Well with only an hour or two use I must say I'm extremely impressed. The most detailed sound I've yet experienced and these drivers never seem to lose composure no matter what you throw at them. Excellent imaging as per norm with fullrange drivers and the sense of scale you only get with the 10" drivers vs smaller sizes. I'm regularly transported to the performance. Really incredible. One thing I'll have to see is how bass changes with break in. Presently bass is there, though it's certainly less prominent than with my previous back loaded horns.
Pretty incredible how smooth and refined these are given pretty much no break in time. I've never come across anything else like it. I found the previous Silver drivers to pretty horrible and rough sounding until broken in in so this is quite a departure from that. I'd say these surpass a fully broken in Silver series driver so if you like those, you'll enjoy these even more.
My purely subjective observations.
Pretty incredible how smooth and refined these are given pretty much no break in time. I've never come across anything else like it. I found the previous Silver drivers to pretty horrible and rough sounding until broken in in so this is quite a departure from that. I'd say these surpass a fully broken in Silver series driver so if you like those, you'll enjoy these even more.
My purely subjective observations.
Wow! How heavy are they? Yeah, just the 210 horn cab was quite heavy, they took two big 'bruiser' demolition workers plus a motorized hand truck to move them from the street, across the backyard and into my 'great' room! Ditto the three tar filled 805s. When it came time to mount them I made a temporary frame using ladders to mount my motor hoist to raise them in place, so 'easy-peasy' after it became obvious me n' a neighbor were 'courting' disaster trying to walk it up ladders. Hysterical wives didn't help either. 😱
Interesting, I long ago calc'd my current 50" H x 30" W x 24" D speakers at ~260 lbs plus two 26 lb woofers and I forget how much the Altec 511/802D perched on top weigh. There's fixed industrial castors down on the bottom back with two used industrial drawer handles at the appropriate balance point and up into my '60s could move them around or up/down the few porch steps with a helper, but at a too many times 'rode hard, put up wet' with a very high mileage 77, just looking at them hard nowadays makes my knees wobble. 🙁 Growing old really sucks big time! 
Pure mass of a speaker beats any correct TSP data. Any calculation before building a speaker is a pure waste of time if the chassis is polished enough. And shiny!
I always knew these fools at Lowther and Fostex had no clue how to build (and polish!) full range drivers. We needed Lii Song to bring this principle to fully blossom.
Just like all these Scandinavian monkeys that don't know how to build a real speaker driver and have been fooling the whole world into listening to more than one chassis per speaker. This will have an end soon. Chinese speakers will rule the world of the future and build all speakers allowed. Seems to be a nice principle: If you only listen, you don't say anything wrong. I just hope they don't force us to listen to Chinese music too. What a formidable, full blown high end scam.
I always knew these fools at Lowther and Fostex had no clue how to build (and polish!) full range drivers. We needed Lii Song to bring this principle to fully blossom.
Just like all these Scandinavian monkeys that don't know how to build a real speaker driver and have been fooling the whole world into listening to more than one chassis per speaker. This will have an end soon. Chinese speakers will rule the world of the future and build all speakers allowed. Seems to be a nice principle: If you only listen, you don't say anything wrong. I just hope they don't force us to listen to Chinese music too. What a formidable, full blown high end scam.
Hi,
Looks like a bit of curve polishing to me... I prefer ugly curves with information...
All the best
Mattes
Hi GM,
Such contraption might be transparaent in theory, but somehow I can´t imagine that this large surface at the back of the cone is a good thing. Personally, I always tried to have the least possible restriction behind the cone, and companies like Scanspeak do the same to have unrestricted airflow at the back of the speakers.
All the best
Mattes
Greets!
Me too and among some other members here and on earlier forums have done many tweaks to ensure such (damping the motor, frame legs, etc.), but in this driver's case having a hard time seeing any real impact as the only parallel surfaces is the surround/plate, so seems reasonable there won't be any eigenmodes strong enough to modulate the diaphragm, ditto the driver's presumed minimal LF peak power excursion pressure and the summed mass appears to be significant enough to quell any audible vibrations if mounted to a sufficiently well braced baffle/cab, though personally would mass load any LF/wide range driver as a many decades long proven all around damper/backup plan against the unforeseen; so 'agree to disagree' 😉 and leaving it to the 'gentle reader' to decide for themselves and hopefully someone will eventually do some measurements comparing stock Vs with the plate surface damped with various products.
Me too and among some other members here and on earlier forums have done many tweaks to ensure such (damping the motor, frame legs, etc.), but in this driver's case having a hard time seeing any real impact as the only parallel surfaces is the surround/plate, so seems reasonable there won't be any eigenmodes strong enough to modulate the diaphragm, ditto the driver's presumed minimal LF peak power excursion pressure and the summed mass appears to be significant enough to quell any audible vibrations if mounted to a sufficiently well braced baffle/cab, though personally would mass load any LF/wide range driver as a many decades long proven all around damper/backup plan against the unforeseen; so 'agree to disagree' 😉 and leaving it to the 'gentle reader' to decide for themselves and hopefully someone will eventually do some measurements comparing stock Vs with the plate surface damped with various products.
That would all be true if the speakers, in this case, didn't sound wonderful, per the feedback from the user. 😉
In terms of full range drivers, nothing else considerably high end. Some Zenith alnico drivers that some seem to go gaga over.... Personally I don't get it. Dayton Audio PS220-8 & PS180-8 point source, Diatone P610MB & Chinese copies, some old Plessey Rola driver which were quite coloured buy otherwise rather nice sounding, Lii Audio Fast-10S, Lii Song Silver-6 and now Platinum-10.
Played around with them mostly in open baffle or shallow open back cabinets, or back loaded horns. The PT-10 are the first I've had in a bass reflex enclosure so thats a new experience for me.
I've been lucky enough to hear a number of others in other peoples systems including Mark Audio and Voxative (don't remember the models), Coral Flat-10 (pretty similar to Fast-10S in terms of sonics).
So not an enormous number of full range drivers as once I tried the Fast-10S I've been trying different things from initially Lii Audio, and now Lii Song after the company split. I must note that until the Silver series I'd be inclined to call most wide band drivers than full range.
By and large most experience has been with other multi driver speakers of which the best I've personally heard were the Lenehan Audio ML5's though I do hope to hear his newest project which is meant to be quite significantly ahead of even the ML5's in terms of sonics.
Honestly, why the witch hunt. I've heard enough gear over time to know that these are some seriously nice drivers. Are there better available for less money? Maybe, I just haven't heard them yet. Likewise, with what is coming from these..... I don't really care to either. It's only really been in the past 5 years or so I've been focused on lower wattage (sub 20WPC) amps rather than higher power so a change in direction. I've gone down this direction as it gives me the sonics I prefer at a better overall price point. I can't forsee any component changes at this point exempting failures which really aught not to happen.
Played around with them mostly in open baffle or shallow open back cabinets, or back loaded horns. The PT-10 are the first I've had in a bass reflex enclosure so thats a new experience for me.
I've been lucky enough to hear a number of others in other peoples systems including Mark Audio and Voxative (don't remember the models), Coral Flat-10 (pretty similar to Fast-10S in terms of sonics).
So not an enormous number of full range drivers as once I tried the Fast-10S I've been trying different things from initially Lii Audio, and now Lii Song after the company split. I must note that until the Silver series I'd be inclined to call most wide band drivers than full range.
By and large most experience has been with other multi driver speakers of which the best I've personally heard were the Lenehan Audio ML5's though I do hope to hear his newest project which is meant to be quite significantly ahead of even the ML5's in terms of sonics.
Honestly, why the witch hunt. I've heard enough gear over time to know that these are some seriously nice drivers. Are there better available for less money? Maybe, I just haven't heard them yet. Likewise, with what is coming from these..... I don't really care to either. It's only really been in the past 5 years or so I've been focused on lower wattage (sub 20WPC) amps rather than higher power so a change in direction. I've gone down this direction as it gives me the sonics I prefer at a better overall price point. I can't forsee any component changes at this point exempting failures which really aught not to happen.
Last edited:
Some years back, I was building more back-loaded horns...so I got to listen to a number of drivers including various Lowthers (PM6C, PM2A, DX3)....plus co-designed the Lowther Hornet launched and manufactured in Australia, the cheaper and ubiquitous Fostex 206E, Visaton B200, Tang Band W1772, plus others from Audio Nirvana and Decware. All have been 8-inch....and most have been back-loaded horns, with the exception of a large BD Oris 150Hz horn for front-loading. My personal preference now is Altec/Klipsch/JBL. Regards. Andrew
Attachments
atilsley,
and now full range drivers have sucked you back in ?I can't seem to stay away.
I've given up and now switch between speakers, depending on music, mood, time of day, distance, how much I want to hear into the recording, how "relaxed" I want to be, etc..............
And I'm this close to rebuilding (correctly this time) the center channel I made a few years ago using Tand Band 2145 (8").
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/w8-2145.344443/
I'm just sorry for people that fall for such scam drivers, then build even more expensive (than the overpriced nonsense driver) cabinets and hope after some not so exceptional good, first listening, they will "burn in" after a few hundred hours and "later" start to reproduce some bass. There will be no bass coming out of these coffin sized cabinets from this driver ever. Sorry. Burn in will be the adaptation of someones hearing to the curvy response and the selection of music that suits the speakers well.
You tube reviews, where people speculate about how wonderful such a driver may sound are no "reviews" but speculation. Just made to sell such junk.
Any one who knows a little about different cabinets feels serious pain if the same driver has different TSP in different advertisements, absolute unrealistic linear diagrams which are obviously hand painted and is considered to be well suited for open baffle, reflex and horn use. These drivers are dripping a broad trail of snake oil...
You never see normal high quality speakers near such constructions. For a reason.
As a kid I build speakers from salvaged old speakers, found in these large old radios. Like the famous "green cones". These seemed to sound really good, linear, with great detail and a lot of air around them. This illusion blew like a soap bubble when they got heard A-B to some real HIFI speakers of that time. Some never learned this lesson. There must be a lot of frustration involved if one believes that the only "real" speaker comes out of some rural Chinese province, from some guy who never saw an university from the inside, without even own measuring gear. (They give their speakers away to have them measured...). Some huge reseller profit may be involved or Chinese nationalism. Maybe all of it.
You tube reviews, where people speculate about how wonderful such a driver may sound are no "reviews" but speculation. Just made to sell such junk.
Any one who knows a little about different cabinets feels serious pain if the same driver has different TSP in different advertisements, absolute unrealistic linear diagrams which are obviously hand painted and is considered to be well suited for open baffle, reflex and horn use. These drivers are dripping a broad trail of snake oil...
You never see normal high quality speakers near such constructions. For a reason.
As a kid I build speakers from salvaged old speakers, found in these large old radios. Like the famous "green cones". These seemed to sound really good, linear, with great detail and a lot of air around them. This illusion blew like a soap bubble when they got heard A-B to some real HIFI speakers of that time. Some never learned this lesson. There must be a lot of frustration involved if one believes that the only "real" speaker comes out of some rural Chinese province, from some guy who never saw an university from the inside, without even own measuring gear. (They give their speakers away to have them measured...). Some huge reseller profit may be involved or Chinese nationalism. Maybe all of it.
Turbowatch2, maybe you could contact audio guru Nelson Pass (on this thread) who uses Lii Song. Perhaps Mr Pass is just a gullible dope who doesn't know good audio when he hears it...!? From your posts, it sounds like you have sour grapes. I'm pretty happy to defend the project, but not when someone is merely being unpleasant.
Not merely unpleasant, but ignorant also. We have a pair of ears and these are unless I'm wrong are what you use to hear music. If suppose you might be deaf and be holding onto a balloon to feel the vibrations and hear that way though I doubt it. The most important test of any piece of equipment is how you enjoy music through it. Measurements can be wonderful tools to assist figuring out an issue or why something behaves the way it does though it doesn't factor into my purchasing decisions. It likely never will.
I don't look at things from an engineers perspective. I'm a consumer, and appreciation of music is the only thing that influences my playback component choices. If you get off looking at graphs then power to you though it doesn't mean everyone else has to subscribe to the same view.
Yes... Got it Turbo. Shiny = Bad. It hurts your eyes and actually enjoying music is irrelevant. Only measurements matter, and if provided they must be wrong or lying. Got it loud and clear. Now I'll get back to listening to some tunes. Cheerio. 🙂
I don't look at things from an engineers perspective. I'm a consumer, and appreciation of music is the only thing that influences my playback component choices. If you get off looking at graphs then power to you though it doesn't mean everyone else has to subscribe to the same view.
Yes... Got it Turbo. Shiny = Bad. It hurts your eyes and actually enjoying music is irrelevant. Only measurements matter, and if provided they must be wrong or lying. Got it loud and clear. Now I'll get back to listening to some tunes. Cheerio. 🙂
Last edited: