Eva said:
Hi Eva. The speaker in question is covered by a grille. Also - I fairly often listen to CDs in the dark. Point accepted though.
Must be said that my big valve amp looks utterly cool - and my home built Charlize looks ... well ... rather home made. Yet I now can't listen to the valve amp because it no longer competes sonically in any area.
t-head said:
Cheers t. I think I'll do the enabl pattern sans Mod Podge, and give a comprehensive critical listen before starting conformal. With other tweaks this could take a week or so, as I run through a heap of long-familiar CDs. Utterly non-scientific!
I am slightly worried that conformal coats might mess up what at the minute is a beautiful finely detailed midrange - the best I've ever heard! It is actually hard for me to imagine EnabL improving on this. If I think EnabL does not improve things then I will have no problem at all reporting that fact back here.
The one speaker I did EnabL really couldn't have been made much worse by the process. The next two will be a bigger test.
A millimeter is a hugely thick deposit. I'd guess that the treatments here run 0.2mm or less.
The treatment was not visible at the demo I attended. As a matter of fact, I didn't even know what the process was. I'd never even heard of EnABL.
I later asked Lynn Olsen what his thoughts were and some of what he said corresponded to what I had heard. He is a more experienced listener and was able to expand more on what may be going on (with the music) but for the most part I agreed with what he had to say.
John
Re: Re: weighty issue
Yep... I did the calc so there'd be a scalable number to bandy about... so .2 mm would add ~2.6 gms as a conformal coating
If you mean moving mass, I think that includes the voice coil and the surround
John L.
SY said:
Yep... I did the calc so there'd be a scalable number to bandy about... so .2 mm would add ~2.6 gms as a conformal coating
soongsc said:
If you mean moving mass, I think that includes the voice coil and the surround
John L.
Alan and all,
I have pointed out the differences between P-10 mods and Buds EnABL purely to avoid confusion. I have not heard (or measured) the P-10 drivers so I cannot comment on them. But since this is Buds thread, and his process is the object in question, I wanted to make the distinction. Many have reported positively about P-10 drivers and I am in no manner judging them. A forum buddy just ordered a set of the P-10 FE126Es and will compare to his stock pair.
My experience with EnABL is limited to my Hemp Acoustics FR4.5C drivers EnABLed by Bud, 10 radio tear-out drivers used to practice on, a pair of FE126Es, and the 4 drivers in a pair of AR-4s I treated for a friend. I have attempted to limit the amount of conformal coating by applying the pattern while connected to source, letting the Polly Scale dry for 24 hours, and then using the recommended 50% Microscale Gloss/water over cone with well-tamped brush, also while hooked to source, and using my ears as a guide. I have experimented with multiple coats, but have usually settled on one coat of the diluted conformal coating as having the least 'coloration' to the sound. I have no experience with whizzers, but Bud seems to recommend further coats for those due to certain characteristics of them that seem to warrant attention. I am currently playing with my pair of JX92S drivers from Ted Jordan. The pattern applied as usual seems unsatisfactory and I am playing with suggestions provided by soongsc. The metal-foil cone material is a different beast than the paper drivers...
So, as drivers vary, treatment varies according to the specific characteristics of the driver in question...
Good luck, Alan, and happy listening 🙂
t
I have pointed out the differences between P-10 mods and Buds EnABL purely to avoid confusion. I have not heard (or measured) the P-10 drivers so I cannot comment on them. But since this is Buds thread, and his process is the object in question, I wanted to make the distinction. Many have reported positively about P-10 drivers and I am in no manner judging them. A forum buddy just ordered a set of the P-10 FE126Es and will compare to his stock pair.
My experience with EnABL is limited to my Hemp Acoustics FR4.5C drivers EnABLed by Bud, 10 radio tear-out drivers used to practice on, a pair of FE126Es, and the 4 drivers in a pair of AR-4s I treated for a friend. I have attempted to limit the amount of conformal coating by applying the pattern while connected to source, letting the Polly Scale dry for 24 hours, and then using the recommended 50% Microscale Gloss/water over cone with well-tamped brush, also while hooked to source, and using my ears as a guide. I have experimented with multiple coats, but have usually settled on one coat of the diluted conformal coating as having the least 'coloration' to the sound. I have no experience with whizzers, but Bud seems to recommend further coats for those due to certain characteristics of them that seem to warrant attention. I am currently playing with my pair of JX92S drivers from Ted Jordan. The pattern applied as usual seems unsatisfactory and I am playing with suggestions provided by soongsc. The metal-foil cone material is a different beast than the paper drivers...
So, as drivers vary, treatment varies according to the specific characteristics of the driver in question...
Good luck, Alan, and happy listening 🙂
t
I don't know if this adds anything to the discussion but there is definitely something going on with Enabling treatment. I have a pair of old Radio Shack two ways with paper woofer/mids. I haven 't listened to them in years. I applied the Enable treatment to one and left the other as is(didn't treat the tweeters). Last night I was comparing them with CD's played in mono using the receiver's balance control to switch back and forth. It was obvious that they sounded different. It took me while before one difference I was hearing dawned on me. As I approached it the sound from the untreated driver could be localized within the perimeter of the driver. The sound from the Enabled driver seem to be centered around the driver but wasn't restricted to the driver's perimeter. I subsequently checked on a pair of Enabled full range drivers(Hemptone's) I am using in one of my systems. I noted the same effect as I approached each driver. This was not the only difference between the treated and untreated drivers but I thought I would mention it because I wasn't expecting it or looking for it. It was sort of like not seeing the defect in the wallpaper until someone points it out to you and then it becomes obvious to you every time you look at it.
Alan Hope said:
Pre-coat on the Fostex is all mine (not Bud's)... i suggest 2 thinned coats on the main cone & front-side of the whizzer (lback of edge is for the gloss).
Full Strength. Mail me for some specific application tricks...
I use 3 coats of 50% gloss. The pre-coat means you need a little less gloss is needed and i find that without Bud's experience it is easier to get more coats of thiined even than fewer coats of full-strength. Bud's FE127 description is a good base thou.
For those discussing mass effects - another factor is the removal of the mass in the dust-cover when installing a phase-plug.
I suspect this may fully compensate for the coatings ...
I suspect this may fully compensate for the coatings ...
Alan Hope said:
Is installing a phase plug a necessary part of the EnABL process?
I don't have a handle on what (if any) mass related effects are influenced (or not) by EnABL'ing (or not) any given driver... other than a significant increase in mass will influence the efficiency and
fr of the driver in some (yet to be determined) way...
enough conditionals??? 😉 😉
auplater said:
Nope - but considered pretty essential for the fe206e.
The conformal coating is not a necessary part of EnabL either - and that's where most added mass will lie.
So a speaker-specific post. Mass changes may roughly balance out.
auplater said:
1) re phase plugs: I've swapped EnABLed FE127E with & without phase plugs in several pairs of enclosures - the Bamboo Fonkens and Milevas. To my ears (i.e. no measurements taken) the phase plugs contribute a more subtle improvement than the EnABL alone. Rolling input tubes on my Paramour monoblocks can elicit more change in FR focus, dynamics and soundstage.
2) I think the mass question is a two parter, the answers to which are buried in the discussion of "how to measure / interpret what's going on?", which is clearly still a hot button issue:
a) what degree of the effect perceived by listeners is resultant purely from the additional moving mass added?
b) what effects would be perceived / measured by applications of different combination/sequence of materials of equal mass, independent of the pattern of distribution?
do those questions make sense?
Bud: you've been doing this longer than any of us, have you ever calculated or actually measured the amount of mass that the full paint block and gloss coat layers add to a particular cone?
For a speaker without a stationary phase plug, like the Hemp FR4.5, here are some pretty close approximations of the amount of surface area under EnABL paint and the cone dimensions that were coated with conformal coat.
The cone dimensions are; OD at top of cone (surround glued to back side) 3.03", ID at voice coil 0.8" and the length of the cone surface, between these two diameters, is 1.32" In addition a 0.8" diameter, flat, voice coil dust cover, is also coated
This entire area is coated with one 50% cut coating of gloss, that should be .0008" or so thick. This "thickness" is not a film coating on the surface of this cone, but has dispersed into the Hemp/carbon fiber/other screened slurry cone, an unknown amount. So the actual material used and deposited is not an exact measurement, rather, what does occur when the amount of material used here, on this cone, is applied on a mylar sheet, with the same unscientific applicator, measured with a Polish micrometer, in numerous places, once the evaporative carrier and 50% water cut were gone.
Note that other cones will have up to twice this amount of material, which appears to be an industrial grade acrylic floor wax.
The pattern area consists of;
outer ring, 72 blocks, .030 X .015 in size
inner ring, 72 blocks, .011 X .0055 in size
dome ring 72 blocks, 008 X .004 in size
dome center 12 blocks .002 X .001 in size, with a .060 dot in the middle, with a .040 drop of PVA on that.
The material thickness is .0015", on average, after drying on a Mylar sheet. This is an acrylic plastic coating with unknown fillers for pigment and non reflective finish.
See here for a picture.
http://picasaweb.google.com/hpurvine/HempFR45CSpeaker/photo#5092460301760450274
While this is certainly an approximation for all materials, I do not think it is off by more than 10%, in either direction.
Bud
The cone dimensions are; OD at top of cone (surround glued to back side) 3.03", ID at voice coil 0.8" and the length of the cone surface, between these two diameters, is 1.32" In addition a 0.8" diameter, flat, voice coil dust cover, is also coated
This entire area is coated with one 50% cut coating of gloss, that should be .0008" or so thick. This "thickness" is not a film coating on the surface of this cone, but has dispersed into the Hemp/carbon fiber/other screened slurry cone, an unknown amount. So the actual material used and deposited is not an exact measurement, rather, what does occur when the amount of material used here, on this cone, is applied on a mylar sheet, with the same unscientific applicator, measured with a Polish micrometer, in numerous places, once the evaporative carrier and 50% water cut were gone.
Note that other cones will have up to twice this amount of material, which appears to be an industrial grade acrylic floor wax.
The pattern area consists of;
outer ring, 72 blocks, .030 X .015 in size
inner ring, 72 blocks, .011 X .0055 in size
dome ring 72 blocks, 008 X .004 in size
dome center 12 blocks .002 X .001 in size, with a .060 dot in the middle, with a .040 drop of PVA on that.
The material thickness is .0015", on average, after drying on a Mylar sheet. This is an acrylic plastic coating with unknown fillers for pigment and non reflective finish.
See here for a picture.
http://picasaweb.google.com/hpurvine/HempFR45CSpeaker/photo#5092460301760450274
While this is certainly an approximation for all materials, I do not think it is off by more than 10%, in either direction.
Bud
john k... said:
Steps 1 & 4 are really extraneous to EnABL. Step 1 is a pre-treatment i do (& recommend for some paper cone drivers -- my primamry experience is with Fostec banana paper cones). Step 4 is really a sub-step of 3 when faced with an unknown driver.
Long before EnABL came along i was modding FE126 & FE127 to improve their tonal balance. This was loosely based on the analytical work of Mark MacKenzie.
The pair of FE127 that Bud did as an example for me had none of my treatments. It still had the tonal balance issues that a stock FE127 suffers from (this was very hard to discern as it did so many other things so much better). A series of experiments with a mix of my old treatment & EnABL showed that if i (mostly) tamed the tonal issues ahead of the EnABL, i could get that improvement and then have everything further enhanced with EnABL. I endeavored to keep the additional mass of materials added the same in each instance, and similar to the amounts i had been adding before. I have reams of impedance data from before, during & after. This data was taken primamrily for matching purposes but does give an approximate idea of parameter changes (they do change but the amount is not rock solid because it is less than the variation i have seen due to just weather. My best approximation based on this data is that efficiency drops due to added mass by 0.5 dB or less. (on drivers that start out at ~92.5 and ~91 dB). Note that even with no compensation for this loss in efficiency, a stock pair of drivers is obviously inferior in an a/b test (sighted by me, mostly blind in a number of cases with 3rd parties). I am working on the logistics of "blinder" testing, in particular for VI diyFEST #5.
Note that in comparing stock vrs my older treatment to my new treatment with EnABL that the old treatment is overall closer to stock than it is to the new treatment, and that in the later 2 cases the added material is very close in mass (as shown within the limits of my impedance data)
The point of this is that when you are hearing anecdotal information, some of these instances include drivers that have very purposely had their tonal balance altered before EnABL, but that pretreatment changes in tonal balance are more or less unchanged with the EnABL application.
dave
well all, here's an idea.....(just a thought)
As Perry at Hemp Acoustics has licensed EnABL a really interesting experiment would be to compare the Enabled vs stock 4.5s...
as I understand it, the process used will be an embossing rather than a paint addition. In this situation questions concerning added mass etc should be answered (at least subjectively) until measurements and analysis can take place.
So the question that needs only be answered is "How do we take meaningful measurements and correlate them to the listening experience?"
I must say that most of this thread has repeated itself so many times, I'm getting bored with it.
As far as I understand things, a ripple tank (such as the ripple tank applet) should at least provide some insight into what is happening, without the added mass theories etc.
Please don't get me wrong, a complete investigation needs to be done, and some have worked hard at providing some insight. But many have only added to the "doubting Thomas syndrome". Doubt all you want, but until one experiences the sound directly, it is difficult to make a qualified statement. (Unless you are looking for possible explanations within known physical theories and understanding of some science).
So arguments about conformal coatings, particular patterns that vary from Bud's work, added mass, etc are really moot UNTIL a basic understanding of the physical process/occurrence of the effect occurs.
hmmmm.....
lets break the problem down:
Maybe this thread should be suspended. Perhaps three or four "groups" be created with specific tasks, and a report produced. Then a collaborative report amassed from the results of each group. Hmmm sounds like some sort of organization to allow the study of what is going on instead of wild speculation.
As Perry at Hemp Acoustics has licensed EnABL a really interesting experiment would be to compare the Enabled vs stock 4.5s...
as I understand it, the process used will be an embossing rather than a paint addition. In this situation questions concerning added mass etc should be answered (at least subjectively) until measurements and analysis can take place.
So the question that needs only be answered is "How do we take meaningful measurements and correlate them to the listening experience?"
I must say that most of this thread has repeated itself so many times, I'm getting bored with it.
As far as I understand things, a ripple tank (such as the ripple tank applet) should at least provide some insight into what is happening, without the added mass theories etc.
Please don't get me wrong, a complete investigation needs to be done, and some have worked hard at providing some insight. But many have only added to the "doubting Thomas syndrome". Doubt all you want, but until one experiences the sound directly, it is difficult to make a qualified statement. (Unless you are looking for possible explanations within known physical theories and understanding of some science).
So arguments about conformal coatings, particular patterns that vary from Bud's work, added mass, etc are really moot UNTIL a basic understanding of the physical process/occurrence of the effect occurs.
hmmmm.....
lets break the problem down:
- What effect does the EnAbL pattern have on the physical wave at the boundary between the cone itself and the surround, dust cover/phase plug?
- What is the effect of added mass to the cone itself?
- What is the effect of a conformal coating as per planet10 and chrisb's work?
- What is the best scientific manner to determine each of these effects?
- What possible experiments could occur that could contradict any of the observations made ?
Maybe this thread should be suspended. Perhaps three or four "groups" be created with specific tasks, and a report produced. Then a collaborative report amassed from the results of each group. Hmmm sounds like some sort of organization to allow the study of what is going on instead of wild speculation.
Re: well all, here's an idea.....(just a thought)
No Stew,
We were wondering what to do with our extra bandwidth and 64 pages of this has looked after it quite nicely. I agree though, every time we turn a page there's something very familiar waiting to be written on the next.
Cheers.
Nanook said:
No Stew,
We were wondering what to do with our extra bandwidth and 64 pages of this has looked after it quite nicely. I agree though, every time we turn a page there's something very familiar waiting to be written on the next.
Cheers.
Nanook,
The licenses is agreed upon in principle. It is dependent upon the embossed patterns being the rough equivalent in performance to the painted application. If they are not, then no license that would be applicable to "commercial" manufacture will result.
Soonsgc has privately suggested a federation of driver modifiers, one that would include all mods that are shown, one way or another, to be beneficial. Inclusions would cover Planet 10 mods, dlr's intriguing surround joint application, EnABL, Sonnsgc's upcoming applications, and others I do not know about. With some sort of an encyclopedia of altered driver states....
I am sure, with membership dues, a weird logo, special handshake and wink sequence...
Bud
The licenses is agreed upon in principle. It is dependent upon the embossed patterns being the rough equivalent in performance to the painted application. If they are not, then no license that would be applicable to "commercial" manufacture will result.
Soonsgc has privately suggested a federation of driver modifiers, one that would include all mods that are shown, one way or another, to be beneficial. Inclusions would cover Planet 10 mods, dlr's intriguing surround joint application, EnABL, Sonnsgc's upcoming applications, and others I do not know about. With some sort of an encyclopedia of altered driver states....
I am sure, with membership dues, a weird logo, special handshake and wink sequence...
Bud
Weird logo and secret handshake...
I'm up for that. That way "we" (of course I'm assuming that I may gain access to the exclusive club 🙂 ), could discuss all of this heading towards a goal. Some naysayers need to be included so that there might be a balanced approach, or perhaps they can do experiments to disprove the claims.
Of course all I may be able to contribute would be a logo or a "back door key" or special blog location.....to keep the scourge out....
stew
I'm up for that. That way "we" (of course I'm assuming that I may gain access to the exclusive club 🙂 ), could discuss all of this heading towards a goal. Some naysayers need to be included so that there might be a balanced approach, or perhaps they can do experiments to disprove the claims.
Of course all I may be able to contribute would be a logo or a "back door key" or special blog location.....to keep the scourge out....
stew
BudP said:
remind me again when the spaceship is scheduled?
Would surround joint treatments such as dlr's vary depending on the geometry / material of the surround interface and/or depth of flange gasket?
i.e. I seem to recall DaveD positing at some point that drivers with integrated paper accordion pleated surrounds might have lower "impedance mismatch" at the periphery than closed cell foam or synthetic rubbers, for example.
Moreover, several have discussed the careful removal of the thick compressed paper gaskets occasionally found on the front of mounting flanges. Something about "Raleigh waves"?
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