Good if you are selling speakers. But if you're not, what will you do with a hundred of very high performance cheap speakers?
That is the most important thing imo. Never lose sight of that when trying to achieve "high end".
As long as it is good (after implemented), whatever the material doesn't matter. Never found plastic that is good tho (I think no expensive tweeters use plastic). To find a perfect one, there is too much compromise. Money surely is one.
You can slide the x-over point up and down til it fits. Then you have perfect syncronous ringing of the two units. That gets you the integration you're after, as all these things put together makes for the two units to sound the same at x-over. The only problem then, is the distance between the to centerpoints.
Oh, there are many issue with dust cap at (high) frequency it doesn't suppose to reproduce. The cone OTOH is stiffer because it is to reproduce bass. And at lower diameter (associated with HF) the orientation is similar like it's direction of movement (i.e exponential cone). Dust cap is frontal in comparison.
system7 I personally like the ugly one. I don't care what it looks like, and I think there is good tweeters, in any catagory of material, if implemented properly, I have tried everything and none of them have been complete failures. Problem for me is, that if you don't nneed your speaker to land on e meteor in outer space, why make them with spacetechnology, thats going to cost you valuable funds, that could be used better in other areas of your speaker. Some people just thinks gold, silver,titanium, diamond, carbon, etc. sounds cool, when bragging about how good their speakers are and will pay for the pure pleasure of owning something expensive. I won't.
Woofer-tweeter matching is a function of a lot of variables. Integration can be achieved in a wide possible XO points. My decision for the XO point is more about optimal sharing performance between woofer and tweeter.
It is a function of frequency and wavelength. With 8" woofer, I think you don't need to cut the tweeter flange if you don't go higher than 2k5.
To increase flexibility or possibility of choosing higher XO, you can always cut the flange.
So people may look at their bling-speakers and have fun with that. In the meantime, I will close my eyes and listen to mine to figure out, what to do better with the money, I have saved.
Jay, You apparently don't understand my concept. I'm just a lousy teacher and presenter of my bad ideas. Yours might be better. I haven't heard them. What are you using as woofer , I will ask you again and again until you tell me
No, I believe your ideas are sound.
First, what is your highest acceptable low frequency extension? This is critical because if you end-up with subwoofer, why have you to force a tweeter to integrate with 8" woofers, which you already know the problems.
Yes, there is this "intensity" of sound that requires large cone, or easily achieved with 8" than smaller ones for a 2-way. But I don't like compression (Doppler distortion) of a small woofer that has to cover wide bandwidth, so I went with 3-way. My woofer is not sophisticated. It's purpose is simply to allow the midrange duties handled by special driver, and to avoid Doppler distortion in bass reproduction.
I can use my 10" if I want the lowest bass notes. I can use my modified 12" if I want low distortion and intensity. But I use a 8" high Qts vintage paper woofer for it's small size but with very low bass extension.
So, I have no secret on the woofer. Because I don't try to achieve good bass and midrange with a single driver like you do.
You can't keep such a big secret to yourself. Is it homemade by you, patent pending ? It has foam surround, and is close to 8". What is it ?
Thats the concept, I'm talking about. A good midrange to a good tweeter. Thats where you can never go wrong. Give it a cigar !
Woofer, I don't know what brand. Probably Panasonic. It's vintage. Foam surround. Small magnet diameter but long (I guess the coil is long). Nothing expensive. I got it second hand of course. (Last night at friend's house who sell used audio stuff I saw similar vintage driver. No brand. Only 6". But, man, the bass quality is premium. I believe the price will not be more than $4 a pair. But I have already too many small drivers).
The midrange. Cost me $300 a pair. But it requires expensive notch filters to compete with the best midrange. I also modified the drivers. I have 2 notch filters in the mid band. Gravesen also uses notch filter (but only one) in the midband (600Hz) in his JA8008 Quattro.
It is very hard to work with, such that I stick with certain achievement at 2k4 and force potential tweeters to adjust themselves to match with the midrange at the 2k4.
I have many tweeter versions in separate enclosure and crossover. So I know about compromises. Can't have everything in single tweeter. But I'm still perfecting 3 tweeters. One tweeter excels in HD, details and flat to 30kHz, very ruthless in revealing mistakes. One tweeter sound magnificent with cymbals and drum work. My preferred one is (may be) the one that is average but can play more music (types and recording quality) better.
Man, there is no secret drivers in my speakers. All about implementation. For me, it is funny that people trying to figure out what is this JA8008 secret woofer.
And my drivers are modified to meet with certain requirement/purpose. No one can purchase that, even the unmodified ones.
Not to mention the electronic crossover works. It is not something that can be copied for different implementation.
A vintage driver with foam surround will need refurbishing after some years. The foam will disintegrate, because of uv-light from the sun and humidity of the climate, especially in your climate. So for anybody living outside Jakarta, where there also is $2 vintage drivers in existense, it might be worth paying the money for refurbishing towards a quality manufactured new unit, like Janzen 8008 or another SEAS option, before gluing phazeplugs and what not to it. A new one will last you 15-20 years and it won't be hard to find a replacement, if an accident should happen. I don't want to go to Jakarta and rummage through carbootsales, everytime i blow my midrange. Take care of your vintage Panasonic-lookalike and good luck with that. I'm sure there's no hemp in the pulp' so you cant even smoke it, if it gets damaged beond repair. I can't believe, it sounds as fantastic as you say, but I obviously haven't heard it, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt. How DYNAMIC are they exactly, again. Excursion is a bit limited, I understand ? And a dinky magnet. Is it as dynamic, as a TV-speaker ? Or not so good ?
And you can allways, give them a little notch, to iron out imperfections offcourse. Series notching does take a bit of experimentation, if you don't "cheat" and DSP the crap out of it. All part of the fun of making speakers. And getting them dynamic sounding. I have to tell you, I have done this for many years and I have read quite a few books on electracoustics and psycoacoustics, when I went to school at the technical university of Denmark. And I haven't forgotten half of it, because I have read plenty since, while experimenting with drivers and boxes and all sorts related. I can do it without a computer larger than a pencil. By ear and understanding the principles of soundwaves.
The 8" woofer has the surround replaced before I purchased it (there is a mark telling that the replacement was done in 2008). It is still fine. I doubt that the original was foam tho. Some of my similar vintage use either high quality thin leather, or fabric/cloth.
The 6" I saw last night has surround from inverted fabric. The shape and size is just like many full range drivers. Tang Band, Mark Audio Alpair, for example. May be Neodymium. Actually this one is a FR. The treble is nice. But the bass is really premium. This one is to be used in TL enclosure. BTW, the inverted fabric surround is the most flexible I have ever found. Even new driver doesn't have such flexibility.
It is fantastic. The bass. My ears are trained with such thing hehe. Besides, why didn't I just plug in my ScanSpeak if I'm not sure.
TV speaker? Noooo.... But don't underestimate speakers that come with vintage tube TV/radio. Unfortunately I have never got a pair to be useful (they are mono).
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