RAW DRIVERS - Morel
My local dealer has a big sale on these atm. I'll grab a pair for a bookshelf build, but which model? I'm confused by the many versions, all sharing the same cone (apart from the top range carbon versions). The basic ferrite model looks decent, altho with slightly less xmax. Then you move up to a hybrid magnet version, above that a 'coppersleeve' (with a posher motor perhaps).
Any feedback on these wd be appreciated.
My local dealer has a big sale on these atm. I'll grab a pair for a bookshelf build, but which model? I'm confused by the many versions, all sharing the same cone (apart from the top range carbon versions). The basic ferrite model looks decent, altho with slightly less xmax. Then you move up to a hybrid magnet version, above that a 'coppersleeve' (with a posher motor perhaps).
Any feedback on these wd be appreciated.
Aren't the lower models plastic coned? subjectively I don't like plastic but I know some do. I do however like Carbon fibre coned speakers. To me they sound even more detailed than paper but without that slight soft edge of plastic YMMV...
Not sure if all models use same material cone bar the carbon models- from the various photos they look the same.
A Morel MW166 was tested here and midrange distortion was horrid. The SCM634 was tested here and again high order distortion was less than impressive.
I suspect at least part of the problem is that by having a huge diameter voice coil, the spider only has a tiny range of motion, resulting in significant Kms(x) distortion. The only Morel/Dynaudio style inset magnet, huge voice coil woofer I've seen that measured ok is the HiVi D6.8. Even then, it gets hosed by more 'conventional' woofers that are half the price.
I suspect at least part of the problem is that by having a huge diameter voice coil, the spider only has a tiny range of motion, resulting in significant Kms(x) distortion. The only Morel/Dynaudio style inset magnet, huge voice coil woofer I've seen that measured ok is the HiVi D6.8. Even then, it gets hosed by more 'conventional' woofers that are half the price.
SCW636 has a copper sleeve but not the titanium voicecoil of the TSCW- I imagine the difference in performance is v small?
jeff bagby preferred the ticw (copper sleeve) over the non sleeve.
"The copper sleeve makes a big difference to me."
I see copper sleeve as a shorting ring, but you keep the Z curve flatish.
"In looking at Voice Coil Magazine's measurement of the TICW 638Nd, I can see that harmonic distortion is pretty low. Zaph did his tests at an SPL of 92db 1/2M (6.5 test), VC does their measurement at an SPL of 94db @ 1M--equivalent to 100db at 1/2M; the TICW 638Nd has less than 1% THD distortion through most of its range, and a spike of 2% THD at 1khz. "
Post Your "Favorite" Midrange You Have Used! What Sounded The Best? -
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norman
"The copper sleeve makes a big difference to me."
I see copper sleeve as a shorting ring, but you keep the Z curve flatish.
"In looking at Voice Coil Magazine's measurement of the TICW 638Nd, I can see that harmonic distortion is pretty low. Zaph did his tests at an SPL of 92db 1/2M (6.5 test), VC does their measurement at an SPL of 94db @ 1M--equivalent to 100db at 1/2M; the TICW 638Nd has less than 1% THD distortion through most of its range, and a spike of 2% THD at 1khz. "
Post Your "Favorite" Midrange You Have Used! What Sounded The Best? -
Techtalk Speaker Building, Audio, Video Discussion Forum
norman
AFAIK, Morel pay hefty licensing fees to Dynaudio.
You may have noticed a close resemblance in drivers. Big voicecoils. Symettric drive. Low inductance. Mostly polycones.
It seems to be Morel's current financial model to therefore split their motors into various categories. Copper shorting rings cost them money in fees.
Well, credit to Morel. They pay for the license. A lot of companies don't. For all that, praise for their woofers, but I've never heard a Morel soft-dome tweeter I like. Ah well. 🙂
You may have noticed a close resemblance in drivers. Big voicecoils. Symettric drive. Low inductance. Mostly polycones.
It seems to be Morel's current financial model to therefore split their motors into various categories. Copper shorting rings cost them money in fees.
Well, credit to Morel. They pay for the license. A lot of companies don't. For all that, praise for their woofers, but I've never heard a Morel soft-dome tweeter I like. Ah well. 🙂
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IMO bad distortion measurements have stopped a lot of people from using the morel drivers, and they don't know what they have been missing 😉 I'm using Morel MW144's which was I think the original morel driver that zaph said was so incredibly terrible. If I'd read his review before I'd purchased, I'd probably never have bought them. Apart from them having a very nasty response (very different to the datasheet) after 2Khz which was difficult to tame, they are very nice drivers. I would say that the more modern versions should be a lot better.
Vocals are very nice. I'll try and do some distortion measurements (the ones I have are suspect as I may have done them on the unit with the drivers with damaged suround, which definitely have spikes in 2HD.
If the price is good, I'd say go for it.
Tony.
Vocals are very nice. I'll try and do some distortion measurements (the ones I have are suspect as I may have done them on the unit with the drivers with damaged suround, which definitely have spikes in 2HD.
If the price is good, I'd say go for it.
Tony.
An interesting history of the relationship between Dynaudio, Morel and Audio Technologies.
History of Dynaudio
It gives an impression that Skaaning senior was shafted by his partners at Dynaudio
Back to my original post, I was more or less set on the cheapest ferrite ones, but TMM's post has made me reconsider.
History of Dynaudio
It gives an impression that Skaaning senior was shafted by his partners at Dynaudio
Back to my original post, I was more or less set on the cheapest ferrite ones, but TMM's post has made me reconsider.
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Do Dynaudio drivers have copper sleeves? If they do I was unaware. What is for certain, is that Magico uses the Morel Supreme magnet structure and frame for it's 6" nanotech-coned midrange. As far as I know, Morel paid for the hexagonal wire use, and the hybrid motor structure.
I don't know the difference between SCW and TSCW models in terms of results, but the hardware difference is certain.
I'm with Tony. Morel makes great drivers. Implementation is key, and 2-3 people's impressions saying they are the worst drivers in the world does not justify why Magico would go to Morel for OEM, nor why they have been in business as long as they have, and as strongly as they have. I know the same or similar could be said of Goldwood as well, and the like, but Goldwood is not generally featured in $30k+ speakers.
Listen to a good Morel implementation, and you'll be happy.
Later,
Wolf
PS- I swapped from CAW634 to TSCW636, and the difference was definitely for the better.
I don't know the difference between SCW and TSCW models in terms of results, but the hardware difference is certain.
I'm with Tony. Morel makes great drivers. Implementation is key, and 2-3 people's impressions saying they are the worst drivers in the world does not justify why Magico would go to Morel for OEM, nor why they have been in business as long as they have, and as strongly as they have. I know the same or similar could be said of Goldwood as well, and the like, but Goldwood is not generally featured in $30k+ speakers.
Listen to a good Morel implementation, and you'll be happy.
Later,
Wolf
PS- I swapped from CAW634 to TSCW636, and the difference was definitely for the better.
Some morels have the copper sleeve, the c in the model number maybe.
yea, there is also energy storage, thd, hd, intermod, resonances, and all sorts of things that make drivers sound like they do.
People love ribbons even with the horrible distortion (probably better waterfall response though).
I heard a 2-way using morel mw144 maybe 12 years ago, it was pretty good even (for a small cone and dome anyway, lol).
I wouldn't call the morels poly either. They are stiffened poly I think (maybe talc powder) so more accurate than (most ?) soggy sounding poly yet less breakup like a paper (maybe?).
also, I think motor has the most to due with distortion over cone material.
yea, there is also energy storage, thd, hd, intermod, resonances, and all sorts of things that make drivers sound like they do.
People love ribbons even with the horrible distortion (probably better waterfall response though).
I heard a 2-way using morel mw144 maybe 12 years ago, it was pretty good even (for a small cone and dome anyway, lol).
I wouldn't call the morels poly either. They are stiffened poly I think (maybe talc powder) so more accurate than (most ?) soggy sounding poly yet less breakup like a paper (maybe?).
also, I think motor has the most to due with distortion over cone material.
I've heard varying designs over the years with them (damped poly and carbon fiber).
Basic thought was: really good between 100 and 1kHz, and excellent for the carbon fiber versions (.."special" even - and one of those drivers that in the right design sounds expensive). A bit "one-note'sh" below 70 Hz. Very dependent on the particular driver above 1khz, and on the integration with the tweeter that's used.
I didn't particularly like their larger woofers (again, less than 70 Hz).
I think that carbon fiber mid is worth a "reference" design, though within the limitations above and with the acceptance of a design that is rather in-efficient.
Basic thought was: really good between 100 and 1kHz, and excellent for the carbon fiber versions (.."special" even - and one of those drivers that in the right design sounds expensive). A bit "one-note'sh" below 70 Hz. Very dependent on the particular driver above 1khz, and on the integration with the tweeter that's used.
I didn't particularly like their larger woofers (again, less than 70 Hz).
I think that carbon fiber mid is worth a "reference" design, though within the limitations above and with the acceptance of a design that is rather in-efficient.
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Thanks for sharing your experiences.
Spot on about the last bit. One caveat is that it allows less efficient woofers to be used 🙂
Can get Wavecor products locally- their subs cd be a good match for the Morel's
Morel certainly has figured prominently recently in stereophile. The reasonably well engineered Viginti:
EgglestonWorks Viginti loudspeaker | Stereophile.com
among them. Another whose name I cannot recall seemed like the work of a first time hobbyist with too many expensive parts lying around.
EgglestonWorks Viginti loudspeaker | Stereophile.com
among them. Another whose name I cannot recall seemed like the work of a first time hobbyist with too many expensive parts lying around.
-I'd personally choose Visaton.
TIW 250 XS
The resonance isn't as low, but it's more efficient to handle baffle-step compensation that should match reasonably well with the Morel driver (either 2x parallel 4 ohm net for the 4 ohm Morel mid or one at 8 ohms for the 8 ohm Morel drivers..) It's also got more linear excursion. I've also seen the Hobby Hifi (or Klang and Ton) measurement of this driver and its at *least* as good as far as non-linear and CSD are concerned (..and that clean linear distortion profile is good to about 1khz).
-as far as sound: these glass skin over foam/honeycomb cores are not only very clear, but also have "tone" - a very rare combination in my experience. Like the carbon fiber drivers from Morel: they sound "expensive" (..and also like them, actually are expensive).
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On the morels cone material. It is what they call a damped polymer composite. I've not been able to find out exactly what that means. However as someone who has had a number of cheap polycone midranges in the past (which I found all to be awful) I can say that my MW144's don't have any of that polycone mushiness to them.
It was this from the old snippets.org LDSG that originally convinced me to get the morels note that this is 14 years ago!!).
Tony.
It was this from the old snippets.org LDSG that originally convinced me to get the morels note that this is 14 years ago!!).
LDSG - Morel recommendations
Tony.
Yeah I've been eyeing that woofer for a while, and the 8" version. I can't get them here, sadly. My choices are limited.. I can get generic subs from Bangkok's Ban Mo market (a great place to buy air core inductors, cheap testing caps and sometimes boutique NOS drivers) YouTube
Or Wavecor, Dayton ES180ti(I have plenty spare)and possibly shipping SB acoustics drivers from Indonesia.
As I said, I'd try and do some distortion measurements of one of my Morel MW144's (this is one that zaph said was really bad).
I'm not that well versed with interpreting distortion measurements so I'll leave that up to others, to decide if these are good, bad, or indifferent.
Test was done at a distance of 30cm in room with no attempt to optimize the setup (being lazy). I measured at 2.8V 5.6V and 11.3V (for some reason 6db change on the last was not quite double the voltage).
I also did a nearfield (approx 5mm from the centre of the dustcap at 2.83V.
Since the distortion below 100Hz rises quite dramatically (which seems to be in line with ScottG's not liking them below 70Hz), I've also shown graphs with distortion from 100Hz up.
Personally I have a fourth order bessel (accoustic slope) active cross at 270 Hz from these to my Vifa 10" M26WR-09-08's. Doing this definitely cleaned up the midrange.
These drivers are in a sealed 5L enclosure (separate for the two M's shown in the pic).
Picture attached to show the non-ideal environment that these measurements were conducted.
edit: measuring mic is an un-calibrated Panasonic WM-60AY with the linkwiz mod. I'm not sure what the distortion profile (especially nearfield like this) of this mic is. Mic Preamp is a Walin mic preamp. Soundcard used, Focusrite 2i2.
edit2: added pic of inside of the MW144's cavity. Heavy lining using sound deadening material, also has some polyester fill.
Tony.
I'm not that well versed with interpreting distortion measurements so I'll leave that up to others, to decide if these are good, bad, or indifferent.
Test was done at a distance of 30cm in room with no attempt to optimize the setup (being lazy). I measured at 2.8V 5.6V and 11.3V (for some reason 6db change on the last was not quite double the voltage).
I also did a nearfield (approx 5mm from the centre of the dustcap at 2.83V.
Since the distortion below 100Hz rises quite dramatically (which seems to be in line with ScottG's not liking them below 70Hz), I've also shown graphs with distortion from 100Hz up.
Personally I have a fourth order bessel (accoustic slope) active cross at 270 Hz from these to my Vifa 10" M26WR-09-08's. Doing this definitely cleaned up the midrange.
These drivers are in a sealed 5L enclosure (separate for the two M's shown in the pic).
Picture attached to show the non-ideal environment that these measurements were conducted.
edit: measuring mic is an un-calibrated Panasonic WM-60AY with the linkwiz mod. I'm not sure what the distortion profile (especially nearfield like this) of this mic is. Mic Preamp is a Walin mic preamp. Soundcard used, Focusrite 2i2.
edit2: added pic of inside of the MW144's cavity. Heavy lining using sound deadening material, also has some polyester fill.
Tony.
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