We may have to have a vote! Dave seems taken with WWW, he doesn't think a subwoofer goes high enough to blend with a wideband (I'm fully committed to wideband BTW)
Those are still for sale. The Gradient Rep in the United States seems to be a very low key operation. They're "office" is theoretically ten miles from me, but when I wanted to give them a listen it turned out to be a hotel room lol
SimpliFi Audio - a systems approach to musical truth
Nonetheless, these are simply amazing designs and it's criminal how few people have heard them.
Since I really enjoyed the 18 coaxial speakers that my buddy John built, I'll have to agree!
Well, take it from this perspective: If there's a virtue considered above any other virtues here in Finland, it has to be humility. That makes us really crappy at marketing. Too many of us feel a slight disgust even thinking of banging our chests boasting about what we've done.
But back to the point of the OP, coaxials can be great. Even the more humble ones. Those 6,5" Seas drivers mentioned can sound quite good, and the crossover they need isn't always that complicated. Just give 'em a coil and a cap, maybe a resistor or two. Works for the Seas's...
One thing coaxials do great is integration of drivers. When done right - ie. given the right crossover point - the directivity patterns of the two drivers tends to fit right together like a glove, without even really trying. That gives you coherent sound for kinda free. The frequency point of crossing over itself isn't of any importance, just measure the drivers and find out the point where they themselves want to be crossed over naturally. Usually this approach works like a clock.
One thing coaxials do great is integration of drivers. When done right - ie. given the right crossover point - the directivity patterns of the two drivers tends to fit right together like a glove, without even really trying. That gives you coherent sound for kinda free. The frequency point of crossing over itself isn't of any importance, just measure the drivers and find out the point where they themselves want to be crossed over naturally. Usually this approach works like a clock.
Um, there is just something aesthetically wrong with the horn taking up so much space! 🙂 But good find.
Someday I will own my own home and have a wood shop again and be able to try all sorts of fun things.
Best,
E
Based just on the spec it looks nice. I like how extended the components are; lots of overlap. I'd like to try a driver like this one day, to hear:
a) a non metallic diaphragm on a HF horn
b) a smaller coax than my current 15"
I'm apartment dwelling now (no work area), but I have a bush block to dally on, and am about to join a maker space (essentially a communal workshop) to access oodles of gear. If you Google ["Maker Space" + CITYNAME] you might find something similar near you.
15" cax might be the Golden rule. This funny looking speaker made me smile at a Finnish Audio Show
Martion Bullfrog Aktiv (with dsp) Bullfrog active | Martion
Martion Bullfrog Aktiv (with dsp) Bullfrog active | Martion
How was the sound?
This has some similarity to my setup - my 15" coaxials are in near-cubes with lots of rounding on the corners. I note they use 10w / 350w amps, implying a huge amount of LF boost.
I use a lot less power and eq than that, cos I have a box with two more 15" instead of a stand. Stands seem like a waste of space to me.
for 12cx, I've got Eminence in 54, 80 and 109oz ferrite magnets - some Beyma 12cx with APT50-like tweeters. P-Audio 10cx and 15cx.
80oz magnet Eminence are the most sensitive of my 12cx - Beyma 12cx woofer, the most extended on the top. Seems like an allpass on the woofer helped lock the tweeter to the woofer
80oz magnet Eminence are the most sensitive of my 12cx - Beyma 12cx woofer, the most extended on the top. Seems like an allpass on the woofer helped lock the tweeter to the woofer
You seem to slam drivers pretty hard, so I'd have thought excursion capability would be more important than sensitivity
How much difference does this make? I haven't experimented with delay on mine, partly cos I didn't know how to get it right - it took me an embarrassingly long time to work out how REW does impulse plots.
If you're cheap like me, another way to get a large coax for a low price is to buy a Kef center channel. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but left and right speakers from Kef sell for about $200-$300 used, while the center channels rarely cost more than $100. And since the center channel is a coaxial, you just buy two center channel speakers and use them as a stereo pair.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
For instance, you can get these all day long for well under $100. To me, this is about 80% of the technology in an LS50 for 10% of the price. Is the LS50 better? Of course it is. But this is a lot of speaker for not a lot of money.
Having said all that, I'm kind spoiled by my Synergy projects and I think they sound more 'right' than this Kef. (I have one.) I also thing the smaller Kefs sound better. I'm not sure if it's the crossover or something else, but the Kef 90 sounds 'ordinary' to me, it sounds like a good conventional loud speaker. The smaller Kefs and the Synergy horns are magical. That project I published two months ago, where I put a phase plug on the midrange driver of a coaxial, it had that 'magic' too.
If I had to take a guess, I'd say there's some type of phase issue in the crossover of the larger Kef. Perhaps they had to resort to a steep filter and that screwed up the phase? I know the small Kef uses a very simple xover and so did my project from two months ago.
I don't play anything "loud" - but do see little speakers run out of dynamics .
here's ~ what I had on an Eminence 12cx (woofer)
(that's cool on the Kef center channel)
here's ~ what I had on an Eminence 12cx (woofer)
(that's cool on the Kef center channel)
I've owned lots of coaxes over the years and still have a dozen or so here. Most of the Tannoy Red, Gold and HPDs are pretty good as are the old Altecs. But all of them are a lot better with a dedicated LF driver handling <250Hz, actively crossed. Keeps the midbass out of the mid cone and reduces excursion a lot.
Of the current drivers I have the Faital 8HX200s and 6HX150s and they seem pretty good based upon initial rough tests and a dialled-by-eye DSP xover. I'll post more when I've had time to take detailed measurements. These will be used in my surrounds with a 15" below them. The sixes will be used similarly in the bedroom.
I also have a quad of the PAudio BM8CXA and they're quite good, if you replace the awful HF driver with something like a BM440 or 450. The 15CX38 are also very good. The 8" units will possibly end up as Atmos speakers; when and if I'm ever convinced it's worth pursuing.
Of the current drivers I have the Faital 8HX200s and 6HX150s and they seem pretty good based upon initial rough tests and a dialled-by-eye DSP xover. I'll post more when I've had time to take detailed measurements. These will be used in my surrounds with a 15" below them. The sixes will be used similarly in the bedroom.
I also have a quad of the PAudio BM8CXA and they're quite good, if you replace the awful HF driver with something like a BM440 or 450. The 15CX38 are also very good. The 8" units will possibly end up as Atmos speakers; when and if I'm ever convinced it's worth pursuing.
The smile on my face was because of the good sound ofcourse. But they do look funny yes... The sound of Martion Bullfrogs was very natural and effortless, very good imaging. They were in a conference room, larger than a typical classroom and more than 2m from walls. The bass was good and had good extension.
I agree that it will be stressed in bass at high levels - a bass module (pair of) would make it even better. It would have been very interesting to get it measured and to study the dsp settings. I bet it would be quite easy to clone Bullfrogs.
Still, big synergys of Legis sound even better and have more headroom...
Why arent there enough coax around the 4" range, for an upper-mid/tweeter application in a 4-way.
Also, are there Coax suitable for dipole applications?
thanks
Also, are there Coax suitable for dipole applications?
thanks
4" is a bit small but there are well over a dozen co-axials available in the 5-6.5" range from a variety of manufacturers.
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