US retailers of 18 Sound drivers
I'm trying to find a source for the 18 Sound drivers.
Here's a couple links to retailers (US only)
US Speakers
Studio 34
Real Pro Audio
Loudspeakers Plus
I have no experience with any of these dealers. Also, none of them
seem to carry the 12NDA520.
Anyone know where to buy them?
herm
I'm trying to find a source for the 18 Sound drivers.
Here's a couple links to retailers (US only)
US Speakers
Studio 34
Real Pro Audio
Loudspeakers Plus
I have no experience with any of these dealers. Also, none of them
seem to carry the 12NDA520.
Anyone know where to buy them?
herm
Member
Joined 2003
Re: RAAL
I have spoken with RAAL on the phone - they are located in Serbia, and it's a one-man shop, so I tried to keep things brief and to the point. The owner designs, builds, and supports the customers, so any time on the phone or answering e-mails takes away from build and new-design time.
Like many other vendors - Radian, 18Sound, etc. most of RAAL's sales are into the OEM market. Also, like many other vendors, when phone and e-mail support are factored in, DIY sales are probably a net loss for the vendor.
I know about this first hand: I was the system engineer at a Portland computer store for three years, and it takes just as much support and hand-holding for a couple hesitantly buying their first computer as it does for an entire school district buying 300 machines. Actually, the school district takes LESS support, so they know what they want, while the first-time buyer isn't sure they want a computer at all.
It looks just the same for a driver vendor: a DIY'er pondering a US$800 purchase requires much more hand-holding, reassurance, and psychoanalyzing than a high-end manufacturer buying $50,000 worth of drivers. The most important thing to the manufacturer is the delivery schedule and quality control: they've already made up their mind about the driver, and don't have to be talked into it. The onesy-twosy buyer, though, can get into a major existential crisis about the purchase, and is filled with doubt, uncertainty, and all sorts of conflicting advice from magazines and forums like these.
My conversations with vendors mostly discuss specifications and whether or not an already-existing OEM product would fit the design spec I'm seeking. I'm very reluctant to ask any driver vendor to design something for me - I'd much rather buy something off the shelf, since I have no way of assuring the required sales volume (unlike an OEM vendor that's signed a purchase agreement).
If there is an OEM version that fits the need - in this case, we're speaking of a 100 dB/metre ribbon that can be crossed at 2 kHz and still have low distortion at studio-monitor sound levels - then it comes down to whether or not this can be sold into the DIY market without irritating the existing OEM customer.
This is out of my hands: it is between the driver vendor and OEM purchaser, and involves Non-Disclosure Agreements that I haven't signed. It is entirely up to RAAL whether to make a product like this available to the small and high-maintenance DIY market. If this forum floods RAAL with scores of e-mails, I wouldn't blame the vendor if they get annoyed and shut down the entire DIY aspect of their webpage. I might do the same if I were in their position.
Please, tread lightly, guys. In the larger scheme of things, the DIY community is a barely discernable blip for manufacturers that are already running on thin margins. The really serious high-end manufacturers are not flying Lear Jets and driving BMW 7-Series cars.
chrismercurio said:
I have spoken with RAAL on the phone - they are located in Serbia, and it's a one-man shop, so I tried to keep things brief and to the point. The owner designs, builds, and supports the customers, so any time on the phone or answering e-mails takes away from build and new-design time.
Like many other vendors - Radian, 18Sound, etc. most of RAAL's sales are into the OEM market. Also, like many other vendors, when phone and e-mail support are factored in, DIY sales are probably a net loss for the vendor.
I know about this first hand: I was the system engineer at a Portland computer store for three years, and it takes just as much support and hand-holding for a couple hesitantly buying their first computer as it does for an entire school district buying 300 machines. Actually, the school district takes LESS support, so they know what they want, while the first-time buyer isn't sure they want a computer at all.
It looks just the same for a driver vendor: a DIY'er pondering a US$800 purchase requires much more hand-holding, reassurance, and psychoanalyzing than a high-end manufacturer buying $50,000 worth of drivers. The most important thing to the manufacturer is the delivery schedule and quality control: they've already made up their mind about the driver, and don't have to be talked into it. The onesy-twosy buyer, though, can get into a major existential crisis about the purchase, and is filled with doubt, uncertainty, and all sorts of conflicting advice from magazines and forums like these.
My conversations with vendors mostly discuss specifications and whether or not an already-existing OEM product would fit the design spec I'm seeking. I'm very reluctant to ask any driver vendor to design something for me - I'd much rather buy something off the shelf, since I have no way of assuring the required sales volume (unlike an OEM vendor that's signed a purchase agreement).
If there is an OEM version that fits the need - in this case, we're speaking of a 100 dB/metre ribbon that can be crossed at 2 kHz and still have low distortion at studio-monitor sound levels - then it comes down to whether or not this can be sold into the DIY market without irritating the existing OEM customer.
This is out of my hands: it is between the driver vendor and OEM purchaser, and involves Non-Disclosure Agreements that I haven't signed. It is entirely up to RAAL whether to make a product like this available to the small and high-maintenance DIY market. If this forum floods RAAL with scores of e-mails, I wouldn't blame the vendor if they get annoyed and shut down the entire DIY aspect of their webpage. I might do the same if I were in their position.
Please, tread lightly, guys. In the larger scheme of things, the DIY community is a barely discernable blip for manufacturers that are already running on thin margins. The really serious high-end manufacturers are not flying Lear Jets and driving BMW 7-Series cars.
Right...
I have addressed this in an earlier post with respect to a different manufacturer, but perhaps not with the same breadth or depth. If you would enlighten us all at about the question below it would be much appreciated.
Beaming, and RAAL Post #759
With the implementation of such a large driver for the midrange, how does one avoid beaming at higher frequencies? ie, when the frequency propagated is smaller in wavelength than the driver diameter.
Thanks for your time Lynn and I respect your position on the issue,
C
I have addressed this in an earlier post with respect to a different manufacturer, but perhaps not with the same breadth or depth. If you would enlighten us all at about the question below it would be much appreciated.
Beaming, and RAAL Post #759
With the implementation of such a large driver for the midrange, how does one avoid beaming at higher frequencies? ie, when the frequency propagated is smaller in wavelength than the driver diameter.
Thanks for your time Lynn and I respect your position on the issue,
C
Polar Pattern vs Other Factors
Yes, my systems beam. The Ariel does too, with a 3.8 kHz acoustic crossover, and a MTM with 5.5" drivers. Not what you're going to find in Loudspeaker Design Cookbook or most of the DIY sites on the Internet.
Like all speaker designers, I have a set of priorities, ranked from "most-important" to "nice, but not essential", to "don't care", to "actively avoid at all costs". These are not picked at random; they relate to my sonic preferences, not a focus group, or corporate design mandate. I'm aware that in subjective sonic terms, I'm out of step with the high-end audiophile mainstream, and probably even more out of sync with the old-school Altec and JBL horn enthusiasts.
Driver coloration is the real issue for me: both the "additive" coloration that is there all the time, and the more subtle "subtractive" coloration that means certain tone colors and dynamic expression is flattened out (think of what MP3 compression does to sound). The reasons for "additive" coloration are fairly straightforward, resonances that appear in the CSD display, harmonic distortion, especially higher-order terms from the 3rd on out, and IM distortion from out-of-band components that are not well-controlled by the crossover.
"Subtractive" coloration is equally real, but the reasons are not as easy to find. Masking from distortion and stored energy is an obvious source, but there are technical problems that are more subtle and do not readily yield to measurement. Being faithful to the dynamics of the original, and fidelity to fleeting and subtle tone colors - this is where nearly all "mainstream" low-efficiency speakers fall down.
I put a controlled polar pattern fairly far down on the list, compared to getting the drivers to behave well. If I did "mainstream" designs, you'd see a 3 or 4-way with a 12-inch woofer, 4-inch midrange, and tweeter drivers, LR4 crossovers, very massive box with beautiful wood finish, etc. etc. These are the same speakers you see at the CES or RMAF. There are no shortage of speakers like this, at all price points. No thanks.
I enjoyed the Ariel when I designed it in 1992, and still do. But I've heard things since then that have gotten my attention. I like what these new systems do well, and don't like what they don't do well.
I like the effortless dynamics of both the Oris/Azurahorns with Lowther/AER drivers, but don't like the residual horn and whizzercone coloration. Similarly, I like the effortless dynamics and in-the-room quality of the Bastani Apollo, but don't care for the exotic driver treatment and requirement for off-axis listening. I like the 3D quality of the Linkwitz systems, but don't care for the extensive active equalization and multiple transistor high-powered amps.
I've heard systems that have very careful polar-pattern design, and other systems with really terrible polar patterns (easy to tell just by looking at the size of the drivers and the frequency range they cover). Frankly, I find no correlation with sound quality - there are wonderful, average, and terrible speakers in each group, and the controlled-directivity do not, as a group, sound better than speaker systems where it is not an important design factor.
The whole buzz about directivity reminds me very much of the linear-phase fad in the late Seventies. It matters, yes, but it isn't as important as many writers would have us believe. Driver sonics come first for me; everything else is secondary to that.
But that is only speaking for myself. People in the hifi biz train themselves to hear different things: some people are quite sensitive to absolute phase, and cannot tolerate phase reversal, so they have a phase switch they flip with every track they listen to, choosing the subjective best on a recording-by-recording, or track-by-track, basis. Other people are really wired into micro and macro dynamics, and can only accept horn systems, or at the least, systems with studio-monitor dynamics. The most recent wrinkle are people who are very sensitive to polar patterns - they're picking up stereo-image cues many of us don't hear.
It's easy to claim that everyone hears the way you do - making the same assertion as the horn-dynamics, absolute-phase, ultra-damped cabinet, linear-phase, electrostat-sound, and East Coast vs West Coast Sound enthusiasts have made before (going backward through the last forty years of speaker fads). Maybe so, maybe not.
Do I discount polar patterns? No, I don't. It's another thing to consider in the overall design. But I don't let it control the design; it's just another factor to be weighted into the overall sum of considerations. For now, at least, I like the sound of big-diaphragm midranges - very much. They bring back happy memories of the easy, relaxed sound of the best 1950's speakers. I was a kid back then, but remember what music was popular - classical and what was called "pops" - and the way things sounded, with all-vacuum-tube electronics and recordings mastered on Ampex 350-series machines.
Am I one of those retro guys that wants to bring back Bozak and Stephens Tru-Sonic? Although I think that's a great idea - and a terrific business opportunity for somebody - that's not what I want to do. Let others get into collecting or making reproductions.
I'm much more interested in the ideas and set of esthetic values that are part of all designs, from all cultures, from every historical period. I can have the sound of a big-diaphragm midrange without making an exact copy of a JBL, Altec, or Bozak 15-inch driver, just as I can design an all-transformer-coupled all-triode amplifier without shopping in Akihibara for a Western Electric 92A.
Even if I had the US$20,000 asking price, I'd rather find out what makes the 92A an interesting design and then re-invent it in modern terms. I'm neither a collector nor a historical purist.
I'd like to re-invent some of the best qualities (well, I hope I can) of the 1950's-vintage speakers - but without copying them wholesale. Every era has its esthetic, particularly loudspeakers, which are optimized for the electronics and musical tastes of the era when it was designed. Big midranges have a certain quality that I want to explore - and a dipole should bring it to full expression, since there are no cabinet colorations to cloud and confuse the sound. The converse is true as well - with no cabinet to disguise things, the drivers have to as good as possible.
I expect this will be an interesting journey.
chrismercurio said:
Yes, my systems beam. The Ariel does too, with a 3.8 kHz acoustic crossover, and a MTM with 5.5" drivers. Not what you're going to find in Loudspeaker Design Cookbook or most of the DIY sites on the Internet.
Like all speaker designers, I have a set of priorities, ranked from "most-important" to "nice, but not essential", to "don't care", to "actively avoid at all costs". These are not picked at random; they relate to my sonic preferences, not a focus group, or corporate design mandate. I'm aware that in subjective sonic terms, I'm out of step with the high-end audiophile mainstream, and probably even more out of sync with the old-school Altec and JBL horn enthusiasts.
Driver coloration is the real issue for me: both the "additive" coloration that is there all the time, and the more subtle "subtractive" coloration that means certain tone colors and dynamic expression is flattened out (think of what MP3 compression does to sound). The reasons for "additive" coloration are fairly straightforward, resonances that appear in the CSD display, harmonic distortion, especially higher-order terms from the 3rd on out, and IM distortion from out-of-band components that are not well-controlled by the crossover.
"Subtractive" coloration is equally real, but the reasons are not as easy to find. Masking from distortion and stored energy is an obvious source, but there are technical problems that are more subtle and do not readily yield to measurement. Being faithful to the dynamics of the original, and fidelity to fleeting and subtle tone colors - this is where nearly all "mainstream" low-efficiency speakers fall down.
I put a controlled polar pattern fairly far down on the list, compared to getting the drivers to behave well. If I did "mainstream" designs, you'd see a 3 or 4-way with a 12-inch woofer, 4-inch midrange, and tweeter drivers, LR4 crossovers, very massive box with beautiful wood finish, etc. etc. These are the same speakers you see at the CES or RMAF. There are no shortage of speakers like this, at all price points. No thanks.
I enjoyed the Ariel when I designed it in 1992, and still do. But I've heard things since then that have gotten my attention. I like what these new systems do well, and don't like what they don't do well.
I like the effortless dynamics of both the Oris/Azurahorns with Lowther/AER drivers, but don't like the residual horn and whizzercone coloration. Similarly, I like the effortless dynamics and in-the-room quality of the Bastani Apollo, but don't care for the exotic driver treatment and requirement for off-axis listening. I like the 3D quality of the Linkwitz systems, but don't care for the extensive active equalization and multiple transistor high-powered amps.
I've heard systems that have very careful polar-pattern design, and other systems with really terrible polar patterns (easy to tell just by looking at the size of the drivers and the frequency range they cover). Frankly, I find no correlation with sound quality - there are wonderful, average, and terrible speakers in each group, and the controlled-directivity do not, as a group, sound better than speaker systems where it is not an important design factor.
The whole buzz about directivity reminds me very much of the linear-phase fad in the late Seventies. It matters, yes, but it isn't as important as many writers would have us believe. Driver sonics come first for me; everything else is secondary to that.
But that is only speaking for myself. People in the hifi biz train themselves to hear different things: some people are quite sensitive to absolute phase, and cannot tolerate phase reversal, so they have a phase switch they flip with every track they listen to, choosing the subjective best on a recording-by-recording, or track-by-track, basis. Other people are really wired into micro and macro dynamics, and can only accept horn systems, or at the least, systems with studio-monitor dynamics. The most recent wrinkle are people who are very sensitive to polar patterns - they're picking up stereo-image cues many of us don't hear.
It's easy to claim that everyone hears the way you do - making the same assertion as the horn-dynamics, absolute-phase, ultra-damped cabinet, linear-phase, electrostat-sound, and East Coast vs West Coast Sound enthusiasts have made before (going backward through the last forty years of speaker fads). Maybe so, maybe not.
Do I discount polar patterns? No, I don't. It's another thing to consider in the overall design. But I don't let it control the design; it's just another factor to be weighted into the overall sum of considerations. For now, at least, I like the sound of big-diaphragm midranges - very much. They bring back happy memories of the easy, relaxed sound of the best 1950's speakers. I was a kid back then, but remember what music was popular - classical and what was called "pops" - and the way things sounded, with all-vacuum-tube electronics and recordings mastered on Ampex 350-series machines.
Am I one of those retro guys that wants to bring back Bozak and Stephens Tru-Sonic? Although I think that's a great idea - and a terrific business opportunity for somebody - that's not what I want to do. Let others get into collecting or making reproductions.
I'm much more interested in the ideas and set of esthetic values that are part of all designs, from all cultures, from every historical period. I can have the sound of a big-diaphragm midrange without making an exact copy of a JBL, Altec, or Bozak 15-inch driver, just as I can design an all-transformer-coupled all-triode amplifier without shopping in Akihibara for a Western Electric 92A.
Even if I had the US$20,000 asking price, I'd rather find out what makes the 92A an interesting design and then re-invent it in modern terms. I'm neither a collector nor a historical purist.
I'd like to re-invent some of the best qualities (well, I hope I can) of the 1950's-vintage speakers - but without copying them wholesale. Every era has its esthetic, particularly loudspeakers, which are optimized for the electronics and musical tastes of the era when it was designed. Big midranges have a certain quality that I want to explore - and a dipole should bring it to full expression, since there are no cabinet colorations to cloud and confuse the sound. The converse is true as well - with no cabinet to disguise things, the drivers have to as good as possible.
I expect this will be an interesting journey.
Re: Re: RAAL
Lynn,
Here's for hoping that the asking price for "only a tweeter" should rule out most frivolous inquiries.
While taking one self as an example is never a good idea I would stick my head out and assume that a large majority of the potential buyers reading this thread are actually waiting for a build -- set of drivers, XOs, tuned, measured, etc -- and then simply clone that setup.
But then again, maybe that's just me looking for action
Lynn Olson said:
Lynn,
Here's for hoping that the asking price for "only a tweeter" should rule out most frivolous inquiries.
While taking one self as an example is never a good idea I would stick my head out and assume that a large majority of the potential buyers reading this thread are actually waiting for a build -- set of drivers, XOs, tuned, measured, etc -- and then simply clone that setup.
But then again, maybe that's just me looking for action
Hi
thanks!
Yes, the CSD of the RAAL ribbons are exceptional.
But there is also harmonics and max – SPL that matters among other – usually not an easy task for transformer driven speakers with very limited excursion like "real" ribbons.
Though I see it obviously works, to me it always seems kind of a miracle how a ribbon – having no suspension at all – will last for longer than a single sine wave.
We have to keep in mind that when the ribbon is moving it also MUST have a independent LINEAR force that brings it back to its centre position. With a suspension less construction the only mechanism you have for this is the flexibility of the aluminium foil itself. Aluminium - as any other metal - is very restricted in its fully reversible flexibility when pulled.
One other thing that has to be kept in mind is that the excursion of a ribbon is not restricted mechanically in the same way as a conventional speaker. A normal speaker runs definitely out of excursion when the VC reaches the bottom plate whereas a ribbon does not have that mechanical restriction to a "save operating area" making it prone to over stress of the foil.
Greetings
Michael
thanks!
Yes, the CSD of the RAAL ribbons are exceptional.
But there is also harmonics and max – SPL that matters among other – usually not an easy task for transformer driven speakers with very limited excursion like "real" ribbons.
Though I see it obviously works, to me it always seems kind of a miracle how a ribbon – having no suspension at all – will last for longer than a single sine wave.
We have to keep in mind that when the ribbon is moving it also MUST have a independent LINEAR force that brings it back to its centre position. With a suspension less construction the only mechanism you have for this is the flexibility of the aluminium foil itself. Aluminium - as any other metal - is very restricted in its fully reversible flexibility when pulled.
One other thing that has to be kept in mind is that the excursion of a ribbon is not restricted mechanically in the same way as a conventional speaker. A normal speaker runs definitely out of excursion when the VC reaches the bottom plate whereas a ribbon does not have that mechanical restriction to a "save operating area" making it prone to over stress of the foil.
Greetings
Michael
mige0 said:
Here's an interesting thought: Combine the BMS 4591 mid-high compression driver (and horn) with a ribbon supertweeter. The BMS 4591 can be allowed to roll off on its own - it appears to be deliberately designed to do just that - and then give the ribbon a 7 kHz 12 or 18 dB/octave highpass filter.
This plays to the strength of each technology - low IM distortion in the 400 Hz to 7 kHz range from the 2" compression driver (although the BMS is really a ring radiator), and taking advantage of the low-mass qualities of a ribbon at the highest frequencies, in the region where CD diaphragms start to break up. The power requirements in the 7 to 30 kHz region are modest - in fact, shutting off the supertweeter completely will only result in a mild dulling of the sound. (The old "scratch filter" setting in 1950's preamps.)
See Zaph Audio distortion measurements for a collection of different ribbons - they're definitely in trouble below 5 kHz, and clean up pretty rapidly above that.
One minor objection: the supertweeter crossover is at a high enough frequency that the drivers, of necessity, must be physically spaced several wavelengths apart. Fortunately, notches in the 7 kHz and above region are pretty much inaudible - unlike the situation an octave lower, where the ear is reaching its peak sensitivity. I would trade esthetics for performance, though, and would locate the supertweeter in free space just slightly in back of the BMS 4591. Crossovers are much easier to design when arrival-times are more or less the same for all drivers.
Another advantage of the BMS 4591 is serious power-handling at fairly low frequencies - if you're willing to live with a big horn, a 400~700 Hz crossover is a real possibility, allowing a wide selection of 12 and 15-inch drivers with no concerns about radiation-pattern narrowing. Hmmm ...
P.S. The US distributor for BMS is Assistance Audio. Prices for the 4591 look pretty reasonable.
Hi Lynn,
Just a simple observation - which means this post should actually be in brackets within this present thread - but stepping backwards from the present project with circa 7kHz crossover - a 'poor man's' compact/simple baffle might then easily be based upon the drivers you already use for the Ariel, with additional series-parallel drivers below to provide for both baffle step correction and more efficient displacement for bass.
This couldn't have the more dynamic sensitivity you seek within this thread, though it might have much more WAF.
Okay - different project, so I'm sitting down again .......... Graham.
Just a simple observation - which means this post should actually be in brackets within this present thread - but stepping backwards from the present project with circa 7kHz crossover - a 'poor man's' compact/simple baffle might then easily be based upon the drivers you already use for the Ariel, with additional series-parallel drivers below to provide for both baffle step correction and more efficient displacement for bass.
This couldn't have the more dynamic sensitivity you seek within this thread, though it might have much more WAF.
Okay - different project, so I'm sitting down again .......... Graham.
Graham Maynard said:
What you're suggesting is actually a version of the ME2 I've encouraged people to try if they're going with the stereo-subwoofer route. If the sub is physically right underneath the ME2, the ME2 cabinet serves no useful function, and can be replaced with a simple swept baffle. "Horses for Courses" as the Brits like to say - if you need what a cabinet provides (bass below 200 Hz), fine, go ahead, but if the bass is coming from somewhere else anyway, a cabinet serves no useful purpose, and just muddles the sound.
You then end up with a more spacious sounding ME2, and are then committed to a widerange subwoofer with good performance up to 200 Hz. This isn't rocket science, though, and there are any number of ways to build a decent-sounding woofer.
The reservation I have about the Ariel and ME2 these days is that I'm not sure if the Vifa 5.5" has slowly changed over the last 15 years. I also don't care for the current Scan-Speak tweeters as much as the traditional sticky-dome Scan-Speak 9000 - but that tweeter was discontinued many years ago.
It sort of astonishes me that the Ariel and ME2 are 15 years old. At the time, I thought it was kind of clever to create a minimonitor-style speaker with 92 dB/metre efficiency and 105 dB of headroom. (My previous speaker, the immodestly named LO-2, was 86 dB/metre efficient and designed in 1979.)
My long-held hopes of Scan-Speak, Vifa, Seas, and Dynaudio designing substantially more efficient drivers have been dashed - if anything, they're less efficient than 15 years ago. Nuts to them. Let other people design around these drivers - I'm looking at modern studio-monitor drivers.
Lynn Olson said:
Btw. a rock and a hard place.... XO smack bang in the middle of the presence region or too high.
With me swearing up and down by the (claimed!) 300 degrees dispersion of the Gallo Acoustics CDT tweeter XOed @ 3k I would still go for the big 12NDA520 XOed 'bit below 2k vs. the above CD+horn XOed at 7k.
But that again....single driver btw. 400 Hz and 7k (beaming ?) with none (or minimal) overlap at HF...
Geez Lynn, do you _really_ have make it so hard
?