I'm playing with the Goldwood 1858s in the King-sized H-frames as a budget-bang config. I have them running with 3FE25s right now crossed over at 150Hz using the Parts Express/Sure DSP boards. The 3FE25s are pretty solid performers overall and certainly a good efficiency match for the 1858s, but at least in the OB they feel a little shouty and incoherent with some source material, particularly anything with distorted guitars.
I haven't done any measurements yet either but I feel like there's a hole in the lower midbass right around the Xover point which causes low-end pitch coherence to suffer a bit with busier, more modern mixes. (I am a trained musician and ADHD genre-hopper.)
Haven't done any playing with open baffle until now. Wondering what else is out there in the budget side that might speak just a little lower and do well on an OB without spending a bunch of bucks (not really interested in the high-end fullranger market, I want these to stay cheap). I have a couple TC9FDs on order for giggles - they will drop right into the cutouts for the 3FEs and I can use a $10 speaker for lots of other things - but I don't really expect them to be an improvement over the Faitals, especially since I'm pushing everything with small class D boards and they are a big drop in efficiency from the 3FEs.
...Could try 4FE32s too but they don't look like they'd sound or perform that differently from the 3FEs despite being a much prettier looking driver.
And also open to good ideas for possible 3-way budget OB "tops" / options for good cheap OB midranges. Doesn't have to be a single driver up there and the OB + DSP thing is really fun and easy to play with.
I haven't done any measurements yet either but I feel like there's a hole in the lower midbass right around the Xover point which causes low-end pitch coherence to suffer a bit with busier, more modern mixes. (I am a trained musician and ADHD genre-hopper.)
Haven't done any playing with open baffle until now. Wondering what else is out there in the budget side that might speak just a little lower and do well on an OB without spending a bunch of bucks (not really interested in the high-end fullranger market, I want these to stay cheap). I have a couple TC9FDs on order for giggles - they will drop right into the cutouts for the 3FEs and I can use a $10 speaker for lots of other things - but I don't really expect them to be an improvement over the Faitals, especially since I'm pushing everything with small class D boards and they are a big drop in efficiency from the 3FEs.
...Could try 4FE32s too but they don't look like they'd sound or perform that differently from the 3FEs despite being a much prettier looking driver.
And also open to good ideas for possible 3-way budget OB "tops" / options for good cheap OB midranges. Doesn't have to be a single driver up there and the OB + DSP thing is really fun and easy to play with.
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Try the dual TC9FD with a bass reflex woofer. It’s a clone of a commercial design that goes by the name of Nola Brio. Unanimous praise for its super engaging sound for the cost of peanuts.
Several threads on the Nola Brio - use the search utility to find them. In a nutshell, the lower TC9FD is sealed I think and the top one is OB and is high passed with a simple cap, whereas bottom runs full range. This sits above a bass reflex woofer of your choice circa 8in and bigger. Level match the woofer and tops.
Several threads on the Nola Brio - use the search utility to find them. In a nutshell, the lower TC9FD is sealed I think and the top one is OB and is high passed with a simple cap, whereas bottom runs full range. This sits above a bass reflex woofer of your choice circa 8in and bigger. Level match the woofer and tops.
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Thanks for the notice of the Nola, this looks like a really really fun thing to try with the TC9s down the road. However I'm more looking for individual drivers that I might just slap on a chunk of plywood and try with the 1858 h frames for now. The h frames have the bottom 2, 3ish octaves more than covered!
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