paulspencer said:
What's wrong with a long throw on a midrange? Remember that it uses our XBL^2 motor so it gets that long throw without needing a really long coil (lower inductance). Also a great deal of your BL distortion is eliminated, including BL based IMD artifacts. This driver get's down as low as an 8 due to it's huge excursion, but without a problem with early beaming on the top end.
Steven Kephart
Adire Audio
Steven Kephart said:
I believe that the response I got for this is that doppler distortion becomes a major issue. From what I've been reading, you would have to use this driver in a vented box, passive radiator system, or something else to control the excursion at low frequencies- because even though it can play loudly and cleanly both low and high- no 6" driver can do them all at once.
I could probably come up with an audio track that would demonstrate this well if you were running one of these sealed/open baffle. It would be a sequence of a low frequency tone played with a high frequency tone, and each by itself. You would hear (this is from what I have recently read) nice clean tone when either played by itself, but then it would sound harsh and modulated when they both play together.
You could certaintly use two of these drivers, and let them cover different frequency ranges. That could be attractive and sound good. It's not a problem with the driver- it's just that NO driver can produce 4khz well while shaking back and forth almost an inch at 50 hz.
By the way- I'm all for testing out what I've read. It sure makes sense when the experts say it, but it's got a lot of "cool!" to be able to put something together and see/hear the physical artifact- kind of like the first time i could walk around and find standing waves in my room (thought that was only cool when I wasn't thinking about music
)Joe
Steven Kephart said:
Steven, thanks for coming by with your comments. By the way, what is the cone material?
Long throw is fine if its well controlled. Please post some distortion figures if you have any. Not to get on you for things your web site says, but it is easy to say your speaker is as good as xyz, it is another to prove it. A lot of talk about a speaker that isn't even out yet. Anyway, its specs look good, and it is reasonably priced, so I remain open minded. As I posted earlier, I may get a couple when they come out to test.
sbolin said:
I'll tell you what- when I first heard of it I was extremely skeptical. However, this driver seems to be a GREAT way to prove whether it exists or not.
At first I thought that doppler distortion did not exist because it should happen to the microphone diaphragm to begin with, and then the reverse should happen at the speakers. But then when you think about it, the microphone's diaphragm does not have anywhere near the excursion of a driver- and this effect directly depends on excursion.
Do you have any links to sites debunking doppler distortion?
joe carrow said:
http://sound.westhost.com/doppler.htm
(in fact, it was brought up on page three, with a rebuttal posted on page 4 of this thread)
To call it doppler distortion is incorrect, but (the important point) there is a very small phase shift introduced as the cone moves closer to (and farther from) the listener.
I understand your skepticism in this matter as many companies make some pretty interesting claims. But as the Extremis drivers aren't completely released yet, the only thing you as a consumer has to go by is our reputation. So with that I will ask you if you have ever seen any claims by us not be backed up.
As for the other questions and comments brought up, I will allow Dan to handle them as he is the engineer.
Steven Kephart
Adire Audio
Regardless of your views on doppler distortion, there is no question about IMD and that is my main concern with such a large excursion for a midbass driver. For this driver to have so much more bass capability and to compete on even terms in the midrange with the best Seas and Scan Speak midbass drivers would be an incredible feat.
I recently heard a friend's system which had some Tannoy dual concentric drivers and I was impressed by the bass punch - they had quite a large excursion and as bookshelves they made a good account of themselves for home theatre. Now if this driver lives up to its claims, then it could make an excellent home theatre speaker. You could have five identical compact monitors that would be very dynamic and you wouldn't need to set them as "small."
I'll be very interested to hear the comments from those who use them.
They also seem like very interesting candidates for TL and dipole. As an open baffle they could replace an 8" and thus allow more flexibility in crossover point, while having an open back which is also a plus. As a TL you could use just one instead of two and the TL won't have to be so large due to the smaller SD.
I recently heard a friend's system which had some Tannoy dual concentric drivers and I was impressed by the bass punch - they had quite a large excursion and as bookshelves they made a good account of themselves for home theatre. Now if this driver lives up to its claims, then it could make an excellent home theatre speaker. You could have five identical compact monitors that would be very dynamic and you wouldn't need to set them as "small."
I'll be very interested to hear the comments from those who use them.
They also seem like very interesting candidates for TL and dipole. As an open baffle they could replace an 8" and thus allow more flexibility in crossover point, while having an open back which is also a plus. As a TL you could use just one instead of two and the TL won't have to be so large due to the smaller SD.
XBL^2 distortion in midrange?
Looking at the graph in this whitepaper
http://www.adireaudio.com/Files/XBL2TechPaper.pdf
it seems that the XBL^2 has two small Bxl dips at roughly +/- 3.5 mm excursion. Those dips are small (maybe 3%), but still higher than the nonlinearity of all other designs in that graph. If an extremis was used as a midrange, I wonder if distortion would be higher or lower than with a conventional (UH or SCLG) design.
Two more questions:
- what is the cone made of - coated paper?
- why is the copper ring needed? with a Nd magnet, it should be possible to saturate the iron, eliminating all magnetization modulation distortion and iron-core related inductance (delta mu_r = 0 in saturation), and the self-inductance of the rather short coil should be low by itself
Looking at the graph in this whitepaper
http://www.adireaudio.com/Files/XBL2TechPaper.pdf
it seems that the XBL^2 has two small Bxl dips at roughly +/- 3.5 mm excursion. Those dips are small (maybe 3%), but still higher than the nonlinearity of all other designs in that graph. If an extremis was used as a midrange, I wonder if distortion would be higher or lower than with a conventional (UH or SCLG) design.
Two more questions:
- what is the cone made of - coated paper?
- why is the copper ring needed? with a Nd magnet, it should be possible to saturate the iron, eliminating all magnetization modulation distortion and iron-core related inductance (delta mu_r = 0 in saturation), and the self-inductance of the rather short coil should be low by itself
WR125S distortion
I just found out that CSS have announced a 4 in. full range driver that uses a paper cone and XBL^2. It was designed by Dan of Adire. Differences to the Extremis seem to be (apart from the size):
- no use of Nd motor
- no use of copper sleeving (2-3x the inductance)
- half the x_lin
The spec sheet gives distortion figures for harmonic, IMD and multitone. These are impressive by themselves, but I ran a check against published Excel distortion figures (at 96 dB vs. 94 dB for the WR).
The Excel W11 and W12 mag cones, which have the same cone area as the WR125 but use conventional short gap, long coil designes and strong copper tubes abover and below the pole piece, are significantly better between 200 Hz and 2 kHz.
So can this difference be attributed to the XBL^2 motor? Not necessarily. The paper cone Excel W11CY001 which I believe shares the motor design with the mag cones, exhibits much worse 2nd harmonic than the WR125, and has similar third order. The increased 2nd harmonic can be attributed to flexing hystersis of the paper cone, and probably the 3rd order, too. This is the price you have to pay for the absence of the resonance peak.
So, in conclusion, the XBL^2 without copper seems to be on par with a conventional design using lots of copper. So an XBL^2 with copper as used in the Extremis may be superior.
I just found out that CSS have announced a 4 in. full range driver that uses a paper cone and XBL^2. It was designed by Dan of Adire. Differences to the Extremis seem to be (apart from the size):
- no use of Nd motor
- no use of copper sleeving (2-3x the inductance)
- half the x_lin
The spec sheet gives distortion figures for harmonic, IMD and multitone. These are impressive by themselves, but I ran a check against published Excel distortion figures (at 96 dB vs. 94 dB for the WR).
The Excel W11 and W12 mag cones, which have the same cone area as the WR125 but use conventional short gap, long coil designes and strong copper tubes abover and below the pole piece, are significantly better between 200 Hz and 2 kHz.
So can this difference be attributed to the XBL^2 motor? Not necessarily. The paper cone Excel W11CY001 which I believe shares the motor design with the mag cones, exhibits much worse 2nd harmonic than the WR125, and has similar third order. The increased 2nd harmonic can be attributed to flexing hystersis of the paper cone, and probably the 3rd order, too. This is the price you have to pay for the absence of the resonance peak.
So, in conclusion, the XBL^2 without copper seems to be on par with a conventional design using lots of copper. So an XBL^2 with copper as used in the Extremis may be superior.
Just out of curiousity, would it make any sense to use the 6" Extremis for stereo mini-subs? Or would they simply not sweep enough volume?
Of course they wouldn't exactly knock the walls down for movies, but in my apartment those kinds of levels are (unfortunately) out of the question anyway.
Thanks,
Dayne
Of course they wouldn't exactly knock the walls down for movies, but in my apartment those kinds of levels are (unfortunately
) out of the question anyway.Thanks,
Dayne
dayneger said:Of course they wouldn't exactly knock the walls down for movies, but in my apartment those kinds of levels are (unfortunately
Thanks,
Put them in a TL tower and in a small room (bedroom sized) you probably could knock the walls down!
I first had my TLs in a bedroom and the room gain was such that a sub couldn't add anything at all.
A nice speaker with these for an apartment could be:
* TM tower (TL) - small due to only one woofer with a small SD - no boxy subs to try to fit into your space
* TMW tower (TL) - biamped - better midrange clarity due to separation of bass and mid - you could use the other new Adire mid with it
* a second woofer added to either means a bigger box but more output
Any of these would probably give you as much bass as you can get away with in an apartment.
Sorry for the delayed reply, my spam filter must've eaten the notification email. . . Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em, those spam filters. Among other things.
Ok, thanks for the tips! Sounds like the 6" doesn't give enough real estate for sweeping air--the living room in my apartment isn't actually that small, I just have to keep an eye on the sound level.
This driver should be great in 2-way systems, though!
Cheers,
Dayne
Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em, those spam filters. Among other things.Ok, thanks for the tips! Sounds like the 6" doesn't give enough real estate for sweeping air--the living room in my apartment isn't actually that small, I just have to keep an eye on the sound level.
This driver should be great in 2-way systems, though!
Cheers,
Dayne
Well, I wasn't sure what I'd order between the CSS WR125S and the Adire Extremis 6, turns out I caved and went for the more expensive Extremis 6. Right before the preorder ends, or so they say.
My qyestion is this, when it's shipped I gather alot of people are going to try to go with an TM alignment, so what tweeter would be good? I'm thinking in the price range of the Extremis 6 the Seas 27TDC/27TDFC are going to be up there and allow for the lowest possible crossover slope. Without going alot more expensive (as in Fountek and Arum Cantus area) what else would go well with the graphs for the Extremis6 we've been given?
Of course the 9500 and 9700 from Scan Speak would be good cadidates, but well, they're rahter expensive and go against the apparent massive bang for the buck that we are lead to believe the Extremis 6 will give us. I do believe somewhere that it was Dan from Adire than said he liked the hiquephon tweeters and he also comented that the Vifa XTs weren't up to par for the extremis. Well, the hiquephons aren't THAT expensive, but the Extremis is alot less if you got them of pre-order and I would feel bad spending that much more on the tweeter when apparently these woofers won't need to be crossed over too low.
After seeing a couple distortion graphs of the Seas 27TDC/27TDFC I'm really thinking that this is the way to go given it's 550Hz FS and regardless of it's price it seems to be a good candidate. My main concern is, does it get much better without a major jump in price? Better as in a better tweeter AND as well a tweeter that'll match well (well, that you think will match well) with the Extremis 6?
Right before I ordered my Extremis from CSS I called up to question about shipping methods because I've got problems with UPS sending stuff back because the door code in my appartment building is wrong, had to pay twice the shipping to get something sent from solen, which is right down ths treet, didn't want that problem from across the country... Canada Post should be fine (never thought I'd say that) and the point is I was told they didn't think they'd be sent out for a while (do believe they said end of November, which I can live with, gives me more time to find a matching tweeter) so I'll wait to see what Adire recomends, but I still like to speculate and think on my own what would work nicely (as well as hear others opinions).
So maybe talking about how would could make a simple TM with this driver and whichever tweeter you'd think would match well would be nice.
My qyestion is this, when it's shipped I gather alot of people are going to try to go with an TM alignment, so what tweeter would be good? I'm thinking in the price range of the Extremis 6 the Seas 27TDC/27TDFC are going to be up there and allow for the lowest possible crossover slope. Without going alot more expensive (as in Fountek and Arum Cantus area) what else would go well with the graphs for the Extremis6 we've been given?
Of course the 9500 and 9700 from Scan Speak would be good cadidates, but well, they're rahter expensive and go against the apparent massive bang for the buck that we are lead to believe the Extremis 6 will give us. I do believe somewhere that it was Dan from Adire than said he liked the hiquephon tweeters and he also comented that the Vifa XTs weren't up to par for the extremis. Well, the hiquephons aren't THAT expensive, but the Extremis is alot less if you got them of pre-order and I would feel bad spending that much more on the tweeter when apparently these woofers won't need to be crossed over too low.
After seeing a couple distortion graphs of the Seas 27TDC/27TDFC I'm really thinking that this is the way to go given it's 550Hz FS and regardless of it's price it seems to be a good candidate. My main concern is, does it get much better without a major jump in price? Better as in a better tweeter AND as well a tweeter that'll match well (well, that you think will match well) with the Extremis 6?
Right before I ordered my Extremis from CSS I called up to question about shipping methods because I've got problems with UPS sending stuff back because the door code in my appartment building is wrong, had to pay twice the shipping to get something sent from solen, which is right down ths treet, didn't want that problem from across the country... Canada Post should be fine (never thought I'd say that) and the point is I was told they didn't think they'd be sent out for a while (do believe they said end of November, which I can live with, gives me more time to find a matching tweeter) so I'll wait to see what Adire recomends, but I still like to speculate and think on my own what would work nicely (as well as hear others opinions).
So maybe talking about how would could make a simple TM with this driver and whichever tweeter you'd think would match well would be nice.
The XT is probably not a good match for the Extremis. It's not so much a question of quality but of suitability IMO. Some very nice comercial speakers use this tweeter. It appears that Sonus Faber use it with Scan Speak revelator drivers. From what I have heard the Seas 27TFF is a good candidate and the SS 9300 is also worth considering - a bit cheaper than the 9500. Another tweeter worth considering is the Morel MDT 30 (or is it 33), whichever is the cheaper one.
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