have the Cube Audio Neo 8's
I also have had, and still have a stable of wide band drivers such as the; Lowther PM2MKII Ticonal drivers with rare half the width magnetic gaps, Dave Slagle, Jeffrey Jackson and my good buddy Jon VerHalen's Lowther massive field coil drivers, a pair of very, very good (recent) German made wide band field coil drivers. I have lived with three different Feastrex field coil pairs. Far preferring the D9e MKII's. There were many more wide band drivers of similar quality that have come through my testing facility over the past 15 years of my attempts to build the very best sounding Open Baffle design possible by me.
I ended up foregoing the strict idea of developing an OB setup that would allow a remarkable and unique driver like the Lowther PM2MKII Ticonal with extra narrow magnetic gap to work even close to full range in the bass without on baffle mid-bass augmentation. Hemp cone Tone Tubby drivers do nicely.
So, for me to get where I wanted to be sonically, I ended up with an eighteen inch wide by forty inch tall OB with an asymetric six in perpendicular wing on each babble. A twelve inch Hemp cone Tone Tubby pair for much needed mid-bass and a pair of custom RAAL Dipole Ribbon tweeters crossing in at 7,700 hetrz (2nd order crossover with Duelund paper in oil capacitors and Duelund inductors. The Lowther drivers run totally unfiltered. The TT's using a single 12 MH coil for 6db per octave at approximately 200 hz.
What helped to make this system so special and so damned coherent was the fact that ALL three drivers were/are within 1 to two db's in volume naturally, so no electrical or mechanical manipulation needed to match their volume levels. Of course it was needed to remove all four of the foam pads from the RAAL Ribbons and have a 4 ohm tap installed to get the needed volume output.
These WERE the best sounding speakers that I have encountered (they are still here). But I realized during my 15 year longitudinal study that none of the current wide band drivers translated to a truly satisfying full rage speaker system.
Things have VERY recently changed rather dramatically. I acquired a pair of Cube Audio NEO 8 drivers and immediately gave them a shot in my own Nenaphar type cabinets. They were good but I have never been a fan of the timing between this type of bass and its potential bass delay. Open Baffles were nice as these Cube drivers did not require any on baffle mid bass drivers (TT's). although I felt that they would benefit from a bit larger OB pair.
When I mounted these NEO 8's in a properly sized pair of acoustic suspension stand mounted cabinets and backed them up by a pair of acoustic suspension 10" subwoofers (three feet behind the F-8's), Then the sound was revelatory! This setup is doing ALL of the wonderful audio magic tricks that the, (I thought), the recently waaay overly enthusiastic and overly verbose (paid) reviewers were spewing.
Such a simply put together speaker setup that re-affirms my confidence that there is a very "Alive" sounding single eight inch "FULL RANGE" driver that really works and is ultimately musical and pin point Holographic as Hell.
Of course simple ten in subwoofers crossing between 75 and 80 hertz adds to the fun.
In closing, tis is a big deal for me after all of the drivers, designs and fifteen years of designs that I have been through. There is soooooo much more, but lets' leave it here for now.
Chopper87/Lance A
I also have had, and still have a stable of wide band drivers such as the; Lowther PM2MKII Ticonal drivers with rare half the width magnetic gaps, Dave Slagle, Jeffrey Jackson and my good buddy Jon VerHalen's Lowther massive field coil drivers, a pair of very, very good (recent) German made wide band field coil drivers. I have lived with three different Feastrex field coil pairs. Far preferring the D9e MKII's. There were many more wide band drivers of similar quality that have come through my testing facility over the past 15 years of my attempts to build the very best sounding Open Baffle design possible by me.
I ended up foregoing the strict idea of developing an OB setup that would allow a remarkable and unique driver like the Lowther PM2MKII Ticonal with extra narrow magnetic gap to work even close to full range in the bass without on baffle mid-bass augmentation. Hemp cone Tone Tubby drivers do nicely.
So, for me to get where I wanted to be sonically, I ended up with an eighteen inch wide by forty inch tall OB with an asymetric six in perpendicular wing on each babble. A twelve inch Hemp cone Tone Tubby pair for much needed mid-bass and a pair of custom RAAL Dipole Ribbon tweeters crossing in at 7,700 hetrz (2nd order crossover with Duelund paper in oil capacitors and Duelund inductors. The Lowther drivers run totally unfiltered. The TT's using a single 12 MH coil for 6db per octave at approximately 200 hz.
What helped to make this system so special and so damned coherent was the fact that ALL three drivers were/are within 1 to two db's in volume naturally, so no electrical or mechanical manipulation needed to match their volume levels. Of course it was needed to remove all four of the foam pads from the RAAL Ribbons and have a 4 ohm tap installed to get the needed volume output.
These WERE the best sounding speakers that I have encountered (they are still here). But I realized during my 15 year longitudinal study that none of the current wide band drivers translated to a truly satisfying full rage speaker system.
Things have VERY recently changed rather dramatically. I acquired a pair of Cube Audio NEO 8 drivers and immediately gave them a shot in my own Nenaphar type cabinets. They were good but I have never been a fan of the timing between this type of bass and its potential bass delay. Open Baffles were nice as these Cube drivers did not require any on baffle mid bass drivers (TT's). although I felt that they would benefit from a bit larger OB pair.
When I mounted these NEO 8's in a properly sized pair of acoustic suspension stand mounted cabinets and backed them up by a pair of acoustic suspension 10" subwoofers (three feet behind the F-8's), Then the sound was revelatory! This setup is doing ALL of the wonderful audio magic tricks that the, (I thought), the recently waaay overly enthusiastic and overly verbose (paid) reviewers were spewing.
Such a simply put together speaker setup that re-affirms my confidence that there is a very "Alive" sounding single eight inch "FULL RANGE" driver that really works and is ultimately musical and pin point Holographic as Hell.
Of course simple ten in subwoofers crossing between 75 and 80 hertz adds to the fun.
In closing, tis is a big deal for me after all of the drivers, designs and fifteen years of designs that I have been through. There is soooooo much more, but lets' leave it here for now.
Chopper87/Lance A
^ @sit2amp, I don't suppose you have had the listening sessions opportunity to compare Cube Neo 8 to MarkAudio MAOP 11 drivers?
No. I made a conscious choice early on in my in my process that I would NEVER have the time or energy to (and likely not the funds) attempt to seriously evaluate all of the available eight inch wide band drivers out there. So I decided to limit my efforts to what were and/are considered the best available (although this is subjective).
Hell, for all I know these MarkAudio MAOP 11 drivers are "Magic".
Lance A
Hell, for all I know these MarkAudio MAOP 11 drivers are "Magic".
Lance A
opinion required on cube audio neo f10 drivers
Looking through their specs i found that the frequency response given was based on room readings which can be very inconsistent across rooms. But lets forget that considering room reading provides a more realistic picturization.
What i couldnt turn a blind eye towards was that none of the readings had any information what kind of smoothing was used and also vertical scale of Spl was so big that it would make anything look flat and as an icing on the cake different axis responses were all superimposed on top of each other. All these three traits made it almost impossible to assess the speaker’s baseline performance from the frq graphs.
All i found on YouTube was some audio magazine guy talking the ttpical sales guy language and the speakers playing in a victorian posh living room with a fire place in the middle. Typical deceiving elements
I emailed cube audio regarding this and reply was that they will send me the requested 1/6 smoothing with 50db vertical scale graphs in one week. Have been giving them reminders for the last 1 month and guess what ! Not a single reply
At this point dont blame me for turning skeptical about the actual performance of these cube audio drivers.
Looking through their specs i found that the frequency response given was based on room readings which can be very inconsistent across rooms. But lets forget that considering room reading provides a more realistic picturization.
What i couldnt turn a blind eye towards was that none of the readings had any information what kind of smoothing was used and also vertical scale of Spl was so big that it would make anything look flat and as an icing on the cake different axis responses were all superimposed on top of each other. All these three traits made it almost impossible to assess the speaker’s baseline performance from the frq graphs.
All i found on YouTube was some audio magazine guy talking the ttpical sales guy language and the speakers playing in a victorian posh living room with a fire place in the middle. Typical deceiving elements
I emailed cube audio regarding this and reply was that they will send me the requested 1/6 smoothing with 50db vertical scale graphs in one week. Have been giving them reminders for the last 1 month and guess what ! Not a single reply
At this point dont blame me for turning skeptical about the actual performance of these cube audio drivers.
Hi Berly,
I think that your scepticism with the offered SPL paintings is correct. There was a Cube Audio review in a german hifi magazine some time ago, not the F10, but however their measurements were not similar to cube Audio´s own graphs. They reminded more of the typical SPL curves more or less common to, as far as I know, all larger fullrange drivers: more or less ragged, more or less exaggerated in the uppermid/lower treble area, reduced top end.
All this is not so bad per se and is to be experienced with a lot of other drivers as well (my own included), once you start to make serious measurements. Sadly, many manufacturers don´t offer any serious measurements, especially not manufacturers of expensive fullrange drivers...
The same goes on with sensitivity claims, some manufacturers claim numbers as high as 107dB/2,8v/1m. This might happen in reality, but only at the one single frequency where breakup is most severe...
Once you start to correct (or balance the response) drivers behaviour in a reasonable way, with the intent to get a relatively equal loudness over a useful wide frequency range, you´ll end up somewhere around 90dB/2,8v/1m, maybe a bit more for a 10", but that´s reality, as long as you´re not using mechanical amplifiers like horns.
This all of course does not imply that the Cube Audio drivers are bad, they aren´t. But, sorry, their offered measurement data is.
One more word: I have had and still have quite some fullrange drivers, and none of the larger examples has worked well without sensibly implemented correction, of course in my experience only... but I´ve always preferred a balanced reproduction. And forget any tales which say that passive elements in front of a fullrange driver are an idea from hell... they´re not, and you can do it with dsp as well. But it need to be done sensibly, and a ruler flat FR graph is neither desired nor sounds good.
All the best
Mattes
Hey Mattes
Thanks for the reply. I myself use a a Frugel-Horn with 11ms and have measured the response and yes it is a bit ragged at places. But why i wasnt disappointed is because my measurements fairly coincided in shape with the official graphs published.
And I remember talking to scott and dave regarding the bass extension before the build and they honestly told me that bass extension is upto 30-35hz but since its part of room gain its not going to be an even response and sure enough it wasn’t, but I didn’t feel betrayed as they had already told me that. You see this kind of honest communication from designers and manufacturers is what I appreciate.
This is exactly what i dont see in cube audio website. Its border line malicious marketing.
Yes the frq response might be real but the presentation of that frq response is intentionally scaled in a way to compress 10-20 db in a few millimeters and added 1/4 smoothing so that even huge variations in frq graphs looks pretty straight to an untrained eye. And for no reason the price is double or triple compared to other drivers which perform much better. And then the audio magazine marketing words ( “airy, space , nothing like this , holographic, neighbor could hear bass , mesmerizing” and so on goes pleasing to hear but useless words)
Anyway im done talking about this
i just wanted to make sure that im not the only crazy one here who felt something was off in their measurements and graphs.