Got the $1 plastic drivers in their PVC tube stuffed with pillow wadding, put it in the washroom.
Sounds terrible, cheap drivers, but I won't care if they get wet.
FR 85-12k
Sounds terrible, cheap drivers, but I won't care if they get wet.
FR 85-12k
Of the 8 drivers I received, this one appears to be the one I like the most and would be suitable as a tweeter in an NOB, OB, vented or ported box, etc.
It is a 3 inch Chinese G-Audio or AIRS with an orange clothe surround.
DQ-30TZF-03 is one of the product numbers for this, multiple clones of it exist.
80-20,000hZ FR +/-3, dropping response of -8dB from 80 to 3000 making it well suited to the natural OB roll off.
Careful with excursion and that surround, it tears VERY easily.
It is a 3 inch Chinese G-Audio or AIRS with an orange clothe surround.
DQ-30TZF-03 is one of the product numbers for this, multiple clones of it exist.
80-20,000hZ FR +/-3, dropping response of -8dB from 80 to 3000 making it well suited to the natural OB roll off.
Careful with excursion and that surround, it tears VERY easily.
I guess I'm the only one who's not afraid of beaming, and sometimes use it to cut down on sidewall reflections and floor reflections.
Even Kirk knew about this- beam me up, Scotty!
Yeah, that adds to soundstage focus.
My 2-ways in a box, with no soundstage, phasing and polarity issues due to a 3rd order Xo sound great as I walk around the house, but if I were to sit down the lack of an image would disappoint.
So I use an OB for that.
The drivers can be angled, within reason, using the speaker cables and suspension to point the two drivers at the listening seat so that both will merge at the correct place.
But he is right, step off axis and the FR SQ goes away.
Put another pair of 3 inches on 280mm by 380mm baffles behind the curtains in the bedroom, one more pair - the 4 inches, and that is it for this round. Oh, and the 320 by 220 for the nightstands.
I have the original 2-way box yellow 3 inch cones that were replaced, 2 pairs of yellow 1 inch cone tweeters, and a non-t/s cheap pair of 3 inchers that are used in mock ups and proof of concepts, but they won't be in any more installs. They don't have good SQ compared to the others.
I still cannot find a 3 incher that is as good as the ones in my boxes, but production lines change and shift every 4-6 months so this item can be reordered but subtle changing to the design alter the sound. Smaller dust cap, etc.
The mid-woofer that cuts off above 5500 sounds great in the cardboard OB at the PC mated to a 2 inch wide range that has an M-cap 4.7uF cap as a high pass filter. I would actually consider taking this little OB as is if I were to ever move.
Looking forward to the 4 incher in various set ups.
Fabricated some faceplates out of plastic notebook covers to mount drivers into and then mount the driver to my styrene door sized baffles. Makes it easier and the hole size is not crucial.
Hi miragem3i, I like your idea; what I suggested with the beaming up was meant to suggest only tilting the 15" woofer- this should direct it's high frequencies away from you, and hopefully allow your 3" drivers or tweeters to sum with the larger driver.
May I suggest a 2nd order filter on you high frequency driver? This would give 2 options ,boosting or diminishing output at the blending region.
May I suggest a 2nd order filter on you high frequency driver? This would give 2 options ,boosting or diminishing output at the blending region.
You can increase the Q by adding a resistor in series. That may improve the high frequency response too if it's rolling off early due to high voicecoil inductance. The price is reduced sensitivity, but IIRC, you don't want high SPL anyway, so that shouldn't be a problem.
The neighbours will not be happy with my now wired house. One of the 350 cm x 280 cm baffles with just one 65mm piston driver in each, is loud enough from my bedroom to be heard at a great distance. Really loud, too loud.
I do like that OB sound. Very much.
I do like that OB sound. Very much.
Fired up the 2-ways with the outboard Xo at 3150hZ, and that congested, closed in, confined sound is so obvious. Sounds ok from an adjacent room, but seated it just lacks life compared to a $6 driver in a panel of styrene.
One is real, the other is a reproduction.
Fairly simply choice to make and difference to discern.
One is real, the other is a reproduction.
Fairly simply choice to make and difference to discern.
Running out of driver options as I have run through most that look good on paper. The choice of imported drivers here is thin. Mark Audio Alpairs are available and the best high end option, only a few Fostex, Lowther, Phy and SEAS, many of which are poor clones, used, demos, or such. The actual Chinese brand clones of the clones are better and cost nothing. $10.
Major brands here are G-Audio aka GuanYin, Swann, COSTe (cheap clones of the former and latter), and HiVi. Decent selection but they all have a house sound and tend to have each driver be a modification of their house standard. If you look at FR it's easy to tell which cone/spider is in a frame regardless of name. They all begin with a 3 inch widerange and then attempt to scale it up. Add copper curved cones that ring like bells above 4k, or clone a whizzer Fostex with fairly good results.
They also tend to have very - and I refer to a 10 to 18 dB downslope from Fo to 2k to 4k or so - bass heavy low mid tilt. Not a hump, just a tilted table high at 100 and then heading downward.
Here is a good example a 6.5 inch widerange with whizzer dust cap. -14dB to 4k and then multiple rings in the treble.
A 5 inch woofer that rolls off -15dB from 100 to 2300. -28dB @ 6500.
Unusable without a network to level it, crossover, and eq. Mid-fi bass hump taken to the limit.
I bought one wide range that has this tilt, put it in a very small OB that goes on the nightstands. FR slope and near field wall gets the bass up.
Only a few more pairs to get to experiment with.
Bass drivers are the same, however by discerning specs and appearance it seems likely that one or two nameless OEMs here manufacture the Alpha 15s and it may be possible to get these for much much less. They certainly look identical.
The alternative is to buy and import, and things disappear as a matter of policy when transiting customs.
Looking at a 4 inch widerange as a mid and tweeter and Xo to a 4.5 inch woofer or mid range to get the magic 300-5000 in one driver and the bass in another. OB of course. Xo, but I dislike them no matter how low order or high component price.
Major brands here are G-Audio aka GuanYin, Swann, COSTe (cheap clones of the former and latter), and HiVi. Decent selection but they all have a house sound and tend to have each driver be a modification of their house standard. If you look at FR it's easy to tell which cone/spider is in a frame regardless of name. They all begin with a 3 inch widerange and then attempt to scale it up. Add copper curved cones that ring like bells above 4k, or clone a whizzer Fostex with fairly good results.
They also tend to have very - and I refer to a 10 to 18 dB downslope from Fo to 2k to 4k or so - bass heavy low mid tilt. Not a hump, just a tilted table high at 100 and then heading downward.
Here is a good example a 6.5 inch widerange with whizzer dust cap. -14dB to 4k and then multiple rings in the treble.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
A 5 inch woofer that rolls off -15dB from 100 to 2300. -28dB @ 6500.
Unusable without a network to level it, crossover, and eq. Mid-fi bass hump taken to the limit.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
I bought one wide range that has this tilt, put it in a very small OB that goes on the nightstands. FR slope and near field wall gets the bass up.
Only a few more pairs to get to experiment with.
Bass drivers are the same, however by discerning specs and appearance it seems likely that one or two nameless OEMs here manufacture the Alpha 15s and it may be possible to get these for much much less. They certainly look identical.
The alternative is to buy and import, and things disappear as a matter of policy when transiting customs.
Looking at a 4 inch widerange as a mid and tweeter and Xo to a 4.5 inch woofer or mid range to get the magic 300-5000 in one driver and the bass in another. OB of course. Xo, but I dislike them no matter how low order or high component price.
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I found a 10 inch that rolls off at 400 or so, but still too much bleed through of the mid-range.
I reluctantly conclude I will have to get a crossover, but I am doubtful about the impact upon the sound.
Just adding the 10 inch has already diluted the sound-stage. More lower mid and upper bass - sure. But loss of sound-stage magic.
You cannot have it all.
Getting a Behringer Pro-X and some monoblock amps to feed the two drivers
Tubes up top, free the super midrange of the lower frequencies, and lots of mosfets to drive the bass.
Will get the Mark Audios, just to see how they sound by themselves.
Purchased an SPL, and I don't listen at volumes above 75dB.
I reluctantly conclude I will have to get a crossover, but I am doubtful about the impact upon the sound.
Just adding the 10 inch has already diluted the sound-stage. More lower mid and upper bass - sure. But loss of sound-stage magic.
You cannot have it all.
Getting a Behringer Pro-X and some monoblock amps to feed the two drivers
Tubes up top, free the super midrange of the lower frequencies, and lots of mosfets to drive the bass.
Will get the Mark Audios, just to see how they sound by themselves.
Purchased an SPL, and I don't listen at volumes above 75dB.
Pull out the driver from Tannoy CMS601 in-ceilling loudspeaker. It is a 6-inch coaxial 2-way driver with ICT (Inductive Coupling Technology) tweeter which do not use a crossover.
I beleive Mark Audio Alpair drivers have better sound quality than this Tannoy, but you wanted 2-way loudspeaker...
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It doesn't matter how you accomplish the acoustic crossover; if there are two drivers and they each cover different ranges (with however much overlap or not), the phase works just as it would if you had created the same responses with electrical parts, or a computer. Likewise for the Tannoy. This was pointed out way back in post 7.
My ears respectfully disagree. I can hear the phase change over frequency that caps introduce. Most don't hear this. It bothers me immensely, especially when compared to a single driver in a no baffle installation.
Any addition of components, drivers, crossovers, just makes the sound worse. Loss of soundstage and pinpoint instrument location is the first casualty.
That's a contradiction: once you go the multi way path, everything is modeled to suit the goal. Or do you think that the energies spent in undertaking that way are just to fight the basic lack of coherence that you say the model represents ? The same could be said about the single driver : why don't you
add some drivers, each with its own specific role, instead of fighting with power and extension, knowing the fact that IM brings many artifacts too.
add some drivers, each with its own specific role, instead of fighting with power and extension, knowing the fact that IM brings many artifacts too.
I was incorrect - I measured my listening environment and I listen at volumes of from 63-71 dB, A or C weighted at the listening seat 2.5 metres from the suspended frames.
This would be far quieter than most posters to this forum.
I also think this to be a bit too loud, even when listening from another room, 8 metres distant.
This would be far quieter than most posters to this forum.
I also think this to be a bit too loud, even when listening from another room, 8 metres distant.
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Of course you can, that's because it does affect phase by applying a low pass or high pass.
The point is that with driver A + cap you will hear exactly the same phase change as driver B without cap if the natural response of driver B is that of driver A + said cap.
Or in more simple terms, it is the acoustical response that matters, phase is determined from it and not by not by electronic parts.
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