When you have climbed off your high horses, you might read Zaph's article on the B3N -
>> Comments: Pretty good midrange performance, especially considering the price. Very smooth response, with a minor 8kHz breakup. Below 130hz, bass turns to thick mud. *Do Not* run this speaker without some sort of subwoofer crossover, preferably active at 150hz LR4. You might be able to cross at 100hz LR4 if you can trade a little distortion and output for subwoofer localization. This driver can run without a tweeter, but will sound better with a notch filter and a small amount of baffle step compensation. Cheap stamped frame, no voice coil venting. Widely available at many vendors. Tested June 2006.<<
Sorry, what was that? MIDRANGE performance? So, I ask a little advice after making one bad choice for experimenting's sake and now people treat me as an imbecile? Jeez, I thought this forum was the last bastion of politeness.
Mashypie and Steviedon, who have actually been helpful, I thank you.
Hi,
Of course I read that, I don't post links to stuff I haven't mostly read.
He talking about it in a fullrange context, to be used with a subwoofer,
he is not implying it would make a good 3 way speaker midrange at all.
3 ways are notoriously difficult to design properly and its not unreasonable
to assume that that is not the only "bad choice" made in the design / build.
After baffle step compensation of the DC160 your talking about 83dB or
so maximum midrange level, and the B3S/B3N could be made to work well if
you accept a relaxed presentation and c/o above the baffle step frequency,
note the midrange and treble levels of the Classix design versions linked to.
So there is no reason for the B3N to be a "bad choice" if used in the way
it could work with the DC160, c/o fairly high so the DC160 has most BSC.
For some reason Zaph does not post his tests of small Fostex's, but he is
adamant they are relatively poor compared to the recommended drivers.
rgds, sreten.
I do apologise for my comments sounding somewhat trite.
I did not have the time to look into this further at the time.
TBH I could see your original drivers working quite well.
First order series c/o mid to tweeter fairly high with tweeter L-pad.
The difficult bit is bass to mid c/o, that would need some modelling.
If you don't BSC the woofer you'll never get the famous TL bass.