Re: A bit about Lowthers
Don't think so - unless you'd recommend power amps that act as heavy DC chargers (or HF injectors) at zero volume ....
I would have to dig it out but if I recall right there are no mayor effects to aluminium below ~200°C
Tempering (?) aluminium is quite a different story...
Greetings
Michael
Jon Ver Halen said:
Don't think so - unless you'd recommend power amps that act as heavy DC chargers (or HF injectors) at zero volume ....
I would have to dig it out but if I recall right there are no mayor effects to aluminium below ~200°C
Tempering (?) aluminium is quite a different story...
Greetings
Michael
Re: Re: Sensitivity and Efficiency
Well, you better get going on that current amp, because I'd bet that any alloy that has near zero resistance tempco, will have resistivity several times higher than copper. Graphite has a negative tempco, but is at least twice the resistance of copper. No so easy to form a VC with.
Sheldon
mige0 said:
Well, you better get going on that current amp, because I'd bet that any alloy that has near zero resistance tempco, will have resistivity several times higher than copper. Graphite has a negative tempco, but is at least twice the resistance of copper. No so easy to form a VC with.
Sheldon
Re: Re: Sensitivity and Efficiency
BS - How about some third party here with some Lambda TD drivers beat the snot out of them and test the DC resistance gain compared to any other equivalent driver. I will have the recone done for free if you can burn the voice coil, freight (well inside the US only) included. Deal is you need to report input signal and power used, length of time for test, and heat measurement gain of the phase plug.
I beat these driver's like it was an Ali-Frazier fight when I was designing them; ungodly power tests for 12 hours straight trying to burn the coils (actually the cone/spider glue bonds as the voice coil wire laughed at me), UPS drop tests from 6 feet (in packaging), rain soaking, freezer, oven bake entire driver at 150F, etc
One can make a difference without "unobtanium" voice coil wire
mige0 said:
BS - How about some third party here with some Lambda TD drivers beat the snot out of them and test the DC resistance gain compared to any other equivalent driver. I will have the recone done for free if you can burn the voice coil, freight (well inside the US only) included. Deal is you need to report input signal and power used, length of time for test, and heat measurement gain of the phase plug.
I beat these driver's like it was an Ali-Frazier fight when I was designing them; ungodly power tests for 12 hours straight trying to burn the coils (actually the cone/spider glue bonds as the voice coil wire laughed at me), UPS drop tests from 6 feet (in packaging), rain soaking, freezer, oven bake entire driver at 150F, etc
One can make a difference without "unobtanium" voice coil wire
Jon Ver Halen said:
Hi John, glad the TT's worked out for you. My instincts told me the TT's and Lowthers would have complementary sonic characters - vivid tone colors for sure, and I'll bet that's what people commented on at the VSAC. Maybe next year I can make it to Puddletown for the VSAC and hang out with my old Portland buddies. What lowpass frequency did you use for the TT's - something around 160~240 Hz, maybe? They do sound great, don't they?
SunRa said:
On a purely subjective basis, the LeCleac'h horn and the Dr. Geddes waveguide are the two best I've heard, even though the underlying design philosophies are different. They both share a low-diffraction approach, something I wholeheartedly support, since I've been focussing on that for my direct-radiator speakers since 1979, and find it is something very much worth doing. What little I've learned about horns and waveguides is that reducing diffraction is even more important for these devices than it is for direct-radiators.
For my own personal system, the combination of the 425 Hz, T=0.707 LeCleac'h horn with the GPA 399 with the aluminum diaphragm is something I want to explore. I'm sure other people will want to try the OS with the recommended B&C mylar-film compression drivers - and the new Gedlee kit opens up all kinds of new choices for the diyAudio community.
Re: Re: Re: Sensitivity and Efficiency
Power compression – sound quality versus reliability
BS, eeehh?
Great ! - you offer to prove your claims on a non-subjective basis?
To keep it simple I would like to propose following test for thermal transient behaviour:
Apply a 100W (nominal = speaker at ambient temperature) 10kHz burst of 10sec followed by a 100 sec 1W (nominal = speaker at ambient temperature) 10kHz burst.
Display the current drawn over that time and also display a crop or the measurement displaying the rise and decay.
Scale current in percentage for intuitively understanding.
Such a test should be very easy to perform and provide comparable data about thermal transient behaviour of widely varying speakers.
Again – its not about burning down the VC sooner or later – its about sonic implications of heat in drivers - try to convice me/ us or show hard data!
Greetings
Michale
Power compression – sound quality versus reliability
nickmckinney said:
BS, eeehh?
Great ! - you offer to prove your claims on a non-subjective basis?
To keep it simple I would like to propose following test for thermal transient behaviour:
Apply a 100W (nominal = speaker at ambient temperature) 10kHz burst of 10sec followed by a 100 sec 1W (nominal = speaker at ambient temperature) 10kHz burst.
Display the current drawn over that time and also display a crop or the measurement displaying the rise and decay.
Scale current in percentage for intuitively understanding.
Such a test should be very easy to perform and provide comparable data about thermal transient behaviour of widely varying speakers.
Again – its not about burning down the VC sooner or later – its about sonic implications of heat in drivers - try to convice me/ us or show hard data!
Greetings
Michale
Power compression – sound quality versus reliability
To show the membrane-dust-cap-air-pump-cooling-effect in contrast, I'd suggest to perform the same test at 100Hz.
Ri of amp plus shunt plus speaker cable should't exceed 1% of the speakers DC resistance at both measurements though..
Greetings
Michael
mige0 said:
To show the membrane-dust-cap-air-pump-cooling-effect in contrast, I'd suggest to perform the same test at 100Hz.
Ri of amp plus shunt plus speaker cable should't exceed 1% of the speakers DC resistance at both measurements though..
Greetings
Michael
Sheldon said:
Sheldon - graphite being twice as bad than copper would be great – meaning it would be in the range of aluminium.
Sadly - as far as I can see - graphite is around 2000 timers less conductive than copper.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_resistivity
Konstantan , Isabellin, Manganin are around 20 times less conductive AND around as heavy as copper – no good also – putting aside the ferromagnetic properties for the moment .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manganin
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabellin
gedlee said:
Didn't find the Doug Button Patent nor any material specs.
Earl, could you reveal spec mass / spec resistance and tempco of your mix?
Greetings
Michael
Re: Re: Re: Re: Sensitivity and Efficiency
I could care less what tests you want to do, whatever floats your boat. Like I originally said a third party has to do the tests, I don't want to hear any nonsense that I monkeyed with the tests (been there done that) Like a bellybutton everyone has a different opinion of what they want done, and I have learned you can't please them all. There will always be someone in the back row that doesn't believe its being done right, kind of like this recent talk of "unobtanium" voice coil wire.
IMHO - I don't know if a 10Khz test is proper against other equivalent drivers because of the vastly different impedance from inductance. How about dumping some straight DC also and maybe forcing the cone not to move? That way the coil can sit centered stationary and we can see how/if the heat is removed, that is close to the movement expected from a woofer at 10Khz (read near none)
So what driver(s) do you propose they go up against?
mige0 said:
I could care less what tests you want to do, whatever floats your boat. Like I originally said a third party has to do the tests, I don't want to hear any nonsense that I monkeyed with the tests (been there done that) Like a bellybutton everyone has a different opinion of what they want done, and I have learned you can't please them all. There will always be someone in the back row that doesn't believe its being done right, kind of like this recent talk of "unobtanium" voice coil wire.
IMHO - I don't know if a 10Khz test is proper against other equivalent drivers because of the vastly different impedance from inductance. How about dumping some straight DC also and maybe forcing the cone not to move? That way the coil can sit centered stationary and we can see how/if the heat is removed, that is close to the movement expected from a woofer at 10Khz (read near none)
So what driver(s) do you propose they go up against?
mige0 said:
Two thousand times, is "at least twice", no?
Obviously didn't stop to think when I misread the relative resitivities.More to the point of the discussion, however; The sound levels you are talking about here seem unrealistic (certainly unhealthy) for a home audio application with high efficiency prosound sized drivers. I listen pretty loud at times with the hearing that I have left. My system incorporates some Lambda drivers: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=69906&highlight=
Even with loud listening for extended periods (loud, but not ear pounding club levels), the phase plugs never get more than barely warm to the touch. I think that hearing loss will affect the experience well before heat driven compression. I'll play real loud for a bit and measure the VC. Gotta wait until no one is home though.
Sheldon
BTW; I am using the Geddes foam, to about halfway from the throat. I didn't have it for these pics.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Sensitivity and Efficiency
The benefits of doing AC rather than DC is that you can use a simple soundcard with its very good resolution by simply replacing the mic by the shunt – symmetric inputs assumed.
We would like to inject a well defined power for a well defined time– so you will have to calculate the output voltage by measuring the speakers impedance - at ambient temperature - at 10kHz / 100Hz first.
No cabinet, no baffle, speaker positioned vertical in a room.
Doors and windows closed
Any – its not just to do a fun competition (burning down VC's would serve that better) – its for having data available to compare.
I would hold against a two decade old 12" Dynaudio 30W54 having an outer magnet and 54mm VC and a Dynaudio 17W75 having an inner magnet and a 75mm VC.
Both speakers are well documented and represent the top engineering at their time.
Lets see how much progress was made in the meantime.
Certainly.
Greetings Michael
nickmckinney said:
The benefits of doing AC rather than DC is that you can use a simple soundcard with its very good resolution by simply replacing the mic by the shunt – symmetric inputs assumed.
We would like to inject a well defined power for a well defined time– so you will have to calculate the output voltage by measuring the speakers impedance - at ambient temperature - at 10kHz / 100Hz first.
No cabinet, no baffle, speaker positioned vertical in a room.
Doors and windows closed
nickmckinney said:
Any – its not just to do a fun competition (burning down VC's would serve that better) – its for having data available to compare.
I would hold against a two decade old 12" Dynaudio 30W54 having an outer magnet and 54mm VC and a Dynaudio 17W75 having an inner magnet and a 75mm VC.
Both speakers are well documented and represent the top engineering at their time.
Lets see how much progress was made in the meantime.
Sheldon said:
Two thousand times, is "at least twice", no?
Certainly.
Greetings Michael
Sheldon said:
Yes, I am aware of this.
BUT
at one hand you have only 115dB SPL for very short 10sec - a 95dB sensitive speaker assumed – which is well within what Lynn wants to achieve as peaks
at the other hand – its a method of MEASUREMENT I propose – intended to serve for as many as possible speakers (home audio tweeters excluded) - and its way easier to implement 100W/1W than to propose 33,7W/0,13423562W for same strange reasons.
In addition 100W should be - for ANY real world speaker well above what is "allowed" to reach thermal equilibrium after 10sec and 1W should be low enough to allow cooling down after the 1kWs heat injection and also allow for comfortable and easy measuring at the same time.
Greetings
Michael
Some Photos
Here's what the front of two XT1464's look like. A curvy shiny black horn is not the easiest thing to photograph - so for the photographers amongst us, the camera was a Pentax K10D, exposure set about 1 and 1/3 stops above the indicated meter reading, light from the window on the right with on-camera flash assist (mixed lighting), and a little bit of curve-bending in Photoshop to bring out the shadows.
The CD shown for scale is one of my favorites, the Mercury Living Presence recording of "Pictures at an Exhibition", with Antal Dorati conducting the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. The catalog number is Philips #434 346-2.
This recording is nearly unplayable on most high-end systems, but if the system is really on-song, the sheer beauty and energy of the performance is overwhelming. (The folks at the Audio Kinesis room at the last RMAF show will probably remember when I put this one on.)
On most high-end systems, the tremendous amount of HF energy will slew the electronics and overload the tweeters - it'll sound like a sawmill starting up in the morning thanks to all the distortion - which is NOT on the recording. If the system has very fast electronics and low-distortion tweeters with a well-designed crossover, you''ll be treated to a 10th-row in-the-hall experience - with an edge-of-the-seat performance by the Minneapolis Symphony.
Here's what the front of two XT1464's look like. A curvy shiny black horn is not the easiest thing to photograph - so for the photographers amongst us, the camera was a Pentax K10D, exposure set about 1 and 1/3 stops above the indicated meter reading, light from the window on the right with on-camera flash assist (mixed lighting), and a little bit of curve-bending in Photoshop to bring out the shadows.
The CD shown for scale is one of my favorites, the Mercury Living Presence recording of "Pictures at an Exhibition", with Antal Dorati conducting the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. The catalog number is Philips #434 346-2.
This recording is nearly unplayable on most high-end systems, but if the system is really on-song, the sheer beauty and energy of the performance is overwhelming. (The folks at the Audio Kinesis room at the last RMAF show will probably remember when I put this one on.)
On most high-end systems, the tremendous amount of HF energy will slew the electronics and overload the tweeters - it'll sound like a sawmill starting up in the morning thanks to all the distortion - which is NOT on the recording. If the system has very fast electronics and low-distortion tweeters with a well-designed crossover, you''ll be treated to a 10th-row in-the-hall experience - with an edge-of-the-seat performance by the Minneapolis Symphony.
Attachments
The 18 sound products have been maturing a lot lately...I hope that they will not give you much of a hard time given a good lucky throat match with your Comp Dr.
I think it was Berlioz Symphony Fantastique on Mercury that I listened to, on an XT120 driven by HD1040 2 years ago, flanked by PHL 8 inch. There was a Karlson aperture PHL 15 inch sub too.
When those Mercurys get busy around 8kHz, they really do get busy! At a point it verged to shrill. But it was just a test system with powerful solid state.
I think it was Berlioz Symphony Fantastique on Mercury that I listened to, on an XT120 driven by HD1040 2 years ago, flanked by PHL 8 inch. There was a Karlson aperture PHL 15 inch sub too.
When those Mercurys get busy around 8kHz, they really do get busy! At a point it verged to shrill. But it was just a test system with powerful solid state.
Re: Some Photos
I have another recording with really strong HF content that when it is being replayed right is captivating to recommend. This one Lynn I think that you will like to use. Great on big ribbon tweeters. There is really much information needing to come out.
It is Harmonia Mundi La Fete de L' ane
Lynn Olson said:
I have another recording with really strong HF content that when it is being replayed right is captivating to recommend. This one Lynn I think that you will like to use. Great on big ribbon tweeters. There is really much information needing to come out.
It is Harmonia Mundi La Fete de L' ane
Matt Kamna and I measured the output of a Burr-Brown PCM-63K DAC a few years ago. We were curious just how fast the state transitions really were, so we used a 1500V/uSec digital-video buffer following a 100-ohm passive I/V converter, to make sure there was no slewing in the analog stages of the DAC. The test track on the CD was 20 kHz at full modulation, so there were lots of +1 to -1 transitions to fill up the spectrum.
Matt owned (and probably still has) a Hewlett-Packard RF spectrum analyzer with 80 dB of on-screen dynamic range and flat response to 100 MHz. We connected the output of the video buffers straight to the input of the spectrum analyzer - they are designed to drive coaxial cable into 75 ohms, so no problem there.
What astonished both of us was seeing a flat comb spectra extending out to 20 MHz! After reaching 20 MHz, it gradually rolled off until it descended into the noise at 50 MHz. We did some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations and found that Red Book CD's required at least 1000V/uSec in order not to slew the analog electronics following the DAC.
Now, this test was done with a traditional ladder DAC with the resistor array directly connected to the current-mode output of the DAC. Most modern DACs, and certainly all delta-sigma hybrids, have built-in opamps with slewing rates 30 to 75X slower than the 1000V/uSec figure we calculated was the minimum required - so naturally, if you measured a modern DAC, you'd never see that 20 MHz comb spectra, since the built-in DAC would slew and limit it!
It must be kept in mind that slewing and lowpass filtering are not at all the same. One represents 100% distortion for a very brief interval, and the other is a linear process that simply lowpass filters the signal. Accurate reconstruction of the original analog input signal requires accurate, undistorted low-pass filtering in the reconstruction stage. This is why passive filtering sidesteps the slewing issue, and restricts the amount of RFI entering the analog electronics - audio electronics simply do not handle MHz signals gracefully - what you get is are broadband IM products that fill the entire spectrum and effectively raise the noise floor with program-induced garbage.
After this experience we started auditioning all of our "tough dog" CD's that we thought were hopelessly distorted (this was before the current craze for overmodulated CD's). Well guess what, they weren't distorted after all! Just bright and over-equalized, but not actually distorted. If you replaced the ultrafast buffers with generic 13V/uSec opamps, the screaming distortion returned. (Audiophile-approved CD's tended to sound the same - they didn't stress the analog electronics as hard.)
I was especially disgusted to learn the $5000 Sony SACD-1 used - you guessed it - ancient Signetics 5534 (13V/Usec) opamps throughout all the analog circuitry. And there's no question that SACD/DSD has RF content going well beyond 20 MHz. It is painfully obvious that the people who design these products do not have RF spectrum analyzers, do not have RFI engineering experience, and don't seem to understand how undesirable slewing distortion is, and how easily digital state transitions induce it.
(Note: the output of the PCM-63 that we measured was already deglitched - we confirmed that with a 500 MHz Tektronix scope. It was the state transitions that we were seeing on the RF spectrum analyzer.)
These slewing problems are routinely ignored by the RF-unaware audio design community. They can't measure it, aren't aware of what it would look like, and have no RF design experience, so they don't care. Out of sight, out of mind, ignorance is bliss.
One of the nice things about working with Matt Kamna, Gary Pimm, and other Tek and HP alumni was that these guys understood RF and how to deal with it. Unfortunately, most other audio engineers are in a state of denial, or more frankly, ignorance when it comes to dealing with signal content above 1 MHz.
The other common problem are tweeters with lots of IM distortion thanks to poor out-of-band rejection by the crossover. The fact is that tweeters just don't perform very well at 500 Hz - but they can make plenty of IM distortion if any significant lower-mid content arrives at the speaker terminals. The rule of thumb with all drivers is to limit out-of-band energy, most importantly at the low end of the band, where it can induce a lot of IM distortion at higher frequencies.
Combine massive slewing distortion with tweeters with lots of IM distortion, and many large-scale symphonic and choral works turn into a screaming mess. Hifi exhibitors get around the problem by never playing that kind of program material at hifi shows - instead, you get "minimalist" audiophile-approved rock, jazz, and blues recordings, and they all have one thing in common: a sparse HF spectra, with the instrumentalists thoughtfully taking turns. Even MP3 compression has no problems when the spectra is so simple.
Matt owned (and probably still has) a Hewlett-Packard RF spectrum analyzer with 80 dB of on-screen dynamic range and flat response to 100 MHz. We connected the output of the video buffers straight to the input of the spectrum analyzer - they are designed to drive coaxial cable into 75 ohms, so no problem there.
What astonished both of us was seeing a flat comb spectra extending out to 20 MHz! After reaching 20 MHz, it gradually rolled off until it descended into the noise at 50 MHz. We did some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations and found that Red Book CD's required at least 1000V/uSec in order not to slew the analog electronics following the DAC.
Now, this test was done with a traditional ladder DAC with the resistor array directly connected to the current-mode output of the DAC. Most modern DACs, and certainly all delta-sigma hybrids, have built-in opamps with slewing rates 30 to 75X slower than the 1000V/uSec figure we calculated was the minimum required - so naturally, if you measured a modern DAC, you'd never see that 20 MHz comb spectra, since the built-in DAC would slew and limit it!
It must be kept in mind that slewing and lowpass filtering are not at all the same. One represents 100% distortion for a very brief interval, and the other is a linear process that simply lowpass filters the signal. Accurate reconstruction of the original analog input signal requires accurate, undistorted low-pass filtering in the reconstruction stage. This is why passive filtering sidesteps the slewing issue, and restricts the amount of RFI entering the analog electronics - audio electronics simply do not handle MHz signals gracefully - what you get is are broadband IM products that fill the entire spectrum and effectively raise the noise floor with program-induced garbage.
After this experience we started auditioning all of our "tough dog" CD's that we thought were hopelessly distorted (this was before the current craze for overmodulated CD's). Well guess what, they weren't distorted after all! Just bright and over-equalized, but not actually distorted. If you replaced the ultrafast buffers with generic 13V/uSec opamps, the screaming distortion returned. (Audiophile-approved CD's tended to sound the same - they didn't stress the analog electronics as hard.)
I was especially disgusted to learn the $5000 Sony SACD-1 used - you guessed it - ancient Signetics 5534 (13V/Usec) opamps throughout all the analog circuitry. And there's no question that SACD/DSD has RF content going well beyond 20 MHz. It is painfully obvious that the people who design these products do not have RF spectrum analyzers, do not have RFI engineering experience, and don't seem to understand how undesirable slewing distortion is, and how easily digital state transitions induce it.
(Note: the output of the PCM-63 that we measured was already deglitched - we confirmed that with a 500 MHz Tektronix scope. It was the state transitions that we were seeing on the RF spectrum analyzer.)
These slewing problems are routinely ignored by the RF-unaware audio design community. They can't measure it, aren't aware of what it would look like, and have no RF design experience, so they don't care. Out of sight, out of mind, ignorance is bliss.
One of the nice things about working with Matt Kamna, Gary Pimm, and other Tek and HP alumni was that these guys understood RF and how to deal with it. Unfortunately, most other audio engineers are in a state of denial, or more frankly, ignorance when it comes to dealing with signal content above 1 MHz.
The other common problem are tweeters with lots of IM distortion thanks to poor out-of-band rejection by the crossover. The fact is that tweeters just don't perform very well at 500 Hz - but they can make plenty of IM distortion if any significant lower-mid content arrives at the speaker terminals. The rule of thumb with all drivers is to limit out-of-band energy, most importantly at the low end of the band, where it can induce a lot of IM distortion at higher frequencies.
Combine massive slewing distortion with tweeters with lots of IM distortion, and many large-scale symphonic and choral works turn into a screaming mess. Hifi exhibitors get around the problem by never playing that kind of program material at hifi shows - instead, you get "minimalist" audiophile-approved rock, jazz, and blues recordings, and they all have one thing in common: a sparse HF spectra, with the instrumentalists thoughtfully taking turns. Even MP3 compression has no problems when the spectra is so simple.
A fulls scale DA out 1/0/1/0 is suposed to have a large spectrum.
http://www.kettering.edu/~drussell/Demos/Fourier/Fourier.html
To bring this down is what the reconstruction filter is good for (if it works ).
One of the reasons the Behringer has (pretty much) room for improvement
Swiching power amps have some HF left too - with the same ignorant argument that its way beyond our hearing range - not considering the fold back into audio band.
Look at the pretty well regarded Hypex modules for example - other brands may be nothing better.
Greetings
Michael
http://www.kettering.edu/~drussell/Demos/Fourier/Fourier.html
To bring this down is what the reconstruction filter is good for (if it works
).One of the reasons the Behringer has (pretty much) room for improvement
Swiching power amps have some HF left too - with the same ignorant argument that its way beyond our hearing range - not considering the fold back into audio band.
Look at the pretty well regarded Hypex modules for example - other brands may be nothing better.
Greetings
Michael