Having read all the posts I am now wondering if some of my own mods may have had some enabl elements to them, accidentally.
Many months ago I got carried away modding some 4 inch dual cone drivers and the results have really been wonderful but I think I may have just stumbled on some things probably through ignorance.
Overall the drivers have about 20 mods but I will just mention those that I think may have some enabl elements and my be of help to others who want to try.
First they were coated with watered down PVA so nothing new there, but next I added tissue paper rings to the outer perimeter to stiffen the junction between the surround and the cone, basically to stop cone flexing and improve bass. The paper was segmented up so as to get it to sit properly on the cone. The thing I noticed was I got way better bass but also everything seemed to sound better especially when pushed to higher sound levels.
I also added four tiny (and I mean tiny) little bits of felt under on the cone under the whizzer, this made the highs nicer.
The centre caps were cut out and I glued felt to the pole piece and then cut the centre cap so that the middle was supported on four legs and then I reattached the centre cap after putting a dab of glue right in the middle, I was trying to make a little dome (actually on one driver I fashioned a little aluminium dome and attached it). basically I felt the pole piece would bounce sound back and forth against the centre cap and degrade the sound so that is what I was trying to eliminate. The glued edge of the cap was made stronger than original as well. All this seemed to extend the top end and clean up the sound nicely, though up till now I had not really though about why.
Finally I serrated the edge of the whizzer with nail scissors, with an alternating pattern, once again a sweeter high end was revealed.
In the end these and all the other mods not mentioned here gave me drivers which really seem to cut the sonic mustard when used with twin subs and they seem to play louder and cleaner than the std ones. Actually there is no seem about it I have 8 of these drivers and keep a std pair for comparison, lets just say the difference is like night and day.
So now enabl comes along, well I am going to try it for sure I have a few cheap drivers to play with and also some nice 4 way car coaxs that work nicely in open baffles as they are so that might be interesting. I really thought I had pushed my twincones to the limit but thanks to bud I think I have far more work to do......oh I'm excited!
Many months ago I got carried away modding some 4 inch dual cone drivers and the results have really been wonderful but I think I may have just stumbled on some things probably through ignorance.
Overall the drivers have about 20 mods but I will just mention those that I think may have some enabl elements and my be of help to others who want to try.
First they were coated with watered down PVA so nothing new there, but next I added tissue paper rings to the outer perimeter to stiffen the junction between the surround and the cone, basically to stop cone flexing and improve bass. The paper was segmented up so as to get it to sit properly on the cone. The thing I noticed was I got way better bass but also everything seemed to sound better especially when pushed to higher sound levels.
I also added four tiny (and I mean tiny) little bits of felt under on the cone under the whizzer, this made the highs nicer.
The centre caps were cut out and I glued felt to the pole piece and then cut the centre cap so that the middle was supported on four legs and then I reattached the centre cap after putting a dab of glue right in the middle, I was trying to make a little dome (actually on one driver I fashioned a little aluminium dome and attached it). basically I felt the pole piece would bounce sound back and forth against the centre cap and degrade the sound so that is what I was trying to eliminate. The glued edge of the cap was made stronger than original as well. All this seemed to extend the top end and clean up the sound nicely, though up till now I had not really though about why.
Finally I serrated the edge of the whizzer with nail scissors, with an alternating pattern, once again a sweeter high end was revealed.
In the end these and all the other mods not mentioned here gave me drivers which really seem to cut the sonic mustard when used with twin subs and they seem to play louder and cleaner than the std ones. Actually there is no seem about it I have 8 of these drivers and keep a std pair for comparison, lets just say the difference is like night and day.
So now enabl comes along, well I am going to try it for sure I have a few cheap drivers to play with and also some nice 4 way car coaxs that work nicely in open baffles as they are so that might be interesting. I really thought I had pushed my twincones to the limit but thanks to bud I think I have far more work to do......oh I'm excited!
BudP said:
Would you care to supply before/after measurements for evaluation, maybe a set of before/after with identical measurement conditions (i.e. mic location unmoved, same signal, same window of the MLS, same signal driver level)? This is a simple matter to set up for repeatability, it's done all the time.
Exhaustive verbal descriptions of unverified science are not in any way reliable nor credible. Up to this point in the entire thread, only Magnetar's posts have much in the way of validity. This thread reads like those of a magazine reviewer with much that is subjective and little or none that is objective. It is simply not believable nor is most of what is presented scientific other than verbiage. To say that I am skeptical is putting it mildly. There are few facts and a lot of conjecture, especially as to the "mechanism" of the effect.
Dave
Buy a cheap pair of PE clearance speakers and give it a go. Talking about "science" while sitting idly by doesn't give much in the way of validity.
I'm not the one attempting to prove the hypothesis, it's not even a thoery at this point. The empirical data has to be provided by those making the claim. Testimonies of individuals that have no scientific rigor of any sort is simply not valid. The fact that there may be an alteration in the output, to be expected when mass is added to a driver, is in no way supportive of the claims being made.
To ascribe substantial, dramatic changes in the perceived output with nothing to support it by way of standard, valid measurements is ludicrous. The means to measure the claimed changes exists. If the level is down maybe 20db or more, it can be discerned using distortion tests.
Lack of such empirical data is significant by its absence.
Dave
To ascribe substantial, dramatic changes in the perceived output with nothing to support it by way of standard, valid measurements is ludicrous. The means to measure the claimed changes exists. If the level is down maybe 20db or more, it can be discerned using distortion tests.
Lack of such empirical data is significant by its absence.
Dave
dlr,
soongsc has posted his spectral decay analysis. you are welcome to test anything you wish. bud has encouraged any and all to do so. i suggest you get four suitable drivers, apply the patterns and conformal coating and test away...you will probably find as others have that standard measurements are inadequate to explain what others hear. this in no way invalidates the benefit, but rather points to the present limit of speaker theory (piston model) and current testing methods. i , and many others, ecourage you to do this yourself and spend less time slighting those who are actively pursuing this process. so far, no one who has heard the treated drivers has yet posted that they heard no benefit. good luck and please do the tests you feel necessary and post back. we await your results...
tea
edit for spelling...
soongsc has posted his spectral decay analysis. you are welcome to test anything you wish. bud has encouraged any and all to do so. i suggest you get four suitable drivers, apply the patterns and conformal coating and test away...you will probably find as others have that standard measurements are inadequate to explain what others hear. this in no way invalidates the benefit, but rather points to the present limit of speaker theory (piston model) and current testing methods. i , and many others, ecourage you to do this yourself and spend less time slighting those who are actively pursuing this process. so far, no one who has heard the treated drivers has yet posted that they heard no benefit. good luck and please do the tests you feel necessary and post back. we await your results...
tea
edit for spelling...
dlr:
all mastur-debates regarding the degree of validity of scientific rigor yet applied notwithstanding, the proof is in the listening
I understood early in this thread that I have absolutely none of the academic background required to understand whatever the evolving "science" states may or not be going on with EnABL, and frankly couldn't give a rip about how/why it works.
At what turned out to be great personal peril (thanks to the friendly border guards, personally trained I think by mr Cheney), I made the relatively short trip to visit Bud last year for a demo of the results of the process, making the comparison on a otherwise identical pairs of speakers with which I am intimately familiar. (i.e. FE127E in the Fonken cabinet- one pair EnABLed by Bud, vs our own previous treatment method )
Dave D at Planet10 can relate the difficultly I had upon returning with Bud's treated drivers in restraining my impressions before his own opportunity to listen to them.
Since that time we have on numerous occasions made the demonstration to unwary listeners in the most stringently controlled test conditions I care to endure ("hey, listen to this and tell me what you think") . To date it's taken an average of less than 10seconds for the "test subjects" to turn and look at us to ask - "what was that?"
all mastur-debates regarding the degree of validity of scientific rigor yet applied notwithstanding, the proof is in the listening
I understood early in this thread that I have absolutely none of the academic background required to understand whatever the evolving "science" states may or not be going on with EnABL, and frankly couldn't give a rip about how/why it works.
At what turned out to be great personal peril (thanks to the friendly border guards, personally trained I think by mr Cheney), I made the relatively short trip to visit Bud last year for a demo of the results of the process, making the comparison on a otherwise identical pairs of speakers with which I am intimately familiar. (i.e. FE127E in the Fonken cabinet- one pair EnABLed by Bud, vs our own previous treatment method )
Dave D at Planet10 can relate the difficultly I had upon returning with Bud's treated drivers in restraining my impressions before his own opportunity to listen to them.
Since that time we have on numerous occasions made the demonstration to unwary listeners in the most stringently controlled test conditions I care to endure ("hey, listen to this and tell me what you think") . To date it's taken an average of less than 10seconds for the "test subjects" to turn and look at us to ask - "what was that?"
dlr said:
No one is trying to prove anything. We are only encoraging people to try it. Once you've tried it you won't need any proof.
Relying on measurements to tell you what you hear in the precense of a very obvipous sonic improvement is ludicrous (which is why we only suggest that you try it)
dave
chrisb said:
Just a note here... the "what was that" is often not communicated verbally but is evidenced by a shift in body language, posture, or a very specific smile that comes across people's faces (ie totally unconcious reation). Even people that have already been exposed but away for a while are just as startled the 2nd time.
dave
NTIGAD, but did not Bud's original Positive Feedback submission &/or patent documents include measurements?
chrisb said:
Indeed it did. Someone should link the pictures over to here with comments.
dave
Here is some interesting reading for those that care to take the time and discover that Dave (dlr) is in fact an experimenter and quite fond of speaker cone "tweaks". In fact he has done work that in some ways resembles a crude form of EnABL with the treatment of a speaker surround - and he very much liked the results: "Was it worth the effort? Without doubt, this is one of the most successful and useful tweak results I've obtained. The benefit cannot be had any other way, short of digital equalization and has little in the way of negative consequences. The final results are shown below for the pair that I modified after I exhausted all experimentation on the guinea pig driver." http://www.speakerdesign.net/midrange_tweaks/insignia/insignia_woofer.html
dlr - you have the gear to perform test on treated speakers and seem to strive to do what we all are trying to do - make speakers perform better. I invite you to slap up a EnABL pattern and run some test. We would all be very grateful for your efforts, your listening impressions and your results.
dlr - you have the gear to perform test on treated speakers and seem to strive to do what we all are trying to do - make speakers perform better. I invite you to slap up a EnABL pattern and run some test. We would all be very grateful for your efforts, your listening impressions and your results.
dlr,
I intend to have a 2 sets of speakers for just such a comparison available around April 1. No foolin', that's just the day I picked. One set will be treated, the other not. I'd be happy to share details of the design & open it to your suggestions or review.
I intend to have a 2 sets of speakers for just such a comparison available around April 1. No foolin', that's just the day I picked. One set will be treated, the other not. I'd be happy to share details of the design & open it to your suggestions or review.
c2cthomas said:Here is some interesting reading for those that care to take the time and discover that Dave (dlr) is in fact an experimenter and quite fond of speaker cone "tweaks". In fact he has done work that in some ways resembles a crude form of EnABL with the treatment of a speaker surround - and he very much liked the results: "Was it worth the effort? Without doubt, this is one of the most successful and useful tweak results I've obtained. The benefit cannot be had any other way, short of digital equalization and has little in the way of negative consequences. The final results are shown below for the pair that I modified after I exhausted all experimentation on the guinea pig driver." http://www.speakerdesign.net/midrange_tweaks/insignia/insignia_woofer.html
dlr - you have the gear to perform test on treated speakers and seem to strive to do what we all are trying to do - make speakers perform better. I invite you to slap up a EnABL pattern and run some test. We would all be very grateful for your efforts, your listening impressions and your results.
Fair enough - indeed I'd think any indelicate questioning of his motive and experimental acumen ( mea cupla!) would inspire dlr to try the full EnABL process on some inexpensive paper FR drivers. For the slightly braver, proven pattern templates already exist for 4" & 6" Fostex drivers, some of which cost far less than the zoomy full tweak XO parts in HT multiways.
As others have noted, Soong supplied some detailed measurements of his playing about with the Jordan drivers (nothing personal, but my eyes glaze over at all the CSD, etc graphs)
Many hands make light work? Hopefully someone (or several) may stumble across ( a group of ) measurements or patterns that will conclusively explain what is causing the improvements those of us already living with EnABL are definitely hearing - this ain't imaginary.
Does anyone have access to laser inferometry , or laser interferometry, equipment? This was suggested as a possible measurement technique when I first informed a speaker manufacturer of the EnABL process, who was previously unaware of it. I'm not even sure of what it is. Just 'putting it out there'.
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