How Reliable Are McCauley Drivers?

[kelticwizard]

A DJ cyber-friend of mine just had two Eminence 15 inchers go on him during one gig. He is done with Eminence, even though up until recently he was their biggest booster.

He is looking for a new brand at a somewhat similar price, with reliability the number one issue.

I have heard good things about McCauley, but I thought that I would put it on the board to get some kind of feedback from people who have had extensive experience with pro sound.

Any other recommendations for pro sound drivers that are reliable? His amp is a 350 Watt BK Electronics amp, (made in Britain).

I appreciate any advice on this matter.

 

[Ignite]

Most good quality drivrers don't break during normal operation. I'd imagine he was running them beyond thier specifications. Many of the eminence drivers currently on the market do not have particularily high power ratings. I recall seeing one 15 inch driver with a RMS power rating of 50 watts. I would want to check the power rating of the drivers he was using before blaming the drivers for the failure.

 

[kelticwizard]

Ignite:

They were Eminence Kappa 15-400 Watts. He plays them virtually every night -that is his business. They used to be reliable, but lately they are not. He has not changed his amp or done anything different to account for the difference.

 

[tiefbassuebertr]

8 years ago I have realized some sub bass projects with the 6258 in the kind as to see on the attached pictures. Until now no problems were noted.
Here the data sheet of the transducer:
McCauley.com : Products: Components > 6258: Overview

 

[CLS]

Household usage is very different from PA.

2 pro sound 18" in a big box playing in an ordinary living room, I don't worry about any problem with the drivers. People in that house would have more 'problem' before the drivers.

ps. nice build.

 

[Erik F]

Uh your friends amp is under powered that is what most likely blew up is shazel. Clipping your amp is the quickest way to speaker cone death. Also if he blew both I have to call user error.

 

[kevinkr]

Uh your friends amp is under powered that is what most likely blew up is shazel. Clipping your amp is the quickest way to speaker cone death. Also if he blew both I have to call user error.

This doesn't seem entirely unlikely, could a difference in music format - a change for example from classic rock to highly compressed rap/hip-hop or electronica be behind the issue?

The original post seems to imply that the particular eminence drivers were reliable but are no longer - this implies that there have been repeated instances of blown drivers starting with the original old "reliable" ones failing followed in quick succession by the new ones - this would point solidly at something other than the drivers themselves unless they were grossly under-rated for the task.

Next - what is the failure mode? Burned out VC, ripped spider or surround, shredded cone?

Is the box properly loading the woofer, is an HPF filter applied for below box/speaker cut off frequency in order to limit out of band excursion?

Amplifier verified to be OK, no DC on output, no oscillations, good clipping behavior - is this run full range or only woofers only? No problems with tweeters and are they powered by the same amp?

Keltic Wizard can you provide any further details?

It could be the Eminence Kappa drivers, but it would be shame to cook a pair of McCauleys for the same reason..

 

[simon7000]

Or it could be a change to low volatile cements. I'd check with Eminence to see what they think. They are pretty sharp folks.

 

[kevinkr]

"Shazel" is a pretty obscure way of circumventing our censor, I like it..

 

[Erik F]

Ha. Also didn't realize this thread was form 2001. I've been out of the diy thing for a bit but have been getting the bug again.

 

[whgeiger]

US Prime Beef

A DJ cyber-friend o
He is looking for a new brand at a somewhat similar price, with reliability the number one issue.
Ss
I have heard good things about McCauley, but I thought that I would put it on the board to get some kind of feedback from people who have had extensive experience with pro sound.

Any other recommendations for pro sound drivers that are reliable? His amp is a 350 Watt BK Electronics amp, (made in Britain).

I appreciate any advice on this matter.

McCauley drivers are built like tanks. The basket and magnet assemblies are field separble. You can order spare baskets that include frame, diapragm and voice coil for field replacement in the event one gets smoked.
Regards,
WHG

 

[kevinkr]

Based on the date of the first post to the thread this is probably a dead issue. I'm slightly embarrassed that I did not notice it until I saw an earlier post mentioning that fact.

Not sure how it got dredged up from the ancient history file..

 

[kelticwizard]

Have to admit, the revival of this thread after a full decade caught me off-guard. Haven't contacted the cyber-friend for a few years, though now that this has been brought up, I might drop him an Email just to say hello.

Just to clear up some loose ends, at the time we communicated often and he never mentioned any problem with his amp, so I don't think there was a malfunction there. He was a DJ who had others work for him, and the problem was that Eminence Kappas kept going out and he replaced the drivers in the same boxes he was always using and they went out again. I seem to remember the problem was voice coil burnout. He knew that Eminence wasn't the best but as a businessman he didn't want to pay for "extra" quality which did not directly pay off in terms of length of service. For years up until then, Eminence had been good enough and the price was right, but the experiences he had at that time made him look elsewhere.

I do remember I had a discussion on this shortly after this thread, and he had come to the conclusion that the Eminence being sent to Europe, (at least those being sent to Ireland), might not have been made at the same place as those going to the US. In addition to his problems already mentioned, there was a set of Deltas which had been sent to him which were labelled Kappas, but which clearly were the cheaper model. Just a lot of things adding up with Eminence which he felt indicated that he was no longer dealing with the same product coming from the same place.

As I recall, I got a phone message from him about six years ago and he seemed to have found happiness with Precision Devices-can't remember the model number, but his PA boxes were always for 15 inch speakers.

 

[kelticwizard]

whgeiger:

Thanks for your reply. This adds to the others who have told me of McCauley's overall quality. They're a little rare around here but definitely seem to be worth looking for.

 

[tiefbassuebertr]

Household usage is very different from PA.
2 pro sound 18" in a big box playing in an ordinary living room, I don't worry about any problem with the drivers. People in that house would have more 'problem' before the drivers.
ps. nice build.

The last comment I don't understand. Perhaps you mean follow: People in that house have an own problem.
If yes, your estimate is right: The present problem is the desire for an ultimate sonic transmission quality. And music lovers, who don't know me, keep this problem always.

The difference between home-audio (or domestic hifi or "household usage", as you say) and public address is present in such kind, that PA speaker driver components provides a strongly enhanced sonic quality in all respects than typical home audio loudspeakers resp. household stuff. Even by the tweeters (have a look to the "Glockenklang" 99db dome tweeter from the BassArt III based on RCF's TW116 and Stage Accompany's SA8535 so as various horn drivers from the German brand BMSpro).

Have a look to your pictures by post #1 about
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/147101-dipole-bass-oris-horn.html
Very very fine handcrafted workmanship in regard to the process policy.
But do you seriously believe, that this dipole bass sounds better than the bass system mentioned here by post #4 ??

McCauley drivers are built like tanks. The basket and magnet assemblies are field separble. You can order spare baskets that include frame, diapragm and voice coil for field replacement in the event one gets smoked.
Regards,
WHG

I don't know other companies, where this is possible. I think a good solution.

Based on the date of the first post to the thread this is probably a dead issue. I'm slightly embarrassed that I did not notice it until I saw an earlier post mentioning that fact.

Not sure how it got dredged up from the ancient history file..

I wanted to start a new thread with this topic and saw, this topic was already existed. Therefore I haven't start a new thred.
Was this right or wrong ??
The website from McCauley and their driver portfolio still exists.

 

[parb]

I worked with PA stuff in europe 25+ years ago. I worked both at and with RCF from italy as well as TOA from japan.

i always thought that the stuff we used for speakers where rugged, high volume, decent quality -but not high fidelity. the pa stuff was designed for many parameters but subjective words like finesse and details where never something i associated with it.

but they had good spl and decent enough sound that most people enjoyed the experience.

in general i consider PA to be designed for reliable operation ahead of fantastic sound based on my experiences. not saying i know every company's product on the planet but that was my experience. the sound guys had to make a living, and they made a living when the stuff worked and sound good enough -making it sound fantastic didn't score them any extra dollars from whoever arranged what we where there to do.

we used mixing consoles to shape the sound as different audiences had different expectations. we never made a whole lot of money on concerts, a bit but not a ton. we made good money on doing sound for dj gigs. we made great money on sports events, including the band warming up or providing halftime entertainment. and we made obscene money for political meetings, street demonstrations -especially if they where mobile and wanted to be loud. used a ton of horns mounted on portable towers for voice and speeched to get reach and supported by bass bins closer to ground regular mids and highs mounted higher to get reach out into the pool of people (these where mixed in for music and non-voice).

done 500 to 100,000 people events but not once been impressed by the sound in any of them (or any competitors event ive been to).

been impressed by a few concert halls ive been to and to the phillips research lab for sound in the 80's, but few used traditional pa stuff the way we talk about it in this context.

my few cents.

 

[tiefbassuebertr]

I worked with PA stuff in europe 25+ years ago. I worked both at and with RCF from italy as well as TOA from japan.

i always thought that the stuff we used for speakers where rugged, high volume, decent quality -but not high fidelity. the pa stuff was designed for many parameters but subjective words like finesse and details where never something i associated with it.

But this is a thinking error especially by certailny devices like follow:
Loudspeaker Kit Schmitti Memorial by Klang+Ton (in use: precision Devices PD2450)
Griffin Audio USA LLC (in use: SA Ribbon SA8535)
and stage accompany itself ("blue box" typical PA loudspeaker with highest quality sound transmission)
http://www.soundhouse.co.kr/newhtml/sound/sound_equ.php?unit_page=30&mode=view&forum_id=sound_equ&s_category=&s_largecode=14&s_middlecode=25&s_smallcode=0&keyfield=subject^contents&key=BLUE+BOX&number=13503&page=1
(copy this URL in the address field of your browser)
MARTION AUDIOSYSTEMS >> Loudspeaker BULLFROG (in use: BOLLFROG with BMSpro 15cn890)
Overview
From McCauley I don't know commercial home audio models, but this means not, that there are no such.
There a a lot of other PA loudspeaker stuff, much more better than "HiFi" resp. "Home-Audio" (PHL and Faneacoustics are additional examples)