
But sure, it may be needed when using a driver way beyond what many people would dare to try
Taking a driver to its very limit will always need special attention
I admit I have never heard a woofer sound much good
So, I suggested Beta-8
But I could suggest 8-10" PHL, but obviously not gonna work
I have decided long ago that I will try to avoid suggesting anything that is to be used very close, or beyond its limit, at least not with out proper practical experience with that certain product
So please just ignore my suggestion of using 8"
tinitus said:
Certainly listening tests will never have any value as a scientific proof
It just shows that it works
It doesnt prove that nothing else works will work
But never mind
If thats what you have as a priority to decide on design and driver so be it
But sure, it may be needed when using a driver way beyond what many people would dare to try
Taking a driver to its very limit will always need special attention
I admit I have never heard a woofer sound good
So, I suggested Beta-8
But I could suggest 8-10" PHL, but obviously not gonna work
Please, lets find other good drivers
I can certainly confirm that PHL 8" sounds good as open open baffle my model is 2450(spl=93-95dB) with Fs=82Hz compared to a more popular model, PHL1120 which has a higher Fs and better spl>95dB at mid range.
So you're telling me that any study involving perception cannot not be proof of anything because it cannot be proven in what, a mathematical sense? So I guess Floyd Toole has been wasting the last 30 years proving nothing? And every other researcher into human perception?
Besides you are talking about the "whys". I'm talking about the "whats". I don't know why people prefer smooth power response, But studies show they do.
Besides you are talking about the "whys". I'm talking about the "whats". I don't know why people prefer smooth power response, But studies show they do.
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